“Take a good look around, boys. Because your future is about to change.”

I recently had an epiphany.  I had a life changing “a-ha!” that gave me a newfound perspective on my life.  It may be one that seems pedestrian or even obvious, but sometimes you need to actually stop and think instead of forging ahead without considering all sides.

Over the past few weeks I have been exposed to numerous opportunities for involvement; involvement in the business community, involvement in my temple, involvement in charities, involvement in business development… there are so many ways to get involved. 

Everywhere we look there are ways to get involved, there are people who want to get you involved, and there are interests in which you want to get involved.  But I have a stark reality for you.  You cannot do it all.

I used to be amazed and a little envious of the people who seemed to be everywhere.  They just seemed to be involved in everything, whether it be at the temple, the chamber of commerce, the PTA… they were on the newsletter committee, the building fund committee, the fundraising committee, the enterprise zone committee, the community expansion committee, the parks and recreation committee, the ice cream social committee… the list was endless and they were everywhere.

I have a need, my friends, to contribute; a desire and an urge to help, to be involved, and to give of my time and my energies, as well as a fundamental inability to say no.  So seeing the same people contributing in so many ways excited me—it can be done, it appeared to me.

But those people who were so involved, it isn’t rude to say that they are significantly older than me.  Their kids are older and out of the house, their careers are already well developed and defined, they can afford to be in committee meetings every night.

Me?  I have a wife and two little ones at home, three reasons to come home every night at a reasonable time to help with homework, change a diaper or two, and read bedtime stories.  So given that, my outlook was erroneously focused. 

You know how focusing on something happening can make you blind to everything else around you?  For instance, you are so eager about going on vacation that you can’t concentrate on the tasks you have to complete before vacation begins.  You are so excited for Saturday that you resent that it is only Monday.

Well, this was my failing.  I became so energized about the future and the prospect of having the free time to volunteer and contribute, that I began to lose sight of where I am now.  For one second (and it was one of those interminable seconds), I was actually eager for the future, when my children were out of the house and I could have the time to get involved in all of the ways to which I had aspired.

Like I told you, it seemed to be an endless second before the epiphany I mentioned hit me like a ton of bricks—in my excitement for the future, I lost sight of all of the great times I will have in the meantime.  Why was I so excited for the day to come when I could volunteer, if it meant that I was losing focus on the moments I get to spend with my family? 

I have been asked on many occasions to help, to give of my time, to give of my money, and to give of my efforts.  And invariably, I said yes.  I always felt like I wasn’t doing enough, like I wasn’t giving enough or helping enough or volunteering enough. 

But now, I don’t feel that way.  Sure, I would like to help, but not when it means that I will lose out on valuable time with my girls.  This time I have with them, the time we have with our families, is fleeting.  It will be over in the blink of an eye and we need to take every opportunity to enjoy that time with them. 

So to my friends who are asking me to help, to give, and to contribute, I unfortunately have to say—yes, eventually, but not now.  Now, my sole and singular focus is on helping, giving, and contributing to my family.  You have to know that I deeply support you and your efforts and will give as much of my time and money as I can, but if it comes to joining your committee or championing your cause or running for your board of directors, I will do so, but only so long as it doesn’t take me away from my girls.  If I feel that it will be too much of a time commitment, I will decline.  It doesn’t mean I don’t care.  It just means, you will have to wait.  At some point, when my girls are out of the house and I am looking for activities to occupy my time, I am all yours…

But I no longer will be looking forward to those days with excitement.  I am looking forward only to tomorrow.

“Have you ever believed in something far greater than yourself?”

Over the past few months I have written a bit about morality and terrorism, both of which grew out of my fear and unease.  One spoke of the creativity of monsters when law and morality were non-existent and the other spoke of an anxiety that we were failing to adequately protect ourselves from the will of the terrorists.  And I wrestled with an improper and immoral feeling of jealousy.  While we have always been told that the good guys always win, the difficulty has been in grasping that in order for the good guys to win, many innocent people must first be harmed.  It was a jealousy of which I am ashamed– that we always have to play by the rules while our enemies have the freedom to play their own game.  And then, once the game is over and battle is won, I questioned our ethics in punishing those wrongdoers.

