Sobriety

This weekend has been a good, but tough weekend. I've been facing flaws in my integrity this weekend, particularly my failures around follow-through on work and goals. I've gotten infinitely better in the last year or so. But I also have a lot of work to do to offer the kind of integrity to my efforts and to others that they deserve.

Warren Buffet's comments in the video discussion I watched, today, that he had with MBA students at the University of Florida struck a nerve. He's right. Integrity matters more than intelligence. Intelligence has been my strength. So my pride has been that intelligence mattered more than integrity or anything else. I'm wrong about that.

I realized, today, that Buffet didn't make his money because he was the smartest man in the business (though he is brilliant, if you ever get a chance to read him or hear him speak). What Buffet has that the business world values and rewards is integrity. He's honest. He's a man of his word. He's someone you can trust. He's brilliant too. But it's his integrity that people value. I want that for myself. I don't have it like Warren Buffet. And want it like he has it and then some.

So I'll be working on that. I got clear about my need to be more organized and I am an organized fool, this year, after a year of working on it. And I assume the same will work for my dependability and follow-through within a year. We'll see where I'm at within a week.

But, today, something I can be very proud of myself for that I carry with me that has become a strength that has kind of snuck up on me has been sobriety.

I was watching some Fox News panel clips on Youtube, today (I see almost nothing live, anymore, these days), with some commentators that I respect - Bill Kristol, Juan Williams, Marra Liasson, Brit Hume, and (more reluctantly) Fred Barnes - and I was just noticing that I react to political conversations without really almost any recognizable partisan impulse anymore (I'm fairly independent, these days; I really don't identify ideologically, anymore, at this point).

I just operate in my life, including in my political outlook, with more substantial sobriety than I have in the past, much more than I conventionally see among partisans, which is most participants in politics, sadly and foolishly. The failure of more genuine sobriety in political discussions and debates, right now, in the political arena, proper, is its most serious failure, I think. It means a lot of passion, even amongst the most intelligent observers, obstructing more honest and empirical evaluations of public policy. I bring a lot of passion and intensity to my work. But somehow that has resulted in a more sober outlook on politics and life for me, these days, I assume because more rigorous empirical accounting for life brings more sobriety to one's outlook, even if much intensity is originally involved with bringing such rigor.

Anyway, I'm proud of this fact of my maturity, at this point in my life. I have many flaws and shortcomings. And it is nice to have sobriety amongst my strengths, these days. It gives me more confidence in my own outlook.

And it is nice to reconcile a sober outlook with the passion that I bring to all of my work and my life and that I just couldn't live without in my life, especially as I leave myself open to a soul-mate. I'm kind of a romantic, really. And the idea that someone had to be a cold-hearted, cold-blooded observer to be a decent scholar or have a more realistic outlook on the world has just never appealed to me. It has always seemed kind of pretensious, and snotty, and cold.

I'm none of those things. And have no interest in being any of those things.

And it soothes my heart to think that decent people like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates top the markets in the U.S. with their own sober and yet warm, caring outlooks on the world. Sober doesn't mean being a dick. It just means being honest. And the truth is that being a dick, in honest terms, means not giving enough of a shit about your neighbor. It's nice to know that people who do give a shit about their neighbor are rewarded for it in the market and in life, I think.

I better get to bed. A new day and a new integrity awaits me tomorrow. I have work to do to earn peoples' confidence, especially my own.

Love,
Ben

I feel fuckin' stupid

I watched this Warren Buffet MBA discussion on Youtube, today, and it was really good for me, largely because Warren is really good at reminding people that most of the important things in life and investing are not really that complicated. And it speaks well to my pride in my intellect and what it can and cannot do for me.

And after I was done listening to a brilliant presentation, I felt really stupid. Not because Warren is so much more brilliant at allocating capital and other financial matters, which he clearly is. I felt stupid because him talking about investing and life in such down to earth terms reminded me that I have this huge flaw that is really simple but which for much of my adult life I have made more complicated than it really is. I can hardly believe that I'm about to admit it in public, because it really does go to my integrity and it's not positive.

I've spent the last year or so getting on top of being much more organized. And I am happy to say that I have done very well in that department. Much better than many of my colleagues and light-years ahead of last year.

But my still remaining most important integrity flaw (I'm sure I have many, but this is the one that is most glaring, right now) that I am embarrassed to admit is follow-through. I have so many good intentions. But often because I try to do too much, I end up falling through a lot. It got really bad at the end of the summer as I noticed it but was still pretty sensitive and defensive about it. And every new habit that I've ever wanted to learn, I found it easier to allow myself to indulge the bad habit, for awhile, before I took on the good habit and it seemed to help me let my defenses down. Today, I decided that I am tired of learning everything by hard knocks, which is what such a strategy offered me. But it worked better than anything I had tried before, so I've gone with it.

