Mr. Herz

I got the third Aliyah yesterday morning (Yitro), the third on Shabbat a week ago, the 12th (Bo), and the Levi during the week before that. I also got the sixth the Shabbat we were in Rehovot (I guess I'll try to figure that one out later).

And I've gone off task again. I actually started this post on Tuesday, but got too damned tired. You see, I stay up way too late getting stupidity done (last night it was generating a sheet of stock listings in the hope we could talk to Larry - one of Pop's old brokers - today.

We did speak to him, and we got certain things sorted out, one particularly that will make my life here over the next week much easier, which is that we are not going with a disclaimer trust. And this is good. We'll be putting a bunch of Mom's and Pop's trust accounts together so she does not have to deal with too much administration.

And I've wandered again, but that's what these musings are about. I made the note at the top because I always wonder to myself if there is any special meaning I should be taking from the Aliyot assigned to me. And then I got distracted again, and had to actually look them up, which explains the parantheticals above. And that was more time I didn't want to spend which I did.

So it seems I am a slow learner. The lesson this week - from one of the books in the new pile we ordered for your mama - is

Success is the Progressive Realization of a Worthy Ideal
We become what we think about

The takeaway. Define a worthy ideal, what you will become (write it on an index card and stick it on your pocket to think on multiple times a day). Set your goals in alignment with that. Create an action plan. Stick it in your calendar, and go.

Another distraction. I knew I came up with something, and thought I'd written it somewhere, but now can't find it (which means I looked again).

So I'll reinvent. My purpose is to become powerful, useful, remarkable. My way is by helping others be that themselves and providing a context in which we can all strive for our own highest purpose.

I'm trying to test the truth of that, though I suppose the only way to test that would be to look at the actions to follow.

I also like Genghis Kahn's way. He is a direct ancestor to one in fifty asians. He must have done something right, at least biologically. But I guess I am a little old to rape and pillage my way across Asia, and our new-ish government organizations would probably make it difficult to embark on such a plan, unless I take over control of a few countries first.

Anyway, I keep falling asleep in front of this, and I still want to row and get over to the Hanna's.

Shavua Tov, by the time you get this.

Hey kids,

I have made it to Monday, and before I let Monday pass without another post, I share a few words.

My first thought was to say I don't know where the day went, but this is pure bullshit. I do know, and it was not so bad, though not what it could have been. What was is I woke late and went to the late Minyan (7:30). It was cold today, really cold.

I came home and mom and I had breakfast. I ate the fish left over from last night. I ate some of the Brussels sprouts (mmm, good). I ate an egg.

I helped mom compute. I might have called your mom for the first, second or third time, but who keeps count of these things. I arranged a phone call with one of my coachees, and had a call scheduled for 11:00. Then I did call your mom. Then I had a call at two, that rolled into one at two thirty, that ended at three-thirty, by which time I was half asleep. I actually set my alarm and had the call on speakerphone next to my head, and kind of woke up for the end of the call, and then rolled over until my alarm went off forty minutes later for me to go to synagogue for Minchah.

I bought beer and steaks on the way back to Oma's, and by the time we finished dinner and played a few games of canasta, it was 7:12 and time to do the dishes.

Here I did go off the rail. I allowed myself to get crazy distracted. I have legal papers to fill out, and tax forms, and somehow spent an inordinate amount of time looking for a replacement part (a rear sight eyepiece) for my .22 rifle. Then I went to look to see if some model trains we have here are worth selling, then I put on an episode, or two, of 'New Girl' for "background." I suppose I did get through my Facebook feed, but this was so not why I came downstairs.

And then I wanted to write, but I also wanted to right about the government shut-down here, and I said to myself, "okay, if I write that, that's writing, and that counts," and so I started, but I got that is bullshit too. It's not the same as writing to you.

So I stopped that - I got stuck anyway - and here I am, and here I go. I also promised myself to row, so I'm going to do that, and then call your mom.

