the kongdan foundation

Family gatherings are limited now to getting together with my sister Mary’s family here in Springfield for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Gatherings are always centered of food and football. They are enjoyable and generally stress free There are usually about twenty in attendance and the three of us (Marie, Katie, and I) are pretty much on the sidelines. My wife Marie’s family consists only of her brother David who lives here in Springfield as well. We get together for Christmas when he and his friend come over for a small gift exchange. We sometimes get together for birthdays through the year. It is a time of reflection and remembrances of past occasions. We moved away from Springfield in 1987 and returned in 2015.Over that twenty-eight-year period we, or I, returned four times for family gatherings and reunions, 2002 for Christmas when we lived in Massachusetts, 2007 on our way home to Florida after adopting our daughter Katie in China. 2011 for my fortieth high school reunion at Carl Junction, and 2012 when I return over Christmas with a Chinese student John. Driving back from Missouri to Florida with John was stressful because while driving in Kentucky John left a bag with his passport and money at a McDonald’s. We had to drive back over fifty miles in a snowstorm trying to remember which exit this McDonald’s was at. We made it. This was stressful and memorable. A story to tell his family when he got home to China. .

2. Tell about a specific family gathering (perhaps a holiday, family wedding, or vacation). Who are the characters in the story? Who do you think has the most interesting story to tell?

It would have been over sixty years ago on the farm. There were nine brothers and sisters in my mother’s family. After my father moved them all up from Guthrie, Oklahoma to Lamar in the early 40’s they all got married and had their own families. So when they got together for holidays, etc., every year it was our farm that was home for them even after they all had moved away got married and had kids of their own. So that when I was a young kid on the farm there were about fifteen to twenty of us cousins about the same age who would be at the farm for holidays and over the summers. Of course, we always had a big Christmas tree and meal and all of the cousins over to our house on the farm. They would leave their toys at home that day and come play and break most of our and go home to theirs. Many years later a wedding I was invited to attend of a co-worker when I was in Massachusetts was surprising to me in that it was an all-day affair. I was expecting it to last a couple hours at most and it started a little after noon and went until late in the evening. It was a traditional Portuguese wedding much different than I had previously experienced.

3. When you gather with family as an adult, is it joyful, or do you sometimes feel as though old insecurities, or perhaps sibling rivalries pop up out of nowhere?

When it’s my immediate family (Marie Katie and I), it’s always very low key. We celebrate birthdays by going out to eat. When it’s with my sister’s family, it’s just Mary and I and our families. I’m seventy-one, she’s eighty now. No rivalries we’re pretty much in agreement on everything. Only rivalries are sports… My other sister Susan and younger brother Matt I don’t associate with them or their families. My younger sister Julie passed away last year.

4. Do you have a special time each year that your family loves to celebrate something special (perhaps a traditional holiday, or something else — in my family we call the month of May “birthday season” because so many of us celebrate that month)?

This seems repetitive. Christmas with my sister’s family is our current tradition as describe above. Years ago when my daughter Katie was in middle school in China we had a birthday party at a local restaurant with many of her classmates from her school. A family tradition in China that was different, was when celebrating birthdays with a birthday cake, they would share the birthday cake with everyone before the meal, not afterwards.

5. When you gather as a family, what are the things you love to do (visit and catch up, board games, singing, etc.)?

Eat and watch football… the great American tradition. Our family owns two restaurants in Springfield. While we go to Mary’s house, she no longer has to fix everything. My nephew takes care of providing food. We’re all Kansas City Chiefs fans. Although in baseball I’m a Cardinals fan and my nephew is a Cubs fan so we don’t discuss baseball. I have many friends and past students in China, we often exchange greetings at holidays and I try to catch up with them. Most were impacted greatly by COVID over the past few years. My students are now teachers and tell me about their experiences. When I was in China years ago, I often was the guest at children’s birthdays of my friends and attended the wedding of one of my students. A good friend in Beijing who helped to translate my first book over twenty years ago will sometimes ask for the proper use of English and conveys Christmas greetings every year. My best friends in China (Jenny, Maria, and Andy) and I convey best wishes during the Christmas holiday. I consider all of them family.

6. Do you have a quirky relative that you don’t always see eye to eye with? Perhaps a quiet uncle who sits in a corner, a cousin filled with regrets — always telling stories of missed opportunities, or perhaps a sibling with jealousy issues. What would a family gathering be like for them?

I’m probably considered that quirky, quiet uncle who sits in the corner. They are all connected to/with the family business. They own Bambino’s Italian restaurants here in Springfield so they are tightly connected though this endeavor. We are there as extended family. My nephews and niece (now in their fifty’s and sixty’s), all have families who are present and focus is generally on them. .

7. Do you prefer to host a family gathering where you can control more variables, or just show up with the ability to leave when you choose?

We have few people over to our house at any time. We moved back to Springfield about eight years ago after living for twenty years in south Florida where there was no family within more than a thousand miles. Again, I am now seventy-one and my wife Marie is seventy-three. Just showing up is about all we can do at this point.

Week 18   Best Day of my life

1. List 5-10 amazing days in your life. Allow your creative juices to really flow. Think of all the kinds of days that could be considered the “best.” (Below are seventeen or eighteen that I can recall, given time I’m sure there are more). I tried to put in chronological order.

– Days spent on the farm with memories too many to list here.
– Time spent with my grandmother and her garden. Going to church with her and the lines red, yellow, brown, black, and white they are all precise in his sight – Jesus loves the little children of the world. This idea when I was only nine or ten became inbeded forever in my thinking afterwards.
– Getting QSL cards and mail from over twenty countries while listening to shortwave radio while in high school in 1967-71.
– Lettering eight times as a student manager/trainer alongside the best athletes in high school. That was amazing.
– Graduating from college in 1976 with my family watching especially my father who helped me financially in getting my degree.
– Working for Jimmy Carter for President for two years prior to his election in 1976… and election day when he won,
– Having breakfast in the White House when I was a state representative in 1979 with the three people who were key to Jimmy Carters election I first met in 1974 when they convinced me to work for Carter’s election. I had first choice to be a Carter delegate in SW Missouri in Spring of 1976 but let someone else go in my place.
– March of 1977 going to Shidler, Oklahoma to assist in conducting a Town Meeting where in one day residents were to go through a process looking to underlying contradictions that kelp them from achievable doable goals. This was an epiphany that later helped me both professionally and my life.
– The float trip sponsored by the Jaycees where I met Marie in August 1977 who I would later marry less than a month later.
– Election day in 1978 when I was elected a state representative in Springfield and later being sworn in in January 1979 with my father watching from the gallery.
– Getting the job in Fall River while staying with my aunt and uncle in New Bedford, Massachusetts in March 1988 and later getting the job in Florida in 1995. Especially my focus one help other to do master planning for cities and neighborhoods. This process became critical to my learning to do planning of an achievable outcome that would serve to guide my own life forward.
– Purchasing the book “Elements of Taoism” by Martin Palmer on Thanksgiving weekend at the Providence College bookstore and Christmas day in 1992 when I wrote about Lao, Chuang, and Lieh Tzu asking me to follow them in and through my writing.
– The decision by publisher in Beijing in 1994 to recognize my writing had merit followed by publishing my two books in China and ever day since in my reflecting the past, present, and future through my writing.
– The acceptance of my foundation – The Kongdan Foundation as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization in 1997..
– The process of adopting our first daughter Katherine (Katie) from Maoming, China and my first trip to China..in May 1997.
– The same for adopting our second daughter Emily from Urumqi in 1999.
– Going to Qufu the first time in October, 1999 and later the Shandong Christian Church Association decision to sponsor my foundation publishing the Daily Word in 2006 and 2007.
– Returning to the City of Boynton Beach and getting the city to begin a sister city relationship with Qufu, China in 2000,
– Getting an apartment provided by the university in March 2011 where I would be teaching for my daughter Katie and I in Qufu and my first day of teaching at the University in Qufu and first day of teaching at the school founded for the descendants of Confucius and his followers.
– Making almost fifty trips to China taking thousands of pictures all representing amazing things many of which of places I have seen many times before. That and the hundreds of thousands of words that I have written on my website that returns and/or takes me to places I have served to take me beyond where most think of going.
– The decision to return to Springfield, Missouri to live in July 2015.
– Becoming a Master Gardener in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in 1992, designing and assisting in plantings in over forty HOA’s (Homeowners Associations) as the Neighborhood Specialist in Boynton Beach) and sponsor community gardens with the Mounts Botanical Garden in Palm Beach county from 2001 to 2005, and now a Master Gardener in Springfield in 2023.

2. Write about your very favorite day from the list above. Try to convey all the details and emotions you felt.

What an impossible task on so many levels. The above the culmination of what was to become my transformation that I can look back to and on that I carry forward in my memories like pearls on a string. Singling out a favorite day from what is listed above is impossible. Election day when I won in 1978 as the second youngest democrat in Missouri history, breakfast at the White House, beginning to write about Taoism and having my own website, my foundation publishing the Daily Word that has been read by more than three million people in China, adopting two little girls from China, events in and teaching in Qufu, going to Lhasa, Tibet, etc, etc. Now. every day retired stepping out every morning seeing the culmination of years of landscaping and planting flowers. Conveying details and emotions I can only add that I think that I have done something worthwhile in my life.

3. Is your happiest day and most fulfilling day the same, or are they totally different days? Compare and contrast the two.

Happiness is a process; the culmination of singular events stemming from ability and focus on achieving achievable results over time. It doesn’t just happen. When something is fulfilling, it implies that over time, you have gained a sense of accomplishment, or outcome, due to or because of your efforts. Numerous examples could be taken from above, but the process of adopting our two daughters Katie and Emily come to mind. Happiness was the ability to go through the process required to complete both adoptions and planning both trips, one in April/May 1997 to adopt Katie, and again in October/November 1999 to adopt Emily in Urumqi. Fulfilling for me, would be the day we actually received our daughters at the end of the adoption process. I think they can be seen as the same, or different, depending on the outcome. Happiness was when the Christian Church Association of Western Shandong Province agreed that my foundation could publish the Daily Word. Fulfilling was when it was published and distributed throughout the province. Happiness is being able to climb the mountain, fulfilling in waking up the next morning on the mountain top and seeing the sunrise.

4. What was the day you felt most useful? Tell us the story.

Being useful is not something really achievable in one day unless you are prepared. I think self-awareness of out individual talents and discovering our purpose is simply knowing who we are and why we are meant to be present at this moment in time. There are a half dozen times when I felt really useful, trying to narrow to a singular day seems impossible. Gaining an institutional memory plus understanding what underlying contradictions exist is essential. What I learned in studying and writing about the I Ching was the power of complementary opposites. Over the years of designing and then implementing master planning for communities and neighborhoods, was that making myself useful meant that I must first understand my own talents and abilities before I could show others the way forward and then do so. Because I have always been the exception or enigma, what others call “out of the box”, taking others to places they otherwise would not go. With all that said, every day becomes useful in changing the status quo into something better.

5. Has there been a day where you felt like your dreams were coming true? Relive the experience.

When I first started writing about Eastern philosophy and Taoism, the thought of endeavor and destiny became ever prevailing in my thoughts. The ultimate dream is like being on a boat unsure of the final destination but anxious to go there just the same. These prompts in writing keep referring to “a day”, when it’s more like an awakening to the next step, or a door that acts like a portal, to where you need to go. Dreams are not meant to only address where you want to go… because you must first address who you are, where you have been that got you to where you presently are, and where your ultimate destination resides. Dreams without context have little or no meaning. Which brings us back to endeavor and destiny. If required to answer the question as a starting point, it would have been on Christmas Day in 1992 when I was reading… studying, the book “Elements of Taoism”. That what I should be following is where my writing takes me. My writing would convey my path, or portal, and what might be considered as a dream coming true. That what you (I) write is who I am to become. It’s why I keep fine-tuning my path with my writing every day. Reliving the experience is the never ending story of our lives.

6. What would your perfect day look like in the future? Think about from the moment you wake up until the time you go to sleep. Who is there? Where are you? What is the world like?

That everything I am here to do I have done. I wake up with my short to do list, write today’s agenda and simply do it until the time I go to sleep. Who is here… my wife and daughter, but I am basically alone. Where am I – either writing or in my garden. My world – or the world out there? The world can be a frightening place seemingly filled with people who cannot or will not see beyond selfish interests. My perfect day is knowing i have already arrived. I am living as though my endeavors have over time secured my eternal destiny.

7. Is there any detail from one of your best days that you could recreate in order to have more amazing days in the future? Bonus points for actually doing it and then writing about it!

I am retired now, so physically recreating details of the best days describe above would be challenging. Looking beyond the present day sees dreams fulfilled. Meditation by and through my daily activities takes me there. That is enough

Week 19 Worst day of your life

1. Leaning into pain can be scary. If you’re finding it difficult to go down that road, journal about why you think that is. What are your fears? An essay exploring this can be just as powerful, if not more, than a worst day essay.

Physical, mental, or emotional… I have few actual fears. Fears in the past usually centered on financial decisions that were not good ones that cost me much more than simply money. I’m retired now and it is much easier to live within my means. Physical, I have few issues except falling when I’m without a cane. I may need hip replacement surgery soon (its now 10/2023) I’ve completed my will. I worry about my daughter Katie who has epilepsy when Marie and I are gone.

