I gotta tell you, I’ve had a number of instances in recent years where friends or colleagues show up on LinkedIn with big new titles, and no doubt big new dollars to go along with them. I have a little stab of envy and little wisps of doubt about my own situation pretty much every time.

In the past few weeks I’ve also had a couple of episodes of close proximity (real or virtual) with people from a couple of companies I’ve worked for who currently have those big titles and big salaries. Out of a total of about a dozen such people, exactly one appeared to be in good health and good physical condition. The rest had pot bellies and looked exhausted and miserable.

I think it’s vitally important to constantly ask yourself (and start this when you’re young!) what’s really important to you, and what you get in return for the time and energy you give to your job. One thing I’ll offer as critically important is your health and physical fitness.

I had a great chat about this with another friend and former colleague of mine recently. Keith Bone moved up into the executive ranks of a couple of big companies, but is now with a small start-up out west. He admitted freely that he isn’t making the same money with his new job as with his previous one. He also admitted he’s carrying some serious extra weight from the lack of exercise he suffered in his last position. But guess what: he’s much happier now, and he’s committed to spending a lot more time with his family and getting himself back into shape.

He will. He and I did a lot of mountain biking and camping together years ago, so I know he has what it takes to suffer and drop the pounds. And he’s reached the same point I have (for me, sometimes with the in-your-face help of my lovely wife) of putting his family and good health first from now on.

He and I have both moved around a good bit, and we’ve both chased bigger titles and dollars (he’s done much better at that than I). But he pointed something out about all those years ago when we worked and played together: we had much smaller and simpler houses and made a lot less money – but we were pretty darned happy.

Obviously, those executives I mentioned above don’t strike me as healthy. Nor do they seem happy. They work crazy hours and travel all the time – for what? Yeah, they make huge amounts of money – but there’s nothing they can spend it on that will bring back the health and happiness they’re squandering to get it.

What’s more, at some point it will be too late for them, if that isn’t already the case. Unlike my pal Keith, they don’t have a history of keeping fit and being able to suffer in a healthy way. If they quit their jobs tomorrow, I suspect they would struggle to get back into shape. It’s the absolute worst kind of “use it or lose it” reality. And they haven’t used it, not for a long, long time. At some point, it becomes a “bridge too far.”

Even more critical, family time never comes back. Kids truly do grow up so fast it’s scary, and every special moment missed is gone forever.

Look, I’m no genius. I’ve been very, very lucky. I’ve always been driven to make time to keep in shape. Mostly it’s been because I’ve had sports I really enjoyed that kept the fat off. I was never willing to sacrifice my workouts to work long hours, at least not for very long. And my parents set the bar pretty high for me when it comes to the example of how to make time for family. I’ve made it a top priority to do my best to live up to that for my wife and sons.

Maybe being a high level executive is what makes you happy, even if it also makes you fat and unhealthy and a stranger to those you love. Hey, more power to you. But if you’re weighing your options – especially if you’re young – I highly recommend you think about how you want to feel when you’re not young anymore, and the kind of relationships you want to have, and decide accordingly.

Me, I feel pretty darned good across the board. My buddy Keith will be back to that soon.

You?

My LinkedIn friend Jim Rossi pointed out that this past Tuesday was the 70^th anniversary of the start of the Berlin Airlift. It’s a vital piece of history I bet very few people under 30 years old have ever heard of. It shines even today, though, as an example of America at her very best.

In the United States today, schooling in history and civics has been driven by an educational elite who for at least two generations now have focused almost universally on the evil done by America. And yes, we’ve done evil – plenty of it. No nation hasn’t. On balance, I believe America is uniquely at the top of the heap of countries whose good deeds far outweigh the bad. But if you learn only about the wrongs; if you dismiss our founders and many core heroes and historical figures as “dead white men;” if you judge our notable leaders through our nearly 250 years against modern (and most often, radical left-wing modern) mores – then you indeed will find nothing at all to like about America.

That’s why I said in reply to Jim’s history post about the Berlin Airlift that it should be required subject matter for civics and history classes, as just one small counterbalance to the constant “educational” messaging of America as the world’s bad guy.

