On Schadenfreude...

Finally a word more difficult to spell than entrepreneur, more difficult to pronounce than my own last name! It's a "five-dollar word" we mentally consign into "I've heard it before but don't really know what it means." When others use it, we nod and smile and silently sigh over our own inability to consistently remember what it really means.

Schadenfreude is Germanic in origin. Per the Wikipedia it is "pleasure taken at someone else's misfortunes." Schaden means harm; Freude means joy. Etymology lesson over. More interesting perhaps - to me, at least - is my relationship to the word. When tragedy strikes I immediately express emotion but it is guided by my own judgement of the severity and fairness involved: "How bad is it and how soon, if ever, can/will they recover?" and then, regardless of the answer I quietly ask/answer the question,"To what extent, in any way, shape or form, was it deserved?"

When bad or really bad things happen to good people, I feel bad - really bad. When bad things happen to bad people, I feel less bad (sometimes far better than bad). Conversely, when good things happen to good people, I feel elation, followed by a brief twinge of jealousy and then hope that I'm good enough to be next. When good things happen to bad people, I feel anger and fear, fear that some finite amount of good fortune may not now exist for the rest of us.

Does sharing my desire for a world governed by poetic justice, karma and/or just desserts make me mean moralist, a bad Judeo-Christian or simply an honest man? I want everyone in the world to be happy - I really do. I fancy a world in which everyone can live in peace and harmony. In this Utopia, and in real life too, I just can't stand down emotionally when bad actions goes "unrewarded." And since I apply this rule to my own misfortune, I feel like it's somehow OK...

 

Second Chances...

America is a country borne of second chances yet one of our great nation's most sticky and enduring colloquialisms is that "in life, there are no second chances." 

Nonsense. When Time Warner merged with AOL, it was hailed a "bet the company" deal. Few would deem it a success yet despite a devastating loss of shareholder value, two hearts still beat. And most other companies in similar straits are still standing (e.g., Alcatel-Lucent).  As for those in charge of these corporate train wrecks, despite bad press, firings, fines and, in some cases, jail time, most are not only still employed but astonishingly well employed.  

This is nothing new; even Abraham Lincoln lost most every election up until he became President of the United States. That there are second chances is a good thing. It creates a social context in which folks actually can swing for the fences - achieve something great - and not have to worry about the damning consequences of failure. Start-ups come and go. Old businesses are liquidated. People move on and try again. It's in our country's DNA and, thankfully, it's spreading all over the world.

These are very interesting times we now live in. The halcyon days, the sweet innocence of youth is forever shortening. That in and of itself is both bad and quite sad news for all. Let us hope that despite this cultural acceleration, we can at the very least continue the tradition of forgiveness for lesser sins and forever embrace that far more reasonable response for trying and not succeeding; that being,  "try, try again"...

A Little Patience...

I have not historically been a patient man. Tolerant, perhaps, but not patient. On good days I am merely impatient, but then not all days are good. I would often try to make myself feel better knowing that I was least patient with me, so at least it was selflessly allocated. But that never really worked.

I have a strong world-view that can be aptly summarized: we are here for a short time and each of us has a special combination of talents. Discover them and then do something meaningful and please make it snappy. Whether you're an artist or an accountant, just keep on keeping on - more paint, more numbers. Be creative; be conservative; go, go, go. If you're not moving forward then something is wrong and more than likely it's you.

Being impatient has enabled many of my greatest accomplishment including fatherhood. Ironically, having children has forced me to become more patient. So fascinated by everything they do, these small people, I forget about the time and focus only upon the action. After doing this a while and becoming aware of how much more I got from the experience I tried to apply this newly found virtue in all my other interactions (i.e., with adults, too) and it works! 

So now, if you see me and you're going slow and I pass you, my hand gesture may actually be a friendly wave and nothing more than that...

Renaissance Souls...

Just read The Renaissance Soul by Margaret Lobenstine and it turns out I'm one.  All it takes is having multiple interests that need to be sated in order for you to feel fully actualized. (Oh, God, did I just say that)? This book is for those whose souls have been put in harm's way as professional pursuits were carried out (or not) unaware of/uniformed by their special needs. The way to win is to focus only upon a handful of interests.  My "sampler" includes being a sassy entrepreneur, writing/speaking, helping good companies get great and being a first-class family man. My "life design" will find me building up my company's infrastructure and then running it at night and on weekends while devoting daylight hours to a good company in need of marketing might. I'll be writing/speaking about it along the way... With my professional wants and needs finally appreciated and sated, I'll hope to leverage my new-found happiness on the home front. Will it work? Wait two months and then give my wife a call!