2. Tell about a day you lost someone or something dear to you. This can be anything including a pet, job, friendship, etc.

My father, step father, and brother-in-law all died with about six weeks of each other in Jan/Feb 1980. Each of the days they died was difficult. My father was in a coma for two months in the hospital we had to make decision to remove from life support that was agonizing. My step father died after an overnight stay here in Springfield on his way to St Louis. I found him the next morning in his hotel room he had a heart attack overnight and died. I had to call my mother with the news. My brother-in-law died after a brief stay in the hospital after a stomach ailment. He was only in his mid thirties. These were life changing for all members of my remaining family and very painful. Losing my election in 1980, job in Fall River and moving to Florida. were painful but I recovered.

3. Have you ever made a major mistake that made you feel like the end of the world? Tell the story.

Going to France to follow an investment opportunity that did not pan out was a mistake.

4. Often, times of hardship are when we find the most growth. Can you think of an instance when this has been true for you?

I have written about this here before. But in my writing I once wrote an entry about “Leaving ourselves behind”. Following a path that is alien to our soul’s growth that can lead to painful endings. Three come to mind here. First, losing my election in November 1980, second, the hardship after losing my job in Fall River that led to our moving the Florida in 1995. And third the decision to return to Springfield eight years ago in 2015.

5. Have you ever had a terrible day that ended up being a blessing in disguise? How so?

All three of the instances described above in number 4. All three were a culmination of events that were not the results of a single day, but acted as if a part of a transformation that brought me to where I am today.

Week 20 Your Younger Years

1. What is your big picture perspective from your childhood up to about the age of 10?

Memories of the farm as described earlier. The biggest impact on who I was to become would easily be described as the summer of 1960 when my father took my sister Mary who was seventeen at the time and I to Massachusetts for the summer. I picked up the eastern accent and when I returned to the second grade that fall I did not sound like any of my classmates and was made fun of how I spoke. I had just completed my second year in the first grade for multiple reasons, now I had a whole new set of seeming obstacles to overcome. My youth on the farm was difficult with arguing between my parents that led to their divorce and selling the farm that had been both a haven and torture for me. We moved into my grandmothers house and later into town.

2. What did you love about those younger days?

With so much conflict around me, I looked within, and while I was unaware of where a strength was to emerge, what did emerge was the need to separate myself from others, because in grade school in Lamar I was picked on mainly because others knew it bothered me. Today we would call it being bullied because of my seeming weaknesses. Then teachers didn’t know how to deal with bullying. My eyes had been severely crossed, I had ever been forced to wear a patch over one eye to try to straighten it out. Needless to say, my childhood up to the age of ten was difficult. What did I love… the farm that I have described in detail in previous weeks in this effort.

3. Do you remember anything that was a struggle in your early childhood?

Everything pointed to me being different than everyone else. I couldn’t run, skip, jump, ride a bike like everyone else, etc.. The surgery I had when I was less than a year old at Ft Riley, Kansas that removed twenty inches of my small intestines messed up my lower vertebra in my back that made me very uncoordinated, (to this day at age seventy one). This was exasperated by the eastern accent I had picked up over the summer in 1960 in Massachusetts. I was to be treated as if this was a speech impediment not an accent until high school in Joplin. Everything was a struggle in my early childhood. It served to separate me from others that was to follow me the rest of my life. I have always had to overcompensate… Still being treated as an impediment in early 1968 my mother sent me to a speech pathologist in Springfield, we lived in Joplin at the time. After listening to me speak for a few minutes he laughed and said… “you don’t have a speech impediment, you have an accent. He said he went to school with Bobby Kennedy and I sound just like him”. So I had been laughed at and made to feel different because of an accent, not a speech impediment. Even my mother had treated me as if was a speech impediment. It contributed to my feeling ostracized during my youth. Needless to say, Bobby Kennedy became my hero. He was shot and killed a few months later. It was not a singular struggle, but a combination of many things.

4. Is there a moment within these years that stands out?

Moments could be separated into four parts. Years up to the end of second grade on the farm, the third and fourth grades living at my grandmothers house, and fifth and sixth grade living in Lamar. Finally, moving to Joplin prior to the seventh grade in 1964 that created a whole new paradigm as my mother had remarried. So, we now had a new house, new neighborhood, new school at Carl Junction, and I now had a step father. Change and not fitting in was always what appeared as normal. It was during this time I spent Christmas and summers with my father in Oklahoma City where my two older half-brothers lived as well. From 1962 through 1965 I spent this time there. Looking back, it was like a reprieve from my environment back home. I could always compartmentalize events and what was happening and more importantly learning to leave myself behind even then. Dealing with underlying contradictions became the norm. A single moment did not stand out in so much as the whole experience. I was always pretty much left to figure it out and do my own thing.

5. What is your birth order (oldest, middle, youngest, or only child)? Do you think this had an impact on you?

There were seven of us. Two older half-brothers from my father’s previous marriage, and five of us. Two older sisters. Mary ten years older than I and my sister Susan two years older. Plus, I had a younger sister Julie who is now deceased and brother Matt. So I was in the middle. I don’t recall being that close to any of them growing up or even later. We were not a close family growing up. I think my mother tried during holidays in Joplin, but the age difference and so much had occurred this was difficult.

6. What was your family or household climate like during the first years of your life? Who were the players? What do you think it was like for some of them?

I think I have answered this. Except to say that in my early years on the farm, my mother had an affair that led to my younger brother being born and later to my parents’ divorce. We never knew this until a few years ago. My younger brother never knew until after our mother had passed away. My parents argued all the time and the climate was very bad. My oldest sister was ten years older than I was and could move on… but for the rest of us it was a very difficult time. The farm was sold, and my father left and moved to Oklahoma City.

7. Who were your role models in these years?

In trying to define this, I would say the time up until my freshman year of high school. In high school it was shortwave radio and as a manager in athletic program. I don’t recall having any in grade school, except Lawrence in the movie Lawrence of Arabia, I think the six grade and the line where he responds to Omar Sharif’s character after someone is left behind in the desert. Sharif says they should leave that person to die and says fatalistically “It is written”. Lawrence goes back to get the guy, brings him back and says, “Nothing is written until I write it”. I was so overwhelmed by this thought that I bought the movie’s album and placed it on a turntable record player that I listened to in grade school over and over. I think this was a prelude to what was to become my personality growing up and since then. The idea that nothing is written before I write it gave me great poetic license even up to and including today. Even up to the point of my early forties when I began to write seriously when I wrote the line “What you write is who you are to become”. This thought has always been with me. I still watch the movie when it’s on and listen to the soundtrack on my phone sixty years later. There was a book that either my father or mother had on the farm or afterwards, I’m not sure exactly when I read it in grade school that was entitled Mila 18 that described the plight of the Jewish people in Poland and the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. I read it several times. We were not Jewish, but it gave me a great sense of empathy for what they went through dying and surviving.

Week 21 Moving out of your childhood home

1. Tell us about your experience of moving out from your childhood home. What was that first place like? How did the night go?

I’m seventy-one now and it’s all kind of a blur. As described earlier I went from the farm to my grandmother’s house, to town in Lamar, to Joplin and Tabor Woods, then to Springfield in college. Along the way summers in Oklahoma City during middle school, and a farm in Cedar Hill near St Louis during summers in high school. So much would be repetition of what I have already spoken about. Even moving to Springfield, I moved in with my sister Mary and her family where my father was living at the time. So, moving out of my childhood home could best be described as from the house in Tabor Woods in Joplin. I lived there in middle school, high school, and two years of college.

2. Was it your choice to leave, or did someone else tell you it was time to go?

It was October 1973 I was sitting out a semester in college and working in Joplin on Range Line at a steak restaurant. I had family in both Joplin and Springfield at the time, was not in school, and it was just time to go. It was my choice. I planned to begin in January 1974 at the university in Springfield so moving out was the next step. I got a job at a convenience store in Springfield when I arrived.

3. Did you feel prepared when you left your family home, or did you feel more like you were winging it?

Again, I was moving from one part of my family to another, so yes, I was winging it, but I was twenty-one at the time. I lived with my sister Mary and family for a couple semesters in Springfield then moved out and got an apartment.

4. Do you remember what your dreams and goals were that day? How do they compare to today?

When I moved from Joplin to Springfield in October 1973, I had been very involved in democratic party politics from several years dating back to high school. I had been the President of the Young Democrats during the 1972 campaign and ran the McGovern presidential campaign in Joplin. I had majored in political science in college at Missouri Southern College in Joplin and would later get my degree at Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield. It’s now Missouri State University. I was passionate about politics and my dream was to run for political office. Today I am retired having lived that dream and moved far beyond to higher aspirations.

5. Were those first days and months a dream or a struggle or a bit of both? What was easier than you thought, and what was harder? Write about it.

I worked full time and lived with my family. We’re still at the leaving family home entry here, so focus is leaving Joplin and moving to Springfield. I had a strong support group both friends and family, so in looking back I can’t say living the dream was a struggle because I was engaged at the time in a doable goal. I was working and supporting myself. I would transfer to the University in Springfield in January 1974 as planned.

6. If you’re still in your family home, imagine what it might be like when you take this step.

I am currently in my own “family home” retired living with my wife and daughter.

Week 22 When you dared do something unconventional

1. Was there ever a time you did something differently than what was expected of you? Describe the event. How did others take it? How did you feel about yourself?

Seeing things differently than what was seen by others as the norm, or what is/was expected, has always been the way of doing things. Moving everything beyond the present with tangible goals is difficult when others are happy to stay where they are… the comfort of mediocrity at times. Work environments where the status quo was stifling, or bound by someone’s ego, was difficult at times. When I ran for office in 1976 at the age of twenty-four (I lost), and again in 1978 (I won), winning was unexpected. Being the catalyst of forming the Westside Community Betterment Association in 1981 that ultimately led to my career in city planning beyond Springfield, Missouri was different that what was expected. I felt sad at what was to be end end of my political career at the age of thirty. But happy that city and neighborhood planning would take me to another possibility of personal growth. What I had accomplished in my twenties was definitely seen as unconventional by others.

When I began writing about Eastern philosophy and especially Taoism when I was forty was about as unconventional as could be. It forever changed the trajectory of my life and who I was to become from that day forward.

2. Is there something unconventional you always wished you could do?

I don’t think that this question applies to me because everything I have ever done has been seen by others as unconventional. It’s hard to know how to answer this question. Following the path laid down by others has never suited me. For myself, being published may not be seen as unconventional for others, but for myself the thought and doing so has been. Speaking and writing Chinese I could never master, despite repeated efforts. My life would have taken an entirely different direction if I could have done so.

3. Was there ever a time you regretted taking the unconventional route?

Something not conventional; not bound by or conforming to convention, rule, or precedent; free from conventionality. I’ve always done what I wanted to do even though I may not have recognized it at the time. Usually molding or shaping a situation to fit the paradigm I have established. Not as ego, although at times it may have appeared so. This is a difficult question. Has there ever been a time I regretted taking the unconventional route? No as I have been able to modify and shape events as I shape the outcome. I think I was naturally suited to be a writer and professionally a city planner. In hindsight, I don’t think I have ever felt bound or forced to conform by or to convention. I have always been free to shape events since I was a freshman in high school. Not necessarily shaping events for others – but for myself. Rules are usually made either by self-interest of consensus. If obvious self interest is in play, I have little use for them. The same goes for precedent. Going to Qufu, China to teach and taking my daughter Katie who was in middle school at the time with me. Regrets sometimes yes – sometimes no. Was it unconventional – most definitely.

4. Have you ever felt stuck in a “box” of conformity? Did you feel safe? Comfortable?

I’ve had to create my own world my entire life. I guess we all do, But for myself, doing so took on a life of its own, even a separateness from the norm. Conforming to the status quo is something I have had to modify to fit my own agenda. As the status quo was something I never enjoyed or most of the time even considered. I always knew there was something out there, until I started writing at age forty it had never been revealed to me. When I was younger especially in my twenties and early thirties people would want me to be a salesman to sell some product. I was never comfortable in selling something other than myself. Something I tried in politics and as a state representative… Of course, this is the first step in being a good salesman, When I wanted to sell something, I created my own foundation in order to convey my writing to the general public. I usually find it humerus when people try to “think out of the box” outside themselves. My career as a city planner and neighborhood specialist was helping others see beyond their fence line to a world beyond who they thought they were from within themselves. As if re-defining who they thought they were internally from within to where I have been there my entire life. What a great paradox. When I have attempted to fit in with a group, there were always events that occurred that pulled me back. Conformity was never my strong suit. Getting others to enhance their individuality for the greater good. To those who might be reading this… I am retired and seventy-one years old.

5. If there was no one else like you in the world (because there’s not!), and your uniqueness was celebrated, what would you embrace (this could be a trait about yourself, a value, a desire, etc.)?

I have never been under the illusion that there might be anyone even closely resembling myself. Not from an egotistical standpoint, but because of events that have shaped my persona and personality. As well as the purpose of my being here. I have worn my hair with a long beard and in a ponytail for the past thirty years. I buy my clothes at Goodwill and discount stores. I have not had my hair trimmed or cut professionally for over three years. My uniqueness is just who I am – not more and no less – not better or worse than others.

