Golden Hearts

Last Friday, the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad were supposed to open in Tokyo, Japan.  As everyone who has not been living on some COVID-free planet for the past five months knows, these summer games have been postponed until July 23, 2021 because of our worldwide pandemic.

I’m sad.

I have always been an Olympics fan.  I enjoy the pageantry and the passion.  I enjoy the patriotism. I enjoy watching the sports, even the ones with which I am entirely unfamiliar.  I watch sports I do not understand during the Olympics simply because it is the Olympics.  For two weeks in the summer every four years, the world celebrates excellence.  I have always wanted to attend an Olympics and never have.  Gluing myself to the television screen every waking hour of the day is likely the closest I will ever get.  This Olympic year, I am not going to even get that. 

I know the Olympic games and the Olympic spirit is not cancelled, simply postponed.  I know that my mourning for the vicarious Olympic community experience is selfish considering what is going on around us right now.  It is especially selfish because I am sure that the athletes who intended to be in Tokyo competing right now are having it much worse than I am.  For many of them, I am sure Tokyo was to be the shining zenith of their athletic careers.  A year’s postponement will be the same as a cancellation for some of these athletes.  The “sweet spot” of athletic achievement opportunity will not always linger for another year.  For the people who worked so hard all their lives to achieve a dream, a postponement may crush the dream.  All I can do is pray that they can take that commitment and passion and channel it into another dream.

To me, the most excellent thing about the Olympics is not the sports.  It is the people and the stories.  I love meeting individuals who rise above poverty, obscurity, and hardship to become the best in the world at something.  I love hearing the stories of competitors who purposely slow their own progress to help another athlete.  My heart expands when the commentators tell us about love stories that grow between participants.  I even love the commercials- the ones that introduce us to the relationships between parents and children, coaches and athletes, country and competitor.  The Olympics are games, but they are also a movement, a spirit, and a flame.

As much as I love the games, my real passion is the movement, spirit, and flame.  That flame could ignite all of hearts.  It could ignite our hearts with peace, excellence, performance, and perseverance.  Even those of us, like me, who will never become the best in the world at anything in particular, can use that flame to fuel our efforts to be the best people we can be.  I don’t want to wait another whole year to feel that fire. 

So even if the games of the XXXIII will not be gracing my television screen this year, I am going to use this time to research the golden hearts of these postponed Olympics.  I am going to search for the people, the passion, and the stories that would have been woven into this summer’s games.  Those people deserve for us to know their stories. I need to know those stories to build my own golden heart. 

The good Lord willing, I will be watching the athletes of 2021 next July.  I know the delayed Olympics will still move and inspire me.  However, it is good remember that there are always golden hearts out there if we look!

Do you watch the Olympics? What is your favorite part about it? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirment@gmail.com.

Have an excellent day!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

Muddled

Most of you who know me know that I manage my anxiety with over-preparation.  It is as if I think I can plan my way out of impending doom.  Clearly, planning and preparation is a good thing.  Clearly, it is good to take appropriate action to be ready for possible emergencies or disasters. However, life teaches us that, no matter how much planning and preparation we do, emergencies and disasters will still happen.  Life also teaches us that, sometimes, those emergencies and disasters are not as catastrophic as we fear in the grand scheme of things. All that planning and preparation can build them up in our minds to a more ferocious level than they merit. 

I get all that. These philosophical musings notwithstanding, I still tend to plan for every conceivable eventuality before I ever embark on a project.  Before I launched this blog, I pre-wrote about twenty posts to make sure that I would have new content each week.  This was my safety net against being torpedoed by crippling writer’s block. Ever since that time, I have always had at least three articles written in advance waiting to be posted.  I mean, the idea of a Wednesday looming ahead of me with nothing ready to post… appalling and unacceptable! Or that I might miss a Wednesday… that would be even more devastating.   Heaven forbid that I should get up one Wednesday morning and just write something!

Well, that day I have feared since I launched the blog nearly five years ago has arrived.  Last Wednesday, I posted Extraordinary Personship (http://www.terrilabonte.com/2020/07/extraordinary-personship/).  This was the last pre-written piece I had stored in my hopper.  And you know what?  Nothing very bad has happened.

It is not that I have run out of ideas for blog posts.  I have four or five snippets of ideas running around in my brain.  It is just that they are all muddled around up there in the attic- tangled and twisted and tentacled into a big mess.  I need to sort them out and get them to behave. Some of them have found their path and are running headlong down the way to completion. My typing is just not as quick as my brain.  Other kernels of ideas are flying around in my head, desperately looking for a point on which to land. Then there are some that are dithering about, dancing and jumping and making merry with no intention of settling down long enough to make any point at all.  Ideas can be like that.  They all have their own energy, their own path, and their own schedule.  They cannot be rushed.  I have decided that I should just slow down and enjoy the show.  It is kind of fun to embrace the muddle.

