We know that getting rid of that clutter will make it easier to find the items we do need. That translates to lives with less anxiety in them, because we all know that that item we need always must be found in a ridiculously short period of time.

We won’t even go to the collection of allergens and dust that collect in that clutter.

We just find the item (or not) postpone it once more, berating ourselves on how it got to this stage, and promising to get to it soon, secretly knowing we never will; and why? The number one reason: Because we might just need it someday.

Whether we grew up in an environment where money was tight, or have fears about the future, the majority of things we save will never be used again.

Some of our possessions can be intertwined with sentimental values or events in our past, and for our own reasons find it psychologically difficult to discard them. Sports memorabilia and awards are reminders of past accomplishments. Other objects are part of family history and we feel obliged to keep them in trust, even if we are the only one who thinks so.

What to do? We could buy a bigger house but it may be more effective to keep the same house and reduce the volume of its contents.

Try to keep a replacement rule. Buying something new can be paired with letting something similar go. Honestly, this is an easy to say, hard to do rule. However, if we see our clothing piling up, it might be a good idea to donate some of the older ones.

Many of us have “sentimental” items linked to our past that have been stored untouched in attic or basement. Perhaps they are part of the family history but not something we want displayed in our home. And perhaps they are not as important as we think.

So what to do? Perhaps someone else in the family will store the items or if no one wants them, perhaps they can be sold and the proceeds shared by the family.

Many of us are storing items that are sentimental to other family members and perhaps friends. We who are parents know those other family members are many times our children, who go off and live their lives and leave their “sentimental” possessions in our garage or their old bedrooms.

Do relatives and family members treat your home like a storage facility? Politely ask them to come and claim them by a certain date, otherwise the items will be sold or trashed. This is a tough line, but we have a right not to be taken advantage of.

Another tough line to face is that we are the clutterers and taking advantage of our spouses and/or fellow residents of our home. Involve them in friendly discussions of what your and their vision of what your living space should be.

Lastly, face the time it will take to de-clutter and reorganize your space. Enlist the help of other family members. Divide big jobs into manageable tasks. Separate these jobs into bags for charity and bags of trash.

Decrease the stress in your home along with the clutter. Eliminate panic cleanups when guests are due.

Live a vital life.

“Happy anniversary,” she said with a chuckle. 

Oops.  I had completely forgotten our anniversary.  The thing that saved me was so did she. 

We made our wedding date the day after Income tax many years ago when I had a business printing out tax returns for accounting and tax services at a computer center.  With last-minute tax preparations, the day after income tax was the first day I could schedule for anything.

Luckily, April 16 was a Saturday and my bride-to-be made all the preparations.  She ordered the cake, invited relatives and friends and even picked out my suit.  When I got up Saturday morning all I had to do was to get dressed. 

That was a small bump in the road we have traveled together for 32 years. 

But life happens and occasionally, normally important things get temporarily lost behind the smoke screen of the immediate problems that we must deal with. 

In the previous weeks, our life has been bumpy.  My middle-thirties daughter suffers from an insidious, incurable disease that has been acting up pretty severely recently.  She has a normal job, but has been sick so often recently, she went on Family Medical Leave (FMLA), a great federal program that allows her time off to go to the doctor and to the hospital to have her disease treated without getting her fired. 

On top of all the visits to local doctors, the Emergency Room and going through an endless array of drugs to try to make her disease manageable she has finally been referred to a surgical facility.  There is no other choice. 

The best hospital for the job is 90 miles away and there are more than several visits before the surgery. 

While my wife drives her down and back, I take care of our ‘almost’ seven-year-old grandson and relieve her of that stress.  We generally wind up together for dinner, and at least we can spend some pleasant time together. 

On another note, as the IRS deadline approached, our son, who made more than a fair amount selling items on Amazon last year, was a nearly nightly visitor to ask for the help of my accountant wife.  He also stayed many times for dinner as well. 

We love having our kids visit, although under these circumstances, it made for a rather hectic lifestyle.  So, April 15 came and went, and it didn’t even occur to me that the following day was our wedding anniversary day. 

I am grateful that my wife has a sense of humor and I rewarded her with an anniversary card and flowers, and we rewarded ourselves by going out to dinner (alone) at a nice restaurant. 

