Final Letter To Self

From 30 Days

Dear Self,

I can see the world for what it is. The longer I live, the more I understand each day.

That is the gift I suppose. Just to keep your eyes, ears, mind and heart open and don’t be afraid.

Oh,.....and don’t always believe what others tell you. Just believe in yourself.

Good Luck,


Lotus07

Letter To Self

From 30 Days

Dear Self,

I have a hope, that if we can just hold out a bit longer, everything will change.

No more pressure, no more stress, no more overweight, no more fatigue.

Just blue skies and a westerly breeze to care us forward.

That is my hope at least. We’ll find out in about 2 years.

Keep the faith,


Lotus07

Letter To A Lover

From 30 Days

Dear Alice,

I am still reeling over the news.

This sort of changes everything. I mean everything. This is a crossroads in our lives and what happens from here on out will never be the same.

Sorry I did this to you, but at this point the ball is in your court.

I will support you in what ever decision you make, but I have to ad this one thought.

It is hard to build a life around something that wasn’t planned. Accidents offer great opportunity, but also wash away all the planning up to that point.

Let me know if you want to talk about this.

Always,


Lotus07

Letter To My Co-Workers

From 30 Days

Dear Co-Workers

I know that things haven’t been that great in the office of late.

I mean lets face it. Resource cutbacks, hiring freezes, extreme case loads, and the never ending budget crisis have been taking their toll on all of us.

But at least we have one good thing going for us. Well, at least I have one good thing going for me. I am only about a year away from retirement. After 20 years in the salt mines, I finally get to head for the beach....permanently.

I don’t know if the system will be around long enough that will allow you to retire, but I hope it is. It makes all the years of frustration worth it in the end.

Now I just have to hold my breath and hope that the business doesn't collapse before I can finally check out.

The ‘Short Timer’


Lotus07

Letter to My Shrink

From 30 Days

Dear Dr. Freud,

You asked at our last session if I ever considered pulling the plug. You know, checking out....turning off the lights.

After some thought about it, I would have to say yes, I have. I mean, I think we all have at one time or another. Whether or not we act on those thoughts is the issue here.

I believe that part of the human experience, is dealing with depression, loss and a sense of hopelessness that we all have to face sooner or later.

Mine was near the tail end of college, with a bleak economic future and most of my friends having left to pursue other goals, I found myself at a dead end, at the ripe old age of 24. I didn’t see the future as holding much promise for me back then.

But hope springs eternal, and I held to the concept that we really can’t know what the next sunrise will bring. The thought of ending it all with the possibility that everything could change tomorrow just didn’t make a lot of sense.

Some of us see the glass half empty and others the glass half full. I suppose I am one of the lucky ones that see the more optimistic side of things.

My life since has had its ups and downs, and it probably hasn’t been everything I had hoped it would be. But it has been an interesting ride.

But as for giving up.....I think the chances are, I will probably out-live you.

Your Patient,


Lotus07

Letter To My Doctor

From 30 Days

Dear Doctor,

You indicated at my last physical and checkup that you were surprised that I am still alive based on my past experience and lifestyle.

I have a theory on this.

In the science fiction classic “Ringworld” by Larry Niven, there is a character named Teela Brown. Teela was a woman of no real importance in life, but she was drafted by aliens to be a part of a team that explored this strange new world that had been discovered. The Ringworld.

Now the rest of this rag-tag band of recruits couldn’t quite figure out why Teela had been selected. After some observation, she appeared to be a total ditz....bordering on stupid. So they couldn't see how she was supposed to be a benefit to the mission.

After a series of mishaps and narrow escapes that usually involved Teela in some way, it started to dawn on the rest of the explorers what the aliens reasoning was. The aliens that had assembled the recruits (actually they were kidnapped) had been observing the human race for milenia and had also been manipulating a few things. One of them was Teela and her ancestors.

Her blood line had been genetically manipulated over the generations to make her …....lucky. If she got into a jam, she would, by dumb luck, usually get out of it. Not a bad person to have along while exploring a strange new world.

