This is a site of uplifting and thought provoking posts

In 1998 a surfing based movie came out entitled “In God’s Hands”. It wasn’t the best surfing movie of all time in my opinion but still pretty good. What struck me the most about it however was the title which I think was perfect for the theme they were trying to get across.

In a world that is seemingly at times very control based, as much as we might often think we can control things, there are times where things are to a certain, if not great degree, out of our hands and control.

For me surfing is one of those instances where I have come to realize that much of my destiny is out of my control. Sure I can prepare my body and mind as well as I can before paddling out and yes I can decide what waves to paddle into and what I’d like to do on any given wave but after that there are just too many variables present that I have no control over.

The wave might look a certain way as it approaches but end up doing something completely different than what I thought it would before paddling into it. I also might not execute my maneuvers correctly and get pitched off my board uncontrollably or held down longer than expected.

Although I like to surf with buddies as much as possible there are many times I end up surfing alone and I don’t just do so in small surf. I’ve been alone out in hurricane swells and at times when it was so foggy I  couldn’t see the beach.

I’ve also been circled by sharks, whales and all sorts of marine life and stung badly by man of war jellyfish. Bottom line, there are so many variables present during any given session that at some point I either have to realize I only have a certain degree of control and simply pray for a safe session or not paddle out at all. Bottom line, I’d rather surf and risk injury or death than to miss out on the fun.

Believe me, it took me a long time in my life to get to this point. When I was young I had enough phobias to sink a battleship and was always worried about one thing or another and trying to control my situation. If you’ve ever seen the movie “What About Bob” with Bill Murray, you will get a good feel for the extent of my phobias. Heck, I could barely get through it the first time I watched it because it resembled me so much which freaked me out.

While I know I will always struggle with some of those things, fortunately I have found a way to move past them to a great degree, to let go and to place my fears in the hands of a higher power. As such I now have a lot more fun and am always ( well at least most of the time) looking to expand my horizons and test my limits.

A good test of it came this week. My wife Kathy had to go into the hospital for knee replacement surgery. Hospitals in general freak me out even for some reason even though I’ve had my share of surgeries for some torn or broken body part over the years. For some reason however I have a lot more difficult tie with it when it’s a loved one who is in there for something or another.

I guess t goes back to the whole control thing. Maybe it’s because I feel like I have the responsibility to make things right for them or maybe it’s because I have no control over what is going on with them but either way it really troubles me. I also get way too caught up with all of the vital information being projected on the monitor and worry when the little light goes on when something drops below or above what it’s supposed to.

Fortunately, before I got way too wrapped up in it all I finally came to realize it was pretty much all out of my hands and control and finally left those concerns to my wife, the doctors and God.

So yes I’m trying to learn to let go more and more and as I do I’m sure I’m going to be happier and happier and less and less stressed.

I hope that all of those who might read this and deal with similar issues will be able to leave it all “In God’s Hands” too.

Take care, have a great week and I look forward to seeing you back here again next week.

By the way, Kathy came home today and the operation seemed to go very well and she is doing much better.

Aloha, Paul

This week I was called once again for jury duty for the SEVENTH time. Based on discussions with tons of people, this must be close to some sort of record because the only person I found that was even remotely close was a guy around seventy who had been called four times. If you have been called more times than me or know someone who has then let me know as I will congratulate them or give them my condolences whichever is the case.

The most surprising thing about it as that I have been actually chosen, as I was this time, to actually sit as a juror in a case four of this times, twice in Richmond, VA, once in Syracuse, NY and once now in Jacksonville, FL.

It makes me wonder if it isn’t a random choice at all and instead if there isn’t some huge data bank somewhere that has the names of people who tend to be the ones chosen to sit in cases. Or maybe it’s just that I have some particular characteristics that lawyers want when choosing a juror. Who knows but at any rate they keep picking me. Heck they picked me when I was still working in the insurance industry and I had heard it was a sure bet that if you were then you would never be chosen.

