johnmaconline

The day was here.

The new bus ride. The new people. The new school. Equal parts excitement and dread.

This was the first day of sixth grade — middle school.

Once settled into our homerooms, our first official task as middle schoolers? The locker.

Where would my locker be? Who would be next to me? Would I have time to stop at my locker between classes? Would I remember the combination?

As children in a semi-rural community, each of us converged on the middle school from outlier elementary schools, many with a single classroom per grade. We had never seen most of our classmates before. We knew nothing of changing classrooms mid-day.

Lockers in the hall? Uh, no. A cubby in the classroom and a wall hook for your jacket.

A cubby was for children. Lockers were for teenagers.

The locker was the talisman of the middle schooler. We were no longer shackled to a particular room, teacher, or even the same group of kids. It represented endless possibilities.

The locker was also the center of middle school social life. It was our own little piece of real estate in the community.

“Meet me at my locker.”

Entire soap operas, playoff recaps, movie reviews, and music performances came to life in those 4 minutes between classes, 60-90 seconds of which were spent at the locker.

This was the moment.

I got fired while on vacation with my family at the beach.

It was in the late summer of 2004. I got the call from my manager while sipping a beer on the deck of the rental home, and he gave me the news.

“I’m so sorry to inform you, but you’ve been put on the list of people who will be laid off…”

I have no idea what he said after that first sentence. In one dreadful instant, the culmination of a lifetime of worry came to a head and flipped me upside down.

I had no control, and I was terrified.

What am I going to do? 

What will my wife and kids think of me? What will my friends say about me? What will the world think of me?

Am I a failure?

Am I less of a husband, father, man?

And why me? What’s wrong with me? 

Am I not good enough at my job? Am I not a valuable employee, or a valuable person?  

As it turns out, I didn’t get laid off at that time. I was rescued off the list and moved to another group and set of projects. 

Crisis averted. 

But that crisis, that existential moment of dread, has become one of the moments for which I am most thankful.

It woke me up. It was the inflection point. 

It was the moment that I decided to change the story and focus on what I could control.

Thumbing through pictures…

“Wasn’t that when we had the Dodge? Damn, that thing was a pain in the ass. Remember when the thermostat stuck shut on the way to the farm?”

“Look at that. There’s the old red Wheel Horse. That sumbitch just worked. Remember when we pulled out that old tree stump?”

“Right! I think that was about the same time we got that old piece of shit Maytag. Remember when that sucker let loose all over the basement on Christmas Eve?”

I’m a Gen-X’er. 1969, to be exact. The year of the moon landing, Woodstock, and the birth of ARPANET. 

We, the Gen-X’ers mark the end of a nostalgic era in mechanized life. An era in which we fully anthropomorphize the machines from our past as family members. These machines are full-on characters in the stories we tell. Sometimes protagonists, and often just MacGuffins, but always playing a role. 

Watch a Gen-X’er or boomer thumbing through pictures. Watch the eyes when a mechanized family member pops up, usually in the background. Then pay attention as briefly the story takes a quick sidebar. Complete with one’s overall view of the machine and a specific illustrating memory.

We live stories. We tell stories. We remember our past through stories and the characters in them. And our past informs who we are and the lens through which we see the world.

Those stories and their characters, including the mechanized ones, make us who we are. 

The gardner does.
The flower receives.
The birdwatcher observes.

You might be called to one from deep in your gut, or the universe, or God. Or you might find comfort and balance in shifting between.

Maybe you started out as one, but that was then, and this is now. Just look at how much life has happened since then. You could never be that again. So now you’re another.

That’s OK. You’re no robot. You’re a human. You are the journey.

Whichever you are, or rather, whenever you are, be a good one.

Becoming famous is simple. 

All you need to do is get the public to recognize you: to know your name, face, or the work you do. That’s a one-step formula.

But let’s face it. You and I are already famous. At least in our own circles. Even if it’s just your family, friend group, or colleagues, you can always define a public in which you are famous.

