This post has nothing to do with anything of educational value. It is just an interesting personal experience I wanted to share.

Last night I went for a run (the term “run” is used loosely). It was a beautiful Spring evening, about 70 degrees, calm and the sun was setting. I turned out of my driveway and jogged up the dirt, country road we live on. Our dog, Brownie, who is now 12 years old, chose to watch me from the driveway rather than come with me as she used to do.

About a quarter mile up the road there is a fallow prairie field with trees along the edges. It currently has about shoulder high brown prairie grass left over from last year’s growth (the new green growth is underneath and can’t be seen yet). As I came to the field, right next to the road there were three deer standing and eating. Usually they run off, but this time they just stood and watched me go by.

A little further up the road there is a deep ditch (recently dug out to facilitate run off when it rains) about six feet wide and 25-30 yards long. Right now, the ditch is full of water. As I came up to this area, I heard and then saw two mallard ducks swimming in the ditch. They started to swim away from me but I noticed that the hen was working quite hard, using her wings, almost like she was trying to take off. But she wasn’t going very fast.

As I got closer, it became evident that something was wrong — they didn’t fly off like they should have, and the hen was hurt or something else was going on. So I stopped and went closer to examine the situation. I then noticed the shell of a fairly large snapping turtle in the water, just under the surface of the water, behind the hen. The turtle was latched onto the duck’s leg or foot (I couldn’t see because the water was murky).

I don’t like snapping turtles. And I know that they have an appetite for baby ducklings, so I figured this guy was looking for a meal — maybe wear the duck out, she dies, and he eats her. He was pretty big, not huge, but big — his shell was 14-16″ long and 10-12″ wide.

So I started grabbing dirt clods and whatever rocks I could find and started heaving them at the turtle. As I later boasted to my daughter, finally all the years of pitching in Little League and throwing snowballs as an adult, came to fruition and I was able to use my throwing skills for some social good. I know I hit his body a few times, and there were several close misses that must have scared him. And then I cranked him really good in the head.

At this point, the duck was a bit frantic. She had turned “upstream” and was swimming up the ditch rapidly. After I hit the turtle in the head, he was hanging on for dear life, being drug along by the duck, floating belly-up. I saw my opportunity and grabbed a nice sized piece of rock and chunked it at him — and obviously, hit with a direct strike. He let go of the duck and she swam off in the other direction (all along her partner, the drake, was swimming along side of her).

I waited a while and made sure the ducks swam off to safety (I was surprised they didn’t fly off immediately, but maybe she was hurt.) I then continued on my jog up the road to the the railroad bridge that is my half-way point, feeling quite proud of myself — “Dr. Nature, the duck-saver”!

So I ran (a little more “quick” in my step) up to the bridge and came back. When I got to the ditch, the ducks were no longer there, so I assume they moved on. As soon as I got home, I gathered Kathy and Lizz together and told them of my glorious rescue experience.

Interestingly, as I came downstairs this morning to write this, I looked out the front window and there were three deer in my front yard (Brownie now stays inside so she isn’t there to scare them off.) I had to “shoo” them because one of the deer was eating our juniper by the front door, although they just went to the edge of the yard, stopped, turned around and looked at me as I came back inside.

Friends, I was hit with a flu bug this weekend, which put me out of commission for about 36 hours (I hope that is the extent of it). So I am going to pass on writing this week.

Paul

I took some time off this weekend to “do nothing” — more than usual, at least. So Friday night, I went to a baseball game (to me that is pretty close to doing nothing!) with my family and hung out with some friends. After doing some chores on Saturday, I went fishing for a while (a more correct description would be “beating the water and losing lures”), went to a movie, and then hung out in the nice Spring evening shooting the breeze with some friends. And today, I helped my wife do some gardening, did some reading, and took a walk in the woods.

To be honest, I needed to do nothing. I was (am?) pretty emotionally worn out and needed some mental space. I kept asking Kathy, “Why am I so tired?” and she started listing off the various projects I am involved in. And I said, “Oh, yea.” So I kept choosing to rest, piddle, and slow down. And it was interesting this weekend, as I interacted with others, a lot of people said, “I’m really tired.”

And it made me think, “Why are we so busy?” What drives our busyness? So, obviously, the starting point is to look at my life — what drives me? why do I choose activity versus rest? Why do I fill my schedule full? Lest those of you who know me well start to write and tell me why, my goal isn’t to do a full self psychoanalysis here. But I will share some thoughts that are relevant both to me — some in the past, some in the present — and others I know.

It seems a large part of our busyness — whether it is work-related, or family-driven — is driven by fear. Fear of “falling behind”. Fear of not knowing something important that we think we should know. Being afraid that we are going to miss out on some opportunity. Being anxious that our kids are going to be “behind” — in academics, in sports, socially, with regards to the latest gadget.

I observe the phenomenon frequently in youth sports. We are starting our children to participate in organized sports at earlier and earlier ages — T-ball, basketball, soccer, etc. — largely because we don’t want our kids to be “left behind” and not be competitive later in life. Reality check: Many successful athletes did not start playing their sport until junior high or high school. And many middle school and high school athletes, who are quite gifted, are dropping out of sports due to burn out.

