Alan Fox

Welcome to 2022.

When I was in high school in the mid-1950’s, I participated on the competitive debate team. I would spend hours in the school library searching for quotations and statistics from experts to support both the affirmative and negative sides of the debate topic for that year. Oddly, I never found any expert projections on any subject calculated beyond 1975.

As the year 1975 actually approached, I realized that I had developed an unconscious belief that on January 1 of that year the world would end and that we would all fall of the face of the earth.  (The most interesting part of a belief is that it needn’t have any relationship to reality – past, present, or future.)

On that New Year’s Day almost fifty years ago I was almost surprised when I woke up and nothing had changed.

In this New Year, I appreciate that what each new day offers (whether we call it January 1st or any other date) is basically one thing – opportunity.

Today I will have the opportunity to complete some work, enjoy time with my family, and begin reading one of the books given to me over the holidays.  I also have the opportunity to finish the peach cobbler from yesterday, unless someone else from my household has beaten me to it.  (They didn’t.)

If I were to make a single New Year’s Resolution it would be this:  In 2022 I will create more deadlines for myself.  This is because I find that without a deadline I don’t work on much.  I don’t know what those other deadlines are yet, because I haven’t set a deadline for setting my deadlines.

Isn’t rationalization grand?

As I wrote at the beginning of this blog, welcome to 2022.

It’s another year of opportunity.

Alan

Another Christmas down, one more New Year to follow.  Football games to watch through early January. Then the Christmas tree comes down and the lights and ornaments stored in the “Christmas Closet” until next year.

We measure our lives by special days.  Actually, by the special moments of special days.  Weddings, anniversaries, holidays, and other memorable occasions, all provide distinct moments, unique to each of us, but a basic experience shared throughout the world.  I find comfort in that.

On Christmas day my family asked me if I was excited by looking forward to 2022.  My answer is always about the same.

I live in the moment, which means that I pay attention to my situation and the people I’m with.  I wring as much meaning and satisfaction that I can from every experience. I don’t spend my life peeking over the shoulder of right now, trying to discern some meaning or pleasure from what I think may or may not happen another time. I hug the immediacy of here rather than the distance of there and then.

I also reserve the right to celebrate anything I want, whenever I want.  I don’t have to wait for a holiday to give myself, or others, a gift.  Before Christmas I celebrated for two weeks with four orders of garlic cheese toast from the Smoke House in Burbank.  This has always been one of my favorite guilty pleasures.

My best wishes to you for an outstanding year, which can start whenever you like, with or without garlic cheese toast (or toast of a different sort on New Year’s Eve).

As some of you may have noticed, my title echoes a well-known quote from Yogi Berra, who said, “It’s Deja Vu all over again.”

Hang in there.  A new beginning is about to present itself.

Just like every other day.

Alan

I’m sitting at my desk working, when it occurs to me that this week and next I will have a 3-1/2 day workweek because of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

Hurrah!

My attitude towards the holidays is a 180 degree change from when I launched ACF Property Management, Inc. in 1968.  At that time I resented any and all time off, because I was building a business as quickly as I could, and any day that my staff and I didn’t work was one day longer to arrive at my business destination.  I was definitely in a hurry, and worked virtually every weekend.

Last night, Daveen gently reminded me that one of my tasks in this life is to learn patience.  I agreed with her, but told her that I am often more patient today than I was fifty years ago.

Today, if someone is one minute late for a meeting or telephone call I don’t fly into an immediate internal rage, or start calculating just how much each minute of waiting is costing me.  I have learned to wait without complaint.  That is, without external complaint.

Another large personal change in my life has been my relationship to food. Instead of living to eat, I now eat to live.  As a kid, my breakfast was four eggs, eight slices of bacon, and four slices of buttered toast.  No wonder I weighed 207 pounds on the day I graduated high school.  Today my breakfast is one egg, one slice of Canadian bacon (20 calories), and one slice of toast (still buttered). During the pandemic I have lost almost 20 pounds, and now weigh less than I did when I was a teenager.

For most of my life my goal was to be a couch potato.  I became quite good at sitting still.  Moving is what cars are for. Today I aim to walk a few miles every day.

My original attitude toward Christmas, except for receiving a present, leaned toward “Bah, Humbug.”  Taking time off from work?  Really?

Today, I actually enjoy Christmas.  Our tree is trimmed in the family room, lights twinkling day and night, and we look forward to spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together with a small group of our family.

Life is change.  We are life.

Happy Holidays to all.

Love,

Alan