Message From Home

The sun hasn’t set on my dream of having someone who will mow my yard for free, err, a precious angel son or daughter sent from Heaven. But while it may not be sunset, it’s still around 4:30 in the afternoon. All the super-awesome knowledge I’ve amassed through these long years, which I’ve waited patiently to impart to a loving, eager-to-learn, well-behaved child, is just going to waste at this point.  Sad. All the cool and important things I can teach the young, like how to make a playground rival cry, or how to get women to ignore you, all are in peril of dying with me.

So as an exercise, more than anything else, and prompted by the oncoming 30 year reunion of my high school class, I thought I’d instead teach my own self. My kid self, the boy who roughly 30 years ago was staring down the barrel of going to Humble High School (Go Wildcats!) every day for the next year (til we all went over to Kingwood for the next three years). Yeah, it makes no sense, but I thought I’d just write myself a letter, kind of like in the old Sinatra song, only to myself in 1979. The idiotic, naïve, angry young 8^th grader getting ready to go to high school. I realize that’s a little impractical. Still, if Dennis Quaid can get on the radio with his son in the future, surely I can write a letter to my past self. Kind of like this:

Dear Chris:

Hello from 2012. Yeah, that’s right, Future Chris needs to have a word.

Now, I haven’t exactly figured out how you'll access the internet. Especially when you can barely work a cassette deck, but I have faith. Some faith.  Let's call this an electronic message in a bottle, dropped into the time-space continuum. Actually that's the space-time continuum, according to Star Trek.

With that essentially non-relevant practicality out of the way, I shall come to the matter at hand. You, sir, are pretty much hopeless.  At least at this point. Sorry, but I feel like I can level with you. You won’t listen to anyone, you think you know it all (or no one around you can teach you anything), you think you’re better than just about anyone else but can’t grasp why no one seems to recognize that, you basically ignore people, and you pretty much can’t wait to get out of school and leave Kingwood and your family in the dust. Driving something cool, like a Trans Am. What's amazing is that anyone will have anything to do with you. At all.

Ugh.

Having now successfully ruined your confidence, I have some good news. Believe it or not, in spite of yourself, you will manage to make your way in a relatively comfortable manner to 2012. What happens beyond that, I can’t help you with. Just have a little faith.

The good news, in a sense, is that you're pretty much grown up. Oh, you've got a lot to learn. A lot. But your basic personality, tastes, and beliefs are pretty much set (God help us). From here on out, its more a matter of polishing than chiseling. Working on the presentation more than the content. Adding as much Cary Grant to the mix as you'll take, and wiping out equal amounts of Don Rickels. So hope you like the Eagles and Journey and Van Halen. Because you're going to be listening to that stuff all your life. Whether you like it or not. Cause the Baby Boomers won't ever let you get away from it. Change becomes harder and harder the older you get. Once you get caught up in acquiring stuff and supporting yourself in a manner consistent with your tastes, however questionable, it becomes difficult to pick up stakes and try something new, or become a different person. On the other hand, you do change just by becoming older. Some of those changes are welcome: you care less and less what others think about you, for example. Some aren't so great. Like finding it difficult to hear what anyone's saying. Actually that one's a plus too.

Notwithstanding that, you need to know some things that might smooth the ride just a bit. I won’t give away everything. Most of the fun in life is not knowing what happens next.

Though I will give up a few things. Take every red cent you can get your hands on, legally or otherwise, and buy as much stock in a company called “Microsoft” as you possibly can.  You’ll go a whole lot farther if you spend even a little less time concentrating on girls. The weird, dead badger-like smell at Humble between the main building and the annex, rising from that mysterious artificial creek full of brownish sludge? Yeah, you want to stay as far from that as you can. And for the love of God, the mustache? BAD idea. No one finds it hot. At least, no women find it hot. Otherwise, you'll have to live the story for yourself.

