Impatience is an Argument with Reality

My new friend Bernie Koehrsen posted this the other day. He ran across it reading a book about patience. In the book, there was this quote:

“Impatience is an argument with reality”

Several people responded to that, and felt a connection. I assume these people have been frustrated, and later learned that the “rock” they were pushing uphill, the thing that frustrated them, turned out to be the Universe and not some person, or rule. In hindsight, it was never something they could have influenced.

Stay with me… I bet some of the salmon swimming upstream are really frustrated by those waterfalls. while others are having fun. Some of them are probably competition-Salmon, trying to outdo each other, to see which one does the best leap. 20% are griping about the whole thing. Likely talking about the old days when the falls were higher or the water was colder. When bears were bears and fish were men, or something.

Arguing with reality reminds me of the futility of griping. If your lot is to swim, you should learn to love the leaping.

Personally, I think cancer taught me this lesson. I know that seems like a tangent but, again, stay with me.

Sitting in an exam room on the 14th floor of a hospital in downtown Philadelphia, an intensely earnest genetic counselor shared with me, and my wife, that my cancer was likely “terminal”, her word. She showed me a scatterplot diagram illustrating the disease outcomes for a thousand or so patients in my cohort, people with the same type tumor according to the tumor’s DNA . The dots were all deaths, dates on the chart indicating how long after diagnosis.

In the moment, the dots looked like a murmuration, where birds fly in a tight group all together, with a leading edge and a stream of dots tapering off. Not many people died right away so, left to right, there were only a few dots on the left but they grew in density moving to the right, sort of like the pattern the birds make. Before twelve months, on the chart, there were only a few. Twelve to twenty-four months, there were dozens. Twenty-four to thirty-six months, the dots melt together into clumps. Thirty-six to Forty-eight months still dense but starting to taper off. Then, four years and out, there are fewer dots than in the first year.

The counsellor struggled to tell me that meant, based on the experience of the people in the cohort, I was not going to live more than about forty months, most likely less. Things changed for me and my family that day, but it took months of therapy to make sense of it.

In 2008, after ten years in business, the other founding partner at my company retired and I became CEO as well as President. So, in 2011, I had been in charge for three years and my company had just launched a new software product. It was a huge deal and cost millions to execute. I had speaking engagements all over the country on the schedule including a high-profile panel discussion at the Clareity MLS Executive Conference in Scottsdale AZ. Plus, my wife was scheduled to go with me. Since we were going to be empty nesters in the fall when our second daughter went to college, there were big plans.

But, life had other plans. After the diagnosis, I went back to the hotel and started making calls to my team telling them I could not make it. I suggested we push back our release plans and cancel the trips. My daughter called and said she was reconsidering going off for college and staying home.

Instead of cancelling everything, my team stepped in and did all the work stuff with confidence and ability. Several stepped into senior roles, maybe a little early, and are still killing it out there in the world, including my brother. Amazing, good things came of it.

I had to focus on setting my family up for success after I was gone, and maybe even surviving although the odds were very low. I went on to get two kinds of chemo, plaque radiation behind the eye, lots of lasers, three surgeries; basically everything they could throw at it and I lived. And the kid went to college and, so far at least, everyone lived happily.

I did not learn patience easily, and I still struggle. But I did learn this huge take-away: the universe does not care about my expectations. After all of this, I made a list of things that are most important to me. When I was finished, I found that I personally did not make the list. Everything on the list was about someone else and all of it is more important than me: my wife’s happiness, even her future relationships if I don’t make it. My daughters’ futures, my granddaughter’s happiness, leaving the place better than I found it, supporting people who need a hand, I mean, those things will last and I won’t. None of us will.

EOY Giving Thoughts…

The_Giving_Hands_by_therealzack

So we’re coming in on the end of another year. If you are thinking of making a bit more of an impact this year, consider an end of the year gift to one of these movements in Huntsville, they are all amazing. Want to add one? Just post it here.