So why am I still alive? Talk to the alien puppeteers. They might have an answer for you.

Mr. Lucky.


Lotus07

Letter To My Band-Mates

From 30 Days

Dear ‘Slag-Train’

Attached is the list of the numbers I want to run down for our next gig. You guys all lost at poker last weekend, and the pot was letting the winner chose the songs we are going to play. Which means it is going to be ‘Slag-Train’ Unplugged night. Better dust off your acoustic axes.

1. Man In The Moon (R.E.M.)
2. Won’t Get Fooled Again (The Who)
3. Tangled Up In Blue (Bob Dylan)
4. Across The Universe (The Beatles)
5. Norwegian Wood (The Beatles)
6. Hey, Hey, My, My (Neil Young)
7. Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young)
8. Dumb (Nirvana)
9. Heart Shaped Box (Nirvana)
10. Still, You Turn Me On (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
11. Blackbird (The Beatles)
12. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (Gordon Lightfoot)
13. Seven Days (Sting)
14. If I Ever Loose My Faith In You (Sting)

I’ll bring the bandaids....since we are all going to have blisters on our fingers.

Lotus07

Letter to Self

From 30 Days

Dear Self

Looking back, you were a pretty introverted kid. You weren’t very sociable as a toddler.

Then, your shyness sort of morphed into being the class clown. You wanted people to like you and would often go farther that you should have to get in their good graces.

In your early teens, you delved into the ‘work’ ethic. That deep pit of the male psyche where your value was based on your job and earning potential.

Finally, you have ended up at mid-life, where you have come to realize, that many of the people that you tried to impress, were not really worth impressing.

In fact, most of them now see you as the person that they most want to impress and be friends with because they see you as the only person that can get things done for them

It has been an odd cycle. In the end, it has taught me that my only value is my own self worth, not the value that others place on me.

Hence, my current mantra.....”No, I am not a resource for you.”

Mr. Grumpy Hardass


Lotus07

Letter of Apology

From 30 Days

Hey Bob,

I am pinning this to your hospital gown, so that you will hopefully see it when you wake.

Do me and big favor and wake up, will ya!

The last time we talked, we both had a few too many beers and the conversation obviously got a bit heated. I could have sworn you hadn’t returned that power drill, since I looked all over for it, and you were the last one I know that used it.

Suffice to say, the wife had placed it under the sink when you brought it back and never told me. So those things I said about your mother, and your dog and Mexican prostitutes were a little bit out of line....obviously.

But the last thing I expected you to do was roll your Dodge RAM Super Duty on the way home.

Do you have any idea what a jerk I feel like at this point?

So....suffice to say you won’t have to worry about mowing your lawn for the next few months.....if ever.

Your Jerk Drink’in Buddy,


Lotus07

Letter to the Stoners

From 30 Days

Dude,

Put down the dobbie. It isn’t doing you any good. In fact it is stealing from you. Your life, your health, you ability to pretty much do anything.

I used to be one of you. While in college I really majored in horticulture more than anything else, even though my degree says Business. It was a fun time, but looking back it was pretty much a waste in many aspects.

There is this ongoing debate about whether or not to legalized certain drugs and de-criminalize their use. I don’t see where that is going to make a difference. Regardless if they do or not, they are always going to be available. Making them legal or illegal isn’t the issue.

The solution is to make them less enjoyable. Which is to say, give the folks that use them something better to do. This is the part where you are getting robbed.

You could surf, sky-dive, repeal, ski, paint, play music, any number of things, but those require commitment and a certain amount of capital. Instead of investing millions in the ‘War on Drugs’, invest that money in youth and social development.

Anybody that is involved in organized sports, plays in a band, and rock climbs three times a week isn’t going to have a lot of time, or desire, to be toking on a big fat one and giggling at re-runs of Gilligan’s Island.

I grew out of that whole getting high phase. Mainly because, it was getting in the way of doing all the things that I really wanted to do.

There is some fascinating shit out there dude, don’t take the easy way out. Your screwing yourself when you do.