I suppose the weirdest part about it is that I honestly don’t mind serving. You get to meet a lot of interesting people, hear some really crazy and weird responses to the questions asked of the potential jurors and take part in a very interesting process that is very much NOT like you see on TV.

And despite what you might have thought if you watched the movie “Jury Duty” with Polly Shore, they don’t generally put you up in a fancy hotel or pay for food and give you a lot of money for your service. In FL you get $15.00 per day and your parking for free and when you’re done they give you a small commemorative pin.

What you do get is the satisfaction of being involved with a pretty cool process that dates way back in time and helps to ensure the rights of the people involved especially the defendants who have a lot to gain or lose from your decision which is a lot more difficult to come to than you might think after weighing all of the facts in the case and listening to testimonies and the presentations of both the prosecuting and defense attorneys. To be honest, it’s actually a bit gut wrenching to come up with any verdict as there is a tendency to second guess your decision afterwards especially if you find the person guilty and even if you feel the evidence was overwhelming “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

It’s also very difficult to stay in focus throughout the entire proceeding especially for a borderline A.D.D person like myself (my wife might differ with the borderline part). Heck, during one trial I was involved in the bailiff slept through a great deal of it and he was getting paid to be there.

It was refreshing this time especially to be serving with a group of jurors that were really focused, took great notes and seemed to all hit on the important facts and details of our case which made my job as foreperson pretty easy. Why was I chosen you might ask? No I didn’t really want it especially as your the one the defendant focuses on. The reason I was chosen was because I had been a juror so often in the past and also the head juror once in the past to boot.

When I left the courthouse last night the officer who was escorting us to our cars, upon hearing I had been called seven times before said, “If I was you I would burn my drivers license”. Well, believe it or not I’m not really concerned about it. First of all I don’t mind serving and secondly, I’m sure they will find me somehow as the odds are in my favor.

Before signing off, there some observations I’ve come away from the experience with that struck me. 1. It was amazing to hear how many cases, even murders go unsolved. 2. It’s astounding and sad that so many people have been intimately either been involved with serious crimes or related to or know someone who has been. 3. I can’t believe people will actually stand up and say the hate the police or the establishment. 4. How many people walk up to try and get a medical release (it seemed like about 20% did so), and how many people return back to their seats (@ 80% of the people who walked up to see the judge). 5. How many people actually are willing to serve and are open minded especially the ones who have a good reason not to be.

So hopefully you don’t come away from this thinking I must have some serious issues since I am so willing to serve (I’m not saying I don’t because the jury is still out on that). I also hope I didn’t scare you away from serving because as I said before it is a real good learning experience as you will not only learn more about our system and get a better appreciation of it, but also because in the process you will probably learn a lot more about yourself. I know I have.

My only regret about serving this week was that there were good waves yesterday that I missed out on. Oh well, at least I caught a really good swell down in Cocoa Beach last week.

Take care, have a great week and God willing and if the sun rises I will look forward to seeing you here again next time.

Aloha, Paul

I just completed the final draft of my new novel “The Waves of Fate” which is the final saga to my previously released novel “The Nonconformist”. I had not originally considered writing a follow up to that novel but over time I started to consider what happened to my main character as well as his good friend Rory and how things would end up for him after coming out of his coma.

The writing of it along with six edits, took me about a year which is pretty good seeing as how it took me nearly six years to complete “The Nonconformist”. I feel pretty good about how it turned out and am happy to have completed it in only 220 pages versus the 450 that it took me to complete my first novel.

The thing that struck me when I was finished with the novel was that it was comprised of 123,787 words (that would mean that “The Nonconformist was comprised of a whopping 250,000 or so words). Even though it was only comprised of about half of the words in “The Nonconformist”, it still overwhelmed me to realize I had that many words in me.

I have always been a story teller and have been told I tend to answer questions with way more of an answer than is required (I suppose the proper word is verbose) but it made me wonder where all of those thoughts, ideas and words came from.

