Rev. C. Scot Giles, D.Min., LLC

Written on July 27, 2008

I feel a need to comment on today's tragic shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, a congregation of my own denomination.

Apparently an emotionally disturbed man entered the building today during a children's worship service. Without warning, he opened fire on the congregation with a shotgun, killing at least two people and wounding many others.

Church members eventually subdued him, apparently led by one member of the congregation who was trained in martial arts and was able to pin the gunman to the floor.

Details will no doubt emerge over the next few days. For now, I ask your prayers for the members and children of the Tennessee Valley Congregation, for its minister, the Rev. Chris Buice, and for the gunman Jim Adkisson.

We live in an immensely troubled world, and there are no easy solutions to many of the problems we face. Had Mr. Adkisson not had access to a shotgun he could just as easily used some other weapon such as a bottle of gasoline. There is no meaningful way to stop someone who wants to kill other people for no rational reason.

I hope the months ahead will result in sober reflection about what is happening to us as a society where people reach the decision to commit mayhem like this.

I hope we will reflect on the need for more comprehensive treatment of mental illness, and find some way to reach out to the troubled people in our midst.

I hope we will reflect on what has happened to us where we think it is normal to show horrible violence as a form of entertainment, and where we give the youngest among us access to games where they pretend to murder others in order to score points.

I hope we will stand in support of citizens who will risk their lives to subdue an armed attacker. We should be proud to have such people among us.

I hope we can find in our own hearts the compassion to think on these things for a while before turning our attention to other things.

A few weeks ago I did a "practice audit." That is, I carefully logged and reviewed where my time was going, looking for ways to make things more efficient.

The result was no surprise. One of the biggest time wasters was playing "phone tag" with clients who needed to reschedule appointments. There had to be a better way.

The rescheduling and adjusting of client appointments is a nightmare for practitioners. Your schedule can be full, and then fall apart completely as clients call with conflicts and request changes. You can go from a profitable day to a day when you do not clear expenses, simply because people made appointments they then needed to change.

I'd done some checking on how colleagues handled this. Most have a policy similar to my own. If a client cancels an appointment on less than 24-hours notice, the client is charged. The problem with such a policy is that it can be hard to enforce for those clients who pay cash, and it doesn't change the fact that you have to call every one of those clients back to get them rescheduled.

Some practitioners simply assign every new client a fixed appointment. If you are a client you have a designated appointment slot and you pay for it even if you need to cancel it. As one colleague said, "everyone thinks they have a good reason to cancel a session, so everyone gets charged."

This solution works fine for the practitioner. Your schedule is stable and you don't need to call anyone back. If a client cancels, they already have the next appointment reserved.

The problem with this model is that it ignores what modern life is like for our clients. Few people have stable schedules and can commit to an unchanging appointment slot. This is especially true if you deal with people who have medical problems. They always have to adjust the schedule around treatments, scans and days then they feel too sick to go anywhere.

I've wrestled with this for a long time, and I think I've found a solution that will work for everyone. At least I know I feel good about it and the handful of clients who have used it so far are pleased.

If you look to the left side of my web site page you will see a new option, "Change An Appointment" under the "Take Action Now" menu. If you click on that option you will find yourself looking at a copy of my schedule. The schedule is updated every two minutes and all confidential information is removed. You can see only my free/busy times.

If you need to change an appointment you can scroll through my schedule and find a slot that works for both of us. Then, you email me to request the change. When I get the email I'll record the change and send you a confirming email. It's all done on line and we don't need to connect on the phone. This has already saved me hours, and clients like it because they can see where the openings are so it's efficient for them as well.

The business model I use is called an Ideal Micropractice. It's a model developed by primary care physicians to run a low-overhead, high-tech practice. The idea is to use technology instead of staff. By keeping your overhead low you retain more of what you earn and can charge lower prices and spend more time with clients and patients.

In keeping with this model I had been exploring how to move more of my practice administration to the Web, and this is an easy way to do that.

