Friends

Socrates, Close Friends and the Triple Filter Test

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

Not long ago today I arrived home from having breakfast with a friend, one I enjoy being around more and more the longer I know him.  The bonus this morning was he brought his wife, who is interesting, compassionate and considerate in her distinctive way just as her husband is uniquely original in his.  Long after the meal, we sat and talked.  My day is better for having had their physical presence near me at the start of this Saturday.  

M. was my dentist for well over a decade before he retired from that profession.  His chair-side manner was always entertaining during my appointments and the funny things he said never failed to make me grin and laugh.  With humor as the first face he shows, I wonder if he even realizes the genuine warmth he has about him.  The fondness I feel toward him is something I hope he has a hint of as such deep feelings are not easily and openly expressed in our friendship.  

D., his wife, has been his partner in life and business for almost all of their adult lives.  I can think of no couple I know who is a better example of a successful partnership and marriage.  In the early years of M’.s practice they were a near 24-hour team between work and home.  He did the dentistry and she ran the office.   Through the years they have continued that sort of relationship in many other ways.

There’s an old story that has long been told that goes something like this:  A long time ago in ancient Greece, there lived a man named Socrates, who was highly knowledgeable and an esteemed philosopher. One fine day, a student told Socrates that he had some information to tell him about his friend. Before he would let him talk further, Socrates told him he must take ‘Triple Filter Test’.

The first phase of the ‘Triple Filter Test’ was the filter of truth. Socrates asked if the student was certain the information he had about his friend was the truth. The younger man said that he had just heard it from another person and was not absolutely certain if the news was true. 

The second filter was that of goodness. Socrates asked if the information was regarding anything good about his friend. The student said it was actually the opposite. 

The third filter was that of usefulness. Socrates asked if the report would be useful to him in any way. The student replied it probably would not.

Socrates responded by saying when a report about a friend is not true, good or useful, it should NOT be conveyed at all. The moral of the story is while it is always a temptation to participate in loose gossip when it comes to your friends it is especially not a good thing. You know your close friends better than most others and should rely on what you know first hand to be true.  One shows their caring by avoiding the temptation to talk negatively behind the back of one’s dearest friends.   

So today I write this behind the back of my two friends, but will be posting it for all to see.  I think Socrates would be pleased.  What I have said here is the “truth”.  What I write is based in “goodness” and I believe “useful” in reminding me and others to value in thought and action those dear friends we share our lives with.  

I am at a loss to explain specifically why my friendship with M. & D. is as meaningful to me as it is.  Why the two of them took an interest in me and have continued to care about me through some of the most difficult years of my life is beyond my full ability to grasp.  I choose not to go forward with speculation of the reason why and instead end up where I do with many blessings at this stage of my life.  Simply, I accept “what is” with a grateful heart and mind with the knowledge that many of the best things in life can not be “figured out” or fully explained.  

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.  C.S. Lewis

Letter to a Friend

/ James Browning / 3 Comments

Good morning.  I am thankful that you have come here to read this blog today.  When I began doing this I did so simply because some inspiration beyond my full understanding pulled me to do so.  I felt then and still feel now like I am simply following directions from a Higher Power.  In the two months of goodmorninggratitude.com readership has grown beyond anything I could have guessed.  My assumption was that a few friends and family who love me would take an interest.  That’s what happened the first week when there were a dozen or less readers. 

Over time it has been humbling to watch readership grow.  As the weeks passed I saw 30, then 40, then 50 readers and it kept growing from there.  I was blown away when over a hundred people visited goodmorninggratitude.com and am grateful past what I know how to express.  With this experience I have been blessed with a grace I am unaccoustomed to and am appreciative in a way beyond anything I have previously known.  Thank you for your support of this new chapter of life for me. 

Focusing on thankfulness for 45 minutes or more each day has profoundly increased my gratitude for being alive.  The more gratitude I find, the more I find to be grateful for.  I never knew something so simple could have such a dramatic affect.  