As I entered into the writing of both of those novels I had no real roadmap as to where I was heading only an idea of the theme and a general idea of how I would like them to end and the morals I wanted to tell.

In the end, however, it seems as though the books took me where they wanted to go. Characters emerged, some similar to people I know and many who simply materialized from thin air. The story lines also seemed to run in all sorts of different directions and I simply let the plot run where it seemed to want to go. Bottom line, it’s a mystery to me that they somehow ended up pretty much where I would have liked them to.

Maybe it’s been a plus for me that I wasn’t trained as a writer and as such didn’t put a lot of pressure on myself to be too exacting especially during my first drafts, which by the way were both about two times longer than they ended up being after all of my edits. I suppose that’s the reason I didn’t suffer from writers block.

I simply wrote from the heart and from life experiences, which by the way, having endured so many bumps in the road throughout my life seems to have been a real help in digging deep into my characters psyche’s. In addition, my fifty plus years as a surfer has helped me immensely in understanding the mindset of my surfing characters and creating surfing adventures and scenes.

I still have no idea of why I decided to become a writer or where the words come from but somehow I feel compelled to write just as much as I feel compelled to create art. I suppose it all comes from forces within me that seem to want to leap out of me onto paper and canvas.

While I feel good about my work I still have no idea of how good my writing and artwork is and I suppose only the reader and those who see my artwork can be the judges of it. But what I do know is that I love what I’m doing,  (even if I die poor doing so) and that I’ve learned a great deal about myself in the process from both endeavors. I also know that my goal is to always be truthful in my work and become better at it as I go along.

I guess I will never know where all of the words come from but I suppose I don’t much care as long as they keep flowing. In retrospect I suppose I owe a lot to my father, who, though one of the biggest pains in the butt that came down the pike, al least instilled within be the love of the written word and who always told me to keep a dictionary (these days a computer will do) by my side and to look up the words I didn’t understand.

If you’ve read any of my books thanks for doing so and I hope you enjoyed them. If you have please give me feedback. If you haven’t I’d feel blessed if you considered doing so.

Either way, thanks for checking in and reading my blog posts and I will look forward to seeing you back here again next week. Take care.

Aloha,

Paul

I for one, which one could easily determine if they have read my personal story “Chicken of The Sea” or to a certain degree from reading my novel “The Nonconformist” which is mostly fiction but covers a great deal of who I am and where I come from, have carried with me a great deal of personal baggage some of which is good and some bad.

I’m also certain that, other than the lucky few who have been fortunate enough to come through life well adjusted and mostly unscathed,  most people carry with them their share of baggage also.

A good correlation for me is airline travel. When we travel we have to decide if we will skip the cost of paying to have our bags checked in and take them on as carry on baggage. I for one, especially if I have a number of layovers, much prefer to pay the cost of checking them in rather than dragging them along through scanning and boarding and around the airport. It’s just a pain in the neck especially when connections are tight.

The same can be said about finding that one of your bags are overweight. One has to decide what things are a must to take with us what can be left behind.

I look at personal baggage the same way. At the end of the day or the end of the trip, to keep the same analogy, it’s still going to be there at the baggage carousel at the end of our trip (well at least usually there) but do we really need to carry it around all of the time on our backs or shoulders.

There is no doubt that the hurt and pain we have experienced never truly leaves us even if we try as best to bury it. But to me the real test is in not letting it eat at me, define who I am, or keep me from enjoying life and people as best I can.

For the longest time I did let it get the best of me and I suffered for years with depression and self loathing and it was devastating. Fortunately I was able to grow from and past it to a great degree and I am now much happier with the world and myself as a result.

One of the things that helped me was the writing of my personal story and Novel. In both I was able to look back in at myself and my life either from my personal recollections of my life experiences and that of my novel’s main character to gain a better glimpse and understanding of myself, how I view the world and my place within it.

In that manner, somehow I was able to let go of a great deal of the hurt and pain I had been experiencing and at the same time forgive those who have hurt me and forgive myself for the hurt I have caused others, and just like the excess baggage tossed to make the suitcase lighter I have also been able to get rid of some of that excess baggage I had been carrying along with me.

