Tag Archives: life

Thriving in Midlife

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Tired of my tips? Take some from the folks at NPR.

[Note: How weird is this? I was going through a list of unfinished and unpublished blog posts on my desktop computer in November 2017 and found this post from September 2016. It sure looks finished to me — why didn’t I publish it? I’m not sure, but I think it has something to teach so here it is, slotted into the blog chronology with its original date.]

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8 Tips from author Barbara Bradley Hagerty

Want an idea of what the article says? Here’s the gist; I refer to these points throughout this blog post. I recommend reading it and thinking about how it might apply in your life.

  1. Aim for long-term meaning.
  2. Choose what matters most.
  3. Lean into fear, not boredom.
  4. Always be a rookie at something.
  5. Add punctuation to your life.
  6. A few setbacks are what the doctor ordered.
  7. Don’t left boredom and neglect threaten a marriage.
  8. Happiness is love.

This is a quick blog post to showcase an article posted by NPR — that’s National Public Radio — on its website.

I’m a big NPR listener (and supporter) and usually have the radio tuned in at home when I’m working around the house or in my shop/garage. Conservative Americans will tell you that NPR is a left wing propaganda machine, but I think they do a good job of staying in the center — too good, at times. But beyond politics — which are difficult to get away from these days — NPR offers a lot of programming on general topics of interest. I especially recommend All Things Considered, which airs in the afternoons here.

The article I want to recommend came out way back in March 2016. I missed it then but, for some reason, NPR tweeted a link to it the other day and I caught it. Titled “8 Ways You Can Survive — And Thrive In — Midlife,” It’s a brief piece with numbered tips. I can’t tell you how absolutely on target this article is.

But I’ll try.

This List and My Life

As regular readers know, I went through an extremely difficult time in my life back in 2012 and 2013. The short version is that the man I’d spent 29 years of my life with and had made the mistake of marrying back in 2006 lost his mind, left me for a woman old enough to be my mother, and attempted to use the divorce court to separate me from everything I’d worked hard for my whole life. He dragged us through an ugly and expensive divorce and then — believe it or not — an appeal. Along the way, he harassed me regularly with legal action and unreasonable demands and made a lot of stupid decisions that made him look like a selfish idiot. In the end, I won (twice) and got to keep what was mine. That’s the short version.

Out My Window
How can I not be happy when this is outside my window every day?

They say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and I can vouch for that. I came away from a really crazy and sometimes painful experience feeling better than ever about myself. I rebooted my life in a new place with lots of new friends. And because I was now fully in charge of my destiny, I made decisions that enabled me to build a home that was perfect for me in a place I loved and to grow my flying business bigger than I ever thought possible. I now have the lifestyle I’d once envisioned for myself and my wasband — I tend to business responsibilities five months a year and play/travel the rest of the year. I started my seven month “vacation” on August 1 this year and don’t need to get back to work until late February.

A few more words about my crazy divorce…

Although I listened to divorce-related advice from friends and family members, I also consulted with my lawyers and made decisions that made good legal sense. And despite the abuse my wasband and his old whore threw my way, I didn’t lower myself to their level and give them a few doses of the same. I did blog a lot about what was going on, but even then I minimized what I shared.

After a while, their harassment became a real source of amusement for me, my family, and my friends — especially when they did idiotic things like trying to get an injunction against harassment on me (which I fought in court alone and won; I still wonder how many thousands of dollars they wasted on a lawyer for that) or sent a private investigator to photograph my neighbor’s home under construction, claiming it was mine and I’d lied about it in court (more money comically wasted).

After all, it wasn’t my goal to make them suffer; once I realized my wasband was a lost cause I only cared about keeping what was rightfully mine and getting on with my life. Even today, more than four years after it all started, I don’t hate them. Instead, I pity them — especially my wasband, who could have shared the amazing life I’ve made for myself. And how can you not pity an old woman who uses 30-year-old lingerie photos to seduce men she meets online? Another reason to pity my wasband, perhaps?

