I have seven projects that I spend my time on. I found myself feeling randomized, since I didn’t the structure I was looking for.

What should I work on Saturdays and Sundays? What’s job number one during the work week? Does family trump everything else? I needed answers, so I could be more productive.

Over the weekend, I created a simple spreadsheet by adding my projects and family in the row and column headings. Using 1 for priority and 0 for not a priority, I was able to identify how I should allocate my time.

After reviewing my matrix, I learned the following order of my priorities:

1. Family (7 points): I’ll have a weekly commitment from Thursday night to Saturday morning, starting this week. This ranks higher than anything else on my list.
2. Project 1 (6 points): my top priority project that I’ll work on workdays until I’m comfortable with the results I’m expecting over the next 90-days. I’m managing the project in my 90-Day action plan template.
3. Stakeout Podcast (4 points): a weekly podcast with Sarah that we now record on Fridays.
4. Project 2 (3 points): my second top priority in work, but ranks below the commitment I made to Sarah.
5. Rundown Podcast (3 points): this podcast feels like a higher priority until I saw the results in my matrix. Actually, it doesn’t conflict with my other projects since I think about the content in advance and record the podcast on Saturdays.
6. Smart Lemming Blog (2 points): I’m limiting my content to only Smart Lemming Diary and podcast posts for now. My project #2 is related to this type of content, so I needed to allocate less time to the blog itself.
7. Personal Blog (1 point): I have my Dance Mix series that are quick posts, acting as my creative outlet (and is an excuse to listen to my old dance music). I’m trying to move this blogging to the weekends or evenings so it doesn’t conflict with Projects 1 & 2.
8. Podcast #3? (0 points): I’m considering another podcast, but we don’t have the bandwidth until after mid-February. I’m taking a wait and see approach on this priority.

Are you having the same problem that I am in prioritizing my time on too many projects? Then try this spreadsheet; it’s easy to create and kind of fun to do. Use the Data Filter so you can sort the Priorities column from largest to smallest to discover your ranking order of priorities.

I recommend that you take the Passion Work’s advice and identify three action items for each priority so you can schedule your time and monitor for results.

One of my favorite commentary articles on Star Wars is titled “Generational Flap“ by Scott Bowles.  I hadn’t thought of the inevitable comparisons between generations, comparing the old, original trilogy to the new one. I especially found the “Like father, like son” comparison of hands of, light sabers, inherited skills, a thing for royalty, reckless youth, and signature vehicle was fascinating. I made my own list after reading these articles. Here’s a summary of how I perceive the key characters between the two trilogies:

Anakin vs. Luke

• Strengths: Even when we first meet Anakin as a nine-year old, he’s likeable, selfless, and has heart. His love for his mother is enduring contrary to Luke’s relationship with his uncle and aunt. Luke’s loyalty to his friends is a key strength as well as his commitment to save his father. Anakin exhibits good as he is determined to save the people he cares about ranging from those he loves to the Chancellor.
• Weaknesses: Both are whiny to point of complete annoyance. Sheldon can’t stand Luke’s high pitched shrill in A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. I have to agree with her on that observation. Luke’s always bugged me until Return of the Jedi when he finally matures to face his destiny. Thank goodness or else there’d be nothing to empathize with in Luke. Anakin has his moments too in Attack of the Clones . I just get embarrassed over the dialogue between Anakin and Padme while she’s packing to leave for Naboo. Not only is whiny, but also ungrateful to Obi-Wan.
• The Winner: I like Anakin’s journey more than Luke’s because of the complexity of the issues Anakin must face and the strength he shows while being a candidate for the Jedi Order in Phantom Menace to his brief moment of self-awareness after he kills the Tuscan Raiders in Attack of the Clones. Luke’s strength seems limited to saving his friends and his father while Anakin tries to save everyone from his Mother, Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, Chancellor Palpatine, and Padme. He’s whiny, but his fighting skills are awesome compared to Luke.

Padme vs. Leia

• Strengths: Padme started out strong as a female lead in Phantom Menace, first as the Queen leading her men to capture the Viceroy in the Throne room. Again, in the Attack of the Clones, Padme demonstrates courage and daring in the stadium scene, showing us where Leia gets her spunk. Padme’s even a pilot. Leia’s one of the first female action heroes though. She always saves the day when it’s Leia that’s usually being rescued. At times, you feel she’s strong than Luke. If only, she’d go through Jedi training to become a master, now there’s a chosen one!
• Weaknesses: Padme’s weakness is her love for Anakin. She will always make choices to be with him until he chooses the Dark Side at the end of Revenge of the Sith. At least we finally see Padme draw the line with Anakin by not being able to follow him down that path. Leia’s weakness…none.
• The Winner: I enjoyed Padme’s relationship with Anakin, despite the horrible dialog between the two in their romantic scenes.  Leia is such a stronger, female lead, so my vote has to go to Leia.

Young Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. Older Obi-Wan Kenobi

• Strengths: No one matches Young Obi-Wan light saber skills, not even Darth Maul. I’m always mesmerized by Young Obi-Wan’s skill in every fight scene, even over CGI Yoda. Although I rather enjoy Count Dooku’s style. Older Obi-Wan’s strength is that he finally gets “it” or teaching the ways of the Force in the last trilogy. He’s older, wise, has learned from his additional teachings from Qui-Gon who has learned immortality and new lessons from the Force.
• Weaknesses: Young Obi-Wan failed Qui-Gon Jin by not properly teaching Anakin the ways of the Force. I still believe Young Obi-Wan was too young and sarcastic to be effective with Anakin. Older Obi-Wan had no weaknesses that I can think of.
• The Winner: Older Obi-Wan, hands down. I always think that the younger Obi-Wan was too close in age to be effective in teaching Anakin about the force. This Obi-Wan is sarcastic and belittling with Anakin. But Younger Obi-Wan rocks out all fight scenes. My favorite scene is when he’s fighting Darth Maul.

CGI Yoda vs. Muppet Yoda

• Strengths: Who knew Yoda could kick butt as CGI Yoda? I didn’t. He’s the master Jedi, number 1 on the council. He’s wise, patient, and an amazing warrior. He’s always able to sum of the ways of the Force in one or two sentences. Muppet Yoda. Hm. Even George Lucas expressed his concerns that Muppet Yoda couldn’t been a disaster because he could have been too much like Kermit the Frog. But Muppet Yoda didn’t turn out to be Kermit. He was able to draw boundaries on why Luke wasn’t a good candidate, but then we know he had to say, “Yes” to the training since Leia sure wasn’t a contender at the time.
• Weaknesses: Key weakness in CGI Yoda was his complacency in how he managed the Jedi Council, not seeing the Dark Side’s motives for ten years. He failed to adapt Jedi training to the new landscape. Muppet Yoda didn’t have any weaknesses that I can think of. Common weakness of the two: Grammar!
• The Winner: Muppet Yoda who’s also communed with Qui-Gon Jin and learned more ways of the Force. The CGI Yoda was great until he started fighting Count Dooku. When I watched the release in the theater, the audience giggled as the CGI Yoga fought. Whenever I see this scene, I just can’t take it seriously.

Jar Jar Binks vs. Ewoks

• Strengths: Jar Jar Binks. Just the name alone brings strong emotions! Okay, but his strengths? He’s innocent and always has good intentions. Ewoks? Versatile and innovative warriors.
• Weaknesses: Don’t get me started. I can’t list all the weaknesses of Jar Jar, I’ll be civil and say he has many. The key weakness was being manipulated by the Chancellor and making a motion to grant the Chancellor emergency powers. Good job, Jar Jar…Ewoks, please teddy bear warriors, right…
• The Winner: Tie, both Jar Jar and the Ewoks grate on me. They were not a comic relief for me, only a nuisance that hinders my movie watching of Star Wars. I always fast forward through scenes that include Ewoks and Jar Jar.

Why am I writing about Star Wars again? I just marathoned the trilogies, again for the 100th time.

Mini-Lori for Vice President
You’re finally in the 6th grade. You’ll run for Vice President of your school, which is surprising, considering how much you hate very public activities. Running for President is Jimmy, one of your classmates. He’s one of the smart, Caucasian kids in your class. You’ll assume you can use his name in your campaign by making signs that saying something to the effect of “Vote for the Winning Team: Jimmy for President, Mini-Lori for Vice President, and Debbie for Treasurer.” Of course, the three of you win. Elections at Capitol School was a lot like Charlie Brown.