Over the years I received many requests to post the text of some of the sermons I have given at churches of my denomination. I've decided to go ahead a do that with a selection of my best pulpit work. The text of the sermon will be at the start of the Blog entry, and you will find service details (readings, prayers, etc.) at the end.

The Fall from Grace
The Rev. Dr. C. Scot Giles
(Preached at Countryside UU Church, February 17, 2008)
(Preached at the Geneva UU Society, March 9, 2008)

It can be argued that a preacher should never do to a congregation what I am about to do to you.

I intend to tell you something you already know.

What I’m going to spend the next twenty minutes telling you is that no one is perfect. This is not news to either you nor me, and most (if not all) of you already agree with me.

However, I’m going to show you how the irrational expectation that people should be perfect is rooted so deeply into your psychological and linguistic consciousness that we are all enslaved to a conviction that we know is wrong. And that this conviction affects much of what we do, and how we weigh our own self-worth.

The Garden

Most of us know the story of the Garden of Eden, where according the the surface story in the Book of Genesis, the First Man (Adam) and the First Woman (Eve) lived after they were created.

The Text tells us the the Garden was located near four ancient rivers, Pishon, Gihon, the Tigris and the Euphrates. Depending on who you want to believe regarding how the flow of these rives has changed over the ages, the Garden would have been located either in present-day Iraq or perhaps Armenia.

In the center of the Garden there were two trees. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (which should really be translated as the Tree of Conscience), and the Tree of Life. The Children of God are told they may eat of any tree or plant in the Garden, except for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. For if they do, God says, they will die.

And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die. (Gen. 2:16-17).

But the woman is tempted by a talking serpent, who tells the woman:

You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. (Gen. 3:4-5)

The First Woman convinces the First Man to disobey God’s rule. They eat apples from the Tree, realize they are naked, and by implication have sex.

While it’s not explicit in the story, in Ancient Mideastern literature “fruit” and “apples” have a sexual meaning. In fact the same Babylonian word, “Inbu,” is used to mean both “fruit” and “sex,” the meaning being determined from the context (which is not always clear)

And God expels them from the Garden for their disobedience. As the text says:

Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’--therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden...He drove out the man; and at the east end of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life. (Gen. 3:22-24)

In the Abrahamic Religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), this is called the Fall. Human beings were once citizens of a perfect kingdom, but were cast out of it for something that involves sex and disobedience, and now dwell in an imperfect world.

Worse, each of us is believed to carry with us the taint of this primordial disobedience. The classic text on this is Romans 5:12, where Paul wrote:

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned.

Traditional Theology calls this “Original Sin.” In the more extreme forms of Protestant Theology, such as Calvinism, it’s called “Ultimate Depravity,” and those who believe in it argue that all people are born a little bit insane, because we are the descendants of the First Man and First Woman, who messed up.

There are all sort of things strange about this story. There is a lot a preacher can do with it. For example, to whom is God speaking when God says “See, the man has become like one of us”? Apparently, the Lord God is not alone, and it is unclear about who sort of being the “us” references.

Second, neither God nor the serpent is fully truthful. God tells the First Man, “for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” But that’s not true and that’s not what happened. On the day he ate of it he got is Adamic rear kicked out of the garden, but he didn’t die. He will die…eventually. However, that’s not what God said.

The Serpent is equally deceptive. He tells the First Woman, “you will not die,” when in fact she will...eventually.

So both Almighty God and the Serpent tell half-truths with the skill and ease of a contemporary politician. That’s kind of odd, isn’t it?

Actually, the story of Eden is far older than our Bible. When we read the Book of Genesis we must remember that the earliest writer whose style we can detect was actually writing at the end of a long literary dark age in the 9th century BCE. There were legends far older than those recounted in Genesis. The writer is remembering and weaving together stories that had been told for thousands of years before.