These are some examples of riding the bumps in the road.  We have no say in how life goes.  We can only try to react to circumstances thrust upon us.  And we have lived and been married long enough to ride the little bumps without breaking pace.  We have learned that life has enough of the big bumps. 

All in all, life happens and includes lots of bumps.

Command a vital life. Live free.

The glum faces of Team USA impressed me as they were receiving their silver medals.  Each of them looked like they would never play hockey again.  Later, during the closing ceremonies, they seemed in better mood, but the initial letdown of losing after trying so hard showed on their faces. 

Looking on without the emotional involvement of the practices and playing six intense games in 13 days, I could idealistically ask why they were so glum when they had proven they were the second best hockey team in the world. 

And I get stuck on the words, “second best.”

Team USA did not want second best, they wanted “best.”  In preliminary play, they actually beat Team Canada, and so they thought they could actually do it.  And they did come within an inch of achieving that goal. 

Team Canada had them down by two goals, when Team USA scored their first goal twelve minutes into the second period, and the tying goal with 25 seconds left in regulation play. 

Needless to say, that’s when emotions peaked. 

Going into overtime with four skaters and a goaltender playing “sudden death” their nerves must have been like violin strings – can’t make a mistake …

But fortune went to Team Canada, when their player found the puck almost unexpectedly near his stick, and in his own words, I just hit it in the direction of the net.  And it went in. 

Make no mistake; the win could have gone either way.  

Neither team was second best.  They were each at their personal best.  Team USA played as well as Team Canada, but opportunity came first to the Canadian team. 

And therein lies the lesson for us.  Life is like that.

We prepare to the best of our ability for an event, a job or career.  We perform our personal best, but someone else is a razor-thin line better or seizes an opportunity and they win the job, the place first in line, and we are “second best.”  We feel the disappointment intensely. 

But winners pick themselves up, improve their skills and move on to the next opportunity. 

Winners are never “second best” except in a particular circumstance or event.  They will never be “second best” in their own minds.

They are “best” somewhere, and often in many places, and they continue to practice and play the game until the world sees that they are the “best” as well. 

Let’s make it personal for ourselves.  Let’s never settle for “second best. 

Command a vital life. Live free.

Bingham interweaves challenges to his audience with advice to the people he fires.  In his motivational talks, he sets up an empty backpack as a focus point.

He associates the backpack with the burdens we carry through our lives and challenges his listeners to consider what is in their backpacks, and how as we travel through life we become bogged down by our ‘stuff’ and by our commitments to people. 

Bingham preaches to his audience, How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you’re carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life… you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks; then you start adding larger stuff; clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV… the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home… I want you to stuff it all into that backpack.

Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office… and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets; your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack. Feel the weight of that bag.

Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life; all those negotiations and arguments and secrets; the compromises.

As we watch this scene, we start to think about what we are carrying around, our burdens and our connections to different parts of our life.  A friend of mine described each burden as a golden thread, securing us more firmly in the cage of our life. 

Bingham points out that it is with our backpacks that we journey through life.  For most of us, our backpacks are pretty heavy.  Can we enjoy our journey with all that weight on our backs?

What’s in your backpack? 

The weight 

Can you feel how heavy the backpack is?  We weigh ourselves down to the point where we can’t move.  Bingham says, “Your relationships are the heaviest components of your life.” 

Bingham preaches we can choose not to be weighed down with objects.  In truth, we all accumulate lots of currently useless items over time.  They are the items that once had value to us but no longer.  

He also advocates the letting go of pesky personal relationships, praising the avoidance of commitments and connections. 

We must remember that this advice comes from a man whose entire wardrobe is contained in his airline carry-on bag, has no friends or intimate relationships, and whose lifestyle has made him a stranger to his family. 

His backpack is as empty as his life. 

The Moving Journey: 

Bingham also advocates continuous moving through life.  He considers he is at home in airports and on flights.  Experiences are more important than objects. Moving is living.   

The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake; moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks. 

He thinks of himself as a shark, but not in the competitive sense.  Sharks never stop or sleep.  Sharks have no relationships; they die if they stop swimming. 