Mixed Doubles
You and Mark are still playing tennis in the summer time. Mother begins taking the two of you to Seattle in the summer to buy clothes for school. On the first part of your stay, you stay at the Roosevelt Hotel in downtown Seattle, one block from Frederick and Nelson and The Bon. On the second part of the trip, you stay at the Doubletree Hotel at the Southcenter mall. Mother buys you the coolest clothes for school, basketball, and tennis.

Perks of being a Good Kid
You learn that being a good kid, who stays out of trouble, has its benefits. Has your mother conditioned you to stay out of trouble by rewarding you with cool clothes and music? Probably not. She loves showering you with things because she knows you work hard in sports. You get stuff like new athletic shoes for sports, 45s, and albums because you love sports and music. Do you have special brands? Yes, you only wear Adidas tennis shoes. You buy Wilson and Spalding tennis rackets and only use Wilson tennis balls.

Your favorite 45s in 6th grade are “Ku Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas and “Please Mr. Postman” by the Carpenters. Mother lets you use her Alaska Music charge account to charge your albums and 45s by yourself. Now if only you could apply your passion for music to your academics. “Philadelphia Freedom” by Elton John is also a favorite because Elton John is writing about your idol, Billie Jean King. You look like a dope because you have your BJK hairstyle, but straight hair so it looks nothing like BJK’s! At least you got rid of the long ponytails from 4th and 5th grade. Actually, you look more like Rosie Casals than BJK. Is it because you now have a Rosie Casals racket by Spalding?

Brother’s Experience in Race Issues
Meanwhile, your older brother, Mark, is killing time in high school. Mark’s a senior in high school. He’ll graduate and leave you to go to a community college in California. Years later, you’ll learn that prejudice and discrimination existed in high school for your brother. You’ll learn that one of Mark’s best friends is one of the best basketball players in his class. But his friend won’t make the boys basketball team because he’s Alaska Native. You’ll also learn years later that your experience in high school is dramatically different from your brother’s. He’s seen prejudice and discrimination against Alaska Natives while you remain unscathed by it.

Action Items

• Don’t assume. One of your bad habits as an adult will be making assumptions. This trait will manifest in your work deliverables and other aspects of your life. Making assumptions is something that one of your future VPs will tell you not to do in your work. For example, you’ll make assumptions rather than gather requirements when you write key documents like business case analyses, marketing plans, other deliverables.
• Ask for permission. You should have asked Jimmy Adams if it was okay to advertise that you two were on the winning team. What if he didn’t want you draft off his campaign? In the future, you’ll hear business advice that you recommend you should take action first, then apology later. This will not be your style, so learn how to ask for permission, if you need to, before taking a public action.
• Learn about credit and money management. Learn at an early age that credit is good and necessary. But it will take you years to realize that you always need to have at least 8 months of savings in case a recession hits or some other unfortunate event. You’ll have more options when you feel confident about your financial situation. You won’t be attached to a job because have the option to quit to find a better job if you have savings. And thank your Mother again for being so wonderful to you as a kid. She indulged you because you were such a good kid, although she really should have made you eat more exotic foods to expand your tastes. As a kid, you’re a finicky eater that you will never grow out of. You don’t even like Japanese or Alaska Native food. What are you eating in the 6th grade? Meat and potatoes…of course.
• Understand your brother’s life experiences. When you grow up, ask your brother about how he and his friends were treated in high school. Hopefully, this will prevent you going to your dark side near the end of your 7th grade year. Because of the age difference, Mark’s life experiences are very different from yours. He’s your father’s son while you’re your mother’s daughter. Mark and your father share numerous personality traits and hardships. You, on the hand, do not share these things with your father. Is it because Mark looked more Tlingit and you more Japanese? Or is it because Mark’s formative years were with your father while solely your mother formed your formative years? You won’t know until you talk with Mark. Also, give Mark another hug since he’s still feeling bad about that red toboggan accident.

Goodbye Ponytails
You’re in Miss Hermes’ 5th grade class now. Yes, Miss Hermes was your brother’s teacher too. And yes, she’ll have the same expectations of you. You’ll learn that you don’t like to read. You really need to get over this and learn to love reading now rather than later. Trust me, you will love reading. In your business section of your library, you’ll have over 2,500 books. So stopping resisting, start reading.

Back to Miss Hermes, your teacher is reserved, stoic, and somewhat scary, but you like that because you respect authority. Go figure. Because of Miss Hermes, you like rules. Apparently you have a lot of rules, at least according to Karman.

And in the 5th grade, you have long ponytails. While you can’t believe people take you serious with long ponytails, they do. Fortunately, for you, Billie Jean King will become your idol through junior high. You’ll want to be just like her, cutting your hair short just like BJK.

Dictionaries are Ridiculous
You’ll be part of a new approach to classes, one that’s blended with 5th and 6th graders. You’ll learn how to use a dictionary. Miss Hermes, I’m sorry. I still don’t know how to use a dictionary! I don’t get it. If I don’t know how to spell the word, how am I supposed to find it in a dictionary?

The experience of interacting with 6th graders in your class will be useful since in junior high and high school, you’ll always be the youngest starting player the basketball team. This early experience will help you business, since you’ll learn management and leadership skills from team sports. In the 7th grade when your former basketball coach from gradeschool learns you’re on the starting five, she’ll ask you comeback and speak to the basketball team about your experience in junior high basketball team and the transition from grade school to junior high. Ms. Koceba was always one of your biggest fans and favorite coaches that helped you develop into a leader.

Cassettes Decks aren’t Perfect
On the lighter side, Elton John’s new album “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” is huge. Mark’s a junior in high school, doing more grown up things, but he still indulges you as his little sister. He even lets you borrow his “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” so you can play it in his cool Sony portable tape deck.

Of course, something goes wrong. The Sony tape deck eats Mark’s tape. He’s so angry with you even thought it wasn’t your fault. Little sisters…we really can be trusted with things like grown-up equipment. Technology malfunctions every now and then. It was a cassette deck! Not our fault!

Pop Culture of 1973-1974
Your favorite day of the week is still Saturday mornings when you watch The Super Friends (with Wendy and Marvin), Speed Buggy, and The Addams Family. Your routine is to wake up, eat your favorite dry cereals like Cap’n Crunch and Quisp, watch cartoons, and then do your weekly chores like dustings or vacuuming. You’re watching more TV shows with your Mom and Dad and have some favorites.

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Your family’s favorite TV shows are Kolchak: The Night Stalker, All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, McMillan And Wife, The Bob Newhart Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, and Barnaby Jones.

When you get older you’ll own the box set of Kolchak: The Night Stalker and Maude. Kolchak will continue to creep you out. Your favorite Kolchak episodes when you get older will be: The Werewolf, The Ripper, The Zombie, The Vampire, Bad Medicine, and Horror In The Heights. The Werewolf will freak you out so much that as an adult, whenever you’re on a cruise ship at night time, you’ll contstantly look up to make sure nothing furry is decending on you.

And The Bionic Woman remake? Let’s just say that Michelle Ryan was good, but she’s awesome in Merlin!

Emerging Leader
The upside of 5th grade? You’re becoming a leader. You’re considered the best player on your basketball team. Your coach looks to you to lead the team. You take charge on things on the basketball court. You do have a teammate, who’s also have Alaska Native and Japanese. Her name is Dody. Eventually, you two will have very different experiences in school because she looks more Alaska Native while you look more Japanese. Dody’s cool and she’s one of your close friends at this time. She’ll continue to play base in junior high school, but not stand out as much as she did in grade school.

Races Issues?
In 5th grade, you’ll become aware of class and race issues. One of your friends will be cruel to an older female Alaska Native classmate named Maggie. One day after school, you two are walking with someone else, your friend sees Maggie in a vulnerable situation. Your friends calls Maggie a name, putting her down for socioeconomic or native status. You feel terrible for Maggie, put your head down, and continue walking home.

Unfortunately, you won’t understand what your friend said, but your presence will appear as if you are empowering the anti-native sentiment. In the future, you’ll never know what happens to Maggie because she disappears in junior high. You will also experience Anti-Japanese prejudice by a mean Caucasian kid named Scott Crabtree. He’ll enjoy calling you a “chink.” But of course, you’ll think, “What an idiot, I’m not Chinese.”

You’ll also notice that the girls’ basketball teams you play are predominately Caucasian while you’re team is not. In fact, in the future, you’re school would be consider “urban” or “inner city” compared to others schools. For now, prejudice or race issues, with the exception of that moron, Scott Crabtree, do not affect you.