In the aftermath of WWII, Germany’s capital was divided among the victorious Allies – into four sectors controlled by the Soviet Union, France, Great Britain and the United States. Germany as a whole was divided into eastern and western segments, controlled by the USSR and the western Allies respectively. However, good will between the western powers and the Soviet Union quickly broke down. Less than a year after the war’s end, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered his famous “Iron Curtain Speech” at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, decrying the Soviets’ ruthless expansionism.

On June 24, 1948, the Soviets blockaded the three western segments of Berlin in an attempt to convince the populace to reject the western powers and to force the remainder of the city into its zone of control. They cut off all road, rail and water access to the city.

The western Allies quickly formulated a plan to supply the city by air. The US launched “Operation Vittles” on June 26, and two days late the British launched “Operation Plainfare.” American, British and French airplanes ferried food, fuel and other essentials to Templehof, Gatow and Tegel airfields in West Berlin each and every day – 5,000 tons per day to start, and eventually reaching 8,000 tons per day as the operation became more efficient and effective.

While the people of West Berlin would never be quite comfortable during the airlift, the operation was successful enough to keep them fed and relatively warm, with rationing throughout. The Soviets finally lifted their blockade on May 12, 1949, though the western Allies continued the airlift until September to build up a supply stockpile in the event the blockade was resumed. By the end the Allied pilots had delivered nearly 2-1/2 million tons of supplies (coal, milk, dried potatoes, dried eggs, gasoline, and so on) to the beleaguered city, keeping about 2 million citizens supplied for almost a full year.

In a heart-warming side story, some pilots delivered even more. It all started with Gail Halvorsen, a C-54 transport pilot who met some kids watching the planes land at Templehof. After talking with them, he was leaving and realized how grateful and undemanding they were, and gave them a few pieces of gum from his pocket. They were so happy, he promised to drop them more candy later, telling them to watch for him wiggling his wings on the way in. He did so, tying gum and chocolate to handkerchief parachutes his crew pitched out of the airplane. It went so well he and his crew began dropping more and more, taken from their personal rations. And the few kids turned into bigger and bigger crowds of them.

Then the word got out. Halvorsen expected to get in big trouble. Instead his superiors urged him to continue. He did (“Operation Little Vittles”), getting more support from other air crews, and more publicity, until eventually the National Confectioner’s Association was providing candy, and volunteers in the US were tying the parachutes.

In the end, the Soviets failed in their efforts to oust their former Allies from Berlin. Sadly, the airlift came at the cost of 101 lives, mostly airmen whose planes crashed. The operation cemented the division of both the capital and the entire country into East and West halves, not to be reunited until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Back here in the good ol’ USA, and here in 2018, we cannot expect to succeed as a nation and a free people if our educational establishment continues to be allowed to force-feed our students a constant diet of only the negative about our nation. The Berlin Airlift should be mandatory content, along with many, many other episodes of American courage, generosity, inventiveness and sacrifice.

Sources:

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/berlin-airlift

https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/berlin-airlift

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/70-years-on-berlin-remembers-airlift-candy-bombers/articleshow/64741934.cms

http://www.historynet.com/interview-with-gail-halvorsen-the-berlin-candy-bomber.htm

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/churchill-delivers-iron-curtain-speech

One of my favorite LinkedIn presences, Laura Irwin, posted a thought-provoking question there last week: “Where did this entitlement of feeling good all the time come from?” It really resounded with lots of folks, given the sheer volume of commentary that followed. There were many excellent points in the comments, too, but Laura herself made some of the best in her post:

Don’t get me wrong, it would be great if we all did work that made us happy. But still that’s focusing on 3 wrong things.

1. Having to love your work in order to be happy, believing if you hate your job you can’t be happy with anything.
2. Feeling entitled to be happy with everything most of the time in most areas of our lives.
3. Relying on something else in order to be happy.

Inspirational Speakers tell us to nix negative thoughts. Self-help books provide supposed secrets to perpetual positivity. We think we must never feel anything less than awesome.

Because of this we understand less about the world and try to make it all conform to us and how we want to feel.

Those last two sentences are key. Probably very few people, if they really thought about it, truly believe “…we must never feel anything less than awesome.” But if you don’t consciously think about it, there are lots of outside factors (social media and “thought leaders,” for example) that might make you feel and behave as though you believe it anyway. That misguided sense can lead to a lot of grief.