In Bingham’s mind, relationships slow you down or hold you back.  He has none in his backpack.  He has even become a stranger to his family, being always on the move, no longer a part of his family.  As his older sister suggests when she asks him for a favor, I know you have a problem with doing things for people. 

His journey involves a quest to achieve ten million frequent flyer miles on the airline he uses exclusively for his travel.  He will be only the seventh passenger to achieve this, and the youngest.  For flying coast to coast more than 3,000 times, he will have his name written on the side of an airplane.  [This guy has issues]

Connections

Bingham is a man who spends his life making connections – between planes.  He also spends his work time severing connections – for others.  He fires people in corporate downsizing.  In his words, we set them adrift when they are most vulnerable. 

His cost is to avoid making any people connections for himself.  He doesn’t know how to connect with people or even if he wants to.

His older sister observes, You’re awfully isolated, the way you live.  Walking through a crowd, Bingham returns with, Isolated?  I’m surrounded.  She further points out that he lives in a cocoon of self-banishment with no human connection. 

But connections find him.  At his younger sister’s wedding, her groom, Jim gets cold feet and Bingham is pushed forward to handle it. 

Jim tells Bingham that the night before, he couldn’t sleep.  He started to think about his future – wedding, buying a house, mortgage, having kids, paying college tuition, having grandkids, and eventually, death.  Jim is mentally packing his backpack and reeling from the perceived weight of the staggering baggage. 

“What’s the point?” he asks. 

Bingham is caught in a connection where he must preach the exact opposite of what his base philosophy is. 

He admits that what Jim say is all true.  There is no point.  But if you think about your favorite moments, your most important moments in life, you were never alone.  Life’s better with company.  Everybody needs a co-pilot. 

Wakeup call

The wedding and his intervention wake up feelings in Bingham that perhaps he would enjoy his moving journey more with his own co-pilot.  After years of carrying his own empty backpack, he thinks maybe he wants to put something back in.  He seeks out his casual intimate fellow traveler and finds she has a family of her own. 

Where he considered her only a distraction, she considered him the same.  He finds it’s tough looking in a mirror, having yourself look back, and disliking what you see. 

After years of telling the people he terminates that the firing is a wakeup call for them, Bingham receives his own wakeup call.  

Do we need a wakeup call?

Repack

From his book, What’s In Your Backpack? John Bytheway recalls the pack one of his fellow Scouts that he lugged up a steep trail. “He had things in his pack that were too heavy, that he didn’t need, that weighed him down, and that made the hike a lot harder than it needed to be.”

What does this all teach us? 

We don’t have to be like Bingham, with only three shirts and no connections in his backpack.  However, periodic examination of our backpacks and our lives will certainly reveal unnecessary former treasures we can put aside and relationships that are holding us back from what will make us truly happy. 

Perhaps we are carrying bad habits, procrastination, a poor self-image, guilt, unresolved feelings and hindering relationships.  We could replace them with a capacity to love, energy, courage to follow our own path and supporting relationships that inspire us to move ahead with purpose.  Perhaps it is as simple as emptying a garage stuffed with former treasures.

After we purge those heavy burdens and change some of those relationships, we can pick up our backpack and it will feel just right.

What’s in your backpack? 

Command a vital life. Live free.

Consider that today’s life expectancy at birth (2005-present) in the USA averages 77.5 – 80 years with Western Europe in the same category.  Canada, Sweden, Iceland, along with France, Japan and Australia average over 80 years and Russia checks in with 65 – 67.5 year average (so much for the cold climate theory).

The USA position depends on who’s counting the member states.  We are at 30^th (CIA World Factbook-221 countries) or 38^th (United Nations-195 countries).  Twenty years ago, we were roughly 11^th.  Major reason:  Wealthy life style has made us obese, causing health problems and death in later life, combined with 36 million (12 percent of the population) living below the poverty line with inadequate healthcare.

We should feel grateful.  In 1940, average life expectancy was around 63.  By 1980 it had jumped to 73.7.  And here we are in 2009 at 78.  And the longer we live, the longer we can expect to live.  A 50-year old can expect to live another 30 years.  A 70-year old can expect another 14 years, and an 80-year old can have another 8 years.