Action Items

• Learn to use your powers for good. As a leader, you must learn to set a good example. Most people prefer to be followers or teammates rather than leaders. They’ll look to you for guidance, so use this power for good not evil. If you see prejudice or racism, don’t let slide or tolerate it. Be proactive about educating others on race issues when you can. Think of Maggie.
• Give up on dictionaries, use Google. Sorry, but you will never learn how to use a dictionary. Wait long enough until Google is invented for the Internet. It will recommend how to spell words that you can spell. But be weary. Google will eventually develop artificial intelligence that will become self-aware and kill all humankind. You think Google would learn from movies like “I, Robot” or “The Terminator” movies.
• Don’t buy into being a minority or female. Learn more about female role models. Billie Jean King will be the second woman you admire (the first was Helen Reddy). Women in sports, business, entertainment, and eventually politics will be problematic for women. Fortunately, you will never buy into gender roles or let it limit your opportunities. You won’t face prejudice or discrimination in school because of your athletic status or confidence, but it does exist. Pay attention to race and gender issues because others will be limited by being a minority or woman.

3rd grade is a blur. Was it because of the tobogganing accident? You do have memories from the 4th grade. You try out for basketball and make the team. Around the second grade, your brother taught you basketball and tennis and you’re really good. You learn that you’re very competitive and this finally comes out in your academics. In 4th grade, you start taking an interest in math because your teachers, Mr. Williams and Mr. Hart, teach the multiplication tables.

Flash Cards + Focused Mom = Multiplication Table Genius

Again, your mother has learned in the parent teacher conference that you’re not performing to expectations. She’s taken it upon herself to buy flash cards so you can learn the times tables. Mother’s has a talent for tutoring. She’s preparing you for the weekly multiplication table competition in your class. As a former valedictorian, mother will kick into gear about your lack of focus, discipline, and laziness in academics. She’ll won’t assert herself by requiring you to get As. She’ll tolerate Bs, but she will be disappointed with Cs.
After mother’s special sessions with you, you’re ready for the competition. You know the multiplication table up to 12 by heart.

You’re learning that competition is good in academics. In fact, you consistently come in second, behind Kenny. Just like basketball, Kenny’s the number one boys’ basketball player and you’re the number one girls’ basketball player. Interestingly, you and Kenny are Alaska Native. At this point in your life, being Alaska Native isn’t limiting because Kenny’s still a successful athlete. However, by the time he’s in 9th grade, Kenny will no longer play school basketball. The team will mostly be Caucasian.

Mini-Lori’s Home Away from Home: The Tennis Courts

Tennis is Your Passion

Meanwhile, you love tennis. You obsess over it. In the summer time, you can’t wait to get up in the morning, so you can check the weather to see if it’s raining. If it isn’t raining, you eat breakfast, get your tennis gear on, pack your backpack with Bankcroft Billie Jean King tennis racket and balls and a sandwich. You ride your bike .8 miles to Evergreen Bowl to play tennis against the backboard. When it’s lunchtime, the work crowd shows up. They are your adult tennis friends. You play mixed doubles with them. Then they head back to work. You practice more on the backboard or practice your serve. Before dinnertime, you ride your bike back home, eat dinner with family, and then Mark joins you to play tennis again.

You and Mark are a team, playing mixed doubles with your adult tennis friends. When Mark’s off the tennis court, he’s a happy, easy-going person. But on the court, Mark has a temper when he loses. This bugs you, you’re learning that displaying anger is not okay in a competitive environment. You and Mark play tennis until 11:00 pm, and then go home. The next day, you start all over again.

Latchkey Kid Lesson of the Summer, Becoming a Self Starter

In the summertime, you and Mark spend all summer with your Aunt and Uncle, who live in your mother’s hometown. Mark works for your uncle to make some extra money. Your uncle and aunt work hard in seafood careers that’s demanding in the summer. They go to work at 8:00 am, sometimes working until midnight when demand is high. Your favorite memories are waking up in the morning, going to the kitchen table, and reading the day’s instructions from your Aunt that reads,

“Mini-Lori,
Today at 11:45 am, take the pot of water with the wieners out of the refrigerator. Turn on the left front burner on the stove to 6. Then place the pot of wieners on the burner. When the wieners have been cooking for 15 minutes, turn to low. At 11:50 am, turn on the oven to 300 degrees; place the hot dog buns in foil in the oven. We’ll be home for lunch at 12:05 pm.
Love Auntie.”

Spending summers away from your Mother and Father teaches you responsibility by learning how to get meals ready for the family at lunch and dinnertime. In fact, being a latchkey kid benefits you for the rest of your life. You learn time management. You become a self-starter. You become resourceful. You’re a problem solver. You enjoy time alone. Everything you learned as a latchkey kid will help to become an business person, an entrepreneur.

Music Emerges as Major Hobby

Music is becoming more important to you too. Your mother buys you your first cassette deck in the 3rd grade. By the 4th grade, she’s buying you your favorite music like Helen Reddy’s album that includes “I Am Woman.” Mark’s playing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by The Tokens, “Brandy” by Looking Glass, “Coconut” by Nilsson, “Black and White” by Three Dog Night. You love Mark’s album “Don’t Shoot Me I’m the Only Piano Player” by Elton John.  You’re not a fan of “Daniel,” but love “Elderberry Wine.”

Action items

• Be competitive in academics. Only when math was turned into a competition were you energized to learn. Use your competitive spirit to challenge yourself to learn so you can keep up with or exceed your classmates’ performance.
• Like basketball, academics takes practice, practice, practice. Approach your homework like its basketball practice. Believe me, you will not get algebra until you take it five times because you don’t do the practice sets. After you decide to actually do the practice problems, you’ll finally have your “ah-ha” moment. Practice makes perfect. Doing homework is like practice and tests are like basketball games. Taking tests will become easier if you practice your homework so it’s second nature.
• Recognize passion in the things you love. You had a passion for tennis, basketball, and music. Pay attention to the classes in school for subjects that intrigue you. You may just learn to love it, if you choose to dive into the subject rather than doing just enough to get average grades. Passion will play in a key role in your career. You’ll learn that work is meaningful when you have a passion for it.
• Being a latchkey kid is the best thing ever. You learn how to manager yourself by using what your learned as a latchkey kid. You know how to stay out of trouble. More importantly, you learn time management. By learning how to be responsible at an early age, you’re always self-sufficient. You also love spending hours by yourself. However, you have to unlearn that talking to strangers is bad. Sorry, but you will need to be able to talk to strangers as an adult. For some reason, as an adult, networking with strangers is a key to success.

Your Most Traumatic Experience Ever

One of your most traumatic experiences was when you were in a sledding accident while you were tobogganing with your father. In the wintertime, since your father worked the graveyard shift, he’d take you sledding after school while your mother was working during the day. Mark was also with you and your father. One afternoon, they were both watching you sled down a small slope.

Unfortunately, you decided that you would go head first, rather than feet first. You lose control of the sled as it increases in speed. Unable to steer, you crashed head first into a Merry-go-round. All you remember is seeing the Merry-go-round, but the rest is blank. You have no memory from seconds before impact until the X-ray room at the hospital.

What you didn’t know is that Mark has always felt that he nearly killed you by letting you sled down the hill, head first on the sled. When he tells the story to friends, he always starts off, “The day I nearly killed my little sister…”

Poor guy. Mark remembers being sent home by dad. Even your mother didn’t know that Mark was there until he finally shared his guilt with you and your mother during last year’s Thanksgiving vacation.

Mark and Lori in 1964

Lori and Mark in 2008

Don’t Go Into the Light

All you remember after the accident is waking up in the emergency room with your mother by your side. The X-Ray room table was stainless steel and cold. You remember the X-ray tech place you face down on the table as they took multi-views of your nose to see if it was broken. You protested because it hurt your face, but your mother made sure you were comfortable.

Thank goodness, your nose wasn’t “broken,” but as an adult, you’ll realize that your nose is flawed. Your Christmas pictures from this season will look silly because you have two black eyes and a metal splint covering your nose. You wide white tape securing the metal splint across your face. Frankly, it’s amazing that you survived this accident. But this is the year you will get Barbie’s Camper and Kitchen that you will play with for hours.

Ninja Mom

This is also the time when the family pet chipmunk goes rogue by escaping from its cage. Your chipmunk crawls into the stove and various other places, driving your mother crazy. Your brother and father fail to capture it, leaving your mother to take matters into her own hands. One evening, mother places the chipmunk’s cage one foot outside the living room, at edge the dining room wall. She places fresh food in the cage. She ties one end a long piece of string to the door to the cage, and then tapes the other to the living room wall, five feet above the cage. After setting the trap, mother also places a sharp pair of scissors by the string.

