Gotta Get My Steps In

On May, 2024October, 2024 By Peter WatkinsIn 20242 Comments

Dear Will:

One of the things I love about kids is that they seem to run pretty much everywhere. They don’t think twice about it. When they want to get to wherever-they-are-not-right-now—ZOOM, they’re off. One of the standard games that kids play when they get together seems to be called “Chase Each Other Around.” It’s so fun. Watch recess sometime and it’s like the playground is swarming with starlings.

But throw a few years and several extra pounds on them and everything changes. Those kids become grown-ups and pretty soon it’s asking too much for them to walk 15 extra steps (round trip) to put away their shopping carts—as if the check-out line took the last ounce of energy they had left. “Can’t. Go. On. Must. Find. Water.”

My personal favorite is the guy at the airport who stands and rides the moving walkway. “Barely moving walkway” they should call that thing. It’s humming along at around three feet per minute (conservative guesstimate), but no matter. Our hero must do whatever he can to save his strength because he has five long hours of sitting in one place ahead of him and can’t run the risk of bonking.

But who am I to talk? I am an adult male who hasn’t played Chase Each Other Around in years. So it’s no surprise that the know-it-alls in my personal space are doing all they can to keep me from turning into RidingTheMovingWalkwayGuy. Which is why I now wear a watch on my left wrist that keeps track of the number of steps I take each day. My life insurance provider gave it to me in a transparent effort to keep me from making a claim on my policy. We have a simple arrangement: If I log enough activity over the course of the year and don’t drop dead in the process, they will not raise my rates when I’m up for renewal. Not a bad deal, when you think about it. Plus I got this sweet base-model Fitbit!

(Real life irony: My watch just buzzed to remind me to get up out of this chair and walk around. Curse you, Nanny State!)

You don’t have to be a Google Wizard to find any number of articles extolling the virtues of ambling about. Talk to just about any medical professional and they’ll make it sound like some kind of magic elixir. Here are just a few benefits I found in the first thing I clicked:

Counteracts the effects of weight-promoting genes. (Take that, Mom and Dad!)
Helps tame a sweet tooth. (Not sure I want that, but OK.)
Reduces the risk of developing breast cancer. (You can never be too safe, guys.)
Eases joint pain. (Not in my personal experience, but I’ll trust the science.)
Boosts immune function. (Yes, please.)

All of which is based on actual academic studies. Whatever. But there are additional positive side-effects that those smarty-pants at Harvard didn’t think to study. In my personal clinical trials (sample size = 1) I have identified these other compelling benefits of wandering around:

Makes you eligible for valuable prizes. (Provided, that is, you work for Canvas Worldwide like I do and participate in the 2024 Canvas Worldwide Steps Challenge—which is an actual thing.)
Provides a great excuse to get new shoes. (Confirmed through multiple trials, including this one.)
Delights the dog every time. (Note: Must take dog with you.)
Gives you time to think. (Note: Must not take cellphone with you.)
This.

I probably could go on, but another hour has passed and my watch is nagging me again. Probably ought to get up and move around. Maybe challenge Dana to a quick game of Chase Each Other Around. Gotta get my steps in, after all.

_{Photo by Ghassan Al-Sibai}

In Over Our Heads

On April, 2024October, 2024 By Peter WatkinsIn 2024Leave a comment

Dear Will:

Over the course of my lifetime, I have been accused of many things, but I can unequivocally affirm that not once have I been accused of being a wiz with finances. That I have made it through this many years of life and still remain solvent is a mystery unlikely to be solved by dozens of forensic accountants working round the clock for years on end. And yet the fact remains: In spite of a long history of dubious choices over the course of many years, I have somehow, some way, managed to reach my 64^th year debt-free. In December we even paid off our house.

That was no small feat considering that when we bought the place we had no clear understanding of how mortgages work. We refinanced this house a number of times, sometimes withdrawing some equity to pay off other things along the way, before fully realizing that we were dialing our 30-year mortgage back to the beginning each time—and meanwhile, what we owed was growing, not shrinking. (Seems obvious enough, but, well, see paragraph one.) Once we made the shocking discovery that we were kind of moving backwards, we were forced to convert to a 15-year loan in order to get ourselves more or less back on track. We were perhaps the only kids in the neighborhood who more than once managed to secure a lower interest rate and still end up with a higher monthly payment. Dumb.

My latest genius move came a couple of years ago when we installed solar panels on top of a 35-year-old roof. Any B-average fifth-grader could have anticipated the problem with that choice, but since I didn’t have one handy to advise me, I went on ahead with the plan. The panels have worked out great, but the atmospheric rivers of 2024 have revealed that our original-equipment roof is finally kaput. Which of course will require that the panels be removed ($) and then reinstalled ($) on top of an all-new rooftop ($$$$). Really dumb.

How is it, then, that my manifest incompetence notwithstanding, I own a reasonably nice home in a very nice neighborhood in Southern California? That I’m bumbling toward retirement with a decent balance in my 401(k) plan and some additional investments besides? How is that even possible? I was born with a tailwind, of course. Heritage and opportunity (and whole lot of dumb luck) have been major contributors, but there are a couple of other factors that I must acknowledge as well:

1) Dana and I have gotten some assistance from our parents from time to time along the way. They have helped bridge some tough circumstances in our early years (unemployment: not recommended, FYI) and in later years have bolstered our savings as well. We are quick to acknowledge that not everyone has that kind of generous, loving backup system.

