I turn 67 on Saturday, August 2. What a long, strange trip it’s been.
In my dreams, maybe my children will look up my birthday columns on newspapers.com and read the column written in the same year they just turned.
Some notable events that happened the day I was born:
— The USS Nautilus, the world's first operational nuclear-powered submarine, became the first vessel to reach the geographic North Pole underwater. It passed beneath the Arctic ice cap, a major symbolic and strategic achievement for the United States during the Cold War.
— Jordan and Iraq formally dissolved their short‑lived Arab Federation, which had been established just three months earlier. Its end significantly reshaped the regional political landscape and highlighted rising instability in post-colonial Arab politics.
— A Nippon Airways Douglas DC‑3 aircraft crashed into the sea near the Izu Islands, killing all 33 people aboard. It stood as one of the deadliest aviation accidents in Japan that year
— NASA was created just days earlier on July 29, 1958, highlighting the race to space.
— U.S. Marines were deployed to Lebanon in July 1958 amid Middle East tensions — operations were still active on August 2.
— In the U.S., the #1 song around this date was Elvis Presley’s “Don’t Ask Me Why.” In the UK, The Everly Brothers topped the charts with “All I Have to Do Is Dream / Claudette.”
Recently, I Googled “best longevity app.” The app asked many dozens of questions, a lot had to do with my friends, social interactions and attitude. After I was done, I hit the button and let out a scream, “Oh no!”
My wife, alarmed, yelled from the other room “what is it?” I moaned, “This app says I’m going to live to be 105!” If I drink less wine, I’ll make it to 107. I don’t think that’s a good trade off.
The older I get, the more I am aware of the long arduous process of sanctification: Getting a bit better every day through the Holy Spirit. This takes constant prayer asking for faith. One of my go-to prayers: “Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with your Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is like blood. Without it, I would simply crumple and die.
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about 2 Peter 1-13: "For this reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self control, self control with steadfastness, steadfastness with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, brotherly affection with love."
Share your faith with your friends and family all the time. Don’t keep it secret and personal. Make it open and exuberant..
The older I get, the more I realize the importance of counting our blessings. Having AC during the Mississippi summertime is one of those blessings.
Our blessings abound: housing, clean water, abundant food, health care, access to all the world’s information in the palm of our hands, transportation, law and order, a stable political system, clean air, individual liberty, political freedom. The list goes on and on.
When you get down or overwhelmed, the best technique is to count your blessings.
I am blessed with so many wonderful friends, a strong marriage and loving family. Being able to write this column and report on local news has been a blessing.
For me, managing expectations has a lot to do with being content. This can be a problem since setting high expectations is what gets me motivated and energized. I love to work intensely to achieve a goal. But when my hard work falls flat, it’s tough to readjust my expectations.
There’s an irony here. High goals come with a downside when you fail. So should you lower your goals and expectations?
I would argue not. I would argue that instead of abandoning high expectations, you should learn to manage the downside of failure. This is where counting your blessings comes in. It is a process of recalibrating your expectations to reality and in the process becoming cognitively aware of how blessed you are right now and here.
Time heals all wounds. Hang in there. Put one foot in front of the other. Keep going. Don’t succumb to depression. Over time, your expectations will recalibrate and you will find peace and joy again.
One of my favorite poems is “If” written by Rudyard Kipling, one of the most famous writers between 1890 and 1920.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
