Where do I start?
The massive heart attack?
The stage three colon cancer?
The massive “downsizing” layoff.
The overnight bankruptcy of another employer?
The failure of my first company?
The breakup of my long term relationship? (oh
no, that really was a good thing)
or the now epic pandemic called Covid 19?
Covid 19 is only the latest of best/worst
things. It seems that every disaster that
has befallen me turned out to be the best
thing that could have happened to me.
No wait, I just realized it all started in
college when I lost my fingers.
Spoiler alert – I didn’t misplace them.
So here I am approaching my third year at
college and I get a classic case of College
fatigue. I think the world is calling out to
me to do some “real work” and I’m young and
stupid. So off I go to work at one of the
bigger and prestigious firms in town, Tandy
Corporation, as the assistant to the Vice
President (glorified admin). Before I know
it, I am doing all of his work and doing it
well. I am negotiating all of the leases for
all of 2000 stores nationwide on my own. I
feel all full of myself because I am doing
everything he can do and probably doing it
better than him. Of course, I am not getting
paid well for it and in no time I am fending
off his advances on top of it all. I guess I
was supposed to feel grateful to have earned
his trust and admiration. So here it comes,
my first so called disaster. I have a
spectacular double end over end flip of my
car, landing me upside down hundreds of feet
later in the front yard of a church. My one
arm wrapped around the head of my roommate to
protect her (and she was unharmed) and the
left arm apparently went through the side
window and my fingers between the road and
the roof. Needless to say there wasn’t much
they could do even though I managed to score
the top hand surgeon in the city that night.
But now I couldn’t type 80 words a minute any
more nor did I want to.
So I went back to school and continued until
I had my masters in economics, mostly paid
for by the university and with help from my
subsequent job as Director of the Muscular
Dystrophy Association which was amazing and
exciting and I learned so much. I got to
produce the Jerry Lewis Telethon in
Dallas/Ft. Worth, their second largest
market, and learned the hard way how to
produce a live TV show from start to finish.
And 26 hours is a very very long time.
The lost fingers have come in real handy at
times as a great humorous ice-breaker or
surprise prop to get a laugh during a speech.
“Let me give you three reasons to listen to
me carefully”, I say, as I raise my middle
three fingers, “Oh – I guess it’s really 2
1/2, I knew that last reason was a little
weak, but bear with me”.
BTW, in case you don’t know this, my
experience is that adults rarely notice
missing fingers but children almost always
do. They are much shorter and are usually
looking straight at your hands and they don’t
mince words. You gotta love it. So it pays to
have a couple of good stories to tell as to
how it happened. The favorite seems to be how
I used to work in a donut factory and wore
out my finger punching out the holes. Who
knew. You do need a backup in case the
parents have no sense of humor or only want
the unvarnished truth to be told to their
children in which case, I happily tell them
that this is what can happen if you don’t
wear a seatbelt. That’ll scare them straight.
.
I will elaborate on my other fortunate
disasters but I wanted to make sure you
understood why I think Covid 19 IS and WILL
BE the best thing that has ever happened to
me. It is and will continue to provide the
most amazing opportunities to grow and change
and reinvent myself. It is, naturally, up to
me to take advantage of them. To first see
them, jump in and learn new things and allow
myself to find new things that I can be
passionate about and engaged with. It
certainly is a challenge, but isn’t that what
makes life interesting?
Now, if you vicariously enjoy watching a
train wreck from afar, stay tuned for a few
more stories of my past “challenges”. And
who knows what will happen in real time….
Believe it or not, you can find humor in the
weirdest times and places.
