A Relationship with Anything is Hard Work!

Last weekend I addressed a group of people that were "roughing" it in the Southern California mountains at Camp Condor. This area is a beautiful part of California near Gorman, California about 80 miles north of Los Angeles. We had met there to get away from the city and to get to know each other a little better.

I asked the group how many of them had lived their entire life in Southern California. About 7 people out of the 60+ people raised their hands. I explained that most of us have moved around a bit and because of that possibly could have less than a stellar approach to commitment.

I also explained that we can tend to lose focus because of what faces us everyday in the way of information. Internet searches can take us off track so easily and we can still feel that we learned so much by doing that. In reality, we have wasted a huge amount of time by getting off track like that repeatedly throughout the day and not staying focused on our original task.

Think about this in the context of relationships with anything -- does being overloaded with informational options tend to keep us from cementing solid relationships in all areas of our lives?

How many of us understand how much work goes into building a solid marriage? Have many of us have grown a garden or raised animals for food? Have we ever had to repair a fractured relationship? Have we cared for our elderly parents or grandparents?

All relationships, whether with the land, animals, people or perhaps, the environment, take a huge amount of work. Shortcuts rarely work and many times can be incredibly destructive. We are told, however, that we are to live life to the fullest and within that message can come a lack of commitment to values that sustain communities.

What is the result? An agriculture system that uses pesticides and fertilizers that are harmful to humans and the environment. A nursing home industry that is overloaded and in many ways, impersonal. A fast food industry that provides a substantial percentage of our daily diet in foods that actually can kill us if we indulge too much. Relationships that are so shallow! We probably don't even know our next neighbors in many cases. In many ways, we have received exactly what our lifestyles have demanded for us.

While at this camp, I talked to someone who teaches children who have emotional problems. We discussed that his main goal was to teach these young people how to properly think about themselves and the relationships that they have with others. How about us? Do we take the time to properly think about the different relationships that we should have with everything around us or are we so overloaded with informational options that we have lost the focus that it takes to do that?

Have we lost the commitment to values that sustain a community? If we have, how do we change? First of all, we must realize that solid relationships with anything take time and hard work. Are we committed to these relationships even knowing that is the case? Secondly, we must think about the impact that our conduct and lifestyle has on everything around us -- are we ready to change if we are taking a detrimental approach to values that sustain a community? Every little part helps to create the whole effect!

It means that we have to pay as much attention to what is around us as we do to what we want for ourselves.

It is interesting to note that many people are starting see that they are out of touch with some of the aspects of their community. Whether it is their career choices or raising some of their own food, people are thinking about how they affect the communities in which they live.

Steve Roesler tells us that a little sweetness goes a long ways to attract the right relationships. He also states that we need to sit back and survey what is around us once and a while to gain perspective.

On a sad note, Ted Kennedy has died. Whether you agreed with him or not, you have to admit that he was a integral part of the American landscape for years. George Will writes a balanced perspective on his life.

Gerald Sindell has developed a system called the Genius Machine. Sindell states that after you have used the Genius Machine for a while you will turn into a noticer of things. You will become a better listener as well. These two qualities can help in your quest to be more aware of what is around you. You can read about this on Mike McKinney's blog.

While at the camp, I realized how much there was to the environment that was around me. I was able to focus in on the little things and realize how much makes up what we see around us. It made me think about how I impact what is in my sphere of influence. I hope this article will help you do the same.

Until next time,

Jerry de Gier

Cherish What We Have and Get Ready for Change!

I remember the first time that I saw it -- it was a deep cherry color and the pickups were a polished black. I had never seen anything that had so much depth in color. The only blemish was a nick in one of the frets. I figured that I could fix that by polishing it out over time. My 1959 cherry-colored Gibson Melody Maker was perfect for what I wanted and I was getting it for a great price.

I imagine that most of you probably don't get as passionate about an old guitar as I do. This guitar had the best sound that I had heard up to that point. The lead guitarist in our band had a Les Paul but I couldn't afford one and I was the rhythm guitarist for the band and this seemed like the perfect fit.

I played for one more year in that band -- I never did fix the nick in the fret. I just learned to play around it. I had decided that it was time to go back to college so that I could earn a living if by chance I wasn't the next Jimmy Page. I wasn't! In fact, I never played in a band ever again.

I had moved out to Oregon and returned to school to learn how produce, direct and edit video. I had met a lot of new people and Oregon in the early to mid 70's was an eye-opening place for a small town Minnesota boy. I met all sorts of people that would never have been accepted in my small town community simply because of their behavior. I really didn't know what I was getting myself into out west.

I had met a group of friends through a mutual friend and somehow they had persuaded the mutual friend to let them stay at our apartment while we were taking a long weekend up in the Cascade Mountains. I didn't realize this was happening.

I returned home to find that all of my music, stereo system, my banjo and my beautiful Melody Maker were all gone. My "friends" were never to be seen again and neither was my guitar. It broke my heart! I had always taken for granted that I would have my beautiful guitar and eventually get the nick polished out of the fret and have this beautiful antique to play for a long, long time. It just didn't happen the way I envisioned it.

