There are a few jobs everyone should have at some point in life.  Among other humbling lessons, they teach you important truths like the one in the title of this post. Usually these kinds of jobs are minimum-wage, entry-level training for young, energetic people who by realizing the value of starting at the bottom, will appreciate the ride to the top.  I found the reverse is also true.

By that, I mean I did it backwards.  I was neither young nor energetic and like that one long slide down the game board in Chutes and Ladders, I rolled the dice of life, lost, and though I’m was still in the game,  I was forced to start over again on the bottom rung. But at 53 and a janitor, I learned more about life from that work than in any other job before.

Contentment trumps happiness.

If for $9 an hour you’ve never willingly entered a freshly ripened restroom– so thick with stench that your eyes water– to chop up a stranger’s  giant loaf in a toilet bowl so it will finally flush, your lesson in humility may be incomplete.  If that didn’t gross you out, I have plenty more janitor stories that will.

Let’s be honest. In this world of status, a janitor hangs on the last rung.  The single, scowling, homely, isolated man who works alone late into the nights in a dingy workroom nobody dares to visit unless they are making a really scary movie.  You know all the stereotypes.  This is the guy who never made much of his life by the standards of most.   Being a janitor generally means if it stinks, smokes, leaks, drips, bursts, doesn’t work, wasn’t ordered or isn’t right, it falls into your lap and scope of responsibility regardless of your ability to find the solution.  You are the first line of defense when others excuse themselves from the task because by default, you’re the expert.

I was at a time in my life when my peers were winding down their work and earning and if not there already, planning stages for a comfortable retirement filled with travel to exotic locations, golf and grandkids, American-style.  You would have had every right to call me a liar if I didn’t admit my envy. I lived out their Facebook vacation travel panoramas and dining extravaganzas with a mix of happiness for them and their lovers and still a fair amount of regret that my life had taken a different path down the ladder.

But I can’t lie about the fact that I was yet pretty content.  My happiness had been achieved largely through having lost everything and in the process, having gained a self-respect for things I had found will matter most of all in the end.  Yes, I would have rather been pondering this truth over a steak dinner on a Greek island than with a bowl of mac n cheese on the run in a 23,000 square foot campus.  But I learned that contentment is not always the consolation prize for a happiness lost.  Contentment trumps happiness every hand because it is an intrinsic, self-reliant condition of the heart that depends on no circumstance.  It is solely dependent on character.

Everyone matters.

Respect is like humility in reverse.  When you’ve learned to be humble despite your place in life, your ability over a lifetime  to respect those in similar situations naturally increases. You know what it’s like to have been there.  It’s called empathy.

During my 9 months as a janitor, the most  meaningful moments had been at the hands of strangers.  The brief pause of a stranger who knows what it’s like to be taken for granted can move you from invisible to visible in a single stroke.  “I appreciate what you do, thank you.”

At the church where I worked, I sat down for a bagel and a cup of coffee and calculated what all went in to making the Sunday morning experience.  There is a premium effort to make a seamless hour-long event for those who come seeking something more to life. Behind the scenes, it is the culmination of hundreds of hours each week by staff and volunteers who endeavor to foresee every possible detail as if were the very last Sunday on earth in which someone might come to realize there is more to life.  All efforts are meaningful, interconnected, synchronized events oftentimes dependent upon the success of one another like the gears of a fine timepiece.  The feat is truly an incredible one but in large part, invisible to most.In this effort, there is no strata, no status, no rungs on the ladder.  The endeavor is much too important for personalities to get caught up in such posturing.  Because everyone matters.

I learned that the people who have set their sights on things much bigger than themselves and issues of profound importance, like ants in an anthill, the effort eradicates class lines. Respect, empathy and valuation of the person–not position–prevails.

A job well done is its own reward.

My parents taught me well.  I learned to work at a $5/hour job as if it was a $50/hour job and that someday it would be and my efforts would be rewarded, if not only by my own conscience. Paychecks are necessary, but conscience is vital. And doing a job well isn’t entirely a money thing.

I recall a study in which employees of several different companies were surveyed and asked to make a choice between a)receiving a small raise and b)receiving a genuine compliment from the boss on a piece of work they did.  The result was surprisingly and overwhelmingly for the latter. Conscience-driven people create meaning in even the lowest of positions and in doing so, elevate that job to a place of importance for themselves and those around them it might not have earned otherwise.  Pride in performance is a currency which eventually cashes a bigger paycheck if you are thankful just to be working.

Bloom where you’re planted for now.

