Category: Life

My dad used to say that. (He’s gone now, so I haven’t heard him say it for many years.)

“Love me, love my dog,” simply means we have to put up with things we may not appreciate about some of the people we know. This is such a fundamental idea that I too often forget.

We all expect perfection from others, at some level. The closer the person to us, the more we expect from them. (The opposite holds true too – we expect a lot from our governmental leaders, and we will probably never meet them.)

Annoying habits or choices can be huge roadblocks in any relationship. The sooner we get over being fixated on those things, the sooner we can enjoy that relationship.

And yes, that’s our little dog Sparky. She’s pretty easy to love, as she is very loving in return. But she loves to bark at squirrels and ghosts we can’t see. I hope you get to meet her someday.

We had a million dollars. We lived in an alternate universe for five years, where we had a million dollars compared to some of our neighbors.

Nairobi, Kenya, is a huge city in East Africa. The distance between the rich and the poor is huge. As a result, crime is more common than in most parts of North America and Europe. There are more razor wire fences, alarm systems, security guards and carjackings.

I know it’s nice to focus on the positive aspects of other cultures, but that’s not my mission today. Instead, I want to tell you what it’s like to be rich.

Generally, it’s not fun. Simply eating at a restaurant caused a lot of guilt. We knew the price of one not-even-fancy meal could have fed a hungry family for days. Was the brief pleasure of eating out worth it? We thought so, as dining out was one of our ways to survive.

And we gave. We invested in people who were naturally part of our lives. We quickly learned that just giving money was not the answer.

Providing training allowed a young man to have a better-paying job that made a difference that lasted a lifetime. But it was a lot of blood, sweat and tears to make that path actually work, on his part and ours.

Paying for dental work for a lady we knew allowed her to eat with no pain, for years afterward.

So how do you deal with the guilt in your life? I would encourage you to not sit on it or suppress it. Do something.

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Epilogue: We have been back in the land of Target and Prada for more than seven years. We are not directly involved in the lives of those we helped back then. And the guilt of having so much relative wealth decreases as time washes our memories away. But we’re still trying to make a difference in situations that are in front of us now. We fail a lot – and still eat at restaurants. But we are doing something.

It was a surprise. And not a good one.

The result was waking up earlier than I wanted – and not drifting back into the peaceful novocaine of sleep.

Then I remembered this: “Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?” (Jesus said that in Matthew.) Worrying won’t fix anything. In fact, it will probably take away more than a moment of my life.

So I urge you – and me – to stop worrying.

It’s rusting.

Is rust beautiful? Some think so. Others think it needs to be sanded off, painted with primer and given a protective coat. For our bathroom light fixture, we could go one of three ways – leave it as it is, replace it or fix it. The lazy option won out – for the time being.

Another thing about this light fixture’s rust is that it causes the fixture to no longer look new – and it’s not perfect anymore.

The desire for perfection varies from person to person. As people mature, they realize that all battles can’t be won, so they must choose which battles to fight. One must decide whether each fight for perfection is worth spending the energy, time and/or money to win.

I love expensive watches. But I would never buy one.

One warm fall day I was driving north on a major street in suburban Denver. At every stop light, my $3,000 Toyota arrived slightly before the $100,000 Porsche in the lane next to me. Both drivers were accomplishing the same thing – going from Littleton to Denver.

A $2,000 Tutima watch tells time maybe just slightly more accurately than a $30 Timex. Its intricate detail is beautiful to behold. The owner knows that he supported a craftsman in Germany rather than a factory worker in China. If the owner breaks it, his tears will last much longer than those of someone who breaks their Timex.

But the Tutima owner is buying exclusivity. He may be the only kid on his block with that model. He knows that his wrist is holding a reflection of high human achievement.

How long does the pleasure of buying an expensive watch last? For some, a long time. For those with many, probably a short time.

I do grant a peer-review aspect to the equation. If a real estate agent is trying to sell a $2,000,000 house, she may not want to be seen wearing a $35 watch. With a Patek Philippe on her wrist, the message is, “I’m in your league.”

Which watch will you buy?

After Heather’s mom died, we had a lovely memorial service. A handful of very kind people gave loads of beautiful flowers. There were so many that her dad couldn’t keep them all in his condo. So we inherited several bouquets. (I took this photo of my favorite arrangement.)

As the days after the service passed, the flowers slowly died. I continually mourned the loss of all that beauty.

Part of my brain lives so much in the present that I feel like the flowers will last forever. The same feelings about those flowers have been true for the apples on our backyard tree. This year, our tree has produced the very best apples yet. And I enjoyed one for lunch almost every day for at least three weeks.

I’m sad.