Encomium by Patrik Vander Velden

My sister Angie and her husband Jim were meant to sail their 2 boats together until they crossed to a different shore. Patrik Vander Velden who knew them during the last 3 years of their lives, and was one of the last people to see them before they died last January within days of each other, has written a tribute to mark the one year death anniversary of these two very special souls whose lives were so intertwined. As you read his poem, please remember these two very special and very incredible people.

Dear Future Self,

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

I have tilled the soil.

I have planted the seeds.

I have watered the saplings.

I have done all the things I need to do for you to have a good life.

You now just have to keep it going.

If you stick with the habits I have set, you will be in good shape.

Sleep a minimum of 8 hours.

Do cardio and strength training.

Carve out time for healthy activities in your routine.

Maintain the diet that is right for you.

The one that was right for me was a low carb diet.

I dodged the diabetes bullet by doing that.

Keep stress at bay.

Mental health is as important as physical health.

Use tools to calm yourself down when you get anxious.

Take a walk or have a shower or a massage, do some stretches, or play a game. Talk to someone on the phone.

Remember, no matter what you do to prevent bad things from happening to you, you can't avoid bad things altogether.

Our Younger Self didn't know how to deal with bad things.

She fretted and fumed and over reacted to each crisis.

She had to say or do something  almost immediately.

Whereas I have found that if you let hours (and sometimes days) go by without saying or doing anything, things that seem bad when they happen, become something you can move on from and forget.

Meditation and having a spiritual life has helped me tremendously in this regard.

I wish I had learned to meditate earlier.

Our Younger Self didn't have the benefit of meditation, or a spiritual life, unfortunately for her.

Regards work, including housework, try to approach everything you do with a service heart and a servant heart.

I do that regularly in my Commissions Consulting work, and outside of my Commissions Consulting work.

It has won the hearts of many people in my life, including my clients.

Value is another mantra you should adopt.

Look to deliver value in everything  you do.

Now by that, I don't mean show off how clever and smart you are.

I mean look to being useful to other people and being concerned with their problems rather than yours.

Value may be as simple as lending a ear when other people have something to say without stealing the conversation back to your concerns.

Live simply and be prudent with money.

I have been wise, careful and frugal, to ensure you will be okay.

Slow and steady and restrained is the way to go.

Stick with my prescription for simplicity in investing - as in life - and you will be okay.

As to your free time, spend it doing the things that mean the most to you.

One of my favorite things to do costs no money at all.

I like to write.

I currently write a blog.

I also write for my Commission Administration clients.

Commission Process  documents, User Guides, and FRDs may not sound creative and fun, but they are extremely useful and valuable to my clients.

There is a chance it will be your hobby too. Who knows where that hobby will take you.

Life is full of surprises.

Thanks to an old advertising friend, I was able to dip my toe back into advertising copy recently after many years. I was able to write two brochures all in the span of a few weekends.  One of the clients when he saw the brochure immediately said it was brilliant.

It made my heart sing to know I still had it in me.

Our Younger Self has to get some of the credit.

Our Younger Self wrote a Money Workshop for 4th - 6th graders.

Our Younger Self completed a Toastmasters CTM.

Speeches and course content could lead to new avenues.

I keep a ear out for new avenues.

For example, on a recent Being Freelance podcast, a freelancer mentioned he uses his Virtual Assistant to help him with some of his communications.

I said….aha now there's another avenue.

You should do this too.

Keep a ear out for new avenues - to contribute, to make life more interesting, to make a little money, to have fun.

Finally, focus on being the best human being you can be.

Not the best writer, or best dresser, or best cook, or best host, or best homemaker, or best church goer…but the best human being.

I am talking about patience and honesty and kindness and humility and forgiveness and understanding and being a good listener, those kinds of things.

You won't get it right immediately.

If something as simple as cooking rice takes several tries to get right, imagine how many more tries might be involved in becoming a more patient or a more understanding human being. Maybe a lifetime.

