“Is it a good day or a great day?” a friend was asked by an overly cheerful coworker who came bouncing into her office one morning.  “Need more options,” our friend responded without hesitation.  It was a trick question for our friend who was experiencing a particularly bad day, you see, and she was not about to fall for it.  

According to Jack Canfield, best known for his Chicken Soup for the Soul books, there is a  formula for life that goes like this:  E + R = O, that is Events + Response = Outcome.  Outcomes, in other words, are not determined by the events and circumstances we experience in life, but in the way we respond to them.  “If you want a different outcome,” Canfield explains, “you have to change your response.” 

The cheerful coworker who walked in our friend’s office that morning had probably recognized that she was having a bad day and was trying to coax her into a better mood with her trick question.  “Is it a good day or a great day?” can elicit only two possible answers.  Had our friend taken the bait by answering one or the other it might have changed her Response to the Event she was struggling with, thus producing a more positive Outcome.  That was the intention, at least, of the well-meaning coworker in her clever salutation - and the reason our friend, who realized it later, tells the story on herself.  

When I complained recently to a pastor friend of mine about some frustrations and discouragements in my own life he offered this sage advice.  “We must not allow others to take away our joy,” he counseled.  Bingo!  When I added that R to the E that was causing my discouragement it equaled a different O. 

So, is it a good day or a great day?  Need more options?  “If you want a different outcome,” Jack Canfield reminds us, “you have to change your response.”  So next time you’re having a bad E try plugging a different R into the formula and see what happens to the O.

At the time they were just a couple of old drunks when they first met up in Akron, Ohio back in 1935.  Bob and Bill were their names.  Now I’m not sure what occurred between them, but in my imagination it went something like this.  Perhaps it was in a bar where the conversation took place when one of the men began to bear his soul to the other about the mess he had made of his life prompting the other to confess his own tragic story, for try as they may neither had been able to remain sober, both being hopeless alcoholics.  Maybe, though, just maybe, they suggested to each other, if you help me and I help you we can at least get through one day without a drink.  There in that moment, if not true in detail certainly in context, these two hopeless miserable drunks embarked on a path of sobriety that not only changed their own lives but that of millions who have experienced addiction recovery through Alcoholics Anonymous. 

The great irony of this story is that the success of AA is not derived from strength but from weakness, the exact opposite of the aloof world we live in where winners and achievers are the ones who are honored and admired.  Instead there are no winners and achievers in AA, only desperate drunks with messed up lives helping other desperate drunks with messed up lives stay sober one day at a time - beggars showing other beggars where to find bread. 

Truth is most of us resemble Bob and Bill much more than the winners and achievers we so admire - as do they, by the way, if we could see deep enough into their lives - for though we may not be drunks like Bob and Bill we nonetheless have our own weaknesses and wounds to contend with.  Even the apostle Paul complained about being tormented by “a thorn in my flesh”.  We all have them.  Yet herein lies one of the great secrets to living an abundant life.  Like Paul who found power in his weakness, so can we; for it is not the absence of weaknesses and wounds, you see, but what we do with them.  Bob and Bill used theirs to help each other stay sober one day at a time, thus creating a model that has led millions throughout the world to sobriety.  Now that’s quite an achievement, isn’t it?  And the great irony is that it was not derived from strength, but from weakness.

During my corporate career I had the good fortune for many of those years of being associated with the hardest working, most dedicated team of professionals one could imagine.  Not only were they extraordinarily proficient at what they did, but also innovative and adaptable to new and better processes, procedures, and technology, always open to better ways and new ideas.  What was even more impressive though, beyond their professionalism and technical expertise, was their caring attitude toward the people they served.  I know that for a fact for I had the opportunity to observe day to day how they fretted and sweated over doing the right thing - for people. 

What I learned from that team is this, that ultimately it is all about people.  In everything, all our endeavors, if it is not about people it simply does not exist.  Regardless of our jobs, careers, professions, vocations, businesses or organizations - whatever products or services we provide, for profit or not-for-profit - if the ultimate purpose and end result does not benefit other people in some way our jobs, professions, and organizations would have never come into existence in the first place.  