But the truth is that follow-through is not really that complicated. It does involve paring down your commitments to what you can actually do in a limited period of time. But after that, it's just doing the work. And I've often resisted and procrastinated and otherwise been kind of your average or below average fool on this count.

And tonight I feel stupid about it. Because it's kind of fucked up my life. I lost a lot of important stuff in my life over this. A relationship. A stipend. A job. The confidence of some friends and family, too, I imagine. I haven't meant to be a dick. I've just been kind of defensive about it and I'm always looking for my intellect to provide some deep, important insight to get me out of any problem, because my pride tells me that intellect matters most.

But Warren was right, today. Intellect doesn't matter most. Integrity matters most. I've just been proud about this because it's a weakness of mine and intellect is a strength. But Warren is right. Intellect is probably less important. It doesn't have to be a self-righteous commitment to integrity any more than it has to be a self-righteous commitment to intellect. That's why Warren's a good teacher on this. Because he has full confidence that anyone can take up whatever positive quality they might need to and let go of any negative quality they might need to and it doesn't have to involve a life full of worry and regret.

But regret I still have. I lost the stuff that mattered most to me over this. My relationship with Brandi and my relationship with some professors that I learned a lot from and cared a lot about. And I don't like letting people down.

I don't know. I just feel kind of stupid over it.

I probably lost Brandi to a better guy, is the truth. I've just been so defensive about my own faults. And that makes me feel stupidest of all.

Anyway. I guess it's a way that I can relate with my kids. But, really, I just want to get over it and be a better man without all of the self-righteous or defensive hubbub that goes with that.

I'm tired of learning all my lessons the hard way. I don't know why I get so defensive, but I do. I imagine because the defenses have been some kind of poor substitute for the real thing.

All I know is that I want more than anything to be the best I can be and the best, if possible, at what I do, and be the best man I can possibly be. And I'm know I'm tired of this shit clogging all that up.

And I feel really fuckin' stupid about this. I've spent all weekend on this flaw. It's an important flaw to face. I'm proud that I'm beginning to face it soberly. I'm disappointed that it has taken so long to do so. But such is life.

You always know a flaw of integrity, but you never feel good as long as it's there. I've had many in my life. Too many. And the only answer is to just note it, accept it, correct it, and move on. Because the defense will never substitute for the real deal. Ever.

Here's to facing our flaws honestly. And here's to a little human kindness and confidence in our ability to overcome our flaws being the surest route to helping us to face up.

Thanks, Warren.

Love,
Ben

Learning lessons the hard way

It is occurring to me, today, that I have been foolishly learning so many of my lessons the hard way, these days.

So many things that I have known to do but which I have stubbornly chose to learn by trial and error rather than trust received wisdom. It's so foolish, when I've thought about it, today. It is also the way that elders told me I would learn lessons when I was much younger. They were right.

And I am tired of learning lessons the hard way. Now, as a teacher, I watch so many kids live life this way. It is a sad and foolish way to live that sometimes has serious and accumulated consequences, over time (and undoubtedly will for me, as well).

Jesus was right. It is so easy to see that tendency in kids or others. It is much more difficult to see it in ourselves.

Up until I was 29 and in the 4th year of my Ph.D. program in special education policy, I trusted teachers and adults to guide me, better. But then they started to strong-arm me, more, and their clear flaws and shortcomings and failures and blindspots became all the more magnified for me. And I stopped trusting adults I had trusted fairly readily, up until that point.

And for 5 years since I left that program, I have had my defenses up, waiting for yet one more older person to try to strong-arm me and for me to resist their efforts in any way I could.

And as a teacher, I watch my students do it with me, even when they clearly need the discipline or self-discipline. And I understand it, better, from the other side of that table.

I guess we all have to foolishly learn many of our lessons the hard way before we learn them at all. George Bush and Hillary Clinton being no exceptions to that rule.

I am just tired of learning lessons the hard way. I want to learn the easy way, which is to accept received wisdom that I know to be genuinely wise.

For me, that means making choices I know are better choices and cutting out the bullshit optioning for what I know are bad choices.

And as a teacher, that means letting my students make choices and to stop giving them reasons to have their defenses up to keep adults at bay.

I guess we all have to learn lessons the hard way. But it sure it nicer when we learn lessons the easier way.

Love,
Ben