Just this weekend, a friend who coaches his kids’ soccer team asked me if my son played in select club tournaments when he was 9 or 10. My son, who was an All-State soccer player in high school, didn’t start playing soccer until middle school. The father replied, “That settles it. I’m not sacrificing my weekends with my family for tournaments at this age.” Bravo. (I’m surprised we don’t have leagues where parents push their children around the field in strollers so they “will get the feel of the game.”)

But I see it in business, too. Someone sees or hears a spot on the news, or reads an article or blog, about “successful businesses do xyz” and all of a sudden they come to the management team and say, “We need to be doing xyz. Everyone is doing it and if we don’t, we’ll be left behind the competition.” It is like chasing money market returns from last year. It looks good, so let’s go after it.

Now there is a type of busyness that comes from a high drive to achieve. These people often have high energy levels, are goal-oriented, and want to be “successful” — however, that may be defined in their field of expertise (including parenting). Not to get too psychoanalytical here, but sometimes these people’s drive for achievement can be rooted in fear, too. Often the drivenness comes from earlier life experiences that they don’t want to experience again (this was common for Depression-era entrepreneurs). And sometimes it just seems to be the person’s personality type.

But when busyness creates physical lack of wellness due to not taking care of oneself, or when your schedule is so full you have virtually no time or emotional energy to invest in relationships (family and/or friends), or you just don’t have the mental or emotional energy to do “it” anymore, then it is time to do some self-reflection.

It seems to me that a few well-placed actions can help stem the tide against our culture of busyness.

1. Be clear about your goals. What do you want in life? What are your business goals? What are your goals for your children? If you don’t clarify your goals, then you are at risk for being driven by the latest fad that blows by.

2. Set like-minded people around you. We all need support. And our culture — through the media, our neighbors, our coworkers, and our competitors — give us seemingly hundreds of messages a day that we need to be going faster, working harder, doing more, etc. We need a cadre of friends, colleagues and compatriots who have similar values and goals to be “reality checks” for us, to serve as examples in their lives, and to help us weather the forces we are moving against.

3. Create structures in your life that facilitate accomplishing your goals. If you want to get in better shape physically, it makes sense to structure exercise into your week. If you want to have good family relationships, then you better schedule time together that allows for talking about what is going on in your lives. If you want to have a profitable business that provides excellent services, then you better have mechanisms in place to measure profitability and the quality of services provided. Additionally, existing structure creates resistance to distractibility. If I have a meeting every Monday at 9 a.m. with my team that is core to our business plan, then that is a barrier to scheduling something else at that time that may not be as important.

Most of us are busy. Many of us are busier than we want to be (myself included). So, we (I) need to take some responsibility for our lives and ask ourselves: If I am busier than I want to be, what is driving me to make the decisions to keep so busy?

This week I had the privilege of experiencing two tremendous demonstrations of teamwork — one in basketball, and the other in a music theatre production.

As I reported last week, I am a University of Kansas (KU) basketball fan. And my family and I enjoyed the experience of watching the game together this past Monday night. “Enjoyed” may not be the right word, at least not for the whole game, but the result created a magnificent celebration in our home. (It was one of those — this doesn’t happen very often in life so let’s enjoy it to the fullest!)

While much of the media attention has been on the shot made by Mario Chalmers in the last two seconds of regulation time (for those who don’t follow basketball, he made a long shot to tie the game and send it into overtime), but obviously the win was created by both a whole team effort and a series of events by a variety of team members. The combined defensive play on Memphis’ outstanding guards by Russell Robinson, Brandon Rush, Mario Chalmers, Sherron Collison allowed KU to stay close throughout the game. Darrell Arthur’s game leading 20 points, along with the inside play of Sasha Kahn, Darnell Jackson and Cole Aldrich wore down the big men of Memphis to the point of exhaustion. The steals by Mario and Sherron down the stretch provided the opportunity to score and catch up at the end of regulation. And obviously, the coaching by Bill Self and his staff gave the players the instruction and guidance they used to build and regain the lead.

In spite of Chalmers’ amazing shot at the end, the emphasis all year has been on the balance of the Kansas team in scoring, in rebounding, and in leadership in various games. The season and the championship game were a prime example of how excellent teamwork leads to success. (Since this is such a discussed topic in the mainstream media I won’t expand further here.)

But let me turn to a less well-known example - the production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by the high school which my daughter attends. The school is relatively small (about 285 students) and there were 50+ high school students (plus about 20 elementary school students) in the production. What was amazing to me, as I watched the production “come together” over the past week, was the intricate synthesizing of numerous pieces into a unified amazing production. For weeks, the music department has been practicing the songs, the drama instructor has been “blocking” the scenes, the choreographer fashioned the dance steps and taught the chorus, costume designers created and made numerous costumes, while artists constructed the sets and scenery. Then in the last week, the “tech team” kicked into high gear — creating the lighting schemes and figuring out the sound systems. And then the drama and music directors integrated all of the pieces and players — with increasing polish each night — into a wonderful mutisensory experience of music, color and light, dance, humor.

