Cheers!

So I guess we all find ourselves on the eve of yet another new year, this one with the added collective apprehension over whether or not things can actually get worse. That will likely be the story of 2008, the year that the world’s economy shut down making most of us feel a bit nervous and re-consider (likely temporary for most) many of our life choices. Looking back on even the greatest years often fosters melancholy feelings so I imagine that there are a number of people who are welcoming the opportunity to usher in a new year. While it is human nature to move on I think it is additionally important to look back and learn from the year’s events. I wont bore anyone with what I think the year’s lesson has been, but I will suggest that a balance between looking forward and looking back is probably in order.

Most of the people in my life have been touched in some way or the other and unfortunately many more will continue to feel its effects. I hope that all of us have learned that no economic slump can take away our most valued possessions; our family, friends, health, and mind. Nothing in this world is permanent or automatically bestowed and we all must learn to appreciate those things that are worth fighting for – and those are certainly not material goods. Money is a strange thing and with exceptions our individual need for it seems to me to be largely variable. This is to say that in my limited years I have found that my need seems to ultimately match up with my supply. Priorities shift, lessons are learned, and money is managed. It may not be the easiest transition to go from more to less but we all get there and when we do we find that laughter still comes, the sky is still blue, and our family still nourishes us. 

On a personal note (since that is what blogs are for) I would be also remiss to ignore the wonderful parts of 2008. I was fortunate enough to marry the most beautiful and wonderful person I have ever known in front of our loving and supportive families. Since we found one another, my life has grown richer every day and I am continually amazed by the limitless bounds of our happiness together. 

In addition to my beautiful bride, I have been blessed with a wonderful set of new parents who I look forward to years and years of memories with. They are beautiful people and I could not ask for a more supportive and welcoming family to become a part of. Plus they come with a beast named Phoenix, only adding to the total package. 

My 2008 brought a number of memories with my wonderful family as well, starting with Thailand and Japan and ending with a unique and memorable Christmas in SF. They continue to be the foundation of all my success and I love them all dearly. We bade adieu to Emily as she found her place in a bigger city, but she remains in our hearts and certainly in our call logs.

I have continued to fall in love with my new city of Encinitas and have taken advantage of the lovely outdoors it offers. I surfed nearly every day this year and hope that the coming year is no different. 

Work was challenging and carried with it ups and downs. I enjoyed a year of excellent companionship from my office mates Sladed, Alison, and the Dad. Alison has been so wonderful to my family and I shudder to think where we would be in San Diego without her. It has been a pleasure to share such tight confines with Sladed and have enjoyed his wry and intelligent sense of humor and his voice of reason in an otherwise unreasonable place. Furthermore, his dedication to fitness and diet is more of an inspiration than he knows; he is what Amber and I think about when pushing ourselves to finish a workout.

I look forward to the coming year and I hope to bring a positive attitude and perspective; I think that can make all the difference in the world. I have faith that good things are coming around the corner and that above all I will continue to enjoy life and the wonderful things brought to me. Thank you to all my family, friends, random readers who are likely not there, and of course to my lovely wife – I look forward to another year of shared times.

On Perspective

Last night on his blog, my Dad articulated his frustrations at the current state of the world and the impact it has had upon not just his life but the lives of people he cares about. It is true that my family, like many families throughout our nation and the world, is struggling right now. My hope is that our situation is temporary and that through hard work and optimism our ship will be righted and we will once again feel comfortable and secure. 

As scary of a time as this may be for so many, I do hope that like so often in life, lessons can be learned through tribulation. It has been said that the positive outcome of record high gas prices would be a reactionary effort to identify and pursue alternative methods of energy. The underlying principle here is that progress and growth are often born out of hardship and that the genius of the human spirit is that in its’ splendor it always finds a way. In my optimistic moments I do dream that this very same principle can and will be applied to the very real and difficult times we all face now.