Don't be afraid of making mistakes, or messing up.

I make mistakes and mess up all the time.

When I make mistakes or mess up, I get back up on my feet and keep trying.

You need to keep doing that too.

I sincerely believe life gets better as we get older.

Lovingly,

Your Past Self

Acknowledgements:

I would like to acknowledge 2 sources of inspiration for this post, both recently discovered, and both wonderful.

The first is a website called Future Me. On Future Me, anyone can write a letter to their Future Self, and read the letter in the future. I loved the concept, and initially toyed with writing a letter to my Future Self on Future Me. Then, I decided my blog would be just as good a home for this letter, since many more people other than myself would be able to read it.

The second inspiration for this Dear Future Self, post was a book called Notes To Self, which I also read in the last few days.

Notes to Self contains 20 letters from people to their Younger Selves.

Oprah, Jimmy Carter and Danica Patrick are some of the people who have written letters to their Younger Selves in Notes to Self.

So being exposed to both Future Me and Notes to Self within the span of a few days is what ignited this post.

How wonderfully inspiration works!

The Other Artist

Image Credit:Juanita Mulder, Pixabay

I stood before the canvas, painting my life.

I had risen the ranks from cub copywriter to Creative Grouphead.

Now  I painted myself as the owner of a successful creative shop, seated in  a nice office with several employees, and the latest technology, handing out business cards which read Purple Patch to a string of high paying clients.

Suddenly a paint brush carried by an unseen hand painted a cloud over this scene.

Startled I said, "Who are you and what are you doing? This is the canvas on which I, and I alone, am painting my life.  It is something I, and I alone, must do."

"Put down your paintbrush and follow me" said a voice. "We need to talk"

"How can I follow you when I can't see you," I said. "And who are you? Do you have a name?"

"You can call me The Other Artist," said the voice.  "Please follow the sound of the footsteps."

I listened for the sound of the footsteps and followed them.

One of the chairs in my living room rose through the air, and came down on the floor, opposite another chair, ever so lightly.

"Sit down," said the voice I now knew as "The Other Artist".

I sat down on one of the chairs.

From the opposite chair, The Other Artist continued...

"Now where were we  - oh yes, you were saying you were painting your life, and it was something you and you alone must do."

"Yes, that's right," I said.

"This may seem dismaying to you," said The Other Artist, "but I am involved in everything you do."

..."The painting of your life was, is, and will always be, a joint venture between us."

…"How do I put it?  Oh, I know...if you think of your life as a start up, you and I are  founder and cofounder."

"That is a bad analogy," I said to The Other Artist. "You do not know my vision."

"I do," said The Other Artist.  "And what's more, my participation will make sense to you. If not now, later."

"No," I said to The Other Artist, "You are just a figment of my imagination, you are just a creation of my fears."

Saying that, I got up from the chair and stomped back to my painting.

I hoped the cloud The Other Artist had painted on the canvas would no longer be there.

But it was still there.

I tried to paint over it.

Every time, I did, it came back again.

And It grew blacker and blacker.

I broke into tears.

I was in a depression.

The meaning of the cloud became clear to me.

"What good can come from a depression?" I said, wringing my hands.

"You'll see," said The Other Artist.

I don't know why, but I felt the urge to paint a child on the canvas.

My vision for my life had not contained a child before.

The child quickly captured my imagination, and I painted diapers and baby bottles and a stroller onto the canvas.

The Other Artist then painted a letter from my sister Rosie on the canvas, saying "maybe, you should move to America."

I looked at the letter and wondered if it was the right thing to do, because I was in an existential crisis.

The Other Artist didn't say anything.

America had been a dream of mine.  Then I had forgotten about the dream.  Now it was back again as an answer to the existential crisis I was facing.

So I painted an American flag onto the canvas.

I was excited and scared about my new life in America.  I didn't know what it held in store for me.