What I will do is share some hard won life lessons. Maybe if you know these things ahead of time, well, things won’t be quite as…awkward at certain times shall we say. Think on this. Oh, and I included some song allusions, cause I know you like that sort of thing.

Don’t follow leaders, watch the parking meters. Just because someone else is doing something, that’s no reason to do something you don’t want to do. Do what you want to do, and what you think is right. In the end, you’re the only person who has to live with the choices you make. Those people telling you what to do—they don’t have to live with the choice, and they probably won’t be around 20, 30, or 40 years later either.

Pretty good company. News flash: people judge. Stop the presses. One thing that stands out as they judge you is the company you keep. If you hang around with respectable people, either their respectability will rub off on you or people will assume you’re somewhat respectable. If you associate with trash, people will assume that’s who you are. Put another way, very few people have ever individually dragged all their friends to their level. Mostly its friends dragging you to their level. You want to be dragged upward, not down. Why? Read on.

Baby, talk is cheap. Talk all you like, but you say 20 times more with your actions than your words. The true test of your beliefs and your feelings is how you act (or fail to act). Ultimately no one really cares what you said. Its what you did that gets put on your tombstone.

You can take the hard way. Generally, the easy way is the wrong way. Most things worth achieving aren’t very simple or straightforward. Most things easy to master aren’t worth mastering. That’s not always true of course, but usually that’s how it works out.

Girls! Girls! Girls! I could write a whole other letter just on this. After roughly 35 years of paying attention, here’s all I know about girls. Girls are a lot like guys. The differences are of degree more than kind. Here’s some gross over-generalizations. First, they’re more emotion-driven than men. Its not that they don’t reason logically, its just that they pay as much attention to the emotional aspects of situations as to the reasoned side. If a woman ever talks to you about her problems, its usually because the process of verbalizing them helps her settle her thoughts and feelings about the problem.  Your job is not to lay out a 12 point plan for conquering said problem. Your job is to listen to what she has to say and offer encouragement. Next, the relationship is the thing. Relationships are to women like sports are to men. They’ll often eschew personal achievement or success if it interferes with a close friendship or family or romantic relationship, in many cases to the point where they’re taken advantage of. So if you want to connect with a woman, you need to focus on your relationship with her and her friends and family. Simply displaying your unrivalled coolness and being a total stud...recipe for disaster. Also, they deal with a lot more pressure than men. Women are judged mercilessly, often for doing the same things that men do routinely. Every woman has to deal with people thinking she’s not pretty, or too pretty, or a bad mother, or too bitchy, or not responsive, or uncaring, or too trampy, or too full of herself. Women get criticized when they succeed and when they fail. If they’re prettier or happier or more educated than their friends or family, then those same friends or family often subtly work to bring her down. If she spends all her time looking out for others and never focusing on herself, her friends often see her as a loser. No man trying to climb the corporate ladder or hook up on a Friday night was ever called a selfish, trampy bitch. Lesson...adding to the pressure a woman already feels will hardly ingratiate yourself with her.  Finally, they’re considerably stronger than men. CONSIDERABLY. Women take in stride things that would send lots of men off the deep end. Death, divorce, sickness, bankruptcy, infidelity, firing, failure…situations in which men crater, women take it all and still manage to accessorize perfectly. You would do well not to confuse any of these differences for weakness.  

Pump it up. God has given you a body that does everything it needs to. More or less (spoiler alert!). You get one body, and only one. It has to last you your whole life. Still no brain transplants in 2012, Young Frankenstein notwithstanding. So you need to take care of your body. I know that's hard to fathom, being such an awesome looking guy and all and feeling great. But its not going to last unless you maintain it. You need to exercise. More than once a week. You need to watch what you eat. Garbage in, garbage out. Fewer pop tarts and chicken fried steaks. More fruit and vegetables. Well, some fruit and vegetables. Stay out of the sun. That's just skin cancer from above. And for the love of God, be careful driving, and watch who you get in the car with.