(Here are links to the three posts that dealt with these issues. 

https://robcohen13.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/this-list-is-an-absolute-good-the-list-is-life/

https://robcohen13.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/and-this-is-the-best-that-you-c-that-the-the-government-the-u-s-government-can-come-up-with/

https://robcohen13.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/justice-justice-shall-you-pursue-that-you-may-live-and-inherit-the-land-which-the-lord-your-god-gives-you-deut-1618-20/)

Yet my outlook on this subject is yet again challenged.  See, I made the sweeping statement that we as Americans are always playing by the rules and are handcuffed by things such as civil liberties, due process, and the Constitution.  But I was wrong when I intimated that America is pristine in its focus on such freedoms.  In 1865, our system of justice may have actually played the role of persecutor, concocting a farce of a trial in order to swiftly convict and execute those who engaged in treasonous acts against our nation.

I speak of nothing other than the trials and convictions of those who conspired to assassinate President Lincoln, Vice President Johnson and Secretary of State Seward.  (A little bit of history you might have forgotten… The plot to assassinate Lincoln was actually part of a larger conspiracy, which included plots to assassinate Vice President Johnson and Secretary of State Seward.  The assassin of VP Johnson chickened out and the assassin of Secretary Seward was unsuccessful.)

After the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth and his death in the burning barn in Virginia, the government arrested numerous individuals associated with Booth and charged them with treason for conspiring to commit the murder of President Lincoln.  One such individual was Mary Surratt, the mother of one of Booth’s best friends and the owner of the boarding house at which the conspirators concocted their plans.  Mrs. Surratt was the only woman amongst the individuals charged.  Her son was not even in Washington, D.C. at the time of the assassination and it was almost two years later that he returned to the U.S. and was tried for his crimes.

In May of 1865, President Lincoln had been dead less than a month and tensions were still high between the North and the South.  While General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House exactly a month to the day before the trial of Mrs. Surratt began, the war was not yet over and the general consensus in the Department of War was that a speedy trial and swift execution were necessary to quell any other potential Southern uprisings.  Thus, the farce that was the Mary Surratt trial.

I won’t go into the details of the trial itself but suffice it to say that the fundamental tenets of due process which have been so ingrained in our minds, such as trial by a jury of our peers (Mary Surratt was tried by a military tribunal), the right to confront our accusers, and fairness of the trial itself, were all swept under the rug under the guise of a need for expediency and, more importantly, convictions.

This wasn’t so much trial on the merits, but a demonstration to the South that dissenters and rebels would be treated harshly.  If you look at my previous posts you will note that this is exactly what I want!  Right?  Isn’t this what I have been highlighting, my jealousy that we have to play by the rules while the terrorists are not bound by the strictures of due process or fair play?

And yet, I consider this a dark period in our nation’s history.  A farce of a trial intended to do nothing other than publicly humiliate the conspirators, with their executions as the final demonstration of the Union’s strength and determination to wipe out insurgents. 

At the end of the day, did it succeed?  The history books tell us that, with scattered incidents, the end of the Civil War, while anything but peaceful, was manageable and, who knows, maybe that is because of the public tearing down of the conspirators.  But what gives me such pause in congratulating our Union in taking a stance where due process would require otherwise is this fact—it could have happened to anyone.

The problem with a society that is without due process, that is without moral law, that plays without rules, is that there is no end, there is no way to determine when it is time to restore morality.  A society that is without morality will eventually eat itself- once the fiendish have been devoured, it will search for a new enemy and will feast on its own like a plague.  The few who have the power, who have the ability to suspend moral law, will become drunk with power and will search for a new enemy on whom their efforts will focus. 

And at some point, they will focus on me… or you… and who will be there to stand up for us then?  Who will be there to remind us that moral law exists?  By then, it would be too late.