The best scholarship credits the origin of the story of Eden to the Epic of Gilgamesh, a Mesopotamian tale about a hero-king who lived around 2500 BCE, and his half-wild friend Enkidu. The story is recounted on twelve clay tablets found in the library of the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal.

There is much in common between the Epic and Eden. In the Epic Enkidu’s animal nature is tamed and he becomes human. He has sex with the prostitute Shamhat, and after that the animals shun him and he can no longer talk to them. Shamhat gives him clothing and takes him to a city where his adventures begin, ultimately to end in his death at the hand of the gods.

Adam lives peacefully with the animals in Eden until he meets Eve and has sex with her. The result is he is evicted from his ideal existence among the animals, just as Enkidu loses his pure relationship with nature after sex with Shamhat. Eve makes clothing for Adam, Shamhat clothes Enkidu. Enkidu goes to a city; the children of Adam build a city in Gen. 4:17. In the Ancient World, cities were the centers of acculturation and assimilation, and were important places.

The central features of both the story of Eden, the Epic of Gilgamesh and many other ancient “stories of the acculturation of humanity” share the common features of an initial natural harmony, a break in that harmony due to a woman and sex, the development of clothing, expulsion and a city. I could stand here all morning and tell you ancient story after ancient story, and all would have that pattern. It’s very much a part of the Primordial Tradition from which all historical faith communities draw.

How Eden Differs

It is interesting to note that in most of the ancient stories, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the “Fall” is not really regarded as a fall at all. Instead, the journey made by the protagonist from animal-like innocence, to civilization living in a city, is seen as a positive thing. As far as I know, the story of Eden is the only ancient story that says that it’s bad.

This actually reflects a thread within Judeo-Christianity that is unique. Somehow it got the idea that childhood was good, and adulthood bad. We read in Mark 10:13:

People were bringing little children to him [Jesus] in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly, I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

This shows up in later literature too. Many of you have read the classic children’s stories, The Chronicles of Narnia by Christian theologian C. S. Lewis, or at least seen the movie The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” based on the first volume of the Chronicles.

In the full development of the stories in the Chronicles of Narnia, it’s clear that growing up is problematic. In fact, in the last volume, titled The Last Battle, the three child protagonists, Lucy, Edmund and Peter, die in a train wreck so they are spared the “Fall from Grace” that comes from growing up.

This is very different from another set of books, His Dark Materials, by free-thinker Philip Pullman. Some of you may know of the first volume, The Golden Compass, which has recently been made into a movie.

This set of books is sometimes referred to as an “anti-Narnia.” In them, the growing up and sexual unfolding of the heroine Lyra Belacqua, is portrayed as a good thing, and the books end with a bittersweet tale of love found, lost, and fondly remembered.

Within the Judeo-Christian tradition there is this crazy notion that growing up is bad, and having sex is worse. “And how you like, dem apples”?

How the Legend of the Fall has Affected Us

Language is a funny thing. Philosophers have taught for centuries that language structures the possibility of thought. Increasingly psychologists agree. Words create the neurological connections in the brain that experience can exploit.

One of the easiest places to see this is in the difficulty that men and woman have in understanding each other.

I realize it’s a generalization, but in our society woman are socialized to have a much larger vocabulary regarding feelings than men. A woman can usually readily distinguish between many shades of emotion and can give you different definitions for “anger,” “disappointment,” “betrayal,’ “rage,” “pique,” “bereavement” and “disagreement.”

Men seldom show such nuance. Typically, they’ve got the definitions for “anger,” “disappointment,” “betrayal,’ “rage,” “pique,” “bereavement” and “disagreement” collapsed into one phrase: “I feel mad.”

Let’s look at the word “innocence.” It’s a positive word. I would much rather be considered “innocent” than “guilty” if the words are used to impute blame.

However, there is another sense of the word “innocence” in which it means “naive.” We might speak of a young person as being “innocent” to mean that he or she hasn’t a clue what is really going on.