It may take me a few weeks to unravel the mess in my mind.  Ultimately, I am confident that the blog posts will get written and I will be satisfied with the evolution of the idea nuggets that are currently muddled in my brain.  Please have patience and bear with me.

I think you will understand.  After all, we all get a little muddled sometimes!

Does your mind ever get muddled?  What do you to sort things out?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can send me an email at terrirretirement@gmail.com

Have a moment of clarity today!!

Terri/Dorry 😊

PS Please do not forget about my book, Random (A)Musings. If you have not ordered your very own copy, please visit Amazon to become one of the many, many (well, 40) people who are the owners of this wacky journey into my brain.  I would really appreciate it. 

Extraordinary Personship

I have always believed in the importance of self-improvement.  Maybe it is easy for me, since there have always been so many areas in which I need to improve.  As much as I laugh at myself for all my introspection and navel-gazing, I do try to use my observations to be a better person.  I don’t know if I succeed, but I think it is important to try.

I used to think that the key to self-improvement was to identify areas of weakness and work on correcting them.  Then, I read a book called The Extraordinary Leader by Joseph Folkman and John Zenger.  It changed my whole perspective.  Folkman and Zenger suggest that it is not very productive to identify weaknesses and invest energy on them.  They hypothesize that, no matter how much energy a person spends on attributes that are not natural strengths, very little improvement is likely to result.  The far greater investment is to identify natural strengths and develop them even further.  Folkman and Zenger believe there is much more value in turning “good” to “great” than in turning “weak” to “mediocre.”   

Of course, Folkman and Zenger acknowledge that there are certain weaknesses that, if weak enough, will result in failure to lead.  These are known as “fatal flaws.”  In most positions of leadership, there are critical job duties that require basic competency at some particular skill.  For instance, many leadership positions require the leader communicate effectively in writing. A critical job duty might be writing performance appraisals.  Someone who aspires to be a leader may not have to be the best writer in the world, but she probably won’t succeed if she can’t at least string some coherent thoughts together on the page and consult spellcheck appropriately.  The idea of the fatal flaw is that the inability to develop at least minimal proficiency in some specific skill will be so detrimental or distracting that the leader will be unable to deliver the necessary results or to inspire followership.  In that case, the leader will fail, no matter how extraordinary the leader’s other attributes are. 

Therefore, the concept of extraordinary leadership is that a person should work to eliminate any fatal flaws and then concentrate all their improvement efforts on their strengths rather than their weaknesses. 

I think the concept works over a much wider landscape than “leadership.” I think it is desirable to live life pursuing extraordinary personship. I think we all have the capacity to grow in excellence and contribution.  I think it is much more satisfying and productive to grow by nurturing our gifts and leveraging our strengths than slogging our way through the depths of our disinclinations.  It’s a whole lot more fun, too. 

The result I want most out of my personhood is to be kind, have integrity, and demonstrate Christianity.  These are high aspirations.  I think I will have to develop extraordinary personhood to even come close to achieving them in whatever time I have left in this life.  I really do want to spend the time I have left developing the parts of me that are most likely to yield greatness. 

However, before I start shooting off any fireworks or throwing any parties in celebration of my extraordinary personhood, I have to acknowledge that I have a fatal flaw.  I am a terrible worrier.  To be a truly extraordinary person and allow yourself to succeed at growth, you have to be brave and free enough to let yourself go.  Worrying is a pretty big detriment and distractor.  I’m sure the inability to control worrying will ultimately prevent me from delivering the results I want in my life.  Before I can really cultivate and leverage my natural personship strengths, I have to shore up my propensity towards worry. 

I have been working on that fatal flaw, with some success.  The thing to remember is that I don’t have to become great at keeping worries at bay.  In fact, I don’t even have to be as good at it as the next person.  I just have to not suck at it.  In other words, I have to gain at least enough competency in anxiety management to make sure that my worries don’t completely negate my strengths. 

And I do have strengths as a person.  I know I do.  I do believe I have a strong capacity to empathize, love, and nurture.  As I mature and grow, I am taking specific steps to grow those natural inclinations.  If the results I want out of life are kindness, integrity, and Christianity, I think I must improve my empathy, love, and nurturing skills from good to great.  I just need to be mindful about my attempts at extraordinary personship.  When I wrote my blog piece Love-er-ly (http://www.terrilabonte.com/2020/02/love-er-ly/), I think I was exploring that process. 