Hours later while you, your brother, mother, and father are watching The Johnny Carson show, you hear the chipmunk slowly walk across the kitchen floor into the dining room. It pokes its head to see if we’re looking. Mother motions everyone to be still. The chipmunk proceeds to walk into its cage, then starts eating and drinking. Mother, channeling her hidden Ninja skills, silently walks to the string, picks up the scissors, cuts the string, and BAM! The cage door slams! The chipmunk doesn’t know what happened to it, but I do. Two words: Ninja Mom. I mean Ninja MacGyver!

Action Items

• Be safe. Fortunately, you don’t become too paralyzed with fear in play. However, you do have an aversion to other winter sports. You refuse to learn downhill skiing because if you don’t have brakes, then what’s the point. You’ll only cross-country ski, but that’s it. You learn safety first when it comes to physical activities.
• Be a risk taker. You will be risk averse because of the accident. You’ll always weigh the cost and benefits of any event before you determine whether you’ll plunge in. Even when you do plunge in, it’s not head first. It’s one toe, then two toes, but never with both feet. Mini-Lori, remember, if the thing you’re considering can’t kill you, then it may be worth trying. Not every risk-taking event is like a head-first ride on a red toboggan, hurling out-of-control towards a Merry-go-round.
• Use your hidden super power, given to you by your mother. Ninja Mom/MacGyver skills are part of your DNA. It will be useful in a crisis, especially when your next gerbil or hamster escapes its cage or playing the game, Mousetrap.
• Stay away from red toboggans. Send your brother bottles of Le Rêve Blanc de Blancs and Domaine Carneros Brut to share with him on Thanksgiving just as a reminder that you adore him and that he’s still your big brother.

High Expectations

This is a pivotal year for you. Miss Murphy is your teacher. She was also your brother’s 2nd grade teacher. She has high expectations of you because Mark was an excellent student. Unlike Mark, you hate reading. Miss Murphy has your class structured in daily reading sessions for 15 to 30 minutes. Rather than read, you’d rather hold your book up to hide your face from her at her desk, while you look out the window or look at your friends. She’s so concerned about your reading progress that during the parent-teacher conference, Miss Murphy tells your mother that you might need to be in a special education class. Mother knows that’s not the problem. In fact, your mother is annoyed at you because she knows that you’re not applying yourself. Your reading compression is poor because you hate reading.

A Clean, Meticulous Kid

2nd grade is the year that you realize that you don’t like messy environments. The inside of your desk is clean and organized. You pencils are neatly stored in one section of your desk, while your paperwork is stacked for quick access. Your Barbie doll collection and accessories are neatly organized in empty Key Bank check boxes given to you by your mother, storing your Ken and Barbie shoes and accessories. Your school box is organized as your pencil, eraser, and other school supplies are perfectly placed in the box. In fact, all your toys are neatly organized and stored. You’ll learn quickly that neatness means everything has its place and is more efficient.

Favorite Stuffed Animal + Bike + Rope + Elastic Belt = Hours of Play

This is also the time when you learn to be as resourceful as MacGyver. You don’t know who MacGyver is, but you will. Your fondest memory of being MacGyver was when you discovered how to take your Winnie the Pooh stuff animal with you on your bike. All you needed was your baby doll stroller, an elastic band belt, and rope. You place Winnie the Pooh in the fold-able baby stroller. You secure Pooh in the stroller with your elastic belt.

You use five feet of rope to tie the stroller to the seat of your bike. Once you determine the knots are safe, you ride your bike up and down the street, towing Winnie the Pooh as your mother and father laugh and cheer with pride. In future, you’ll be able to disarm a nuclear missile with a paperclip just like MacGyver.

Even at this early age, you’re demonstrating a love of building things. You constantly play with Mark’s Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys. But your passion is Legos. Your Lego buildings are always symmetrical, pleasing to the eye. Using color conservatively, you use most choose a monochromatic approach to the Lego design of your buildings. While you don’t know it yet, this will be a constant theme in your life since bold color schemes aren’t pleasing to you. However, you will always use monochromatic themes in personal style and building websites.

This is also the year when you start being pulled out of class to go to the Indian Health Service dentist with the other Alaska native children. You’re taken from class, put into a taxi, and then taken to the Federal Building to see the dentist. Quickly, you realize that the other non-native children don’t have to do this. You start becoming embarrassed that must go with the other native kids. You seen the prejudice other native kids go through. Gerbil, you’re learning to be ashamed of being native because you’re also half-Japanese and don’t want to be seen as native.

Pop Culture of 1970-1971

While being half Alaska Native is becoming challenging, at least music is emerging as a key passion in your life. Music is a major part of your family’s life. Your mother and father love Tony Bennett, Neil Diamond, and other sounds of the 60s and 70s. Your brother is listening to “American Pie” by Don McLean and everything by Three Dog Night. You love the Partridge Family on TV, so your mother buys you the Partridge Family albums. In the second grade, your favorite songs are “I Think I Love You” and “I Can Feel Your Heart Beat.”

Action Items

• Don’t be nosy. Break the habit of always being curious about what others are doing. It’s a bad habit that could lead to being gossipy. In the work environment, you’ll learn that speculating about coworkers and executives is a career limiting habit. Don’t be nosy. Don’t gossip.
• Be MacGyver. By learning how to resourceful, you’ll use this key success factor over and over again. While it will take you awhile to learn, “There is no spoon.” You will learn that “All you need is a paperclip.”
• Play Mark’s chemistry set and microscope. You’ve mastered “building things” with Legos; however, you should ask Mark to let you watch him play with his chemistry set and microscope. Mark loves the sciences, so perhaps you can learn more about science, so you’ll develop an interest in the future.
• Be clean and organized. Being messy takes time; it’s inefficient and frustrating. Have tolerance and compassion for those people who struggle daily with their own messiness. They can’t help it if they aren’t as organized and clean as you are. Don’t judge. They may aspire to be clean and organized. They just can’t pull it off like you can.
• Learn focus and discipline in school. Read when you’re supposed to read. You might like reading if you give it a try. You’re reading comprehension will go up. You’ll learn to love books, more than cartoons on TV. Your mother knows you have potential. She’s just unaware that reading to her children will help children become better readers. This finding hasn’t been discovered yet. She never read to Mark. He discovered it on his own and is a natural bookworm.
• Do not be ashamed of your race or your heritage. You’ll form some internalized racism because of how Alaska Natives children are treated by Caucasian kids and adults during grade school, junior high, and high school. Take pride in being Native like you are in being part Japanese. Your parents will raise you as an “American” rather an Alaska Native or Japanese American. In college, you’ll have to take Anthropology classes to understand your diverse cultures. Regardless of internalized racism, you always find the time to talk to other Natives kids and feel awful when others are harassing them on the school yard. To this day, you wonder whatever happened to Maggie James. You hope she’s okay, but worry that she probably isn’t because her childhood was so bad.

No Wonder You’re a Night Owl as an Adult

You’re in 1st grade now. What you don’t know is that your father works hard, very hard. He works for an airlines company as a sheet metal specialist. He works the graveyard shift so the planes can fly during the day. He always gets ready for work when you’ve just gone to bed. In fact, you’ll be just like your dad. You’ll love working the graveyard shift too. You’ll love working in the evening and the middle of night rather than the conventional 8:00am to 5:00 pm work hours. Perhaps it’s genetic because your mother and brother are also night owls.

One of your favorite childhood memories is when you fell asleep on the living room couch. You’re aware that your father is making coffee in the kitchen. You can sense he’s busy getting ready for work. But you’re sleeping. You start crying in because of a sad dream. You can’t remember what makes you cry, but you do remember your father rushing to you from the kitchen to wake you up. He comforts you as he tells you everything will be fine.

The Reluctant Student

During this time, after your father comes home from work, it’s his responsibility to walk you to school. One time you don’t want to go to school because you don’t like what you’re wearing. You make it hard for him to get you to school by refusing to go. You’re running late, so he gives you a small spanking (which he never does). You start crying, but eventually cave in. Dad drops you off to class. You feel embarrassed because you walk into the classroom with everyone looking at you. You’re late for school because you didn’t like what you were wearing.

Death of Your First Pet

Your second fondest memory is how your brother took care of you when the pet gerbil died. It was the summertime, both of you wake up, go to the kitchen, and see your gerbil dead on its wheel. You freak out. Mark can’t make you stop crying, so he calls Mom at work. Mother tells him to put you on the phone. You’re crying so hard that you that you almost hyperventilate.