6. Do you believe uniqueness is a downfall, or a superpower?

Uniqueness can become one’s downfall or superpower. It all depends on knowing and following the universal truths that define us both individually and how we see the universe around us. I would further embrace my writing skills by expanding my outreach through my writing. It is a paradox I know. In the end, living in paradox signals we have arrived. Staying true to ourselves, while bringing others along for the ride is the ultimate endeavor.

Week 23 Past Failures

1. What is the first big failure you ever experienced? Describe what happened. In hindsight, would you still consider it a failure, or a learning experience?

The failure was not my own but having experienced the failure of my parents’ marriage as a young boy on the farm in Lamar, I have written extensively here in previous weeks about this and its impact in detail. Events of my youth were both failures and learning experiences because I had to adapt to changing environments. Primary failures of my youth were physical. My eyes were severely crossed, and I was uncoordinated making physical activity difficult.

2. Think about a big failure you’ve had in your career. What was your intention when the mistake was made? What was the outcome?

Failures are not always those of our own making that negatively impact our careers. Two events come to mind. First, losing my election as a state representative when I was running for re-election at the age of twenty-eight in 1980. Second, when I lost my job as the city planner in Fall River in 1993. Negative intentions and mistakes by others can lead to outcomes that can ultimately serve to push us to better define what we should be doing that can lead to our ultimate endeavor. The experience taught me the value of a good attorney. Needing and taking a particular job simply for employment that may not fit our talents and abilities usually brings outcomes less that positive. Ego driven outcomes driven by us or others rarely lead to success. Failure can be seen as what leads to our ultimate success. It can be simply finding ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time through no fault of our own.

3. What is your worst “failure?” Imagine if your best friend or a child made the same mistake. Would you berate them the way you berate yourself?

Hindsight should be seen through the learning process. Knowing and anticipating your environment is important, although at times can be difficult. Both failures described above were my worst failures employment wise, but not necessarily my worse failures in life. I would not berate either friend or family member for making a similar mistake. As defined here, berating myself in the past, for my mistakes were usually short-lived and I moved on.

4. Think about a “failure” you had in a relationship. What did you learn?

Failure in a relationship usually means we are doing something or are someplace we are not meant to be. The adage know thyself comes to mind. The environment we find ourselves in can be as responsible for our failure as our own desire or input. The question may by directed to personal relationships… friends, dating, marriage, etc., but I see it as the much larger role we have as people in general. Although the same generally applies.

5. Think about the phrase “the only way to succeed is to fail.” Does this ring true for you?

It is our institutional memory we build on and follow while failing that leads to success.

6. What is the thing that you are most afraid you will “fail” at? What would make it a failure in your eyes? What would make it a success?

Doing less than what is expected this time by my peers. I have moved beyond any concept of failing or fear though. Success.. correcting past failures, self awareness, and opening paths for others.

Week 24 Acts of Service

1. List as many ways you think you serve the people around you and the world. Aim for fifty to one hundred. Think big and small, from charitable donations or volunteering to the hug you gave your grand kid or child.

The question refers to the idea of how you currently serve… not have historically served. I have had my own foundation since 2007 for more than fifteen years. I serve others through my writing on my blog and hundreds of thousands of words I have contributed on my foundation pages. Today, I primarily serve as an example of landscaping and gardening on my corner of Jefferson and Cherokee here in Springfield. As I have relayed previously, I am now retired. It is through my writing and foundation that any lasting contribution exists, along with the people I have influenced and impacted along the way. Something Taoism (Lao, Chuang, and Lieh Tzu), Confucius and virtue, along with the Bodhisattva Vow taught me a long time ago that I have tried to share with others along the way.

2. Tell us about a time you did something meaningful for someone else. It could be a collection of moments within a theme (parenting, mentoring, care taking, volunteering, etc.) or a single moment that stands out to you.

There are numerous times when I have done something meaningful that affected others in a positive way. Doing something meaningful for someone else… Thoughts go back to high school when I lettered eight times in the football, basketball, and baseball programs. I was not good enough to play sports, but I could help those who did. My interest in politics was always to serve others from 1972 to 1980. Eight years of being active in the Democratic Party always centered on assisting campaigns, i.e., the Jimmy Carter campaign, or running myself, for the purpose of serving others. Founding the Westside Community Betterment Association in Springfield and doing numerous self-help projects. One was a paint up program to improve eighty houses on the westside and encouraging re-development and facilitating a neighborhood plan. Always to be serving others. Moving to Kansas City for a year in 1987 and writing and getting a grant for environment groundwater protection, Moving to Fall River Massachusetts to become the city’s Senior Planner and later the City Planner completing a new citywide master plan and serving as the chairman of the Southeastern Massachusetts Regional Planning Agency for three years providing leadership for multiple counties.

Moving to Florida in May 1995 to work for the City of Boynton Beach to become an Assistant Planner focusing on updating the city’s comprehensive plan and doing site plan review. Adopting two little girls from China (Katie in 1997 and Emily in 1999). In 2000, becoming the city’s neighborhood specialist coordinating over forty neighborhoods with beautification projects, funding and coordinating community gardening, organizing the Haitian community as liaison for city manager’s office. instigating and coordination of the sister city program between Boynton Beach and the City of Qufu in China in early 2000 and leading reciprocal sister city visits between Boynton Beach and Qufu. Hosting the sister city Young Artist competition in Qufu for ten years (2001 to 2010). My foundation printing the China Daily Word. A thousand copies a month for two years (2006-07) 1000 x 12 x 2. Over twenty-four thousand copies that at last count I have been told has been seen by over a million people in China. A lifetime of almost fifty trips to China. None seeking money or profit except teaching English to over four hundred students at Qufu University and Qufu Normal School while living next to the Confucius Mansion and Temple from 2011 to 2013 within the old city. Returning to Boynton Beach in July 2013 and leading several trips to Haiti prior to retiring to Springfield in July 2015. In October 2018 going to Lhasa, Tibet and sharing the experiences on my foundation website.

In Springfield as a Master Gardener, I grow and give away thousands of plants and volunteer over a hundred hours every year. I have also been a sponsor of the Planet Unity event every Spring both financially and having a plant booth to raise money for the church here in Springfield. I humbly try to be a beacon of light, a portal for others to see beyond who they think they are to who they are in the process of becoming. Matching inspiration to aspiration to what can be. This is simply an overview to so much more…

3. If you started giving yourself credit for all the ways you serve, big and small, how would your life change?

I have never been concerned with getting credit. I have always felt whatever accolades may come will be from a much higher source than in this world. In my activities here in US, travels to China and Tibet, it is as though I have followed Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, to beyond the present moment, I like to think even before knowing it was the path I was to follow and be on, Always following in the footsteps of mentors. Getting credit for serving would not change how I see myself or that my life would change all that much. If I don’t do another thing – I have done enough this time. After many years of contributing time and talent, while studying Maitreya and Buddhism as a person who has attained prajna, or enlightenment, but who postpones Nirvana in order to help others to attain enlightenment. In everyday terms it is called taking the Bodhisattvas vow. What my trip to Lhasa, Tibet taught me is that without knowing it… I have been doing this my entire life. Acknowledging this as I write this in October 2023, I would not change a thing. I would only change things I have done in the past that were harmful, or hurtful to others due to unintended consequences of or by my actions. Living as though I have already arrived.

4. If you have served consciously through donations or volunteering, etc., please celebrate it! Write about how the experience made you feel.

Serving amounts to far more than donations or volunteering, it exemplifies who we are in the process of becoming. Our greatest attribute in serving is first knowing who we are and becoming both a student and teacher. I loved teaching English in Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius as it reinforced the intrinsic value of virtue. As I taught English to students who they themselves were to become teachers, most importantly I taught how to become a better person first by knowing their strengths and building continually on them. The reason why I could never have a job in the common use of the term to work to make a living all my life. Work was the process of self-fulfillment by service to others. Even back to Joplin working on Range Line washing dishes at a restaurant as a freshman in college, my focus was on serving. Although I did not recognize it as such at the time. First discovering why, we are here (most never do) and then honing our abilities and talents and then using them for the greater good.

Week 25   People who’ve influenced you

1. Sometimes a person will come into your world and change your life. Tell us about one of those people and what their presence has meant to you.

This occurred through what came to me in my writing. Not a person in the present tense, but from the past. From a world that I have always known and been a part of but had forgotten. It was as though I woke up to who I was and had always been. Since that experience on Christmas Day in 1992, there have been multiple people who have come forward to influence both my actions and my writing. None greater than the ancient Taoists Lao, Chuang, and Lieh Tzu. Later Confucius and what happened in Qufu. It has always been as if there is a portal just waiting for me to step back into.

In the present tense, I was greatly influenced in high school by both coaches and teachers. What shaped my life initially as well, was listening to English language broadcasts from around the world from 1966 through 1971. The combination of both gave be a firm sense of being universal. That I was not simply this cross-eyed kid from Lamar that couldn’t skip or ride a bike, that there was a purpose to what had been shaping who I was yet to become. Ultimately, that looking back to who I had always been first, was more important than just blindly going forward. After high school it has always been as if I was left to shape my own devices. to develop a plan or scheme for effecting a purpose. That purpose was to first discover who I was/am, and second explore what that meant.

2. Who has had the strongest impact in your life? Do you remember the day you met them? Tell us the story.

The people who have had the strongest impact in my life are not from the present. Meeting them was like a portal opened to the universe and they came flooding in.. It was as though they had always been here, guiding me, trying to get my attention waiting for my ego to dissolve enough for them to step in. As though they were just waiting for me to wake up. This happened forty years ago in Fall River with events previously described. It was like stepping into the abbess, doing things that would forcibly remove me from what I had been doing into what I should be doing with my life. To become who I have always been and go where it led. It was not going into the unknown, but returning to who I have always been and following the path that I am here to take. I told the story with my first book that was ostensibly following the I Ching. In reality, it was to serve as the threshold to what was to follow. This is the book I wrote in 1993 that was later published in China in 2004. This happened again with my first visit to Qufu in October 1999 when I met Kongtao, Mr. Li, and the travel agent Ben. There is an unpublished manuscript on my website that is entitled “Qufu and Confucius” that describes in detail my experiences of my teaching and travels to Qufu.
Two teachers back in high school had a great influence on me. Elaine Clugston who taught journalism and creative writing and Bill Cullers my history teacher. Little did I know then, that these subjects would become central to my life going forward. It was in my creative writing class that I wrote something that included the line”Sorrowful feelings mean nothing, if there’s no compassion felt”. My love of history became apparent years later with my passion for Chinese history. Especially the period commonly referred to as ancient history leading up to the visit by Marco Polo and his father and uncle in 1270.

3. Think about people in your life as a child (parents, siblings, etc.). What influence did they have on you (both good and bad) and what were your feelings about them back then? Have they changed?

This process is forcing me to revisit the same things trying to see them in a different light more than fifty five to sixty years ago. Exploring feelings I had/have towards my immediate family, etc. This process seems always to want to return to my life as a child that I have have previously discussed. Unfortunately, I cannot recall any lasting influences on my life by any of them when I was a child. I was always discouraged to pursue my passion for politics when I was in my twenties as they imparted that it was above me, that I was not good enough. I was still in their eyes that little cross-eyes boy who had to repeat the first grade, etc, etc.. My father did help me through college, and was always present up until he died in 1980. A great memory is when I was being sworn in as a state representative in January 1979 he was up in the gallery. Today, the only remaining immediate family member I associate with in my sister Mary who lives here in Springfield as I do.

4. Is there anyone who has had a huge impact on you that you have never met (a celebrity, a star in your field, an author, etc.)? Why is this person so instrumental for you?

