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Today, I’m scheduled to enjoy my monthly lunch with one of my sons.  As I shared a few weeks ago, at a recent lunch, he noted that if we see each other once a month for the next eight or ten years, that will only be about 100 more visits in my lifetime.

Ouch!  That idea woke me up. Am I doing everything I can to make every moment count?

There are many aspects of life that we take for granted.  For me those include good health, the abundance of healthy food and safe drinking water and all the other necessities for living well that I am lucky to have access to. I am secure in my thinking that my comfortable life will continue forever.  Well, if not forever then at least for a long time.

While it’s easy for me to say, “nothing will last forever,” it’s another matter entirely for me to believe that everything I know will end. Because that is much sooner than I would like.

We can respond to life’s limitations by fighting against them – but ultimately, we will lose.  Or we can keep in mind that our time on earth is limited, and our job is to find our personal niche and occupy it with as much joy and satisfaction as we can muster out of every moment.

I have six biological children, whose occupations include doctor, lawyer, and college professor, yoga instructor, editor and therapist.  I’ve been an accountant, attorney, and for many years a real estate investor.  When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a writer, and as an adult I published five books and founded a prestigious literary journal. While lately, the only writing I’ve been doing regularly is this blog, for more than ten years, and I’ve never missed a week.

I invite you to consider your niche in life.  Have you found it?  Do you occupy it most of the time?  Does it bring you happiness and satisfaction? My younger brother, who died way too young at the age of 60, made a career out of being a kid.  I think he preferred the company of seven-year-olds to the company of adults.  “Kids have more fun,” he once told me.

If you have found your niche, I applaud you.  If you still have a way to go, I encourage you to keep looking, because finding your personal niche is worth —

Everything.

Alan

It was bound to happen.

After writing my blog every week for more than ten years I’m sitting at my desk at 1:49 pm on Monday afternoon, wondering what I should write about.

In freshman psychology I learned that if you can’t solve a problem consciously, just stuff it into your subconscious and wait for the answer.  I even wrote a People Tool about that.

Hello, subconscious.  You don’t have much time left.

Aha!  Subconscious suggests writing the story of my Shakespeare class.  That’s as good an idea as any.

But as my subconscious often does these days – it forgot that I’ve already shared that story with you in a previous blog. But in case you are as forgetful as I am, (and I know many of us are) let me briefly remind you.  In my second year of law school, I was rather bored with law classes, so as a treat to myself I enrolled, at no extra cost, in an evening Shakespeare course.  This meant that I would be in class from 8:00 am until 9:45 pm, with only a short break for lunch.  Little did I realize how much I would enjoy that class or that it would turn out to be the very best class of my life.

During the second lecture, other students peppered the instructor, Dr. Alan Cason, with questions. “Save your questions for the end of my lecture.  I probably will have answered all your questions by then.” I thought he was arrogant, and promised myself I would have at least six questions for him at the end of class.  I even wrote them down.

Unfortunately, I failed to ask him any questions, because by the end of his lecture, he did, in fact, answer every question I’d thought of, as well as many I could never have imagined.

What brought this to mind was the lecture I attended last week by Thomas Friedman, long-time columnist for the New York Times.  His words were both informative and highly interesting. I was reminded, once again, how much I enjoy a fine lecture.

So, if you’re looking for something new to do, consider enrolling in an extension class, or attending a lecture.  The secret?  Pay no attention to the subject matter.  Just find someone who really knows her or his subject and can speak in a manner that is both informative and entertaining.

Not only are you likely to enjoy yourself, but it’s inevitable you’ll learn something too.

Alan

I don’t remember a whole lot about the specific lessons I learned in high school, but I do remember the Pythagorean Theorem.

The Pythagorean theorem is the one that provides an equation to calculate the longer side of a right triangle by summing the squares of the other two sides. Or written as an equation:  a² + b² = c².  My geometry teacher, like so many others over the past several centuries, challenged my class to come up with a proof. Maybe some of us tried, but none of us succeeded.

On Sunday evening “60 Minutes” featured a story about two high school girls who successfully solved the problem using trigonometry, something mathematicians had thought impossible. The media coverage of their accomplishment has been extensive.

When asked why people were so impressed, the girls responded, “because we’re African American… And we’re also women… oh, and our age.”

But these girls come from a very long line of barrier-breaking students who attend St. Mary’s Academy in New Orleans, a school that was founded on the premise that the girls who attend can accomplish anything.

The message the girls hear from the minute they walk through the door is that their potential is boundless.

This blog is not about math. It’s about capital E – Encouragement. I believe that a strong dose of encouragement significantly increases anyone’s chance of success, even when faced with serious setbacks or obstacles.

When we try to protect our children from Failure (the real “F” word) by not offering encouragement, we are paving the way to lack of success.  This is true not only for our children, but ourselves as well.  Perhaps the best way to avoid failure is simply not to try in the first place. But it is also the best way to never achieve any of your dreams and goals.  Ever.

Which is why I encourage parents and students everywhere to use Encouragement. It is a basic, and yet pivotal tool for success.

Why?  Because it works. Just look at the two high school students who solved a math problem that mathematicians thought was impossible for almost 2000 years.

They are my proof.

Alan

PS.  Additional proof.  Every student at St. Mary’s Academy in New Orleans over the past 19 years has graduated and been accepted to college.