As my father touched on, our current economic state is largely the result of a culture run amok on excess and greed. Once upon a time in this country, the youth sat in their cap and gown, perched on the verge of social and cultural leadership, and were implored by their elders to be great. Somewhere along the line these words were manipulated and instead of pleads for greatness came the declaration to “be successful”. There is a qualitative difference here and unfortunately this nuance has been lost by the current generation.

To be clear, greatness breeds values, strong family relationships, compassion, innovation, creativity, love, leadership, ethics, and in some cases wealth. In our modern and narrow definition, success breeds wealth and all too often through any means necessary.

This is not to say that success represents an antonym to greatness. Greatness often can lead to success but the key difference is that success is not the goal but the result of greatness and here in lies its’ power to morally guide a culture. “Success” alone does not represent greatness and unfortunately can all too often be attained in the absence of it, as has been the case these past few years.

There has been such a fixation these past few years on the holy grail of success that I think the undiscussed story of this crisis is the lack of true innovation and creativity needed to drive us out. Hidden in the fear of not finding the success and security that was so demanded was a line of thinking that if I do things the same as everyone else then all will be ok. This convinced people with little understanding of their actions to jump into investments that they did not understand, take a job that they were not suited for, and quiet the nagging suspicions and instincts that told them their choices were uninformed. What has resulted is a culture of robots all waiting for someone to tell them what to do. 

My opinion (as if it carries any weight) is that in the context of what has caused this problem there is little that can be done or will be done to get us out of this crisis. Our salvation lies not in approaching our world with the same outlook and plans and blindly hoping for change, but through enacting change ourselves and altering the paradigm of our collective view of the world and our place in it. We need to rid ourselves of our religion of success and security and recognize and understand its’ stifling nature. A shift is needed a the most basic level and we need to realign our priorities, redefine our idea of “success” and greatness. 

The last two days have been difficult for my wife and I personally as we have finally been bestowed the honor (?) of looking this financial crisis directly in the eye. Am I worried? Sure, especially because I am old enough to understand the severity of our current predicament and the potential for a chain reaction of problems to follow. But truthfully I have already learned more in two days than I have in some time as I have been pushed into seeing the correct perspective. I have a wonderful wife who loves me more than I deserve and who I look forward to spending my life with – even if that life is spent in a tin shack deep in the San Bernardino canyons. I have a supportive and lovely family that will always be there for me. I have a mind that works and an education that cannot be stripped away. I have my health. I have my own free will and the ability to find enjoyment in the face of distress. In short I have more things to put a smile on my face than I need and I can choose to let those beat out the few things that are there that push my smile the other direction. 

I refuse to find my happiness in the form of a monthly paycheck, the square footage of my home, or by the car I drive. Too many of us look to these things and others and that way of thinking has pushed us into attaining this form of happiness at too high of a cost. We need to learn to be grateful for family, health, education, humor, and our natural surroundings. I am not naive enough to think that money and resources can be ignored. The need for money and security will always be there but what can be changed is the relationship between those two; more specifically the aggregate formula that defines how much money is needed for security.

The unchecked greed of many has now leaked into the lives of all and as a young citizen of the world I can only hope that lessons will be learned and progress will be made. That old joke exists about the man stranded on his rooftop during a flood who declares that he does not need a boat or helicopter to find safety, that his God will save him. He of course dies and when he finally asks his God about why he was not saved, he is asked what he thought the boat and helicopter that were sent to him were. Maybe this crisis is our boat or our helicopter. Maybe we need this wake-up to realize that we have to change our ways if we ever expect our lives to improve. The spotlight is not on Government or the business community. The spotlight is on each of us, to acknowledge what is truly important in life and to be thankful that we still have it. The spotlight is on us to “be great” once again and to break free of the mold that has been created these past few years that has so clearly led us astray. Unfortunately, I am not sure we have any other options….