You get off the phone. Mark takes control of the situation by telling you that both of you need to have a funeral service for the gerbil. After you get dressed, Mark takes two Dixie cups, placing the gerbil in one end, and then covering up the gerbil inside both cups. He uses Scotch tape to seal the casket.

After finding two Popsicle sticks in the kitchen drawers to make a cross for the gerbil’s casket, Mark takes you to a grassy area behind the house. Under a boardwalk on the hillside above the grass area, Mark starts digging a tiny hole for the coffin. He says some kind words about the gerbil. He asks you to say something. You start crying. Then Mark places the casket in the ground, firmly packing the dirt over it so animals won’t dig it up. All the while, Mark is sensitive to your feelings by teaching you how to deal with the death of a loved one. You’ll always remember events like this with Mark. Being six year older, Mark never resented you, even though his responsibility was to taking care of you until 4th grade.

Pop Culture from 1969-1970

On the lighter side, you live for Saturday mornings when you can watch your favorite cartoon, Scooby-Doo, Where are You? You also watch The Jetsons, The Flintstones, and Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, while Marks watches Jonny Quest, The Herculoids, The Fantastic Four, and Space Ghost and Dino Boy. Your future isn’t that different. You still love Scooby-Doo, Where are You? so much that you travel it on your iPod. You’ll even have the DVD box set at your office, playing Scooby-Doo in the background as you work.

Action Items

• Dress for success. Actually, you do care about what you wear which is why you cause this problem for your father. You know that you care because you like coordinating your tops with bottoms and shoes.
• Don’t be stubborn. Your stubbornness will be a perennial issue for you. You must learn to not hold grudges, not dig your heels in deeper, and know when to compromise. Your stubbornness is actually a symptom of another problem. You always think you are right. You must learn that you’re not always right. You must learn that it’s okay to be wrong.
• Be comfortable with people looking at you. Fortunately, you’ll get used to people looking at you during basketball games. However, you’re too uncomfortable with others looking at you when you stand out. Channel your self-confidence learned from basketball into this area of your life. After you learn how to compartmentalize your private self from your public self, you’ll find peace with making public appearances.
• Learn patience from your brother when taking care of others. Mark was patient and kind when he took care of you. Mirror these traits in the future when you’ll have to take care of others. Don’t forget to thank Mark for teaching you basketball and tennis.
• Invest money so you can afford all versions of Scooby-Doo, Where are You? First, you’ll buy the DVDs that have only four to five Scooby-Doo, Where are You? episodes on it. After collecting nearly all these DVDs so you can have the complete two seasons, the boxed set of Scooby-Doo, Where are You? comes out, so you have to buy that. Then you’ll buy a second so you can have one boxed set at your office to play in the background as you work. You’ll buy a third copy for your second home. As if that wasn’t enough copies, you’ll download it from iTunes so you can travel with it on your iPod. Like I said, put money in U.S. Treasury Bonds or something, so you’ll have money to buy every media format of Scooby-Doo, Where are You? While you don’t have the high definition version of the boxed set yet, you will anxiously wait for its release on Blu-Ray.

As you go through pre-k and kindergarten, you’ll be very shy. You’re an introvert so you’ll be quiet and prefer to blend into a pack of kids. You haven’t learned how to play basketball yet. So you haven’t learned the confidence that you’ll derive from your successes in basketball. You’re having a blast though. The cartoons you loved as Kindergartener, like Scooby-Do, Where Are You?, The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, and Underdog, are still the cartoons you watch as an adult. These shows are your comfort food, ones that you play in the background as you work.

Mini-Lori, the Day Dreamer

You also have an annoying habit of not paying attention. You’ll be prone to distraction to the point that in your kindergarten class picture you will be looking to your left side instead of looking at the camera like your classmates. You just had to see what was going on in the hallway while the photographer was taking your class picture. You’re mother will not be happy with you, although as an adult you’ll think it’s amusing. Dorky, but amusing.

Practice paying attention in kindergarten because this habit will be a problem for you through 2nd grade and affect your learning. You won’t read during reading time. Your 2nd grade teacher will think that you need to be in special education because she thinks you can’t read very well, when in fact, you just don’t like concentrating during reading time. You’d rather look around the room, seeing what your classmates are doing. Guess what, all your classmates are reading, so there’s nothing to look at! So read the book!

Back to kindergarten, you’re learning to interact with other kids your age that are not your brother Mark, who’s six years older than you are. Mark will be the grounding force for you. He’ll never be embarrassed that he takes care of you after school hours. He’ll always be there for you, taking you to and from home to pre-k and kindergarten.

Mark’s Creative, Learn from His Favorite Toys

Pay attention to Mark, he’s discovered a passion for art and schoolwork that you can learn from. Mark loves to read, which you should start doing too. Mark loves writing and drawing figures for his school reports. He’ll be gifted in drawing, using colored pencils. He’ll understand that presentation is everything.

In fact, you’ll love looking at his school report that has a specal contact papered book cover. It’s perfectly hand written, complete with a color drawing of a paramecium and photosynthesis. Mark’s favorite toy will be his Spirograph. His talent for detail and color will inspire you. In fact, you’ll love your LiteBrite because of Mark’s creativity with Spirograph.

Action Items

1. Be comfortable with networking. Learn to interact more with your teacher and classmates so you can start becoming comfortable with others. While you don’t know it yet, you’ll have to learn to network in business. You’ll have to go to public events, meeting with people you don’t know.
2. Learn to turn on your extroverted personality. It turns out that you’re an INTJ (introverted, intuitive, thinking, and judging), according to the Myers-Briggs Personality Type that says, “You have an original mind and a great drive for implementing your ideas and achieving your goals. You quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-range explanatory perspectives. When committed, you organize a job and carry it through. You are skeptical and independent, have high standards of competence and performance – both for yourself and others.” Try to be more extroverted and derive energy from interacts with others. In the future, you’ll need to learn how to be extroverted at will. It will take you years to figure this out, so why not start learning it now?
3. Practice reading by yourself because right now you don’t like reading. Ask your mother to read to you, even if she says she’s too busy. While you’re not spoiled, Mother always does what you want because she knows you’re a good kid. You can train her to read to you rather than just buying you the books. Unfortunately, she thinks you’re like Mark, who reads even if he isn’t asked to read. If she doesn’t have time, then ask Mark to read to you.
4. Pay attention; be in the moment by concentrating on what you’re supposed to be doing. If it’s reading time, then read. Stop looking around the room, seeing what your classmates are doing. By learning to be mindful, meditation will be much easier in the future. Trust me, the other kids are all reading. You’re not missing out on anything!
5. Don’t resent sleeping. Take naps when you’re supposed to instead of pretending that you are like you do in Kindergarten. Sleep up to eight hours every night. Studies will show that people who get less than eight hours of sleep will have cardiovascular health and weight problems. People who are sleeping impaired will have diminished motor skills, similar to those who are legally intoxicated. Sleep.
6. Be curious and enjoy creativity. Be curious about what your brother’s school work because he has an innovative approach to his homework and school projects. Learn from his creativity, focus, and pride in his work. You’ll learn to be curious, but not until your mid-30s. Think of all the new possibilities you could have pondered if you would have learned this in Kindergarten.
7. Learn about artistic inspiration and color palettes. When you and Mark are playing with Spirograph, ask Mark how and why he chooses the shape of the template, the wheel size, and color of pens. Ask Mark, what other toys he likes that is similar to Spirograph so you can learn how to play with those toys too. If you take an interest, you’ll tap into your creative side sooner rather than in your early 40s.

I’m your future self. I know that sounds weird, but I’m you years from now. In the future, you’ll have a happy life. You won’t be content until your mid-40s because you have a need for financial security. You’ll always be thinking of your next big thing that will allow you to retire. Even if you achieve that “big thing,” you probably wouldn’t retire because you like building things.

The Lost, yet Spiritual Years

Years from now, you’ll have an inefficient career path. In your early 20s, you won’t know what your career should be. By your mid-20s, you’ll figure it out, but you’ll have to start college all over again since you wasted your first year at college after high school graduation, squandering money and time. You’ll figure out that you want to go into Indian healthcare, which is dependent on federal funding, so you’ll get a B.S. in Political Science and a master’s dress in Healthcare Administration.

Getting your master’s degree will expose you to an urban environment, causing you to stay in Seattle rather than return to your hometown. This decision affects your ability to get a job right out of graduate school since most of your work experience is in Indian healthcare. You’re not marketable because of your background. Fortunately, one of your professors will take pity of you, so your first job will be in marketing at one of the largest delivery systems in the area. The skills you acquire in marketing will finally put you on the path of healthcare technology products.

