When I was 11 years old, I told my grandmother that I wished I was 12 so I could have a paper route. (That meant having the job of delivering newspapers to peoples’ homes. Oh, and newspapers were printed publications that had news articles, comics, ads, and other stuff to read.) She smiled and told me not to wish my life away, because it was going to pass quickly all by itself. That was the first time I remember hearing the message from an elder that life will go fast, so be sure to appreciate the days and years, and don’t wish them away.

I also remember as a 17-year old getting ready to go to college, my mother telling me to enjoy the next four years because they were going to go fast. I recall thinking, What are you talking about?! Four years?! Because four years seemed far beyond any time horizon I’d ever considered before.

Now I look in the mirror and see that I’m an elder (gulp!). And looking back, I realize that I didn’t appreciate those nuggets of wisdom at the time. Of course, why would I? Those were old people talking.

When we’re kids, and even young adults, the days ahead seem limitless, like a vast expanse on an endless horizon, and regardless of what we’re told by our parents and grandparents, which is to make the most of every moment, because the days will fly by, it still comes as somewhat of a dark surprise when we get older, like some cruel trick, not only that the days did in fact go fast, but also that there seem to be years and ages that are somehow difficult to remember or account for. So, consider yourself fairly warned, and try to take the advice seriously.

Also, best to think of yourself as a tenant in life, not as an owner, and remember that everything you are, have, or will be, is borrowed, including your mind and your body, so take good care of them, and don’t get too wrapped up in yourself, your possessions or your accomplishments.

Be a good steward, and remember that you, and you alone, are responsible for your journey in life. Your happiness is yours to seek, your success yours to achieve, and your peace yours to find. No doubt you’ll have people who love you, root for you and support you along the way, but don’t become dependent on them, because in the end no one owes you anything and your life is a gift that belongs only to you.

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To leave a legacy is a heavy topic, which is probably why most people don’t think about it until they advance in age, if they consider their legacy at all. More likely for some people is to skate through life doing whatever they do until they don’t do it anymore, after which their legacy chips fall where they may.

But what does it mean to leave a legacy? In our culture, a legacy is often considered in financial terms, some amount of money or property, a bequest. That’s fine, but isn’t it more than that, and more than a chronology of events, of where we came from, where we traveled or what we did to earn a living?

To me, to leave a legacy is to leave a mark, a lasting impression, some evidence that I was here and that I made a positive difference in the world, that I influenced another person’s thinking or behavior in a positive way, and helped to shape a meaningful life for someone else.

What about you? What will your legacy be?

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I have an idea, and it’s a good one. It’s going to need some real energy behind it, so talk it up with everyone you know, post about it on Instagram, make some YouTube videos, get it on TikTok. This one needs to be big. This is one of those great ideas that you’re going to say, “Shoot, that was so obvious! Why didn’t I think of it?!”

Are you ready for it? Okay, here it is….

The Mental Junk Food Diet

I’m okay with trying different names. I played with others. Here are a few:

‘The 30-Day Brain Cleanse’

‘The Return to Sanity Pledge’

‘The No Click No Scroll Zone’

We pay so much attention to what we put in our mouths, so why is it that we pay almost no attention to what we feed our minds? You don’t even need to search for information on what you should be eating, because like it or not, you’re going to be inundated daily with articles about new studies, or reinterpretations of old studies, and lists upon lists. Coffee’s good for you, but no more than 2 cups a day, and no later than 1 p.m. And no heavy cream or whipped cream, or sugar. Of course, tea is better, especially green, but black is okay too. Hot or cold is fine, though rats live longer on hot. Dessert is okay, in small portions, but no low fat or no fat, because those are more processed, and processing is bad. Olive oil is definitely good, but watch out for seed oils. They’re bad. Oh, and butter. That’s bad. No wait, it’s good now. Or was it good and now it’s bad? Hmmm. Better check the new food pyramid.

Meanwhile, in the realm of what we feed our minds, it’s just click, click, click, scroll, scroll, scroll.

The average American adult spends over 7 hours per day looking at a screen.

Okay, some screen time is valuable. Maybe looking up a new recipe, Face Timing with a loved one, researching a medical condition or planning a vacation. But what’s that add up to on a daily basis? An hour? Two? No more, and that’s being generous. I know, it’s just me talking here, but I’m sure we can agree that there’s plenty of clicking on mental junk food happening, on headlines like these:

‘Spotted at a restaurant, this Hollywood legend is unrecognizable!’

