Back to the Beginning

My friend Clay encouraged me to re-read my very first post earlier this week. It was short (see below, that’s all there was to it) I think I had it on Typepad at that point. The old stuff is still hanging out there.

My life is a work in progress. This blog is place for me to track the various and disparate things that interest me. As a full time scientific researcher, it seems like my projects are never finished; they just move through different stages with new goals arising from ongoing discoveries. Other ongoing projects at this time include: (a) transforming my body through the “Body For Life” program (16 weeks and counting) (b) earning my MBA with a focus in entrepreneurship (c) becoming a better teacher to Undergraduates and (d) learning to temper my honesty with compassion ( <– this work has been on the list a very long time). In part, I have created this blog as a place to keep all of the various things on the internet that interest me. If you have happened to stumble across my blog, welcome & enjoy.

Christmas, 2004

Wow. So fifteen years later, some things are incredibly different, and others are still very much the same. I closed my research lab a decade ago. I still (mostly) think like a scientist, and the Coronavirus Pandemic (aka Covid-19) has me digging back into some primary research. These days I’m equally interested in the unfolding medical mystery, and the social and economic impacts that will linger in the coming months/years.

I stopped teaching (not my best skill) beyond training new employees (again, not my best skill but I try really hard!). I’d like to think that I suck a lot less than I used to.

I am still closing my personal gap between compassion and honesty. Most of the time I land with Jewel – where “in the end only kindness matters” – or at least it’s now my first impulse to strive towards. It would still be so much easier to start with my version of the unadulterated truth.

I still work on my fitness pretty much every day. I might have picked up a few certifications, and even coached a few people on their own fitness journeys. And, yet, I still feel like a beginner. I feel blessed that I built out a home gym over the last few years, so while my fitness center and favorite hot yoga studio are closed for the Coronavirus pandemic, I really do have everything I need. And perhaps more importantly, I have years of consistency just raising my heart rate and/or lifting something heavy every single day.

While working from home for the last 2 months, I have been learning to bike. I mean I learned as kid, but now I’m learning to really bike, up hills and such, for miles and miles during this “stay at home” time. I am still terrified of going down hill at speed. I literally cannot go slow enough on the downs to the amusement and frustration of the people who bike with me. But I am getting much better at the ups! Baby steps. Advice for this is welcome.

I never know what I will see – deer, elk, mountain lions, hummingbirds, or other bikers (sometimes with rocks or weights in a training bag on their bikes!) just zooming by on steep hills going up! I wish I was faster at grabbing a photo to share, but the vistas have been amazing.

So let me end as I started, with my friend Clay. He had a post today “Setting myself on Fire.” Will he rise as the Phoenix or simply burnt toast? (his words, not mine)

I have been striving to not write about the Coronavirus pandemic and what lingering changes it might bring. But it’s going to change things. And Clay has asked an important question – who do you want to be when the ashes settle? And I’ll add, how are you using this time to figure that out?

As I think about myself, a phrase I learned in high school French class popped in my head “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” Mostly my life is fantastic. I think the only thing I’m paying close attention to is how I’m spending my time and with whom. Time is our single most finite resource. And, as I have less of it remaining each day (and this pandemic is a reminder that life can be very fragile), I am becoming much more frugal with how or with whom I’m willing to spend that time.