Here are some pictures of Joseph, his brothers, and my daughter, Lizz (one of the narrators) taken by my good friend, Michael Bankston.

Both of these events were sources of joy to me (and others). And they were the results of countless hours of practice (not only in preparation for these specific events, but in the development of skills over the years) of both individuals and groups of people into the resulting product. And the comments by observers were the same: “Amazing!” “WOW!” “Can you believe it?” “Incredible.” “Outstanding.” “A once in a lifetime experience.”

The power of teamwork can be amazing — the culmination and synthesis of individual talent and skill, combined with creative and dynamic leadership, along with each team member being willing to follow directions and do their part, putting the purpose & goal of the team unit ahead of individual glory. And, interestingly, the glory which returns to the individual from being a part of the team, is greater than the person could have accomplished on their own.

Just ask Mario Chalmers.

Many of you may not know that I was born and raised in Lawrence, Kansas — where the University of Kansas is located. As a result, I grew up going to KU football and basketball games with my dad. And I continue to be a devoted Jayhawk (their mascot) fan.

So if you happen to follow college basketball, you know that we are in the midst of “March Madness” and the NCAA championship tournament. This weekend and Monday, April 7, are the final games in San Antonio. And it so happens that the University of Kansas basketball team will be playing in the championship game on Monday night, after winning their game on Saturday night against North Carolina. We watched the game with some friends and had a great time celebrating the win.

Interestingly, at the same time I am enjoying the KU basketball team winning games, I am also reading a fascinating book called Thrilled to Death: How the endless pursuit of pleasure is leaving us numb by Archibald Hart. I have read other books by Dr. Hart and have appreciated his insights. One of his premises in this book is that we are intensely seeking pleasurable experiences in our culture — to the point of burning out the “pleasure center” of our brain and eventually making it increasingly difficult for us to experience the pleasure we desire.

Dr. Hart then goes on to differentiate between happiness (or life satisfaction) and pleasure. He states, “Happiness does not depend on glitzy, pleasure-filled experiences. It comes more from a feeling of deep contentment or the appreciation of the finer things in your life. . . True happiness is more enduring than pleasure.” He goes on to share that happiness seems to be more related to relationships — a good marriage, close friends, and lots of time socializing with others.

So, how does this relate to basketball and KU playing in the NCAA Championship game? Well, I have often been dissatisfied with the tournament experience. Although it does provide a clear champion from the playoff tournament (as opposed to the college football system which does not), I have often felt a general distaste for the result — or at least the way the media and many people talk about the results — that there is only one “winner” (the champion). So, no matter how many games a team won throughout the season, no matter how well they played in spite of adversity, there is a message that they didn’t succeed enough because they didn’t “win it all”.

This just doesn’t sit right with me, when reflecting on how life really is. Are you only successful when you are at the top of the competition, with no one above you? And given the short time frame (one year maximum), you are only the champion for a short period of time (it is shorter in business.)

The personal application is this. I am enjoying the ride. It was fun to see KU win their league championship, and then the tournament games. Saturday night was a total hoot and I am still relishing the memory of seeing them play well. But if they lose Monday night, they aren’t “losers” — and my life won’t be wrecked. (This is not a ploy to play down expectations - they very well may win.) But for many people, and for myself in past years, “winning it all” is the only result that will result in happiness — which may speak to why so many people in our country are unhappy. If you have to be the best, if everything has to go your way for you to be happy, you will be unhappy most of your life.

Let’s go back to Dr. Hart and Thrilled to Death. He gives a number of suggestions which he calls “happiness boosters”. Let’s look at them and see how they really relate to deeper aspects of our lives than just temporary circumstances.

1. Intentionally do something unselfish for someone else every day.

2. Give yourself permission to make mistakes and quickly forgive yourself.

3. Give up expecting others to be perfect – just accept them as they are.

4. Whenever anyone offends, you forgive him or her without delay.

5. Try to simplify your life – do a make over from top to bottom.

6. Make sure you get enough sleep and exercise every day.

7. Spend as much time as you possibly can with those you love.

8. Spend twenty minutes each day in quiet reflection or meditation.

9. Each day, take a few minutes to write down all that worries you –and then cross out the ones you have no control over.

10. Every night before going to sleep, remind yourself of five things you are grateful for.

Clearly, these are not the typical highly pleasurable activities usually focused upon in our stimulation-seeking culture. But, as Dr. Hart argues, these are the types of activities that bring the deeper, longer lasting pleasure associated with true happiness.

So, if you watch the KU-Memphis game on Monday night, think of me. And when you go to bed, regardless of who wins, think of those five things for which you are grateful.

Emotional intelligence, Feelings, Happiness, KU basketball, NCAA 2008 mens basketball tournament, Optimism, personal development, Positive psychology, Stress management