Second Third

The Second Third, Week 8: Go With My Gut

/ J. Thorp / 7 Comments

Blogger’s Note: The whole idea behind these “Second Third” posts can be found here.

I had intended to do a short post this evening about acknowledging and embracing the fact that I am not a rationale/logical decision-maker, but instead am an emotional/gut-level guy. Had I gone with my original idea, this post would be just about over:

“I tend to make emotional decisions, but most of the time they turn out better than when I try to think through things methodically. This is true for everything from my days as a high-school athlete to test-taking, from interacting with family and choosing friends to hiring people (or choosing a job myself). In my Second Third, I need to acknowledge that as a strength and “go with my gut” more.

The end. (Not much of a post.)

However, near the end of the work day today, I experienced a prime example of why “going with the gut” can be problematic even if it tends to work…and why I tend to be apologetic about it. It involved a collaborator and dear friend of mine, who may well read this post, but to whom I will only refer as “my collaborator” or “she.” If she chooses to reveal herself, that is her choice!

Last week I worked on a draft of a document that will be public in the next couple weeks, but that requires sign-off from a number of people. It is generally easier to get that sign-off if the version you share with the various “powers-that-be” is as well-thought-out and polished as you can get it. Unfortunately, I am also an instinctive writer, so I can always use help ensuring a piece is, in fact, as well-thought-out as I feel it is. That’s where my collaborator quite often comes in.

Last week she suggested some very concrete changes to the opening of the document. I read her changes, then stewed on them a bit. I could see what she was doing, and I thought I understood why, but they didn’t feel right to me.

Late this afternoon I began revising the document based on feedback from my collaborator and another colleague. I was working from an old draft because I hadn’t figured out what to do with the opening yet, but I wasn’t planning to use my collaborator’s changes verbatim.

Just then, in she walked.

She could see what I was working on, and she could see it was the old version. She asked me if I was working from an old version. I said yes, and mumbled something about trying to incorporate other feedback. (Technically true.) We went back and forth a moment, and she left.

The truth is, in that moment I couldn’t tell her why I wasn’t using her changes. Not specifically. So I punted: a low, wobbly, short kick to boot. Embarrassing.

I worked on it. I reworked the beginning, trying to weave in the optimism and opportunity she had added, but in a way I thought suited the piece better. I could’ve sent it to the next level of review at that point, but it still wasn’t ready, and I knew it — I just didn’t know why.

I was running out of daylight and up against a deadline. This collaborator of mine is one-of-kind, a person whose perspective (both on work and life in general) has been invaluable over the past few years. So I took the new draft, with my revised beginning, to her.

As soon as she saw it, I could tell she didn’t like my opening. She started to ask me about it, and I started to cobble together an explanation of what I was trying to do. She asked what was wrong with her suggested changes, and I tried to cobble together an explanation of why I wasn’t sold her approach. Both bits of cobbling were poorly done; she explained what she didn’t like about my latest version, and ultimately I acknowledged that she was right: she had explained logically what I couldn’t put my finger on — the reason I hadn’t simply sent my version of the document up the chain of command already.

“But I’m still not sold on your wording,” I said.

We talked a bit more, not completely comfortably…and as is typical between the two of us, she said something that sparked an idea, a solution to the opening that bubbled up in both of us at almost the same moment. She voiced the idea and even jotted some notes, then I ran from the room to try to put it to words.

My collaborator read the rest of the document, then came to my office with only a few minor changes to the rest of it. I asked her to read the new opening, which I had just finished. She did.

“Yes!” she said.

“We got it!” I said.

We laughed a moment about our back-and-forth earlier.

“We don’t exactly meet in the middle,” I said. “It’s more like this…” and I spread my hands wide, then brought them up, up, and together, like an A-frame or a high peak.

She laughed. “We take it to a higher place…I like that!”

“And it’s uphill for both of us,” I added.

“And it’s harder if we’re carrying baggage,” she said.

