Life-Coaching, Volume Two

With 2017 in full swing, now seems a good time for some more life-coaching.  In case you missed my life-coaching column from this past summer, it turns out that I am an uncertified life-coach and therefore qualified to give advice.  You are not required to take this advice, of course, but why wouldn’t you?  With this in mind, we begin today’s life-coaching clinic with a question about Spider-Man.

Question One:  I don’t get it. Spider Man was once portrayed by Toby Maguire, then by a guy from England, I think, and now by this kid who looks like a 4^th grader I used to baby sit.  What is going on?  How old is Peter Parker supposed to be, anyway?

Response:  Well, for starters, you’re actually asking a set of questions, neither of which probably qualifies as a legitimate life-coaching concern, but I’m a fan, so I’ll bite. To help clarify, it’s best to digest super hero movies for what they actually are:  intellectually satisfying modern day mythology.  As you have mentioned, Spider-Man has had three different big screen treatments within the last fifteen years, and each of them portrays the iconic web-slinger in its own way, focusing on certain elements of the hero’s narrative.  Some of the stories overlap and some of them are seemingly contradictory, but they all agree on some Spider Man basics: spider-bite, super strength, red and blue suit.

Spider Man begins his crime-fighting career as an ambiguously-aged high school student, which means he can look anywhere from thirty-three to twelve.  Like an ancient Greek myth about an Olympian, however, each version will focus on features of the character that the story-teller deems most important.  The “new” Spider-Man, for example, exists in a version of the Marvel Universe where he is a solid quarter-century younger than a more seasoned Iron Man.  On the surface this might seem kind of confusing, but since we’re talking about a guy who crawls on walls let’s not get too excited. 

Which brings us to our next caller.

Question Two:  Help!  My country accidently elected a junior high kid as its President.  We thought maybe he would mature by the time he was inaugurated but that doesn’t seem to be the case.  Recently he got into a Twitter-war with a former bodybuilder.  Totally not joking!  Any advice?

Response:  Calm down.  If your country is like most places that elect presidents, you should be relieved to know that his power is actually limited.  More than likely your nation has some built in checks & balances designed to curb executive over reach.  These constitutional traditions, combined with an inquisitive, objective, and well-respected press, should hopefully minimize the damage of any adolescent rant.  Good luck, though, and keep us posted!

Question Three:  I’m starting to lose steam on my New Year’s Resolutions.  Can I count lemonade as a serving of fruit?

            Response:  No.

Question Four:  No one seems to like my Facebook posts that ooze with political wisdom.  I don’t get it. Are we, as a nation, suffering from civics-fatigue?

Response:  Well, “civics-fatigue” is not a real thing, but one thing to keep in mind when it comes to posting anything on social media is that you are not legally required to share every idea that comes into your brain.  If you are like most people, in fact, the vast majority of what goes on in your head should stay deeply hidden.

Unfortunately, you are not alone.  Many people have chosen to soak their social media feeds with one crass and misspelled meme after another, and so I have developed a three-step plan to help folks like you get a grip on their addiction.

            Step One:  Disengage:  Turn off your computer; drop you smartphone, walk away from the tablet.  Do not get on the Internet for at least 24 hours.  This is a frightening proposition for many folks.  You will say things, like “but that’s how people contact me,” or, “I need this information for my job.”  Both of these excuses are sketchy.  Are you an actual news reporter? Do you work at NORAD?  No?  Then you don’t need to know what’s going on in the world at the exact moment it happens.

            Step Two:  Observe:  When you do return to the World Wide Web, do so without actually adding to the dialogue.  Go to Facebook, to Twitter, and just read.  Don’t post anything.  Do this for 48 hours. If you mess up and share a cat video, you have to start over at Step One.