I’m not suggesting that everyone write a novel or their personal story but I do think it is helpful step back from ones problems and baggage and determine what is at the core of our issues, if in fact we have them and then hopefully try to get rid of as much of the excess baggage that they’ve been carrying around as possible.

After all, Isn’t it all about self awareness and being happy.

As a surfing analogy, after just coming out of the winter season it is great to be free of having to perform while wearing a full suit and booties. To me, while certainly a necessity to be able to surf in cold water, they are still a piece of excess baggage that keeps me from enjoying me sessions to the greatest degree.

Thanks again for checking in and my hope is that your baggage is as light as possible.

Aloha, Paul

I’m sure most of us have all taken long trips/vacations. Whether they are just to places not far from home or continents away they are usually something that we plan for and look forward to with a great deal of excitement and anticipation.

We might google or read up on all of the sites along the way, places of interest where we are going and certainly places to eat or party when we arrive at our destination.

Generally the closer the time comes for us to leave the more antsy and excited we become to head out on our adventure. Such trips take us away from work, school, responsibilities and the day-to-day worries which we are certain will all leave our consciousness once we depart from home.

The truth is though that despite all the fun we actually have on such trips, often our reality tends to find us. Something happens at work that “desperately needs our attention” so we get the phone call, someone in the extended family becomes ill while we are away or is hit with some sort of disaster or we end up getting a call from a neighbor telling us that a tree just fell on our house.

Even if we are lucky enough to have a totally stress free vacation/trip, which only the lucky few truly encounter, (something generally goes wrong at some point) the truth is the above scenarios often play out in our minds at some point in time.

I know this is going to come off as sounding a bit nostalgic but in some ways travelling in the past was a bit easier in some regards. There were no cell phones and devices for people to get ahold of us on or the internet to get us those dreaded messages, you could walk right into an airport and after checking in head right to your departing area and even take your entire family along to see you off.

In some regards this probably made for a much more relaxing trip.

Conversely though, I suppose it could cause even more stress for folks as they knew that if something did go wrong then they wouldn’t be able to know about it which in the end could lead to even more stress.

Bottom line (I just realized I say bottom line a lot sorry) we often end up at some point just wishing we were back home. Maybe the place we stayed at wasn’t as nice as we thought, maybe we got sick on our trip or the beds weren’t comfortable and we got little sleep or maybe the flight we took was long and tedious. The list could go on and on and I’m sure we all have our own war stories. (Please let me know about yours as it could make me feel better)

My wife and I just got back from a week and a half river cruise through Prague, Germany, Luxemburg and Paris. Since we had never gone on a real honeymoon we decided to bite the bullet and finally take one this year.

Since we got a half price deal for purchasing the trip early we did so last August when the deal was available for that price. I’ve never taken any sort of cruise before and am not really a cruise person but it seemed like a good way to go especially as I have tons of food allergies and I knew they would take care of it for me.

As we had tons of time between when we purchased the trip and when we were to depart, it left a lot of time to get really excited and research all of the places we were going to visit. As such we were pretty pumped up by the time we left.

Unfortunately for me I had just returned two days prior to the trip from driving our daughter Ashley out west so I was pretty tired by the time we landed in Prague after an all night flight with little sleep.

Bottom line though the trip was great. The ship and it’s staff were great as was the food since they took great care with my allergies, the sites we saw were fantastic and even though the weather was marginal it was well worth the price of admission.

But of course the trip wasn’t without it’s share of mishaps and problems. My wife Kathy was sick for the last week of the cruise and though a real trooper she ended up missing out on a lot of the fun. Even though it was nice to be cell device free, we couldn’t make or receive calls and since I didn’t want to be hit with roaming charges and as I never set up an access code for my phone I couldn’t get e-mails.