Averages

All those figures are averages, plotted over this country’s entire 307 million-person population.  But people who live in rural areas with lower economic conditions have shorter life spans due to harder conditions, poor diet, less medical care.  People also have their lives ended due to war, accidents, and illnesses. 

Maybe this is a selfish position, but averages mean that every person who comes to the end of their lives at an age lower than the average, leaves a spot above the average.  On average, passing fifty, I can safely expect at least another 30 years, despite a chance accident or illness.  And, I had four grandparents who lived into their nineties.  I’ll make sure to take care of myself to get there and beyond.  I’m halfway there.

Living in the Now

Whatever time remains, I have learned to live today.  Although I make plans for the future, I have learned to live in the “now” because of those chance accidents or illnesses.  Today is the most important day in my life, because it is the only one I can control to some extent. 

Yesterday is gone and events cannot be rewritten.  Dr. Phil McGraw has an expression, “You can’t un-ring the bell.”

Reasons to enjoy

I have been right and I have been wrong.  I have been judgmental.  At this point in my life, I’ve had friends die (those accidents and illnesses), seen and lived and endured suffering in my own life, and been humbled more times than I care to remember or relate.  And through it all I have learned compassion for others discovering their own flaws and helplessness in situations thrust upon them.

I have been embarrassed so many times I’m all out of humiliation.

I have come to realize that I hardly know anything in the overall scheme of things.  When I was young, I knew it all, but as I got older, the “all” grew faster than what I knew, and I couldn’t keep up.  When I let go “the world’s steering wheel” and accepted the beliefs of others as real to them and just as valid as mine, my life got easier and less stressful. 

I associate with people of all ages.  The younger ones still have their dreams and bathe me with their excitement and enthusiasm.  They travel paths I will never see, but they carry me with them in their imaginings.  We trade advice and they keep me away from that judgment seat.  I encourage them and they divert me away from my old uncertainties.

Studies tell me that now I’m a better judge of character than when I was younger, my brain uses both sides at once, making it more efficient, and I’m less neurotic than I used to be.  I still worry about the problems the world faces, but I have enough experiences to know how quickly the course of events can take a new direction.  My hope is that it will be for the better.

I’m in better physical shape now than when I was 30.

It will be tough for young people to believe, but sex gets better with age.  It’s more about intimacy than gymnastics.  There is help at the pharmacy for any physical shortcomings, and there are no chance pregnancies.  We’ve witnessed each other at our best and our worst and have come to appreciate the beautiful interior even as our exteriors age.

Each of my grandchildren is a joy for me to see them grow in their personalities as well as their bodies.  And money can buy some happiness, whether it is a toy, an ice cream or a day at an amusement park.  This is my now as well as my future.  I learn from their live-in-the-moment, don’t-ask-where-this-came-from attitude.  I’ve been a parent.  Now, let’s have some fun.

Command a vital life. Live free.

Anthony had proven himself a capable airline passenger and had flown several times alone under airline supervision between Myrtle Beach and Newark.  That transportation practice went off the discussion list when, on February 12, 2009, Continental Flight 3407, flying from Newark Liberty International Airport to Buffalo Niagara International Airport plowed into the ground, killing all on board.  The plane was a almost-new two-engine turboprop, 74-seat Bombardier Dash 8 Q400, the exact plane that Anthony traveled on.

So now, his father drives down from New York, picks Anthony up and drives back.  I miss him already.  It’s amazing to me how attached we get to the children in our lives.  I’ve become used to seeing Anthony almost every day, and now he will be away for six weeks.

It is easier now than the first summer he was away.  Emotions were still running high about how his father sired another child while still married to my daughter.  Anthony was still very young, and we were afraid he wouldn’t be emotionally well cared for. 

In truth, that first summer was hard on Anthony.  His father had promised to enroll him in a summer day camp, but was unable to keep that promise.  Anthony spent the days with his grandmother, a wonderful lady, but a Portuguese immigrant who has never learned to speak English.  Everyone was frustrated and Anthony was happy to come home.

But time marches on, people mature, and emotions return to normal levels.  Anthony’s father calls him almost every day, if only to ask how was his school day.  If Anthony doesn’t look forward to his summer, he is not against it.  He gets to see his cousins and the other side of his family.  His father’s current companion seems genuinely interested in spending time with Anthony.  She might be a teacher, although details are sketchy.