I Want to Be a Manager When I Grow Up?

As a kid, no one thinks, “I want to be a product marketing manager when I grow up,” but that’s what happened to you. You became a product marketing manager that led to becoming a product manager, leading you to discover your love of defining and building products. At this time, you discover your natural love of management and leadership. You eventually become a department head and then vice president. Again, you never thought as a kid that you’d want to be a manager. But who does as a child since we’re busying playing with Legos or being a team captain on a high school basketball team?

An Entrepreneur? No way!

But what will really shock you is that you’ll become an entrepreneur. As a child, you have an aversion to risk, so this outcome is inconsistent with your basic personality. However, along the way, you’ll develop the love of building things, but not maintaining things. This trait shows up in your early 20s in your first real job in healthcare when you’re hired to build a third-party reimbursement system for health insurance, then again when you become a department head and you take disparate direct reports and form them into a cohesive marketing department. Your favorite job as a Vice President in a healthcare technology department is creating your own marketing department from scratch, based on your own tools, templates, and work experience. Through a strange series of events, you’ll be a partner in a LLC that will sell its properties to MTV Networks.  Remember being a couch potato, watching Duran Duran, Missing Persons, and Madonna on MTV in the early 80s? As in, “I want my MTV!” This life event places you on the path of being a co-founder that successfully sold its business, a coveted goal of all internet/technology entrepreneurs. Who knew? Not you, when you were little.

Your Favorite Things

Right now, you’re in Kindergarten. You don’t know what the internet is or what an entrepreneur is. It hasn’t been invented yet. For now, in the near future, you’ll love music, tennis, and basketball. You’ll go through a KISS phase. I’m not sure why your Mom didn’t freak out about that. Apparently, she saw it as harmless. But if I was her, I wouldn’t have let you go to that KISS concert at Key Arena in the summer of 1977. What was she thinking? If CSI was on TV back then, she wouldn’t have let you go. And you would have been too cautious to want to go.

In junior high and high school, basketball will be the focus of your life. And you’ll be good, really good. Your natural talent will enable you to be the youngest player to be co-captain on your team in middle and high school. Go figure, but how will you use these leadership lessons in the future?

Team Sports Socializes You for Business

From team sports, you’ll learn how to be a leader. More importantly, you’ll learn that your high standards for yourself help your career in the future. By participating in sports, you’ll learn time management, grace under pressure, and passion. As a team captain, you’ll learn how to lead by example. You’ll understand that you can’t do what you always want, but what’s always right. You learn discipline from hours spent going to practice and doing homework on the road.

Unfortunately, since basketball will be your focus in middle and high school, you fail to take an interest in academics. In the future, you’ll be fascinated with math and science. But in school, you’ll hate these subjects. In fact, there isn’t a subject that you have the same passion for like basketball. Your parents will indulge your passion for tennis and basketball, but not instill the importance of academics as much as they should. They don’t realize that they should be emphasizing college and getting a master’s degree. Since they don’t have this background, they’re unable to mentor you through this significant career stage. Your mother wants what’s best for you, but she’s busy working, raising you, and paying the bills. She doesn’t realize you have the potential to be a business professional.

Master and Apprentice

You’ll find your way and get back into college, but it will take years to achieve bachelor’s degree. However, at 19 years old, you will meet someone who will know your potential and set you on the right track to get to your future. Her name is Inalee. She’ll be the mentor you never had. She’ll be your best friend, your big sister, your grandmother, and your “master.” She’s everything to you, coming in a close second to your mother.

As her apprentice, you’ll learn the guiding principles that will make you successful in business and in life in the future. She’ll “grow you up” where your mother left off. She’ll be so important to you that you two will talk to each other every day for 24 years. Unfortunately, Inalee will pass on in May 2006 just two weeks before getting acquired, as if she knows that you’re ready to live without her. But be prepared, this is one death you’ll never get over. As days go by, you constantly think, “Am I living the life that InaLee saw me living?”

Letters to You

So many things happen to you in your future that you wished you could go back and make changes so you can learn certain skills or specific subjects in school. There are little things along the way that you don’t see as an important, but are when it comes to how your life will unfold. You’ll wish you had letters from your future self to know when you should or shouldn’t do something. You’ll not want to change outcomes because you believe everything happens for a reason. You will want to have better outcomes or more opportunities rather than be constrained with the skills you left your childhood, teens, 20s, or even 30s. You should have learned to enjoy math and science, but you were too busy playing sports.

So in the spirit of mentoring a younger version me, I’m writing letters to you so you can course correct and manage your career and life better. I wouldn’t want to change my life events because “everything happens for a reason.” I’m coaching you so you can have greater knowledge in areas that will add breadth and depth to your experiences.

Good luck! And keep an open mind as you read your letters.

I enjoy coaching and mentoring people with their careers, so naturally I always think of how I’d coach and mentor a younger version of me. What would I tell myself in grade school, junior high, or high school? What childhood events shaped my decisions that eventually led to my current skill set as a knowledge worker or entrepreneur?

Missed Opportunities in Academics

Do you ever think, “If only I would have known better, then I could have saved myself from…”? We all wish we could go back in time, changing our personal history or decisions we made. I often think, “I wish I would have learned to appreciate algebra in junior high because I would have realized by math was important in its applications to the internet or other math-based careers.” I also think, “Why couldn’t I have been more like my brother growing up? He loved reading books.” I could discovered my passion for business books much earlier in life.

The Coaching and Mentoring of Mini-Me

Letters to a Young, Bi-Racial Entrepreneur chronicles my coaching and mentoring of a younger version of me. While I may regret some of the outcomes in my life, I would never wish to change these outcomes because I believe things happen for a reason. I wouldn’t be where I am today if I could change the past. However, I wish I could have been more curious growing up, hoping to broaden my interests in math, science, foreign languages, art, and history. This curiosity could have led me to become more efficient and effective as a knowledge worker or entrepreneur. While I eventually discovered my interests in these areas, it took me years to reach this point.

Letters to a Young, Bi-Racial Entrepreneur documents my early childhood from Pre-K and Kindergarten through my senior year, combined with my career advice on how I could have made improvements, developed new interests, or avoided certain mistakes. My advice could have lead to better outcomes, more efficient paths, and more effective skills.

Excuse to Blog about 70s Pop Culture

It also chronicles the pop culture of the time, my family’s influence on my behaviors, and reveals my struggle with race issues. As a latchkey kid, I spent hours alone after school watching TV and playing with my toys. Today, I realize these TV shows and play influenced my skill set development and personality traits as an adult. As the youngest sibling, I was greatly influenced by my brother, who’s six years older than I am. Without his knowledge, he molded my personality. What more should I have learned from him, if only I could have observed his strengths in more detail? Being half Alaska Native and Japanese wasn’t easy growing up, especially when I appeared more “Japanese” rather than Alaska Native, causing the younger version of me to suffer through temporary internalized racism.

Career Management Advice for Kids and Teens

While Letters to a Young, Bi-Racial Entrepreneur was a vehicle for me to reflect on my childhood, the typical knowledge worker or entrepreneur can use it as practical advice for career management. It may prompt self-reflection or meditation on what they could have done differently in their childhood to become a more success adult. For me, I wouldn’t change any of the outcomes in my life. While I consider myself a late bloomer by not blossoming into my career into my mid-30s, I don’t regret my early 20s, which were spent learning about spirituality at the cost of delaying my career. However, if I could change things, I would have added the basic trait of curiosity—a passion for learning all subjects in school—that could have broadened my skill set as an adult. If I had children today, I would most likely give them advice based on Letters to a Young, Bi-Racial Entrepreneur.

Letters to a Young, Bi-Racial Entrepreneur is meant to provoke reflection on the path not taken, identifying any regrets with your current situation. By looking at your childhood, you get a window into how you were going to grow up or how you could have grown into a better adult. What could you change? What should you change? Or would you change anything?

Luke’s never been a favorite character for me in the Star Wars saga. To me, he’s only had moments where I’ve really enjoyed his character. However, it was refreshing to read this interpretation of Luke so I could watch the saga from a different perspective.

Wisdom and Compassion Defined

The Dharma path in Buddhism is similar to the way of the Jedi; it’s the path of understanding and love. When this path is walked, the two greatest human qualities are developed: wisdom (understanding) and compassion (love). If we reflect like Yoda and be mindful like Qui-Gon, then wisdom may result of our meditative contemplation. Wisdom frees us from the ignorance of the dark side. Compassion is unconditional love, having no expectations and does not have strings attached to it. However, unless wisdom and compassion are developed equally, compassion only without wisdom can produce “a kind-hearted fool like Jar Jar Binks; while a strong mind without compassion can produce a heartless manipulator like Jabba the Hut.

