i woke on monday to start my week. as per usual i stepped through my morning rituals. wake. pee. weigh-in. log my thankful. log my awesome. for this day i chose an awesome i've been stepping around a bit. the awesome was "Be thankful for the life my mother provided me" and in the because section i wrote, "I learned too late how much of the goodness of my life emanated from the love my mother had for me which led to her endless support, affection, and commitment. Without her love, I would not be as strong as I am today.".

i was skirting this particular daily awesome because i knew it would carry some emotional weight and i wanted to make sure i was ready for it. hence my picking it right at the start of the week. after selecting it, i grabbed my pen and wrote the word MOM on my hand (as it part of the awesome ritual).

jump forward to the lunch-hour. i've just sat down to eat my lunch and stopped by bella's website. she posts a new post every monday and, for about a dozen reasons, i look in to see her latest offering. the title of the day's post was Love Your Mother (specific post can be seen here). i sensed trouble ahead.

i made it through bella's write up of the video she was about to share, but her words definitely primed the tanks. although i don't know that i would have ever made it through the 4:38 second video even without bella's lead in.

like the fella in the video, i too had that mom that would wait up, that wouldn't accept my adolescent distancing. and even worse than running up and down the sidelines, the first time i got hurt playing football, my mother ran onto the field. this did more to make me better than anything my coaches or teammates did as when i saw my mothers face join the circle of faces looking down at me, i forgot about any discomfort i was experiencing and started asking my mother why she was on the field.

for me, i feel like if i just had a few more years i would have woken up to how much my mother gave me. but other times i wonder if it is a lesson that can't be fully absorbed until they are gone. if that's true, it is possibly the most evil design of our world.

so for those who can still punch a string of numbers into a phone and hear the hello of a parent that cared for you, loved you, believed in you (this was another thing i shared with the gentleman in the video) then, please take a moment and attempt to acknowledge all they have given you, if only for those of us who can no longer make that call.

the art of time and life management has been my main hobby and interest for nearly twenty years now. in this time i've read works from just about all of the acknowledged greats and notables. james allen. marcus aurelius. tal ben-shahar. les brown. david burns. dale carnegie. jim collins. stephen covey. mihaly csikszentmihalyi. wayne dyer. epictetus. victor frankl. benjamin franklin. albert gray. marie kondo. staffan linder. matthieu ricard. tony robbins. martin seligman. seneca. hyrum smith. eric thomas. george e. valliant. and the modern-day master zig ziggler. if the topic has been how to bleed, intentionally, more out of this brief experience, i've probably studied it to some degree. and having consumed most of the usual suspects i always have an eye out for new treatments on the subject.

my latest self-help discovery comes from an unlikely place: britney spears. on our recent family road-trip to utah, during one of our highway dance parties, bella played a song she and marty sometimes "rocked-out" to on their way to or from school. the song's catchy bass-line immediately caught my ear and had my fingers drumming on the steering wheel. it wasn't until later though when i gave the song another listen that the depth and structure of the lyrics struck me. deconstructed, the song can be shown to deliver some top-flight, no-nonsense advice to those with aspirations, and does so in an undeniably intelligent manner. further, the message may be applauded for its pointedness and uncut honesty--i mean things don't get much more direct than the song's title 'work bitch' now do they? there are no quick fixes. there are no short cuts. there are no sugar-coated solutions. it is a truth that has held for thousands of years--work and effort get it done. end. of. story. so that is how the song starts, by defining some visions. this is a long-held and common approach/belief of many self-help gurus. you gotta have vision of what you want. in this case you may mentally replace her choices with your own. perhaps her bugati is your promotion. or her partying in france is you being more connected with your family or friends. granted, her buh-kini is your bikini and mine because we all share that one. the short of it is though, you have to clearly put what you want out in front of you. and you have to keep it there front and center so you remember why it is you are working. and then the important part, the honest part, the part that most separates the doers from the dreamers--the actual work. everyone has wants but not everyone is willing to put in the work to attain those wants. so nothing like a little slap on the cheek and a barked name to get your attention.

