Debi Simons

Remember yesterday’s post (I’m sure you do!)–“Nothing happens until something moves”?  And how I said that as soon as I was done with that post I was going to take the next step in getting my audiobook finished?  Well, I sat down with my husband to figure out how to get started on the editing-out-the-flubs process and it quickly became clear that my audio files were not usable.  There was a lot of “clipping,” which happens when the loudness levels go up into the red limit on the recorder and the top of the sound wave is “clipped” off.   This error makes for an unpleasant, harsh sound.   Also, I hadn’t really thought

Another great quotation from the funeral of Gil Johnson.  I’m sure that this is a well-known statement, but I don’t remember ever hearing it before.  So let’s unpack it, as the current jargon says, not in the scientific sense that Einstein meant but in a more practical sense:

​1.  There has to be a beginning before there can be an end.  Isn’t that, like, deep?  But it’s true.  The rockslide will never happen

I said in a post last week that I needed to actually read Victor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning instead of just mining quotation websites for nuggets.  Since we’ve started a new month my Hoopla account is back in business, so I just checked out the audio version and look forward to listening to it.  It’s only four hours and change, so not very long.  I’m doing a lot of gardening these days, and Frankl will be a good companion for me as I choose to pull those weeds.

In the meantime, here’s another nugget:

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

I mentioned in Tuesday’s post that I’d be sharing a number of thoughts garnered last week’s funeral for Gil Johnson, the father of my dear friend Nancy.  The title of this post is one of them, apparently a favorite Gil aphorism.

This is a helpful, useful statement because it’s the answer to the questions, “How did I get myself into this?” “How could this have happened to me?”  “Why me?”  So it’s a lens onto the past as you look back on the direction your life has taken.  And it’s a telescope into the future.  Where do I want to be by the end of today?  This week?  The summer?  I will end up where my decisions take me.

I attended the funeral of a dear friend’s father on Saturday.  He was a truly remarkable man, and I don’t say that lightly.  There were so many life lessons and blessings in that service that I have 2 1/2 pages of scribbled notes I plan to turn into blog posts, as the material is just too good to keep to myself.  How the family pulled this service together in the midst of their grief is a testimony to them, their unity, and their faith.  While I found myself tearing up periodically as warm memories were shared, the service as a whole was happy​.  Does that sound nonsensical? Well, stay tuned.

I wrote about Charles Duhigg’s new book back in March, saying that one of my big disappointments with it was the unfulfilled expectation that he would explain the productivity secrets of Atul Gawande, a surgeon, researcher, writer, family man . . . you name it.  The intro of Duhigg’s book is all about Gawande, and he really wants to interview the guy and find out his secrets, but he never does.  I was left with a letdown feeling at the end of the book.

Last week Jim and I watched a PBS “Frontline” episode that featured Gawande in his role as a cancer surgeon.  (I really like this program, but during concert season I’m always at rehearsal on Tuesday nights. Yes, I know I could watch the episodes online, but that never seems to happen.)  Seeing Gawande in action re-ignited my curiosity about him, and this time I decided to do a little research of my own. A 2009 article about him in Harvard Magazine unravels the mystery quite clearly; I’m very puzzled that Duhigg didn’t include this infor-