I’ve written numerous times in this blog about my thoughts and feelings related to my success, most recently here. I’m proud of myself and what I’ve achieved and I want readers who visit this blog to see how they can succeed, too. I believe that each person is in charge of his or her own destiny; our decisions and efforts will mold our lives and futures. One stupid decision can really screw things up; I’m sure you know at least one person who will regretfully agree. My mistake was getting married and it cost me dearly. I was able to pull myself back up from what seemed at the time like an abyss because I was financially secure, had a decent brain in my head, and was able to make decisions and take actions that moved me in a positive direction.

That’s where some of this NPR article’s advice comes into play. I wasn’t looking just at the short-term goal of ending my marriage quickly with minimal financial loses. I was also looking at the big picture: my next home, my new friends, the future of my business. Long-term meaning? I’d been thinking about that since 2008 when my friend Erik got sick. That’s when I started planning for the future — a future that originally included my wasband, fueled with his input and promises. Fortunately, I was able to salvage and rebuild those plans when he left my life and the crazy started in 2012.

I also realized that what matters most is my time. Other people will say family, but I have no kids and my family, which is small, lives on the other side of the country. My friends are important — some more than others — but I’ve learned that friends come and go and even the ones you thought were good friends sometimes change and fall from your life. But time — well, that’s a valuable commodity. Being able to spend as much of my time doing the things I wanted to do became a real driving force in how I shaped my work and business. A perfect example: starting in 1998, I wrote Quicken: The Official Guide for Osborne/McGraw-Hill. It was a bestseller and, along with another bestseller I wrote around that time, helped me put a lot of money away for retirement and invest in my future career as a helicopter owner/operator/pilot. The book was revised annually and became, over the years, a bit of a frustrating grind. After the 11th edition, I threw in the towel and asked them to find another author, which they did. The simple truth is that I wanted my summers back. And on a micro level, ask my wasband what I often wanted for my birthday when I spent summers at home; if he’s honest (which is unlikely), he’ll admit that I wanted the day for myself, to do whatever I wanted to do. (He never did understand that.)

If there’s anything on the NPR article’s list that really pops out for me, it’s the third and fourth points, which talk about getting out of your comfort zone and exploring new things. I think I began doing this when I first struck out as a freelancer in 1990, leaving a good-paying job in corporate America for an uncertain career as a writer. Talk about leaving your comfort zone! It would have been easy to stick with that job and continue my climb up the corporate ladder, but I wasn’t happy. Making the change was risky and tough, but I did it better than I expected. As for learning new things, well, I’m often accused of being an overachiever (as if that’s a bad thing) and a lot of people notice my hobbies, like beekeeping and photography. I’ve been fiddling these days with up cycling glass, making wine and cider (and possibly more potent potables), mushroom hunting, astrophotography, and dying fabric using natural materials like lichen and flower petals. I’m a rookie at all of these things and I love learning from them from the ground up! Maybe that’s part of the punctuation referred to in the sixth point, too? The courses I take to learn about mushrooms and photography and wine? The dance lessons I took last year? Soloing in a gyro two winters ago even though I know I’ll never own one?

Setbacks are what make life interesting. Obviously, my divorce was a huge setback, especially with the amount of time and money it took to finally conclude. But as I said earlier, what doesn’t kill you does make you stronger. Working through setbacks help us learn to work with others and solve problems. They also help us appreciate the days when we don’t have troubles clouding our world.

And it’s pretty clear that I failed completely at the seventh point. My marriage went downhill almost from the moment we exchanged vows. After 23 years together, did he really expect things to change? For me to settle down and be the homebody wife and mommy he apparently wanted and needed? I didn’t want a change; hell, I didn’t even want to get married. (Long story there.) In any case, there was plenty of boredom and neglect on both sides. I felt as if I was perpetually in a holding pattern, waiting for him to keep promises he’d made to me to move forward in our future together. He likely felt that I was neglecting him by going off to my summer job in Washington every year. I’ll never know, though, since he lacked the courage to talk to me about it, even after the marriage counsellor he wanted us to see recommended it. Honest conversation probably could have saved what was once an amazing relationship, but some people respect the value of truth and others don’t. Enough said.

Happiness is love. Hmm. Not sure what that’s supposed to mean. I do know that I’m happier now than I have been in a very long time. There’s no new love in my life and frankly, after all I’ve been through, I don’t think I want one. Some people are meant to be part of a pair and others aren’t. Unless I find someone with the same outlook in life that I have — a real love of the outdoors, a desire to try and learn new things, an understanding of the value of time, and a willingness to drop everything for a spur-of-the-moment adventure — I’ll stay single and be very happy that way. I’ve learned that I’d much rather be single than in a relationship with the wrong partner. I’ll take the happiness; you can keep the love.