Your drink’in buddy,


Lotus07

Letter To The Pope

From 30 Days

Dear Holy See,

I wanted to drop you a line in hopes of giving you a little perspective on some things. I know you are a man of letters and probably much more worldly and well educated than I am; however, I think the rigidness of your thinking has given you a slight narrow minded view of the world these days.

I appreciate what you and your immediate predecessors have tried to do, but I believe that the dogma of the house that Peter built isn't really doing you a lot of good these days.

While of the faithful still cling to your infallibility, the past mistakes, both recent and ancient are starting to catch up with you. If the pedophile priest thing weren’t bad enough, there are all those religious wars, persecution, not to mention all the false Popes in the past that were basically politicans parading around in the name of the Christ.

Thanks to modern technology, the world has started to talk a lot more and they are asking questions. No longer is religion and dogma confined to national borders. If they all want to get to heaven, then which ones are going to make it? The Catholics?, the Lutherans?, the Mormons? I mean really, heaven can’t just be an exclusive club for the one group that worships the right way. And if it is, then, is heaven segregated? I mean the questions are endless.

Education and free thought are your enemy. An educated congregation is going to start questioning the concept that God just talks to a select few (the clergy) and that select few interprets what God wants us all to know. The image of the Wizard of Oz comes to mind, with the priest admonishing us to, “Pay No Attention To That Man Behind The Curtain!”. I mean really.

Your counterparts aren’t doing anyone any favors (except for themselves) when they build these mega-churches that are the size of a college campus, to administer to their flock. I don’t recall Christ giving sermons to go out and build Crystal Cathedrals and build sports complexes. I thought that Christ told us that God is in ever man and that ‘we’ were the temple. He didn’t say “Build it and they will come....ow, and build it bigger and better each time.”

My life has taught me that God speaks to all of us.....just learn to listen. He doesn't speak through a book that was written 500 years after his death, that has been edited and redacted four different times through the ages.

I suggest that you give up the dogma and stop living in a museum. Go Unitarian and just concentrate of doing good for mankind, and drop all that contraception, make more babies and eat fish on Friday crap.....and for God’s sake, let those priests marry.

The black sheep.


Lotus07

Letter To My Neighbors

From 30 Days

Dear Neighbors,

I really don’t get this whole hoopla over the gay issue.

When I used to watch the news (and I no longer bother), this was one of those hot-button issues that was always on. Should gays be allowed to do this, should they be allowed to do that, should they get benefits, should they get married, blah, blah, blah.

I mean really, who cares? Many of you are gay. In fact, the historic downtown area where we all live seems to be a mecca for the gay and lesbian life style.

From what I have seen, you are pretty friendly, keep your houses in meticulous shape, mow your lawns, plant flowers, wash your cars, you rarely have snotty nose little brats that run amok in the ‘hood’, and you usually earn a pretty decent dual earner salary. If it weren’t for the fact that you don’t have the ‘heterosexual’ thing going on, most of the blue-nose right wing religious church goers would just love you.

I have learned that there are proactive people in this world and there are inactive people. The inactive ones block change and are afraid of the future. The proactive ones know change is coming and try to manage it. Hopefully, the inactive ones will die out soon and you won’t be so repressed.

As for me, if I am ever looking for another place to live. I am going to find out where the gays and the lesbians live. They tend to have the nicer homes and the nicer neighborhoods.

….....Somewhere over the rainbow......


Lotus07

Letter To R. Buckmunster Fuller

From 30 Days

Hey Bucky,

I don’t recall how I stumbled on to you. It must have been sometime back in college when I was in my ‘life discovery’ phase. I recall having a copy of “Synergetics”, which I could never fathom, along with a copy of “Grunch of Giants”.

‘Grunch’ was probably the first adult book I ever read. It took me out of the rigid thinking that I had grown up with and stated, “Hey, there is a different way to do things.”.

Just because we have done this all through history doesn't mean that it is the best way to do things. Sometimes, we as humans, get it wrong and don’t realize it.

This opened up a whole new world for me. It also set me on a course that I would otherwise have probably never found.