2) We have always—even in the down times—faithfully paid tithes and offerings, gratefully giving while embracing with faith the promises laid out by both Isaiah and Malachi. Those promises do not give us any assurance of wealth, prosperity—or even solvency—but we have always believed that if we willingly give back, sharing whatever bounty we may have, everything is going to work out in the end.

In the most recent General Conference for our church, Elder Gerrit W. Gong gave an address that captures what I’m feeling even as I await the roofer’s estimate. He shared a Chinese story about a man whose son finds a beautiful horse:

“How fortunate,” the neighbors say. “We’ll see,” says the man.

Then the son falls off the horse and is permanently injured. “How unfortunate,” the neighbors say. “We’ll see,” says the man.

A conscripting army comes but doesn’t take the injured son. “How fortunate,” the neighbors say. “We’ll see,” says the man.

Elder Gong then gave this important reminder: “This fickle world often feels tempest tossed, uncertain, sometimes fortunate, and—too often—unfortunate. Yet, in this world of tribulation, ‘we know that all things work together for good to them that love God’ (Romans 8:28).”

Our race is not yet run. Dana and I could live another 30 years, and who knows what potholes and pitfalls may await us in the road ahead? Will our savings be enough to get us from here to there? We shall see. But we have already been blessed far beyond our merits. And we live with the ongoing assurance that, come what may, all things will work together for our good.

Our leaky roof notwithstanding.

_{Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash}

Contemplating My Navel

On March, 2024October, 2024 By Peter WatkinsIn 20241 Comment

Dear Will:

I wouldn’t be the man I am today were it not for the navel orange. Or should I say, one navel orange in particular.

As a nineteen-year-old, I moved to Uruguay to begin a two-year stint as a full-time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was ill-prepared but full of youthful swagger—quite literally, as it turns out, because the locals told me they could tell I was an American simply by the way I walked. When I first heard this (and I heard it more than once), I found it kind of funny, failing to see the caution in the commentary.

I began my assignment in the capital city of Montevideo, home to about half of the nation’s three million citizens at the time. I lived in the historic Ciudad Vieja with another missionary, Elder Carlos Vaz, an uruguayo with whom I did not get along. He was a decent fellow, but I found him wholly inadequate to the job. I should emphasize here that as a brand new missionary in an unfamiliar land, I had no clue what I was doing. Nevertheless, in my view Vaz worked neither hard enough nor smart enough for my taste. Consequently, I often found myself “following from in front” (as I called it) in order to try to get him to pick up the pace. (Feel free to cringe with me for a moment.) Needless to say, I sometimes found myself halfway down the block before realizing that I was supposed to have turned at the previous intersection.

Isn’t it great when life gives you metaphors? But I digress. . . .

Elder Vaz and I took our midday meals in the home of Roque Vega and his wife, who lived in a small apartment just up the street from ours. One day, Hermana Vega served oranges alongside our mondongo, and I (literally) dug right in, jabbing my thumbs into the rind and tearing the outer flesh of the fruit into large chunks of broken skin. Elder Vaz watched with concern, finally informing me that I was doing it wrong. As he took out his knife and meticulously pared away the peel to demonstrate, I responded with condescension and defiance. I’m certain I did not yet have the Spanish vocabulary to fully express my feelings, but I can tell you for sure what I thought and wanted to say: “Hey, pal. I grew up in California surrounded by orange groves. I’ve eaten more of these things in my life than you have ever seen. Don’t tell me how to peel an orange!”

A more circumspect individual—one with just trace amounts of humility—might have paused in that moment to consider Elder Vaz’s alternative point of view. But at nineteen, I was certainly not that guy. It was only much later that it occurred to me—in one of those “how did I miss that?” moments of clarity—that during lunch that day, maybe what Elder Vaz was trying to say was that tearing apart an orange with your bare hands in Uruguay is inappropriate or maybe even rude. In language I could barely understand (both literally and figuratively), perhaps he was trying to let me know that while seated at the table in someone else’s home, I was behaving like a barbarian.

That would not be the last time during my two years in South America that I displayed a barbaric lack of cultural sensitivity and awareness. But fortunately, over time I came to learn the truly powerful lesson that as a fresh-off-the-boat American was then beyond my comprehension: MY way of doing things is merely ONE way of doing things. One way out of many, you could say. Not necessarily better or worse—just different.

There’s no question that these things become easier to see and feel when you venture out from your own neighborhood and take a look at how other people live. If the only point-of-view you know is your own, how can you possibly see things differently? Or to put it another way, if you are determined to “follow from in front,” how can anyone else possibly show you the way? Different is OK, is what I’m saying, even if you ultimately decide never to serve mondongo to your own children. There is, after all, more than one way to peel an orange, even if these days I do prefer to peel mine with a knife.

It’s true. How’s the saying go? “When life gives you oranges, make . . . (um) . . . metaphors.”