I sense sometimes the blogs have gotten a bit long and wonder if I should try to keep them shorter and less rambling.  I also wonder if the subject matter is too banal or corny at times.  Do I get so personal it makes reading too uncomfortable for others?  I am not the best proof reader and wonder if typos distract from the content or is it easy to read past them.  First and foremost I write this blog for myself knowing my life is enriched from that effort.  Yet, I want to get better.  Now with so many readers I am asking for input and feedback, but am NOT begging for pats on the back.  Any thoughts that lend direction or I can learn from to improve this blog would be appreciated.  Leave comments here or write me at goodmorninggratitude@gmail.com.  Thank you.  As long as one person reads goodmorninggratitude.com each day, I will rise early each morning to write it. 

“Letter to a Friend” written by Fra Giovanni Giocondo (1433 – 1515) to his friend Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi on Christmas Eve, 1513

I am your friend
and my love for you goes deep.
There is nothing I can give you
which you have not got:
but there is much, very much
that while I cannot give it,
you can take.

No heaven can come to us
unless our hearts find rest
in today. Take heaven!
No peace lies in the future
which is not hidden
in this present little instant.
Take peace!

The gloom of the world is but a shadow.
Behind it, yet within reach, is joy.
Take joy!

There is radiance and glory
in the darkness, could we but see,
and to see we have only to look.
I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver,
but we, judging its gifts by
the covering, cast them away
as ugly, or heavy or hard.
Remove the covering and
you will find beneath it
a living splendor,
woven of love,
by wisdom, with power.

Welcome it, grasp it,
and you touch the angel’s hand
that brings it to you.
Everything we call a trial,
a sorrow, or a duty, believe me,
that angel’s hand is there,
the gift is there, and the wonder
of an overshadowing presence.
Our joys, too, be not
content with them as joys.
They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose,
so full of beauty,
beneath its covering—
that you will find earth
but cloaks your heaven.

Courage, then, to claim it, that is all.
But courage you have,
and the knowledge that
we are all pilgrims together,
wending through unknown country, home.

And so, at this time, I greet you,
not quite as the world sends greetings,
but with profound esteem
and with the prayer that for you
now and forever, the day breaks,
and the shadows flee away.

Paul McCartney & Carly Simon

/ James Browning / 4 Comments

Browsing the Internet I came across a list of June celebrity birthdays showing Paul McCartney and Carly Simon both celebrate the day of their birth later this month.  On the 18th Paul will turn 69 years of age.  Then a week later on June 25th Carly will turn 66.

Both performers have been favorites of mine since I first became aware of them.  Memory is clear of listening to a cheap small plug-in red plastic radio and hearing the Beatle invasion unfold.  At the time the “in thing” for many was to pick a favorite Beatle.  The girls just loved Paul and being a typical contrarian American male, I said I liked Ringo best.  Picking a favorite at all was opposite to a lot of the boys in the 60’s who pretended to hate the Beatles simply because the girls liked them. I just could not admit to “the guys” at the time that my favorite Beatle was really Paul. 

The Beatles never came close enough to where I lived for me to see them.  I did see Paul and Linda McCartney with Wings in Cincinnati at the old Riverfront Coliseum in the late 70’s.  They had a great band, a string and horn section and backup singers which made for a wonderful concert. About 10 years ago I saw Pual in concert and again about a year ago from the 4th row (thanks P.K.!).  In his 60’s Paul is still a great performer and always seems to be having a great time on stage.  Paul once said “I never look forward, because I have not idea about how any of it happened to getting here.  I’ve no idea how the next five years are going to be.”

Eight years or so after my discovery of McCartney I came into my first contact with Carly Simon’s music in 1971.  That first song ‘The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” was so different that American media did not know what to do with it.  The followup was an album with the title song “Anticipation” which she has said was about her state of mind while waiting for Cat Stevens to arrive for a date.  However, it was Carly’s 3rd album when I became a fan.  It was then the “You’re So Vain” mystery was unleashed.

In a newly-recorded version of “You’re So Vain” a few years ago, Simon whispers roughly two and a half minutes into the tune.  Play it backwards and you’ll hear the first name of the man: “David.”  Carly confirmed the clue in an interview and said “I’m just going to tell you this.  The answer is on the new version of ‘You’re So Vain.’  It’s the answer to the puzzle.” The “David” she is probably referring to is movie and music mogul David Geffen.  While the song was long thought to be about a failed relationship, the new whisper seems to be a hint at Simon’s resentment of Geffen signing then-music rival Joni Mitchell for his own label Asylum Records.