If there’s one thing on this topic I’ve learned in my life, it’s this: Happiness might be love, but love isn’t necessarily happiness.

Now Look at Your Life

But I didn’t share this article to talk about my life. I shared it to help you — the people who read this blog, many of whom have contacted me privately to tell me how I’ve inspired them. (A special thanks to Meghan, who emailed me just past weekend to tell me I was “rad.” You’re rad, too; work hard and smart and you’ll be even radder.) It’s within your power to survive and thrive not only your midlife years, but the years leading up to them and those beyond.

Read the article. It’s short. Or better yet, read the book it’s extracted from, Life Reimagined: The Science, Art, and Opportunity of Midlife. Think about how its advice might apply to your life. Make the changes you might need to move forward and be happy.

It’s not always easy, but it is so worth it.

And if you get a chance, use the comments to share how the tips listed above might apply in your life to make you happier. I’m sure we could all learn from your experience, too!

Making It Happen

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You can do it if you try hard enough and stop making excuses.

Yesterday evening, when I got home from a charter flight, it was a wee bit too windy to land on the platform I use to roll the helicopter into the garage. The platform sits in a rather confined area and there’s little room for error. A gusty tailwind could make for an ugly landing and I simply didn’t want to deal with it. So I did what I’ve done on a few other occasions: I landed in the side yard.

The wind didn’t die down before nightfall, so I left the helicopter out there overnight. It was supposed to rain today anyway and I figured I’d just put it on the platform after any cherry drying flights I had to do. I do my best to limit the number of times I have to start or shut down the helicopter on my property so as not to bother the few petulant neighbors who, in the past, have complained — to others; not me — about it.

But this morning dawned bright and mostly sunny. I checked the forecast and, sure enough, it had changed. Apparently, the big rain would be on Sunday — unless the forecast changed again.

Of course, the beautiful — and I really do mean beautiful — morning light gave me an excellent opportunity to take a few new pictures of the helicopter. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you likely know how much I value Golden Hour light. And I never get tired of the view from my property.

N630ML at First Light
Flashy lawn ornament at first light.

My Prized Possession — for a Reason

As you might imagine, my helicopter is one of my prized possessions. (My new home is the other one.) Not only did it cost a huge amount of money to buy — and yes, I do own it outright — but it represents a series of achievements in my life:

  • writing a few best-selling computer books that eventually funded its purchase,
  • building skills to fly it safely as needed for the kinds of flying I do,
  • jumping hurdles set up by the FAA to operate it for Part 135 charter flights,
  • winning the right to keep it and my other business assets in my ugly divorce,
  • building a solid business around agricultural contracts in Washington and California, and
  • continuing to operate it as a primary source of income in my third career as a helicopter pilot.

It’s been a long road that started way back in 1997 when I took my first helicopter lesson and won’t end until I retire from flying and sell it to its next owner.

I often think about an airline pilot I was once friends with. He questioned why I would even bother learning to fly helicopters at my age — I was 36 when I started. “You’ll never make any money as a helicopter pilot,” he told me. Although I didn’t intend to make a living as a pilot back then, he turned out to be dead wrong. And I’m glad that I no longer have negative people like him in my life.

But think about how easy it would have been to accept his “expert opinion” and not try to move forward with any kind of career as a pilot. It was a built-in excuse for failure. Why try if this guy who knows the industry better than me says it’s impossible?

How many people do that? How many people simply don’t try because they think the odds are stacked up too high against them?

Anyway, as I snapped a few photos from every angle in that amazing first light of the day, I was thinking about this, thinking about what the helicopter means to me. Thinking about what it represents. Thinking about the series of actions I took to get from a 36-year-old who had only been in a helicopter twice to a 55-year-old — unlike other women, I don’t lie about my age — who makes a nice living as a pilot and has a helicopter parked in her side yard with that beautiful view behind it.

I’ve written about a lot of it here in my blog, and I don’t want to repeat it here. This blog has over 2,400 posts from the past 13 years. No shortage of things to read if you want to spend the time.