‘Love Boat Star Claims He was Snubbed by Famous Guest 40 Years Ago’

‘Prince Harry, on the Verge of Tears, says U.K. Tabloids are Making Megan Markle’s ‘an Absolute Misery’

‘Jennifer Lawrence Reveals the One Thing She Wanted to Do While Pregnant, Until Her OBGYN Vetoed the Idea’

‘Four Netflix Movies You’re Going to Love this Week’

No doubt it’s happened to all of us, because every headline is written to be click-worthy. And you know the drill. Click at your own peril, because ‘if you liked this article, you’ll want to see this one too’ and before you know it, we find ourselves glazed over down some rabbit hole watching outtakes from our favorite childhood sitcom on YouTube. Or worse, much worse, we’re whipped into a lather after binging on political content, ready to cancel dinner plans with family or friends who we think may disagree.

So, what do you say? Isn’t it time for a Mental Junk Food Diet?

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Help! Contact everyone you know! We need to post these flyers! I’ve searched everywhere, looked high and low, and I can’t find ‘Real Conversation’. Here’s a description:

I write this moments after finishing a wonderful phone conversation with a great friend. What made it so you may ask? Well, let’s see. He asked me questions about what’s going on in my life, multiple questions and follow up questions, because he was genuinely interested in the answers and wanted to learn more. He listened, and didn’t interrupt me with his own stories or to share his opinions. And I did the same. Along the way, we laughed, commiserated about the state of the world, sprinkled in a little bit about current events, and said good-bye. It was great, and wasn’t very difficult. So simple, and yet such a gift.

So why is it that meaningful conversations seem more and more uncommon?

At the risk of sounding cynical, please tune in to our culture and see if you agree with me. If not, please set me straight. But from my view, it seems that the type of conversation I described above has become increasingly rare because we live in a ‘me, me, me’ world, where unchecked time spent on smart phones, marinating in ‘echo chamber’ social media has resulted in too many people who claim to know the definitive details of current events in real time, the full scope of all fields of science, and the history of pretty much everything.

The result of all this is that the give and take of real conversation has been replaced by people talking at each other.

Ours is a very noisy culture, and growing louder at an exponential rate. It’s long on one-sided ‘conversations’ (read ‘lecturing’) and short on listening with the intent to understand, empathizing, and dare I say, admitting that there may be things we don’t know.

Whoa!! Am I being a bit negative here?! Maybe so. I’ve been wrong before. Please leave a comment below if you see things differently. I’d love to hear from you either way, and if you agree, even somewhat so, let’s resolve together to play whatever part we can to restore ‘Real Conversation’.

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I’ve been blessed in my life to have had a number of mentors and role models. One of the most significant was from my days at American Express Financial Corporation. His name was Doug Lennick. One of the many things I learned from Doug was the concept that everyone is a leader, which he based on two observations about people.

One is that everyone’s actions are observable by others, and the second is that what we observe in others sometimes influences our own behavior.

That’s simple enough, and when you think about it you’re likely to come up with many examples in your own life. Personally, I can think of countless examples, and it happens often. Here are two:

When I work out at our local fitness center it’s impossible not to observe other people, not like a stalker, but simply by being there. Sometimes I see someone doing an exercise I’ve never done before and it inspires me to learn how to do it myself. I love it.

Another example is observing people in retirement (which happens regularly now that my wife and I are in that age group!). Some people lead very active lives, exercising regularly, challenging themselves mentally, investing in relationships, staying active socially. The activities themselves may vary, but these people are great role models. Conversely, it’s not uncommon to see others who develop bad eating or drinking habits, become lethargic, spend hours in front of the TV or on the internet, and grow more negative in their outlook, all of which leads toward a downward spiral.

Tune into life and you’ll find a myriad number of examples. Some you’ll choose to emulate, and others you’ll steer clear of. The wonder of it all is that the world around us is a continual opportunity to learn. The key is be aware of it. As you do, ask yourself:

1. Who am I choosing to emulate?

2. Who do I hang around with?

Whether consciously or unconsciously, we’re all influenced by those around us, so it’s fair to say that if ‘birds of a feather flock together’, who’s your flock?

I was also blessed to have some elders in my life who were great role models. Two who come to mind immediately were an aunt and uncle, both of whom passed away in the past year. This was my mother’s brother and his wife, and together they put on a master class on how to live in our later years. They took care of themselves physically, continuing to exercise on a schedule even after turning 90. They enjoyed being engaged in conversation. They were always interested and curious. And one of my favorite characteristics, they loved to laugh. They’re greatly missed, but will also stay with me in my heart, and as great role models as I grow older.

