A few weeks ago, I asked in a Facebook post for people to suggest ‘The Saddest Song Ever Written.’ It had been an ongoing debate between my friend and I – me a staunch supporter of ‘He Stopped Loving Her Today’ and him just as committed to ‘Seven Spanish Angels.’ Both sad enough to make a grown man cry.

After I had that post up for a while and people kept adding their favorite tearjerkers, the post came up in a conversation between my daughter and I. Well, really not a conversation. I mentioned it and she said, ‘Yeah, why?’ As in, why would you want to listen to songs that made you cry?

I didn’t really have an answer to that. But, of course, now I’ve thought about it.

A different friend had a Facebook post a couple months back asking people to join him in writing a list of 20 Things I Believe to Be True. On my list, number one was the following: When you armor yourself against negative emotions, you unintentionally armor yourself against all emotions.

I stole the heart of that notion from Brene Brown. Simply, you can’t choose which emotions you are going to feel and which ones you aren’t. If you steel yourself against feeling sad, you are also blocking happiness.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who needs to practice crying. I’m such a naturally emotional person that I have worked hard to guard myself against the emotions that bring tears and that has possibly been to the detriment of a lot of emotions that would have been uplifting.

So, yes, sometimes you need to cry. Sometimes you need to be vulnerable. Sometimes you just need to let go.

If you aren’t good at it, find a hardcore emotional song like the one’s mentioned above and really listen to the lyrics and understand the story. Works every time! I helped you out by creating a playlist from suggestions made by my Facebook connections. One thing that I didn’t take into account was that some songs have particular emotional attachment based on people’s life circumstances. I’ve included those songs without comment. I do believe though that some songs are sad no matter what <hard stop>

Thanks to all that contributed. If you have one to add, please comment.

Enjoy some tears! Unarmor yourself and embrace all the emotions!

You can do a quick search for ‘Finding Your Why’ and come up with over 6 billion hits! It’s one of the more recent business motivational tools. It comes from Simon Sinek (he gets less that 7 million hits) and his book ‘Start With Why‘ and his TED Talk. Apparently many others have jumped on this bandwagon to get it up to that many hits (that’s pretty scientific, right?). ‘Your Why’ is about the thing that motivates you to do what you do. According to Sinek it is ‘the purpose, cause or belief that drives every one of us.’

I like Sinek and I’ve listened to his podcast and read a couple of his books. He’s a great thinker. I enjoy people who challenge my thinking. At the same time, though, I am also listening to Mark Manson and ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.’ Believe it or not these two came together in my mind during my run today. While Manson’s book has a subtitle that expresses his belief as counterintuitive, on a deeper level it is the same as Sinek’s ‘Why.’ Manson isn’t saying to not give a fuck about anything; he’s saying only give a fuck about the things that you feel are important. Quit caring about what everyone else thinks you should care about and focus on your ‘Give a Fucks,’ your ‘Whys.’

So, what’s that have to do with trail running and me? I’ve been a little (okay, a lot!) unmotivated since the beginning of the year. I had goals of running more trail races and upping my miles. I have a long list of excuses: I was diagnosed with Lyme’s Disease in November, I had COVID for the second time, the weather has sucked, etc. Just excuses. Then today, one of my Facebook memories was a post I made that ended with the tag line ‘More Bad Ass, Less Candy Ass.’ I was definitely being a candy ass! I forced myself out for a run.

The run in itself was god awful! I was slow, I walked too much, I tried to give up. I think a lot of people know that mental routine. But I trudged on! I started thinking about why I started to trail run – roads were too hard on my old legs, liked to hike but I needed more exercise – and why I loved it – I love flying down the hills, I love the scenery, I love the challenge, I love the looks I get when running past a hiker, it’s me against myself. That’s what I had forgotten about trail running. Why was I doing it? My why had morphed into being better than other people and trying to meet a standard that others had set. Dammit! That’s not my ‘Why’ and I shouldn’t be ‘Giving A Fuck’! To Have Fun In Nature and Stay Fit!

In addition to all the crap excuses I listed earlier, the real lack of motivation came from losing my focus and letting someone else’s standard become my standard. I just want to run. I just want to enjoy the outdoors, I just want to stay fit so I can enjoy my retirement, I just want to hear people say, ‘Did the crazy fucker just run up that mountain?”

As Mark Manson would say, ‘Two roads diverged in a wood and I didn’t give a fuck and that has made all the difference!’