And go figure, I go the entire trip without suffering from any of my food allergies then on the flight home they served a curry dish and I nearly passed out from just smelling it. If I eat the stuff I can stop breathing and just smelling it can do almost the same. Fortunately the stewardess brought me a mask just in time or I might not be writing this post.

In addition, towards the end of our flight we hit extreme turbulence which made a lot of the passenger get sick, so by the time we landed the cabin smelled like puke.

So even though I have no regrets over taking the trip we found ourselves at the end of it just wishing we were home.

I can’t say I will never take an overseas trip again as I’m sure after some time I will only be left with the good memories but for certain it won’t be anytime soon.

Below are some random thoughts from the trip:

The small towns along the various rivers in Germany are amazing as is the food and the people. If I wasn’t a surfer I could live in any one of them in a heartbeat.

I can not fathom how much wine is grown in that region. There were vineyards seemingly everywhere.

I don’t drink wine so I can’t attest to how good it is but the beer choices were amazing.

Living in the states we have no clue as to what old really means especially after visiting places and buildings that are from BC.

I thought NY was the home of graffiti but Prague and Paris and some of the other bigger cities we visited had NY beat hands down.

The best hamburger I have ever eaten was at a turnpike stop we made along the way in France at a Buffalo Burger restaurant. Go figure.

I was embarrassed over how many of the locals spoke English. It made me feel bad that I could only speak their languages just a little.

We met a lot of great passengers but I most enjoyed getting to know some of the staff on the ship. They were down to earth and amazing.

If you like quiet, go to any little town in Germany. I think they invented quiet.

Thanks for checking in this week and I hope that any trip you take will be a great adventure and be stress free. I bet though that no matter how good it is that you’ll be as happy as we were to be home.

Aloha,

Paul

I’m sure most of us have taken a long road trip. If you have then I’m sure you are aware that they can either be super fun and relaxed or nightmares like the one in “Vacation” when the Griswalds were trying to get to Wally World.

If you have a great deal of time on your hands, even if there are family, car or other issues along the way then you can probably get through all of that and have a great time anyway. With no tight time table you can take in many of the cool sights along the way, stop to enjoy fine meals and put your feet up at night in either a nice hotel room or RV.

I’ve enjoyed some of those trips with our family (minus the RV) and have some good memories from them but it’s been a while.

Within the past five years I’ve taken two cross country road trips with our daughter Ashley during her moves out to the West Coast. The first was five years ago when she was moving to California. Although we only had four days to make the trip and although it was taken in her small Hyundai  that was packed to the gills with all of her stuff, we still have a pretty good time.

We took in the sights of New Orleans the first night and had a great meal. After a hellishly long drive the next day through Texas at least we got to relax in a comfy motel room. The next night we stayed at a cool resort in New Mexico via hotel points I had saved up and as we got in early that evening we even got to use the pool and other amenities of the hotel.

The last evening we spent in San Diego and I even got to surf at Pacific Beach before I flew back to Jacksonville the following day.

Even though time was tight, along the way we did get to take in a lot of cool scenery and stop for nice meals.

But that was then and this is now. Our most recent trek this past week was way our to Seattle and we had only five days to make the @ 3,000 mile trip. At first glace I’m sure that doesn’t sound so bad, but throw into the mix our travelling with all of her stuff in a tiny Chevy Spark along with a seventy + pound English Bull dog and you can easily see it wasn’t destined to be an easy trip.

So that Buji dog didn’t freak out if we left him in the car we ate all of our meals either in the car or at night in the motel room. In addition. as many motel chains (especially many of the good ones) either don’t allow dogs, especially big ones, or charged an outrageous amount if they did, we were limited in where we could stay.

Our room the first night (I won’t mention the chain) though seemingly pretty clean, was otherwise pretty crappy to say the least and also very noisy and sketchy. We ended up getting almost no sleep and ended up heading out before dawn as the car was preferable to staying there any longer.