            Step 3A - Think:  When you have gone three entire days without adding anything to the “discussion,” you will have learned this one crucial truth:  very few people actually care what you think.  Notice how you didn’t post anything for three days?  What happened?  Nothing.  The world kept on not-functioning very well all by itself.  Pretty cool, huh?  You thought the Internet would miss those “news” stories you like to share, the ones about Indian ghosts haunting pipeline construction sites.  It didn’t, though, because ghosts are fake. 

            Step 3B – Think Again:  Now that you have ended your post-fast, you may post something, but here’s the catch.  It must be original and it must be decent.  No profanity, no vulgarity, no generalizations.  You cannot end a discussion with “…typical liberal hypocrisy,” or “…what do we expect from a racist Republican, anyway?”

Just because a liberal was a hypocrite does not make all liberals, by default, hypocrites.  Alliteration aside, not all Republicans are racists, either. Remember, a person’s political schema is a complicated conglomerate of socioeconomics, personal history, geography and even genetics.  If your goal when posting is to trash someone else’s ideas as opposed to celebrating your own, then maybe your ideas aren’t worth celebrating in the first place.

That’s all the time we have for this edition of life-coaching, folks, but thank you for reading, and, remember, “the life coached well today becomes the legacy created eventually.”

Study

Someday, years from now, I will have a study.  It will be a tight little room with symmetry and angles, and an old writing desk with a drawer full of pens.

Along one wall will simply be shelves and shelves of books.  This will be my own little library, with even my old books from college that I read, or skimmed, or didn’t even open, but knew I should keep just in case.

Another wall will be my official map wall.  On this wall I will put maps and pictures of places I’ve been.  This wall will have a large, fake rustic-looking map with dozens of push-pins pushed into the places I’ve visited.  I will have pictures of me at those places as additional proof, in case someone comes by and says, “Oh, I didn’t know you went to Seattle; when did you go?” and I will say, “Back in ’91, right before it became the center of the world.”

My study will be quiet.  It will be neat and tidy and punctual beyond question.  I will have a writing chair at my writing desk.  The chair will be soft, leather, and most likely brown.

I will also have a reading chair strictly for reading.  This chair will be nestled next to the room’s only window and will soak in the perfect amount of sunlight.  I will have a reading stand next to my reading chair where will sit the most recent National Geographic and whatever book I’m into at the time.  Needless to say, my study will come equipped with the long stretches of peace and quiet necessary to read an entire National Geographic magazine in one afternoon.  That way I won’t fall behind.

My study will probably have a closet, and inside the closet will be file cabinets filled with all my old journals, all the way back to the fall of 1988, 7^th grade. All my old writing, nearly every word I’ve ever written, will fill these drawers, along with pictures, and all of this intellectual property will be meticulously organized, so if someone comes over and asks, “Hey, do you remember what we did in August of 1996?”

I will say, “Let’s me check.”  And I will, within a few minutes, take out my journal from the summer of 1996 and turn to August and nod and smile.

“Yeah, we went canoeing in Missouri that summer.  Don’t you remember?  I got distracted and lost my boat.”

My friend will also smile and we will look at old pictures of us when we felt like a team of misplaced superheroes, and all of these photographs will also be chronicled in space and time.

Yes, someday, many, many years from now, I will have a study.  It will be clean and quiet, and a good place to sit.

I’ll probably have a coffee maker in the closet, so I will often just make myself a cup of coffee and sit and look out the window.  I will think about what needs written now and what will need to be written later.

After a cup of coffee and some reflecting, I will probably get a little bored and walk to the kitchen, also neat and orderly, and I will do some dishes.

There won’t be too many dishes, though, so it’s a quick chore, but the dishes will take me just long enough to look out the big picture window facing the back yard.  I’ll study the yard and I will glance at the old swing set, faded from the years.  I will then study the swing set awhile.

The day will be bright and breezy, and the red plastic horse will sway in the wind.  The way it moves will remind me of other bright days, when I lived in a very messy house, full of too much noise and not enough time to read an entire National Geographic in seven afternoons.

I will dry the dishes, go back to my study and think.  I will look at some pictures and remember the days before I had a study.