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

I’m a numbers guy, so, as much as possible, I like to reduce my life to numbers. They are reliable (two is always two), though probably more comforting to me than they should be.  As a computer programmer reminded me years ago, “Garbage in, garbage out.”

I also like to put my relationships into categories and then assign numbers to each category.  My scale ranges from 1 for awful to 10 for perfect.

For example, I had a relationship with a coin dealer for many years. In the entertainment category he was a 10.  For persuasion a 10.  For honesty a 10. That was until one of my sons suggested that I have three of the rare coins I had purchased from him appraised, and discovered he had overcharged me by 33%. As a result, the coin dealer’s score for honesty slipped to a 4, although I probably should have downgraded him to a 1 and ended our relationship.

Silly me.  I continued doing business with Mr. Coin.  Four years later I sold a coin back to him for a substantial amount (amount, not profit).  He paid me with a personal check.  A few days later my bank told me he had stopped payment.  I called him.

“Hi, Mr. Coin.  You stopped payment on your check.”

“I know.”

“Do you need a few more days?”

“No.”

“Can I redeposit your check?”

“No.  I decided I didn’t want to pay you.”

As I said, silly me.  I sued him, and eventually collected most of what he owed.  Of course, almost half of what I recovered went to pay attorney fees.

During the three years since the litigation, Mr. Coin has contacted me more than a hundred times by email and text messages, promising “great profit on a new business deal.”  I now give him a score of 10 for persistence, and zero on everything else that matters.  I will never communicate with him again.

A music school is seeking a new vocal instructor.  The head of the school told me, “I recently interviewed a gentleman who was a great singer.  But he was also a jerk.  My teachers have to be team players, not prima donnas.”  I guess that’s a 10 for singing, and a 2 for team skills.  No job.

Each of us has many people in our lives.  They may be partners, friends, coworkers, or relatives.  Every single one of them will rank as a 7 or better in some areas, and a 3 or less in others.  For example, if you were to score me on remembering either names or the clothing a coworker wore to work yesterday I would never receive more than a 3,  and that might be generous.

A trial attorney I know employs Mark, an associate who is a great attorney but terrible at meeting with clients.  She has Mark prepare pleadings and make court appearances.  She does not allow him to meet with clients.

My point is this:  everyone in your life has plusses and minuses.  Try to isolate the plusses.  Have an accountant handle your money, not your advertising.  Ask a sympathetic friend for emotional support, but not to evaluate your investment account.  And keep toxic people out of your life forever.  In this way, your life will be lifted by the hot air balloon of joy because you will have released the heavy weights of negativity that hold you down.

And if you like that metaphor give me a 10.  If not, perhaps a 7 for trying.  (Maybe a 5 for humor?)

Thanks.

Alan