One night when my son, Alex (who’s leaving tomorrow for a job in NYC) was five years old, we watched the movie E.T. together at home. When E.T. left Elliot to return to his home planet, Alex cried. He was still sad when I tucked him into bed a little later. “Why did E.T. leave?” he asked.
“E.T. had to go home,” I said. “To his family, on the planet where he lives.”
“I didn’t want him to go. I wanted him to stay with Elliot.”
“E.T. and Eliot were sad about it, too. But they love each other. And as long as they love each other, they’ll never really be apart. In their hearts, they’ll always be together.”
A pause, as Alex ponders.
“So you and I will always be together?”
“Yes, Son, you and I will always be together.”
Of all the motivational sayings used in business my least favorites express the idea that ‘Life is Short.’
Because you see, Life is not short. Life is long. Our own lives are short, for sure. Birth, fornication and death—as the poet Ogden Nash so succinctly put it—are the facts when you get down to brass tacks. A human being’s life—or a whale’s or a bacterium’s—is a tiny spark in the night of eternity. But to say or act as if life itself is short generates the kinds of hurrying and worrying that can cause us to miss much of what life actually is, or can be.
Life is long like the love a parent has for a child. There is nothing short about that. Nothing hurried. Time ceases to matter when we are proving our love.
Life is long like the warmth of a fire on a cold night. We are warmed as much by an experience as old as humankind as by the fire itself.
No matter what mountain we have chosen to climb, or what sudden twist of fate confronts us, when we behave as if life is short, we begin to hurry, and that’s when mistakes happen. As the basketball coach John Wooden said, “Be quick, but don’t hurry.”
My wish for 2012 is that we all find ways to appreciate the idea that life is long…
That the reason we make footprints on the planet is to mark a path for who comes after, and that it’s not the size of the footprint that matters, but the direction of the path.
That we are patient with one another, and not short, abrupt, rude, inconsiderate, unkind—all the stuff we do intentionally or not, when we get impatient, when we are driven by the ticking of an internal clock that no one else can hear.
That we embrace the notion that our Success is inevitable, and so is our Failure.
That the Birth-Fornication-Death thing is fleeting, but poetry endures.
That we remember that nothing of value was ever harmed by the taking of time. (I thought Abraham Lincoln said it, but can’t find the citation. What’s likely is that even if Abe Lincoln did say it, someone said it before Abe. Because life is long.)
That we see growth not as something that takes time, but as something that transcends time, because growth is happening now and always has been. What can take time is our own ability to see and make sense of it. The Disney animator Ken Anderson once pointed out to me, about the great old California Oak trees in Descanso Gardens near his home in Flintridge, CA, “The trees are dancing. If you could look at them over a long, long time you would see them dancing.” Life-is-short sees a tree. Life-is-long sees a dance.
That while our time here is limited, our ability to love one another is not. And that as long as we act out of love, our footprints will mark a path worth following.
Have a lively 2012! Don’t be the Tree, be the Dance!
A few years ago, I was asked by a network executive to videotape interviews with the alumnae of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, including Betty White. The show had been off the air for many years but Mary clearly maintained her star status, and the rest of the cast deferred to her as such. I, however, only had eyes for Betty. Then, as now, she lit up the room with those smiling, sparkling eyes, and the sincere attention she gave to those around her. Listening, I am more convinced all the time, is the secret to relating to the world, and Betty listens with the best. Her ego does not get in the way of her reception, and as a result, her picture is always crystal clear. What you experience is not the illusion of a human being, it is human. It is not a portrayal, not a role. It is true character.
