I used to ask people, “What is the most money you think you could ever earn in one year?”

One woman said to me, “I wouldn’t even tell my mother that.”

“I won’t tell your mother either.” I said.

“Oh.  Okay.  $35,000,” she revealed. Of course, that was years ago.

I wasn’t just asking just to be conversational.  I was testing my theory that we can never exceed an internal limit that we have set for ourselves, even (or especially) an unconscious limit.  I personally have set my internal money-earning limit very high, and promised myself to raise it if I ever got close.  That hasn’t happened yet.

Years ago I met someone in a poetry workshop at USC who has become one of my closest friends.  She has always been a terrific poet, and I was delighted to publish a number of her poems in Rattle, the poetry journal I founded.  This year, one of her poems was included in a collection of best American poetry.  What the heck. She could be a U.S. poet laureate one day.

As a child, I took it as a given that the world was run by adults.  I never thought that one day I would be one of them, even when, at age 8, I announced that I would be President of the United States.  (Today I wouldn’t take that job if it was handed to me.)

But my generation grew up and, for better or for worse, has produced both presidents and poets.

As long as each of us is alive, our possibilities remain boundless.

I invite you to free yourself from any self-imposed limits.

Alan

Toward the end of the year I am entirely unproductive on Saturdays.  That is to say, you will find me either sitting in my family room or lying down in my bedroom, watching college football on TV.

Last Saturday disaster struck.  I couldn’t find the remote for the TV in the bedroom.  Daveen looked for it, without success.

I thought about the situation for a few minutes.  Then I opened the door to my nightstand and voila!  There it was.  I know I didn’t put it there, but I suspected that if I asked Daveen why she’d hid it we would have an argument.  And then I would miss the game.  So I merely said, “Thank you.”  (Three cheers for pragmatism.)

Alas, the remote control didn’t work.  So after fifteen frustrating minutes of not watching football in my bedroom, I moved downstairs to our family room, even though I prefer to watch in our bedroom because it is further from the kitchen where there are snacks easily available for me to munch on.

That afternoon Daveen found the correct remote under our bed.  I guess one of us had accidentally kicked it there.  I’m not going to talk to her about it, because she is undoubtedly certain that it was me.  And she may be right. And I’d rather watch football than argue.

In our house everything has its place.  My shirts.  Daveen’s shoes.  Drinking glasses in the cabinet to the left of the kitchen sink.  That is, everything except the TV remote, which seems to have a life of its own, and prefers to be “lost” somewhere in the bedroom.  Years ago I considered attaching it to my wrist, but that didn’t’ seem practical.

For you innovative thinkers out there, please come up with a better solution.  You could make a fortune inventing an always findable TV remote.  I’m sure that many men have found that arguing with their wives over where she put it doesn’t work, on so many levels.

Fortunately, my home desktop computer has never been misplaced, so writing this blog today turns out to be easier than watching college football on TV.

And writing is certainly more fun than searching for a TV remote.

Happy Tuesday!

Alan

When my children were young I caught myself talking to them harshly.  I sounded exactly like my father.  That was scary. My father had a rather loud bark.

My father was also extremely successful in figuring out his life.  He was a professional musician, but taught his students much more than how to play a wind instrument.  And, starting from zero, he discovered the secrets to leading a very fulfilling life.

Dad shared lots of invaluable wisdom with me and my brother.  But he was my father.  He dropped out of college before he earned his bachelor’s degree, and he was far too old to understand my problems, or so I thought at the time. And, well, he had a temper.

Yet, to paraphrase Brutus in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, “The mistakes we make are buried with our bones.  Our wisdom, hopefully, lives after us.”  That is why I wrote my three People Tools books.

A few of the lessons my father passed on to me are:

1. I am responsible for my own actions.
2. Actions definitely speak louder than words.
3. This is a tough one.  But I find that an apology is essential to soothe hurt feelings.  It doesn’t cost a dime, can be used over and over, and unless everyone agrees that you are always perfect and never wrong, there’s no real substitute.
4. Find the sweet grapes in life. Have a positive outlook.  Great expectations precede great experiences.
5. Especially frustration.  Whenever one family member had a complaint against another, Dad would call a “Family Conference” where each of us could speak, uninterrupted, for as long as we needed to.  (Although it seemed that I always remembered my best arguments after the meeting was over.)  As an eight-year-old my parents actually listened to me.  That was neat.
6. You don’t have to be perfect to deserve love.

It seems I appreciate my dad more each day, especially in his absence.

As Joni Mitchell sang in the song Big Yellow Taxi,

Don’t it always seem to go

That you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone…

Alan