No sooner had I painted the American flag, when The Other Artist painted a dry well on the canvas.

What's that for? I asked.

"America is going to care a fig about your advertising copy experience," said The Other Artist, "so you will need to paint yourself some other way to earn a living in America."

The only job I could think of was an Admin Assistant, so I painted myself answering a telephone.

I was an Admin Assistant for a short while.

Then The Other Artist painted a whole lot of numbers on the canvas.

"What's that for?" I said.

"It's your lucky break.  A chance to become a Commissions Analyst. "

I was terrified when I found out a Commissions Analyst had to do calculations on massive Excel spreadsheets.

"I am a words person, not a numbers person" I said.

I tried to paint over the numbers.

The Other Artist painted the numbers back.

I found myself in a new career as a Commissions Analyst.

I learned Excel, I learned Xactly, I learned Varicent, I learned about Sales Comp. I learned about quotas and target incentives and commission rates and thresholds and caps.

I became good at being a Commissions Analyst.

The Other Artist also painted pots and pans and washers and dryers and cars onto the canvas.

Things which had never been a part of my life in India.

I learned to cook, I learned to do laundry, I learned to drive.

"Enjoying much?" The Other Artist asked.

I didn't want to give The Other Artist the satisfaction of knowing I enjoyed cooking and driving, so I just answered with an inscrutable "harumph".

And so I kept putting things on the canvas of my life.

And The Other Artist  kept putting things on the canvas of my life.

The Other Artist would paint a flower on the canvas every now and then.

Each flower was a new friend.

These friends would enrich my life.

They would tell me wonderful tales.  I would listen with rapture to stories like Crimson Sails and Baba Yaga, or thrill to the poem Love at First Sight by Wisława Szymborska.

These friends would introduce me to exotic new foods like piroshki and pilmeni and faworki and adai dosa and nasi lemak and roti prata.

I would have many wonderful experiences with these friends.

I would write about  these friends in my United States of Friendship series of posts.

The Other Artist painted a rose with a thorn onto the canvas at one time.

The rose represented the beauty of being able to telecommute, the thorn was that every time a boss left and a new boss took over, the new boss would give me grief over my telecommuting privileges and try to take them away.

The Other Artist painted crossed swords.

This was a boss who proved to be a challenge to me on a job.

I disagreed with this boss.

Our disagreements got worse and worse.

Until I walked out of that job.

I painted myself as a Commissions Consultant soon after.

The Other Artist drew a smiley emoji on the canvas.

And then I suddenly realized something.

The Other Artist was indeed a cofounder of my life.

And a good cofounder.

All the things The Other Artist had painted on the canvas of my life had enriched my life in one way or another.

The Other Artist  had taken me in new directions and expanded my horizons.

The Other Artist had strengthened my knowledge, experience, and skills.

The Other Artist had filled my life with new possibilities and opportunities.

This was true even when The Other Artist painted darker things on the canvas of my life - the cloud, the dry well, the thorns, the crossed swords.

In the reflection and conquest of those challenges and problems, (even though some of them shook me to the core) I became a stronger, more confident, and more competent person.

With every crisis, I gained increasing clarity, grit, and resilience.

And this equipped me to deal with the gravest challenges of life - loss, illness, and death.

I became less and less afraid of misfortunes, troubles, and trials.

I became less and less afraid of the red pill - to use a symbol from the movie The Matrix.

The red pill - which stands for truth - contained the seeds of a richer, more meaningful, and more fulfilling life.

For me, this translated into increasing peace, contentment, and satisfaction.

This is because, I learned to meditate, control my monkey mind, and get out of my own way, after concluding that the best way to deal with the truth of unavoidable suffering, was not to run away from it, but to change my attitude to it, and to take responsibility for it by finding appropriate tools to deal with it.

I lost my former self-centeredness and preoccupation.

I became more present to other people and their lives.

I became a better listener.