Laura’s point about not understanding the world and trying to make it conform to our wishes is a great one, too. As I said in my comment to her post, I see its fingerprints all over the misguided pursuit of perfection. Whether it’s workplace safety “experts” telling us all accidents are avoidable, or Lean – Six Sigma “gurus” urging us to adopt a zero-loss mindset, it forever means we’re beating ourselves up for realities that are often beyond our control. This, too, leads to grief.

But something was still missing for me – until my family and I re-watched The Princess Bride last Saturday night. The Man in Black, a.k.a. Westley, spelled it out for me: “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

It sounds extreme, and awfully gloomy and disheartening. But aren’t there almost always gloomy and disheartening aspects to our lives? You may be in perfect health and in the best shape of your life – but at the same time you just got dumped by a significant other. Maybe your career is going gangbusters, but you also have a chronically sick child. Perhaps your family life is just about ideal, but you’re also having a religious crisis of faith.

“Into each life some rain must fall*,” despite life-coach weathermen who urge nothing but sunny skies, always, everywhere and forever. And when we can’t reach that utopia, we’re failures, right?

It just ain’t so. We will have some pain, some of us a lot of it.

Here’s another reality, though: some of the worst pain can also be at some of your best times. Star athletes certainly suffer mightily to reach the top of their sports, for example. But it can be true for even schlubs like me.

Some years ago I ruptured a disc in my lower back. Despite drugs and therapy and steroid injections, I wasn’t really getting better after a couple months of savage pain. I had a really good therapist helping me, but I wanted to be more aggressive than she would let me. I called my neurosurgeon (who, God bless him, had recommended against surgery until I’d tried everything else) and asked his opinion of running. He told me that whatever running I chose to do, I wouldn’t make the disc worse, and that it was all up to me as to how much pain I could take.

So I ran. Six miles a session, four days a week. At first, every single step for a mile was shuddering agony, and the pain really didn’t completely ease up until two miles in. Then I could run the rest pretty well.

Each run the pain was a tiny bit less severe, and lasted a bit less long.

One sunny day, after weeks and weeks of this suffering, I got back to the house, and suddenly realized that on that run I had had not one bit of pain.

All that excruciating agony had become one of my greatest triumphs.

*I remembered this partial quote as I was writing, but I had no idea where it came from. A bit of research showed me that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s whole poem is awfully fitting here.

The Rainy Day

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

In the past couple of weeks, LinkedIn’s Editor at Large Chip Cutter introduced me to some great new ideas and showed me real kindness.

At the end of May, he published a great article about some innovative ways small communities are working to lure young people “home” to rural areas. It struck a nerve with me (and with a whole lot of other readers too). I wrote up my thoughts on the subject and tagged Chip when I posted it on LinkedIn. He responded with an appreciative comment that was awfully nice, and in doing so drove far more readers my way than I otherwise would have gotten.

But I almost missed out on all of this. You see, Chip, I’m embarrassed to admit this: I unfollowed you on LinkedIn a few months ago, because of politics.

There was a stretch where I felt like Chip’s feed became a steady stream of liberal-leaning links. I’m a staunch conservative, and I feel like I get lots and lots of liberalism on LinkedIn. (In hindsight, though, it may all just be a matter of perception. Do staunch liberals feel like they get lots and lots of conservativism on LinkedIn? Enquiring minds want to know!) Anyway, one day one of his links irked me and I hit the “Unfollow” button.

My conscience nagged me in the next few weeks – I recall a comment or two during that time from Jim Rossi, whose work I really admire, about what a great job Chip and all the rest of the LinkedIn editors do. (I’m pretty sure I followed Chip in the first place because of a recommendation from Jim.)

But it was a very timely article by Dr. Louis Profeta that showed me exactly where I went wrong.

Please do read the whole thing, but here’s the condensed version: Chip had contacted the good doctor to see if he’d write an article for LinkedIn, unaware he was by the hospital bed of his son, who was fighting leukemia. When Chip found out what was going on, he asked what he could do to help, and Dr. Profeta asked him to give blood for his boy.

Chip did.

That very day.

