Sixty One Years On

It's funny how birthdays don't really phase me anymore.  Sixty one seems relatively unremarkable.  In fact, the last few months feels like a lifetime.  Nevertheless, that lifetime also has come with the recognition that a lot of "little things" haven't seemed to matter, including my birthday.  But that's not really right.  My birthday should matter, as should the little things in life that have fallen by the wayside.  I went for an 8 mile run this morning.  Granted, my thoughts went back and forth to COVID and life/work related stuff.  Still, I was able to be in a groove and the time passed relatively quickly.  That's what running should be all about.

Playing Batman and Robin with my grandson yesterday was fun, as was holding my granddaughter the day before.  I have another night with her again tonight (if we go according to schedule).  I'm fortunate to have my wife and daughter with me e very day, although i haven't been with them since early March.  It's time that changed.  It's time for me to have a schedule for "work" and dedicated time for my family.  It's been time for years.  While COVID has brought out the worst of my workaholic tendencies, it's shone a light on my strengths and talents.  I've been writing about the need to balance all of those and there's no time like my sixty-first birthday to do so.

Sixty One Years On.  Where was I at 51 years? I was six weeks removed from completing my first Ironman.  I was in the opening phase of selling my business to a publicly traded company.  I was 5 months away from a major work/life change.  I didn't have a son-in-law yet, nor two grandchildren.  I'm sure I had stresses, though sometimes it doesn't feel like those stresses are comparable to some of the stresses that I've had since.  Remarkable that 10 years ago today, I'd completed one Ironman, and had my eye on a second, and I was about to delve into what, at the time, was a very stressful phase of my life.  Sixty One Years On. What is it with stress.  Do I run towards it?  Do I not try to avoid it?  What's with it?  I know that I care about other people, but does that caring have to hurt so much?  I know that I'm passionate about what I believe in, but does that passion have to crank up the volume?

Twenty years ago, June 19th, 2000, I was five months away from a major life change,  i was going to be quitting my job (I didn't know it at the time) and going into business for myself (with one partner).  My weeks were still spent commuting to Florida.  The spring just before my before was spent traveling to Israel with my family.  I wasn't doing marathons or triathlons, though I was running.  It would be a few years before I got back into triathlons.  Work was about to take on a different flavor, having my own business and the stresses that went along with that.

Thirty years ago, June 19th, 1990.  I hadn't run my first mile straight yet.  I'd been full-time at Kaiser for almost a year.  I was swimming at the Jewish Community Center.  My daughter was soon to be three and my wife was pregnant with our second daughter.

June 19, 1980, I'd just graduated from UC Irvine and was about to start graduate school.  My future was uncertain.  I hadn't gotten into medical school and was trying to figure out what was next.

Well, here I am back to being 61 years on.  I wonder what things will be like in ten more years?

Taming a Wild Stallion

I realized today that I'm a wild stallion.  At least I think that I'm a thoroughbred.  I'm not shy about speaking out.  I'm willing to stick my neck out.  That scares people.  At least it scares people who are a lot more timid than I am.  That's not a critique, in fact, most people are a lot more timid than I am.  So, I'm similar to a wild stallion.  If you try to put a lasso around me, I'll kick and scream.  I'll fight back.  I won't cooperate.  It's my nature, it's in my blood.  I'm an iconoclast.  I always have been.  I'm also a leader, not a follower.  Somehow, though, some people tend to avoid my leadership.  For lack of a better word, I think that they're turned off by it.  I wonder why?  I think I'm fairly lovable.  I'm certainly transparent.  You know what you're getting from me.  I'm open to criticism.  I share my emotions and feelings.  Hmmm.

I started thinking.  Michael Jordan was a leader on the basketball court.  To most accounts, he was pretty much an asshole to those around him.  Interestingly, there are many successful leaders who are assholes.  I guess people expect to be turned off by them, but somehow they just accept it.  I actually wonder if it's counterproductive to be a nice guy and a leader.  I don't know.  All I know is that I've been kicking doors down to get the voice of myself and my colleagues heard.  That still scares some of the people I work with.  They're still focused on a less confrontative approach to change.  Which maybe why there's been little change in the last thirty years.