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Of all the people in your life,
family, living or passed,
friends, close or casual,
some other acquaintance maybe,
or people you worked with in the past, or work with now,
Anyone.

Who have you admired the most, and why?
What did they do or say?
How did they behave?
What did they accomplish or know?
What success did they achieve?
Or was it something else?

Were you ever able to tell them?
Can you still?

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When I was a young boy, not yet 10 years old, without a care in the world, one of my favorite things to do was to play outside with my friends. Unless the weather was terrible, we were outside from morning till our parents called us in for dinner, then out again until the street lights came on. We all had Baby Boomer names. Jimmy Frost lived next door. Mark Lilly on the other side of him, Caroline Garibaldi lived next door on the other side, and Bobby and Johnny Wiesner lived down the street. And there were other kids nearby, on adjacent streets, always ready to play. In a pre-technology world, our way of calling each other out to play was to stand on our friend’s porch and call out their name. (Why didn’t we use the door bell?) So, there we stood, in front of the closed door, calling “Jiiiiimmmmyyyy. Jiiiimmmmyyyy.” Twice would usually get the job done, after which the door would open, and Jimmy would come out to play, or his Mother would explain why he couldn’t. When we reached a critical mass of three or four of us, we’d convene on the cul-de-sac in front of our houses, and before long others would join us.

Our favorite game was Hide & Seek. We’d gather in a circle, all on one knee with our opposite foot in front of us in the middle. Then one of us would count off, toe by toe, with each count being one of the following words:

Eeeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a tiger by the toe.

If he hollers, let him go. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

And thus was the means of determining who was ‘It’, the Seeker, the one of us whose toe was counted on the final ‘moe’. Whoever it was would close their eyes and count to 10… one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three…. while the rest of scattered to hiding spots that we could find before the counting ceased… one thousand eight, one thousand nine, one thousand ten! Ready or not, here I come!

That’s when the tension was the highest. If you were the Seeker you had to find someone in their hiding spot, and of course if you were hiding, you didn’t want to be found. Either way, the objective was to win the race ‘Home’, back to where our toes were counted. If you were hiding, and the Seeker strayed off to search in the opposite direction, you had to calculate whether you could run Home before the Seeker could spot you and beat you back. Or if the Seeker found you in your hiding spot, he had to tag you, then the race was on to see who could get back Home first. If the Seeker won the foot race, then you became the next Seeker, but before the next round started, the call would go out, ‘Ally, ally, in come free!’, which meant the coast was clear for anyone who was yet to be found to return Home.

What fun! The tension. The suspense. The adrenaline. The laughter. And though the game itself was best, I also remember well the ‘post game analysis’, the back and forth banter:

Where were you hiding? I can’t believe you walked right past me! New rule! You can’t crowd into someone else’s hiding spot! And on it went.

Most of my adult life, going back to I don’t know when, a recurring image pops into my head. It’s not a nighttime dream, and it’s not a day dream. It’s every once in a while, maybe a few times a year. It’s this: I’m sitting around with a group of friends. We’re all young adults. It’s very casual and comfortable, and safe. We’ve come back together after having lived our lives for years, and we’re sharing what’s happened, where we’ve lived and worked, places we’ve been, who we’ve been with, things we’ve learned, joys and disappointments, frustrations and satisfactions. And it’s always one of two groups I’m with, from two of the most formative times in my life. One is a group of friends from college, and we’re sitting around a dorm room, and the other is a group of colleagues I worked with in my late 20s, and we’re sitting around an office after hours. In either case, after we’re done sharing, we get up and go live our lives all over again, until someone cries ‘Ally, ally, in come free!’, the call for safe return and ‘post life analysis’. Then, repeat. The only thing missing is the ‘Eeeny, meeny, miny, moe’ part. So, it’s not a reunion, because that involves only the ‘catching up’ part. No, it’s more like Hide & Seek, complete with the exhilaration, the tension, the suspense, the adrenaline, and the laughter to do it all over again. Ah, to be a kid again!

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Are you busy being born, or are you busy dying?* There’s not really an in between.

• You exercise your muscles, or they atrophy.

• You learn new things and improve your mind, or open the door to ignorance.

• You seek new experiences, or invite complacency.

• You stay physically active, or become lethargic.