Village Marketplace, Inc. – A 501(C)(3) Organization in Lincoln Village area just north of downtown. VMP is engaged in 1) providing employment for people who can work but need a good first (or recovery) job; 2) providing low-cost goods to the neighborhood and 3) providing long-term funding to three local charities but mostly to Lincoln Academy and Lincoln Village Ministries. Donate by donating money, or goods or your time to the effort. Talk to James Warren at the store.
Boys & Girls Club – What an amazing ministry! There are clubs all over the county serving kids with after school care, summer programs and all sorts of homework help, transportation, meals, mentors and basically a whole support system for a group of kids that really depend on them. My friend Lisa Downs is involved with them as an education coordinator. Several other close friends have served on their board including Jodi Adams, Bill Fowler and I am sure more I don’t know about. They do good work. Donate here.
Lincoln Academy – A Christian school in the Lincoln Village area just north of downtown. My Dad went there in the 30s when the Lincoln Mill was still operating. Since then the neighborhood went way down and was the scene of depravity and poverty and hopelessness. Then, in 2005 some crazy people from Southwood Church led by their chief crazy person my friend Mark Stearns began to pour into the area pledging to do whatever it took to drag the people out of the darkness that was overtaking their world. It worked, now they own the school and it’s a center of hope and excellence. Give till it hurts folks, these amazing people are changing lives every day down there. I am also incoming Board Chair at Lincoln, so I’ll be fully engaged making your donations count.
Village of Promise – So Bobby Bradley grew up in the neighborhood, graduated from Butler High School and Vanderbilt University. She’s a smart, focused, dedicated business person and that talent allowed her to build a big company and then to sell it. Now, refocused on her hometown, she’s determined to break the cycle of generational poverty in the University Place Elementary School area. She’s gathering support and supporters (and Board Members like me) to work on a data-driven, strategic initiative to tutor, mentor and otherwise push 1700+/- kids into college and into a better life. Donate here.
Randolph School – The only K-12 Independent School in North Alabama, Randolph is the leading primary and secondary educational institution in the area. As a Trustee of the school and an alumnus it’s my sincere belief that no organization can do more to advance the pursuit of excellence in primary education in the area. As part of an effort to take that leadership role Randolph has established the Randolph School Community Learning Fund with the Community Foundation of Huntsville/Madison County. It’s a great way to donate to the School and to focus those funds on an effort that benefits the whole city. Donate here.
Land Trust of Huntsville & North Alabama – Driving east from the airport into Huntsville you see the city nestled against the rolling green hills of the lower Cumberland plateau. Those hills overlooking the town are for the most part undeveloped, creating a nearly unbroken “emerald necklace” surrounding the city’s downtown. That land, plus more than 5,000 acres in three counties, was preserved by the Land Trust. It’s still today offering one of the best Urban Trail systems in the country because of the tireless advocacy of the Land Trust. Want to help? Sign up for the Land Baron’s program that deducts a small amount from your account each month earmarked solely for the purchase of open space.
The Nature Conservancy – The Conservancy is the Land Trust writ large. The Conservancy has a big presence in Alabama and I joined the State Board of Trustees last year. I can’t say enough about the professionalism and dedication of their staff. Wow. The lands in Paint Rock Valley all the way down the Cahaba and the Coosa down into the Delta where Alabama spreads out to meet the Gulf. The lands and micro-habitats preserved by the Conservancy maintain the very life that makes up our world, and is so additive to our own experience in ways that we don’t fully understand. Donate by becoming a member, it’s easy and cheap. If everyone I know did this, we could live in a measurably better State and you won’t miss a small auto-debit each month.

The Land Trust & The Nature Conservancy

The outdoors are very important to me. I grew up on a farm north of Huntsville that was about 650 acres mostly leased out to a local cotton farmer called Buddy Darwin. The parts that Buddy did not use for row crops was a strip of mountainside that was heavily wooded and filled with deer and squirrels and woodland animals. Thirteen miles north of town, I was pretty much alone to wander the place and discover the beauty of the simplest things in life.

As I got older, I was always interested in conservation and supported the Natural Resources Defense Fund, The World Wildlife Fund and the Sierra Club. I learned that those organizations are great but they are far removed from Huntsville. So, after meeting them during some appraisal work in the early 90’s, I joined the Board of Directors of the Land Trust of Huntsville and North Alabama and served as Chairman in 2000. They do amazing work and have preserved literally thousands of acres in and around Madison County.

Now, 14 years later, I am still interested in conservation and because of that interest I accepted a position on the Alabama board of the Nature Conservancy. We meet in amazing places around the state and talk about how to best preserve habitat and develop more interest in conservation. I have met a great group of people on the Board from all over the state who are deeply involved in preserving the best parts of our beautiful state. They are committed, connected to the national conservation movement and they are smart, really smart.

One of the best examples of how smart they are is a new partnership between the Land Trust and the Nature Conservancy. The Conservancy is responsible for preserving over 50,000 acres in North Alabama and still manages about 3,000 acres. The Land Trust manages about 4,000 and it was hard for the Land Trust to be able to afford a Full Time Land Manager by themselves. The Conservancy had a Manager at one time but also struggled to keep the position funded. With the new partnership in place, partially funded by a grant from the Jane K Lowe Foundation, the Land Manager is now fully funded and shared by the two organization. That’s a smart use of the scarce funds we have available for the mission. Very smart!

So, if you like the ring of pretty green hills surrounding Huntsville, or the Greenways that everyone loves for walking and biking, maybe you’d consider joining both organizations as a monthly sustaining member. If you’re loaded and want Alabama to stay beautiful, consider larger gifts or even land donations and estate plans but even if you are not, these organizations will do more with your money than almost anything else. Locally too, this money stays in Alabama.

Photo Credit: Photographer Steve Babin. Clingman’s Dome TN