Apart from things like knowing the staff’s snack habits through the emptying of their office trashes, their pooping schedules and various hygienes, as a general rule, being a janitor was not so bad. It’s a physical job with lots of dirt, sweat and germs you can wash off with a hot shower or a licking frenzy from your best friend when you come home through the door after a long day.

Some say I’ve had a tough life. But a tough life is being a child sold as a sex slave to support a parent’s drug habit. A tough life is in a plentiful world, foraging for food, water and a place to lay your head. My own mistakes brought me to the place I was at the bottom rung with a master’s degree at 53 years old where the shit that rolls downhill literally fell into my lap and I still smiled and said thank you. Because as a janitor, I learned work isn’t just  a job, a paycheck or a position. Sometimes it’s about accepting the roll of the dice and staying in the game.

So, I’m down in California with both my older sister and younger brother.  We’re visiting my mom and dad at their new home.  Dad, recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, is overheard on the back patio reflecting on his life achievements to my brother’s wife.  As he notices me walking out onto the patio to join them, he says “…and I had two really great kids!”

Funny guy.

‘Ats my dad.  Even in the midst of facing his life threatening illness, he can pull out one liners like a Rodney Dangerfield stand up routine.

Rodney, in fact, has been one of my dad’s idols and was a friend of his before his passing in 2004.  And much like Rodney, you always know where you stand with Mike Miller.

In an earlier reflective time of my life, I used to complain that my dad had a strange way of communicating that he loved someone.  If you’ve been a family friend, neighbor, a high-school friend of mine or have had any other association with Mike Miller in your life, you have undoubtedly been the butt of some joke or pun presented with pin-point accuracy to get the greatest possible roar from the present audience.  He’s turned more faces red with embarrassment than Don Rickles and for one simple reason: he loves you.

About 25 years ago when I was getting my graduate degree in psychotherapy, I took my dad hostage for 77 miles on a road trip to a business meeting.  We had an ad agency together at the time and we were enroute to pitch a new client.  On my high horse and in the middle of a family therapy course I’d been taking, I captured my dad’s undivided attention on a divided road north to Mesquite, Nevada.  I had planned this.  I was going to use the time to ask him all the questions about his life history that had been unanswered or avoided for my entire life.  Enlightened (or so I thought at the time) by my studies and emboldened by the inescapable environment of a late model Cadillac, I pursued him.

During that long hour or so drive, my questions were answered.  While I won’t spill the contents of what went on in the car that morning, the stories of his childhood and parents, the tragedy of his own father’s death and the struggles of a young man trying to fill the role of an absent father at age 13, suffice to say, I understood.

People say “I love you” in many languages our unenlightened minds don’t always understand.  Sometimes it’s like talking in code.  But with Mike Miller,  embedded in every witty quip or punchline he throws at you, deciphering minds will always hear the three words that matter most of all.

LMSM,

Don

tick I have somehow misplaced the moment

tick when the minute hand was touched by God

tick and my clock became a countdown.

tick Clearly, I wasn’t prepared

tick for my perspective on life

tick to be more reverse

tick than forward.

tick And now desperately I fear

tick not the coming end,

tick but the time when

tick there is no more time

tick yet so much of life left to live.

 ti

I had suggested to a friend at work that in order to get such a dedicated man like Chuck Hiatt to finally leave on his well-earned sabbatical, we should put a piece of paneling over his office door with a plant in front of it and a sign that said “GO HOME!”

Before he departed on the well-deserved vacation of a lifetime to Israel, I had the pleasure of sparring with Chuck.  He was my boss and what we learned about each other over those five months assured me that trustworthy men…though now  in lesser numbers.. do, indeed, still exist.

Sparring is hard work.  Good men test each other’s mettle.   I have no regrets about having done so with Chuck. For the work to know the heart, mind and soul of someone I could count as trustworthy and about whom I was excited at the prospect of adding to my short list of  friends was well worth the effort.  Though now, with his sudden passing, I will never know him better, I believe I got the best of him within a very  short time.

Without a doubt, there are countless others who are much more experienced with Chuck, have known him longer and been through more with him than I ever have had or will ever have the pleasure.  But albeit short, my experience with him was very rich.  You never truly know someone until you watch how they manage a crisis.  The order of weapons before them presents a choice that tells you what drives them.

Each encounter, Chuck picked the beating heart first, the informed mind second and held the wisdom of God in the other hand each time.  Such a rare find for a man who had so many other implements at his disposal that he consistently and categorically rendered as lesser choices.

That, my friends, is what makes a man great.

Go home, Chuck.

You’ve worked all your life for this.