I aimed to understand first, and be understood second in my interactions with other people.

All these were things I couldn't put a price on.

And much of it was due to what The Other Artist had put on my canvas.

The Other Artist had played a seminal role in my growth and maturity as a human being.

And the day would come when The Other Artist would paint a pen on the canvas.

I couldn't have been more excited.

"Does this mean I am going to write again?" I said, my heart bursting with hope. "I have so much I want to share with other people."

"What do you think?" The Other Artist asked.

I didn't answer.

I just began to paint  a blog page on the canvas.

And so here we are today.

I am still painting the canvas of my life.

And The Other Artist is still painting new things on my canvas.

Some are good things.

Some are bad things.

I have learned not to think of the bad things as permanent bad things.

They are temporary bad things, which lead to good things - new knowledge, new insights, a positive new direction, or a new way of being.

So although I love the current canvas of my life, and I would be happy to stop the clock, there's a part of me that's excited about the new things The Other Artist will surely paint on the canvas of my life.

I plan not to resist what The Other Artist paints on my canvas.

In fact, I plan to fully cooperate with what The Other Artist paints on my canvas.

That's because I now have a deep acceptance of The Other Artist as a co-creator of my life.

Cynthia Saves The Day

A true story...

The bank teller didn't like women.

Women talked too much.

They laughed too loud.

They changed their minds too often.

Women made big things out of non-events.

Women were always causing problems for him.

The bank teller thought it was just his luck to be a bank teller.

He had to deal with women.

They continuously tested his patience.

He would grit his teeth when, after he had handed a 1000 to a woman, she would say "Oh, no actually can you give me 9 hundreds,  5 tens, 5 fives, 1 twenty and 5 ones."

Or when a woman would say " Oh actually, can I take out half from savings and half from my checking account."

"Yes, of course" he would say, grimacing as he started over.

So of course, it would be a woman who would be behind THE MOST STRESSFUL DAY OF HIS BANK TELLER CAREER.

THE MOST STRESSFUL DAY OF HIS BANK TELLER CAREER started out as a day like any other.

Different customers walked up to his teller window.

Some men.

Some women.

Some deposited money.

Some withdrew money.

There were breaks in between.

The bank teller glanced at the clock.

He knew there would be a sudden influx of customers between noon and 1 p.m. - working professionals who did their bank work during their lunch break.

The customer who caused THE MOST STRESSFUL DAY OF HIS BANK TELLER CAREER was one of them.

She came in at 12:15 and walked up to his teller window when  it was her turn.

"I would like to deposit this money" the customer said to him, sliding a stack of notes into the teller slot.

"Sure" he said, "Name and account number?"

She gave him her name and account number.

He repeated her name back to her to make sure he had the right name and account number - "R....L...……3246792"

She nodded her head.

He counted the money.

After he counted the money, he prepared a receipt for her and then slid the receipt back through the teller slot.

"Here's your deposit receipt," he said.

This is when the trouble began.

The young woman looked at the deposit receipt and said "This receipt is only for 10,000 rupees. I gave you 20,000 rupees."

The teller was taken aback.

"No, Madam, you gave me only 10,000 rupees. I counted it. You watched me count it," he replied.

"No," said the young woman."Impossible.  I came into the bank with 20,000 rupees. Please look on the counter. The other 10,000 rupees must be somewhere there."

"No, there is nothing on the counter, Madam. What you passed me through the window was 10,000 rupees. Look in your handbag. Maybe the other 10,000 is there."

The young woman rummaged in her handbag. "Not here," she said.

"Where is the money I deposited?" she then said to the teller. "Please pass it to me so I can count it again."

"Can't do that Madam.  We have already recorded the deposit and given you a receipt."

The young woman's voice grew a little louder, "I know I gave you 20,000 rupees because I walked into the bank with 20,000 rupees to deposit.

She looked around and saw some familiar faces among the other waiting customers.