The next two nights we stayed in very nice Best Western hotels and otherwise would have left them happy and rested but the first night Ashley was sick and we didn’t sleep well then the next night I was sick and we didn’t sleep well. We both believe we picked up some nasty virus that was lingering in the motel our first night.

Our last night was spent in a pretty nice room (same chain as the first one) but unfortunately the family staying in the room above us were up most of the night as their kids were running around which also got the dog all wired up and active. As you can guess, we got vey little sleep again and by that time were in a near Zombie-state.

Luckily, after Ashley left me off near the Portland Airport the following afternoon, I had the opportunity to sleep for about ten hours which made it possible to make it through a sleepless following night as I rode the red-eye back to Jacksonville via Dallas and Charlotte.

You would think that we would have ended up being at each others throats after all we had suffered through but believe it of not we actually got along famously. I’d like to think it was only because we are both such tolerant and loving people but I think a lot of it had to do with being way too tired to be anything else.

There were so many cool places to visit and awesome landscapes to see along our path through GA, MO, KS, CO, WY, ID and OR that we would have loved to have stopped but what with pushing 600 to 700 miles per day it just wasn’t possible especially with a dog. At best, the few additional sights we took in were more by happenstance.

The big thrill of the trip was when the GPS too us on an unusual and a bit frightening short cut between Denver and Laramie. It took us along a small country road where we ran into a sign that said “paved road ends in 500ft”. That it did and to be honest if Ashley hadn’t asked me to trust her then I would have turned around.

The road was really rough, was out in the middle of nowhere and the only vehicles that passed us were ones loaded from aggregate taken out of a rock pit we could see up on the mountain or vehicles that had used the same GPS suggested rout and hadn’t turned around.

Fortunately after about fifteen minutes, the road finally led to the highway it was supposed to which ran straight to Laramie and through some beautiful snow covered high country.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much especially since despite still being winter, the weather except for some rain and high winds on several days was at least warmer than normal. Had we hit snow and sleet we’d probably still be on the road.

As I sit here typing this I’m still a bit fuzzy brained but at least safe and sound. Bottom line though, the next time, if there is a next one, I will make sure we add a few days to the trip so we don’t have to push along so hard and it won’t be with a dog even if it’s with a nice one like Biji. I’m getting way too old and hopefully now too wise to tackle such a daunting task again.

Thanks for checking in and if you are planning an upcoming road trip I hope it’s a fun and safe one.

Aloha, Paul

The other night at the Oscars, Leonardo DiCaprio made a plea on behalf of the environment for people to take global warming seriously and to do whatever they could to help preserve our world in as good a way as possible for future generations.

I applaud his efforts and for using the platform he was given for something so worthwhile. As great as it was though, it’s a shame that it had to take the words of a celebrity to cause more people to take the issue seriously.

For years scientists, environmentalists and their organizations have been putting forth proof of the problems associated with global warming yet despite their best science and efforts many have chosen to either not accept their findings of stick their heads in the sand and pretend the problems aren’t either real or as bad as advertised.

As an environmentalist and active member of the Surfrider Foundation I have seen enough to be convinced the problems are real. We are seeing sea level rise, loss of our ice caps,acidification of our oceans, rise in carbons in the sea and atmosphere, rising world temperatures, erratic weather patterns and declines in species.

Yet despite the fact we seem to be going about business as usual. We seem to be tied to fossil fuels even though there are alternative energy sources at our disposal and we allow big business to do things that are contrary to good environmental sense just for the sake of profits.

We also continue to produce plastics at an alarming rate even though they are clogging up our oceans and waterways and killing mammals and fishes

So while Leonardo’s acceptance speech on behalf of the environment was a great Oscar moment and I applaud him for it, we need to all become more aware of the issues and actually do something to improve the situation. I’ve seen the data on what is going to happen if we don’t and it isn’t pretty.

Thanks for checking in and I’ll look forward to seeing you again here next week.

Aloha.

Paul

I’m sure most of us has heard the old scientific question “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around does it make a sound”. I seem to remember the answer was no as if the sound waves aren’t picked up by the ear then they are only sound waves and therefor there is no real sound.