What I do want to touch on briefly here is the fact that just about all of us have it within our power to make things happen for ourselves.

I’m living proof of that. I’m from a lower middle class family where college wasn’t likely to be an option and got my first job — a paper route — when I was 13. I’ve been working pretty much nonstop since then — although my idea of work these days has little resemblance to the 9 to 5 grind most people deal with daily. (Hey, I was there for eight years and I know what you’re going through. The commute, the office politics, the meetings, the feeling that all you’re really doing is pushing paper. Ugh. Hope yours is better than mine was.)

Everyone dreams of doing or learning something special that’s important to them, but how many people do it? Some try but fail because they don’t realize from the get-go that achieving a difficult goal is a lot of hard work with very long hours and no guarantee of success. It takes planning, it takes funding, it takes the ability to work smart and have Plan B (or C or D) ready when things don’t work out as you expected. It’s easier to not try and to simply keep dreaming.

But do you really want to wake up one day when you’re 56 years old and realize that your life is more than half over and you haven’t achieved what you wanted to? (I think that’s what happened to my wasband; it pretty much caused him to lose his mind in a midlife crisis that went horribly wrong.) We only have one life. Why would you let it go by without at least trying to achieve your dreams?

The Psychology of “Success”

I was in college, in a Marketing class, when I first learned about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. From SimplyPsychology:

Maslow (1943) stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs. When one need is fulfilled a person seeks to fulfill the next one, and so on.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Wikipedia image by FireflySixtySeven – Own work using Inkscape, based on Maslow’s paper, A Theory of Human Motivation., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36551248

The earliest and most widespread version of Maslow’s (1943, 1954) hierarchy of needs includes five motivational needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid.

This five stage model can be divided into basic and psychological needs which ensure survival (e.g. physiological, safety, love, and esteem) and growth needs (self-actualization).

The deficiency, or basic needs are said to motivate people when they are unmet. Also, the need to fulfil [sic] such needs will become stronger the longer the duration they are denied. For example, the longer a person goes without food the more hungry they will become.

One must satisfy lower level basic needs before progressing on to meet higher level growth needs. Once these needs have been reasonably satisfied, one may be able to reach the highest level called self-actualization.

The SimplyPsychology page about Maslow goes on at some length, making it difficult to decide when to end the quote. If this interests you, I highly recommend that you read it for yourself. It’s in plain English and a lot easier to decipher than the Wikipedia entry.

Maslow’s Hierarchy stuck with me since I first learned it. It made so much sense. It almost provides a blueprint for a good and fulfilling life. We are motivated for obvious reasons to take care of our basic needs like food, water, shelter, rest, and safety. Once those have been dealt with, we can move on to psychological needs like friends, relationships, prestige, and a feeling of accomplishment. Once we feel secure psychologically, we can move on to the need for self-actualization: achieving our full potential and realizing our dreams.

I admit that I was a bit put out when I learned this — keeping in mind that I was only 17 at the time — by the notion my professor suggested that once we’d found self-actualization, there was nothing left to motivate us. But since then I’ve realized that self-actualization isn’t the achievement of one thing. It’s the achievement of as many things as we like.

Here’s an example from my life. Since I was a kid, I always wanted to write a book (and have it published). When I was 31, I achieved that goal. So what does that mean for me? Game over? Call it quits? No. There was another goal waiting in the wings to step forward when that had been achieved: to make a good living as a writer. And I had other goals throughout my 20s and 30s and beyond: learn to ride a motorcycle, visit all 50 states (still working on it; haven’t been to Minnesota yet), learn to fly helicopters, manage rental properties (what a mistake that was!) — the list goes on and on. As it should.

Some people think of these goals as “bucket lists.” I’m not a fan of that. I don’t believe in check lists of things that we put off until we’re ready to “kick the bucket.” I believe in doing things now, while we can really enjoy them and learn from them and possibly let them change our lives.