William Arno

“Empty-handed I entered the world/Barefoot I leave it/My coming, my going/ Two simple happenings/That got entangled.” – Kozan Ichikyo

Three years ago today our family lost a beloved husband, father, brother, and uncle to an anyuerysm while he was vacationing in Japan. It is a tragedy that I don’t find myself talking about that much, which is odd considering a day has not gone by where I have not thought about him and the sudden circumstances of his passing. In truth, at the time of his death I was not real close with my Uncle Bill, mainly because I was really just reaching an age where I could create meaningful and adult relationships with those around me but also think I was beginning to slowly transition my relationship with him from that of a uncle/nephew to one built on friendship. In the three years that have passed I feel as if I have learned a good deal about him, things that I would like to think I would have been able to gather on my own had life permitted me to do so.

The one thing I had always known about my Uncle Bill was that above anything else he was a family man. My knowledge of this was based on hearing the pride with which he spoke of his two children and the closeness that his family always seemed to have. The four of them always seemed to be like a group of wonderful friends, a group who had chosen to be together, unlike so many families where choice is clearly not a factor in their togetherness. But in his passing I continued to learn more and more about this aspect of his life through stories, reflection, and by witnessing the strength in the family he created and led. I would like to think that he is watching down upon everyone and is able to see that his family has continued to prosper and grow and that much of this is surely rooted in the lessons he provided them in their years together. I would suspect he is also marveling at his wife, whom continues to amaze me with her strength and optimism.

As a young child I remember thinking of my Uncle Bill as a larger than life figure, something his stature and voice helped reinforce. It has been interesting to learn these past years that despite my diminished maturity at the time, even as a 7 year old I was able to pick up on one of the deeper aspects of his personality. Probably the lasting lesson I have learned from him these past three years is to approach life with passion and make sure you get what you would like out of it. Few people live their lives fuller than my uncle did and I think that although he was young when he left this earth he accomplished more than most do in 80 years. He attacked hobbies and interests with an energy and enthusiasm usually reserved for paying jobs. He maintained a healthy curiosity of life and consistently tried new and intriguing things. He was not a materialistic man by any stretch of the imagination, but if he saw something he wanted than he made it happen. He also seemed to let things go easily, to never hang on to negativity. I have heard many a story from some of the people in our business that include Bill yelling at them over a problem and quickly moving on by asking them how they were doing.

As I mentioned earlier I did not have the opportunity to get to know him as I would have liked. But shortly before his death I was able to spend some good time with him while working down in Orange County, minutes from his home. We joked together, shared a beer, and he teased me about being a “weird little kid” when I was younger, certainly something I was guilty of. What I took away from that brief time we shared was that he was a man who was comfortable in his own shoes; who was living the exact type of life he wanted to. I remember saying at the time that it felt as if there was something in the air, that maybe in a weird cosmic way he knew something was to happen to him. Now I don’t think so. I think this was just a transitional time in my life where I was growing up and for the first time seeing the adults in my life (my parents, aunts, uncles etc) for who they were. This was just who my Uncle was – a great guy to be around.

I know that my father has struggled a good deal with this loss more than he has let on and I can certainly understand how difficult it would be to not question why the world works in certain ways. In a few short hours he lost a brother, best friend, business partner, and confidant, a devastating blow that he is likely to never fully recover from. While I know my dad continues to be amazed by the many ways he had grown to count on Bill in his life, I have also noticed a number of lessons that my father seems to have learned. He is chasing after his dreams and putting a higher priority in making the exact life he dreams of. He is making a wonderful effort in improving his health, working impressively hard and achieving astounding results. I know like all of us he is cherishing relationships more and treating each interaction with the understanding that there are no guarantees of future ones.

I have learned that the world is not fair and that often people who are needed the most seem to leave the earliest. But I believe my Uncle Bill was the rare type of person whose personality was magnanimous enough to truly live on. I feel his presence today and continue to learn lessons that shape how I choose to live my life. I know that today is a sad day, a cause to mourn and to remember, but I hope that all of us can also remember to celebrate. I hope all of us can continue to learn from him and to try to do one thing that makes US happy, because I cannot think of a better way to celebrate who he was and why he was so special. So rest in peace Uncle Bill and know that we think of you daily and continue to grow from the lessons you continue to teach.