The importance of father is that he is there for Anthony and Anthony can reach out and touch him.  The worst circumstance for a child is to grow up reaching out for his father and finding only empty space.

 
Irene brought two young children to our marriage.  When she divorced, their father considered all ties broken.  Since he had opted completely out of their upbringing, I embraced them as my own.  But it bothered me that they would grow up not knowing their biological father. 

Let’s just say, I “influenced” him to take at least a small part in their lives.  He was an occasional visitor at best, and in later years, I learned he wanted distance because he felt he was not good with small children.

Unfortunately, even with contact, he had a strong preference for his male child, and considered his female child not worth his time.  Kristy, at a young age, learned to use his guilt to turn the financial screw at the holidays.  And to this day, she refers to him impersonally as “my father” while I am “daddy.”

But again, time marches on, and we invited him to their weddings (although I walked Kristy down the aisle).  He did give each of them a HUGE financial gift, and at Kristy’s wedding, he hugged me and thanked me for raising them.

Today, he has retired to South Carolina and lives about half an hour away.  Both children see him several times a year, but they are still not that close.

The importance of father in this case, is that his biological children know their base of origin.  The children know who their father is, and it helps them know who they are and where they fit in the scheme of things. 

 
When I was divorced, my ex wanted me totally gone from her life (except for my total income).  In the more than three decades since, she has not changed her opinion about wanting me gone.  But I always promised my children I would always be there for them.

It was tough to visit my three children, because even when I arrived on my bi-weekly weekend with my court order, she would call the police and try to have me arrested.  The standard procedure in domestic disputes was to separate the parties.  The officers understood what was happening but had their procedure to follow.  I came to know those two lawmen pretty well, and we had lunch together on more than one occasion.

The following Monday mornings found me in court filing a violation of visiting rights.  There were many court appearances before my ex was threatened with removal of the children if it happened even once more.  Then it stopped.

My oldest son played high school football.  It was important to him that he knew I was there, so I went to many games and sat quietly in the stands.  It wasn’t my visitation time, so I had to avoid contact, but he saw me.  My ex tried to make something out of it, but I held that it was a public event, and I was visiting someone else.

The animosity and bitterness continued over the years.  My oldest son joined the Air Force on his graduation from high school, and my youngest son petitioned the court on his 13^th birthday (earliest possible date) to live with me (granted).

My daughter bought into the daily brainwashing about what an evil person I was, to the extent that none of my family or I were invited to her wedding.  That stung, but I did save $40,000.  Years since have healed the relationship between us.

Through all the acrimony, my children knew I was always there for them.  Through good and bad times, I tried to be a constant force of support.  Friends have likened me to the sea – even granite cannot stand against the constant waves.

The importance of father from my viewpoint was to instill confidence in my children that I would never leave them as some fathers might after divorce.  Even though we did not live together, I would be a constant presence in their lives, and they could always reach out to me when they needed me.  And it worked.

 
My father’s most important attribute was that he was always there for me as the head of our family.  He taught me the many important things that a father teaches a son, shaping my character by lesson and example.  And as I think back on my heritage, I know where my lineage came from through him.  From grandparents and mother born in Norway, I can point to a map and pinpoint my generations.

I cannot trace my ancestors by name past my grandparents and their families.  Norwegian family records still reside mainly with local churches and Norwegian custom, until into the early twentieth century, was for the husband to take the wife’s surname, which often was the name of the Norwegian borough of her birth.  Men that kept their last name often wound up as Olsen (Ole’s son) or Pedersen (Peder’s son) or similar.

What I know without a doubt is that my lineage goes back to Viking times.  Even if I am descended from pillagers and conquerors, I can imagine my roots perhaps touched England and Ireland with the Viking (Norman) invasion, and who knows, I might be distantly related to royalty. 

The importance of my father here is that he is a portal to my past, and it grounds me in confidence that I can look back to my ancestors and see myself as a link in my ancestral chain.  He taught me his skills and values as his father taught him.  I continued the tradition by teaching them to my children, and perhaps they will teach similar values to their offspring. 

My father was very important in my life, and even though he is now gone, I can still reach out and touch my memories of the times we had together.

Happy Father’s Day

Command a vital life. Live free.