Sometimes, I don’t know how you could have put up with all the inefficiency and chaos around you. However, you realized that it was better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. You planted the seeds and assumed that others would notices the sprouts and the flowers. You were right.

You were a beacon, and a bright one at that.

Thanks a lot ‘Trimtab’. We are all changing the course, ...... slowly.


Lotus07

Letter To The News Anchors

From 30 Days

Dear Talking Heads,

I am happy to say, I don’t miss you. Not one bit. In fact, life has actually been much better without you around.

About a year ago, the standard operating procedure was for the wife and I to get up in the morning, make a cup of coffee and turn on the local morning news before we went to work.

Only problem is, over time, it became less and less news and more and more gossip and advertising parading around as news.

Eventually, we just couldn’t stand it. Too many anxiety stories about murder and death and taxes and too much fluff about where we could get a ‘great’ deal on an ice cream cone or a Starbucks, if we rushed off somewhere.

Eventually, we found ourselves wading through 20 minutes of this crap just to hear the weather report. We finally had enough and pulled the plug. Literally, I yanked the cable out of the television and you were gone.

And you know what? We don’t miss you a bit. In fact, life is wonderful these days. There are homicides, and riots and roll-over accidents that have happened in this town that we have no knowledge of and life is still good. In fact, it is actually better.

Hope you are doing well, and that your viewership hasn’t declined to much. Well, truthfully, I hope it has. Because like the architect Frank Lloyd Wright once said, “Television is like chewing gum for the eyes.”


Lotus07

Letter To My Parents

From 30 Days

Dear Mom & Dad,

It has been a while since you both left. It hasn't been easy not having you around anymore.

You weren’t dotting parents and you never stuck your nose in my business or told me what to do. You always figured that it was my life, and I was supposed to figure it out on my own.

You led by example and you set some pretty high standards. You two were that base, that foundation that I could always rely on.

Now that foundation is gone. I thought it would always be there, but now all that is left of you is packed away in cardboard boxes in the garage. You didn’t horde a lot of stuff, but what you left behind was precious.

You gave me the mortor and bricks to build my own foundation. But I have my doubts that it will be as solid and long lasting as yours.

You gave me a compass and pointed toward the horizon. Yet, no matter how far I traveled, I could always look back and see you. I thought you would always be there. Now I look back and you are gone and I lament that fact that I will never see you again.

Thanks for setting me on the journey. You gave me the tools and the directions. I can’t wait to see where it all leads.

Thanks.....thanks a bunch.

Miss You.


Lotus07

Letter To The CEOs

From 30 Days

Dear Captains of Industry

You blew it.

You let me down. Suffice to say, you let us all down. Capitalism was supposed to be good for everyone. Not just the rich stockholder that you serve these days.

In your greed and short sightedness, you let us all down and in the end, shot yourself in the foot. You grabbed for the brass ring one to many times and finally fell off the carousal. The real problem is, that made the rest of us fall off with you. Thanks a bunch.

At GM, you built a swell electric car back in the late 90s, then scrapped them all and turned the plant space over to Hummer production. Swift move. We could have used that electric car (EV-1) when gas hit $4 a gallon 3 years later. Now Hummer is owned by a forigen country and we still don’t have an electric car.

Bank of America, you approved all those homeowner loans for WAY more than the consumer could ever hope to pay back in the early 2000s, and now you are foreclosing on all that property and getting your loans refunded by Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, again, at our expense. You got all the money back for your bad investments and now get to sell the houses all over again, for more profit. I don’t suppose there is a lot of conscious or empathy in those ivory towers, if there ever was any.

Exxon, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, I won’t even go there. You run the world, everyone suspects it, the oil soaked pelicans and petroleum fires are just a bonus I suppose.

My father always told me to work hard and get a good job with a big company, because that was were the best and the brightest in society worked. I am glad he isn’t around anymore to see just how much you have screwed up the system.

Enjoy that year end bonus, and I will just keep paying my taxes to clean up your mistakes.


Lotus07

Letter To Beethoven

From 30 Days

Dear Ludwig,

Thanks for that 9th Symphony.

