By my age with the things that I’ve done, you either know yourself or you’re dead. You may think that is an over-statement and I would not fault you for thinking so, but sometime buy me a glass of wine and I’ll defend it. My point is that I’m familiar with many of my faults and I think I have a handle on what I’m good at and what I’m not. Having a good handle on what you are good at and what you are not may be a lifesaver. At the very least it will help you make the right decisions about jobs. So here is my report:

• I don’t do slow. My house sits above the road, so our walkway curves down to our garage. I will often run down it, even when not in any kind of hurry. I walk the dog at a pace (when she hasn’t stopped to do her business or smell the business of other dogs) that I dubbed my “city lope” long ago as a teenager. Yeah, it’s a disease, but it’s mine. I own it.
• I have no patience. Perhaps this is related to the item above, but whatever. I like to explain my lack of patience by the fact that at 16 I was isolated on a farm in Indiana with no peers or anything to do but build my treehouse, our family dome, and ride my bike 13 miles into town to take driver’s education classes. Believe me, it’s a long story, but the upshot is that whether that is the reason or not, patience is not one of my virtues.
• I’m bad at planning. Planning to me means “I’ll do that shortly before it’s due.” That’s planning.
• Just in time is on time. I plan very little in advance (see above). My talks are often put together only a few days before I give them. For me, that does a couple things: 1) it serves to focus my attention, and 2) it allows my subconscious to work out the plan of action without spending conscious time on it. Sure, you may doubt that last bit, but it works. I often find ideas bubbling up the closer I get to a gig that I doubt would have occurred to me a month before. Also, I’ve been known to arrive for a talk, and after speaking with the event organizers, throw out what I arrived with and start from scratch. Talks like that tend to be home-runs, as they come from knowledge instead of supposition.
• I don’t look back. Not much at least. If the milk spills, I don’t cry over it, I clean it up and move on. “Woulda, coulda shouldas” are simply baggage best left uncarried. I cut it loose and move on. That doesn’t mean I don’t take lessons from failures, just that you won’t find me wringing my hands over it.
• I trust my intuition. I’ve been in some pretty dangerous spots in my day, from clinging to a cliff in the Grand Canyon with no protection to facing oncoming cars taking up both lanes. Both situations required fast decision-making. You can assess the facts, but at some point getting in touch with your best guess is the only way to go.
• I multitask like a Millennial. This is not a new thing. Fifteen years ago I would write my Library Journal column on my laptop while making sure my twins didn’t drown in the bath. It’s only gone downhill from there. I check my email on my iPad while shaving in the morning, or on my iPhone while walking the dog in the afternoon. I monitor my Tweetdeck intermittently while doing other work. Thank god for computer multi-tasking, since I’m old enough to remember when you could only run one application at a time. Now that would be my version of hell.
• I can give everything I have in me to give. Over time I’ve discovered that people can hold back parts of themselves, perhaps to create a reserve of energy that cannot be tapped by anyone. I’m not that way. I believe I can meet challenges with everything I have in me to give it. This isn’t to say that the depths have been completely plumbed, but there have been times in my life when this has been tested. Like when I was going to graduate school full-time, working 30 hours/week, and driving 5-1/2 hours each way nearly every weekend for a year while going to library school. Little did I know that this was merely prologue to being the father of twins while holding a full-time job. I have multiple examples of this whitewater rafting as well, which are best extracted from me over a cocktail. Believe me, I know what it means to be so physically exhausted that fever lays you low, or that the very act of crying requires more energy than you have within you.

I realize the above is like a litany of personal denial for what is so often stated in life — “Slow down! Smell the roses!” I take time to smell the flowers, I just don’t linger overlong. Does this mean I’m headed for an early grave? Likely. But if so, I’ll go doing it my way — the only way I can, actually, being who I now know I am. I trust that many of you know who you are as well, and that you are comfortable with it, whatever that may be. I know that I respect your choice to be deliberate, and centered, and mindful, if that is who you are. I’ll wave at you as I race past, knowing we’ve each made the right choice for ourselves.

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 11th, 2011 at 8:57 pm and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.