then, with an equal intelligence, the latter part of the song addresses the magnitude of things by emphasizing the effortful (and inevitable) part of the process where your willpower will subside and you feel beat down (defeated even) and no one, possibly including yourself, believes it is possible, and when that happens you just have to "work it out" and stay with it. the technique at the end with the twenty-one repeated "Works" followed by a litany of "work it out"s gets to the amount of work and trial you are in for. this could be likened to the literary technique used in moby dick where the text is excruciatingly long and dull at times, but then so was life on a whaling ship. striving for goals involves a merciless amount of work. it also involves working though a seemingly bottomless well of challenges, doubt, resistance, lack of willpower, bad days. these drawn out refrains at the end imply what you're in for.

coming in at under four minutes, britney spears Work Bitch may be, word for word, minute for minute, one of the most efficient and effective self-help instruments ever devised. yes, ever. i'd place it in the top ten, if not the top five for potential to influence. as jason kottke recently said of mrs. spears, "Britney has always had something but damned if I know what it is." the mystery that is her brand, portfolio, and ongoing success continues.

but enough talk. time to get to work bitch!

the dinner question of the night was: "aside from food, what is the one thing in your life you can't live without?"

almost before i even finished the sentence, anthony yelled out "oxygen". i elaborated, saying that aside from all the things your body physically requires for life.

after a few beats, alex responded with, shockingly, "education". of our three children he is the one...

this was how every day of the week began for anthony on our northern michigan camping trip. he would wake, pull on some clothes to combat the morning chill, head out to the picnic table, heat some water over the camp stove, and make a cup of steamy hot cocoa.

he did this quietly and peacefully. he was almost meditative in his actions. and to see a boy (of 8 at the time) be so independent ...

for my birthday bookpimp sent me a dvd of a tv series called Going Deep with David Rees. he said he thought my family might enjoy it. he was right. my family does enjoy it. but my wife enjoys it more than all of us combined. there is something about david's manner and delivery that absolutley destroys my wife so much so she has almost (1) spit out her drink (2) passed out from not being able to get her breath from laughing and (3) even coming dang close to peeing herself from laughter. so thanks bookpimp for hooking us up so. and for the record when marty gets laughing that hard we pause the show (because her laughing so is distracting) and we all just turn and watch her reeling on the couch holding her stomach (or her other parts).

in honor of marty's birthday today i'm sharing part of her all-time-favorite episode: the party hole.

boy am i glad i'm not at the front-end of dating. it probably wasn't until my thirties before i felt like i had any kind of proper sense regarding everything i was asking for in a partner AND how to competently determine everything that was being asked of me. in recently talking to a young person (who wasn't my child) who was dejected, sad, and hurting my mind raced with where to even begin.
...

bella and i were on our first distance ride of the year. we were on a new route and found ourselves riding through a neighborhood that had some for-real mansions. we rode slowly and quietly taking in the size and makeup of each home.

TROY
it's so quiet out here. it's such a beautiful day and there's not a soul anywhere to be seen. it's almost like they're abandoned.

BELLA
they're probably busy yelling at their maids.

TROY
ha. good one. oh my god. look at that one.

BELLA
i hope they run an orphanage out of there.

when i was young and saw big houses like that, i remember wanting to one day live in one. i don't know why i thought that way. i also don't know why bella looks on these homes with the derision that she does. aside from exposing her healthier expectations and social sense, these monster homes also make the girl say the funniest things.

most days anthony and i make the one mile walk to his school. after dropping him off, i then turn and walk another mile to my office. (fold in my morning workout, this is what gives me 9,000 steps when i sit down at my desk at 9am). depending on how early anthony and i leave the house, we have a variety of choices as to the route we take to school. our most direct route is a straight shot out of o...