As a young man in my early 20s, you taught me all there was to know about time travel. Through your vision and commitment, you were able to transport the very essence of emotion and thought through the ages in a way that is much more powerful than the spoken word.

Through all your trails and pain and handicaps, you were able to see the world for what it is and find god all at the same time. You summed it up. For all of us.

Like Synergy, the sum of the parts you created add up to much more than the whole. You lifted me up to a height that I never knew existed. To sit atop a mountain, or on a beach and listen to what you made transcends everything. You created one of the pieces to life's puzzle and gave it to all of us.

You taught me something that no one else could....even though you have been gone for over 200 years.

Good job old man, and many thanks.


Lotus07

Letter To The Younger Generation

From 30 Days

Dear Younger Generation,

There is something I do, that many of you don’t seem able to do. Something that used to be pretty standard. Something that used to be the back bone of the ‘American Ethic’.

I haven’t seen this much in recent memory. I don’t know if it is still there, or if it has been drummed out of our heads.

It is the ability to stick with a task until it is done. Giving yourself a hard goal, and finishing it all the way through, even if it takes years or decades. Even if the end result isn’t what you expected, you still stick it out....until the end.

Marriages were supposed to be like that, so were jobs and educational goals. Trusting in a political ideal and investing for the long term were other examples. They all appear to have gone by the wayside.

I suppose that we want health, wealth, gratification and happiness in the short term these days. They are no longer things to be worked at and worked for.

I look back over my life, and the most gratifying things I have done are the ones I struggled for. And some of those things took a lot of struggling.

Faster isn’t always better. Faster isn’t always possible. Faster seldom breeds character.

Slow down.....stay the course. In the long run, it is more than worth it.

Back to the coal mine......


Lotus07

Letter To My Friends

From 30 Days

Dear Friends,

You seem to be constantly amazed by some of the odd and quirky stuff that Sue and I do. I have often wondered why. Why, that is, that everyone doesn't do it.

Life is full of challenges and the only thing that really defines who we are when we are gone is how we met those challenges and changed the world in our wake.

I learned a long time ago that my job is not my life. My life is my work, and I needed to work at it as much as possible. Making money for someone else while sitting behind a desk or in a cube isn’t the road to happiness. It is called prison.

Do me a favor. Do something that I can be amazed at. Sail around the world. Raise three children and send them all off to medical school. Have the biggest flower garden on the block. Do something to impress me. Because when you do, it challenges me to come up with something better.

It seems that most folks are afraid to fail. Lose that fear and start failing. It is often times the only way we learn.

Come on....I dare you!


Lotus07

Letter To A 'Chat' Buddy

From 30 Days

Dear Melinda

I have a funny feeling it is too late for any of this. But if this falls on deaf ears, then so be it.

I never really knew you. While we ‘instant messaged’ for about 8 years, we never really met. But we did exchange a lot of views.

Time and tide has taught me that many people use the internet as a mask to hide behind and conceal who they really are. So how much of you is fact and and how much of you is fiction, I will never really know.

You claimed to be 41, but stated you looked 24. You claimed to be a nurse and well paid. You were shallow. I mean really shallow. You hated people that weren’t ‘perfect’, you didn’t like poor people and hated the idea of having to pay taxes to support losers.

You bitched and bitched about the way the world was and how the only things that mattered to you were being with beautiful people and looking young forever. To you, all the poor minorities were just vermin to be exterminated.

You horded money and were always looking for a way to hide it from the government.

Yet despite all your opinions, you didn’t seem to know much about how the world ticked. You only seemed to seek attention and desire.

Despite me pointing this out to you over the years, in numerous messenger exchanges, you kept coming back. I think you valued the honest feedback I gave you, since not many others probably wanted to have a conversation with you (listen to you bitch that is).

The last I heard from you, you were going into the hospital with cancer. Something tells me you did not beat it. I haven’t heard from you in ages and doubt I ever will again. You may have met your end, in the same way as all those people you despised. Alone, undesirable, with all that money that did you no good.

