JANUARY 2010

Dear Friends: 

I spent a lot of years worrying and working, meanwhile, wasting too much time on things I could not change.  In the Bible (Matthew 6:25) we are cautioned not to worry but to live by faith.  Not to work to exhaustion but to enjoy the gift of life. Have you ever had one of those days where you just get to three o’clock in the afternoon and you’re completely and totally exhausted?  Worse, it’s a Monday and you can’t believe you have the entire week ahead of you.  You can feel your pillow calling to you and you’re nowhere near done for the day.  John Jensen once said “the trouble with life in the fast lane is that you get to the other end in an awful hurry.”  The difficulty with living life in the fast lane is that it all happens so quickly that you don’t remember much of it.  Each of us has obligations and responsibilities and sometimes the road is bumpy and it feels like that if we took the exit, we’d leave the     road altogether.  Sometimes I wonder if friends and acquaintances who are driving in cars in front and beside me remember as little of the scenery as I do.  Well today I choose to slow down, even if it’s for the evening.  I choose to look around me on the way home, I choose to watch a good movie and I choose to spend the time with people that I love.  In this new year I choose to begin taking life at the pace that I think my body, heart and mind were designed for.  No, this isn’t a New Year’s resolution – it’s a realization and I’m only sharing it with you in case nobody’s bothered to tell you that you have permission to do the same.

An unknown author once said “the two hardest things in life are failure and success.” Some days I can’t even tell the difference.  Sometimes it can feel like a circle that never ends.  I’m tired of doing my own impression of a hamster running as fast as possible on a wheel that doesn’t go anywhere.  Perhaps it would help us all to stop thinking in absolutes, after all I really wonder if there’s such a thing as an absolute failure or absolute success.  In my youth I used to think the world was easily described in attitudes of black and white, right or wrong, yes or no.  But now, I’ve discovered more gray, more perhaps and more maybe.  I choose to live one day at a time and that allows me to get up in the morning and give life it’s very best and to go to bed at night knowing I’m just too darned tired to do anything else.  This year I choose not to live by an imaginary clock or for an imaginary prize.  This year I choose to simply live and I invite you to join me.

My last thought for this newsletter is that Malcolm Forbes had a really good point when he said “men who never get carried away, should be.”  I don’t know about you but I know a lot of people who don’t let go very easily. Most of us don’t let our guard down very often.  I’m convinced that the work is still going to be on my desk tomorrow.  There’s certainly going to be something waiting on the workbench and there’s a whole lot still to do in the machine shop.  Sometimes I count on my kids to remind me that it’s okay to let go and be silly.  It’s okay to spend hours joking around, hanging out and not to worry so much.  Smiling is even okay.  So here’s a thought – find some kids, even if they’re not your own, and learn some good jokes.  Be a little silly and have some fun.  Yeah that’s right – join me in having a little fun.  You can stay real serious about this life, but I’ve got some news for you; you’re not getting out of it alive so at least enjoy life for today.

                                                                                                             Blessings,
                                                                                                                      Stephen