They were observing the proceedings with an interested, puzzled look on their faces.

She wondered what they were thinking.

Probably wondering how she, of all people, had made such a large deposit.

"They must think I am involved in some criminal activity," she thought to herself.

Meanwhile, the situation between her and the teller wasn't going anywhere, and he was also wondering what people were thinking of him.

He kept repeating to her "You gave me only 10,000 rupees."

She kept repeating  back to him "I know I gave you 20,000 rupees."

Finally, throwing up his hands, he said, "Excuse me...I have to go talk to my manager about this."

He went to the manager's desk.

Several other bank employees gathered around the manager's desk, interested in finding out more about the developing situation.

Among them was Cynthia, a long time employee of the bank.

She knew the customer personally.

"Let me go speak to the customer.  I know her personally," she told the teller and the manager.

Cynthia approached the customer and said "Hey, Rosie are you sure you brought 20,000 rupees to deposit? Could you have made a mistake?"

"I am sure," she replied.  "The 20,000 belongs to a foreign student who had to make an urgent trip to his country to fetch his fiance.  He gave it to me for safekeeping.  I brought it to the bank,  thinking it will be safer in my account, than at home."

Cynthia said "Rosie, where was the money before you brought it to the bank?"

"In my desk at work. I came straight from there since it was my lunch break," she replied.

Cynthia said, "Let's go back to your office and check if the other 10,000 rupees might still be in your desk."

"Okay," she said, "but I am telling you Cynthia, it is not there. I came to the bank with the full 20,000 rupees."

So they both got into an autorickshaw and they went back to Rosie's office.

On the way, Rosie told Cynthia she had made a horrible mistake agreeing to keep the money for the foreign student. It was a large sum of money, and now half of it was lost.

Cynthia said, "Let's stay positive, Rosie.  Hopefully, the other half will still be in your office."

They arrived at Rosie's office, and Rosie took Cynthia to her desk.

Rosie opened one of the drawers of the desk.  It had some papers in it, but it didn't have any money.

She then opened the other drawer of the desk.

In it was a stack of notes, which looked like what a stack of 10,000 rupees might be.

Rosie looked at the stack of notes.

Relief and utter embarrassment flooded her.

"I must have separated the money into two stacks of 10,000 rupees, and put each of them in a different drawer" she said sheepishly to Cynthia.

"It's okay" said Cynthia, "these things happen.  Let's count it."

They counted it, and sure enough, it added up to 10,000 rupees.

"Good. Now Rosie, let's go back to the bank so you can deposit it" said Cynthia.

"Oh, Cynthia, I am too embarrassed to face the teller and all the other bank folks.  Can you please take it back and deposit it for me?"

"No, Rosie" said Cynthia.  "You need to come back and apologize to the teller. He is known for his accuracy and honesty, so this incident would have been really hard on him.  Plus he doesn't like women, and his dislike of women will intensify, if you don't come back and apologize to him. Please come back with me. I will explain that it was a genuine mistake on your part. Don't worry.  It will go okay"

So feeling very sheepish, Rosie went back with Cynthia to the bank.

Cynthia explained to the teller and the bank manager what had happened.

Rosie then apologized to the teller "I am so sorry. I was sure I had come in with 20,000 rupees."

And so the issue was resolved.

The bank teller was glad THE MOST STRESSFUL DAY OF HIS BANK TELLER CAREER was over, and his name was cleared.

It was a woman who caused it.

But it was also a woman who saved the day.

Cynthia Saved The Day.

This is a true story told to me recently by my sister Rosie.  It is from back in the day when 20,000 rupees was a princely sum of money in India.

Here is the lesson I took from this story... When a customer is wrong, the challenge is to show the customer  they are wrong in a satisfactory way for the customer - that is, in a concerned, helping and understanding way. You have  to get involved in more than a superficial  way to do that, as Cynthia did so admirably,  in this story.