Peter O’Toole the actor who played Lawrence in the movie Lawrence of Arabia. Music from the 1960’s and 70’s. The Beatles, John Lennon, Motown, especially music by Marvin Gaye, Elton John. Of course all those who I have read and written about on my website. I have five or six books always close by that I have read and refer to frequently for guidance and influence in my writing on my blog and pages on my website, and act as contributing editors. First there are several that I have written (both published and unpublished, except on my website), and second, books I refer to as though guided meditation as though guiding me along my path. There are many. In western thought and philosophy, Five come most readily to mind in no particular order. Emerson with books on nature and self reliance, Tolstoy and his writings on linguistics and early Christian history, Joseph Campbell and finding our bliss, Thomas Cleary a Catholic priest who translated several Taoist and Chinese texts, and Alan Watts with his several books describing the Way of Zen. In Eastern thought and philosophy, three authors stand above the rest. The three who woke me up to my ultimate endeavor and destiny. First, Lao Tzu, I wrote my second book that was published in China following the Tao Te Ching (Thoughts on becoming a Sage). Second, would be Lieh Tzu’s book, The life of Lieh Tzu, formed the basis of my writing the book “My travels with Lieh Tzu” that appears on my website. And third Chuang Tzu. and the book “The Way of Chuang Tzu” . His humor and thoughts on becoming the perfected man have permeated my thoughts and actions for over thirty years. Authors whose books have helped to guide my way are listed here not in order or to be considered a complete list are “The Elements of Taoism”, the first book I read that set the stage for what was to follow. The book “I Ching” by Kerson and Rosemary Huang, that served as the nucleus for my writing my first book… the one published in China ten years later. “The Way of Complete Perfection, A Quanzhen Daoist Anthology“, “Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching translated by Red Pine with selected commentaries of the past 2000 years”, The Way of the White Clouds” by Lama Anagarika Govinda, “The Snow Leopard” by Peter Matthiess, and “In the footsteps of Bodhisattvas” by Phakchok Rinpoche, that I have followed and written my own analysis of that appears on my blog that needs to be moved to a page on my website. All of these books are kept close by and reread over and over again in meditation and as reference in my writing. Referring once more here to the line I have written before…What you write is who you are to become. It is on the cover of my book about the Tao Te Ching relayed as the guidebook for living a virtuous life. I have written the book on the subject.
The context here might be considered a stretch, But in listing books that have influenced me greatly one would the Bible. I have read and studied the Bible cover to cover three times. I have been baptized twice. Once at the age of 8 or 9 in Lamar at the Christian church when I attended with my grandmother. The second time in 1979 I was baptized again in Springfield at the South National Church of Christ. (The church is no longer there as the land became part of the university). I was named after Daniel in the lion’s den by my parents and I have been a member of the Unity church first in Delray Beach, Florida and now in Springfield. Of course, I have never met any of the characters mentioned in either the Old or New Testament. My foundation’s printing of the China Daily Word has been seen and has influenced thousands of people in China. I don’t attend church as much as I used to. Sometimes I feel as though I have moved beyond Unity to something higher…

5. Did you have any “bad influences” as a kid? Did you think they were “bad” at the time? What are your thoughts now?

As mentioned before, I don’t care for the reference as a kid, It would be bad influences that in reality moved me to see beyond myself to become something greater that ultimately changed who I was to become. . At the time, in both grade school and junior high I was picked on up to the ninth grade first in Lamar and ten Carl Junction. I considered them bad… someone once told me that they wouldn’t pick on you if they didn’t you you. had a hard time believing them. Instead, I think the influences were like blacksmith honed a lump of metal into something useful. Looking back now I can say that, at the time I took what they considered to to be playful banter as harmful criticism. My parents fought and argued on the farm before they were divorced. It was bad then, but certainly changed to trajectory of my life. My thought now… I’m not the person I was then, so looking back I can only feel sadness for what others were going through at the time.

6. Tell a story of a person who influenced you by setting a good example.

In high school listening to shortwave radio and over twenty countries, I would get greetings from all over the world not from one person but from another country.. On the card would have Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in several languages. This always impressed me. Besides what I have learned through my reading and writing, a here and now person who has influenced me in the present tense would by former President Jimmy Carter, who I campaigned for two years before he was elected in 1976. In my writing an example would be another unpublished manuscript entitled “My travels with Lieh Tzu” I wrote in 1995-96, that was as if a primer had passed through me. (The Book of Lieh Tzu is required study for precepts at Taoist monasteries in China). Writing this book was as though the essence of Taoism was passing through me in my own words. Looking back, I was definitely the student here. So many of the stories told here are self-defining that was to take me to where I needed to travel in my writing next. There was to be so much more… I still had not traveled to China yet.

In China, there were several people over the years who tried to set a good example who lived under the constraints of the Chinese communist party and local enforcement that included the security bureau, i.e., police. I became friends with many people both in and out of government, city planning, teachers, bankers, my students, sister city folks, the Shandong Christian Church Association, etc. I had been going to Qufu for almost twelve years from 1999 to 2011, when they let me teach at the university. This was quite a surprise to many of my friends. I think the authorities thought that if I was going to keep coming to Qufu they could better keep an eye on me if I had an apartment and had a job. For many the opposite was true of setting a good example. Instead of me being influenced by others… it was me influencing them. In China, especially in Qufu – the home and birthplace of Confucius, teachers are revered. After instigating the sister city program, doing the China Daily Word and now teaching, for many people for me to teach at the university and Qufu Normal School after all this time some people became unsure of my motives. It was me setting the example for others. Once a good friend who was a highly regarded teacher in Qufu after reading my book about Lao Tzu told me that he and his colleagues thought I was great. I was just happy to be his friend.

7. Tell a story of a person who influenced you by setting a bad example.

I grew up in Democrat politics involved in campaigns for many years. Both following policy and making public policy. There are universal truths grounded in virtue and compassion that we are to live by. One was in my youth going to church with my grandma I learned a universal truth. Red, yellow, brown, black, and white they are all precious in his sight… Jesus loves the little children of the world. How is it he could love some people and not all people. He was to be the benchmark setting the good example for how we are to live. Other people who want to separate us through racism, saying they are better than others due to race, color, religion, or creed are harmful. It’s why I try to speak through my writing through the words of those I have referred to above. In China, not one person, but people who use the government apparatus to convey hate and mistrust. Setting a bad example for all to see as an example, was when we were preparing to print the religious magazine through my foundation in cooperation with the Western Shandong Christian Church Association. There was a minister whose congregation in another city south of Qufu who was instrumental in the printing of the China Daily Word in 2006-07. We lost contact over the years until one day one of my students invited me to her home for dinner. She said her mother knew me from some time ago. Her mother was a Christian minister who had her own very small church and knew me by my Chinese name, Kongdan. After lunch, it was a Saturday, we walked a couple blocks to a very large Christian church. There to greet me was the minister who had been instrumental in my foundation printing the China Daily Word years earlier. Not long after we had met, he had gone to prison for three years. He had done nothing but be a minister. The authorities now allowed him to be a minister again under strict supervision. In the eyes of the security bureau he was allowed to continue being a minister. In whose eyes is a bad example decided. This friend taught me a lesson on who can decide what is either a good or bad example… who decides.

8. A question not asked but should have been. Someone you knew who set an example that impressed you greatly.

Many friends, my students, teachers, the Shandong Christian Church Association, and so many more who live in oppression of something we call freedom I give thanks beyond words. In the Spring of 2013, the security bureau decided I best not teach in Qufu anymore. Over the years my computer had been monitored by the authorities and many who were considered to be my “friend” were told not to associate with me because I was a bad influence. In many ways Qufu had become my second home. Between 1999 and 2013 and over forty trips to Qufu, I determined I have spent the equivalent of over six years there. What impressed me greatly, those people who chose to continue to be my friends after being told not too. The paradox was they allowed me to teach at the university and Qufu Normal School for two and a half years (Spring semester 2011 through the end of the school year in 2013). My students loved me, the school liked me, but for that reason the security bureau (the police) felt it best I no longer be a teacher in Qufu. I was told it was that having too much influence thing… I could go elsewhere in China and teach where no one knew me, but teaching in Qufu would not be allowed. I stopped teaching in Qufu in June 2013. I made three or four more trips to Qufu until my last visit with old friends in September 2018 on my way to Tibet.

Week 26 Family vacation

1. Did you ever have a really amazing family vacation? Or perhaps there was one that felt more like a blundering comedy. Write about it.

I am now seventy-one years old, and I have trouble remembering very many family vacations…. this week will be a short one. No, I never had a really amazing family vacation when I was younger. But I made up for it later. In my preteen years in 1964 and 65 I spent summers with my father in Oklahoma City. I remember going to the drive in with my aunt and uncle, staying up late watching television, and caddying for my dad when he was playing golf. After we moved to Joplin from Lamar our stepfather took us to Silver Dollar City and Marvel Cave in Branson. I have no recollection of it except my sister Susan throwing up in the car on the way home…. it wasn’t a comedy. A family vacation that included just my wife Marie and I was a trip to London to see Sheryl Crow in concert she won on a radio contest in 1995. Trips to China to adopt our daughters Katie and Emily are described below. We also took family vacations to China after we adopted Katie and Emily. What might be described as an amazing family vacation was a trip we took out west to Montana, South Dakota and Yellowstone National Park, and Colorado in June 2021. I had never been out west before. My oldest daughter Emily now lives with her husband in Oregon. We would like to visit her there. I have experienced several really amazing vacations, both alone and with family.

Although most trips to China I took alone I never considered as vacations. Trips to the city of Chengdu in Sichuan Province, Lhasa, Tibet, Xian and the terra cotta warriors, and so many more especially to mountains in China, going to Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist temples and museums in multiple cities, etc… were not felt as if I was on vacation, but more like a religious or sabbatical journey connected to remembering my past that would aid and further connect my writing with my past. Fitting pieces together like pearls on a string of lives well lived for eternity’s sake. While teaching in China in April 2012, I went to London with a delegation from China with Chinese publishers and the publisher of my books in China for a Book Fair. I stayed in a bed and breakfast close to the British Museum where I spent my spare time. Another trip to an international book fair I attended in 2006 was in Frankfort, Germany. These were not family vacations as I generally traveled alone. What the trips to the British museum and various encounters in China reminded and showed me was that I was/am reliving history. My writing was/is meant to take me there again. Amazing yes.

2. If you haven’t had much opportunity to travel, tell us about a dream vacation you’d like to have.

More than fifty years ago while I was still in high school listening to broadcasts in English (1966 to 1971) from over twenty countries many of the stations I listened to sent me a lot of stuff about their countries. In 1968-69 I had a subscription to China Pictorial from Peking (now Beijing), China. It was at the height of the Vietnam war, and gave me a different prospective on things. Listening and seeing their pictures they sent me took me there in my imagination… as though it was a dream. There was a picture in an issue China Pictorial of a mountain carved in jade with a small dwelling near the top that seemed to ignite something with me. Years later when I started meditating and writing, I would imagine leaving my chair and traveling to places like this one on the jade mountain where I wanted to go or sensed that I have been. Many of the trips I have made to China could be seen as vacations as I traveled extensively usually staying in youth hostels to save money. While I was in China teaching I traveled extensively in China as well. A part of growth and change, and leaving ourselves behind is helped by travel. I often feel that we don’t have to go somewhere physically… to just go and be present.

3. Think about a vacation you’ve planned. Why did you choose that particular place? Did it meet your expectations?

Our first trip to China in May 1997 was planned as both the process of getting our daughter Katie and as a vacation at the same time. This trip to China to adopt our daughter Katie was a short one. First to Hong Kong, then to Guangzhou in China. Then Marie and I took a six-hour train ride to Maoming where we finalized our adoption, then a second train back to Guangzhou to get one year old Katie’s Visa. We then retraced our steps to Hong Kong and came home. First to Honolulu, Hawaii, then a stop in Missouri to visit family before returning to Florida. We chose this place Maoming, because this was where our adopting Katie was to take place. Yes, it met our expectations. Spending time and shopping in Hong Kong was great and vacationing in Hawaii and visiting our extended family on our way back was awesome.

4. Tell us about the most interesting person you’ve ever met while on vacation.

On our second trip to China in October 1999 (described below), we stopped in Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius, where I met several people that were not only very interesting but would serve to act as the portal that changed my life’s trajectory. From that stay in Qufu that only lasted a few days, there were three people who stood out. The context here is important, because I wanted to do a US/China Friendship Park in Boynton Beach. The park was never built, but I had been in contact with a gentleman named Kong Tao on the internet whose company-built friendship parks in several countries. Our stop in Qufu was to discuss building one in Boynton Beach. Over the next ten or twelve years of my coming to Qufu Kong Tao and I were to become good friends. The second Mr. Li was an older gentleman who owned the company that Kong Tao worked for. He was unquestionably one of the most talented people I ever met. Another would be the travel agent Ben, (Zhu Benshing), who over the next many years would be central to my coming to Qufu. Now a tour guide, he served as my translator. His family had an amazing history, six hundred years earlier his ancestors, two brother, moved from southern China to Qufu and Peking (now Beijing). They were experts in creating glazed tile. One came to Qufu, and his tile was used to build the Confucius Temple, the other went to Peking and his tile was used in building the Forbidden City.

Kong Tao would go on to be an important nationally recognized urban planner throughout China and was much in demand. Kong Tao is a direct descendant of Confucius, believed to be the eighty seventh generation… After creating the sister city relationship, Kong Tao, Mr. Li, and Ben, came to Boynton Beach on two sister city trips that I had arranged. I seldom ate in a restaurant in Qufu in the open seating area. It was always a small room with a round table with everyone seated around the table in their order of importance. Qufu was a small town where traditional values were prevalent. They took their history and connection to Confucius seriously. Note this was my first of over forty trips to Qufu, and I would later teach here from 2011 to 2013 at the school founded for Confucius (Confucius family name is Kong) and his primary followers descendants. My take on the question that wants a discussion about the most interesting person would be different maybe, because these people would help to change my life. It was like Qufu was my portal to history. It was in 2001 or 2002, that we were sitting at a round table in a small room in a restaurant (after many toasts of their favorite local liquor) that these three gave me my Chinese name… Kongdan. I would a few years later live and teach English at this school. Five years later, in 2006 – 07, I would form The Kongdan Foundation in Florida.