The very day I read the article, I re-followed Chip Cutter. (Actually, I did it the very moment I finished reading.)

So I got to enjoy his May article, and to post my own reply and get his kind response.

Thank goodness.

Look, politics is important.

But people are far, far more important.

We have too many folks who rant and rave and scream about their political opinions, as though that solves anything. We have too few folks who DO. Chip Cutter DID. He got right up off his duff and went and got stuck with needles for someone he didn’t even know, and became one of the people who saved that young stranger’s life.

That’s why I was off the rails; I didn’t know Chip, but I was willing to cast him aside just because of some articles he shared that I didn’t like. Not because of anything he DID. It was stuff that has little or nothing to do with what kind of man Chip is. Well, now I know he’s the kind of man who will rush out at the drop of a hat to give blood for a stranger.

I’m sorry, Chip.

A hearty thanks to Dr. Louis Profeta, Jim Rossi, and Chip Cutter for yet another vital lesson in what’s really important.

Oh, and please give blood.

Chip Cutter, Editor at Large at LinkedIn, posted this article a couple weeks ago, and it certainly sparked a whale of a lot of commentary. Clearly the concept hit a nerve with folks all over the map. It’s about providing monetary incentives for the young and educated to move to small towns.

My gut reaction to anything like this is always that it’s a wasteful use of funds. But I’m only opposed in that case to government incentives, because I don’t see the justice in taking from one person (in taxes) and giving to another. Plus I don’t like governments trying to pick economic winners and losers, because from what I’ve seen it almost always ends poorly.

But in this case, the incentives are privately funded. And that hit a soft spot in my heart. When private donors commit their funds this way, it shows a belief in the cause that isn’t there with tax funding. Plus, I believe it’s become critical that the US find ways to repopulate the countryside. This may help.

And as my initial comment to Chip’s article there on LinkedIn says, I think it’s got potential, in that it could appeal to new college graduates carrying big student loans.

At the time I mulled over whether it would work at all, with a few other ideas popping into my head, but I decided not to get into that in my comment. So my LinkedIn pal Melinda Arnson, in her comments about the article, beat me to the punch on a few of the notions I was mulling over, like whether the incentives would have “holding power” for someone “coming home” versus moving for the incentive alone, and whether the person getting the incentive would come out ahead with a full cost vs. benefit analysis. She went further with other thoughts that never occurred to me, including the much more limited opportunities in a small town to jump from company to company for better job opportunities, and the more limited options for home entertainment like satellite TV and Internet service providers. All great stuff, Melinda!

As the comments to Chip’s article continued to roll in, it was interesting to see the emotions: Liberals angry that the small towns were likely conservative. Older people angry at the incentives being aimed at the young, and non-college-educated people angry that they’re aimed at college grads. Anger at the incentives subsidizing the companies in the community, rather than the companies paying their own way. (As an aside, I’ve seen this in other venues, and it showed up in spades here too: big city people openly expressing their disdain, contempt and hatred of small town folks. What’s up with that?) And there were a whole bunch of people expressing an interest in taking part.

Personally, since the money is coming from donors who know what it’s being used for, I don’t see a problem with it being targeted at specific groups of people. (I believe one astute commenter said the same thing.) Based on the interest level, it may prove to be effective.

Again, I think anything with a shot at bringing people back into smaller communities is a good thing. But I think keeping them there is the bigger challenge. There were lots of comments about the lack of cultural amenities and other entertainment opportunities. Plus, the reckless abandon with which companies lay off these days means that the jobs these “scholarship winners” land to support themselves and their families may not be around forever.

That being said, there is a definitive shift in American culture in which people have a greater desire to stay near their families, as opposed to moving far away to make a new life for themselves as generations past have done. That could play in the favor of the organizations trying to lure people “home.”

I have two recommendations for making this more effective.

The first is for the folks in the towns offering the incentives. Money talks, for sure. But it won’t make an enduring citizen. You should also set up a means by which you canvass the thoughts of these new residents, and find out what will keep them around long-term. I know from my own experience moving around the country that one big thing is opportunities to become part of the community, to make friends and have activities outside work. These folks a lot younger than I certainly have their own wants and needs, too.