Rosie was very grateful to Cynthia, and remembers her kind intervention to this very day….as,  I am sure , does the teller.

The second lesson I took from this story is that people usually  do not wish to make trouble for anyone  intentionally. They often make trouble for others, unintentionally.  Rosie genuinely thought she had handed the teller 20,000 rupees. It was an honest mistake.

We have to learn to roll with these unintentional troubles and problems that will surely come our way at one time or another.

Happy Woman's Day to all women readers of this post. Here's to forgiving ourselves for our mistakes, laughing at our past foibles, and being proud of all the challenges we have dealt with in our lives, big and small.

Image by alsen on Pixabay 

The 7 Letter Words

A Scrabble Tale...

The 7 Letter Words thought no end of themselves.

"If we were human, we would be going to Mar A Lago every summer." they said amongst themselves.

When they were played, the 7 letter words preened as if they were wearing Harry Winston necklaces or Royal Oak Offshore watches.

They sashayed onto the Scrabble board, like they were entering an exclusive high end club, sipping champagne out of Paula Champagne flutes.

They were the Collins Elite as far as they were concerned.

Queenie,  Eutaxia, Aurelia, Jazzily, Quizzed.

Adeptly, Bougies, Chutnee…..they went all the way from A-Z…and they were all snooty, all 32,909 of them.

Cliquish, they looked down their noses at all the non 7 letter words in the SOWPODS.

"No game where we don't reign" was their secret handshake.

Unknown to them, a baby would be born whose birth would change everything - and would make the edifice of their claim come tumbling down.

The baby was born to the Titus family, and was christened Eugene.

From the time Eugene could speak, he uttered sounds like ee, zo, and qi.

They were strange and mysterious sounds.

Eugene did not know, but it foretold of his future as The Chosen One – the one who would trash the "No game where we don't reign" claim of the 7 Letter Words.

The definitive event took place in the Scrabble Tournament one MAA Day.

Eugene and Minoo had defeated the other contestants in the initial rounds of the Scrabble Tournament, and were now pitted against each other in the finals.

Minoo had no idea that Eugene was the Chosen One.

All she knew was that there was some very unusual Scrabble play from Eugene.

He was extremely parsimonious in his words, placing on the board the smallest words possible, making it hard for Minoo to score.

And he played away from high scoring spaces, to minimize the chances of Minoo benefitting from those.

"Oho", thought Minoo, as she sized up his defensive, blocking strategy, "two can play at a game".

And so she played the game with the same defensive, blocking strategy.

After every play he made, Eugene beamed a wide all-teeth smile, which could have been interpreted as either angelic or devilish. Minoo could not tell which.

And after every play Minoo made, she was tight lipped and unsmiling.

In those days, if Minoo was sad, happy, or joyful, there was no way to tell from her expression.

She was always poker-faced.

The 7 letter words couldn't believe what was happening.

At half time, not one 7 letter word was played.

At 3/4 time, not one 7 letter word was played.

At game's end, with only few tiles left in the bag, their hopes were completely and utterly dashed.

It was a tight match between Eugene and Minoo.

The score was close right till the very end.

Either of them had the potential to win the game.

Minoo won by the skin of her teeth.

The big loser of this historic game was not Eugene, but the 7 Letter Words.

They went home empty handed - their beliefs shattered, their status demoted, their claim of "No game where we don't reign" meaningless.

They were, to use a 7 letter word…humbled!

This post is dedicated to Eugene Titus and Mira Prabhu, two Scrabble friends who are sadly no longer with us.

Scrabble enthusiasts, can I ask you to raise a glass of water or wine as a tribute to Eugene and Mira before you play your next Scrabble game.

When you do that, I like to think Eugene will beam his wide all-teeth smile from heaven at us, the same smile you couldn’t tell if it was devilish or angelic, except now, we can safely assume it's angelic.😇

Quiz question for Scrabble enthusiasts: What is SOWPODS referred to in this post?