In thinking about the analogy, I’m sure many of us wonder at times that if people don’t either hear, accept or appreciate the things we say and do, then are the things we do and say in the first place.

As a struggling author I am forced to contemplate this quite a bit. I have now had three books published with a fourth nearing completion and as yet have seen a great deal of traction or success with them. I have also completed a screen play which, though I feel it has a great deal of potential, still has yet to be accepted by a true producer. I also write a weekly blog which, on average, is read by only a dedicated handful each week.

I have to admit at times that I feel a bit dejected over it all and wonder if it is worth all the time and effort let alone the dollars and cents invested in it all.

When I step back from it though and stop letting it get to me, I gain solace and comfort from the fact that I never went into this with the idea of getting rich or gaining fame from it all.

I do it because I love to tell stories, share my thoughts, emotions, views and ideas with others and truly enjoy the writing process and becoming better at my craft as a writer just the same as I do as an artist.

I also try to keep in mind the old adage of quality over quantity. If my writing or art work is appreciated by only a hand full of people or makes a positive impact in their lives or brightens up their day or gives them hope then I suppose I have succeeded and as such been successful.

I believe this analogy also holds true with whatever endeavor we choose to undertake whether it be at work, with regards to family, volunteering, teaching or anything else. The truth is there will be those who appreciate what we do and those who don’t but we shouldn’t feel bad enough about it to stop doing the things we feel most passionate about just because some people don’t appreciate it.

I have learned from my various experiences as a lecturer, teacher and instructor that you generally only reach and impact a small percent of those in attendance. The goal is simply to impact in a positive way as many as you can and leave them better off than when they met you.

It’s for those reasons why after coming to terms with my challenges and disappointments that I feel I have no choice but to continue to keep doing what I do. Some people are accepted and appreciated in their life times , some only so after their death and others not at all but either way it doesn’t take away from their accomplishment or make what they have done seemingly worthless if their work never gains acceptance.

So just because no one hears a tree fall, it doesn’t mean it didn’t make an impact on the ground below it.

As such, don’t give up on your quest or your dreams just because your efforts don’t seem to be appreciated or bearing fruit as they are no less valuable than those that seemingly are. I know I don’t intend to.

Thanks for checking in and I will look forward to seeing you again next week. keep the faith.

Aloha, Paul

After the super bowl cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers basically said that sure he was a bad loser and that anyone who said they were a good loser was a real “loser”.

Certainly I can understand his post bowl loss disappointment and hope that after thinking a bit more about it since then that he came to realized the implications of his statement.

For my part I don’t buy that premise one bit. Sure losing a war or a fight isn’t good and it would be most difficult to feel good about such a loss but football, though many might not agree with me, isn’t the same.

While I don’t enjoy losing, at the same time I believe it is just as important to lose graciously and to be a good loser as it is to win graciously and be a good winner. I’d certainly would prefer losing well if I knew I put in my best effort and simply lost to a better team or person than to win at all odds, lost badly, rubbed it in someone’s face or beat someone I should have anyway.

During my junior year of high school I was the captain of the Bay Shore High School cross country team and was one of the best runners in the league. Although I won a great many meets that year my most memorable one was a defeat at the hands of Newfield High School.

That day I came in fourth place. While I didn’t win the race, it was memorable in that I only lost by a mere one and a half seconds. They had three incredible runners who I wasn’t expected to beat plus we were competing at their school. The last leg of their two and a half mile course was about a two hundred yard open field. As we hit the opening to it from the woods we were all neck and neck and we basically sprinted all the way to the finish line.

While I wasn’t able to overtake them I knew I had given it my all and had forced them to push themselves to the limit also. In the end we all shared congratulatory hugs and I later was further gratified to find I had beaten my best time of the year. Would I have liked to have won? Sure I would have but no I didn’t feel like a loser even though I didn’t win.