5. What’s your worst vacation memory?

Two come to mind. They were not initially meant as vacations but as financial opportunities. First in 2006 or 7, I traveled on a trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with Katie for a business opportunity that ultimately didn’t work out, I would call that a bad memory. Katie and I spend a little time sightseeing before returning to Beijing and going to Qufu to visit friends and Katie’s Chinese doctor. Katie was ten at the time and traveled in a wheelchair. She developed epileptic seizures five years earlier and her doctor was in Sichua, a city about an hour from Qufu. From 2005 to 2010 Katie traveled to Qufu with me to China three or four times a year until the doctor there said she would need brain surgery in USA. Katie would later have this surgery and John Hopkins in Baltimore.

Second would be trips to Paris, France. Another failed business opportunity. In 2009, after two trips to Paris, the first one with me flying from Florida to China and Qufu then on to France and home to Florida. The second with me going to Paris two weeks earlier, then having Marie, Emily, and Katie flying to Luxembourg where I went to meet them, then returning to Paris. Unfortunately we had very little money because the business opportunity didn’t pan out, so after limited sightseeing we all returned to Florida. I was in two great places in Malaysia and France, but the experience wasn’t great due to lack of money.

6. What is your most treasured vacation memory?

As most of my life focus on China, my most treasured memory would have to be our family’s vacation trip to Urumqi to adopt our second daughter Emily. This trip would be expensive (a side note was that both adoptions cost more than ten thousand dollars each). Planning for this trip was pretty extensive just as the trip would be. There were four of us, my mother, wife Marie, Katie, and I. Urumqi is more than fifteen hundred miles west of Beijing. Qufu was our second stop on the trip. We first landed in Shanghai where we spent a couple days, then went to Qufu. From there we went to Beijing and flew west to Urumqi to adopt Emily. Afterwards the five of us continued to Guangzhou for Emily’s Visa the get in the United States, Then to Hong Kong and then returned to Florida. Many first destinations of the trip. First time in Shanghai, first time in Qufu described above, first time in Beijing (I would later have over a hundred trips in and out of Beijing over the years), first time in Urumqi. Second time in Guangzhou and Hong Kong. My mother and Katie was with us. It was in many ways our best vacation. Marie, Emily, Katie and I, made several trips together back to Qufu and China that included trips to the Great Wall and several other sites.

7. What does it feel like to come home after an extended vacation?

Our daughter Emily was six years old when we adopted her on November 1st, 1999. When we got home to Boynton Beach, not only was there a period of adjustment for Marie and I, but also Katie who was three at the time. We put Emily in the second grade within a week of getting home where she could not speak English. We would call some of our Chinese friends and put Emily on the phone so she could talk to them in Chinese. We had recently bought a house and moved from an apartment in Boynton Beach, and of course Marie and I had to return to work, and Katie to day care with my mother returning to Missouri… Much to my chagrin is that after several attempts I have never been able to speak mandarin.

Week 27    Witnessing important moments in History

1. What is the most significant historical moment you remember? (a war, tragedy, triumph, etc.). How did it change the way you think about the world?

I can’t pick just one. JFK’s killing in 1963. Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964 that begin Vietnam War. Listening to over twenty countries on shortwave in high school getting a world view on events from 1966 through 1971. RFK being killed in June 1968. The moon landing in 1969, My graduation from both high school in 71 and college in 76. election as state rep in 1978. All of these evens helped to shape my world view up to and including serving in the Missouri House of Representatives. Significance depends of who we were and what we were doing at the time. Unless it happened directly to, or affected you personally, it is hard to say. Most of this section we have covered before.

2. Have you ever been a part of a historical moment? What part did you play and how did it change you?

If we were alive at the time, all the above-mentioned events changed the world in which we lived. Being an instrumental part of Jimmy Carter being elected President in 1976 was important to history. On a personal level my own election two years later in 1978 was significant and the formation and tax-exempt status of my foundation in 2007. The adoption of my daughters Katherine and Emily, the Christian Church Association in Shandong Province allowing my foundation to publish the China Daily Word, the publishing of my two books in China. Of note, none of these were dependent on my being employed by someone else. From my own perspective, these were all pretty historical. They have all served to change myself as well as others for the better.

3. Has a world event ever inspired you to try to make a difference — perhaps through donation, volunteering, or engaging in some way? Tell us about that.

I think I have answered this in a previous week. It seems like this is repetitive, we’ve covered this before. I don’t think a singular world event has inspired me by itself to make a difference. Growing up during the Vietnam war in the 60’s and campaigning for others has encouraged me. I was listening to Radio Prague in September 1968 when the soviet tanks rolled through the city, and it went off the air. Every job I have ever had since graduating from college in 1976 has been geared to making a difference in people’s lives. Having a career as a city planner and neighborhood specialist was making a difference. Teaching over four hundred students English in Qufu who planned to be teachers themselves was making a difference. I think what inspired me the most was a line by Bobby Kennedy in 1968 before he was shot and killed after winning the California primary when he said, “Some people see things as they are and ask why, I see the task ahead and ask why not?” He had been my idol since a year earlier a speech pathologist here in Springfield told me I had an accent not speech impediment and sounded just like him. If I was going to try to think of a world event that had the greatest impact on me personally none could have been clearer. I was in high school at the time, his death made me want to major in political science in college which I later did.

4. Is there a pop culture moment from your formative years that was so huge it was a global event (think movies, songs, TV, etc.)?

The movie Lawrence of Arabia that I have mentioned here multiple times, JFK assassination, the Beatles on Ed Sullivan were three. Music was very big for me, not to play myself, but to be inspired by others. Motown – Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson. Elton John, James Taylor, the Beatles – especially John Lennon. His death was tragic. Fifty, sixty years ago was quite different than today. Defining pop culture back then would not be as we see it today. I followed baseball – the Yankees and Cardinals… still do. I’m not sure how the question is framing this… Formative years – As I’ve mentioned when I wasn’t involved with the athletic program in high school, I spent my time listening to shortwave radio. Often when I was listening to a particular program, I would tape it so I could verify that I was listening. I would send verification and they would send a QSL card. Formative… Four come readily to mind. I’ve already spoken about Radio Peking and China Pictorial. This was in the mid to late sixties at the height of the Vietnam War, Second, would be Radio Prague in what was then Czechoslovakia. They would send beautiful travelogues of their county as would number three Radio Kiev in the Ukraine. Finally, number four, Radio Moscow… they had an essay contest celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the 1917 Russian revolution. I wrote an essay and entered their contest; I was sixteen at the time. Thinking globally back then became second nature that has followed me ever sense. Many others come to mind, Radio Budapest, Radio, Bucharest, the BBC, Radio Havana, Radio Portugal, the VOA, Radio Sophia, Roma and the Vatican. Seeing thing globally for myself, was never a singular event. I think this is why I love Buddhism and Taoism. The contribute to seeing the world beyond ourselves. Pop culture was probably seen a little different by me than others.

5. Is there a historical figure that has had an impact on you? How so?

I have answered this previously. I have my own foundation with the intent of showing how history speaks through us by listening, seeing, and writing emulating our own actions and for me, my writing. Historical figures comes and go. It’s what they leave behind for history’s sake that matters. The Buddha, Lao, Chuang, and Lieh Tzu, plus Confucius from the East. Emerson, Cleary, and many others from the West. How so… my writing attempts to emulate their wisdom, and my lifestyle and actions their virtue. Picking one… it would be Emerson, Lao and Chuang Tzu. I know that’s not one, but it works for me.

6. Do you have a story from one of the following historical events? The Obama election, 9/11, legalization of same-sex marriage, a huge national Olympic win, fall of the Berlin wall, JFK assassination, Hurricane Katrina, civil rights movement or Black Lives Matter, a mass shooting, the moon landing, or any other historical moment that had an impact on you.

An historical event not a person’s influence…. Picking one, it would be the events surrounding 911. The City of Boynton Beach was hosting a sister city delegation from Qufu, China. I was giving them a tour of the local public TV station when the attack on the twin towers occurred. It changed their entire itinerary and they wanted to return to China as soon as possible. Our country had come to a complete standstill and international flights were on hold. They were Kong Tao, Mr. Li, Zhu Bensheng (Ben), (all three I have mentioned earlier) , and a vice mayor from Qufu. Since there was a government official in the delegation, they were told to return to China as soon as possible. Months later when we made a reciprocal visit to China from Boynton Beach we were in Shanghai and toured the Shanghai World Financial Center in Pudong, Shanghai. At the elevator going to the top was a bouquet of flowers dedicated to those who had died in 911. Someone told me that replaced the flowers every day.

Week 28 Middle Grade Years

1. What was the general overview of your preteen experience?

For purposes of discussion, I will focus on the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. I was on crutches due to a football injury almost the entire ninth grade. It was the final year of grade school in Lamar in the sixth grade, and seventh and eighth grade in Tabor Woods in Joplin where we went to school at Carl Junction. In November 1963 in Mrs Wirts sixth grade class someone brought a note in to say the president had been shot and killed. I remember the event, but I don’t recall what happened afterwards. We lived on Golf street and I walked to school everyday. During the summer of 1964 I went to Oklahoma City to spend the summer with my dad. At Carl Junction I tried to play sports, but was not very good due to my size and I was not very coordinated. I remember being on the football and basketball teams, but never getting to play in a game because I wasn’t good enough. I had a friend named Wendell Halls and I used to go to his house after school. My sister Mary, who is ten years older was married now and would soon be living in Springfield. My sister Susan is two years older so when I entered seventh grade she entered ninth grade. Julie and Matthew were in grade school.

2. Write about something specific (perhaps an event or even a single moment) that you remember about this time period.

In between the fifth and sixth grade I rode a bus from Joplin to Guthrie, Oklahoma for the summer where my father lived at the time. He had been stationed in Guthrie twenty years earlier in the Army teaching ROTC during WW2 in the early 1940’s. Guthrie was where he had met my mother and moved her and her entire family to the farm in Lamar. I remember going to see the movie The Longest Day about the Normandy Invasion with him. He also drove by the place where my mother’s family lived twenty years earlier. My mother had a cousin who still lived there, and she had a son about my age. I went over and played with him a few times that summer. He was a little older than me and had lots of comic books. In the sixth grade we were still in Lamar, I remember being in the boy scouts and going to this jamboree with lots of other kids. We had to set up tents and I remember it raining. I remember my first crush (girl I liked a lot) was named Patricia… although she never liked me in return.

We then moved to Joplin from Lamar during the summer. I spent the summer in Oklahoma City with my father, (the summer between the sixth and seventh grade), so when I got there in late august, it was to a new house, in a new neighborhood and starting a new school year in the seventh grade. The first day of seventh grade that morning they separated all the boys and girls for orientation. Ten minutes later I remember someone throwing up, it could have been me. It seems it all went down from there. I spent summers during this time with my father and do not recall much as far as school goes then. Remember I am now seventy one and these events happened sixty years ago. My memory fades… I don’t remember much about being in the seven or eight grade except there was a little restaurant right next to school we could go for lunch. During lunch break I would go and get two coneys and a root beer or grape soda. I recall never hardly eating at the school cafeteria…even later through high school,This would have been in 1964-65. They would never allow something like this today.

3. Who were your friends during your preteen years? What kind of an influence did they have on you?

Other than Wendell mentioned above I don’t recall many friends at the time in school. In the neighborhood we lived in there were several families who had kids about our age. The Treadways and Steve and Ricky Shore were neighbors. The Treadways (Allison, Nancy, Bobby, Jane) went to Catholic school in Joplin. The girls at school would tease me about not having a girlfriend. I told them I did and that her name was Nancy (the girl in our neighborhood). A year later her family had to send them to Carl Junction instead of Catholic school. Nancy was asked about me being her boyfriend… She denied it… I think she hated me after that for a little while… embarrassing yes. The Tredways moved away shortly afterwards so Nancy left school. We played lots of neighborhood baseball after school during the school year. I wasn’t there during the summers; I was down in Oklahoma City. I don’t really recall any lasting influence friends had then… except I was still an easy target with others making fun of me for one reason or another. I always seemed to have a thin skin so to speak… others knew when they poked fun at me that it bothered me so they did… just like in grade school in Lamar. Everything changed in high school after I broke my leg playing football. What kind of influence on me, be careful what you tell others that’s not entirely true.

4. Do you have any funny, horrifying, or embarrassing stories from this time in your life?

Sixth, seventh, and eighth grades… I’m sure they happened, I just don’t remember them, except with Nancy above. It was during this time I spent summers in Oklahoma City with my father. I would sometimes go to the drive inn with my aunt and uncle who also lived there. Once I had to go to the bathroom at the drive in and went by myself and could not find my way back to the car. I was probably thirteen at the time. They had to announce my name over the speaker so someone would come get me. That was embarrassing. My father was the nightwatchman at a fifteen-story apartment building and I would go to the pool every day, stay up and watch movies on TV. Because I stayed up late it was always hard going to sleep for school when I returned to Joplin and Carl Junction. I would caddy for my dad who like to play golf. He liked to play a par three course not far from where my half-brother Pat and Bub (Maurice) lived in Moore.