An interesting side note to this—because of the treatment of Mrs. Surratt and the travesty of justice that she experienced, the law was changed, re-establishing a right to a trial by jury of one’s peers instead of by military tribunal.  The unlikely benefactor of such change?  Mary Surratt’s son, John, who returned to the United States in1867 and faced trial in a civil court, judged by a jury of his peers.  His peers, of course, included Southern sympathizers, resulting in a hung jury and mistrial.  John Surratt died in 1916 at the age of 72.  His mother, by the way, was executed at the age of 42.

With this I offer a retraction.  I am no longer jealous; I no longer yearn for the freedom to suspend the rules and take unfettered and unlimited action.  Instead, I feel sadness.  Sadness for those who are not governed by a moral compass, who believe that their way is the only way and unrestricted aggression is appropriate.  At some point they will simply turn their aggressions on each other and no one will be there to protect them.

“I got a rock.”

Friends:

I need to let you in on a little secret.  Now hold on a second, before you cup your ear to hear my whisper and look around to see if anyone else is on it.  This isn’t one of those secrets that needs to be kept between us.  In fact, please feel free to pass along the secret, let everyone know, scream it from the rooftops.  It is a shame that more people are unaware of what I am going to tell you.

Are you ready?

In two weeks we will be celebrating one my favorite holidays.  No, not National Talk Like A Pirate Day or National Boss’s Day (which was Sunday October 16… why do Administrative Professionals get a whole week and bosses get one day and it falls on a weekend? – nevermind).  No, my friends, I am talking about Halloween.

You remember it, right?  The night of the year that you as a child looked forward to for months, planning what costume you were going to wear, what houses to go to first to get the best candy, and whether any of your friends would be having any parties.  And of course the best night of the year for scary movies– I remember one year I went to a friend’s house on Halloween to watch some scary movies—I brought the movie “For Keeps,” the one where Molly Ringwald plays a teenager who gets pregnant.  I think I misunderstood the invitation when it said to bring a scary movie.

But I digress… Halloween used to be an event, something that couldn’t come fast enough.  Never mind that it always ended up being disappointing, not enough houses in the neighborhood decorated and always that one house that gave popcorn balls.  But it was a chance to do something different.  To wear clothes you wouldn’t wear everyday.  A time to be something you weren’t.  Want to put on a mask and scare other kids?  This was your night.  Want to stay out for three hours and go to every house twice?  Only one night of the year for that.  Want to throw a party and see if you could get the cute girls in your class to come?  Halloween was your best excuse.

But lately it has seemed that there isn’t any holiday cheer for the only major holiday between Labor Day and Thanksgiving.  When we would get back to school after summer break it would be a long few months until the Thanksgiving long weekend and aside from Veteran’s Day and the Jewish Holidays (which weren’t really days off anyways), the only thing we had to look forward to was Halloween.

So what has happened that not everyone is in on the act?  Why do I go to stores that used to have aisles and aisles of Halloween costumes and candy and decorations and pumpkins and see only one or two aisles of goods that don’t even look as if they were picked over?  The typical stopping points on the Halloween Preparedness Tour are now disappointments waiting to happen.  It seems that the day after the 4^th of July the American Flags were put away and synthetic Christmas trees put on display.

Here is the problem as I see it.  Our friends on Wall Street or the Consumer Affairs Departments or wherever “they” are who make decisions for us have determined that Christmas is a much more lucrative holiday than Halloween.  They figure that people are more likely to spend their hard-earned money on Christmas trees and tinsel and lights and presents.  And they are probably right. 

But Halloween is not for the consumers.  It isn’t for the hard-working people of this country who have to decide between buying Christmas lights or a cauldron with a fog machine inside of it.  It is for the kids.  On the off-chance you actually see a Halloween section of a store or, even more rare, a Halloween store all by itself, it’s littered with adult costumes; all of the costumes traditionally worn by the kids are available for adults, but you have to put the word “sexy” in front.  The “Sexy” Princess, the “Sexy” Genie”, the “Sexy” Elmo.  And the adults who would normally purchase those costumes are saving their money for Christmas.