Flying is a good example. I wanted to learn how to fly helicopters since my first ride at age 7. I never dreamed I’d be able to do it, but when I had the time and money to learn, I did. Then I got hooked on flying. I bought a helicopter. I dreamed of being a Grand Canyon pilot and built the experience (measured in flight hours) to qualify. I did that for a season. And before I knew it, I had bought a bigger helicopter and was doing what had to be done with the FAA to build a charter business. Now flying is my primary source of income. Yet when I took my first lesson back in 1997, I never thought I’d fly for a living.

Good thing I didn’t wait until I was collecting social security to take that first lesson, huh?

A side note here: 36 is older than usual to start flying, but not too old. Two of the helicopter pilots who flew with me this season also got late starts as pilots. One of them co-owns a helicopter flight school that has two locations and a bunch of helicopters and employees. The other works for him and just this week has built the 1,000 hours of flight time he needs to get his first commercial pilot job. Both men are in their 40s and have been flying for less than 10 years.

Make It Happen

As usual, I’ve wandered away from my original point. I have so much to say that it’s difficult sometimes to stay focused.

My point is this: we all have the power within us to make it happen.

Inspired Pilot

Back in March 2015, I was interviewed for the Inspired Pilot podcast. This is the brainchild of Marvyn Robinson, a UK-based pilot and IT guy, who interviews pilots with the goal of having them provide inspirational thoughts and information for people who want to learn to fly. It was a real pleasure to share my story. If you’re interested in the path other pilots took, I highly recommend it.

Take care of the needs at the bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy. Don’t piss away your money trying to satisfy higher level needs until the lower-level ones are satisfied. (Do you really need a Mercedes when a used Honda will do? Prestige is better earned through actions than flashy, expensive possessions, despite what advertisers tell us.) Get and stay out of debt so you don’t need to be a slave to a job or lifestyle you hate. Think about what you really want in your life: a skill, a dream job, a business doing something you love? Do your homework — find out what it takes to meet your goals.

And then turn off the television, get your head out of your phone, and stop wasting time whining and complaining and making excuses for why you can’t succeed. Work hard and smart, keep your eyes on the goal and what you need to do to reach it. You can do it.

The Video

I started this post by explaining why my helicopter was parked in my side yard and what I was thinking and feeling about it as I photographed it from various angles. What I didn’t mention is that I made a video, too.

I tried to put into words what I was thinking and feeling. I always feel a bit awkward about showing off the helicopter. It’s one thing to put a picture of it in action or parked at a landing zone online, but it’s another to actively brag about it and what it means to me. I know that owning a helicopter is beyond the wildest dreams of most people. But I also know that it was once beyond my wildest dreams — go figure, huh? Maybe anything is possible.

The video does get a little personal. I mention my wasband and how sorry I feel for him. I wish I could have done a better job motivating him to achieve his goals, but in all honesty, I could never understand why he would need motivation from me. Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy? I’ve come to realize that I’m more driven than the average person to reach the top of his pyramid, but I didn’t know it back then. To me, the man I spent more than half my life with was intelligent and had or could build the skills he needed to succeed in one or more of his many life goals. I could never understand why he didn’t even try — or why he gave up so quickly when he did. Instead, when I prodded him to work toward a goal — for example, flying more often so he could get the hours he needed to achieve his goal of becoming a flight instructor — he countered with excuses. After a while, I gave up with frustration. I now realize that not everyone is as driven as I am. He definitely isn’t.

Hindsight is 20-20.

Yes, I know that this blog post is addressing a first world problem.

Here in the United States, most people don’t have to worry about getting food or shelter or meeting other basic needs. Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do to help those in other nations who are less fortunate than we are. I can only recognize that they are struggling and hope that things get better for them.

That said, please don’t lecture me (or others) here about insensitivity to those less fortunate than we are. Read the Site Comment Policy for more advice about sharing your thoughts here.

The video also assures viewers that we all have it within ourselves to achieve our goals. Maybe I’m being too optimistic? I heard on the radio just yesterday that people in Argentina are starving right now because they can’t get food. And what of the millions of refugees in the Middle East and Africa? Can these unfortunate people ever achieve their dreams? I don’t know. They need to take care of the bottom of the pyramid first. So many people in today’s crazy world do.

But for the rest of us — like the dozens of people who have told me, during flights, that they’ve always wanted to be a pilot but never learned — what are you waiting for? Make it happen!

I did — and I continue to do it every day.

On Being an Early Riser

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I wouldn’t have it any other way.

