How My Life Turned Out: A Random, Interim Report

When I was in law school, a fellow student shared with me that when he was eighteen, he thought his dad didn’t know anything.  “But in the past six years, I’m surprised at how much he’s learned,” he said.

I could apply that observation to my own life.  During the past 82 years I’m surprised at how much I’ve learned. Some lessons I’ve had to learn more than once.  Life is a diligent teacher.

In no particular order – here are some of the positive surprise lessons that I’ve learned from various events and milestones in my life:

1. Six children.  What happened here?  I grew up with one younger brother, and that was plenty.  At my fiftieth high school reunion I won a door prize for having the most children. What have I learned? My children are my proudest accomplishment.
2. Owning my own business for 54 years.  When I founded ACF on March 1, 1968, I applied for several corporate names.  A man called from Sacramento to tell me that none of those was available.  Since the state had paid for the phone call, I asked about the name ACF Property Management, Inc.  That name was available, and here we are, still thriving. I’ve learned throughout all of the ups and the downs that optimism works.
3. Getting back together with Daveen.  This was an especially large shock to my family-law attorney, but a stroke of good luck for me. What did I learn? To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, sometimes “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”
4. My paternal grandfather lived to be 94, my father to 104.  Does that mean I get another 32 years? If hope so, and in the meantime, I’ve learned to make the most of every moment.
5. Publishing three People Tools books and two children’s books in my seventies. I’ve learned it is never too late to achieve your goals and accomplish what you want to do most in life.

Have there also been some negative surprises?  Of course, but even those have taught me something. Almost 4 years ago I needed to have surgery on my cervical spine. While we all might expect something like that to happen to us eventually, I couldn’t help thinking why me? But since then, I’ve begun to walk regularly, and I now appreciate how important it is to take care of my body.

I always fall asleep wondering what will happen tomorrow.  That should keep me going for another decade or two.

Today the Livermore lab in the San Francisco Bay area announced a major breakthrough in fusion energy.  That’s the same energy source that powers the sun.  I’m not a scientist, but in twenty years this source of abundant energy could change the world.

See you then!

Meanwhile, best wishes for a happy holiday.

Alan