As I age, I realize how important it is to stay positive and find joy in little things.

This. This is hard!

When I first realized that I needed to be tested on Saturday, I was in denial. Maybe it was a sinus infection. I’d be back to normal in a couple days. The good Doctor nixed that idea on Monday. He was pretty confident I had been infected.

On Tuesday I received a positive COVID result. Still I was upbeat. This isn’t going to ruin my holiday! I will find a way to stay upbeat and positive!

Then it sets in that I have a wife and daughter to worry about. My wife is facing a 20-24 day quarantine in order to stay in the house with me. My younger daughter, who is immuno compromised, shouldn’t take a chance of being in the same house although she would be a ‘close contact’ based on DoH guidelines. She has moved into the camper!

This is what my Christmas will probably look like. My wife and I eating our traditional Christmas Eve dinner alone. We’ll take the younger a plate. Maybe we can Zoom together!

Tomorrow we may start a fire in our new fire pit so we can all stand outside and open presents together. Who could have imagined! But then, back to our separate hideaways to await testing results on the wife and the younger.

Worst is we won’t see our Pittsburgh area families. In November we conscientiously decided not to travel there for Thanksgiving so we haven’t seen them since summer. We thought it was the right choice then but it hurts more now.

I’m not writing this for anyone to feel sorry for me. I actually was hoping it would be cathartic (it’s not!). People have it way worse than us. For some, what I have described would be a blessing. Luckily I am not very ill. I still have family. I have a quarantine camper!

My real reason for writing this is to try to convey the number of emotions that this event has brought about:

Sadness: Immediately when I got my diagnosis I couldn’t hold back tears. I’m not sure what that emotion was. I cried as I texted my family and I cried when I emailed my staff. I wasn’t thinking about myself but how this would impact everyone else.

Anger: I just wanted to say ‘F’ everyone who isn’t taking precautions! I know I’m not perfect but I feel I’ve made responsible decisions to protect me and my family.

Fear: A few hours into this I remembered that people, in fact, die from this disease!

Worry: Mostly for the younger but also for my wife and anyone else I may have spread the virus to. My symptoms have been mild for whatever reason. That doesn’t mean that everyone else’s symptoms will be.

I’m not even sure how to wrap this post up! I feel like I just threw up everything that was on my mind onto the computer.

I guess what I will say is this: Keep in mind that this Christmas is going to suck for a lot of families. When you post bullshit about how restrictions are curbing your holidays, remember that some families are experiencing a real impact! Some families have lost members to this disease! Some families will Zoom or see their loved one through a window as they have for months! That is hardship! Not the fact that you can’t sit at a bar!

Thanksgiving has never been one of my favorite holidays. For many people it’s all about the food and I’m not a fan of most of the food (except rolls! Why don’t we eat more rolls?!?!). I used to be a big pumpkin pie eater but, like a lot of things that you ate too much of as a kid, I tired of it after awhile. 

Anyway, the one thing that I did enjoy was visiting. Having an extended break to be with my family and my wife’s family as well as seeing hometown friends that I don’t see often. I will miss that this year.

This year my wife and I made the difficult but well informed decision to stay at home for Thanksgiving. Just she and I and our younger daughter. To say it’s not difficult would be untrue. 

We can bloviate for hours about how terrible 2020 is and how some government officials have taken away our freedom or we can just be thankful for what we have. My grandparents lived through the Great Depression and two World Wars. I don’t believe that what we are currently acquainted with even comes close to those experiences. At least not for me. As a society we have gone soft if we think that our current situation even holds a candle to what previous generations have lived through.

The daughter that lives with me will undoubtedly point out that I am speaking from a perspective of privilege and I realize that. But, also, the people that I see on social media ranting about injustice have at least a similar frame of perspective. No, everyone in this country doesn’t have as much to be thankful for as I do. Yes, it’s tough for millions of people right now. It’s not tough for them because they have to wear a mask or they can’t get stupid drunk on Thanksgiving Eve. It’s not tough for them because there’s a run on toilet paper or because they can’t have twelve people around their Thanksgiving table. If you think you’re getting screwed, change your perspective.

From what I see and read, people of privilege seem to be the least thankful. Imagine that you were thankful because you got to sleep in a bed last night. Imagine that you are thankful that your neighbor dropped off a plate of food for you to eat alone at your table. Imagine that you are thankful that you picked up an extra shift so you could now pay the rent this month.