That meaning isn’t so positive is it? It’s one thing to say someone is without guilt. It is another to say they are clueless. Yet in the Garden of Eden these words get confused.

The First Man and the First Woman are guiltless (until they start eating each other’s fruit), and they are also naive, in that they have not a clue about what adult life is really like. Then, God casts them out of Eden. At that point, according to the story, they get a clue, and they are also blameworthy.

But let’s think about that. Is it really bad to grow up? Is it wrong to go from being clueless to being “fully-clued”? Perhaps the oldest stories got it right, and the tale about Eden got it wrong.

The orthodox response is to claim that things were perfect when Adam and Eve were in the Garden. They fell from that perfection by a willful act of disobedience to God. It would be a good thing to go back to that way of being, the orthodox say, where all of our needs are met, and where we don’t have to do anything, except what we are told.

Some of the people who think this are foolish enough to imagine that the afterlife would be a return to Eden. There, they would meet other perfect people, would live in a perfect world, eat perfect food, live in perfect homes, enjoy perfect relationships, have all the perfect possessions, think only perfect thoughts and feel only perfect feelings.

That vision of the afterlife is so saccharine that it makes my teeth hurt.

My friends, this response is a bad one. It’s worse than bad. It’s the source of much human pain and suffering. It is not good to live with all of your needs being met. It is not right to have nothing to do except what you are told. It is not blessed to live mindlessly.

Scripture as Metaphor

When one joins a congregation that is part of the Unitarian Universalist Association part of the deal is that no one is going to tell you what you have to believe. We each find our own spiritual path within the broad tradition of Unitarian and Universalist Purposes and Principles.

My personal path is a conservative one, I am a Unitarian Universalist Christian. I identify with what is coming to be called “Progressive Christianity,” an ecumenical interpretation of the Christian tradition shaped by the encounter with science, modernity and world religions. We feel that scripture is entirely metaphor and parable, not fact. Yet we find it interesting.

People like me do not think we have found the one right path. In fact, we loudly and loosely proclaim that there are many right paths, many ways to be a spiritual person.

Still, we enjoy the rich brew that comes from studying one tradition deeply. Not that there is anything wrong with any other path, nor anything wrong with being eclectic if your personality leads you that way.

This is to say that I am a fan of the Bible. I read and study it every day. I enjoy the story of the Garden of Eden, even though I think most of the interpretations of that story are neurotic and wrong.

The story of the Garden of Eden does not actually say that Eden was perfect. It says that it was “good;” as were Adam and Eve, and everything else that had been created. Being good is not the same as being perfect. And that’s the point I want to make with you today.

I think Ralph Waldo Emerson got it right when in his Essay on Compensation he said, “there is a crack in everything God has made.” Most things that exist are imperfect. In fact, except for pure mathematical forms, there probably is nothing that actually exists that is totally perfect. Plato said much the same, as did Lao-Zu.

If you strive to be perfect, or if you demand others be perfect, you have departed on a Fool’s Errand and you will fail.

But the notion that we should all be perfect, or at least try for perfection, has gotten deeply rooted in our culture. We are told we are Fallen and should try to Get Up. We were once perfect in the Garden and should try to be perfect again. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong.

Think you’re not affected? Ever sit through a performance review at work? When was the last time you were rated “perfect” on every score? No one ever is, and the expectation that it is even possible sets you up for failure. Any supervisor who has got it in for you will have ammunition, because you have been rated on an impossible scale.

Looking for a romantic relationship? In my clinical work I see how the fantasy of the “soul mate,” or the perfect partner, has wrecked the chances of thousands of good people to have a right relationship or a good marriage. The expectation that another human being could ever meet all of you needs for companionship is a silly expectation. Yet good people routinely pass each other by because they are working with a checklist of qualities for the “soul mate” than not one person in ten million will satisfy.

If you are supposed to be “my everything” and I feel any sort of lack, well then there must be something wrong with you. Foolish.