I love you all. Have a great day. I've more to write, especially about a part of the last call I had, but that's to grow, and I'll tell you more about that later.

Hey there kideroos:

I seem to be sleeping later. I guess I am starting to become accustomed to the time zone. My mind is already racing about all the things that ought to get done. It probably doesn't help that I stay up later than I should. See, my thoughts are jumping over each other as well. The fourth sentence relates to the second, yet follows the third. This is why people have editors. But here it matters less. What's important is the communication. Well, now I'm just bullshitting.

Clarity, readability, impact (it took me a minute to find that word; punch was the one that originally occurred to me; and I'm still not sure if it would have been better) are of paramount importance.

I suppose there is a reason so many books have been written about writing. I thought maybe I should write one myself. Ah, and now I got distracted by the loupe and the change on my desk, and last night it was by the harmonicas. I succeeded in taking apart the Special 20, but the Blues Harps all use the older style screws that have the heads that you can barely see the slits in the top of. There is a box of precision screw drivers here, but I have had no luck moving even one screw, and there are four to a cover (I just pulled out a harmonica again), (and again), and they most of them have like one reed in the middle that doesn't quite want to.

As my mind is wandering at the moment - hiring a VA, yes or no, leaning to yes, which; shovelling the driveway, do I have to before synagogue, in an hour, then I ought to, it snowed, but mostly missed us; assisting at an introduction today, yeah!, should I read the study guide, no time, what do I need to shift to be effective, how do I transform being depressed, listened to Jordan yesterday, he likes writing, and doing; thinking about if I should really try to place all this in one dashetical (my word for a parenthetical using dashes, there must be a word for it other than this silliness; perhaps explanatory phrase, non-restrictive clause set off by dashes, not that important), and should it be n- or m-dashes - I'm wondering if they wouldn't have labelled me with ADD if they'd had such a thing when I was a kid. But I don't think they would have gone there since I was always quite suppressed.

It's funny (do you notice how often that can be said with no apparent conviction of the comedy of a thing, now I want to look up funny; it takes something to stay on a page, even with nothing else open; I want to buy a book as a gift; I want to check the message that just buzzed in. Maybe it's your mom, maybe it's today's introduction leader, it's amazing I can remember the original thought), or it's commentable anyway, the choice of words with the box of screw drivers. I wanted to say Saba has instead of there is above. It has me think of the nature of death.
Is he still with us, or are there just shadows of his existence hanging around?

Do you ever get the sense that you are just looking out of a body, connected somehow, but not really?

I think he chose death in the end. I'm pretty sure it wasn't his broken heart, but that he was heart-broken with it. And I wonder about the things in which he took joy. He couldn't move anymore. He didn't want to invest anymore, at least not for the longer term. He was just putting his cash in bonds and treasury bills and noting that he couldn't take the long-term view anymore.

And the short term, for him I'd guess, looked bleak. Going downstairs was difficult, and he rowed two weeks before he died, at the same speed he rowed a month before. He made it to the beach once this summer, I think. He had mentioned he would have liked to see the old neighborhood again, but wasn't up to it when I suggested the excursion.

The train I took home from the airport passed through there (Jackson Heights). I never realized how close it was to the city (three stops to midtown).

And that's funny too. I know we lived in the city with it's million things to do, and I'm sure millions of jobs available, and I wonder why I couldn't suit myself to one.

And last Tuesday, I was in a building here in Stamford to drop off some donuts to a lawyer, and there were a bunch of property management companies in the building, and the World Wrestling Enterprise, and I thought I could walk into any one of these offices and figure out something to offer.

I've driven through the Tzippori industrial park, and the one by Tiberias, and I just don't see the same possibility there. I don't get it.

There's a building downtown I want to buy. That also lights me up with possibilities, anything from a quick flip, to lawyers offices, to just renting out the upstairs to pay for my foothold. Maybe I'll write more about it tomorrow.