This year I had to make a conscious decision to be happy. It’s not always easy but I know there is something everyday to be happy for; to be thankful for. In our family we have had the unofficial motto ‘Bring the Joy’ for several years and a couple of years ago we added ‘This is the day that the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice.’

We will do both. We can all do both!

“If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.”

During my second year as a building principal, one of our teachers committed suicide. A tough thing for any new administrator and school to understand. Following his death, I believed that there are things that we will never understand completely from another’s perspective.

I had this conversation with several teachers: It is very sad; I don’t believe anything that you did caused this; I don’t know if we could have prevented it; we will never know how his mind was working because we are not him.

That last part — ‘we are not him’ — has stuck with me and has rung true in other situations.

I live in southcentral Pennsylvania. It is the crossroads of many NFL teams because of its location. Eagles fans from the east, Steelers fans from the west, Baltimore Ravens fans because of the NFL’s crazy geographic programing that makes this their ‘home’ area for AFC games, and, due to their many years holding training camp in Carlisle, PA, the Washington Redskins.

Sharing the general location with Redskins fans means that every year or so a discussion will materialize about whether the name — Redskins — is offensive to Native Americans. My response to the question has usually been the same, ‘I don’t know. I’m not a Native American. If a Native American says it’s offensive, then it is offensive.’

I’ll leave that generality behind for a minute and come back to it.

Today in America, we are facing a crisis of racial injustice. While recently this has been highlighted by deaths at the hands of police officers, it is a crisis that has been festering since the first slaves landed in Jamestown in 1607.

Easily I could say that I don’t know what it means to be a person of color in America. That would be true in the sense that I have never walked in their shoes. But, that is also a cop out. We have the ability to better understand the tribulations of people who look different than us. Our resources today are practically boundless. We can watch movies, read books, books and more books, listen to podcasts on the subject. We can research how the history we have been taught has been ‘whitewashed.’ How historical figures that we held in esteem were slave traders or owners.

Today my excuse will not stand! I have no reason to not be able to, at least mentally, walk a mile in the shoes of my BIPOC neighbors. I have a responsibility. I know damn well what is offensive, dismissive, inequitable and, if I don’t, I have a responsibility to learn, to listen.

Yes, it is sad.

No, we didn’t cause it but we are certainly complicit in allowing it to continue.

No, we probably couldn’t have prevented it. We weren’t here when the fire started but we can extinguish it.

No, we are not him but that is no excuse for not developing an empathetic framework. Empathy is hard but it is teachable and it is learnable.

Tribes seem to be one of those 2018 things to be a part of. Everybody has a tribe. People are posting about ‘hanging with their tribe’ or ‘a shout out to my tribe.’ Your tribe is your people. The people with whom you have similar interests or goals. Your ‘go to’ group for support, jokes, questions, etc.

Recently I had a conversation with a friend that got me thinking about my tribe. Turns out, after reflection, that I’m part of several tribes. I equated my tribes to group texts. Those often hilarious and sometimes annoying transmissions between people with whom you have a connection. My wife, my daughters and I have had an ongoing group message since my older daughter went off to college. That’s my main tribe. Then I have a group text with all the wrestling guys that I hang out with. We share information that we hear or see about the goings on in the wrestling world. I’m in an ongoing group chat with my brother and the people we go to the beach with. It’s a flexible group depending on the next event. That’s pretty much my party tribe. The administrators that I work with have a group message. That one is rarely hilarious but it is definitely one of my tribes. I’m in an occasional group chat with my running buddies and one with my fellow beer enthusiasts.

The reason for this post though is to mention a new tribe that I never thought that I would be a part of. Let’s call it the thespian tribe. Fresh off my first ever theater performance I have become part of that group chat and feel pretty confident that I’ll be firmly entrenched in this tribe for some time to come. There’s a whole separate blog post coming about that experience.

My point is that I don’t know if this is normal but I am part of several tribes. The chances of those tribes ever crossing paths is slim but each one of those tribes is a part of who I am. It seems to me that many people believe that you can only have one tribe and those are your ‘people.’ Not true in my case. Individual tribes make up a nation so, in a way, my group messages make up my nation.

To paraphrase The Breakfast Club:

You see me as you want to see me – in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what I found is that I am a father, a husband, an administrator, a partier, a wrestling fan, a runner, a beer enthusiast and now a thespian.

Welcome to my nation!