In ministry I’ve seen parish colleague after parish colleague broken because congregations somehow expect their minister to be all things to all people, even when those things contradict each other. In ancient times some of the early Christian groups called their clergy “The Perfecti,” or “The Perfect.” That was a mistake that would haunt the church forever. No one is perfect.

As a hypnotist I know that what you tell yourself in the privacy of your mind has enormous power to affect who you are, how you think and what you feel. I swear, if most of us talked to others that way we talk to ourselves, we’d not have any friends! Zero tolerance. Zero forgiveness. Zero empathy. All because we were brought up to think of ourselves as people who should make no mistakes.

Life does not consist of the opportunity to meet perfect people. All of us must be satisfied with real and imperfect people who have likes, dislikes, personalities and kinks. In fact, the Minister Emeritus of this church used to have above his desk an embroidered sampler that said “All God’s Children Got Kinks.” He was spot on right.

Consider political commentary. When was the last time you saw a balanced portrayal of any candidate in the media? It does happen, but its rare and never occurs in the mass media. Instead, every candidate is picked apart until they have to make asinine claims like “I didn’t inhale,” They do this because we expect a standard of behavior from those who serve our government that no one but a single-minded, life-long fanatic could maintain.

I don’t know about you, but I do not think we are well-served by a government of single-minded, life-long fanatics. Give me a grace-filled old sinner any day.

The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

In 1764 Voltaire wrote in his Encyclopedia of Philosophy that “the perfect is the enemy of the good.” He was also spot on right. If you try for perfection you will surely fail. The effort you waste in trying, will keep you from ever actually accomplishing anything.

How to Destroy Others

If you want to destroy someone, demand that they be perfect. Accept nothing else. If your child is in the Honor Society, ask why he or she is not the Valedictorian. If your subordinate has made only one minor mistake, be sure you write it down to bring it up at the performance review. If you wish to hurt the person you love, be sure to put the words “yes, but…” in every sentence of praise you speak.

Demand that they be as perfect as humans were said to be in the Garden; and you will have done the serpent’s work and broken their mind and their spirit.

Demand perfection of yourself and you will feel your own mind and spirit break.

The perfect is the enemy of the good. Instead of aiming for perfection, we are much better off accepting that there has been a cherubim placed in the east of Eden with a flaming sword. We cannot return that way if ever we came that way; nor should we try.

Instead, we should strive to be as worthy as we can be, knowing that we will always mess up somewhere. We should seek political candidates that are good people, no matter how they may have stumbled.

We should look for romantic partners who are interesting people who fit our kinks reasonably well.

We should seek clergy who are good people and who try their best, knowing that no person can ever live up to the expectations of everyone in our congregations.

To do this is to live a good life. Otherwise, we will keep digging holes of impossible expectation and falling into them.

In closing I offer a quotation from Abraham Lincoln, who was not perfect but who was very, very good. He said, “Whatever you are, try to be a good one.”

Just try to be a good one.

That’s wisdom. And that’s my sermon.

Chalice Lighting & Covenant

We light this chalice to celebrate our church of the liberal religious tradition, and it's ancient and deep roots.
We celebrate our diverse community which encourages spiritual growth through practice and active involvement in the world at large.

We unite to strengthen the bonds of kinship among all persons; to promote human dignity; and increase reverence for life’s creating, sustaining, and transforming power through worship, study, and service.

Reading (Genesis 3:8-19 NRSV)

“They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”

The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”

To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

And to the man he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

I'm amazed at the attention this informal web site gets from readers. I made a small change in web site design last night, and this morning brought a couple of emails asking about it.

That's kind of neat, actually.

The change was an alteration in my practice logo. For almost twenty years I used a small Celtic Knot as a logo. I picked it up in the early days of the Internet. I think it was a freebie from Microsoft. Here it is:

I used this little design to dress up business cards, brochures, letterhead and this web site.