She’s right, of course. She generally is. But the thing is, that’s how my mind works. I know if something feels right or wrong, and I like something or I don’t, well before I can explain why. It’s a weakness in some ways, because I can’t defend or explain myself very well in a collaborative working environment. It’s why I hate meetings in which people attempt to write by committee, and why I almost always volunteer to be the one to “consolidate the feedback” and revise a document.

In my Second Half, I need to figure out how to explain this as a strength. But how do you think my collaborator will respond if I don’t accept her changes and instead say, “They don’t seem right to me — I don’t why — I just know we can do better…”?

The Second Third, Week 7: Hunting Old Knowledge

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment
Blogger’s Note: The whole idea behind these “Second Third” posts can be found here.

This fall, I took Brendan deer hunting for the first time. We’ve never hunted for small game together, and he’s never bow-hunted, so he’s skipped two stages of development I passed through on my way to firearms deer season. And it turns out we live in Minnesota’s shotgun zone — probably not such a big deal, given the range and accuracy of modern slug guns, but still, it feels somewhat foreign.

But worse still is the fact that Brendan has questions, and in the roughly 20 years since I last did any serious hunting — especially deer hunting — I feel as thought I’ve forgotten much of what I knew.

As a kid, I was an animal nut and hunted with my Dad all the time. I knew habitats, habits, and tracks, and what I didn’t know, Dad could teach me. I spent long hours alone in the woods in all sorts of weather. (I used to even enjoy late-season bow hunting — sitting still in a tree in a snowstorm waiting to ambush a deer with sharp sticks is its own kind of crazy, don’t you think?)

Today I know the basics; I’m safety-conscious and careful. And that’s a good start. But in my Second Third, I’ve got so much to relearn before I’m qualified to teach. Dad says it will come back to me. I hope so — without too many bonehead mistakes.

The Second Third, Week 5: What’s Cookin’?

/ J. Thorp / 3 Comments

Blogger’s Note: The whole idea behind these “Second Third” posts can be found here.

I like to cook because I like to eat. Even at an early age, I was somewhat particular about how things were made — for example, my dad taught be to put butter or margarine on a PB&J sandwich, because it makes the PB a little easier to swallow. To this day, one slice of bread gets a thin layer of butter, followed by a thick layer of crunchy peanut butter (none of that creamy nonsense), while the other gets plenty of jelly (strawberry preferably). The butter definitely helps ease the stickiness of the peanut butter, and the taste is exquisite (because it’s butter…naturally). I can eat three on an empty stomach, but Brendan insists one is plenty. Washed down with milk (or chocolate milk!) = heavenly!

The first thing I learned to cook for real was French toast, because I loved to eat it, and Mom didn’t want to make it. She showed me once. Once early on I made the mistake of cooking an entire batch using Dad’s rye bread (awful idea) — but otherwise, it’s only gotten better. Jim’s Casserole: noodles, sausage, cream of mushroom soup, cream corn, and as much shredded cheddar as you can melt. Old Lamplighter Chili: winner of work contests and bragging rights. I made Jodi a pineapple upside-down cake for her birthday. I used to even bake bread…from scratch.

In recent years, however, I’ve stagnated a bit…and while several of the foods described above aren’t particularly healthy-sounding, they are possibly better than the processed and preserved stuff we eat otherwise. In my Second Third, I intend for my garden to grow in size and scope. I hope to hunt and fish more, and more successfully. And I hope to take up and master new cooking activities. For example, Dad has given my two sourdough cookbooks. I love sourdough bread, and I’m intrigued by the living alchemy involved. Similarly, a friend of mine brews beer, and our first batch turned out pretty solid. Let’s do that!