I regret that I have never seen Carly Simon in concert.  She rarely tours.  But I have been consoled by the album covers of many of her LP’s!  She was the subject of quite a bit of young male wishful thinking in the day.  The one that hooked me was “Secrets” where she is proudly walking braless and looking naturally sexy as all get out.  She continued with that sort of LP cover theme consistently over the years, much to my enjoyment. 

I know Paul McCartney is engaged to a wealthy woman named Nancy Shevell from The Hamptons.  I do wish them much happiness.  I hope this union brings Paul a much better life than his second marriage to old what’s her name.  I also know that Carly Simon is single but has a steady boyfriend.  However I do know the two of them know each other since Linda McCartney was one of Carly Simon’s closest friends.  This morning the notion of the two of them married popped into my head and I found it fun to think about.  I imagined them on stage singing to each other:

Paul to Carly: I give her all my love, That’s all I do; And if you saw my love, You’d love her too.

And then Carly to Paul:  Nobody does it better, Makes me feel sad for the rest, Nobody does it half as good as you, Baby, you’re the best.

What a great fantasy concert that could be.  I know thinking of Paul and Carly as a couple is pure craziness and the product of an overactive imagination.  However, I have enjoyed their music and followed their careers and lives to the point that they have been companions on my journey through life.  I am very grateful for the many pleasurable hours listening to their work and simply want both to be happy as the three of us move through the autumn years of our lives.   

No Spring nor Summer Beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one Autumnal face.
John Donne

High School Memories Revised

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.  “Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone.  “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”  Alice laughed.  “There’s no use trying,” she said.  “One can’t believe impossible things.”  “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen.  “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day.  Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Real life can sometimes be akin to the experiences of the Queen in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.   I am in the process of discovering and overturning some personally fabricated untruths from my growing up years.  While the initial realization is a little disconcerting, the newly realized truth is freeing.

My home life was troubled growing up (father left when I was 7, a young and preoccupied with herself Mother, a nasty stepfather who arrived in my 10th year, verbal, mental and some physical abuse at home, etc).  Further, I have carried the belief that my junior and high school life was troubled also.  Now I realize I took with me to class what was at home and painted my school experience with it.

I did remember previously that academically I always did well and had no issues with classes or teachers.  I recalled being picked on some here and there.  The memory of being left out of the “in” group at times was clear.  I recalled feeling “not good enough” because I did not have the cool clothes many did.  However, there is nothing unique about me having those type memories of my school years.  Most all have those feelings growing up, at least at times.

Two nights ago I did an on-line search for an old classmate and ran across a listing of people in my hometown who were buried in a particular cemetery. A few were people I went to school with. I dug out four high school annuals I have paid almost no attention to in 40 years to try and connect name to face for two people.  Doing so caused a strong bit of a nostalgic feeling and I began to slowly read through two of the yearbooks.  I ended up reading  how people had signed my yearbooks for the first time in probably 40 years.  What I found was almost a perfect conflict with the memory I had planted in my head about school.

 To one of the cutest, sweetest and most charming boys I have ever known.  You are a good friend I will always remember with pleasure.  May God provide you with the best life has to offer.  Beth 

To a good friend who was the only one at the first of school.  A friend.  Mike 

To one of the cutest, sweetest boys I know.  You have a lot of class. May we always be friends.  Kaye 

Best of luck to a real nice boy!  Stay the same and you’ll really go places.  Will 

To one of the nicest boys and cutest I know.  May we be best of friends.  I will always remember you.  Love Linda 

To a good boy and a very good friend. May God be with you.  David 

You are one of the best looking boys I have ever known.  May you always be as sweet as you are now.  Love ya, Joan

To a real nice friend.  I hope you really have the best in everything you ever do.  Good luck.  Jon 

To a good looking guy with a great personality.  May we have some fun some time.  Love and kisses.  Loretta (I hope your girl don’t crown me!) 