A friend of mine shared a couple of Martin Luther King Jr. quotes with me today.  One of them was that "gradualism" isn't effective.  The other was "when you are right, you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong you cannot be too conservative."  I couldn't agree more.

I've been given lots of gifts in my life.  I've been given knowledge.  I find myself in the unique position of being able to share that knowledge and expertise in a way that can bring about change.  For those who want to tame me, I suggest that they talk to me and try to understand what I have to offer.  Trying to tone me down won't work.  First, I just won't have it.  Second, it's not productive.  I'll try to help them to understand this.

Making a Difference and Having Fun

This is a daily struggle, on many levels.  I've spent my life wanting to make a difference.  When I got a call from a congressman's press secretary yesterday and replied within 10 minutes, she was surprised.  I told her that I'd been waiting 30 years for such a request.  It's true.  The iron is hot, right now.  I don't know how long that will last, though I have a feeling that the issues that I've got particular expertise in will be bubbling to the surface for the next year.  It's kind of funny, but today has been emblematic of the challenge I have before me.  I've spoken to someone regarding some "fun" grant opportunities for telemedicine at the Los Angeles Jewish Home. I spoke to a reporter from a major newspaper about a soon to be published story and another possible story.  I also spoke to a couple of attorney's who are trying to figure out what type of lawsuits are coming their way due to COVID-19.  Finally, I'm preparing for my call this afternoon with our group of experts who have already impacted policy decisions at the state and federal level.  Good thing I woke up at 5 am with ideas in my head for my opening statement this coming Monday before a congressional caucus.  It's only 2pm and I just have 3 hours to go before we babysit our 2 week old granddaughter and a 4 1/2 year old grandson.

I grapple with trying to make a difference and actually making a difference.  I have to own that.  Its' always been an issue for me and now is no different.  I also tend to set the bar pretty high, but that's just who I am.  It makes sense that I started my marathon training yesterday.  Why not throw that in to the mix.  On the other hand, between running an babysitting, I definitely get to have my fun!

My coach and I often talk about how enjoy training more than racing.  I think in life it's the same, which is as it should be.  Ironman is my life's metaphor.  I enjoy the project.  I enjoy the preparation.  I enjoy the strategizing.  The results really shouldn't matter.  Results come whether you like them to or not.  Sometimes they're what you want, other times they're not.  We often don't control the results.  That leaves me with the concept of having fun and getting myself focused on a limited amount of items.  There are only so many hours in a day!  I've already had my fill today.

An "Old" New Approach

I believe that the year was 1993.  I was running in a nature preserve in Orange County, I had headphones on and was listening to music.  I took my headphones off, and just enjoyed the sounds of nature.  I never wore headphones again while running outdoors.  It was also a "long run," and somewhere around that time, the idea of running a marathon had become real to me.  I haven't actually thought about running a marathon in many years.  In fact, my last "open" marathon was in 2004, when I ran a marathon on a whim with a friend, who was doing his first marathon.

Two days ago, I completed what is called "Yasso 800's," which consist of ten consecutive 800m intervals.  The idea of the Yasso 800's is that one's average time for the interval accurately predicts one's open marathon time.  My average pace was 8:12 minutes/mile, which corresponds to 4:06 for the average time, and hence, a 4:06 marathon.  Considering that this is my first set of Yasso 800's, it's a good starting point if I were to choose to train for a marathon.  If I were to choose?  During my weekly call with my coach, he asked me, "are you thinking of doing a marathon?"  The thought hadn't crossed my mind, until that moment.  But, in that moment, it all made sense.  Running grounds me.  It's my form of meditation, just as I took off my headphones nearly thirty years ago and just let myself enjoy running.

I'm presently pulled in multiple directions.  I need to find a place to ground myself.  Ironman training is too diverse and broad.  Everything else just doesn't resonate.  5K training is fun, but something is missing.  Running nearly every day, with the goal of achieving a particular volume of running, makes sense.  It fills a void.  I've been resisting goals, but they can't resist me.  I'm a goal oriented person, but right now, I have too many goals.  I need to get back to where I was 3 1/2 months ago.  I need an "old" new approach.  It looks like I'll be training for a marathon.  Not that I'll actually race a marathon.  I'll come back to that concept in a few months.  In the meantime, I'll start training for one. Seems like a good way to get myself grounded again.