Too often, I’m afraid, in this complex and competitive world people are treated as commodities rather than being valued as fellow human beings.  Customers are valued only by the contents of their wallets and employees nothing more than tools or machines, replaceable or expendable at the slightest whim - “human resources” we call them rather than “human beings”.  And unfortunately when that attitude becomes too pervasive in any business, organization, or profession eventually - eventually I say - it will falter.  Consider the Enron debacle for instance from a few years back.  Enron’s demise did not begin with the greedy shenanigans of its senior executives; it began when the company and its leadership lost sight of its true purpose, of serving and providing for people. 

Take a look around this week and see if you can identify one single worthwhile endeavor that does not ultimately serve and benefit people.  Can there be such a thing?  It’s all about people, you see, and as long we, in whatever we do, do not lose sight of that fact we will flourish.  But if we do we are sure - eventually - to falter.

To believe the essence of the creation story as it is told in the book of Genesis is to accept that the universe and all life within it are the works of a supreme creator - regardless of the process of how things may have specifically come into being.  And to accept that much of the story one must also recognize that humankind was somehow created distinctly separate from the rest of nature - that we were given intelligence and reason beyond that of every other being within creation.  That is to say, although we too are created beings along with the rest of nature, we are also different from it.  We are the only form of nature created in the image of the Creator. 

Writer Annie Dillard once spent an entire year living by a creek in the mountains of Virginia expecting to be inspired and refreshed by being close to nature over an extended period of time.  What she discovered instead was quite surprisingly to the contrary.  She came to realize that nature, rather than being peaceful and serene as we like to imagine, is actually ruled by violence of the strong against the weak.  Tee and I have observed much  the same reality while spending evenings sitting out under the stars on our West Texas ranch.  That realization, however, should not diminish for us the beauty and majesty we see in  nature, but instead should serve as a reminder of the role we play within it; that in spite of our many human flaws - including our own violence at times - we are the only creatures with the ability to subdue it.  We are, after all, given dominion over all creation by the Creator, and it is our sense of values born out of our unique capacity to care and to love that empowers us to act as stewards of both nature and mankind. 

So, unlike the rest of nature which is ruled by the strong overpowering the weak as Annie Dillard discovered, mankind is ruled by a higher form of behavior, guiding principles we call values - values which are formed out of our intellect, ability to reason, and capacity for love, and influenced by such things as life experiences, social norms, and religious beliefs.  Everything we do, be it the decisions we make or the actions we take during the course of a day are based on our consciously or unconsciously held values.  Our stewardship over the rest of creation, in other words, is determined by the values we live by.  Are our values aligned with those of the Creator?  It is question that requires constant examination.

“Before I die I want to feel a great sorrow,” wrote the late Edmund N. Carpenter in an essay he composed back in 1938 as a seventeen-year-old student.  “It is my belief as in the case of love,” he explained, “no man has lived until he has felt sorrow.  It molds us and teaches us that there is a far deeper significance to life than might be supposed if one passed through this world forever happy and carefree.” 

Admittedly, until I had read Mr. Carpenter’s essay in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed article it would never have occurred to me to list the feeling of great sorrow among my life’s desires.  Would you?  In fact, I dare say our tendencies are to avoid such experiences altogether, are they not?  Yet there is great wisdom in Mr. Carpenter’s thoughts, something we all intuitively know at a deeper level, and that is such experiences as love, joy, success and happiness are intimately linked with heartbreak, pain, failure and sorrow; for to pursue the former is to make ourselves vulnerable to the latter.  To love, for example, is to place ourselves at risk, either of rejection or of sorrow. 

Never falling in love, tasting success, or experiencing joy in some way are rarely the result of our being somehow deprived by life; rather it is more often the consequence of our playing it too safe.  That’s why as a young man Edmund Carpenter peering into his own future chose not to play it safe, for by doing so he realized he would be depriving himself from the opportunity of experiencing all the fullness of life.  

“. . . I do not desire my life to be a bed of roses,” he continued in his essay.  “I want it to be something much more than that.  I want it to be a truly great adventure, never dull, always exciting and engrossing, not sickly sweet, yet not unhappy.”