LMSM,

Don

When my kids were much younger, there were times when we were apart.  They were at camp, I was away on business or some other reason placed us in different locations on this big planet.

When you love someone, that nagging sensation of wanting to be with them when apart is a hard one to bridge.  A phone call, an email or a text message is good but I think the most meaningful bridge we used was the moon.

“At 900pm, straight up, before we go to bed, go outside and look up at the moon.  I’ll do the same. Think of me and I’ll think of you. Talk to me and I’ll talk to you.  We’ll let the moonbeams be our silent special messenger to each other.”

Its 3am and I’m thinking of someone right now as I stare up into the sky.  I can’t be there with you though I long to be.  I can only imagine and hope that maybe…just maybe, you might be awake, step outside, look up  and hear me say I love you.

LMSM,

Don

I just returned from the store to pick up a few things for my best friend, sick with a cold. He’ll get better soon. My sense of time, however, has been noticeably slowed, altered inward. My pace was slow, my walk back in the house to put away the few things and serve up an Alka-Seltzer was surreal almost.  The sky, like my mind,  is overcast and can’t seem to make up its mind what it wants to do, but I sense a storm is coming and perhaps is already here.

I’d received the phone call not a half hour ago. Now home, it’s quiet and my best friend at times like these is not the headcold in the other room, but my keyboard.  It summons me to write that which I cannot yet feel.  It’s too early to cry and too late to do all the things I suddenly feel the urge to do as I anticipate the worst and know that time is suddenly and irreversibly at a premium.

He was just in town last week for a few days with mom.  We had breakfast and chatted about their move back to Vegas next month.  The packing, the sale and purchase of their homes, their aging bones and efforts now in their 70s, but until now, I have considered my dad to be immortal.

I fear the doctor will advise me different in the morning.  However, I can’t wait for the second phone call to begin to tell the story of Mike Miller…

It’s quite possible that the morning’s news will abruptly render the start to this story null and void, relegated to a new lead some time in the future. My prayers hope this.  But for many months now, I’ve begun this story over and over in my mind.  I have never been sure how it would begin and rather than waiting for the event to begin it when my mind will surely be clouded and my heart deeply saddened, now is the time.

Not knowing at this point is worse than knowing, I think.  I wish I could divine the thoughts and words of the internist who will meet with dad in a peculiarly urgent morning meeting so I could know.  Why? I don’t know. Nothing would be different. Things wouldn’t change.

I think everyone deserves a living eulogy.  I wrote my own months ago and sealed it for reading when the day comes.  I’d rather write about my dad when my mind does not know anything more than it does at this moment.  Sadness necessarily  dims the color of emotion when I write.  And there are way too many very wonderful thoughts running through my mind to wash out with bad news.

Life means so much.

I often credit the lyricist/musician, Chris Rice, with the inspiration for my website of the same name.  I come dangerously close to idolizing him.  But in the most lucid thought I can muster at the moment, I can reveal that it was and always has been my father.  Nobody knows this until now.

After my years of addiction, the first year I emerged clean was in the fall of 2011, about two months before my father’s 72nd birthday.  I wrote a story on my website about that day and how I was moved about stories where fathers had been true heroes for their children when I had not.

I never told the story of my own hero until now.

His name is Dennis.  Few know this.  Born Dennis Michael Miller, he’s been known only as Mike for his entire life.  I have often wondered why but never bothered to ask.  I wrote it off to the Henry/Hank thing.

I took a break there for awhile.  The task or honor of recalling my dad as a hero and an inspiration in my life was too overwhelming. In fact, I feel rather selfish here at my computer pounding out words to try to express my feelings while I know at this very moment, 300 miles away from me in a place he calls home, his own mind and heart have to be miserable.  I would be in a car or on a bus at this moment if I was able but because of my own mistakes, I can’t travel.

I need to stop here a moment and recapture my senses and call upon some hope that I won’t be losing my dad anytime soon.  It’s not even bedtime and I can feel the insomnia of thought anticipating what the call in the morning might bring.

I’m gonna call it a night at least for the moment and try to go to sleep, yet I know my mind well and it won’t let me rest easy.  Dad, if you could hear me, I would give anything to be by your side tonite and tomorrow morning.

It’s now tomorrow morning. Up at 237am, customary for me, but I’ve been up writing a eulogy in my dreams all night.

I remember my dad, years ago, in his morbid sense of humor for which he is widely known, saying “If I ever get news that I’m gonna die of cancer, I’m gonna buy a pack of Lucky Strikes and a beer and start having fun again.”  He quit smoking many years ago.