• You cultivate important relationships, or entertain loneliness.

• You use your time wisely, with intention, or let it pass by aimlessly.

The good news is that you get to choose.

No birthday got my attention like my 65th. Not 40 or 50, and not even 60. But 65? Yikes! It was like God himself reached down from the Heavens, grabbed me by the shoulders, shook me, and said, “Hey pal, time to tune into the fact that you’re getting older, a ‘senior citizen’ no less, and this train won’t be slowing down.” Gulp. Okay, so warned.

So I can’t slow the train down, but I can choose not to coast along passively as a passenger as it speeds down the track.

How about you? Are you busy being born, or are you busy dying?

* Let’s give credit where it’s due. ‘That he not busy being born is busy dying’ is a line in Bob Dylan’s song, “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”.

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I’m glad you’re here, and if I may be so bold, I think you will be too.

My decision to launch PASSING THE BATON is one that I put off for far too long, in fact, for years. I didn’t put it off because I was unsure of whether it was the right decision. No, my snail’s pace was because — get this — the time never felt quite right and I never made it a priority. (Can you relate to that?) But finally — finally, I reached a point at which I said to myself ‘Get out of your own way!’

I’ve launched PASSING THE BATON because I have things I want to share, and I think you’ll relate to them. My desire is that this site will bring relief from what feels like a chaotic, superficial world, and you’ll discover a sense of belonging and community, knowing that there are others like you, who want to focus on topics and ideas that are more meaningful and long lasting. Ideally, my posts will be stimulating enough to share with others and lead to meaningful conversation with family and friends.

My Motivation for PASSING THE BATON

My inspirations for writing PASSING THE BATON are two-fold. One is my desire to produce a collection of writings for my children and future generations. The other is to seek relief from the constant noise and discord that reflect our culture. At first blush those motivations may seem unrelated, but for me they share a common theme, that being that I want to write messages that in some way stand the test of time and convey something meaningful.

The Layout of PASSING THE BATON: What to Expect

This site is laid out in three sections:

WHAT MATTERS MOST

This section is comprised of posts that I write with my children and future generations in mind. They reflect how I think, and what I value and believe. They’re my mental maps, products of my upbringing, influences from my parents, my wife, mentors and close friends, as well as reflections of lessons learned from defining moments and choices made over 50 years of adulthood.

QUESTIONS FOR CONVERSATION

In this section are questions written in a Socratic style, to stimulate thinking and perhaps lead to new self-discovery, and also to generate some great conversations with family and friends.

ONE MORE THING

These are posts written on topics that I think about and observe in life. They don’t fit neatly into the first two sections, but are common to all of us.

The Common Denominator

You may be like me, exhausted by the state of our public discourse.

And to say ‘public discourse’ is to be kind. Those words belie the feeling that communication in our culture seems to have gone off the rails, often sounding like fingernails on a chalkboard, with too much posturing, not enough seeking to understand, and a trigger finger quickness to shut others out entirely.

For these reasons, I’m thrilled to have finally decided to launch PASSING THE BATON, and I hope you’ll join me on this journey by subscribing..

When You Subscribe

There are two subscription levels, the second building on the first:

FREE SUBSCRIBERS

• Receive regular posts, comment, and join a community of kindred spirits

PAID SUBSCRIBERS

• Support the site and engage with others in periodic chats on meaningful topics

• Access to archive and any future paywalled content

Who am I?

I’m a Baby Boomer, born and raised in Michigan, and happily married to a wonderful wife, mother and prolific metal and glass sculptor. Together we’re blessed to have three great children, two sons who live in Phoenix, one married and the other soon to be, and a daughter who lives in Wilmington, N.C. I enjoyed a 20+ year career advancing up the corporate ladder with American Express Financial Corporation, from which I was blessed to be financially secure enough to leave in my early 40s to pursue other interests and be more involved with my family and community. In the ensuing years, I’ve been an active investor, developed and owned several small commercial real estate projects, owned an art gallery, been a partner in a restaurant, owned a real estate brokerage, and am a past president of both my local school board and Rotary Club.

Through it all, I’ve had an inner voice that’s whispered, cajoled, nudged, and sometimes even nagged at me to share what I’ve gleaned throughout the journey to this point in my life, past my prime, yet still feeling vibrant, and wanting to remain relevant to those who love me. But ‘Is what I have to share worth writing?’, I’ve repeatedly asked of my inner voice. And the response that comes back every time is, ‘Enough already. Just write.’

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