What about the rest of us, I wonder, do we sometimes play it too safe?

“I . . . learned that war should be avoided whenever possible.  The taking of human life should never be trivialized, and men and women should not be reduced to the Neanderthal state required to fight a war unless there is no other way,” says my former boss Joe Grano in his book, You Can’t Predict a Hero, who credits his experiences as a combat survivor in Vietnam while serving as a captain in the army’s Special Forces Green Berets for preparing him to become a highly successful Wall Street top executive.  

Joe learned the hard way about the violence and tragedy of war and has both the physical and emotional scars to prove it, thus his passionate belief in avoiding it if at all possible.  But with his warrior background and rather rough-around-the-edges demeanor neither would most people choose him as a poster child for a peacemaker.  Yet, in many ways that’s exactly what he became, a consummate peacemaker.  Joe, you see, may have learned to avoid war in every way, but he did shun conflict, for Wall Street is never without turmoil - ever!  To the contrary he faced it head on with courage and haste, which may have proven to be his greatest asset in leading our company in what arguably may have been its finest era in terms of unity and prosperity.  

Too often we see peace as merely the absence of conflict, and we think of peacemaking as a passive role.  But an effective peacemaker actively pursues peace.  He or she builds good relationships, knowing that peace is a by-product of commitment.  The peacemaker anticipates problems and deals with them before they occur.  When conflicts arise - and they always do - the peacemaker brings them into the open and deals with them head on before they grow to become unmanageable.  Peacemaking, in other words, is an activist role, hardly a passive one.  It is hard work, much harder work than waging war. 

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God,” the Beatitudes say.  Oh, but Joe is no saint many would insist and I’d have to agree, as would he I’m sure.  But when it comes to war and peace Joe knows from first-hand experience which one produces by far the more favorable results.

Did you know that ninety-five percent of what sets the course of our lives is completely outside our control?  This would include such things as the century in which we were born, who our parents and family are, our childhood environments, physical stature, IQ, natural talents, and many of the circumstances we find ourselves in. 

Now I have to admit that up until this past week if someone had said this to me - and assuming the genius who quantified this statistic is correct - my ego would have been blown to smithereens.  Why?  Because I had always liked to believe I had made it all on my own - one hundred percent - that I am a self-made man.  Instead, the most I can take credit for is five percent at best?!!  But this past week as my thoughts have been occupied with the earthquake victims in Haiti it has caused me to consider otherwise; for if my life which is filled with good fortune is ninety-five percent circumstantial then surely the same must hold true for the thousands upon thousands of Haitian victims who have been stricken by misfortune. 

So what does all this mean?  Well, first of all for me it is a humbling realization that most of my blessed life has been a gift rather than something earned or deserved.  But perhaps more importantly since ninety-five percent of my good fortune is a gift which was neither earned or deserved, my conscience challenges me to consider if it is all mine to keep.  And as Haiti reminds us there is tragedy, loss, poverty, brokenness, and devastation all around.  So shouldn’t much be expected from those of us to whom much has been given? 

Which gets back to the statistic:  If in fact ninety-five percent of what sets the course of our lives is completely outside our control, meaning it is circumstantial, that leaves only five percent over which we can control.  But it is within that five percent that we are given the power to choose what we do with the other ninety-five.  What are you doing with yours?

You’ve probably heard the old joke that if you want to make God laugh make plans.  Well, I’m not so sure about God’s sense of humor about it all, but it does seem to hold true that many of our best-laid plans do go awry while much that does happen in our lives are things we never planned for.  Am I right? 

Consider the devastating earthquake that occurred this past week in Haiti.  Name one person who had that event scheduled on his or her day-planner.  Pick any such disaster throughout history and the same holds true.  But the same also holds true for the positive events in our lives - the opportunities that come our way.  Seldom do they occur as we planned, if planned at all.  How, then, if it was not planned were people from around the world able to respond so immediately to the tragedy in Haiti?  The only answer is that thankfully there are those who are prepared to respond when disasters occur no matter what they might be.  

