“It’s not that we have more patience as we grow older,
it’s just that we’re too tired to care about all the pointless drama.”
~ Karen Gibbs
Over lunch I had the best talk with my old friend Jeff Spradling. We met through Robin Dalton about 15 years ago. Periodically, we run into each other on campus, say hi, then go our merry ways. This time, however, we made it a point to have a real sit-down-and-talk-about-doing-some-good-work-together conversation. It wasn’t the work talk that inspired me, though. It was our discussion on positivity. Jeff didn’t know about the outhouse, but he fully understood why I started it once I explained it. He mentioned Flaubert who said, “The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.” In other words, you have to have the bad to have the good. Yin and yang. The beauty is in the moment you take all that’s negative around you and turn it into something positive. That’s how the outhouse happened. It’s like you’re a canoe on a river. There will be rapids, but if you try, you can steer away from the worst of them and float downstream to the calm places. Oh yes, I had a great conversation with Jeff, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. He is one awesome dude, and I am eternally grateful for his friendship.
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