We look at our lives that way sometimes as well, don't we? We actually look at other people's lives that way, too. We figure, sometimes, that the way it is today is always the way it is going to be for us. It probably comes from youthful naivety and lack of forward thinking. It isn't something that is taught in school.

I guess that there are a couple of lessons that I should have learned out of that situation. First of all, choose your friends wisely. I probably shouldn't have been a roommate with the mutual friend that invited the group of "friends" over to our apartment. I hadn't really investigated it very much because I thought that everyone was on the level, aren't they?

Secondly, we should cherish what we have and realize that what we have now and those things that surround us now most likely will not be with us all that long. Life is about experiences and adapting to change when new experiences come our way. Sometimes it is adapting to a new set of circumstances when what we have around us suddenly disappears. We choose our reaction to those changes.

A guitar legend, Les Paul, who has been around a long time and who was so influential in shaping the modern music world, died yesterday at 94 years of age. You can read a couple of news stories about him at Fox News and the New York Times.

Many of you may not enjoy skateboarding (I don't) but you have to appreciate the dedication that skateboarders have to their art. They risk bodily harm to perfect their skills and in some cases give themselves a way to escape the inner city crime scenes of the big city. Andy Kessler, a legendary New York City skateboarder died unexpectedly from an insect bite. You can read about his impact on the inner city skateboard scene here. The article is entitled, "The End of Falling".

Steve Roesler tells us that there are different ways to learn. I especially like point #4 -- make room for the new! New and different opportunities are going to come our way. How do we adapt to them?

For you guitar enthusiasts, I have posted a link to YouTube that gives a demonstration on the new Gibson Melody Maker -- they're bringing them back! Gibson isn't bringing back the cherry colored one but this one will do!

Until next time,

Jerry de Gier

The Right Balance of Self-sufficiency!

I grew up on a farm in Minnesota -- that in itself isn't a big deal because many people have grown up in a rural setting. What has come out of that experience, I guess, is what is more important.

My earliest memories are from the mid to late 1950's and include huge white farm houses and red barns. I remember large gardens on my parent's farm as well as my grandparent's farm. We also had a lot of farm animals - cattle, pigs, chickens and of course dogs and cats.

From a very young age, we were taught to work hard and help produce the food that would sustain us economically and physically through most of the year. So we had to weed the garden, feed the animals, prune the fruit trees and maintain the yard.

We didn't appreciate the workload at the time and I'm sure if you asked my parents, they would tell you that we probably had a few words to say about not wanting to do all of this work. But through "encouraging" parents, we learned to do many things that people nowadays haven't a clue how to do.

We canned and froze many vegetables. We butchered chickens and froze them for later use. We made jams and jellies and all sorts of preserved fruit for our traditional German desserts! For many years I took all of this for granted and just labeled it in my mind as something that everyone knew and exerienced. But not so!

Very few of us realize where the food comes from or how it is produced or transported to the grocery store where we pick it up for our eventual use. Very few know of the sacrifices that are made by the entire community for food to come to our tables.

I would have to say that it was a unique upbringing - one that has taught me a small sense of self-sufficiency. You see, we didn't have to buy much food at the store because we had a lot of it grown or produced at home. This training also went into fixing cars and farm implements and repairing tires and fixing buildings when they needed it.

This upbringing and training develops a mindset that when put into an unfamiliar situation, you could work your way through the roadblocks and come out on top! It helps especially in these trying times that we find ourselves in.

I think that if we would give ourselves and our children more of these opportunities, we would see a greater appreciation for the resources that we have at our disposal. We would also not take for granted where our food comes from or the value of the life that gave that food for our sustenance.

It is interesting in these tough financial times that more people are raising livestock in their backyards. Even though they know that it isn't cost-effective compared to buying things like eggs at a grocery store, people want the security that having their own chickens brings. We now find that it isn't just the eggs that they want but also the meat from the chickens as well. It brings a appreciative and thoughtful mindset to the one raising the chickens.

The New York Times talks about how hatcheries are seeing a huge increase in their orders this year over last year. They also talk to a few people on the reason for raising their own animals on their property -- self-sufficiency seems to have a part to play in this.

Kevin Eikenberry states that asking "Why?" can stimulate learning, facilitate discovery, create understanding and quench curiosity; it also can impede progress, insinuate power and suggest judgment. Given these facts, use the "Why?" question with care.

It is important to ask the right questions in order to determine if it will bring us the right answer -- we must have the right tools at our disposal to make these decisions. This can help in having the right balance of self-sufficiency.

Mike McKinney explores a new book about learning to apply the right view and the right conduct to our decision making in order to come to what is best not only for ourselves but those in our sphere of influence. We continue to teach those in our sphere of influence how to think critically! It leads to the right balance of self-sufficiency.

Most of the people that I knew back on the farm realized that we couldn't be totally self-sufficient. What was apparent to many was there was a need to be interdependent on each other. This led to an appreciation of what was given to them and also what it took to sustain a community. Sacrifices had to be made at every level of the community.

I think that if more of us would be closer to the earth and what is grown, we would have a balance of self-sufficiency that would lead to a greater appreciation of plant and animal life and how that life has to be sustained.

Until next time,

Jerry de Gier