Somewhere along the line, you got broken, and it was long before you got cancer. I don’t know if society corrupted you, or if it was just the way you were raised. I don’t think I gleaned much from our friendship(?), except that there are a lot of really pretty, shallow people in this world that are self centered bigots.

Sorry you never figured that out.

Your Chat Buddy,


Lotus07

Letter To A Lost Friend

From 30 Days

To Carla Keith,

Of all the folks that were lost in the river of my life, I would like to find out where you landed the most.

I have found most of the rest, scattered by time and tide all over the globe. But I don’t know what happened to you.

That is a shame, since you were the first 'woman' I ever knew. You taught me more standing at the school bus stop every morning than any other girl before you. You were mature, and I was fascinated.

I don’t know if I would call it first love, but it certainly was the beginning where I realized there was a lot more to women that I had realized.

The last time I saw you was 1975. I fellow classmate recently e-mailed me a picture of you. It was the first time I had seen you in 35 years. It really made me wonder where you ended up.

Hope all is well and you survived like the rest of us.

So if you ever google you name on the Internet, hopefully might find this. From way back in the day, in South Dakota, near Rapid City, on Ellsworth Air Force Base. It seems like such a long time.

Love,


Lotus07

Letter To My Ex-Boss

From 30 Days

Dear Susan,

You probably don’t remember me. I used to work for you. Back in the early 1990, when you were director of the Agency I worked in.

I never really got a chance to have a sit down talk with you before you were flushed out the door by the new incoming governor‘s administration and went to work as a corporate lobbyist.

So I hope this finds you well and things are going your way these days. Your tenure at the Agency was, shall we say, difficult.

You really weren’t a people person during your time at the agency, and some would say you were a bit of a micro-manager. Spending all your weekends in your office reading every bit of correspondence that was sent out by your employees was a bit much. Showing that you had to proof everything everyone did was a little over the top and didn’t really promote that ‘team spirit’ concept that directors are so fond of using.

You taught me a lot about how government and bureaucracy work, and I have to say that none of it was very good. The impression I was left with was that government is full of a lot of power-players that trade favors and delve into a lot of graft.

Your insistence that the Agency aid all consumers regardless of the nature of their complaint was a bit of an abuse of power in my opinion. But such is the nature of those that serve the electorate I suppose. Making the higher-ups look good is more important than serving the consumers.

Back then, you were a pretty ‘driven’ individual, and I don’t know if that served you well in the long run. For some of us that trait is genetic. I know that during my lifetime, it hasn't always driven us in the right direction. Hope ya found some happiness at the end of your road.

A Past Employee


Lotus07

Letter To My Wife

From 30 Days

Dear Sue,

I need to remind you of something.

You have taught me a lot over the years, least of which is how much of a jerk I can be at times and how you don’t let it affect you so much. You tolerate a lot....and in the process, have have taught me a lot of tolerance. But more than anything else, you reminded me about the value of child-like dreaming.

You want to do new things and get all excited about the possibility of doing them. Most folks lose that when they get older, you don’t.

Sometimes you nurture too much. The three dogs and six cats that we have in our house are a testament to that. You have a hard time saying no or turning someone away that needs a favor. But these are really things that I can fault you for. You can’t fault Mother Teresa for being too kind.

You are a pretty messy person, although you hate clutter. You are disorganized in the extreme, never knowing where anything is placed, but you make up for it by making the best diners out of virtually nothing in the kitchen.

You complain about how difficult the audio-video system is to operate in the house, but for some reason, when push comes to shove, you were always able to figure out how to pull up ‘As The World Turns’ when you wanted to watch it.

But mostly, I have come to realize that you are the only person that is willing to put up with me and for that I am pretty blessed. Truly blessed. So while I might be a moody, brooding, S.O.B. sometimes, don’t ever think for a moment that you are the gosh-darn best thing that will ever happen to me in my lifetime.

Your Husband,


Lotus07

Letter To My Step Children

From 30 Days

Hey Kids,

I know you are going to all be grown up by the time you read this, but I will still be older than you, so I can still call you kids.

I wanted to pass this little note on to you after I am gone to give you a little heads up about some stuff.

