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This morning I enjoyed watching a TV program – World of Dance.  I seldom dance because I think I’m not very good at it, but I like to watch it from the comfort of my chair.  (It’s the same with golf).

In the program, one of the judges counseled a woman before her performance.   “Your dancing is great, but just before a lift you hesitate.  You stop to prepare yourself.  Change that.  Just let yourself fall into your partner’s arms and trust him to catch you.”

She did.  Their dancing was perfect.

At age 28 I denied that anyone had better ideas than I did.  Today I know that many people have better ideas, and I often rely on the ability, experience, and judgment of my friends, family, and colleagues.  I found wisdom in the judge’s words.  These days when I like a statement I consider how it might apply to my own life.

In the 1970’s I participated in many “encounter” groups.  One of the “trust” exercises was to relax and fall backward into the waiting arms of others.  A few members refused to even try.  Others let go and just did it.  I took the middle ground.  I trusted the group’s intent, but not their ability — because I weighed more than 250 pounds at the time.  So I fudged.  The few times I fell backward I remained fully prepared to catch myself.

After watching the dance show this morning I decided to apply the judge’s advice to my own emotional life.  “Just let yourself fall into your partner’s arms and trust her to catch you.”

I haven’t often done this.  It doesn’t feel entirely safe.  And as with the physical, I have taken the emotional middle ground.  To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, “Trust, but don’t let yourself get hurt.”

Or as Hamlet might say, “To fully trust or not to fully trust, that is the question.”

I’m not going to suggest that you or I emotionally trust every person every hour of every day.  That could be a road to regret.  But always playing it “safe”, seems an equally certain street to separation, both emotional and, eventually, physical.

The key to trusting your parents, your partner, or your best friend is to try it out.  When you need emotional support ask for it.  Then fall into his or her arms.

I like to take care of people.  Why should you and I deprive all of those who love us of the opportunity to take care of us as well?

Alan

We all have many preferences.  My preferred color is red.  Years ago my wife preferred blue, but she has improved.  Now she likes red and pink.  One of my favorite foods is blue cheese.  Many people can’t stand the stuff.  I occasionally try a sip of white wine, but alcohol contains lots of calories wrapped in a horrible taste (notably red wine), and doesn’t relax me in any way.  For some, wine is the focus of their lives.

We live out our preferences by acting on them.  I drive a red car, enjoyed blue cheese on toast for breakfast this morning, and when I was young lost a number of friends because my wife and I failed to serve alcohol with dinner on several occasions.

I imagine that few people share all three of my preferences.

But I do have one strong preference (or bias) that I would like to persuade you to share.  This is my bias in favor of saying “yes.”

My three older children are now in their fifties with families of their own, but I still remember when they were three, or five, or fifteen, with nothing better to do than ask me for things.

“Daddy, Daddy, I’d like some blue jeans.”

“Shut up kid.  Red jeans look better.”

“Daddy, Daddy, I want some Cheerios.”

“Shut up kid and eat your blue cheese and marmalade.”

“Daddy, Daddy, can I have a sip of wine?”

“Sure, kid. Ten years after I die.”

Those are fantasies, of course.  But I’m making the point that, all day long, my kids asked me for things.  It wore me out.  Our conversations became shorter and shorter.

“Daddy, Daddy . . . “

“No.”

Just like my own dad before me, I don’t like to turn people down.  My dad’s style was to get so angry when I asked for something that I finally stopped speaking and started sneaking.  His style worked, but I never thought it was optimal, especially from a kid’s point of view.

So, many years ago, I decided to change the script.

“Daddy, Daddy . . . “

“Yes to whatever it is you want.”

“Huh?”

“I trust your judgment, so I say “Yes.”

“But I didn’t even tell you what I wanted.”

“I trust your judgment.”

After they started to believe me, something strange and wonderful happened.  First, my kids and I enjoyed a much closer relationship.  Even better, their judgment improved.  They stopped asking for the sun when all they really needed was the moon.  More and more they learned to trust their own instincts instead of trying to discover mine and argue with me about them.

Best of all, I consciously began saying “Yes” to my wife, my friends, and my business associates.  We all enjoyed each other’s company a lot more, and “Yes” opened my life to many superb experiences.  For example, when my daughter invited me to be her “date” for a friend’s wedding last Saturday I said “yes.”  We enjoyed a wonderful day together.  And the wedding, on a small Laguna beach, was absolutely delightful.

I’m not suggesting that you say “yes” to everything.  I do suggest, however, that unless you have a good reason to say anything else, you set your bias, as I do, on “Yes.”

You will love your new self.

Yes?

Alan

We live in a world of structures – offices, homes, and buildings of many types. Structures provide shelter and comfort. But they can be a trap.  When I met my second wife Susan she had been living for eleven years in a house she disliked.

“We thought we would just live there for a year, then sell it and buy the slightly more expensive house we really wanted,” she said.

There are other structures that invade and pervade our lives – the habits which are imprinted on us through repetition.

A habit is first a cobweb, then a cord, finally a cable. This is why, in forming habits, we should be careful.  Soon enough our habits will become a boundary beyond which we will seldom travel.

During the past few months I’ve shared many meals with my friend Jim.  While I like to try new foods, Jim was very clear at our recent lunch.

“I will never eat anything that I haven’t eaten before,” he said.  “I never try anything new.”  Jim eats sparingly.  He also works out for more than two hours a day.

I guess I’m never going to feel the endorphin rush that Jim must enjoy, because I’ve never exercised every day, or lately even every week.  I know I should exercise but Jim is defined by his habits and I by mine.

Recently, however, I have, to my surprise and delight, changed my long standing eating habit.

For more than seventy years I have lived to eat.  Before breakfast I started thinking about lunch.  During lunch I salivated over dinner.  At dinner, well, I often ate so much that I couldn’t consider ever eating again.  Until about eleven pm.

Now I eat to live.  I stopped following my parents’ admonition to “finish everything on your plate.”  I now eat until I’m full, or almost full.  I leave food on my plate – especially at restaurants.  Sorry, Dad, I know I’m wasting money.  Sorry, Mom, I know I’m abandoning all those starving children in (fill in the country). Of course, as I remember it, the food left on my plate never fed a single starving child.  It always went either to the dog or down the garbage disposal.

I’m also beginning to organize my life in another constructive way.  Years ago when I left for a two-week vacation I hid my car keys in the closet.  When I returned I couldn’t find them and had to change a lot of locks.  (I found my keys two years later, on the shelf of my bedroom closet, just above eye level.)

I’m now working on organizing my hearing aids. Before going to sleep I used to leave one in the bathroom and the other on the nightstand next to my bed.  Or somewhere else.  But as I rushed to leave my house in the morning I found myself scrambling to find “the other one.”  (Whenever I misplace something I always find it in the last place I look.  If I find it at all.)

Now I’m leaving both hearing aids in the same little saucer on my nightstand every night.  I’ll have to create some other kind of excitement in the morning.

One of my habits for the past five years is to post this blog every Tuesday morning.  That means I have to finish writing and editing by late Monday.  My habit is to always meet a deadline, but I seldom finish any task early.

But this blog is finished.  I’ll write about meeting deadlines another time.

Alan