Recently, I've gotten involved in planning a major medical conference here in Chicago. Called "A Chicago Perspective: Meeting the Psychosocial Needs of Cancer Patients." I'm one of the sponsors, along with Wellness House, Wellness Place, Edward Hospital Cancer Center, Loyola University, Rush University Medical Center, The University of Chicago, The Adventist Cancer Network and a long list of other fine institutions. I'm on the Steering Committee for the conference, and feel honored to have a place at that table.

The graphic designer who created the brochure had a problem with my little Celtic Knot. It's not a high-resolution graphic, and she had to do a lot of extra work to get it to look good in the brochure.

So I figured it was time for an update. I decided to go with a more obvious spiritual symbol this time. Being of Celtic ethnicity, I also wanted to keep a Celtic Knot motif.

After a bit of hunting I licensed a beautiful graphic from Cari Buziak of Aon Celtic Art (you will find a link to her gorgeous web site on my Useful Links page). Here is the new graphic:

This is called a Celtic Cross and was used by the ancient church to combine the themes of Christianity, Eternal Life and the Interconnectedness of Nature, Humanity and Spirit. I love it.

The lines on either side of the cross are Ogham, an old Celtic alphabet. At a time when paper and ink were expensive, but there was plenty of wood, the people in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales worked out an easy way to write. They inscribed a "stemline" in a piece of wood, and then made marks to the left, right or intersecting it to form letters. Each of the 20 Ogham letters is named after a tree, and the name of the letter is the same as the name of the tree in Gaelic.

The Ogham on the logo spells out "Hold Fast." It's a phrase from scripture and something of a personal motto.

I hope you like it.

In the cycle of my personal year, the first day of the New Year has become an important day. My office is closed. Pretty much everything else is shut down. It’s quiet and free of distractions. Psychologically, it’s a time of new beginnings, and so it’s the day I take to get a grip on the larger themes in my life.

Every New Year’s Day I write myself a letter which is electronically locked away for a year by my Journal Software. Therefore, the very first thing I do when I reach my desk on New Year’s Day is to read last year’s letter. In it I will have summarized what was on my radar screen at the time, where I thought things were going, and what I wanted to focus on in the year ahead.

It’s fascinating reading. Enough time has elapsed between the time when I wrote it and the time I read it, that memory of what I said will have faded. It’s always been instructive to see that much of what I may have been worried about turned out to be nothing.

Reportedly, Winston Churchill once remarked “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life. Mostly about things that never happened. Clearly worrying helps.” That always elicits a chuckle. Realizing that much of what seemed so worrisome a year ago actually turned out to be nothing, is a lesson I take to heart. I take my worries less seriously now.

In my personal discipline I review my “Focus Areas” every week to keep myself on track with my goals and vision. Therefore, this annual review isn’t like looking at a list of New Year’s Resolutions that I made and then ignored. I will have paid attention to what I wanted to focus on as the year unfolded. Instead, on New Year’s Day I take stock on how well I did.

When I was younger my “Focus Areas” tended to be about professional and financial success. That’s less true now. I’ve been blessed with a good practice, great clients, a happy marriage and have somehow stumbled into a good spiritual life (with the aid of a Franciscan Spiritual Director who I worry). These days I pay a lot more attention to themes of balanced living and inner work than I used to. That feels right for this stage of life.

I always reflect on how pleased I am to still be alive. I never expected to live this long (I’ve a medical problem that was predicted to bring me to an earlier end). However, I’m doing quite well, and may actually achieve my humorous boyhood image of becoming an eccentric old man who lives in a forest with 105 cats.

As my wife is fond of pointing out, I’m on track. I’m male. I’m getting older. I’m certainly eccentric and I’ve got a start on the cats. Basically, I need to plant some trees.

But I don’t want to make light of this. My annual review is an important thing. I really do use it to help me live intentionally. Like Thoreau, I don’t want to live my life on autopilot.