5. Did you change schools during this time period? What was it like?

I discussed this above in number 1. Because I was involved in sports, Carl Junction played Lamar every year in both football and basketball. So, while I changed schools after the sixth grade. I would see my friends from grade school a couple times a years at football and basketball games. It was a difficult time with everything being so fluid. The divorce, going back and forth between Missouri and Oklahoma, a new house and neighborhood kids, a new school. I was twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old and nothing appeared to be on solid ground. Looking back now, after studying Eastern philosophy and the I Ching for the past thirty tears, I know the purpose of change is to reveal our real or true identity. Change would set the tone for me never fitting in with where I was at any given moment. A truism that has followed me my entire life. Conveying that there is something out there more that I think I know. Changing school would simply serve to tell me not to settle in because things would always change. I don’t recall being upset about things generally at this time.

6. Do you remember wishing everything could just stay the same? Or did you wish with all your heart that you could just be older already? Perhaps it was a bit of both.

There had been so much change up to this point, that I began looking for structure beyond what I could see in the present. Looking back, in the Spring of 1966 my father moved from Oklahoma City to Springfield to live with my sister Mary and her family. Not long after he moved, I asked him to buy me a Knight star roamer shortwave radio kit that had to be assembled. Someone he worked with soldered and assembled it because I had it the next year in Spring 1967. I’m moving beyond my pre-teen years here a little. It wasn’t so much wishing everything would stay the same, as knowing that there must be something greater than where I was at the moment.

7. Did you have a particular insecurity about something at this age?

I was still small and uncoordinated. I don’t recall ever really fitting in with others at this age. Except, I learned that by serving the needs of others in sports I would gain their acceptance. I was not good enough to play sports, But I could help others who did. This idea of serving others would follow me the rest of my life. As I learned later in studying Taoism… our weaknesses are in reality our greatest strengths once they are revealed.

Week 29  Loves of your Life

1. Write about an intense love in your life. This could be a current love, a past love, even a lost love. It could be a person, place, or thing.

My passion for history, thinking and acting globally, writing, having a vivid imagination, and China would be one. The second would by my wife Marie that I married in 1977, forty six years ago, and two daughters Emily and Katie. You cannot separate one from the other. Rather a person, place, or thing everything is connected through time and space to everything else.Having intense love means having compassion and empathy for all you have ever been in contact with, or will be in contact with in the future.

2. Is there a singular moment that you think of when you imagine the love of your life?

Yes. I was sitting in the car at the grocery store on Christmas Day 1993 waiting for my wife Marie to return to the car, I was reading the book Elements of Taoism and Lao, Chuang, and Lieh Tzu appeared in my writing in the margin of the book and asked me to come with them. I have been on the journey ever since. Were they singularly the love of my life and my writing that ensuing, or the journey that was about to commence that has covered the past thirty years. The love of my live was not a singular person. Most people of course would answer this question with the person they married, and I have now been married for forty six years. But our love is universal…. beyond the physical. If we are meant to see beyond ourselves in a non selfish way, we must see beyond simply the love of just one other person.

3. Is there a love that you’ve had that has spanned decades?

Beyond simply the love of my wife for over four decades, It is the love we have had that spans several lifetimes that reoccurs when we are open to the universe to vibrations that teach us to follow our highest endeavor. It is often the love we create and receive with and from others that transcends and serves to take us where we need to go, or simply wake up to.

4. Is there a person, place, or thing that you suspect could have become a great love of your life, but didn’t for some reason? Tell the story.

I need to re phrase and broaden the scope of the question. Every great love of our life serves a universal purpose. Not only to maybe become a great love of our lives, but we of theirs as well. We often mistake feelings of passion and physical love as once another person is found that they are our soul mate. Physical love can be fleeting. This can be true if we can recognize it for where it is meant to take us. It depends on where the other person is on their own journey. Perhaps they are meant to be a carrier or aide to you on our own. Not only did I love teaching, but my students in China loved me because I was taking them to places they would not otherwise go. It is what love does. It is what the love of nature does to broaden our horizon. It unburdens us from being felt trapped many times in the status quo. It’s why I loved doing neighborhood master plans and landscaping, because I could help others see beyond themselves to someplace they would not otherwise go… that is love. When we had a favorite teacher back in high school or college, it was because they help to open the portal for us to take the next step of our own enlightenment. Why I can say the great love of my life was teaching in Qufu. I was teaching at both Qufu University and Qufu Normal School living and teaching next to the Confucius Mansion and Temple where Confucius descendants and his followers went to school for hundreds if not thousands of years. I found the great love of my life as a teacher and taking others to places they might not otherwise go.

5. Have you ever fallen in love with a thought or dream? Are you in love with a future that you envision for yourself? Tell us about it.

Read the page, i.e., story on The Kongdan Foundation website entitled The Shaman and Shamaness, then come back and ask this question. A vivid imagination… perhaps. It was one of my more than four hundred students who was from Chengdu in China that re confirmed my own place in history with everything I had written up to that point over the previous twenty years. Taking me to Chengdu and seeing what was there in 1270 when Marco Polo was there and my remembering… Although forty years younger than I, she was as if a spark that re-ignited my pursuing not simply a physical love of her, but pushing me to towards the next step in my own journey in the future by recalling my past.. Falling in love with a thought or a dream… I’ve been in love with these two since that fateful Christmas Day back in 1993. It’s not falling in love – it’s becoming the dream. What Joseph Campbell called “following our bliss”. Where our imagination ends and our reality begins or continues. Being conscious of the dream and going there is what matters.

6. What if you were the love of your life? Can you imagine a life like that?

As I have circumnavigated this life, I have come full circle. It is not hard for me to imagine – because I have always been adaptive to change and embracing the seemingly unknown.

Week 30 Expectations of Yourself

1. Do you allow others more leeway than you allow for yourself? Think of a moment this was true for you in your past and write about it.

One of the things that I like about writing is that a word you use to describe something is known by the company it keeps. I am harder on myself because I know better and try to give leeway to others who may not. Occasionally when I do find myself getting angry about something it’s not at someone else. It is that I am not keeping up with expectations that I have for myself and lack of patience. I have more expectations of myself because I know better. Not in a sense of being better than anyone else, but because I know myself. We usually see ourselves by our intentions, while seeing others by their actions.

2. Think back to a time where you may have asked more of yourself than you would anyone else. Tell the story.

I often found that when I was teaching English to a classroom of students, I would ask more of myself knowing I knew the subject. They were still learning as I was trying to explain context and meaning of English words in China. I was the teacher in multiple classrooms teaching English as a second language. What’s important to note is that they could generally read and write English, but not speak English to capture context, inflection and meaning. It was a great learning experience for me as their teacher. I would tell them to read more English to increase their vocabulary, then add words to what they are speaking. That words and their meaning matter. I was teaching in Qufu to students from throughout Shandong Province, and China. Almost all students grow up with a reverence for teachers because of their admiration for their greatest teacher. They could step out of class onto the streets where Confucius walked himself. Now they were becoming teachers themselves. Having an English teacher who appreciated what they saw as their own aspiration was pretty amazing to them. That a teacher must first learn to see beyond themselves. Asking more of myself was pushing me to acknowledge who I am and will ultimately become in the future.

3. Is there a time when you felt you put too much pressure on yourself? Tell us about it.

My passion for politics in my twenties got me elected as a state representative. Looking back, I can see that I may not have been ready for the bigger picture once I got there. I was twenty eight years old at the time. I was also elected the class president of incoming freshman in the Missouri House of Representatives by my peers, I felt the pressure to both represent my constituents back in Springfield, as well as, others in the incoming class. Later when I became the Senior Planner for the City of Fall River, Massachusetts, I was in a situation with an older gentleman who was in his eighties who was the planning director who refused to retire. It was a very difficult situation and did not have a positive outcome.

4. Do you think your self-expectations help you, or make you more disappointed in yourself? Why do you think that is?

I have a sense of self awareness and presence now. Self expectations help to acknowledge both who we are, and working on an ever expanding vision of what our role should be. Stephen Hawkins once said that nothing in the universe is perfect. Acknowledging this makes us less hard on ourselves when we try to do our best. I find having an institutional memory of both past successes and failures is helpful. As a planner I found that creating a model of what works that is adaptable to change helps to alleviate becoming disappointed when results don’t meet our expectations. Finding comfort in the present moment seems to eliminate stressful situations. Don’t create or do things that are not designed to work because of our limitations.

5. Do you think some of the expectations you have for yourself are born out of fear (of the unknown, of failure, of regret, etc.)? Tell about why you think you should strive so hard.

I spend my time now that I am retired taking care of my chickens, sharing plants, teaching about nature, and growing flowers. I don’t have the sense of needing to strive for anything now, I have a sense that there is not really anything I need to strive for. Except to find comfort in what I do everyday. It is as Martin Luther King, Jr. said having reached the mountaintop and seeing the other side. Expectations have moved beyond fear, what might be considered as the unknown, failure, or regret. I no longer have the need to strive for acceptance or have acceptance by others, because what I have learned is that staying within myself is enough. I try not to have expectations over what I have no control over myself.

Week 31 Expectations of your Partner

1. Have you and your partner always been on the same page about the “policies and procedures manual” in your relationship?

I think this whole line of questions misses the point. Our partners and relationships in life are everywhere. Personal relationship should not be bound by the structure of a policies and procedures manual. People are not machines. If you are talking about a work environment yes, and on the same page regarding what? A “policies and procedures manual” in a relationship for what? Who fixes dinner or washes the dishes or takes out the trash… Other than remaining monogamous, everything is shared, I’ve been married forty six years to the same person. When trouble arises in a relationship, it generally occurs with unrealistic expectations of not truly knowing or appreciating the other person, We often fail to recognize that change is the order of the universe. People and their attitudes change over time… or should. Some people see human nature as structure and order needing to be controlled. That everything is already decided and must permeate their view of the world… and others lives. As if what works for me now must work in the future to ensure order, with how we choose to live. Thereby, creating the outcome we want to achieve. How we act in a relationship with our partner, is generally how we see and act in the world. Having structure, discipline, and some control over what outcome may occur correlates with how we see our place in the world. If we are angry about our home environment, we are likely to be angry when we leave the house and vice versa.

2. Do you get frustrated when your partner doesn’t follow “the rules?”

Human nature tells us that unrealistic rules trying to get people on the same page can be the cause of frustration and disappointment. When common sense prevails more rules seem unnecessary. The rules often lead to a sense of lack of freedom to become the individual we are meant to be. I used to tell my students (over four hundred girls who wanted to be teachers), that most people don’t have an idea as to who the are until they are thirty, if ever. Marrying at too young an age can be the root of unhappiness. If our relationships are tied to only making the other person happy, we are doomed to failure. Rules are generally established to create positive behavior. Expectations of others who see rules differently that can’t be changed within a changing environments is a problem.

3. When you really delve into it deeply, do you think these rules are necessary, or do they hurt the relationship?

Rules are generally established to allow an entity (work, school, home, even a country) to control or modify behavior. When we more fully understand our own purpose, we learn to give way to another person’s need to do the same. This occurs also in a work environment when thoughts of… “well we’ve always done it this way often prevails” that lead to disagreements. This can occur in personal relationships as well. If negative behavior persists, then countering ways of doing things, i.e., rules must be established. Life is a paradox. We need both structure and freedom, while the death of most relationships is caused by indifference… when we just grow tired or quit trying.

4. How have you felt in the past about similar unwritten “rules” that have been imposed on you in a relationship?

I have always been more of a free spirit with unwritten rules, making them up as I go along. This was always prevalent for me growing up. As I have written, unwritten rules have generally prevailed for my entire life. I have always been able to make things up as I go along… thinking globally and attempting to act locally. Not always leading to positive outcomes, but picking up what is left and moving forward. Rules can be meant as nothing more that a control mechanism. I generally look at things differently than most people. If the crowd is going one direction, I usually look to the other way. Freedom has always been to do things looking to a higher purpose beyond the status quo established by others. Rather written, or unwritten “rules” that have been imposed on me in a relationship have not worked very well. The exception are rules established to create a just and civil society, enhance nature and our environment, and to think and act globally. Rules meant to insure these caveats are to be followed. I get irritated at rules that do not do the same.

5. Tell us about a moment when the rule book could have been better thrown out the window.

When I was the Neighborhood Specialist for the City of Boynton Beach, I had my own department responsible for landscape projects in my budget. I wanted to fund projects differently than what the Accounting Department had done in the past. It was legal and met funding requirements, but I was informed we could not do it the way I had proposed. Their reasoning was that the way I wanted to do it was different than the way they had always done, and it might mean they would have to do a little more work that they were used to. I told them it was my Department and I wanted to follow a different procedure. I brought to city manager and conveyed the details… my way made more sense… the city manager told the Accounting Department to do what I had recommended. My lifespan working for employers was usually short lived because I was outside the established norm… What we later called being “outside the box”. I have yet to find a box that I fit in. What we need to hear and want to hear is often not the same thing.

6. If you don’t have a partner, are there specific things you would need for a partner to have or do?

I’ve only been married once to Marie for forty six years now. Partners have many faces. In over forty trips and in teaching in China, I have encountered many partners and had many lasting relationships. It was often the case that the initial person I would meet was not the person I needed at the moment, it would be the person they introduced me to that I needed to know. Again, I am now retired and seventy one. Of course, specific things depend on the relationship. What I’ve learned is that we need to focus on seeing things outside ourselves to thing globally and encourage others to do the same. Changing our prospective to think of outcomes outside ourselves, changes our relationships exponentially as well. Partners at every level should feel and act the same. On many occasions we have multiple partners looking to aide us in our journey. This is not necessarily one person (partner) as the question may imply. We should know what we are looking for before we set out seeking it. Attributes required would be virtue, someone open to self awareness and change, and willingness to go there.

