Big Stuff

My book (and my blog) is nothing if not about building character, and not to be confused with backbone, stiff upper lip or any of the prep school idiosyncrasies.

We spend our lives in behaviors developed from character and we travel over and over again back to its monumental maintenance. Every once in awhile, we get the blessing of a really bad event, (did I say blessing?) or culmination of a series of events, habits or lifelong behaviors that hits us with a WHAMMY!

These are the times that try men's souls. And women's I might add.

I am in the midst of just such a life altering event. Predicament is more the word, for events happen and pass somewhat quickly; predicaments take time to unravel and finally straighten out. The details of my messy experience are not important here: you have one yourself; you will have one soon or you've had one in the not so distant past and you'd rather not discuss it, much less remember it.

The question is what happens on the journey through the mess? How do I behave? I'll give you one simple example. I had to call a lawyer to begin to take care of my predicament, and I was given a referral of someone from a friend who hadn't paid the gentleman when she used him four years ago. I was embarrassed to tell him I couldn't name my source, but I went ahead and told it straight. I wasn't free to tell him. I had rehearsed other nonsense, but told the simple truth.

The victories we find in life come from very small steps, even when we clean up very big mistakes. We die a thousand deaths as we stumble through our years, but we wake up and make a tiny dent in our integrity, one simple sentence at a time.