For a long time now, I’ve been an early riser. Sometimes, a very early riser.

While I clearly remember my college days when it was nearly impossible for me to wake up in time for an 8 AM class and my early professional career days when I dreaded hearing the alarm go off at 6:30 AM, I can’t remember when I made the switch from late riser to early riser. I suppose it was a gradual change as I aged, embraced my freelance lifestyle, and allowed my life to go off-schedule.

For the past 20 or more years, I haven’t had much of a need to set an alarm or wake up at a certain time. Every day is different. Although I do occasionally have early appointments or even earlier planes to catch — my favorite flight out of Wenatchee when I’m traveling leaves at 5:40 AM; yes, I do set an alarm for that — there usually isn’t any reason to get out of bed by a certain time.

I go to sleep when I’m tired and wake up naturally when my body is done sleeping. Or thinks it’s done sleeping. Yet these days, I’m invariably up before 6 AM, often before 5 AM, and occasionally before 4 AM. (If you read the blog post about my recent cruise, you learned that I was up most mornings by 4 AM.) I am naturally an early riser.

Some folks seem to think this is a problem. They have encouraged me to stay up later in an effort to shift my body’s clock forward a few hours so it’s more in line with everyone else’s. I’ve tried this. No matter what time I go to sleep, I’m awake before 6 AM — even if I stay up until a crazy time like 3 AM. And I don’t know about you, but I operate better on six hours of sleep than three. It’s fortunate that I apparently don’t need eight.

I like being an early riser. I like getting up around dawn in the summer or in the darkness of a winter morning. I like the quiet and the solitude of those early hours before most people are awake. I like hearing the crickets in the dark as I brew my morning coffee and my rooster crowing almost precisely a half hour before dawn. I even like the sound of the sprayers in the orchards below my home during the summer months, and seeing the headlights of the tractors as they make their way between rows of trees in the dark.

Do you want a more detailed description of a summer sunrise at my home? Read “Sunrise from Lookout Point.”

I like watching each new day being born — the gradual brightening of the sky, the fading of the stars and city lights, the glow to the east, the golden hour sunlight light tentatively touching the mountaintops to the west and then slowly blanketing their slopes all the way down into the valley.

Morning View
I never get tired of the morning view out my windows.

I like the fact that I can experience all of this at my own home, at my own convenience. I like taking my morning coffee out onto the deck and looking out over the new day as cool air caresses my skin and hair and the aroma of a recent rain or my fresh cut lawn competes with the smell of what’s in my mug.

I’m a morning person and get most of my work done in the morning. That’s good and bad. It’s good because it leaves the rest of the day wide open. But it can be bad if I have a lot to do and I run out of steam by 2 PM. I try to manage this drawback by scheduling appointments in the afternoon whenever possible, leaving the morning open to accomplish the things I need to do.

My usual routine consists of morning coffee as soon as I get up — whenever that is — and quiet time to reflect and write in my journal. Then I sit down at my computer and do some writing or paperwork or both. “Paperwork” usually consists of bill paying and filing, website maintenance, correspondence, client communication, and marketing material creation for my businesses. That usually takes me to 10 or 11 AM. Then I switch into more active work around my home or in my garden. There’s always something that needs to be done, especially as I finish up construction work that includes the tedious task of trimming doors, etc.

If I have scheduled an appointment or have errands to run in town, I’ll clean up, dress appropriately, and head down into town with Penny. I always have a list of destinations on a Post-It note stuck to my windshield so I don’t forget anything — I live 10 miles from town and I don’t like to make the trip more than once a day if I don’t have to. I keep shopping lists on my smartphone for the same reason. I can get a lot done on one trip into town if I stay focused and organized.

By 6 PM — especially in the winter when it’s already dark — I’m pretty much physically and mentally done for the day. That’s the time I set aside for socializing with friends and relaxing. I even find it difficult to write during this time, although I’ve been trying hard lately to make that my blogging time, leaving the morning open for writing jobs that bring in revenue. If I went to town earlier in the day, I sometimes meet up with friends in the late afternoon or early evening: wine at Pybus Market, cocktails at the Sidecar Lounge, dinner at Tastebuds, or a movie at Liberty or Gateway Cinema. If I’m home, I sometimes try a new recipe — I’ve recently rediscovered my love of cooking — and read the news or waste time on social media while eating it.