I get it.  I absolutely get it.  But, in that same vein, “they” don’t get it.  Halloween is not for adults; it is for kids.  It is for kids to feel like kids.  To load up on candy, to dress crazy and color your hair and wear make-up and tiptoe through the “graveyard” in the front of the neighbor’s house.  All of the negative aspects of Halloween come from adults poaching a child’s holiday.  Be careful on Halloween because of drunk drivers, looting of trick-or-treaters’ candy bags, and vandalism.  Nine-year old kids are not driving drunk…

So my friends, I let you in on the secret.  Halloween is coming and it is a fun time for a kid.  Make sure they know about it.  Make sure they have the chance to celebrate it.  Make sure they have a chance to build a memory that they can share with their kids.  Because Target and Walmart and Home Depot and K-Mart don’t want you to know about it.  They would prefer that you instead buy the automated Eeyore that flops its ears and dances to Jingle Bells.

“It’s weird, isn’t it? You spend the first nine months trying to get out and the rest of your life trying to get back in.”

Friends:

Before I had children I wanted nothing to do with them.  Which is why society never ceases to impress me.

When our oldest daughter was a baby (she is almost 6 now), people would stop us everywhere we went to say hello her.  They would talk to her, make faces, coochie-coo her and all that nonsense that makes people look so ridiculous.  They would let their guard down for just a moment to bask in the glory that is a newborn.  Even before she was born, it seemed that everywhere we went people wanted to celebrate with us this miracle growing inside the mommy’s tummy. 

At the time I thought it was some weird alignment of the stars.  For the first 30 years of my life, I avoided children like they were the plague.  Not only was there a fear of what to do with them, I never went out of my way to say hello to a baby or to tell a mother how beautiful her daughter was.  If you wanted to have kids, go with my best blessings, so long as it didn’t disrupt my life.  And I thought everyone else felt the same way.

Which is why the experience we have been having with our younger daughter (turning 1 in a few weeks) is so confounding.  Just like with her older sister, people seem to gravitate to Kensi.  They want to talk to her, to make faces, to wave to her and blow kisses.  You would think that it would only be the women, the more sensitive and expressive of our society.  But to my astonishment, that wasn’t the case.  Kensi’s smile and laughter traverses gender lines, racial lines, age lines.  We recently took our daughters across the country and everywhere we went it seemed that people wanted to meet Kensi.  People seemed to take pride in being able to get Kensi to giggle or smile.  And it brightens their day, even if just for a minute.

This got me to thinking, of course.  What happens to us that people stop treating us the way they did when we were babies?  We all can agree that a pregnancy is a miracle.  We are happy for the mother, we want to rub the belly and ask inappropriate questions.  And when the baby is born, we celebrate it and give our best of wishes.  But sometime between infancy and adulthood, we as a society undergo a change.  We make the determination that the child is no longer worth our extra-effort.  We no longer go out of our way to try to make him or her smile.  Something changes in us.

And that to me is a failing of our society.  Babies are a miracle, which means that each one of us is a miracle.  But we forget that.  Why?

Look, I am not so naïve as to think that everyone sees babies the same way.  I already told you that I was immune to a baby’s charms.  But wouldn’t society be a better place if we treated people as the miracles that they are?  We don’t have to love everybody; in fact, we don’t even have to like everybody.  But if we at least acknowledged that each one of us is a miracle in our own right, that we were all at one time cooing babies that people wanted to shower with affection, wouldn’t that give us some perspective before we are mean to each other?

It’s just so confusing to me that people can make ridiculous faces at a baby one minute and the next minute forget how to treat their fellow man.  It simply seems to me that if we stop and think for a minute about how we would treat someone if they were a giggling, smiling baby, that we would treat people better.

Society confuses me, but it also surprises me in such pleasant ways.  To see a fellow human being, a stranger, let his guard down, to devote a few seconds to a smiling little girl gives me hope for our world. 