Anyway, I've been at this an hour, and just told mom about four minutes ago I'd be up in a minute, so I'll post this and come again tomorrow.

I invite you all to do the same. Manu, I bought you some domain names. We can tack one to a blog and get you up and running in no time.

Shabbat Shalom Dear People:

It seems I lasted all of two days before I fell off and let urgent get in the way of important again, and again, and again.

We will go for better next week, maybe I'll write the night before so you can wake to my greeting, if you are interested.

This week, I got out to be with the people a bit, but did not get to all the follow up I had intended. I also got caught up in management of silliness. I wanted to set mom up have some bills automatically paid, and then we wanted to get some money into her account. And then we learned that another account needed administrative attention, and I got to spend half a day, at least, on that.

I'm writing because I said I should, but don't really know what to say. I didn't want to get up this morning. I didn't get up on time yesterday. I did finally row, though I had had a beer and ice cream prior; so I didn't really have a choice.

I was talking to your mama this morning. I think part of what has us not be as successful as we like is our failure to choose. Well, I should talk for myself. I know I'm good at lots of things, so I start lots of things. The problem is I don't have the time to give my full attention to lots of things.

So I start and stop and start, and let things interrupt, and feel like I come to the end of another week with nothing to show.

It's snowing today, but even that is half-assed. Alex's school was delayed even though we woke to more salt on the street than snow.

We're supposed to get a proper storm tomorrow. At least that's good, except that I left a ladder out on the driveway because I was going to change some bulbs, but then mom said she got a new fixture, but then I changed neither the fixture nor the bulbs.

I think I'm going to go back to bed for an hour, after I call you and wish you all a Shabbat Shalom.

So my first request is to acknowledge that you are reading this. And yes, I write for me as much as I write for you, but it's the knowing you are out there that has me sitting down and writing now.

Tim Ferriss shared some rules for productivity/sanity, though I don't think he said sanity explicitly. A good portion of which was being master of your own time, and not being at someone else's beck and call. If you are in the middle of something that's important to you, maybe it's best not to allow yourself to be distracted, kind of like I am doing now. There's no small inclination in my head to go find Tim's comments and make sure I have them right. But here's the thing. If I do that, it's going to take me many times the amount of time I want to spend on this note, and then I'll end up creating other emergencies that keep me from taking care of what is necessary, or that give me an excuse to not to write tomorrow.

So what I am thankful for is that I can wake up and turn on the heat and not worry about how to pay for it. It is unfortunate that this is a concern for too many in the United States right now. You see our government has been shut down because President Trump and Congress can't agree on funding for his border wall, and probably some much bigger issues in the background, like that the Democrats hate Trump.

What's even more unfortunate is that people don't manage their lives to have a little back-up if tomorrow doesn't look like today. In the richest country in the world, it's a shame that most people aren't learning basic home economics anymore.

And then they talk about the economy being hit by this, which suggests that government employment might be a bit too big of a driver of the economy for no reason.

At the end of the day, I say it's about this: people are looking to the US government to fill a role, or many, that it should never have taken on. All sorts of industries are being affected by the shut down. Beer brewers can't get their new brews certified. Chrysler can't run the bureacratic gauntlet to put one of its trucks on the road. The tax man isn't working. The Coast Guard is understaffed. National parks are not operating.

So what else I'm thankful for is that I do have activities to do today that might actually point me toward money.

And three, because Shawn Achor suggests three, is that I can see that my previous statement is not exactly powerful. So I guess it's for the ability to be able to articulate a vision, which I'll work on today.

In the meantime, let's declare a possibility.

This is it and it's perfect. From nothing, the possibility I am inventing for myself and my life is the possibility of being powerful, connected and alive.

And inside of that, I'm going to revisit my structure, and get out there with the people.

I send All my Love, which is so weird. I thought I sent it yesterday. Maybe it came back.