Sitting here at 3am with my coffee, very selfishly, I ask myself what I might regret when my dad is gone.  Because of the time in my life at present, the first that comes to mind are the many years during which I voluntarily lost contact with my parents due to my addictive lifestyle.  Many important things happened with and for them during those years, of which I was not a part or not included.  I’ve worked hard to rebuild with him.

The news came to me while at work this morning around 10am. It was my dad’s call to me and in no uncertain terms and without much humor, he told me he was going to die. Inoperable metastatic cancer.  My first morbid thought back was to buy him a pack of Lucky Strikes.

Over the next weeks and months, the hero I call Dad will be on my mind and in my words in the early morning hours when I sit here and write in silence.  Day 1 is coming to a close and the ball is rolling to plan for his life until and his memory after.

His life would make an incredible book.

I just hope for a few more chapters.

To my best friend,

Thanks, but despite what’s always been the plan,

if I get hit by a bus or something,

call the ambulance FIRST now.

No need to erase my browser history,

delete my texts or scour my place for anything

which might embarrass me or my family anymore.

I’ve changed my ways.

And if they arrive too late,

be sure to give my kids the letters I wrote them

and tell them I’ll see them again someday.

Oh, and please hug them really tight

and tell them it is from me, k?

You’ve always been there for me, thanks.

And by the way, you can have my phone and computer.

I know where I’m going

and the book never mentioned wi-fi.

Bye, for now.

I have come to realize there are times when there are no answers.

The whys are meaningless, the hows are useless, and the painful outcomes

are without explanation.

Moments like these fight against my conscience. The wrongs are never righted

the losses never reinstated, and the hurts never healed.

Yet within that same epiphany when God is still God, and my  virtues no longer depend on the valuation of others, I can kneel in the tattered fabric of that integrity and know that it, alone, is still enough, because it was still all that ever really mattered anyway.

I’m not exactly sure how to put this.

You’d think the flow of articulate thought would easily flow to articulate word, but it’s a bit frustrating when you’re writing from a pet peeve to an audience that probably isn’t the target for your message. Those who most need to hear this aren’t likely to be active readers of inspirational or provocative thought. So caveat stated, here’s the story. Share it with those you think need to hear it most and blame me with the hashtag.

I read a lot. Novels. Blogs. News. Weird stuff. Online and off.

If you’ve read any of my stories here, you’ll notice I’m big on the theme of inspiring people to read, think and feel things they might not otherwise. I prize original thought and humor. Out of the box kinda stuff. Things with neat, novel twists. Stories and topics that capture concepts to which most only give passing glances, often missing something embedded within that is much richer, deeper, and more profound than the story itself. But hey, we’re busy, the regret of the moment goes undetected and we miss the speed bump that should have got our attention.

I am especially fond of humble, first person stories of achievement, adventure and selflessness. Strange, but they totally turn me on.

And then there are times they go too far and the bragging and boasting start wearing humility as disguise. That’s when I get sick.

Like, barfy sick.

As humans, I believe it’s our duty to be our brothers’ keepers. Certain subcultures make a religion out of it. Some individuals make it a way of life. You don’t read much about these people and rarely hear their stories. Most are stumbled upon serendipitously, remarkably and beautifully, as it should be.

For me, that’s the inspirational difference.

I’m talking about “humblebragging” here. I first heard the word from my pastor’s Sunday pulpit. Celebrities and grossly insecure wanna-be’s of this world are often among the most notorious offenders. Wikipedia describes the phenomenon as “subtly letting others know about how fantastic your life is while undercutting it with a bit of self-effacing humor.” An example from Twitter:

garypayton_20 About to hang my “Hall of Fame” jersey in the bowling alley at my house. #ProudMoment

Gary, congrats on making the Hall of Fame and proudly but accidentally declaring how rich you are at the same time.

That particular Sunday, my pastor used the term as a teaching tool warning against false humility, pharisaical self-publicists and self-aggrandizing narcissists. In turn, he encouraged adopting a “pay-it-forward” mentality, and then completely shutting up about the blessing on your life.

Bottom line: Truly humble and selfless people tend to keep it to themselves.

You’ve seen it before. The offenders aren’t all celebrities. Well, perhaps in their own minds, but not in mine.

The most clever offenders are those who say or post some vaguely veiled comment about their situation in such a way that begs the question. Skillfully stated, they can then so very humbly respond with more information to answer an unposed question, the private motive of which is to evoke unsolicited applause for what should more aptly be branded narcissism. Their reward: an inflated self-image of heroism, contrition, or mercy for the moment. Essentially, it sounds a little like this:

I just did something very selfless, but most importantly, it was genuine and meant a lot to the other person, but far be it from me to toot my own horn, though by telling you, I just did.