Baby take your time, do it right. There’s no quicker way to ruin your reputation than to go around half assing everything. No one will hire you, no one will want you on their team or their project, and no one will cut you slack or give you the second chances that go to those who try hard. You can’t always give yourself more talent or aptitude, but you can always control your effort.

See for miles and miles. Its best to view most issues from the long-term perspective. Short-term thinking is like walking through a darkened room-you may be fine for now, but who knows what you’re getting ready to step on. Whenever there’s an opportunity, make decisions that will help you  through your entire life, not just til next Thursday.

Stand for the things you know are right. Nothing’s worse than an unprincipled man. In your words and your deeds, you should represent something. Have opinions, but make sure they’re informed opinions (see “don’t follow leaders” above). Beyond that, be a man of your principles. Don’t just sit on the side, watching the wrongs around you. Do something. That doesn’t mean you have to spend all your time walking the earth like Caine in Kung Fu, fighting injustice. Though it would be pretty cool.

Schoolhouse rock. The time to stop learning is never. Life is a school. The end of high school and later college only ends one phase of your learning. Life changes so much that unless you keep up, and find out what’s happening around you and why and what it means, you’ll be left behind. I learned that from a guy by the name of Ferris. Check it out.

Party friends are the first to bail. There’s friends who you can count on when everything’s going well, and then there’s just friends. Look for the latter. Anyone can be a friend when times are good. You need friends who’ll stick by you when things aren’t so good.

That song isn’t about you. Believe it or not, most people really don’t care what you’ve got going on. They’re not paying much attention to you at all, and they don’t really care when you’re having a bad day, or when you get the highest grade on the English test (like that would ever happen). In other words, the planets don’t revolve around YOU.

I’m so tired of being alone. Most people seem to have lots and lots and lots and lots of friends who hang around all the time. For them, every day and every night seems like a sitcom. Or New Year’s Eve. Why, you’d think its impossible to make it through the day without the gang being around. But you know, not everyone is like that. Specifically, you’re not like that. And its ok. Being alone is ok. You can be alone and not be lonely. Its better to have one friend you makes you laugh, or cares about you, or supports you when you’re down, than to have 100 friends who are more trouble than they’re worth.

Your word is your bond. Once you’re found out as a liar, its all over. If people don’t trust you they won’t do business with you, they won’t take you into their confidence, they won’t put you on their team. Liars are unreliable. Liars will sell you out. And all it takes is one lie to ruin 30 years of telling the truth and being honest. Oh, and if you say you’re going to do something, do it. People rely on your assurances. Only if circumstances change in a way you can’t control should you promise to do something and then back off. Otherwise, you’re just a flake.

Go to the mirror boy! For various reasons, most people won’t level with you. Friends won’t tell you negative things you need to hear. Others will hesitate to intrude in your business. But self-delusion can destroy. Failing to recognize bad choices destroys more careers, more marriages, more lives than you can possibly imagine. So you need to see yourself the way others do, the way you really are. Level with yourself about shortcomings. That doesn’t mean you should set impossible or unrealistic standards (see below), but it does mean you should recognize when things aren’t working well, or that you’re not nearly as super-awesome as you think. The first rule about digging a hole for yourself? Stop digging.

Nice and easy. Its never as bad or as good as you think. That’s really true. What may seem like your most catastrophic flame-out ever almost inevitably wasn’t so bad. Likewise, your most glorious, triumphant, crowning achievement probably won’t register on most people’s radar. Why? Well, most people, yourself included, tend to over-estimate their own significance. That carries over into their actions. Whatever you do, good, bad or other, just isn’t really all that important in the grand scheme of things. And because you’re much more focused on yourself than others, you tend to over-scrutinize your actions. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t celebrate your achievements or regret your mistakes; it just means you should tamp down the highs and lows.

Finally, you have the best mom. The sooner you get that the better.

Adios, mofo…See you in a few decades.

Future Chris