There are things for which we plan and others for which we prepare, there’s a difference.  Planning equips us for the expected; preparing equips us for the unexpected.  An architect, for example creates a plan, a blueprint for building a house or a building.  A finance professional develops a financial plan to provide for our retirement.  A traveler plans the route he will take.  A parent on the other hand does not plan a child’s life, but prepares the child for life.  Armies prepare to defend us from enemy attacks.  Relief organizations prepare in order to respond to disasters such as those in Haiti.  Education prepares us for vocations, careers, and life.  

Plans may not always pan out the way - well, the way we planned them to, if at all, and that’s probably why we imagine that God must chuckle when we make them in the first place.  Does that mean we should simply live by the seat of our pants?  Hardly!  Wise, successful people are planners, for it is plans that provide direction in our lives.  And wise, successful people are also preparers, for it is preparation that equips us to respond when the inevitable unexpected occurs.

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Henry David Thoreau 

In her book, A New Set of Eyes, Paula D’Arcy tells a great story that occurred while attending an educational event several years ago at Yale University.  “Upon arriving,” she wrote, “two hundred counselors and educators were led into an auditorium and were given a word problem that had a mathematical answer.  Without benefit of paper or pencil we had to solve the problem and then stand with any others whose answer agreed with our own.  Three groups were formed.  The largest group, which I joined, thought the correct answer to the problem was 38.  Approximately eighty-eight others believed the correct answer was 21.  Two men [however] decided the answer was 11.  The program organizers then left, promising to return in one or two hours.  In their absence they wanted each group to convince everyone in the room that their answer was the right answer. . . In time the largest group grew larger, becoming the clear majority.  When the leaders reappeared, the second group had shrunk to thirty-five and the two men who originally believed 11 was the correct answer had never changed their minds, but also never convinced anyone else to join them.  I remember the evening with a certain vividness.  The correct answer was revealed to be 11.” 

Within democracy majority rules, but that does not mean that majority is always right.  In fact, often times the greatest ideas and greatest solutions come from the oddballs who zig when everyone else zags.  They are the innovators, inventors, and entrepreneurial thinkers.  They are the ones who step to the music of a different drummer. 

Each of us has that capacity, I believe, to be the oddball with the great ideas and great solutions - if only we have the courage to trust that different drummer we sometimes hear and to step to his music.

What does it mean to be tolerant?  Or perhaps the better question is, how do we practice appropriate tolerance in today’s world?  On the one extreme some might answer that tolerance means anything goes, to simply live and let live.  At the other end of the spectrum are those who believe tolerance should not be tolerated at all, that doing so is simply sending society to hell in a handbag.  The problem with the two extremes is that one lends itself to a world of chaos with no common value system and sense of order, while the other leads to exclusivity and isolationism, thus perpetuating the divisions and adversities that already exist in this increasingly global society.  

My friends who periodically volunteer to work inside prisons - and there are a number of them who do this - have taught me more about practicing tolerance than anyone I know.  What I’ve observed about them is twofold:  (1) Upon returning from a weekend on the “inside” they always refer to the men they encounter by their first names, that is as fellow human beings and never as prisoners, inmates or criminals; yet (2) neither do they ever excuse them for their offenses.  Instead, by spending time with these incarcerated individuals they come to understand them as real people with real feelings, real desires and real needs to be loved and to love, to forgive and be forgiven.  My friends often times reflect on the fact that they -  indeed all of us - are only one bad decision away from being in the same circumstance.  There but by the grace of God am I. 

There is a marvelous scene in the movie “Invictus” in which Nelson Mandela (played by Morgan Freeman) is being scolded for his acts of forgiveness and peacefulness toward those who had imprisoned for almost three decades.  In his response he said something to the effect that he had gotten to know his enemies, the promoters of apartheid.  He had read their poetry, studied their writings, and engaged them in conversation.  And while not condoning their actions and beliefs, he had nonetheless learned to understand them as human beings, thus proving the point that practicing tolerance in today’s world does not require us to relinquish or compromise our values.  Yet, neither can we hide from the culture by isolating ourselves.  Rather, tolerance begins with understanding of our fellow human beings.  Then, and only then, can we earnestly extend forgiveness, establish harmony and respect, and position ourselves to effect positive change.