The second is for our state and federal governments. I’m a big believer in free trade and free markets. But we can see from the past couple decades that they can devastate small communities that often rely on a single company or industry for jobs and the health of the local economy. There has to be an effective way to offset the “creative destruction” that improves the national economy, but can destroy a small town in the process. Assistance and support for creating new economic opportunities will help keep the new citizens around – and help the ones who were already there avoid the despair that has been part of the burgeoning epidemics of depression, suicide and opioid addiction.

In the end, reading the comments as they collected below Chip’s post and contemplating the concept at great length, I’ve landed as a staunch supporter. What a great way for private donors to show their love for their towns, and their belief in infusing new blood to make them even better.

I’ve commented about this topic on LinkedIn a few times, most recently in response to one of my connections posting this article about why the big established companies can’t innovate. The author, Bill Fischer, called out a number of spot-on roadblocks. His points included some I’ve made in the past, like the destructive focus on short-term results at the expense of long-term health, and the many problems with corporate “silos.”

I disagree with his main point, though. I think the big companies can innovate. And they do innovate.

But the problem is they can’t win at it, at least not anymore.

In my experience at General Mills, we had superb folks in R&D and Marketing who came up with an endless stream of new ideas. Many of those new ideas could well have been “the next big thing.” Few of them ever saw the light of day, and the ones that did were usually of the “flash in the pan” variety. Even if they made a big splash, they came and went without really affecting the company’s trajectory.

That used to be fine. The “bigs” could rake in enormous profits from their established brands, and then have that once-in-a-generation giant hit (think Cinnamon Toast Crunch in the cereal world, for example) to drive growth.

That doesn’t work anymore. First, the established brands are almost all declining, so the “bigs” would now need a steady stream of hits to offset the losses. And the bigger problem is why they’re declining: because they’re under constant attack from tiny entrepreneurs and private label producers, and their brands are seen as old and tired by up-and-coming consumers.

This article about a very different part of the business world, automobiles, and specifically about the troubles at Tesla, contained the following nugget of wisdom:

Almost every industry is currently experiencing an explosion of SKUs. Just over a decade ago, the typical order for shoes was 100,000. Today it’s about 1,000. CPGs in particular are grappling with having to produce ever more variations of their products as we move towards a small batch world.

“…as we move towards a small batch world.” Trouble is, for many businesses, that world is right here, right now. And it’s eating them alive.

I was working in the yogurt business when Greek yogurt took off. Everyone looks at Chobani today and thinks they were THE problem (for the established brands, that is). But they weren’t at first – they became THE problem over time because of their spectacular business management, quality, sales and marketing savvy, and (most important) execution. But they were only PART of the problem early on. There were Greek Gods and Fage too. And near-Greek like Siggi’s. And non-Greek but also part of the battle, like Noosa and Liberté. They all helped carve a whole new landscape on a shelf that used to be half Yoplait, half Dannon, and then the rest. And that was nearly a decade ago. It’s gotten far, far more fragmented since.

One problem for the bigs is their required scale. Though declining, their flagship brands still rake in enormous profits. So for a new product to be attractive to them, it has to be seen as suitable for immediate national launch in all their outlets, and promising enough to be noticeably accretive to their bottom line. So there are all kinds of hurdles for new product development (NPD), and if an idea fails to meet any of the hurdles at any stage, it’s killed. As a result, very few new ideas make it to launch; and this being a very imperfect world we inhabit, most of those that do launch wind up having little to no impact.

Meanwhile there are hundreds and thousands of entrepreneurs out there launching new things constantly, often starting at a vanishingly small size and taking years to grow. Then when a “black swan” like Greek yogurt comes along, the bigs suffer yet another loss of market share.

I don’t pretend to know the answer. The bigs have tried buying their way to growth, and in almost every case they wind up slowly killing their new acquisitions through well-intended but destructive product or marketing changes, or just through the sclerosis their bureaucracy brings to what was a vibrant, resilient business. Lately they’ve also been funding “incubators,” separate innovation arms that are ostensibly freed of that stifling bureaucracy and the financial hurdles that internal NPD faces. But they’re staffed with a lot of the same folks who used to live in their own NPD world, which doesn’t lend itself to breakthrough performance. I’ve never seen any indication of any of them having a significant impact. Anyone?

