It's Been a Very Good Year

As this article in The Telegraph forwarded by my son-in-law indicates, despite everything, 2014 was a very good year. Sure, it was the year of Ebola, ugly racially-charged killings by cops, monstrous barbarity by the animals that call themselves ISIS, extreme economic disparity between the haves and have-nots of the world, ongoing wars in Africa and the Middle East.

Nevertheless, as the article points out and despite what the mass media screams everyday, the world is more peaceful than at any time in history. People are living longer and genocide, autocracy, and terrorism are actually in decline.

In America, I suggest you turn off Fox News long enough to read this thematically similar article by economist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, who points out that, contrary to popular belief, about 10 million more Americans are covered by health insurance than were covered a year ago, thanks to Obamacare. Also, the growth in the cost of healthcare has gone down and the national health exchanges are operating nearly glitch free.

Also, strides have been made in immigration, climate change, and employment. We've witnessed powerful economic growth, strong gains in manufacturing, housing, and the stock market. Ebola was handled well and became a non-crisis in the U.S. and we didn't get ourselves involved in any more stupid wars. Not a bad year for a "failed" presidency!

Of course things are not all rosy, of which we're constantly reminded by the news media. But as the year ends, please take a moment to consider all the things that went right in 2014--arguably the best year the world has experienced in quite some time.

10 Things I Hate About Listicles

1. Listicles are a cheap way to get unworthy clicks on the Web.
2. It takes virtually zero writing or journalistic talent to do them.
3. They're among the worst Web time sucks outside of stupid cat videos.
4. They're irresistible even though clickers usually end up disappointed with their content.
5. No great ideas can be boiled DOWN to exactly 10 points.
6. Bad ideas cannot be boiled UP to 10 good points--padding abounds!
7. It sickens me that this sorry post will probably get the most hits ever on my blog--because it's a listicle!
8. The word itself is offensive and dumb--sounds like a certain male body part.
9. While people are wasting time on listicles, they could instead be reading my novel.
10. Listicles require 10 things and I can't think of 10 things for this one.  

Perfection is Over-Rated and Counter-Productive

We had our kitchen redone about six years ago—refaced cabinets, new tile floor with heat pads and dual thermostats, new fridge and dishwasher. It was all done about about the time my wife lost her job, which constituted half the family income, but that’s another story, another post. We have a half-bath off the kitchen, from which I removed the sink, toilet, lighting fixture and other bolt-ons so my wife could put up new wallpaper. It took her a year. Our lavatory is 4-feet by 4 feet. The wallpapering job looks perfect because my wife is a perfectionist.

            I am not a perfectionist. I’m not so bad that I can claim that for me “good enough is my very best.” I frequently sweat the little things, but seldom if ever sweat the tiny things. My wife takes pride in sweating the tiny…the infinitesimal… the molecular. She is one of those people who take on the look of disturbed pride as they describe themselves as perfectionists. The fruits of their labor, I do admit, are often good, but generally infrequent and well overdue on delivery. In the process, perfectionists tend to endure a constant misery and fear of underperformance while creating a hell of outlandish expectations imposed on partners, bosses, and underlings.

            “But I can tell the difference,” is the perfectionists’ lament, even when there is no difference perceivable to even the trained eye. And even when there is, I’m a believer in the glib retort, “Perfection is the enemy of the good.” Just get on with it. I have written four fair-to-good novels. The perfectionist is still working on his first. And working and working and working with no end in sight.

            Now, when it comes to surgery…

I Don’t Take Credit for My Kids

From a parenting standpoint, my wife and I have been very fortunate. We have raised two bright, well-adjusted, beautiful and passionate daughters, ages 28 and (almost) 21. They enjoy stable relationships with excellent guys and both couples face bright futures.

Yes, this may sound sickening and smug. And I would be the first to admit that my wife should be the one taking the most credit for their development, since she spends more time with them and had the most impact on raising them. But given all that, we’ve learned that it’s important to understand your limitations as a parent.

Kids are not computers. You can’t program them or command them to act in specific ways. Some perfectly attentive parents turn out children who become psychopathic killers, drug addicts, and various other forms of low life.

You probably know people like that—those who went to all the PTA meetings, parent-teacher conferences, were active in Boy/Girl Scouts, chaperoned at school functions, coached little league, monitored homework assignments, endured endless college campus tours, etc. Yet still their kids ended up serving time for robbing liquor stores.

Yeah, some parents just have bad luck. So, going back to my opening sentence, my wife and I have been very fortunate. We have self-motivated children who seem to love us very much—so what more can you ask?

But I’m thinking there’s more to it than just good luck—what else did we do? First, here are things we didn’t do:

• ·      We didn’t volunteer as much as other parents in our kids’ school and extracurricular activities
• ·      We didn’t hover over them when it came to homework and grades (and they still did well at school)
• ·      We didn’t force them to participate in activities that didn’t interest them
• ·      We didn’t have a say in the friends they made or the men they married (or are about to marry)
• ·      We didn’t force them to eat their vegetables
• ·      We didn’t stifle them in any way.

What we have done is encouraged them in all their endeavors. We always listen to them and offer suggestions, but never impose our solutions on them. We’ve exposed them to as many different experiences as our time and budget allowed with the hope of providing as rounded an experience as possible and to impart an appreciation for the great variety of life.

At no point did we expect to raise a dancer, an athlete, a musician, a scientist, a doctor, a whatever. But the idea was to lay out the possibilities and let our children discover their passion on their own—that’s not something we could do for them.

Personally, I am an attentive, though fairly hands-off, parent because I think this approach leads to more independent thinking—plus it saves me lots of time. My wife is more involved, but she is also is a firm believer in letting her kids discover their own path.

I’m not saying this is the best way to raise kids. But it worked for us.