I’ve always been a pretty fair tennis player but I have a friend named Peter who is much better than me and who bested me on the tennis courts for years. While I lost to Peter, at the same time we had fun matches and I always seemed to play my best against him and never left the court feeling like a loser.

One evening after years of defeats at his hands, I finally beat him in a best of three sets. Though overall our match record together was something like 100-1 I felt all the more good about that one victory because it was not only well fought but fun. What was most pleasing was when he admitted that by me taking my game to the next level I had forced him to up his game in the process.

On the flip side of the coin, my best showing in a surfing contest came in late 1987 in an Eastern Surfing Association contest in Cape Hatteras. I came in third that weekend. Normally I would have been stoked to the max over my surfing and finish against stiff competition but wasn’t based on what had occurred during the finals. I was about to pull into a nice barrel, something that doesn’t happen all too often in EC competitions (at least not for me), when I noticed a fellow competitor paddling up in front of me. I could have kicked out of the wave but instead tried to make it past him and pull off my tube ride.

Unfortunately I ended up running into his board and messed it up pretty badly. Sure he was in the wrong place and was thusly disqualified, but I felt horrible about it knowing I could possibly have avoided it and as such I couldn’t enjoy my success.

I will always remember one winter Olympics some years ago when a reporter asked one of our competitors who had finished fourth in the Giant Slalom how it felt to be a loser. The guy looked at the announcer as if he had two heads and basically replied, ‘What to you mean? I came in here expected to place near the bottom and ended up finishing fourth which makes me the fourth best Giant Slalom skier in the world. I wouldn’t call that losing”. I cheered when I heard it as his comment was spot on.

Bottom line, I do believe that how you play the game and giving it your best effort are still what it’s all about when it comes to winning and losing and that you can be a good loser without being a “loser” like Cam said.

In the immortal words of John Candy in the movie “Cool Running”, “If your not good enough without it then you’ll never be good enough with it” when it comes to winning.

Thanks for checking in and I hope you win but if you don’t then there’s no need to feel bad as long as you gave it your best.

Aloha, Paul

A number of years ago Tom Brokaw wrote a book about the “Great Generation” which was about the WWII generation. While I respect Tom and that generation, at the same time the idea that they were somehow the greatest generation troubles me.

Sure they fought two wars and went through a great depression but that alone does not make people great. And sure they dealt with a lot and made great sacrifices but that also doesn’t make them the greatest generation on it’s own.

I can’t think of a single generation that hasn’t had to deal with war, sacrifice, economic downturns or other strife. The sixties or baby boomer generation had it’s Vietnam, Watergate, racial upheaval,the cold war, an assassination of a President and other issues.

The gen-x and millennials had their 9/11, terrorism, Gulf Wars, global warming, recession and other equally troubling issues to deal with.

I think that in hind sight and with age we tend as people to want to think that our era and youth were the greatest ever. We, “yearn for those simpler times” when we were young and seemed to have the world on a string. Most like to think their music was the best, the clothing was the coolest and on and on.

I grew up in the 60’s, baby boomer generation that was going to change the world and who challenged the status quo and “the establishment”. Sure that was cool and noble (I think the mini skirt and free love were the best ideas ever) but in the end we only changed so much and then grew up and many of us ended up becoming the establishment.

I don’t regret at all being part of it all but I can’t say I want to go back to that time and place nor hold onto it too tightly. I think change is good and I am always hoping to improve myself and use my gifts to help change things in a positive way.

What I believe is true about generations is that, just as mankind possesses both good and bad, so do generations. There will always be bigotry, hatred, greed, an inability to understand people who are not like us and the tendency to take our planet for granted.

At the same time there will always be those who are loving, giving, fair, brave, resolute and willing to accept others as they are and  protect the things that mean the most to them.

Bottom line, I believe all generations are the greatest and worst at the same time and all we can do as individuals is to grow as individuals and be the best us we can be and use our gifts and talents to the best of our ability and make a positive impact on our world.

Thanks for checking in again this week and I hope yours is a great one.

Aloha, Paul