Tag: Life expectancy

Time as equalizer

Presidential terms last four years.  Our life expectancy, used to be much less, now stands in the mid-70’s depends on the air quality near you. It’s an allotment. Non-negotiable. Except for a few variables e.g.unique gene pool, diet, exercise, stress level and accidents.

Some people even wish they were dead.  If you drag on day in and day out pushing the shopping cart, full of  discarded possession, then heck,  yes, you should.

I don’t expect our leaders to solve every problem . They got 9/11 memorial to attend to, reelection or election speech to give, and negative ads to launch.

But then, the homeless men and the presidential candidates both have on hand only a few decades left to influence the course of history and to deflect deadly and detrimental trajectories e.g. healthier school lunches, smarter curricula, wasted talent  (where would Bill Gates be today had someone not allowed him to practice programming skills at night in a computer lab).

Time is evil.

Rich men and poor men.

Strong men and weak men.

Faithful men and flirty men.

All got only that long to live, to learn and yes, to regret.

It’s part of the package: to err is human.

Those who risked nothing, gained nothing.

Money can be borrowed (especially today, when banks are pushing for it, but not without conditions) but time cannot.

The 80/20 rule shows us there are times when we feel and actually are more productive.

Athletes know about and leverage their peak time performance.

And Moore’s Law makes planned obsolescence   a de facto (more apps with better speed of processing  keep coming down the pipe).

Just don’t wish to live on forever, as the joke goes ” a man wished he could live on forever. So God turned him into a tree”.

Plan your funeral ahead, preferably with standing room only. Work backward from there and cross out that check list, one by one (gotta see Paris for example).

You will laugh and cry, and beat yourself for not seeing the elephant in the room, or the Emperor without clothes.

It’s the spirit of the times. We have all been willfully blind when inside the bubble (Tulip? Railroad? Internet? Housing?).

The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.

Might as well. Because to him ,with hammer in hand, everything looks like nails.

When you get hammered down, don’t stay down. Gabby did not. She got back onto the platform, and not just any platform, but the DNC platform. Her time has yet to be over. So has ours. Stand up and stand your ground.

Monday-morning quarterbacking

We can’t change history, but we can sure learn from it.

Just view training film, freezeframing it, and nail down some take-aways.

What did we do wrong? why? what did we fail to do? Where?

Avoid assigning blame.

Move forward.

America is all about the future.

Sarah who?

Sandusky who?

Just do it (BTW, Nike removed JoePa’s name off list).

Brand recovery. Monday-morning quarterbacking.

Some companies insist on hiring people who have failed.

It costs them less to have workers who learned hard lessons on someone else’s watch.

Second chances.

Know what not to do, or dare not repeat the same mistake.

As human, we adapt well. Survival of the fittest.

It’s by no chance that our life expectancy has risen from 49 to mid-70. Go oatmeal go.

For Joe Paterno, it was 85. A lot of Monday mornings during his tenure.

It ended just short of a Greek tragedy.

Now we know. In hindsight. On Monday morning. We who are smart and stand on moral high ground.

Do we know what it’s like to be on that field, in those shoes, during the heat of the game?

Right there! Freeze frame it. you see? What should we have done. Best thing is not to have it happen the second time around, not in this life time.

P.S. From the President’s desk comes this announcement on Monday AM

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Announcement-from-Penn-State-College-3877559.S.135017698?view=&gid=3877559&type=member&item=135017698&trk=NUS_DISC_Q-ttle

The Elder role in Vietnamese society

I often interact with nephews, one in particular is even older than I, but all call me Uncle. To them, I belong to the previous batch. Last of the line. In the old Vietnam, once you made past 50, you are moved up to the “elder” circle (“chieu tren”) when feasting.

I had an occasion to do just so last night. I sat with much older people whose names I couldn’t recall, and whose silver hair I can hardly match. Vietnamese would commemorate their ancestors, more so than celebrate birthdays of the living. Past-oriented culture.

When Intel decided to put another of its Asia manufacturing plants, it chose the outskirt of Saigon.

In doing so, the chip manufacturer put the spin on Vietnamese time line. It will go forward from that point on. Chip set and not chess set (whose final move is to expose the King).

King, Priest, Teacher, Parent (and a host of higher-ups like Uncles). I see dead people (Sixth Sense).

Because of my “role”, I find it hard to be on the level with my nephews. We see each other, even hang out.

But we could never be friends for some reason.

There is a gap between us. It was put there by the assigned roles in Vietnamese society.

Extended families structure color coded people’s seating (just like airline class service). It would be interesting to have a software which help trace the Vietnamese family tree, so each of us can see how intricate the connection is, just as we learned how Obama was related to Palin. Hanoi was able to trace its roots to 1010, hence last week’s 1000th anniversary celebration.

People might be dead, but their city isn’t.

I see living cities. When something survives that long, in today’s modern world, it deserves a second and hard look. Let’s say this year were 1900, I would already be dead ( average life expectancy was 47.)

Call me Uncle, and see if I care. As long as I am not dead.

Love on aisle 13

Inside Wal-Mart, you can find towels, pillows and assorted bath items neatly displayed, aisle by aisle.

Almost all the essential and desirable are available in store and online, but you can not find love on aisle 13. You wish.

http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/business-news-briefs/2010/09/money_cant_buy_me_love_but_it.html

Love and happiness are quite alluding. The more one hunts for them, the further they seem to evade.

So we substitute the tangible for the intangible, towels in the tub for tales of the heart.

When asked,  nearly everyone says he/she was looking for happiness and/or love.

Most would say for sure it’s happiness (love means different  to different people) or the pursuit of it.

Yet we see evidence to the contrary i.e. hate speech, threat of Quran burning, and pastor who plays surveillance against his local strip joint patronage (who finally got enough, and gave him a dose of his own medicine). Welcome to America, land of the free. Welcome to Wal-Mart, shop more save more (not sure about the “live better” part).

Will we find love in our life time? Or its resemblance? Even a glimpse into that castle is good enough. One cannot get the right combination to crack that code i.e. when you are young, you have the energy, and time, but not money. Later, you got some money, energy, but not enough time. And at late stage of life, lots of time, little energy, and the money part is questionable (average life expectancy is now 70, and the age of Social Security entitlement extends to 67. What are you going to do in those last three years? Shop at Wal-Mart and look for romance on aisle 13 as some were purportedly doing).

Happy are those who want, for they shall inherit the Earth. Let’s hope so. Attention Wal-Mart shoppers, we have Roll Back items on aisle 13. Heart-shaped and everything. It symbolizes love, made in China. Call it “golden year specials”.  And you can scan the item yourself, wipe the cart handle yourself, etc…. Thanks for shopping. Did you find everything you need? Love and happiness?  Since you don’t seem to have found it (smaller than a lottery chance), we wish you a good day.

Even for lottery winners, studies show that they file for bankruptcy within a few years. Wealth doesn’t equate with happiness. And certainly not love, which involves another human being of free will. That will freely chooses wealth over want, liberty over loyalty, Tiffany over Target.

OK Miss Hepburn, let’s do breakfast (at Tiffany) before our daily shopping for love on aisle 13.