As a therapist, I was trained to look for pathological traits like this in patients. For most of us however, we detect it in others with the same feeling we get when we encounter a passive-aggressive person who makes a point of putting someone down without actually making that point. Passive-aggression is artful at the very least. We walk away from the transaction with a set of mixed emotions wondering if we were either just duly commended or horribly scolded.

Corporate and personal publicists create events for their clients for the sole opportunity to brag and boast about them. It’s commonplace often not for the sake of encouraging others toward givings and kindnesses but to create sales, profits and a desirable consumer image. We’re used to it. And while we often see through the gimmick, we still provide the expensive applause by buying the product or the lie when we know damn well they’re not the angels the publicist projects.

Of course, there are always acceptable exceptions. If you are bragging, admit it up front. If you are truly seeking others to find personal satisfaction in a charitable or philanthropic endeavor dear to your heart and want to narrate your experience in the effort, go ahead. Take the pulpit! There’s an acceptable place for these and for people who are genuinely up front about their purposes.

But in my mind, there are few more pitiful than those who boast of their selfless acts of kindness or achievement and try to make you believe they’re not.

Conversely, few things are more elegant and magnetic than the serendipitous discovery of someone’s true character from an unpublicized act.

So apart from this whole issue being a pet peeve for me, why should it be important for you?

If you’ve read this far, we can make a fair assumption you’re not one of them.

Maybe you’ve been excessive on the selfies from time to time. Perhaps you’ve shared a circumstance where you lended a hand to someone in need and the underlying motive, if you’re honest, was for likes and applause. I suppose motive is what it all boils down to.

Self promotion. Publicity. Insecurity even. Go ahead and say or do what you like. I’d much rather hear an overt, direct plea for my goodwill, flattering comment or social support than to see the same request couched in ego-masturbating words of false humility. This latter condition shows a much greater pathology–a premeditation and coercion of purpose revealing the sick, deceptive, narcissistic character who wouldn’t truly know a selfless act if it came up and bit him. Even then, he’d speak of his band aids and laud himself as a victorious survivor.

If you’re gonna feed the hungry, just do it.

If you’re gonna fast for your faith, just do it.

If you’re gonna pay someone’s power bill, just do it.

If you’re gonna give $100,000 to your favorite charity, just do it.

And shut up.

When you’re inclined to bless someone, tell no one. The feeling of keeping that secret to yourself is immensely more potent to the life of your soul than any momentary revelation to others could ever provide.

And while it’s no big thing, let me humbly state, I wrote this entire story without using spell-check.

If you’re a meth addict, you’re probably thinking: SQUIRREL!  It’s time to find a cheaper drug dealer.

If you’re a former patient of mine, it means something entirely different.

But a title like that is very accurate to the content of this story.

Read on.

During my days as a practicing psychotherapist, I was very good.  I was the king of creative clinical interventions.  When traditional methods couldn’t effect the change I wanted for my patients, I made  up my own.  I was like the McGyver of the counseling world.

More often than not, dealing with people who are addictive, compulsive and stuck in ruts of undesirable behavior patterns was not all that difficult.  Solutions were relatively simple.  It was the remembering of those solutions and the keeping of the good intentions between sessions that was the problem.  We all know what we should do but the problem is worse when there’s nobody else around except us. No accountability. No reassuring voice. Nobody to help you say no, except a rock.

Actually, it was a very small pebble. And people would pay me a fee of $125 for it.

Addict or not, we all have goals.  To start something. To stop something.  To remember our goal and keep it when our bad self would rather opt for immediate gratification only to regret it the moment after.

Enter the pebble.

Muhammad Ali once said “It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out, it’s the pebble in your shoe.”  With all due respect, I must disagree.

We all know the small but nagging discomfort of that teeny, tiny something that somehow gets lodged in a shoe we’re wearing and despite the shaking and shuffling it is that ever present something bordering on nuisance but not quite enough to warrant a momentary sit down for removal.

Pain is an excellent reminder.

Funny how the presence of just a tiny little pain all day long can help us keep our commitments.  It reminds us of our goal.  It is that inimitable little conscience that tells us the true meaning of sobriety at the times we’d rather not remember.

Funny how good it feels to remember the high you get knowing the difference between where you are now and where you once were and to let that tempting moment pass, bringing you just a little bit closer to being the kind of person we truly yearn to be.

It’s a small price.  A little nuisance really.

If you want to keep your promise to yourself,

a little pebble can really rock your world.

And this session is on me.

LMSM,

Don