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The other day I mentioned to someone that I had recently started a tradition.  The look on their face conveyed a bit of skepticism, so I felt compelled to validate my history of success as a “tradition-builder”.

Lately I have noticed a pattern. The older I get, the more I tend to say things twice. I don’t really know when it happened. I think it was a somewhat organic process, which occurred over time. Or maybe I just came to the subconscious conclusion that saying something once was inadequate. Saying things twice adds a level of emphasis that seems to put my mind at ease. I have no idea where it puts the person’s mind that has to listen to me, but that is not a mystery I plan to spend any time investigating.

I don’t know about you, but I have always found saying “I’m done” to be very liberating. As a child, being able to say “I’m done” was a big deal.  Making this announcement not only gave me a sense of accomplishment, it established my preliminary position on my current status.  I liked establishing my position early, and I typically felt strongly about it.  Often I would push back my booster seat, rip off my bib and announce “I’m done.” This announcement would be accentuated by a spastic uplift of both arms, like a calf roper at the national finals rodeo.

For some crazy reason, I recently decided to attend a few management technique conferences.  This is rare for me.  Usually my conference attendance is sporadic at best. I have found that if I spend two days listening to hyper-energetic speakers spouting off the latest management technique buzz words and sound bites, I need to allow at least 8-10 months for self-reflection so that I can quietly consider my conference takeaways at my own leisure.

I do not sleep well.  Actually, that is not entirely correct.  When I sleep, my sleeping ability ranks right up there with the average sleeper.  It’s the frequent times when the average sleeper is sleeping but I am not that my ability to sleep could be judged as inadequate.

The first time I even remember being accused of “giving up” was by my second grade Pee-Wee football coach. It was the third quarter of the Regional finals, we were down by seven and the thought occurred to me that I might be bleeding internally. I mentioned my perceived condition to Tommy Smith, who had also been sitting on the bench for the entire game, and he recommended I share my health concerns with the coaching staff.

Lately I have been thinking about how I tend to separate myself from things that make me uncomfortable by prefacing them with the word “the.” I don’t know why I do it, or when I made the decision to use this three-letter preface, but I did.

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