And it’s that last point about people that’s most critical of all. I call it the Kodak effect. Companies that get big do so by getting really, really good at doing a particular thing extremely well, and their entire culture, their hiring, their training, their processes, their decision-making, who gets ahead and who doesn’t – they’re all driven by that thing they do really well. And when that thing starts to go south, it is impossible to right the ship, no matter how clear the threat or how dire the situation – or even how clear the “new thing” is, like digital photography. Hell, Kodak even invented the thing that killed them!

Why don’t the big brands win at innovation anymore? Because they can’t.

It was just two days ago I wrote about avoiding victimhood by counting your blessings and finding heroes. I closed with a postscript about there being heroes all around us, easy to find if we pay attention.

Last night our Boy Scout Troop did a timely service project at a local cemetery, clearing overgrowth and cleaning up around the headstones in the small veterans’ section of the graveyard. These were old graves, mainly from WWI, and even a couple from the Spanish-American War. They were badly unkempt, except for the smart new American flags at each one. The boys did a beautiful job tidying them up.

Our contact at the cemetery was a friendly older gentleman. I chatted with him a bit during a break, and he shared that his son was buried nearby.

When we were all through, he thanked the group profusely, choking up a bit as he did so. He explained why: his son, while not buried in that section, is a vet too, and was killed in action in Iraq thirteen years ago. He told us where and invited us to visit with him before we left.

At his son’s grave later, then, I got to know two heroes: Army Specialist Eric Burri, who “gave the last full measure of devotion” to his country, and his dad John, who along with the rest of their family has had to come to terms with a terrible sacrifice most of us never even have to contemplate. What a wonderful if sobering Memorial Day lesson for my son and me, and all the Scouts and their parents.

Then this morning I opened my e-mail and had a message from Mr. Robert Dent, who wrote to thank me for another post I wrote a few months ago about two other heroes, Colonel Mitchell Paige and FBI Special Agent Tom Cottone Jr. Mr. Dent is a friend of Agent Cottone’s, which is why he wrote – and he’s a hero himself, retired from a career with the Oregon State Police and now a founder and leader of the Constable Public Safety Memorial Foundation, which helps the families of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty, and also helping the families of critically injured soldiers.

So I met two new heroes, was reminded of two heroes I’d previously written about, and am now acquainted with yet another hero.

It’s getting increasingly difficult for me to play victim, what with the heroes all around who are busy setting such remarkable examples for me and for everybody else.

I came across this blog post recently, and it really struck a nerve. At first I was mentally disparaging the woman it talks about, and all the other perennial victims like her that seem to be pop up constantly these days. And let me tell you, did I ever feel morally superior.

Then I got thinking about her complete lack of gratitude, and realized I’m every bit as guilty. I spend lots of time playing victim in my mind, rather than focusing on being grateful for my countless blessings.

As I thought more about it, a memory from a long-ago bicycle ride came back to me.

When I lived in Georgia years ago, I fell in with love torturing myself on the mountain roads up north. One particular day I drove up for a solo ride, parking at the bottom of Neels Gap and setting off on a 50 mile ride with three painful mountain climbs.

About 8 miles in, and after about 1,500 feet of climbing, I reached the top of Neels Gap and pulled off the road at the wayside there to get some water. As I did I immediately saw a guy on what I took to be a regular recumbent bicycle sitting near the water tap. As I rode up I said hello without really looking at him, and immediately began filling my bottle. The other rider was right behind me, and we made small talk while I topped off.

As I closed my water bottle I turned around to look at him, and was shocked to see his bike was no normal recumbent, but actually a hand-crank job, and he was obviously a paraplegic.

As smoothly as I could, I worked a question into our conversation: “Do you have any use of your legs at all?”

He said, “Just enough strength in my quadriceps to brace myself some while I’m cranking.”

I asked him where he was headed. He told me he was just finishing up. Like me, he’d parked at the bottom of Neels, but much earlier in the morning. He’d already ridden over Neels, then on and over Jack’s Gap (another very challenging climb) to the bottom on the other side – then he’d turned around and come back the same way, doing the same two climbs again!

I realized as we began to part ways that he’d already done more elevation that day than I would do – all with his arms and what little leg support he had. I told him, “Man, you’re my hero.”

