Alan C. Fox

I have learned a great deal in my life by listening to the suggestions and wisdom of others.

About thirty-five years ago I had the opportunity to study with Dr. Paul Ware, a psychiatrist in Shreveport, Louisiana.  For an entire week, together with four or five other students, I followed Paul around to his lectures, his meetings, and his visits to a psychiatric hospital.  At the end of our five days of training he allocated to each of us one hour of his time to discuss privately anything we had on our minds.

I had a lot on my mind. After talking to Paul about my marriage, my work, and everything else I could think of, I had used all but four minutes of my time with him.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“There is one thing, but it would take more than four minutes to cover, so I guess we’d better stop now.”

“Alan, you can accomplish a lot in four minutes.  What is that one thing?”

I was embarrassed, and didn’t want to open something up that we didn’t have time to finish.  But I trusted Paul, and he was an expert on adolescent behavior.

“It’s about my son.  He’s fifteen.  About six months ago he got mad at me for something.  He left my house and went back to live with his mother.  He hasn’t seen me or spoken to me since.”

“Do you want to have a relationship with him?”

“Yes.  Of course.  Absolutely.”  I was near tears.

“Go home and apologize,” Paul said.

“But I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Do you want to have a relationship with your son or not?”

“Yes.  I do.”

“Then go home and apologize.”

I sighed.  I felt certain that I was in the right and that my son was unreasonable and wrong.  I often feel this way when I am in a dispute with someone.  But in those four minutes I took my first giant step toward becoming a better, more forgiving person.

When I returned home I arranged a meeting with my son.  We spoke, he aired his grievances, and I apologized.

Not long after that he returned to live with me at my home, and we have gotten along well ever since.  That experience was the inspiration for the Apology tool in my original People Tools book. It is also the reason I am willing to apologize, even when I don’t believe I’m wrong.  Of course, I will allow that every once in a while my belief that I am right is, regrettably, wrong.

Those four minutes have made a huge difference in the past thirty-five years of my life.

What else can you do in four minutes?

You can take a shower, fall in love, or listen to a song.

You can ask someone to marry you, or say “yes.”  Or say “no.”

You can be born, get married, or die.

You can make a good first impression, get a job offer, or decide to quit something which makes you unhappy or at which you are failing.

You can read this short blog, and decide to change your life.

Alan

Years ago, I returned from vacation and couldn’t find my keys.  I had hidden them somewhere, but didn’t remember where.  I couldn’t use my car, unlock the front door to my office, or open my storage unit.

Like those hidden keys, most people have hidden agendas.

An agenda is an intention to make something you desire happen, or prevent something from happening that you want to avoid.  “I want string beans for dinner” is a statement of what I want.  “I don’t want to talk about that now” is a statement identifying what I want to avoid, or, at least, postpone (a conversation).  When I clearly state my agenda, then my desire comes out of hiding.

When I don’t openly and clearly state what I want, my agenda remains hidden.  In the play The Rainmaker the deputy sheriff is divorced and lonely.  He tells the Sheriff, “I knew at the time that if I asked my wife to stay she would have stayed.  But I didn’t.  So she walked out the door.”  He sighed.  “Next time I would ask her to stay.  I would even say ‘please.’”

Just like those keys, when an agenda is hidden it won’t open anything, it won’t get you anywhere, it won’t do anyone any good.

Carlos, a friend of mine, desperately wanted to marry Catherine.  He hinted.  He brought her flowers.  He told me how much he loved her but never confessed his great love to her.  Then one day she texted him, “Carlos, I’m so happy.  I just married Dante in Barcelona.”  Oops!

Another friend, Donna, felt guilty after leaving Harold, her husband of more than twenty years. She told me, “For years he was staying out all night and making my life so miserable at home that I finally had to give up.  Even when I told him that I loved him but I’d leave if things didn’t change, he still didn’t say a word.  He just sat on the sofa and stared at the TV.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t feel guilty.  Maybe Harold really wanted you to leave him, but didn’t have the guts to say so.  Maybe he was trying to push you into it,” I said. “Maybe that was his hidden agenda.”

Donna paused.  “I’ve thought about it a lot.  And I think that’s exactly what happened.  I wish he had talked to me.  We could have avoided years of pain for both of us.”