Recognizing Suffering

Luke exemplifies wisdom and compassion even better than Obi-Wan in Return of the Jedi. Luke’s Jedi mastery is demonstrated as he allows himself to be vulnerable to suffering. In doing so, he discovers inner strength greater than any Jedi of his time or the previous era. After his confrontation with Darth Vadar in Empire Strikes Back, Luke knows good still remains in his father. Obi-Wan, on the other hand, can’t see this as he describes Vadar as “more machine than man, twisted and evil.” Obi-Wan fails to recognize how Vadar is suffering from his own acts. Luke sees past this veil, feeling that his father has not forgotten himself and needs only to be offered understanding and compassion in order to return to his true self.

Offering Wisdom and Compassion

Luke feels compelled to rescue his father in Return of the Jedi. He tells Leia, ‘There is good in him, I felt it. He won’t turn me over to the Emperor. I can save him. I can turn him back to the good side. I have to try.” By offering understanding and compassion, Luke direct Darth Vadar back to himself, to look deeply into his own nature as he asks his father to “search your feelings, Father…I feel the conflict within you. Let go of your hate.” It’s Vadar’s attachment to hatred, hatred for himself and for his crimes that perpetuates his suffering. Luke can’t turn Vadar to the good side, but only offer compassionate support and wise advice. It’s up to Vadar to remove the shroud of ignorance. Luke simply directs Vadar back to himself, to search his feelings, to investigate his own mind by discovering the truth that it’s not too late for him to get out of the dark side. “This is the Jedi way, and it is also the Dharma way.”

Tempted by the Dark Side of the Force

According to Bortolin, “there is no more compassionate act that one person can do for another than offer oneself in order to free another from misery. Luke tried time and again to escape Vadar’s efforts. During their final duel, Vadar feels Luke’s weakness of his love for his sister, Leia, then threatens to turn her to the dark side. As we remember, Luke loses his composure, attacks his father, cutting his father’s hand off above the wrist. The Emperor cackles, telling Luke that hate has made him strong and to “take your father’s place at my side.”

Luke sees that, just like his father, he becomes ensnared by hate. If Luke kills Vadar, he won’t destroy the evil that consume Anakin Skywalker, but only replace it with a new evil–the evil of Luke Skywalker. At that moment, Luke replies “Never. I’ll never turn to the dark side.” Luke does what his father could not do, transcend suffering. His wisdom parts the shroud of ignorance, showing him that the dark side cannot save his friends or give him power to rule the galaxy. Accepting this, Luke is able to let go of hate, becoming wise and compassionate.

Suffering’s a Good Thing?

“Luke’s actions show us that ultimately the good side of the Force is stronger than the dark side. The good side is stronger, because it includes the dark side. Without suffering, there can be no wisdom. When we suffer, when we mindfully investigate our suffering, we learn from it. By looking deeply into our own suffering, we understand life; it’s how we develop wisdom. With wisdom comes compassion, because we can recognize the way things are. This is how we bring balance into our lives.”

Balance is brought back to the Force, when Vadar defeats the Emperor and removes the dark side from the galaxy. But true inner balance comes earlier when Vadar learns from Luke’s wisdom and compassion as he embraces suffering within himself, understands it, and releases its causes. Anakin’s choice to finally face the dark side within him frees him from it and opens his heart to compassion. “To be in the grips of suffering is to be out of balance, but the practice of recognizing and investigating pain brings harmony to the Force and reveals the presence of nirvana.”

Anakin’s Journey

Anakin has always been one of my favorites in the Star Wars saga, because of his full range of life experiences. Anakin goes from being a sweet, selfless child to an arrogant, temperamental young man, to an evil man consumed by the dark side. In his life Anakin, “he has loved people, at times he has hated himself, he sought the approval of his teachers, he selflessly tried to help others, he made mistakes, and he intentionally committed crimes of ignorance and of wickedness. But in the end he finds freedom from the dark side.” The lesson of Anakin’s experience teaches us that anyone can find freedom in love compassion, and understanding.

Synchronicity: Meaningful Coincidence

The Dharma of Star Wars has reintroduced me back to Buddhism at a time when I’m ready to reinvestigate what drives me to do the things that I do. Reading this book, this week has allowed me to process my feelings of attachment to certain things and how to let go of my frustration with things that I cannot control. I certainly won’t master Buddhist principles overnight; however, it gives me the framework from which to start.

The Dharma of Star Wars by Matthew Bortolin continues in its teachings by discussing the Eightfold Path. Buddha was the creator and original master of the Eightfold Path. When the Path is practiced, joy, peace, and insight are there. The Eightfold Path does not lead us away from the Dark Side, but when practiced correctly, the Path is Nirvana or the cessation of all suffering. “The Path is not a means to an end like Jedi Trials. The Path is a reward in itself. To walk the Path is to walk in happiness.”

Moral Virtue, Meditative, Cultivation, and Wisdom

The eight factors of the path are grouped into four categories: Moral virtue, meditative cultivation, and wisdom. They are distributed as follows:

•  Moral Virtue: right speech, right action, and right livelihood
•  Meditative cultivation: right effort, and right mindfulness and right concentration
•  Wisdom: right view and right thought

1. Right Speech

Bortolin uses The Phantom Menace as an example of right speech. In the scene where Padme is telling Anakin that his anger is only natural and that it’s not his fault that his mother died is right speech. She speaks the truth, but she’s also kind and loving. “Right speech requires the use of truthful, loving words intended to inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope in others. Bortolin continues by saying, “with right speech, words are viewed as a treasure that should only be brought out when they are useful and when the time is right.” One must listen deeply to others in order to hear what is being said and what is the “right” thing to say that lessens the burdens of others.

2. Right Action

Right action is concerned with action of the body. Bortolin uses Yoda in Empire Strikes Back to demonstrate this factor of the Path. Yoda teaches Luke that anger, fear, and aggression are dark side energies that can start us down the dark path. When we are on the dark path, our actions can cause pain and suffering. One must use calm reflection to investigate our actions and see if they bring peach and happiness to others and ourselves.

Anakin had moments of right action in The Phantom Menace. His generosity to Qui-Gon and Padme without any expectation of return was right action. “Giving our time and material resources to those in need is a true act of compassion and one that joy unto itself. But if the intention behind the act is not grounded in compassion, then it can lead to the dark side.”

3. Right Livelihood

Jabber the Hut is the opposite of right livelihood. He’s a gangster, deals in the slave trade, and used deception and violence to maintain his position. If we look at any job and find a Jabba there or a presence of a Jabba, then we may want to reflect on the direction of that employment and see if it leads to happiness or suffering (sounds like the end of my days at my last company). To walk the Way that transcends the dark side, we must find employment that supports our intention to cultivate wisdom and compassion.

4. Right Effort

Jedi must have the deepest commitment and have a serious mind. There are four functions to right effort. “The first is to return unwholesome seeds that have blossomed in our mind consciousness to our storehouse consciousness.” Unwholesome means anything not associated with peach, happiness, and freedom. When we hate and are aggressive, dark side feelings have entered our consciousness. We must remember what Qui-Gon’s says and become aware of the present moment and the state of our mind. By recognizing the dark side in us, we don’t allow it to pull us into actions we will regret. Letting go of dark side energies is the second function of right effort. By practicing Yoda’s calm reflection, we can recognize these dark side energies within us. The third function of right effort is to bring wholesome seeds up from the storehouse consciousness into the mind consciousness. This means we can live simply, enjoy life, and appreciate our loved ones as a way of practicing this third function. The fourth and final function is keeping the wholesome seeds that have blossomed in our mind there.

5 & 6. Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration

I have reviewed several examples Jedi mindfulness and concentration, see previous posts.

7. Right View

Right view is in the category of wisdom.

“Right view is the understanding of things as they truly are that gives us rise to a mind free from the shroud of the dark side.”

Right view is the highest wisdom, the insight that surpasses all concepts, beliefs, and points of view. It does not come from intellect or reading a book; it comes from direct interaction with life. Direct interaction means mindfulness and concentration on what is happening right now. Only when we are fully present can we directly experience life.

8. Right Thought

In The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon tells young Anakin,

“Always remember, your focus determines your reality.” “Thought is the forerunner of all action. What we think initiates what we do and say. The focus of our thought directs our deeds.”

Right thought releases the dark side energies when they arise in our mind and channels our mind to the good side of the Force.