Week 32   Spontaneity

1. Write about an adventure that spontaneity led you into.

I want to first define the word spontaneity. Something coming or resulting from a natural impulse or tendency; without effort or premeditation; natural and unconstrained; unplanned: what we do without thinking about it. It is how we are meant to live each day. In China we call it living in wu wei. Or beyond physical contact with another person it is the essence of kung fu. Living in the moment for each moments benefit. Spontaneity is not a singular event, it is how we live every moment in time. Life is meany to be an adventure, an exciting or very unusual experience.or our participation in exciting undertaking or enterprise.: It is when you combine what you think you know and going without fear into what you don’t.without hesitation. In what may have been my last trip to Chime five years ago in 2018 that certainly could be call an adventure. Just as the previous forty trip to China could have been called. The trip included going to Lhasa, Tibet. That meets the definition for sure. My writing is the spontaneity of spirit.

2. Did you ever have a friend who was spontaneous in everything he or she did? Write about them. What did you admire? Did you ever fear for them?

To be so inclined to follow your natural inclination that you do and say without the need for thinking. Everything is simply the natural extension of oneself. Throughout the year and seasons, I let my yard and gardens tell me what needs to be done. Unconstrained and unplanned, except what the overview of the existing environment dictates. I had a friend who was spontaneous in everything he did in China as if without a care of the results. He was a clerk in a bank that I used and I got to know him quite well. He and I became good friends over the years. Another friend was was a city planner by profession in Jining, but his passion was photography. He would travel throughout China taking photographs look for the spontaneity found in nature. He was so good he had several books published of his photographs. I admired him for the lengths he would take in his travels to take his photos. I sometimes feared he would get into trouble for some of the places he would go, hiking on mountains to get the best shot. He even came to visit me once when I lived in Florida.

3. Have you ever regretted not doing something spontaneous? How might your life have been different?

Yes. I had the chance to go to India many years ago, It was definitely a fork in the road and certainly would be considered doing something spontaneous. Had I gone it certainly would have changed the trajectory of my life. I’m not sure of regret, but my ego and passion for politics got in the way. I had been doing town meeting through southwest Missouri in the summer of 1977, and the group who I worked with wanted to send me to India for a year. They recognized my passion and wanted me to become more universal and see my true nature beyond politics and going back to Springfield. I wasn’t ready yet. Channeling my passion has always been a challenge.

4. The last time you had a day to yourself without work or chores or other mundane tasks, what did you do?

I am retired now… but looking back I have always molded events to fit my own agenda. Seeing beyond ego is still a challenge, but simply doing things that push you further to an aspiration that may still not be totally defined is important. But going there anyway. So every day I tend the needs of my meditation, writing, nature and my yard, take care of my chickens, take my wife to and from work, doctor and dentist appointments, etc, etc. Watching movies or listening to music – waiting for a line or two I can jot down and incorporate maybe into my writing. Looking for the right thoughts or words to fill the next blank page and fearlessly going there. I have pretty much every day to do whatever I like without seeing what I do as work or chores or other mundane tasks, Living truly in the moment so that every aspect of your life become second nature is mundane.

5. Do something spontaneous right now. Do whatever comes into your mind at this moment. Ask yourself, what do I really want to do right now? However simple or silly, trust your gut. Come back and write about it.

It froze overnight a couple days ago and I need to begin cleaning out some of my flower beds today. I am waiting for it to warm up a little more for a few minutes and then I go outside. Is this spontaneous? Yes because I get to chose what stays and what goes (leaving most for the critters over the winter). Okay here I go… I will be back later.. Joy is living in the realm of the mundane and becoming one with it. Seeing what is common; ordinary; banal; or unimaginative, and bringing our own imagination to whatever we are doing. Becoming one with, or relating to nature and the world. So after cleaning out my tomatoes for another year, the next day I dug up lemon balm and striped liratrope to replant elsewhere.. To live life spontaneously becoming our calling…..

Week 33 Dreams 

1. Do you remember any vivid dreams from your childhood? Write down the details. Explore what you think the dream might mean.

Dreams have different meanings for people depending on how awake they are. For myself, dreams when I was young were like portals taking me to places that were as yet undefined. My childhood was so tumultuous that trying to separate rather dreams were occurring when I was asleep or awake becomes a blur. I think this exercise is meant to explore only our dreams when we are asleep. As Chuang Tzu tells us, who can say if when we dream, we are asleep or awake. Thoughts and remembrances from our past come together to define who we are ultimately to become. A caveat here would be that I feel all life is a continuum. Quantum physics tells us that our thoughts are universal and remembering who we have always been important. Dreams can be a source of our becoming awake to who we have always been, are meant to be now, and will become in the future. When we are paying attention. Most of the hundreds of thousands of words I have written on my website have a direct correlation to my experiences in the past. It is dreams, my thoughts, or words that I have written or will write in the future, all serve a higher purpose.

2. Do you dream about your past? If so, what are some of the dreams about?

There must be a starting point as to how we answer this question. Dreams are like thoughts that carry us until we are ready to assimilate and grow into who we are ultimately to become. Remembering my past is best described on my website through my writing. They say that all true writing is autobiographical in nature. I subscribe to this idea. Actual dreams while asleep seem to disappear from my memory, except when introduced into what I am writing now when I wake up. Afterwards trying to disseminate or tell these thoughts were real or imagined is not possible. Was it written from a thought garnered from a dream, or what has been incorporated into my waking thoughts. Sometimes after I have been writing, a thought will come to me in my sleep, and I will get up and write it down. While I am asleep, am I going over the next words I need to write?

When I am focused and in tune with my inner self, what else can my dreams be but what helps me to take the next step when I am awake? When I am in China, especially Qufu, and combine thoughts of being present as if living in a dream, with the sense of knowing that I have been here before (in a previous life) … where do the dreams end, and the past and present moment begin? Or is it simply a continuum of spirit contributing to our dreams?

3. Describe the worst nightmare you ever had.

I lived the nightmare as a child on the farm listening to the arguments of my parents, being singled out as being less than my contemporaries in school, what might be considered as a nightmare was what I was living every day. This nightmare is what led to me creating and living in my own reality out of necessity. It was, as has been said, both the best of times and worst of times… who can say?

4. Describe the best dream you ever had.

It always comes back to Qufu. It was in October 1999 during my first visit to Qufu. We were staying at the Queli Hotel that was adjacent to the Confucius Mansion and Temple. Before a lot of tourists began coming to Qufu, this was a part of the Confucius Mansion next to the Confucius Temple. I was asleep and had a dream in which a voice said you are here and need to go outside. The dream became the present moment when I got dressed at four o’clock in the morning and began walking around the streets of the old city. I was overwhelmed with the thought that I had been here before. Not once, but many times in the past. The streetlights were on and no one else was out yet that morning. Was I living the dream, or had the dream ended and I really walking down streets I had walked many times before. A block away from the hotel I passed the school I would teach at on one side of the street and on the other side the entrance to where my apartment where my daughter Katie and I would live twelve years later in 2011. Later when I was actually teaching here, I felt an indescribable pull that I was where I was destined to be.

When you live within the vibrations of the universe, there are no accidents, only premonitions of what is yet to occur. Was all this a dream? Was creating my own foundation to help facilitate my writing takes me to my highest endeavor the results of my dreaming becoming reality. And just what is to become of the reality we set for ourselves. Years later when I was teaching in Qufu I would visit my students who lived in the countryside. Often, we would turn the corner on the road, and I would see vistas of places I had been to and seen before. As if I didn’t need reminding was I living a dream, or was it the dream living me as living history?

5. Have you ever had a dream that you could control? How did it feel in the moment? Was there a sense of power? Frustration?

Yes. Some mornings when I am half-awake, I will be in the middle of a dream. The dream is on-going, and I don’t want it to stop. Moving the dream along with my thoughts, not controlling, but added content that moves the dream in one direction or another. If I am heavy into writing on the previous day, the dream can become a vehicle to propel me to expand my vision on an outcome. Am I in control, I’m not sure. There is a sense that I don’t want to control the dream, only contribute to the outcome. Not so much a sense of power as simply contributing to what needs to be said at that moment.

6. If you don’t tend to remember your dreams, keep your journal beside your bed this week and see if anything sparks the moment you wake.

I have been doing this for as long as I remember. Especially when I am writing something I am focusing on at the moment. Not only at night while I am asleep, often when I am working out in the yard, I will stop to write something. Unless I write down something from a dream as soon as I wake up, I don’t remember it consciously, but unconsciously the dream remains present to be built upon later.

Week 34 Money Beliefs

1. What do you remember your family saying about money? Did you hear things like “money doesn’t grow on trees” or “we can’t afford that” or “money is the root of all evil,” etc.?

When I was young on the farm I never thought about money. We always had plenty to eat, my mother had a big garden and canned a lot of food for winter. We had a meat locker in town in Lamar and had food and shelter. Even after moving in with my grandmother and later moving into town I was too young in grade school to think about money. In Lamar, my mother worked at Big Smith, a clothing manufacturer. When we moved to Joplin, money was never really an issue we paid our bills and it did not seem as though I, or we went without what we needed. We always hear the above phrases, but it matters what you already have when you are told this.
My father moved my mother and her family up from Guthrie, Oklahoma after WW2 to the farm in Lamar. After he retired from the Army in 1953, he planted crops fence row to fence row expecting the farm to be prosperous. In 1954 they had the worst drought than anyone could remember, and he barely recovered his expenses, but never fully recovered. We were limited, but had plenty to eat, but I think financial difficulties contributed to my parents’ divorce and selling the farm in 1962.

2. What are your family’s stories surrounding money (for example, did your grandparents or great grandparents suffer through the depression)?

Two stories of Americana. My mother’s family came from England/Scotland pre-revolutionary war and eventually migrated to Texas prior to the civil war. My mother and aunts and uncles picked cotton as sharecroppers in their teen years before moving to Guthrie. I don’t think they ever had much money growing up. My father’s parents immigrated from Italy when he was five years old. They settled in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts. They made a living having a truck farm and my dad left to join the Army in 1926 where he stayed until retiring in 1953. I don’t recall many discussions regarding money growing up. Growing up in Joplin in junior and high school in Tabor Woods in the late 1960’s/ear1y 70’s we were definitely middle class. And yes, like all in my generation we heard stories about the difficulties of the depression. My mother’s family had the worst of it.

3. What is your first memory of making money for yourself? How did it feel?

A couple of months prior to graduating from high school I got a job at Babe’s Drive Inn in Carl Junction. Soon afterwards I got my driver’s license and first car. It gave me a great deal of freedom. I was still living at home and after graduating from high school I would get another job at the Holiday Inn in Joplin that summer and begin college that fall at Missouri Southern College. Working at Babe’s Drive In reinforced the idea of serving others… although it was only ice cream. But after high school where I lettered eight times as a student trainer/manager helping others to succeed then getting involved in politics it seemed as though I was on the right track.

4. Do you believe money is a gift, a curse, or something in between?

Money does different things to different people depending on their life’s situation. There is no one size fits all. It can be a gift, but if we are not ready for consequences of our actions, then the gift can serve to sink us and be a curse. Sometimes circumstances beyond our control change our path. Having or losing money changes the outcome. Life for everyone is somewhere in between.

5. Can you think of a time when money was able to save you from a dire situation?

Not money per sea, but a credit card when I was traveling overseas on various occasions in Germany, France, England, Malaysia, and many times in China. The opposite is true as well. It allowed me to go places that I would not otherwise have been able to go. Being able to get a cash advance when faced with a difficult situation saved my trip on more than one occasion.

Week 35 Processing Emotion

1. How were you encouraged as a child to express your emotions? Were you encouraged to express them at all, or keep them tucked away inside?

As a kid on the farm prior to 1960 and the divorce of my parents two years later, expressing my emotions was not guided by anyone other than myself. Looking at the bigger picture of my family and environment as the setting, what encouraged me to express how I felt set the stage for me to seek consolation and comfort with myself, and elsewhere. My writing tells me the mentors were trying to get my attention even then. No one within my immediate family ever encouraged me. Remember this was the 1950’s and early 1960’s. I was not encouraged to follow my passion for politics later because I was seen as this little cross-eyed kid who had flunked the first grade and that I shouldn’t try to become something or someone I was of merit. My father did help me financially through college, but he just let me do my own thing.

2. What do you typically do when you are really sad? Frustrated? How about being filled with joy or happiness?

I am now over seventy years old, retired, work in my garden, etc. My waking hours are spent meditation. Not in the sense of taking an hour, but all the time. To live as though we are living history. I like the Buddhist thought of not acting until your mud settles. That if left alone most things take care of themselves. As a city planner/neighborhood specialist I learned to set the parameters for what should occur, then let people work out for themselves what worked best as a consensus. When I do get sad or frustrated, it is when people see themselves, or their views as to how others should live, they take center stage without respect for the views of others. staying within the confines of what is the natural extension of my writing. Living as an example of how we live in nature and what it teaches us.