There is one more thing that I am doing to increase my mindfulness of my extraordinary personship goals.  I have two bracelets I wear when I know I will be tackling a challenging situation or just feel the need for reminding.  One says “Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10.” This bracelet reminds me to curb my fatal flaw of worrying.  The other bracelet says, “Let all you do be done in love. 1Corinthians 16:14,” reminding me to lead with my strength.

Let’s face it.  There is no way I’m getting anywhere close to extraordinary without God!

What are your greatest strengths?  How can you grow them from good to great?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment,  In the alternative, you can send me an email at terriretirement@gmail.com

Have an extraordinary day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

Lessons From The Sloths

We went to Busch Gardens a few weeks before the COVID-19 quarantine.  It was a sunny day, but cold and windy.  Even I, with my superheated bloodstream and hyper-insulated body type, sported long pants, socks, and a puffy quilted jacket.  I was very comfortable, although I did draw the line at flying through the air in an open sky ride gondola. 

We went to see the sloths when we first got to the park.  In the best of circumstances, a sloth is not exactly what you would call a perky animal.  Don’t get me wrong.  I LOVE sloths.  They are sweet, gentle, cuddly, kind, warm, and smiley.  How could anyone not love sloths?  They are big bundles of furry adorableness.  Vivacious, however, is not a word that comes to mind.

While sloths are not exactly energetic on a normal day, the cold temperatures on the day we visited lowered their metabolisms to a near standstill.  Most of them hung from tree branches by their extremities- little paws nearly touching each other on the limb.  They curled the rest of their bodies tightly in against themselves.  They nestled heads and tails in an unkempt meadow of body fur, obliterating them from view.  The effect was that of a bucket made of fur hanging on a tree limb by a sinewy handle.  Honestly, if the sign had not said there were sloths in the enclosure, I would have been hard-pressed to identify any living, breathing animal. 

I was still pretty smitten with the beasts and we noticed there was an opportunity to participate in a sloth encounter, for a rather large extra fee.  I thought it was way too much money, but Max thought it would be super cute to video me interacting up close and personal with a sloth.  We went to the customer service counter to see about scheduling that interaction.  We found out that the cost was even more than I thought and, besides, there were no spots available.  The lady explained that they only allow six people to participate each day and people book their sloth appointments a year ahead of time.  No sloth-cuddling for me. 

We went on enjoying our day.  Later, we decided to visit the sloths again before going home.  The temperature was warmer, but still pretty frigid for Florida. I expected to find the sloths pretty much in the same bundled, bucketed positions they occupied when we left them earlier.  I was in for a surprise.  The sloths had moved about fourteen inches in the five hours since we’d first visited them.  They were no longer crumpled up, recycling their own body heat.  Instead, they were spread-eagled, clinging to the wire forming their enclosures. I noticed a red glow oozing from beneath their bellies. I looked harder and saw that each enclosure was equipped with an individual space heater roughly the size of a sloth abdomen. Those sloths looked like big, furry starfish stretched out over heat lamps built into the enclosure walls!  Basically, our sloth friends had their own version of tanning beds.  As I watched, one of the sloths turned his head and smiled at me in that slow, warm, slightly stoned-looking way that sloths have.  He looked like Jeff Spicolli at a tanning salon in a San Fernando Valley strip mall. 

(If you don’t understand the Jeff Spicolli reference, google Fast Times At Ridgemont High. You are missing out on an iconic figure of 1980s American pop culture.)

My time with the sloths taught me a few lessons, which I would like to share with you as a public service announcement. 

You don’t have to jump up the minute someone else expects you to. 

I’ve always been sensitive to other people’s needs and expectations of me.  There isn’t anything wrong with that.  I’m happy to help other people.  It makes me feel good.  I love building and nurturing close relationships with the people I love.  It is relatively easy for me to maintain those relationships by behaving in a generous way with my energy, time, and money.  On the other hand, sometimes I don’t really want to leap out of bed in the morning heaven-bent for leather.  I would much rather curl myself into a slothy ball and keep to myself for a while.  My day with the sloths taught me that there is nothing wrong with that.  It also taught me that, if I honor that desire to vegetate and give myself some time, it is likely I’ll eventually unfurl and face the light of day. 

Sometimes six people a day is enough.