The Eightfold Path is the way of freedom. We can learn from the Star Wars saga’s Jedi Order who have the deepest commitment to their training as they develop their mindfulness in every moment. The Path allows us a way to transcend the dark side by liberating us from worry, fear, doubt, confusion, and insecurity. More importantly, it offers us a way to calm our mind and understand our suffering. If we practice it, we just may become wise and compassionate like Luke in Return of the Jedi.

After understanding the dark side within, I was curious about the Buddhist perspective on the causes of suffering. Suffering is defined as the inability to accept things as they are without grasping or turning away. It’s not the feeling of fear, or the desire for revenge; suffering is the attachment and aversion to those things. Matthew Bortolin teaches or explores Dharma in the Star Wars saga. Anakin and Luke are constantly compared and contrasted for their differences. However, there were several similarities between the two: both suffered on Tatooine, beginning their journey in the way of the force.

Three Types of Desire (that Causes Suffering)

Bortolin explains the three types of desire when grasped or rejected, cause suffering. The three types are:

1. Desire for sense pleasure (things that are pleasant to experience)
2. Desire for non-being (the wish for something to not be the way it is)
3. Desire for becoming (the desire to have more or to be more)

Desire for Sense Pleasure

“Desire for sense pleasure creates suffering because its demands eternal fulfillment are continually frustrated by the impermanent,” changing world and things around us. We have a natural tendency to cling to things that bring us joy or make us happy, hoping they will never leave us. Shmi Skywalker may not want to see her child leave her to become a Jedi. But she understands and tells young Anakin “we cannot stop change anymore that we can stop the suns from setting.” All things are impermanent. We suffer when we don’t release them. Anakin believes that if he leaves Tatooine and trains as a Jedi, then he will be happy. While there is nothing wrong with wanting to become a Jedi, being attached to the idea can cause suffering if he’s unable to become a Jedi.

Desire for Non-Being

The desire for non-being is another way for aversion (the act of turning away). Aversion is frustration with life in the here and now; it is the desire to be rid of a dissatisfying situation explains Bortolin. In A New Hope, Luke can’t accept living on Tatooine, trapped into being a farmer as his friends are in the Academy. Luke longs for adventure. Once he finally trains to become a Jedi, Yoda must teach Luke in Empire Strikes Back to focus. Luke’s mind was never “on where he was, what he was doing” as he craves adventure and excitement. Yoda tells Luke “A Jedi craves not these things.” It is when a Jedi attaches to craving that he suffers. Luke must be mindful of his cravings so he can chose to act on them if he thinks they will benefit him rather than making him a slave to them instead.

Desire of Becoming (Anakin Loses Himself)

The desire of becoming or the almost blind quest to attain it. Anakin loses himself to his quest to “become the most powerful Jedi ever.” When we pursue ideas of becoming, we lose peace in the here and now. The Jedi arts of mindfulness, concentration, and meditation are intended to help get in touch with one’s self. We cannot become anything more that what we already are. Anakin’s road to becoming the most powerful Jedi (actually, Sith Lord) leads to frustration and unhappiness. The key is understanding, not becoming. “The more we understand ourselves the less we will suffer by clinging to the idea that we need to get rid of who we are and become just like a little green Jedi Master.”

Allowing Desire to Just “Be”

So desire appears to be the cause of suffering. Now what? If we feel desire knowing what we know now, we may push it away only for it to form desire for non-being. How does a Jedi or average person cope with desire then? Allow it to just be-”-like a cloud floating across the sky of our mind. By allowing desire to be means we accept it and can watch it, noticing it will eventually cease. “The practice of recognizing, accepting, and allowing desire to be is how we let go of desire.”

Letting Go

Yoda ultimately shows us how to let go in Return of the Jedi. He has seen the Republic in its glory with Jedi acting as stewards of peace, he has seen the Republic fall into chaos, and he has seen the Sith take over and the Jedi hunted down all but disappearing. Yoda knows his life is ending and the dark side still rules the galaxy. However, he doesn’t suffer from aversion, he doesn’t cling to his ideas or beliefs. Yoda lets go and accepts that dying is the way of things, “the way of the Force.”

The Dharma of Star Wars is an excellent read in understanding the spiritual side of the Jedi and the Jedi Arts. While we know that Anakin wanted to grow up to be a Jedi or that Luke couldn’t wait to get off Tatooine, Bortolin allows us to understand how these aspirations could cause suffering for our beloved Star Wars characters. What lessons are to learned by Luke’s wisdom? I thought he was just an annoying, whiny kid that happened to make a decent decision to help his father return to the good side of the Force. I maybe wrong.

The Dark Side Within

I’ve only read the first chapter of Dharma, but finally read the second chapter last night when I was in the hot tub. The chapter I read is titled “The Dark Side Within.” The title page has quotes from Empire Strikes Back when Yoda and Luke are in the forest as Luke feels the dark side.

“There’s something not right here. I feel cold, death.” says Luke. “That place…is strong with the dark side of the Force. A domain of evil it is. In you must go.” says Yoda.

This is the scene where Luke goes into the evil place, sees Darth Vader, then aggressively strikes Darth Vader down with his light saber only to find that the face behind Darth Vader’s mask is his own. I never got this scene. I never knew why Luke failed (according to Yoda) until now, but first I had to learn about suffering…you know the “fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.”

Suffering 101

There are several forms of suffering. The first is ordinary suffering or pain. The second is associated with change. Because life is always changing, we constantly are gaining and losing things that bring us happiness. The loss of happiness is an example of suffering in the second form. The third form of suffering can be described as frustration. We’ve all experienced it. We are forced into a situation we don’t like or can’t do what we would like to do, so we become frustrated. Anakin is a good example because he feels smothered by Obi-Wan in Attack of the Clones. He’s frustrated that he’s not able to do what he wants to do and can’t control the events in his life.

Be Mindful…or We Act in Unskilled, Even Destructive Ways

According to Bortolin, when we are not mindful and fully aware of frustration, we often act in ways that are unskillful and destructive at times. Anakin’s the perfect example as his frustration leads to a “relentless quest to control not only events immediate to him but also the galaxy itself. Ultimately, producing Darth Vader.”

The Dark Side of the Force

The dark side represents another form of energy that he regards as another form of suffering. The dark side manifests anger, fear, aggression, and hatred. In following Yoda’s teachings, “attachment to fear, anger, and hate is suffering; and fear, anger, and hate do not arise one from the other, but from confusion within our own mind. When we are attached to the dark side we suffer, and those around us suffer as well.” What a great summary of the dark side.

Suffering 501

Anakin ultimately acts out his anger by murdering the Tusken Raiders that killed his mother. He is not freed of suffering by killing, but it only intensifies it. He failed to be mindful of his sorrow and anger, repressing it instead thus leading to his path down to the dark side. According to Bortolin, we don’t get rid of suffering by acting out in anger. “We must understand it in order to transform form suffering. It is not the enemy or something to run from. It’s an aspect of ourselves that we can come to appreciates if we have patience, courage, and compassion.”

Listen to Qui-Gon: Be Mindful

We must recognize suffering, following Qui-Gon’s advice and being mindful of our daily life, being aware of suffering as it manifests. Recognition of our state of mind mitigates our suffering and leads to the second step of transformation–acceptance. We have to accept the presence of frustration before we can transform it. By accepting frustration, we look deeply into it, helping us achieve the third step: transformation. Investigate the frustration to understand the conditions and causes that have contributed to it. Unlike Anakin, we can save ourselves from regrettable actions by looking into ourselves.

Insight is the final step toward transformation. Recognizing, accepting, and looking deeply at suffering isn’t easy. We turn on the TV, watch movies, anything diversions to help us forget, but not bringing freedom from suffering necessary for happiness. Suffering has no external cause but is the product of our own ignorance and attachments. “We think “if only” the world would conform to our ideals we could be happy.”

Luke’s Failing on Degobah

So why did Luke fail? Yoda knows that if “Luke can confront the suffering within him with compassion and understanding he will do much to overcome whatever hold the dark side has on him. But Luke makes the same mistake many of us make in our lives: he mistakenly believes his suffering originates from a source outside himself.” In this case, Luke saw Darth Vader, then struck him down with his light saber…failing to recognize that the source of his suffering is not Darth Vader, but himself.

Who knew?! That’s why I wanted to read The Dharma of Star Wars and The Tao of Star Wars. I knew there were things I couldn’t quite understand from a Buddhist or Taoist perspective. It’s a great way for me to learn more about these teachings in a familiar setting. Nothing like having a Dark Side to understand to transform.