I think I watch too much television these days — more than an hour a day when I’m home in the evening — and it bugs me; my wasband was a slave to the television, channel surfing for hours every evening when he could have been working to achieve one of the life goals he claimed to have. I worry I might end up like him: unproductive and stuck in a rut.

I love to read, but if I do it in bed, I’m usually asleep within minutes. So I try not to read in bed before 9 PM.

I’m usually asleep by 10 PM — unless I’m out with friends or entertaining.

I don’t think I can adequately express how happy I am to be single and have full control of my life and time. There’s no one trying to put me on his schedule or make me share his time-consuming responsibilities. I do the things I want or need to do when I want or need to do them. I don’t have to schedule my life around someone else’s.

Best of all, I can wake up any time I like and not have to tiptoe around my home because someone else is sleeping.

I admit that I’m very fortunate to have the flexible lifestyle I have. But it isn’t “luck.” I’m a firm believer in the notion that we make our own luck. I worked hard to get where I am today and having this lifestyle is the reward for all that work. I’m a morning person and I earned the right to enjoy my mornings.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

You’re the Pilot

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A reminder — or bit of inspiration — for a Monday morning.

I am the queen of clutter and a big portion of my life is spent sorting and discarding things I don’t need to in an effort keep that clutter under control. The clutter naturally extends to my computer’s virtual desktop, with so many stray icons scattered about that I can barely see the photo beneath them. So, once again, this morning I found myself reviewing and discarding the items I didn’t need.

And that’s when I stumbled upon one of those Facebook or Twitter memes that goes around. You know what I’m talking about. Someone takes a photo and superimposes text over it to share a message. Because social network users respond better to images than plain old text, the image is viewed and the message is read. If it’s meaningful to the viewer and the viewer is a sharer, it gets shared. Eventually it ends up in your Facebook timeline or Twitter stream.

Or mine.

I see a ton of these every day — so many that I fully admit to unfollowing the people who share only these canned messages. The way I see it is that if you can’t come up with something original, there’s really no reason to follow you because whatever you share will likely come from someone else anyway. And who likes seeing the same old crap over and over?

And they are crap, for the most part. Quotes or idioms or just statements that are meant to be deep or meaningful or funny. Most of them completely miss the mark. The ones I hate the most are the ones where the image has absolutely nothing to do with the text superimposed on it. I’m not big on Bible quotes, either, especially when there are so many cafeteria-style Christians who haven’t bothered to read the whole Bible and simply share the quotes they think say it all. (Newsflash: they don’t.)

But every once in a while, one will come across my social media network and really mean something to me. Those are the ones I share. And if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you’ll know just how rare it is that I share one of these.

And that’s what I found on my Desktop this morning. One that I’d seen and probably shared on February 19, 2015.

How do I know the exact date if I’m not even sure that I shared it? Easy. I copied the file to my Desktop and it was appropriately time- and date-stamped.

I don’t remember who shared it with me, but I suspect it came through on Twitter. If so, I likely retweeted it before saving it and likely sharing it on Facebook, too. If I wasn’t so lazy — or, in reality, eager to finish this up and get on with my day — I’d take a while to track it down. Ironically, this message sort of explains why I won’t bother.

I'm the Pilot

This particular meme is extremely meaningful to me on so many levels.

First, back in 2008, when my pilot friend Erik got sick with cancer, I found myself with a new sense of urgency in my life. I was 47 back then, not much younger than 54-year-old Erik. I saw myself stuck living in a place I didn’t want to be, mired in a life of [admittedly unusual] routine. While I worked hard, long hours when I had work to do — mostly writing books back then — I had lots of free time. That free time was being pissed away doing very little of interest. Time was flying and I knew time was the one thing I could never get back.

When Erik died the following year, it was easy to see how it could have been me. No one knows when The Big C will strike and how much damage it can do. What if it had been me? There were so many things I wanted to do with my life — things to learn, things to see, things to experience. I wanted to travel far and wide, to experience life in new ways. The dissatisfaction I’d begun to feel with my [admittedly cushy] life became more and more difficult to ignore.

Time was flying away from me and I was letting it.