Most people don’t understand this, but I am about as extreme an introvert as one can be.  Based on every personality, disposition, and emotional preference survey I’ve taken in my life, I fall somewhere in the “hermit” zone.  It isn’t that I don’t like people.  Most of the strongest satisfaction I have in my life derives from people and relationships.  I count it a huge blessing to have my family and friends from all walks of life all over the country.  I cherish living in and nurturing those relationships. Without them, I would certainly wither.  The thing is, all that relating can wear me out if I expose myself to too big a dose at one time.  Before our trip to Busch Gardens, I had been feeling more tired than usual.  People could look at my schedule and all the activities I was pursuing.  They would not find it odd at all that I would be tired.  It was not really the activity that was wearing me out, though.  It is was engaging with so many people so often.  I had to opt out of a few events just to give my introversion a bit of a rest.  I felt a little embarrassed about missing these events and trying to explain my absence without hurting anyone’s feelings. I really did want to attend, and I really did want to spend time with these people.  After my day with the sloths, I realized there is nothing wrong with skipping a few events and, if any explanation is required at all, the truth is perfectly fine. 

Catch some rays.

I may not have my own personal heat lamp built into the wall of my house, but I have other options.  When life seems cold and unfriendly, I know it is time for me to catch some rays and jump some waves.  When the going gets rough, this sloth goes to the beach!

What have you learned from animals?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com

Have a slothful day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

AARGH!!

Some friends and I recently took a road trip to Amelia Island on Northern Florida’s “Treasure Coast.”  It was delightful.  There was fresh air and sunshine and salty sea.  Who would have believed that President James Monroe once called it a “festering fleshpot of immorality?”

To be fair, President Monroe’s assessment was based, in large part, on the population of pirates who were plundering this luscious piece of real estate booty at the time. I did not see any pirates during my stay.  Well, not any real pirates, anyway.  I did buy a Christmas tree ornament that depicts Santa Claus with an eyepatch and gold earring, but I don’t think that counts. 

Our visit in Amelia Island included visiting some pretty awesome restaurants, splashing around in the ocean, admiring the adorable little cottages and adorable larger mansions, trawling the quaint retail shopping area, eating a crumb bun, and cruising around Cumberland Island on a tourist boat.  I do not think there was much immorality involved, except for maybe the crumb bun.  It was really, really good, though. 

There was one aspect of our trip that did have a faint whiff of pirate panache. Given the COVID-19 lockdown over the past few months, it felt distinctly rebellious to be out wandering in the world.  It was surprising how many people were visiting the island. Granted, the incidence of the virus has been much lower in Nassau County, where Amelia Island is located, than in the central and southern counties of Florida.  The community of Fernandina Beach, the crown jewel of Amelia Island, has a population of about 13,000 people.  Most of the activity in Fernandina Beach is outside, which means those 13,000 people are not congregating indoors in close quarters.  These are just some of the differences between life in Lake County, where I live, and Amelia Island.   It was surprising to see how those differences manifested themselves in real life practical terms. 

At first glance, it almost seemed as if the COVID-19 pandemic had never happened on Amelia Island.  Few people were wearing masks.  Just about all establishments were open for business.  You could try on clothes before buying them.  It was a brave new old world.  When one sailed further into the Amelia Island life, though, there were some indicators of safety precautions.  There were social distancing measures in place.  Most of the workers wore masks, especially in restaurants.  Our hotel offered a free breakfast, which is usually a buffet.  In consideration of the need to minimize contact, the hotel staff packed a bag with each guest’s choices instead of letting everyone get their own food from a buffet.  I felt like the community was being smart about things, but there was much less evidence of a world shut down by disease on Amelia Island than there is where I live my daily life.  There were protocols in place.  However, those protocols were not so “in your face,” constantly reminding people at every turn that living is a risk factor.  It was wonderful to ride this temporary wave of wildness. 

It is amazing how far my standards of “normal” have fallen.  To think I found it reassuringly normal to have a masked waiter serve me at a restaurant and to consider if having two people on an elevator was an acceptable risk! To think that I felt like a rebel because I was out in the world, where I could hear the sounds of people and commerce and entertainment! 

It is not that I think that we should take a page from the Amelia Island book.  As I said, the circumstances there are different from the circumstances where I live and the circumstances where I live are likely different from the circumstances where you live.  I do not pretend to know the “right” thing to do.  So, even though I am not advocating that we take a page from Amelia Island, it was very pleasant to read their book for a couple of days.  It even gave me hope that maybe we can all regain some of our freedom and lightheartedness at some point.

In the meantime, I will remember my pirate days on Amelia Island fondly.  Aaargh!

What makes you feel footloose and fancy free during this time of separation?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com

Ahoy!

Terri/Dorry 😊