Craig has always been a force of nature; I learned so much from him. Craig was the president of Hartman Employee Benefits (HEB) when I joined the firm and I was fortunate to work closely with him. He taught me a lot about business, including the importance of leadership, salesmanship, and, most of all, relationships. But that is a post for another evening.
Tonight I find myself reflecting upon a time about fifteen year ago when, debriefing with Craig about my day, I shared an experience of yelling, indiscriminately, at the windshield in my car. On that evening, I felt so much pressure, I didn’t know what else to do. Employees, struggling with issues, were enlisting my support, and I didn’t know how to help; Clients, considering changes to brokerage relationships, were pushing us for services we weren’t positioned to deliver; Insurers were signaling possible changes to distribution that would impact our firm; We were competing to add new brokers to our distribution network.
So, driving to my home in State College, PA from Hanover, PA, reflecting on my day, and feeling immense pressure, I just yelled. I shared the story with Craig, and we both had a good laugh.
My recollection is that it made me feel better. It felt like a release.
I have aged a bit in the interim. Although I have learned to confront stretched situations with more humor and ease, today felt like a yelling day to me. Not because of work, but because of everything else.
Rather than yell, to find a release, I imagined writing a blog post that identified people, ideas, and items that were bothering me. Two examples that stand out to me:
- Pseudo-libertarians – I don’t mean libertarians. In fact, I think of myself as libertarian. But, hey, if you are really concerned about the extent to which being told to wear a mask infringes upon your personal liberty, and you never took the time to actually open Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, well, please sit down and open the book. Chances are, you are not really a libertarian.
- Pseudo-epidemiologists – This emerging social class, which seems to find nourishment in sharing their insights via posts on social media, and who largely seem to have disregarded their earlier efforts at Constitutional analysis, need to now redirect their energy to a more productive purpose. Here is a hint – if you can’t connect Bayes’ Theorum to the sensitivity and specificity of a test on the back of an envelope, you shouldn’t be commenting on issues of epidemiology. Chances are, you don’t know who Thomas Bayes was. Read about him because his is a great story and a better use of your time; You may even choose to go further and read about Hume, Smith, and their contemporaries. But please stop posting on FB about the risks to society arising from imperfect tests for infection.
On a list of other frustrations I won’t write about now are Comcast, the American political class, social media, and the main stream media (MSM). Also, the organization that produces the ostensibly Cheerio-like “Honey Ringees” for human consumption during passover, racism, and antivaxxers. I suppose I should throw in, for good measure, the forces of the universe that conspired to give us both negative interest rates and, now, negative prices for WTI. And increasing rates of American unemployment. And everything involving the coronavirus, including death, fever, intubation, and state-imposed isolation orders.
These things are not all equal. Clearly. But, somehow, they all made their way into my day today.
Maybe a better use of time is to focus on things that I am grateful for. Yea, briefly:
- My beautiful, smart, and hardworking wife, Becca, and
- Our two healthy and sharp little kids. ’nuff said.
- The healthy and colorful group in our family: Thorsen, Pangborn, and extended. I wish I spoke with more family today…
- Our interesting and interested group of friends. One of the highlights of my day were seeing notes from them, including the idea of using my back yard for warehousing barrels of WTI for future sale. I wish I spoke with more friends today…
- My colleagues that I work with day-in and day-out. I do feel blessed to have a very strong group of folks to problem solve with daily.
When we were in Greece a few years ago, a host shared a book by the stoic philosopher Epictetus, Manual on the Art of Living. I thought it was an odd gift, but found myself drawn in by the short text. “Make it your study then to confront every harsh impression with the words, ‘You are but an impression, and not all what you seem to be.’ Then test it by those roles that you possess; and first by this – the chief test of all – ‘Is it concerned with what is in our power or with what is not in our power?’ And if it is concerned with what is not in our power, be ready with the answer that it is nothing to you.”
This idea of Epictetus resonates with me. It is certainly more evolved than yelling indiscriminately.