Finding Balance

And so my journey continues.  I realized today that I have a desire to reach out to reporters in order to have them tell the story that I think they should tell.  At the same time, I educate my colleagues on the importance of listening to what the reporter is writing about, and use that to inform oneself on direction.  I need to follow my own advice.  Patience has not often been my strong suit.  Whether it's working with the media or working with government agencies, it's time that I find some semblance of patience.  First, if I push too hard, too soon, I risk losing the influence that I've come to have.  People like to focus on what's important to them.  If I can find common ground on what's important to me, then it's a win:win.

This is also a path toward me regaining some semblance of balance in my life.  There's been no balance since early March.  My wife would say that there's never really been balance in my life.  It's not one of my strengths.  So, I work towards achieving balance.  That means prioritizing.  That means finding the right mixture of fun, purpose, and healthy endeavors.  It might even mean some goal setting. In some ways, I've gotten away from goals, whether they be athletically related or otherwise.  If I read my blogs from the past decade, I've often said that I'm a goal oriented person.  I told someone this morning that I can't change who I am. I shouldn't try to.  I should embrace myself and what makes me tick.  There's no need to run away from who I am.

So, I go back to finding balance.  Today is a good example of that.  I've walked nearly two hours, and done some pushups, squats and lunges.  I've also had several phone calls and am focused on my few tasks at hand for the day.  It's a start.

Playing Chess

I used to think that when I got older I'd go back to playing chess.  I didn't expect that to end up being a metaphor for how my life would evolve during a pandemic. I've continued to struggle to find some semblance of normalcy over the past three months.  This morning I woke up realizing that I'm in the most complex chess match of my life.  It's a game of chess that is composed of politics, human nature, morality, science and life.  I've had to learn a lot about all of these things over the past three months.

I've been making a lot of the moves on the chess board since the beginning of March but it's now time for me to engage my colleagues.  They are my team, and it's a team that needs to be gently led.  It's been interesting to see some of my colleagues aligning with me over the past month or so, whether they realize it or not.  In many ways, I've felt alone since this began, that loneliness a product of the fact that I have a unique set of skills and experiences that put my in a position to do what I've done.

The loneliness that I've felt is also my weakness.  A general without an army has no value.  In a lot of ways, I've been able to demonstrate the fact that I have some intuitive sense as to strategy and tactics, is where I am today.  It's time to pull together some of my core teams to move our collective mission forward.  Many of them have spent their lives fighting for the same thing that I've fought for.  We've just fought the battle in different ways.  We all have our strengths and weaknesses.  It's time to magnify the strengths and minimize the weaknesses.  Our opponents are too strong otherwise.  Life is about to be a lot like playing chess.

Back to a Daily Routine

It's hard to believe that I haven't "blogged" in 2 weeks.  What does that mean? Honestly, not too much, except that I've gotten away from part of my daily routine. On the other hand, I've been working out regularly.  I've also gotten refocused on the tasks at hand.  Oh yes, I got a peer reviewed paper published!  It's not like I've been slacking off.  I also haven't been doing my daily meditation, although I've gotten some in, and I definitely meditate when I run.  Nevertheless, a routine is important.  I've written about it, and talked about it.  One of the challenges of retirement has been not having a daily structure.  Routine efforts like blogging can be part of that daily structure and "ground" me to some degree.  That's important.

What's also important is tomorrow.  I'll be testifying tomorrow morning to my state assembly committees on Health and Aging & Long Term Care.  It's a moment in the sun.  A moment that I've been waiting for years to have.  I've spent a good portion of the last week thinking about it, and pretty much the entire weekend preparing for it.  Still, I'm going to focus on my daily routine this morning.  Starting with this blog.

One of the interesting things about getting back into my workout routine is that I still tend to avoid or neglect my strength training.  Always have, but can't say always will.  It's just too important as we get older.

My day has already begun and I can feel the "pull" to "get things done."  We'll see what happens.  In some way, this has become my "routine."