But the biggest challenge — and a gift to both me and my wife — is posed by the two or three Asian cookbooks atop the pantry in the kitchen. Jodi and I love Thai and Chinese food, especially. If I can master a few key recipes — sesame chicken, drunken noodles, pork fried rice, Singapore noodles — I think our family would eat little else. Except maybe Jodi’s lasagna and mostaccioli. And breakfast burritos. Oh! and oven-fried chicken! And…

The Second Third, Week 4: Stewing

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

Blogger’s Note: The whole idea behind these “Second Third” posts can be found here.

I tend to spend too much time “in my head,” as a friend of mine would say. Ever read the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? Well, I half-recommended it to my dad, in part because I thought he’d like the motorcycle parts, and in part because I admired it (which is not the same as liked). He read it, and afterward admitted that he liked the motorcycle parts best, and that the philosophical portions of the book, which appeared to have lead the narrator to a nervous breakdown, made him think of me.

A couple different times in my teen years, he and Mom came home to find me sitting alone in silence in the twilight, having accomplished nothing all day, pale and distracted and emotional. He knows I have a tendency to go down the rabbit hole. So far I’ve always been able to find my way back to the surface. So far.

This tendency is at its worst when I get into a heated discussion regarding something I care about, especially with a friend. I will hash and re-hash an argument, sometimes even out loud, think of responses and likely counters, try to imagine what may have led to their point of view and how best to persuade them or at least make myself understood…and if the discussion is happening online, check for replies compulsively with my stomach tied in knots. I have unfriended people on Facebook just to relieve myself of the anxiety about The Next Thing they were sure to say, tomorrow, or two years from now, that would ignite an argument. I have a hard time ignoring things, and a harder time letting go.

It’s not a problem with forgiveness. I can forgive; that’s an action I can take, every day if need be. But I can’t forget. And if it’s me that screwed up, it’s worse still, because I tend not to cut myself much slack. With myself, even the forgiveness comes hard.

Another friend often says, “The perfect is the enemy of the good,” meaning that all of our efforts to make everything work out just so will amount to nothing, because perfection is unachievable, and by focusing all out efforts on accomplishing the impossible, we will accomplish nothing.

I have a wife to love, children to raise, things to do — I can’t afford to accomplish nothing! No one lives to 105 with the weight of all their mistakes on their shoulders and a thousand useless arguments raging in their heads. No question about it: in my Second Third, I need to lighten up.

The Second Third, Week 2: Thanksgiving

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

I spent my first third, from infancy to 35, wanting more. I used to have this card with a terribly grouchy-looking man on it, touting the virtue of dissatisfaction as inspiration and motivation. I used to have a million things I wanted to do, including running for office. I had so much to say, and places to go, and stuff I wanted: new and old stuff; beautiful and functional stuff; all sorts of stuff. But when Thanksgiving rolled around, I was always most thankful for the same handful of blessings, such as Jodi and my children, my parents and my sister, her kids and my in-laws and friends. All the stuff I wanted so badly over the course of the previous year wouldn’t even come to mind.

Over the course of the past summer and fall, we’ve been purging. Even the kids got into the swing of things, getting rid of toys and books, throwing out old drawings and lesser “keepsakes.” When they started asked about an xBox to replace the old PS2, I got them to agree to trade-in the PS2, all the games, controllers, accessories, and most of our PC games, plus put their own money toward the new system (even Trevvy). Jodi and I agreed to pay the balance, but that this would be our Christmas present to the kids this year (even though it was early autumn). They agreed with little hesitation. I hope they’ve begun to realize, too, that having it all is too much.

That may be wishful thinking, and I’m not perfect: on my birthday, Jodi agreed that I “could use” a new pair of brown casual shoes to replace my current, incessantly squeaking (albeit perfectly functional) pair. We went to the shoes store, I found a pair of Doc Martens, tried them on, and bought them. As soon as we got in the car, I felt horrible, and all the way home, I debated taking them back. A week later, after putting them on two or three more times on the carpet, I did just that. And felt good about it.

I’m thankful this year for all the usual things, plus two: the ability to get the stuff we need, or even the stuff we want, sometimes, and the sense to know when enough is enough.