Just one example—we were in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in July and had stopped to look at a map of the battlefields.  As we were getting our bearings, a man in his 50s, obviously hardened by life with less teeth than Kensi, hobbled up to her.  Just by looking at him you wouldn’t have thought he had a compassionate bone in his body.  Kensi looked at him, a blank slate with no preconceived notions about the world.  She smiled… and he smiled.  And then he started speaking the gibberish that babies seem to love and then asked if he could take her home with him.  Kensi had made his day and he had made mine, giving me hope for our world.  Babies have the ability to soften our hearts; why can’t we maintain that softened heart?

Have a great week.

Rob

“All right, Hamilton!”

Friends:

I think that we can all agree that the greatest actor of the 1980s was Judge Reinhold.  While I won’t utilize this precious space and your precious time to outline my thesis of why Judge Reinhold beats the pants off of Emilio Estevez as our greatest living thespian, there is one “Reinholdian” performance which certainly sticks out as appropriate for our recent discussions.  The movie was “Ruthless People.”  Remember it?

In case you don’t recall, it is that gem from 1986 which co-starred Danny DeVito and Bette Midler.  See, Midler and DeVito were married and the Judge (as I like to call him) and his wife, desperately in need of money, kidnap Midler and hold her for ransom.  DeVito, however, would prefer for his wife to never come back and, as usual, madcap hilarity ensues. 

While he and his wife are keeping Midler hostage at their home, the Judge continues to go to work everyday as a stereo salesman.  The scene in particular which I want you to think about is the one in which a scruffy teenager comes into the store looking for the biggest, baddest stereo system in the store.  The Judge sees a sucker and introduces him to the biggest of the big, the loudest of the loud, and the most expensive of the expensive.  He lights the lights and throws all of the switches and puts on a display, replete with woofers and tweeters and whatever else stereos are made of.  He has not only a sale, but he has a big one and a huge commission… that is until the customer’s pregnant wife walks in.  And The Judge gets an attack of conscience.  At that moment, despite the desperation that led them to kidnap another human being, you see that there is something redeeming about The Judge’s character.

Unfortunately, you and I know too many people who wouldn’t have thought twice when the pregnant wife walked in.  I call those people the “peggers.”  The ones who sell one product and think that everyone needs to buy that one product.  They sell a square hole and think that everyone is a square peg, so much so that they try as hard as possible to hammer the circles and trapezoids into that square hole. 

It is this, however, that separates us from them.  It’s what makes us trusted and trustable.  Look, we have all been there.  We see the dollars, we know that we have a client who would accept whatever advice we have to give… sure, they don’t own a house and have no kids, their assets are minimal, but I bet I can sell them on a life insurance trust and a qualified personal residence trust and a grantor-retained annuity trust.  Or, their income would only really support a loan of $400,000 to buy that house, but I think I can convince them that they can afford the $500,000 house, knowing full well they won’t be able to make the monthly payments. 

We see dollar signs for us, which isn’t always the best thing for our clients.  And yet, we see the pregnant wife come in and we recommend the walk-man instead of the whole speaker system.  Because we know that when we took on the role of being an advisor, when we accepted the responsibility of caring for others, that we agreed to put the interests of others ahead of ourselves, because we know, we HAVE to know, that it will come back to us.

The professionals who only think about themselves, it bites them.  It gets around; the word will get out that they aren’t respectable.  Their clients will not stick up for them, they won’t refer them to their friends, they won’t be there the next time around. 

By comparison, though, the professionals who do the right thing, who give the best advice, and don’t shoot for the big score each time… those are the ones who get it back.  The clients love them, they refer their friends, and, more importantly, they keep coming back. 

You might be sitting there wondering why I am going off on this for so long, especially something so simple as this.  You’re right, it is a no-brainer.  But if it was so simple, then why do you and I know so many people who don’t get it?

Have a great week and, if you aren’t sure whether you would have sold the walk-man or the stereo system, give it some hard thought… Who do you want to be?

Rob