3. Write about a time when you were really proud of how you handled a big emotion. Or, if you feel more inclined, how you may have wished you handled an emotion differently.

In November 1978 when I was elected as a state representative at the age of twenty-six, here in Springfield. Up to this time in my life I had been told what I couldn’t do, or that I was not good enough to do something. Getting elected was the pinnacle of ten years of being involved in politics in southwest Missouri. I was at the time, the second youngest democrat ever elected in the history of the state of Missouri. It taught me a very valuable lesson about following your passion. Losing two years later was a big step in leaving this stage of my life behind. That a life of politics was not who or what I was meant to become. The true emotion was I think, to reveal that this was not who I was, and I needed to move beyond this to something else.,

4. Do you have an experience in your past that always brings up negative emotions (perhaps a mistake, or something you feel shame over, or a terrible thing that happened to you)? Getting curious and journalling about the emotional side of it (i.e. why these emotions come up), could help to gain some insight and perspective. As always, be mindful of taking care of yourself and your mental space if you choose to do this.

The events surrounding my being forced to resign as the city planner of Fall River. I later hired an attorney, took the city to court and won a sizable settlement against the city. It was during this time that I began writing seriously about Chinese history and philosophy. I had thought that moving to the place of my Italian ancestors (their homestead was about twelve miles from Fall River in South Dartmouth) was perfect. That was where I needed to be. Negative emotions were intense at the time at work, but the experience taught me that what is important is not where you are but who you are, beyond simple ego. It was during this time that I wrote my first book following the I Ching and Taoism in 1994. This book would later be publishing in China ten years later in 2004. Negative emotions expressed by others propelled me again to places that I was supposed to go. It was here that my writing began in earnest during the early 1990’s and would follow me to Boynton Beach as a city planner in Florida in May 1995. The events recall negative emotions, but the results took me to places I needed to experience later.

5. What have you done in the past to avoid your feelings? How might your life have been different if you had been able to process and feel your emotions instead?

I learned at an early age that I could not avoid my feelings and had to find a way to express them. We downplay and avoid our feelings with the desire to be liked by our peers. It would be experiences that would propel me to express who I am and who I am yet to become. Over time, I was able to process and feel my emotions. We are a work in progress with a purpose that can be both defined and undefined. The question misses the point. I do not think that you can avoid your feelings. Yes, we can compartmentalize feelings like trying to shove them off to the side. Your feelings about another person. place, or event, are what we use to grow over time. How we react to experiences is what gives us an institutional memory as to how we respond to events in the future. Other people come into our lives to propel us in the direction intended to move us beyond our feelings.

Week 36 Family Relationships

1. How do you and your family relate to each other? Do you have a particular memory that showcases this (this can be heartwarming, funny, not so great, etc.)?

I am over seventy and my immediate family consists of my wife and two daughters. My extended family consists of my sister Mary and her family, and my sister Susan, and brother Matthew. My sister Julie passed away last year. My sisters and brother were never that close, and over time only drew further apart. My father passed away more than forty years ago, and my mother died ten years ago. Memories over the years faded as we moved away from Springfield in 1987 and did not return until 2015. The immediate family, Marie, Emily, Katie, and I are fine. Katie lives at home and Emily and her husband Bill live in Oregan.

2. Do you wish you were closer to your family? Do you wish you had more distance from your family?

As we grew older, we were separated both by geography and choices we each had made. Our paths were separated by distance and desire… or lack of desire to be closer. Only my sister Mary and I communicate now. She is now over eighty years old, and I am over seventy. We are both retired. It is too late to look at the distance that separates the rest. We wish Emily and Bill were closer to Missouri,

3. Do you feel like you carry old family wounds into your present life? If so, tell us why you think that is.

Lack of respect and similar values keep our present lives separated. Quite simply, I see life as universal. We bring who we are from history into the present.

4. Is there a certain person in your family that drives you nuts? Or that is your favorite? Tell us about them.

I don’t have anything to say here.

5. What experience in your life would you have never gotten through without your family?

My father helped me pay for college for the first three years. The final year I did myself with grants and student aid and I paid back myself.

Week 37 Teenage Years

1. What was important to you in those years (friends, sports, school, or perhaps just getting out alive)? Do you have any favorite memories that stand out?

I have covered this time thoroughly in previous entries. For purposes here, I’ll refer to the time from my freshman to senior years. Many things stand out. The first of which was getting my leg broke the first week of school playing football in fall of 1967 my freshman year. I was on crutches almost the entire school year until April or May. From this point going forward the athletic program was the center of my activities throughout high school. I later couldn’t play but became the student manager/trainer for all the teams and finished lettering eight times. I could not play sports but was at the center of related social activities. In addition to activities at school, I listened to short wave radio and over twenty countries English language broadcasts every night. Academics, i.e., being concerned with making more than average to above average grades, would follow me throughout both my high school and college years. In high school history and journalism classes were of interest. Beyond that not too much.
I didn’t just listen to English language broadcasts from several countries, I communicated directed with the stations through obtaining a QSL cards I would get for writing down what I was listening to verifying that I was listening. This gave me a sense of prospective hearing multiple sides of world issues and gaining a sense of cultural understanding from many countries. Example would be accounting for losses in Vietnam. The VOA (Voice of America) would say fifty Americans killed with two hundred North Vietnamese killed. While Radio Moscow would say two hundred Americans killed with fifty North Vietnamese were killed. Trying to sway public opinion through reporting the news gave me an early history lesson. Listening to the news from all over the world during that era gave me a global view of how events were reported and how varying interests wanted them told. I had a world map on my wall in my room with pins identifying every country I had listened to. It was a great education. I received a subscription from China Pictorial in Peking (now Beijing) that served to give me a cultural window that would later become a central theme of my life. The most lasting thing that stayed with me was a global view of the world that would later become a love of Chinese culture, philosophy, and history.

2. Was there one day or night during your teenage years that changed everything?

Breaking my leg playing football would be one as described above. The second would be getting a shortwave radio. Third was when I was already attuned to the democratic party, the death of Robert Kennedy in June 1968 had a tremendous impact of who I would become. All three were significant. Breaking my leg would later mean I was considered 4F and could not enter the military or be sent to Vietnam. I think Bobby Kennedy’s death in June 1968 in the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of high school, plus the times it occurred immersing me into politics due to my mother and stepfathers’ involvement in politics, had an immense impact. I spent the summers of 1969 and 1970 on a farm south of Saint Louis away from home and Joplin. I remember being on the farm during the moon landing in 1969 with Val Stump listening to a small tractor sitting in his front yard… For the world that changed everything. The only high school football game as the manager I ever missed was in the fall of 1970 when my father and I traveled to Oklahoma to see the Notre Dame verses Oklahoma football game that fall. My two older half-brothers, Pat and Maurice (Bub) were still living in Oklahoma at the time. Notre Dame was my dad’s favorite college football team.

3. Did you have any ideals about life that were quite rigid as a teenager that you may have eased up on since? Thoughts about right and wrong, or judgments you made about groups or individuals.

I was free to make my own judgments and create my own structure going forward. Democratic politics played a significant role in my decision to major in political science in college, I think years of listening to shortwave radio from countries around the world in high school gave me a worldview few others had at my age. I became involved in democratic party politics and developed ideas of what was right verses wrong through campaigns. Caring about others and developing empathy was central to my thinking. My mother and stepfather helped to run democratic party activities in Joplin from 1966 through 1971 and I became enmeshed in politics initially through them. Thoughts that have fed my thinking over the years.

4. Write a letter to your teenage self, imparting wisdom you could have used at the time.

Hindsight is twenty twenty, so what we go through as life’s lessons are key to who we are today. Gaining an institutional memory is critical in getting to know who we are yet to become. It is one of those – if I knew then what I know now – would I have taken a different path? Making mistakes and mid-course corrections is a part of living. A line from something I wrote in high school journalism class saying, “sorrowful feelings mean nothing if there’s no compassion felt”, has stayed with me for over fifty years. There are things I did that negatively impacted others over time that I would have done differently, putting ego aside would have been helpful. Pay attention to your surroundings, learning how to act and respond accordingly, with thoughts of the outcome of your actions.

5. As a teen, did you ever feel an undercurrent of fear that you would “screw up your whole life” based on the decisions you were being forced to make?

No, I don’t recall any decisions that were forced upon me during my high school years. In college having two screws in my leg from having it broken playing football and a high draft number kept me from having to make a life changing decision regarding Vietnam. A friend in college went to Canada instead of going. I don’t know what I would have done. Another joined the Navy, went, and came home.

6. During your teenage years, did you ever feel as though you had everything all worked out and couldn’t understand how everyone seemed so bad at life? If so, how has time and experience changed your view?

No, except for what was occurring with the Vietnam War. I was against the war. Others had to go, but I had a high draft number and was 4F due to having two screws in my leg from being broken playing football. Times were too tumultuous at the time to think everything could be worked out for anyone. I doubt anyone has everything worked out regarding my future. We were caught up in the Vietnam conflict, and no one had it good, or so we thought. Again, my teenage years was during Vietnam. I graduated from high school in May 1971, any thoughts of being a teenager ended when I turned eighteen.

Over fifty years later after my teenage years, my view is that few people know who they really are meant to become or care to learn. Does anyone ever have “everything all worked out in life”? I doubt it. Life is a continuum of both time and experience… I’ve crossed many roads and traveled around the world both figuratively (listening to shortwave), and physically traveling around the globe. My view today, now retired with few hills needed to climb, I see many others who may never reach the hill or care to. Yes, one of my remaining life’s questions, is how and why, or understand how everyone seems so bad at life when they don’t have to be. Oh – and this is not a question to be answered at the end of one’s years as a teenager when people have no clue as to who they are yet to become in the future.

Week 38  When you didn’t get what you wanted

1. Is there something in your life that you remember wanting very badly, but it never materialized? This could be an object, a relationship, or an experience. How did you feel when you realized it wasn’t going to happen? How would your life be different if you did receive it?

In 1980 when I was 28 years old (I’m now seventy-one), I was running for re-election to the Missouri House of Representative and lost the election. This was the culmination of my life’s activities up to this point. It was a great disappointment to me and my family. Had I been re-elected; I would have been able to continue my political career.

2. Have you ever had a relationship that ended unexpectedly, then later you were thankful that it did?

Positive relationships serve to push or guide us into who we are meant to be. Sometimes in China I would meet someone, and they introduced me to who I was supposed to meet as they themselves no longer were involved. When we acknowledge we are on the path of self-actualization, other people are placed before us to help take us there. There are times when we meet people who have questionable motives that try to bring us into their world, to places we should not or would not go otherwise. It is our virtue that attracts others as over time we become teachers. I had an acquaintance may years ago who was a portrait artist who had difficulties in adjusting to the realities he found himself. He was always doing things that were self-defeating and had difficulties with friends and relatives. Sadly, he passed away without warning, our relationship ended unexpectedly, but I felt he had suffered a great deal health wise and thankful he was no longer in pain.

3. How do you think you would be different if you always got your way with no bumps in the road?

I have always traveled my own path. Bumps in the road are often meant for us to change course or modify our direction. The world is full of other people, all with their own agenda. Bumping into others can be meant to be a part of our life experiences. Bumps are often our greatest teachers.

4. Think of a time you had empathy for someone because you had been through something similar. How did this help the relationship?

I have often met people who find themselves in situations that seem out of control because they are doing something or are in a place, they feel they do not belong but are trying to make the most of it. Generally, this happens when the status quo has been decided by those who see themselves in control of the situation. Empathy can occur for others who don’t see a way out of the situation and feel trapped. After my father died in 1980 after a lengthy illness, I had friends who had a similar experience losing a member of their family. Consoling others experiencing a loss can be helpful in recovering from our own. Empathy for myself simply means we care about another’s situation. Going through this with a friend has brought us closer over the years.
I had attempted to learn how to speak Chinese for over ten years to no avail prior to teaching English in China. Most of my students were from the countryside and I expressed empathy for what they were attempting to do. Most could write and read English well, speaking English was another matter.

5. What skills are you grateful for that you would have never acquired without a few setbacks (resilience, pride, confidence, persistence, etc.)?

Recovering from setbacks is the norm in life. One thing always leading to another is how we respond to both opportunities and setbacks. Taking manageable risks are often what helps us to change directions and see a way to proceed. Resilience, confidence, persistence are all traits I have seen through to a positive outcome. It is patience that has never been my strong suit. I learned a long time ago that as a teacher, I have learned to use my profession as a city planner doing master planning for neighborhoods and communities that change requires many talents from many people. Setbacks are sometimes good as they require us to re-define our goals and the outcome we seek.

Teaching others skills so they can excel has been the defining moments for me. Teaching English in China was a real epiphany. My students were going to be English teachers teaching a second language when they would encounter these setbacks was awesome. They had to know English so they could teach English. Skills I had learned years earlier as a city planner provided a wonderful opportunity to share what I had learned with others. Pride in accomplishments can push us further in creating positive outcomes, or with an over-inflated ego pride can create setbacks.