On and on the written comments went.  Between the two yearbooks comments of somewhere around 100 people were there.  All were positive, caring, encouraging and friendly.  There was not a single negative hinted at.  A little of what was written may have been the tendency of people to just say something nice.  However, even considering that, what I read was overwhelming.

After all these years, my made up memories about school faded away.  I suddenly recalled that school was one of the good things about my growing up.  I had many friends, was accepted in all “groups” and popular in most.  Girls liked me and reading the comments now I realize I missed the chance for several girlfriends.  Even the boys thought I was a good guy.

While this is a difficult lesson, I am grateful through the emotions of the moment to know that some of my memory is untrue.  Somehow I mixed up some of this and some of that to create “impossible things” like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland.  Now I know I have denied myself the knowing of some wonderful things about my life.

What a relief!  What a gift!  To suddenly find wonderful memories that I had locked away behind a door of other grief and pain is both humbling and astonishing.  What I was feeling inside at the time did not allow me to accurately experience and remember the school part of my youth.  I suppose it is human nature to diminish the good and amplify the bad, but from this day forward it is my intention to reverse that tendency as much as possible.

With great gratitude for what has happened,  I am suddenly refreshed and renewed at a soulful level.

Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.  Richard Wright

“Mornin’ Mack. How you doing?”

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

Frequently I say “Mornin’ Mack.  How you doing?” when I walk by the photo above that hangs in my office.  At other times I have been known to say “I know Mack, I shouldn’t have done that” or simply “I miss you man”.

Mack Jones Pettigrew was one of the best friends of my life.  He died in 1994.  We met when we both worked at the same place in 1975 and for the next 19 years we became closer and closer friends.     The time we became the closest was during his illness.  In typical Mack J. style he made that time uniquely memorable.

The time is clear in my mind when in 1988 I met Mack for lunch on a workday as I frequently did.  He was quieter and less animated than usual and mentioned he did not feel well.  Close to the end of lunch Mack looked up at me with tears in his eyes and said something like “I’m really sick man.  I gonna to die and I haven’t told anyone until now.  Not even my Mama.  I’m scared”.  I was dumbfounded and did not know what to say but asked “what’s going on”.  He proceeded to explain that it had all started with sickle cell anemia and now had turned into full blown leukemia of an incurable type.  I wanted to know if there was treatment that could help and Mack said there were only things that could buy him time.  Nothing else.

To know the man that Mack had been prior to his illness would be to describe a good man with some bad habits.  Frequently cash flow challenged he cut corners that were not always legal but never of the sort that gets a person in serious trouble.  His life was also a constant flow of women.  He had been married for a few years to someone he truly loved and the union produced a child that was dear to him.  His bad habits caused the downfall of the marriage and at the time he became ill he had been single for close to 10 years.  I knew his faults and I knew his heart too.

Over lunch the day he told me he was sick, he explained that the Doctors told him he had 12 to 18 months to live.  But, if he would clean his act up, stay on a strict diet and get serious daily exercise he could buy himself time.  And buy himself time is what Mack did.  He became extraordinarily picky with his diet and he committed even more to working out.

Three years passed and it was hard to know Mack was ill.  He seemed so healthy and normal except when his pancreas would be hurting and he’d put his hand over that spot.  He became a serious body builder and as you can see from the photo above he was handsome with his rippling muscles and killer smile.  Mack went on to take every state of Ohio title for body building for 40+ men.  I remember sitting in the audience watching him flex and show off on stage looking so vibrant and filled with vigor.  I knew what others in the audience did not know:  My friend was dying.

Mack became one of the most loving, caring and gentle souls I have ever known during the seven years he lived from the onset of his illness.  That’s almost 4 times what the doctors originally predicted!  During those years he always hugged me when he first saw me and again when we parted.  Mack also always told me he loved me each time just before we went our separate ways.  It was with him that I adopted that habit where today I hug those men and women dear to me before leaving.  It is an enduring legacy of my friend who taught me it’s OK to show how I felt.

During those years of his illness we had some long and deep conversations that I learned so much from.  Once he said to me something similar to “You will never know what it’s like to be black.  Every day I am reminded what color I am and it’s been going on since I was little.  Some days it’s how people look at me or how they treat me.  Other days I remind myself when I look in the mirror and notice the color of my skin”.  He gave me that perspective and much more I would never have acquired had Mack not been my friend.

