Category: Personal Thoughts

Easter Saturday In Edmonds

Carl Setzer

We managed to squeeze a walk in my favorite seaside town yesterday: Edmonds. Though our day was full with prep for Easter, an evening get-togethere with dear friends, and getting the weekend’s errands done as we sacrifice Sunday’s productivity for fun and family. Sure, we squeezed some productivity into the walk, stopping for a few necessities along the way.

I love walking, both as a means of exercise and as transportation. I’ll be writing more about this.

After church, playing some brass church music, I’ll be heading to Bellingham to spend time with family.

What ate you doing this Easter Sunday?

Productivity In My Home Office

Carl Setzer

Today, as my son had a medical appointment, I opted to work from home. My office is quite well set up for such. Much better than many of the other places I’ve lived.

I’m rather fond of this space. It’s MY space. Decorated to my sensibilities, and with my momentos and such.

Yet I faced disappointment.

I’m often ambitious regarding what I want to do during a day. And when I’m home, free of distraction (relatively, at least), I think I can get monumental amounts of work done. It never works out that way. Now, I often get way more done that I would’ve in my office, at least in diving into projects deeply, and reviewing certain minutia. But my task lists tend to be ridiculous, which I think is facilitated by electronic to-do tools like Todoist. All I need to do is move the stuff I didn’t get done into another day. I am trying to be more thoughtful about what I’m attempting to accomplish on a given day. Giving thought to priority, to my goals, my objectives. So much of my career has been spent chasing after whatever goals have been dropped into my lap on a given day. I have needed to spend time focusing, which, though challenging, has been really fun, too.

And, someday, I’ll get a realistic idea of what I can actually do in a day. Someday….

So, a friend of my son told me his father is dying…

Carl Setzer

One of my son’s friends hit with a curve ball earlier this week. He dropped that his dad in in the hospital dying. Pretty heavy stuff from an 8th grader. But it gets more brutal. He’s struggling with whether to go see him. You see, the father in question is the proverbial absentee parent. As the boy put it, “why should I care? He wasn’t there for me when I needed him.” Which makes sense to me, and breaks my heart. Though my father and I don’t have a perfect relationship, he’s been there when I needed him. I can’t begin to relate to this situation.

Makes me think of my relationship with my son. I’ve been very deliberate in being present. Showing up at school events, choir concerts, we do taekwondo together…I didn’t want to be like a friend of mine who, as his kids were nearing high-school graduation realized he didn’t know them. With that, years ago, when doing some Franklin-Covey exercises, one that stuck was the question “what do you want people to say about you at your funeral?” I want them to say “he was there”, and that I cared. All else is secondary.

So, the boy’s father and I have very different world-views. Or, at least, I made certain that my actions aligned with my values. Hard to really say anything about this father, since I don’t know any other details about him. But my response gives insight into me, my values and aspirations. And imperfect though my relationships are, I’m good with things, with my life, my community. I feel blessed.