At this point, I could go into yet another long dissertation about why I was stuck in Wickenburg and why I couldn’t change my life. As regular readers know, I was married at the time and my wasband was an anchor — and not in the positive sense of that metaphor. But in reality, it all comes down to me. I should have realized that my wasband was holding me back and that our relationship was going nowhere. But love and trust and the blind belief in lies and empty promises can play tricks on even the most analytical of people. I was a sucker and I paid for it.

And that’s where the second part of the quote comes in. You see, we all do have control over our lives. We can make excuses why we don’t, but we do.

Throughout our lives, we make decisions that put us into the circumstances in which we find ourselves. School, jobs, relationships, habits, spending. How many decisions do we make each day? How do those decisions affect how we live and what we do? What if we’d made different decisions — how would they have changed our circumstances today?

Think about where you are now and what decisions you made to get there. Happy or unhappy, it’s up to you.

Time flies, but you’re the pilot. You have control over your life.

Of course, this whole meme is made even more meaningful to me because I am a pilot. Literally. I fly helicopters and have been doing so for the past 15 years. I now make my living primarily as a pilot — although I do still write — and I’ve never felt happier or better about my life and my future.

Why? Because I finally took control of my life and made it what I wanted it to be.

Time flies and I’m the pilot.

Naked on the Deck

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And other benefits of a home with privacy.

Lately, I’ve taken to relaxing on my deck after a shower or soak in the tub. Naked.

Naked on the Deck
This chair outside my bedroom door to the deck is a perfect place to relax after a shower or soak in the tub.

I can do that where I live. My north-facing deck is covered and blocked from the road by my home. There’s a hill to the west that separates me from my closest neighbor. To the north and east, the land drops away, leaving me with a clear view down to the Columbia River Valley with more than a quarter mile between me and the closest home or orchard.

I have a comfortable chair out there where I can relax, letting a warm summer breeze tickle my skin and dry water droplets my towel missed. I listen to the birds or the crickets or the orchard sprayers while looking out over miles of orchards, scattered homes, a small lake, the winding Columbia River, basalt cliffs, and the city of Wenatchee off in the distance.

It’s one of the perks of living someplace with privacy.

My home in Arizona had nearly as much privacy and I admit I occasionally lounged on my upstairs patio there after a shower or bath — mostly on a warm winter afternoon when the sun flooded the covered area. But I was far more likely to drop my towel at night than during the day; my neighbors were a lot closer and more likely to spot me out there. I’m shy.

My vacation home in northern Arizona was the ultimate in privacy. No one was ever around up there. That place also had a deep silence broken only occasionally by the sound of the flapping of a raven’s wings or a car wandering onto the rumble strip along the closest paved road two air miles away. Or a jet, 30,000 feet up, flying on the jet route over the Grand Canyon.

I value privacy — real privacy. That’s one of the reasons I live on ten acres two miles down a gravel road on the edge of town. Yeah, it’s a long drive — 10 miles to the nearest supermarket — but it’s so worth it.

People complain about loss of privacy from big data collection by social media or portable devices or government agencies like the TSA. Yet these same people live in homes 20 feet from their neighbors’ and rely on association-approved fences to keep those same neighbors from watching their backyard barbecues. Or they share walls with neighbors in apartments or condos and can hear their neighbors sneeze or argue or have sex. Or their windows look out into community spaces, thus requiring them to close the blinds if they don’t want their neighbors to watch them eating dinner or watching television.

I lived like that for a while: in a fishbowl condo that reminded me so much of a movie that I named the network Rear Window. I hated having to use blinds to block out prying eyes — and light. I hated the thought that I had to change the way I lived my life just because I lived so close to other people.

But here in my new home, I don’t have curtains or blinds on any of my windows. I don’t need them. No one is going to look in — no one can. And no one wants to — most of the people out here have their own lives and don’t need to poke their noses into their neighbors’ business. (Sadly, not all of them have learned what living in the country is all about, but I suspect they’ll learn that lesson soon. Seriously: some people who live in metro areas really should stay there. They’re not welcome here.)

So I’ll relax naked on my deck whenever I like, basking in the privacy that my semi-remote home gives me, glad that I made the decision to rebuild my life here, in a place I love, on my terms.