The last year of his life he took a job down south and I only saw him once.  We talked on the phone every 2 or 3 weeks and he always told me he was doing well. Even though I knew he was ill, it just seemed like Mack was going to just keep going and going.

That’s what I thought until I got a call on Wednesday March 16, 1994 from his ex-wife who said he had been in the hospital for over two weeks and had come home to die.  I learned she was breaking her word to call me as Mack had made her promise not to until he was gone.  He did not want me to worry and be upset. She said she knew how close we were and just couldn’t keep what was going on from me any longer.  I broke every speed limit getting to the hospital and when I got there my old friend was no longer conscious.  But when his wife called his name and told him I was in the room he moved and tried to raise his head even though he was unconscious.  He knew I was there.

So for the next few hours I sat on one side of the bed and his wife on the other (he remarried her in the hospital so she could receive benefits).  I held Mack’s right hand and she was held his left as he struggled for breathe.  To glance at the man who lay there all rippling with muscles it was difficult to grasp what was going on.  Over about three hours the breaths became slower and slower until there were no more.

Mack was as an MP in the army when he was young and was always proud of his service.  It came as no surprise that he had told his wife that he wanted to be buried in a Veteran’s Cemetery.  And so he was on Monday, March 21, 1994.  Rest in peace my dear friend. The tears I have shed writing this are for the joy of having known you and for what you taught me with your courage and caring.  I will love you always and be grateful for the gift you were to my life.  Happy Memorial Day Mack.  “Ciao, ciao”

Pettigrew, Mack Jones, b. 06/20/1951, d. 03/16/1994, US Army, PVT, Res: Fairborn, OH, Dayton National Cemetery- Plot: 25 0 862, bur. 03/21/1994

Temporary Friends

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

A couple of days ago I flew to Colorado to visit my son.  When I arrived at my home airport I saw long lines in front of the counter of the airlines I was flying.  My first thought was this flight was going to be a hassle.  It turned out the lines were backed up from another airline.  Although storms had caused all sorts of cancellations to the east, those going westward as I was were unaffected.  The journey started well.

Once on board in my aisle seat I was soon joined by a late 20-something young woman in the window seat beside me.  She was attractive in an unaffected way and dressed simply in jeans.  She seemed happy, smiled a lot and stuck up a conversation with me.  In a pleasant conversation I learned she was married and had two children:  one a 12-year old stepson and another 7-year old son she and her husband had together.  They lived in Denver and she was returning after visiting family in Tulsa.  Prior to takeoff we talked for about five minutes before the flight attendant moved some people around for weight and balance on the small commuter jet and she was one of them.  For those few minutes we really did relate to each other as we talked about our families and reasons for our trips.  And for that short while she became another on my list of “temporary friends”.  I am grateful to have the conversation logged away with the beaming face of a happy young woman stored with it. 

When interacting with strangers most often all that happens is the waitress or guy at the checkout goes by the script of the customary things they are supposed to say.  Or the person sitting beside you is mentally somewhere else  and in 90 minutes speaks only 10 words:  hello, how are you, fine, excuse me please and thank you .  Outside of the mechanical, necessary word exchange nothing of meaning is spoken and little if any part of the encounter gets logged to memory.  There have been other times on a flight or similar situation where I have had a seat next to someone who drones on and on speaking lots of words and saying next to nothing.  I rarely retain any memory of these non-connections except possibly in a negative sense.

There are also those unique and rare times when real connections happen.  Maybe with a waiter for a minute where there is real eye contact and interpersonal interaction.  These I think of as “momentary friends”.  Or once in a while on an airplane two compatible complete strangers find connection and the minutes float away without awareness as a “temporary friendship” is enjoyed.

I recall the 80-something gentleman who I talked with for three hours on a flight to California.  I was flying out for a job interview and found out he had relocated for his work quite a few times.  As I was considering a move, I asked was all the moving worth it.  He said something like “Yes, at the time.  But looking back now it really wasn’t worth it”.  I have reflected on his statment and his following explanation several times when presented with job prospects that required moving.  It helped. 

