Pushing

My current retirement job is as a golf course marshal at a resort.  A big part of my responsibility is to keep people on pace as they move around the course.  To do that I have to constantly keep pushing. 

 

The problem is entropy—the second law of thermodynamics—the tendency for a moving body to slow down or order to come to disorder. 

 

Knowing this common human tendency,  and knowing that the very beautiful piece of real estate with its stunning vistas and abundant wildlife  will be a distraction for the players, it is a proactive part of my job to remind people before they start, or early in their round, that the pace-of-play expectations will be enforced and why they are necessary.

The reason, of course, is that one slow person or group will slow down everyone behind them.  And when that happens, you have not only the one unhappy slow person who is being pushed, but the many unhappy people behind who are being inconvenienced as their expectations are being compromised or thwarted.  People have other plans during their day besides golf—luncheon or dinner appointments, airplanes to catch, etc. Most golfers love to be out on the golf course, but serious golfers don't appreciate 5- 5 1/2 hour rounds.

It was often the same in my career as a school teacher.  How often a teacher finds himself pushing students to make it to class before the bell rings and they are tardy. Or pushing to make assignment deadlines. Pushing—or being pushed—wears people out and nobody enjoys being on either end of it. 

Leading, of course, is always preferable pushing people.  But some people won’t be led. 

The antidote?  Simple courtesy is a good beginning point.  People need to think beyond themselves and always remember that they are not the only fish in the pond.  

One can extrapolate from either golf or school to the larger lessons in life:

 

·        Stay focused at the task at hand—especially if other people are involved, and always consider the effect of what you do will have on others.

·        Get qualified before you attempt a challenge that is beyond your abilities.  It has been said that ‘If you can’t run with the big dogs stay on the porch.’ I say, better yet, practice running on your own or with help from others until you can get ‘up to speed’ and then push yourself to maintain the pace. 

·        If you find yourself in the role of an ‘enforcer’—a parent, a teacher, a golf course marshal, a referee, etc., try first to lead by example, persuasion, proactive encouragement and clear instructions.  If these approaches are less than effective, have your expectations in writing so that if enforcement is necessary you have an objective set of rules that you can refer to that will support your expectations. 

The less you have to push, the less stress you will have in your life.  The less you have to be pushed, the less resentment you will have to deal with.  If persuasion does not ‘take,’ though, push yourself if you still choose to stay in the game. 


‘Push-back’ may be the topic for another essay some time. 

THINK !

I once saw this word painted in big black block letters on the front wall of a classroom.  I never forgot it. 

Associated with thinking are a few common action words that, if used, could prevent a multitude of problems for people

Think.  Stop.  Pause.   Anticipate.  Plan.  Project.  Remember. Pray.  Visualize. 

Among the people who could greatly benefit by pausing to think first are they:

·        whose impetuosity or impulsiveness  gets them into trouble (who act first and regret later)

·        who act or speak before thinking

·        who habitually lose things

·        who do not calculate costs or underestimate costs in terms of money, effort or time

·        who do not consider the ramifications of how their actions/inaction will impact others

·         who overestimate their abilities or underestimate their inexperience

·         who do not allow for others’ actions

·         who do not consider associated ‘worst-case scenarios’ before acting

·         who do not allow for a safety margin, a cushion, a buffer

Conversely, a thinking person asks herself/himself:

·        Will my action help others?  Hurt others? Help myself? Hurt myself?

·        Do I really want to do this?  Why?

·        Is now the right time?

·        Can I afford this if something goes wrong?

·        Is this the best approach?  Have I considered other approaches?

·        Will my action(s) please the most important person in my life?

·        If I do/don’t do this what is likely to happen?

·        Is this a waste of my time/money/resources/strength/or image or reputation?

·        Is the hoped-for gain worth the cost?

·        Does this contribute or detract from my long-term goals?

A past President of the United States in an interview I heard said that having uninterrupted  time to think would have been something he would have most valued during his presidency.  I submit that most of us have a little more discretionary time than the president, but do we use it to think through probable outcomes before acting?  Maybe we should. 

“Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.”  (Doctrine and Covenants 9:7)

The Times--They Are a Changing

Although I was never a ‘hippie’—certainly not of ‘the New Left’-- I lived through the so-called ‘dawning of the age of Aquarius’ in the 1960’s and early ‘70’s. I heard the music and saw the images and even lived for a couple of years during the peak of this cultural revolution on the Big Sur coast of California (for an entirely different reason than those of the psychedelic set dragging down the road below my house).  I saw the daily hitch-hiker’s parade of dirty, bedraggled, back-pack-carrying young people, my age, on their quest for who-knows-what they hoped to find at Big Sur which they didn’t find a day or two north in Haight-Ashbury. 

 

They wanted freedom, not ‘the establishment’; they wanted ‘peace’ but not responsibility; they wanted a ‘voice’ as a non-conformist, but became part of a mob. They wanted nirvana, but didn’t have a goal, a clear vision, or the intellectual tools to get there.

In the end they settled for ‘a time’ with drugs, sex, and rock-and roll—and ended up with angst, disease, and deeper disillusionment. 
  

Bob Dylan, and others, sang this song, prescient in ways that I don’t think they envisioned, what may have been an existential ‘hymn to the times’—which indeed were changing: 

Come, gather round people wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth saving
Then you'd better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone
For the times, they are a changing

Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pens
And keep your eyes open, the chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon, the wheel's still in spin
And there's no telling who that it's naming
Oh, the loser will be later to win
For the times they are a'changin'

Come senators, congressmen, please head the call
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be her that has stalled
There's a battle outside and it's ragin'
will soon shake your windows
And rattle your hall
For the times, they are a changing

Come mothers and fathers all over this land
And don't criticize what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old role is rapidly aging.
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand
For the times they are a changing

The line, it is drawn, the curse, it is cast
The slow one will later be fast
And the present now will soon be the past
The order is rapidly fading
The first one now will later be last
For the times, they are a changing.

The times they still are changing, and there are many frightening  portents looming ahead.  I believe prospects seem to be more bad than good—at least for some time.  Some lines have been redrawn, as Dylan said, and people have been and will yet be forced to choose where they stand—morally, intellectually, religiously, ecologically, politically, humanely.   

Wars and rumors of wars will engulf not just the chronically disrupted Near East and the African continent but likely every other continent and people—including us.  Who would have thought, thirty years ago, there would be drug wars on our southern border and immigration wars where refugees are fleeing their corrupt and bankrupt nations south of us?  There will be wars of the ‘have-nots’ against those who have something; wars of the dying against those of the living;  increased border and immigration wars; financial wars; health care wars.

No, it will not just be about political boarders between countries, and not just about oil, or sovereignty, but about the fundamentals: water, and air, and food, and public health and human rights and resources—and about religion, a religion of Life and a religion of death.

People have questions about these things they need to stop avoiding and need to settle in their minds and in their hearts and not just leave it to politicians or terrorists who have their own wars going on.

   

Look carefully at what you believe and why you believe it.  Look at your source of information and who you trust for guidance and security.  Revisit history and dust off the old values and take a good look at them and see their potential for reinstatement. 

 

The rise and fall of nations and civilizations has been a never-ending cycle, but for all of us, and for this world, it will one day end.  The answers as to ‘why?’ are there in the history and in prophecy.

The only questions to be answered, for me, are ‘when’ will it happen in our own neighborhood?  And what can we yet do about it? 

 

Escapism is not an option.