For goodness sake, share your desire, your agenda, whatever it may be.  It’s always okay to ask, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.  A bit of courage for a few minutes can save your marriage, or your life.  I read in a news report a few years ago that a South Korean Airlines flight crashed because the copilot was afraid to tell the pilot that the plane was coming in too low on its approach before landing.

If someone complains that you didn’t perform according to their agenda, you can’t be held responsible, if they never directly asked you for what they wanted.

“Didn’t you stop at the store for paper towels and toilet paper on your way home?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you didn’t ask me to and I didn’t know we needed any.”

Let other people know what you want and what you don’t want.  If you keep your agenda a secret you’re sure to be disappointed.  Few, if any, people in this world are consistent and effective mind readers.  You have to tell us.

Like my keys, agendas which are hidden are useless.

And yes, I had to replace all of my keys.  And yes, I found them on the top shelf of my closet two years later, but by then it was too late for those keys to do me any good.

Alan

I have heard it said that when you are dying you remember the moments, not the hours or the days, of your life.

I’m still very much alive, enjoying almost every moment, and I’ve been thinking about a few of the perfect moments in my life.  I don’t remember them all, and a flawless moment is as rare as a flawless diamond, but here are some of those moments in the order I remember them.

Talking with my mother in the kitchen when I was five or six as she cooked dinner for the family. The time we spent together was made even more perfect by the snacks I learned to make during our two-hour long conversations.  My mother often said, “Alan, you are so interesting.”

Seeing my first daughter Jill carried into the waiting room on the shoulder of the physician, minutes after she was born.

Winning first place in debate, extemporaneous speaking, and impromptu speaking in my final speech competition in college.

Four hours in bed one afternoon with a woman I loved.

Acting in a school play when I was thirteen. Scary, but perfect.

In the temple, carrying the Torah, feeling I was a part of a community, as we celebrated the sixtieth wedding anniversary of my Aunt Gert and her husband Reuben.

The announcement posted in the hallway of my daughter Jill’s high school that she had won all four rounds in her first debate tournament.

My brother David defending me against an especially nasty attorney who was taking my deposition in a lawsuit.

Asking her to marry me.  The perfect moment was when she immediately said, “Yes.”

Having six of my poems accepted by a USC literary journal when I was an undergraduate.

When I was eighteen, inserting the keys into the ignition of my first new car. It was a metallic blue Volkswagen.

At summer camp, age thirteen, deeply inhaling the scent of pine trees.

Seeing the movie “Amadeus” and identifying with the court composer Salieri who knew he would never be as good as Mozart.

Running to the car with my first wife to escape from imaginary villains after seeing the movie, “The Guns of Navarone.”

Sitting with my wife in the first row center of a Broadway theater as Bernadette Peters sang, just to me, one of my favorite songs, “Send in the Clowns.”

Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” performed in Claremont by the American Conservatory Theater of San Francisco.

Shaking hands with John F. Kennedy at USC when I was twenty-one and he was running for President.

Each of my children’s weddings.

Breakfast with my eldest granddaughter, Grace, when she was nineteen.

Touching my high school girl-friend under her sweater for the first time.

Hugging my father on his 100^th birthday.

Depositing at my bank the biggest check I had ever received.

Standing with my arms around a woman in my office one evening, looking down at the lights, as she said, “Mr. and Mrs. God.”

Conversations with my personal trainer, before or instead of working out.

Shakespeare lectures at USC by Dr. Alan Casson.

My children, as adults, asking for my advice.

Plays I’ve attended at the Edinburgh Festival.

Looking deep into my beloved’s eyes.  Many moments.

Watching someone I love sleeping peacefully.

Walking dazed into the New York City sunlight after a conversation with Father Daniel Berrigan in his apartment, knowing that I had been in the presence of one of the greatest men I had ever known.  Daniel died recently, and I realized once again how lucky I was to have known him.  Here is a link to our conversation. http://www.rattle.com/a-conversation-with-daniel-berrigan/

Here is a link to the New York Times obituary for Father Berrigan:  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/nyregion/daniel-j-berrigan-defiant-priest-who-preached-pacifism-dies-at-94.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

Sharing these moments with you.

Imagining all the perfect moments that you may have loved.  And I would appreciate your sharing one of those moments with me and our other readers.

Thanks.

Alan