He said, “Hey, thanks, but I’m no hero. I’m just out here enjoying the riding same as you.”

Would anybody blame this guy if he’d decided just to sit in a wheelchair and let himself go to pot? I know I wouldn’t. I could sure see myself in his situation obsessing over what I’d lost. He, on the other hand, was out there maximizing what he still had.

Every single one of us can legitimately consider himself a victim. Who hasn’t had unfair misfortune, or been mistreated by others?

Then too, every single one of us has the choice in how to respond to feeling victimized. (Pretty much none of us will experience that fact to the extent that Dr. Viktor Frankl did; surviving the Nazi concentration camps but losing his entire family, he never lost his spirit: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”)

I think it’s a very, very sad development in our culture over the last couple generations that we actually encourage victimhood, even reward it. But really, there’s no reward big enough to make it worth it to wallow in bitterness, is there?

Me, I’m going to make a renewed effort to ward off my own tendency to play victim. When I feel it coming on, I’ll just remember a guy who had more climbing glory than I did that long-ago day in North Georgia, putting my leg-powered racing machine to shame with his hand-cranked recumbent.

Oh, yeah, pal – you sure are a hero.

Postscript: while I was still putting the finishing touches on this piece today, I came across this article. What an amazing young woman Lauren is. And she reminded me of my dear friend Maureen, who also went through breast cancer treatment with a strength that was awe-inspiring. And then, contemplating these two heroines made me remember my favorite historian Cornelius Ryan, who not only refused to be a victim during his own cancer battle, but helped the patients around him do the same. (“What I’m trying to tell you is — don’t be afraid.  Not of hospitals or attendants or anybody.  You’re you — not a statistic.  Be yourselves, damn it.  Don’t be afraid.”)

I bet that for every “professional victim” we read or hear about in the media or see around us, there are many, many more heroic non-victims like the ones I’ve mentioned. We just have to look around and pay attention when we need them for inspiration.

If you see me at Webelos or Boy Scout camp at Gerber Scout Reservation this summer, or at any of our Troop 292 monthly campouts, or maybe even just out hiking around my neighborhood, I’ll probably be hauling a big black backpack with MOLLE attachments (Modular Lightweight Load-Carrying Equipment, a military-designed system for attaching pouches and accessories to vests and packs). It will look like far more bag than I need for those outings. It usually is.

So why do I carry it?

As it turns out, because I took a long time and put a lot of thought and energy into deciding just what kind of pack I wanted to carry for these events, it wound up reflecting some of my most important personal values, while also providing me very functional gear transport.

There are three reasons I carry this pack.

The first reason is for love of my family, and it goes straight to the Boy Scout Motto: “Be Prepared.” I ran across a very sad story five years ago about a man and two of his sons who got lost during a hike in Missouri. They wound up stranded in the woods overnight as torrential rain fell and the temperature plummeted. All three died of hypothermia. I pledged to myself when I first read the article that my boys and I would never face the same scenario. So part of my design of my pack was to have specific pouches for critical items – a tear-away first aid pouch, a fire-making pouch, and pouches for a knife and flashlight. The main pockets contain a hydration bladder, rain gear, a whistle and a compass, along with other gear and food as needed. There’s even a sewing kit. The basics are always there and ready when we head out on a hike; I just grab my pack and go, secure in the knowledge that we can weather most storms and potential problems.

The second reason is aimed at keeping myself healthy, and it’s contained in one word: rucking. The best definition I found was on the Military.com website: “But the terms ruck, hump, or forced march, all really mean getting your gear from A to B in a backpack.” It shouldn’t be any surprise that hauling a heavy pack over a good distance is a great workout. I first learned about it as a fitness exercise from an old work pal of mine, who last year sent out information about his son’s new business. Tom Coffey is a former Army Ranger and now fitness instructor and consultant, and one of his many helpful blog articles covered rucking. I began working it into my fitness routine late this past winter, and now I wish I’d started much earlier (before the winter weight gain set in!) My Boy Scout camp experiences give a great example of how effective it is. Our Troop’s residence camp is a full week of hiking everywhere you go, and I carry my pack the whole time. I always lose weight, despite eating like a king. (Tom also has a great article on how to burn fat – here you go!)

