Who Am I?
- A husband and a father
- A person with a strong work ethic
- A problem solver
- A good communicator
- A writer
- An environmentalist
- A technologist
- An artist
- A food lover
- A cyclist
A few more words about each of these. More »
She was like most others, a little sexy, a little crazy and a whole lot of unpredictable. Irene could have been a real big mess for us. We were lucky, no trees fell on our house, no massive floods (though we live on high ground) and only the inconvenience of a power outage. And let me tell you it is an inconvenience at worst.
Recently, I wrote a half-assed post about what happens when you change your internal dialogue from a list of “shoulds” to a list of “musts”. I got sidetracked at some point and really didn’t finish the thought. How often do you read this blog and wonder – why did he stop there? Is that all he has to say?
Well, no, it usually isn’t all I’ve got to say. I’m either consciously or unconsciously holding back. Should is a future conditional, whereas Must is an imperative. The word “should” implies that something is optional, the word “must” does not.
One of my friends asked the all important question, “what must you do?” in the comments to that post. Rather than answer that question in the comments, I decided to write another post about what I must do and why.
I recently read a piece on the minimalists that suggested replacing the word should with the word must when performing self introspection. To say that there’s an immediate impact on my perception would be an understatement. When we move from saying should to must, we are moving from a desire to an imperative.
I spend a lot of time thinking about things that I should be doing. That’s not to say that I’m a procrastinator - I attempt to deal with the mundane quickly so that I don’t have to deal with the same thing twice – but rather that I spend a lot of time thinking about large-scale things that I should be doing:
- I should be eating better.
- I should be living a cleaner life.
- I should be loosing weight.
- I should exercise.
- I should be more understanding.
When I shift the words around it becomes much more meaningful. So, starting now, I’m going to focus on things I must do, rather than things I should do.
Dad would be celebrating today.
He was horrified to see his brethren die on that tragic day when the towers collapsed. We talked in the days after the events of 9/11 about the job that the men of FDNY were doing. I could hear the pain in his voice.
As a nation, we rallied around each other. Many of us reacted in ways that we didn’t fully understand. In retrospect everything seems different. Ten years of war and a recession have changed my views. Becoming a father has changed my views. Meeting my wife changed my views.
I honestly don’t know how I feel about the death of Osama Bin Laden. It’s almost meaningless to me. There is an entire army of new recruits that has been formed over the past ten years. And now to find out that he’s been “hiding” in a populated area?
I cannot celebrate. The chest thumping is ugly.
I long for a day when the “threat level” is not orange. What will a day that is “green” be like? Will we ever see one?
When will it be safe to move on?
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