Since I never had children of my own, you are going to be the closest thing I have to family when I leave this earth, so I wanted to pass something on to you now that I am gone. Now, don’t get your hopes up. It isn’t a wade of cash, or a yacht or a fancy sports car. Its knowledge. Something that I have learned is really hard to come by in this day and age.

The one thing I have learned in this lifetime, is that no one under that age of 30 wants to hear their elders tell them how things are, or what to do, or how to live their lives. I was young once too, and I remember those days when I was 20 and thought I knew everything. It is genetic, trust me on this, you will outgrow it.

Eventually, you will come to the realization that you DON’T know everything, but by then, your elders will probably be gone, or won’t care to explain it to you anymore. Hence, I am jotting down this letter.

During my time on this rock I learned a lot of things. No one can know everything, but I learned my fair share. So much so, that there is no way that I can write it all down in a meaningful way for you to understand. Somethings have to be learned first hand. That is life.

But I did manage to document a majority of what I learned in two different ways. I blogged a lot and I am going to make efforts to make sure it is all preserved for you. You might find it interesting and you might find it boring, and dare I say stupid and funny, but it was all me. All the important stuff that I could remember. The funny, creepy, sad, frustrating and enlightening stuff. If you take the time to rummage through it, you might find a few things that will either strike a cord in you, or at least give you a heads up regarding what to expect in your future.

The other thing I left you was a bunch of photographs. Thousands of them to be exact. Because I have often sermized that if we forget the past, it disappears. And to lose who and what we are is the greatest loss of all. So hopefully, you will cast an eye over the images from time to time on your screen saver or your digital picture frame and pause once in a while.

Because, now that I am gone, this is all that is left of me, and I don’t think that it should be forgotten. I had some pretty good times, and learned some interesting shit. This is my legacy, hope you enjoy it.

Love,


Lotus07

P.S. if you scan the text and images closely, you might be able to tell where I buried all my money.

Letter To Self

From 30 Days

Hey Buddy,

How is it going? Despite what you might think, it is probably going better than you realize. I know that on a daily basis you and I struggle with our inability to make a difference in the world that surrounds us. I remember when Mom and Dad challenged us to be the ‘movers and shakers’ in the world. Encouraged us to make it a better place. Prodded us to become leaders and managers of the golden American future.

But don’t beat yourself up because you haven’t climbed that corporate ladder. Enron and GM would have still gone belly up even if you had gotten the corner office. We really can’t change the world. We can only nudge it a bit in one direction or another. And even if we do, we sometimes nudge it in the wrong direction.

It isn’t all about success or being in command. Remember, while the quarterback gets all the glory, he also takes the most hits. Our life wasn’t supposed to be a game that we had to struggle to win. It is a journey that we have to struggle to understand.

What was that old saying we read in college? There are those that follow the lead of others, and then there of those of us that blaze our own trail. We should be happy we turned out to be blazers and not followers.

The more we look back at our failures, the more we realize that they weren’t failures at all. They were just a different path. As it turns out, they all seemed to be the right path.

Keep on blazing those trails.

Lotus07

Letter To Self

From 30 Days

Dear Self,

I wanted to jot down a little note to remind you to lighten up once in a while. It isn’t your fault that the world you grew up in gave you unrealistic expectations.

You have to remember that those halcyon days of the 1950s, when Ike was president, Elvis was king and Wally and the Beaver got warm cookies after school are gone. I know they imprinted in your mind that the future would bountiful, non-gay, Anglo-Saxon controlled and orderly, but that was a lie. Get over it.

Things change, and often times we can’t do anything about it. The expectations that you had of competency in government, your co-workers, your neighbors and society in general were unrealistic. Things got muddled, compromised, liberalized and averaged.

Our parents taught us to have high expectations. Growing up taught us to expect competency. Reality has made us realize that we are luck to find plumber or electrician that can read and write.

Deal with it. The world isn’t what we were told to expect. You can’t do anything about it and it isn’t going to change. So it isn’t worth getting all upset and pissed off about on a daily basis.

Sincerly,

lotus07