The last reason is to honor those people like Tom Coffey who’ve signed up to protect the rest of us. (Let me stipulate one thing I DON’T intend by carrying it: to have anyone believe I served in the military. I did not, though I deeply admire and respect all who are serving or did serve. The military look of my pack is purely practical – the MOLLE system is unbeatable for customizing things to get exactly what you want.) Depending on what I carry, my pack might weigh ten, twenty, maybe even thirty pounds. Our soldiers routinely carry more than twice that, sometimes more than three times that, over distances I don’t ever have to think about. So yeah, a lot of the time I’m carrying more than I need to. But when it weighs me down, it makes me think about the folks who are carrying a lot more than that, in a lot tougher conditions, and who are out there keeping my family and me safe. Then it doesn’t feel so heavy. (If you really want to honor veterans this way, look for and sign up for an event like this one near you.)

Those are the reasons for my honkin’ big backpack. I think they’re all pretty good ones.

My goodness, the media are full of scathing editorials about the demise of the Boy Scouts.

They were doomed when they allowed gay Scouts. And even more doomed when they allowed gay adult leaders. And they’re super-duper doomed now that their ranks will be fully opened to girls. (Venture Scouting and Sea Scouting were already co-ed. One result is that our summer residence camps have always included a good number of girl counselors, all very capable young ladies and top-notch Scouts.)

I’m just finishing up six years as an adult Scout leader. On those first two items, I really haven’t seen any change. That’s not really the stuff we talk about at our meetings and campouts, quite frankly.

That last one will be a change, one that I think can be very positive but that also has me rather concerned. More on that later.

But as for the Boy Scouts being doomed, I don’t think so. I have my two sons in Scouts so they can act like boys with other boys, while learning valuable life skills, spending lots of time outside, and having it all wrapped up in a patriotic, faith-centered bow. Along the way I’ve added that both they and I also get to do fun and useful things we otherwise would never do.

I can tell you this: They’re getting all that and more.

We do lots of talking about proper behavior, about ethics, about prayer. We pray at every meeting. We enforce the Scout Oath and the Scout Law. We salute the flag and honor our fallen service members.

My boys know safe use of knives, saws, and axes. They know how to build and tend a fire. They know how to pitch a tent, what to pack on a campout, and how to cook and clean for themselves. They know basic first aid and lifesaving. And they’re learning more every day, what with the 138 Merit Badges on offer. At age 13, my older son has spent more nights camping than I had at age 40.

They do regular service for the community, asking nothing in return.

And they have a ball and do awesome stuff. Last weekend it was the Aviation Merit Badge, learning all about flight and aircraft and including a ride in a single-engine plane. A couple months ago it was shooting rifles and riding horses on a winter campout. Last summer it was learning to sail. This summer it will learning to weld. And I fervently hope it all leads to them both being Eagle Scouts, because I know of no other youth accomplishment that so demonstrates true leadership development.

Why not open all that to girls too?

I’m not saying Girl Scout Troops can’t do most of this too – but from what I hear, most don’t. (The one that was at Eagle Cave in Wisconsin the same time as us in January looked like one of the good ones. At the cave, the Scouts take off on their own and crawl around a muddy cavern full of nooks and crannies, all weekend long. Our boys were filthy. The girls, who sat at the table next to us at mealtimes, were dirtier still, and having a ball.)

And the Girl Scouts can’t be Eagles.

In the new program, the girls will have their own Dens in Cub Scouts and Webelos (kindergarten to Grade 5), so the boys’ Dens are still all boys. We’ll all come together in a single Pack to facilitate family time.

Existing Troops (ages 11 to 17) will remain all boys. The girls will have their own separate Troops.

So my boys will still act like boys with other boys.

I have no girls myself, but I’m happy to see other people’s daughters have a chance to do everything we’re doing, learn everything we’re learning, and have the opportunity to earn the Eagle Scout rank, all wrapped up in a patriotic, faith-centered bow.

My concern? In my experience, Scouting is the one organization where the focus has been on the boys’ well-being and development. Should the new Scouting BSA follow the zeitgeist and prioritize the needs of the girls at the expense of the boys, as has happened in so much of the rest of American society, then that will be a grievous loss indeed.