In clear memory is an hour of conversation with  the woman in the next seat that resulted in a still practiced long distance friendship.  Through emails from time to time we still stay in touch although we met on a flight 15 years ago. 

And there was the software consultant from Norfolk who was a wood carver, the grandmother from Atlanta who knitted as we talked, the retired NASA worker from Florida who knew the first crop of Astronauts, the college aged newly weds sunburned and giddy from their Cayman honeymoon, the anthropologist who was coming home to see his family after several years in Africa, the dentist from Cleveland flying to Dallas for Superbowl week, the business executive from New York City who talked about her love of horses, the flight attendant returning home to Denver who was excited about both her children coming home for Christmas and all the other “temporary friends” who don’t immediately come to mind at the moment.   To each and every one, I am grateful for the small threads you became within the fabric of my life.  Thank you all for giving me that little piece of yourself.  

There are no such things as strangers, only friends we have not met.  William Butler Yeats

Power of Words

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

Most of us most of the time do not recognize the power of our words.  One sentence spoken can be permanently carved into another’s psyche.  Most of what we speak is lost in the air the moment after the breath behind it evaporates. Usually we never know the impact of what we have spoken has on another person unless they tell us.

When I was seven my father left and my mother sat on a bed at my grandparents with an arm around my brother and I as she told us what had happened.  At one point she looked at me through tears and said “You’re now the man of the house.  You’re gonna have to take care of your little brother”.  She will never know the impact, both positive and negative, that statement had on me.  Inside I carry it in bold print and all caps’.  My gratitude is for the joy of seeing after my little brother and the wisdom derived from pain.  In combination both influences made me stronger and able to withstand much more than if I had not been “weathered” by what began as just a few words.

In my 16th year there was the man who fired me from my first part-time job in a profession that I have now been in for several decades.  He said “You have no talent or aptitude for this business.  You ought to plan on another line of work.  You won’t make it in this one”.  His words had the reverse effect of his intention and instead gave me determination to prove him wrong.  (PS:  He was out of the profession within a few years and ended being a policeman in a small town).  I am thankful to that man for having put a fire in my belly and a bellows in my soul so I could “blaze” brightly and prove him wrong.

Within a couple of years I was freshly out of high school and working in my profession when a man I respected told me I had true talent, should pursue a career in the business and there was a bright future ahead.  After a couple of years we lost touch.  In time he became very well known nationally in our line of work and was often a speaker at conventions.  I had the chance to talk to him about 25 years later at a professional gathering.  He recognized me right off and was glad to see me.  When I reminded him of what he had said and how much it meant to me, he simply didn’t specifically remember saying those words.  My response was to tell him that didn’t matter much for I remembered them and they benefited me greatly.

I lost a close friend of 30 years about a year ago who had been in bad health for several years.  Yet, his passing came much sooner than expected.  Four days before he died my cell phone rang and B.’s name was caller ID’ed on my screen.  I answered and in a weak voice he said “how you doing Brother?”  We were not family but we were closer than most relatives are.  He continued “I just wanted to call and hear your voice and tell you that I love you”.  I replied “I love you too B. how are you doing?”  His response was “I’m not doing very good.  I don’t have energy to do anything anymore.  Even getting to the bathroom is an F’ing chore anymore”.  I began to respond, but he interrupted by saying “I gotta go.  I’m feeling very tired”.  What came out of my mouth was “Ok, talk to you soon B.  Take care”.  “You too” was his response.  And those were the last words we ever exchanged.  I know in my heart he called to say good bye and today know what a great gift his goodbye to me is.  Writing them now I feel the deep emotion I always get when I think of what he said and remember him.

The power of my words goes so far beyond what I can perceive.  Further, I will rarely ever know who I touched with what I expressed or exactly which segment of words will be remembered.  With much reverence for their value, I can certainly tell you about those valuable and special words spoken to me that I keep in my treasure box of my life experience.  I am so grateful for those priceless bits people gifted me with.  Beyond what they will ever know, my life was in part shaped by the words they shared with me.  I hope some where, some how there are things I have spoken to others that have been deemed worthy of being treasured in a like fashion in their keepsakes of life.

Act as if what you do makes a difference.  It does.  William James