Most of the time, “What did the important person say?” really means, “What did the famous person say?” Does it ever actually matter what the famous person says?

Whereas, “You’re important to me” or “You’re important to us” carries an entirely different wagonload. 

What if we used our famousness, at whatever level each of us is famous, as a means to dig into our importance?

What would you do with a 1000-chimp army?

If you cared for a large property, maybe you’d put them to work on that — mowing, weeding, trimming, raking, cleaning.

If you ran a manufacturing plant with an assembly line, maybe you’d put them to work on that — picking, moving, drilling, spraying, screwing.

If you managed a data analytics firm, maybe you’d put them to work on that — gathering, calculating, sorting, interpreting, publishing.

What would those chimps need to do that work?

They’d need a lot of training, oversight, and checking of their work. Presumably, they might need less and less over time with the right amount. It’s possible they’d even form some sort of hierarchy that would take care of a lot of it.

But you know what they really need from you because they will never have on their own?

Intent. Only you can provide intent.

This message isn’t about chimpanzees.

Yesterday I spent some time cleaning out the paint cabinet.

I feel great. Lighter, even. Not only is my workshop (where the paint cabinet lives) much tidier, but I’ve reclaimed a bunch of space.

We’ve lived here a long time, so that cabinet had accumulated all sorts of partially used cans of a million different colors. Gallons, quarts, spray cans — bunches of them. Some almost full, and some mostly gone. Some were dried up and useless.

I’m a bit of a hoarder. I’m the kinda guy that saved all the paint cans. Because, you know, I may need it someday. You never know when you might need to reach way back into that cabinet to retrieve a long-forgotten color.

In fact, as I went through the dozens of cans, I realized that some of the colors were from rooms that we had painted two or three times since. I couldn’t even remember in which room we used them.

You probably have one also. A cabinet, shelf, or corner somewhere that accumulates all of those partially used paint cans of long-forgotten colors. The ones that you convince yourself that you may need someday. Go ahead and dig in on a Sunday afternoon.

This message isn’t about paint.

What’s the easiest thing you can do?

Follow your beliefs.

Do what you believe in. Do what you believe you can do. Do what you believe you can be successful at.

Whatever you’re currently doing is something you believe. Whatever you’re not doing? That’s the thing you don’t believe in. That’s also the hard thing.

Sometimes we have to suspend our beliefs and do the hard thing.

A tree lives alone in a field near my house.

I run or walk by this tree many times per week. Sometimes, I keep right on moving. Occasionally I stop and take a photo. But I always look at it. 

I’m always curious about its mood. 

I’ve seen its mood shift each day, sometimes multiple times a day. The season, the weather, the time of day; each of these external forces pressing their will upon the tree and providing background and context. The tree simply internalizes and then reflects. 

How could it not?

I used to believe that my understanding of its mood was about it — the tree.

But as part of my great unlearning, I realized that I was leaving out the most important factor affecting the tree’s mood — myself and my story. 

As it turns out, my interpretation of the tree’s mood is all about me and my story and less about the tree and its story. 

I learned stuff because of where I grew up.
I learned stuff because of who I grew up with.
I learned stuff from the system in which I grew up.

Since then…

I learned stuff from my circle.
I learned stuff from my experiences in the world.
I learned stuff from the back of all of those who have come before me.

I’ve learned a lot of stuff, and all of it informs the story in my head. The story about who I am, what I can do, how the world works, what is right and wrong, and what is true.

That’s my story. The story of how things make sense to me.

But I’ve realized that I’m on a journey. A journey started with an unknown destination but has since become clear.

I’m on a journey to unlearn everything I’ve learned.

Not because what I’ve learned or who I’ve learned from is wrong or doesn’t have value but because it’s the only way. Unlearning what I’ve learned is the only way to see the other. The only way to engage with the other. The only way to access other abilities and perspectives. The only way to create something different.

This journey of unlearning isn’t about right and wrong. It’s about the story I tell myself.

What should you unlearn?