How to be a Good Finisher

I first must apologize. About 4 days ago I promised to blog within 24 hours. As usual I became distracted with reading about the intricacies of the Nazi regime on Wikipedia and overindulging in sleep at inappropriate hours. Procrastination is exhausting. With that being said, this post is very overdue. And I sincerely hope that mid-post I will not lose interest and start reading Schindler’s List, or start streaming movies online. But you never know.

How to be a Good Finisher

Perhaps the title of this post is a bit ambitious considering I am often overcome by procrastination, discouragement and distraction. One could argue that I am a poor finisher at times. But writing on a topic does not instantly make you an expert or a paragon of that specific principle or philosophy. Thus is the case here. But what I profess to be good practice I fervently try to apply in my life. So here we go.

I have noticed in my life that it is often very difficult to finish. It is tough to complete a long term paper. It is difficult to remain in a relationship. It is hard to have the legs to sink a deep jumper in the fourth quarter. It is not easy to continue to accomplish things when you have accomplished so much. It is difficult to search for innovation when so much has been innovated at your hands. The point is life is difficult, but finishing is an even greater challenge. It is easy to go hard for 90% of the journey, and then let your weariness prevail. That is why we have books half finished, projects barely started and long relationships terminated. It is tough to finish. Like most things in life this is mostly mental. In order to be a good finisher we must change our mindset. And a great way to learn any skill is to learn from the greats, those who dominated their craft. And the art of finishing is certainly a craft one must develop.

For those of you not familiar with Neal A. Maxwell, allow me to explain. He was among other things a prolific writer for the LDS church for many years. He was known for his verbosity and his uncanny ability to touch people with his beautiful orations and written word. One specifically salient aspect of his character to me was his ability to finish. In 1996 he was diagnosed with Leukemia. He remained alive for another eight years. Gordon B. Hinckley said “Maxwell accomplished more in these last eight years than most men do in a lifetime.” That pithy comment speaks volumes to me about the type of man Neal A. Maxwell was. He knew his disease was terminal. He knew no one would judge him for taking it easy. He knew there would be no dire consequences for retiring from his faculties. But alas, he trudged on. He wanted to accomplish more. He wanted to serve and fight until the last day. That is how you finish.

Michael Jordan is an obvious beacon of athleticism. And his work ethic was unparalleled in his sport. But again, his ability to close or finish is what set him apart. If the game was on the line, you knew and he knew that he was going to take the last shot. And most of the time it was going in. If he was sick, you knew he was going to play. And if it was the NBA finals, you knew he was going to win, whether you wanted to admit it or not. One of my favorite quotes from Jordan about himself states: “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Thus we see that finishing is not always about an elusive level of perfection, but the ability to continue forward in the face of failure. You cannot finish if you are haunted by your past. You cannot find love unless the demons of erstwhile romances are exorcized.

Finishers that exceed the rest in my mind are the Holocaust survivors. Not only were they starved, dehumanized, beaten and ridiculed in the most horrific manner, they had to witness countless loved ones perish right before their eyes. The psychological toll on them was unbelievable. Many simply quit along the way. Suicide seemed to be the only escape from hell. And some could not bear the culpability of being the only family member alive. But those who endured the war, and the subsequent years of trauma and anguish are the true finishers. One survivor Joseph Sher recounted the last words of a friend before being taken to his death: “Don’t forget, tell the world. You cannot keep it inside.” For this purpose many Jews decided they must endure, they must survive, so their story could remain. They had to finish. They had to.

So often our conundrum is that we are not in a life or death situation. We do not HAVE to finish or Hemmingway novel. We do not have to matriculate from school to get a good job. We do not have to help somebody today, we can help them tomorrow. We do not have to settle down and commit this time around. There is no sense of urgency. But we must have a sense of urgency. If not, I fear we will look back on our lives with sorrow and regret. We will look back at the things we have neglected or left undone. And we will don an eternal frown. It is not easy, but we must learn and strive to be better finishers. And I think we start with the little things. When we start a book, we should finish it. When we accept a task from a colleague, we should finish it post haste. When we set a goal, we should work toward it, and not dismiss it as a silly pipedream. For life cannot be successfully lived ex tempore.We should sojourn on through the difficult times to reach the valley of splendor. And if this is our resolve, we will soon find that we are finishing with the big things. We are graduating college. We are marrying the person of our dreams. We are starting our own business. We are enduring to the end. We are finishing.

South Dakota & Spontaneity Part 2

For context please read the first segment of this story, found here.


As we arrived in the sleepy town of Green River, Wyoming to gas up we decided to get out of the car, drink some soda and attempt to do kick flips in the parking lot. Getting out of the car and acting like small children at every stop makes for a much more enjoyable road trip. And as we all know, the longer you remain awake the funnier things become. At this point it was about 3:30 in the morning and we still had to drive from one end to the other of the Equality State.

A few hours later I was still awake and the sun was starting to rise. Music continued to play while half the car was in a deep coma and the other half flirted back and forth with jocular conversation. We were now in the vast and open state of Wyoming. Our view was a cornucopia of barren fields, what we assumed were bison in the distance, and the occasional small town. At about 10:00 a.m. I was still awake and the hilarity of every sentence I heard was beginning to reach an all-time high. We decided to stop in a couple hours for a hardy meal, but a few miles later I saw something in the distance I wanted to explore and demanded that we stop the car. It was a decrepit house about one-hundred yards off the highway near the town of Manville. There was a large windmill on the property and no other sign of life for miles. Me and one of my other travel mates ran out there and immediately started to poke around the derelict home of yesteryear. We found nothing particularly inspiring, but it was curious that the house still remained after decades of abandonment. Per usual, we took advantage of the moment and took copious amounts of pictures, perhaps to the bemusement of our less peppy and awake passengers who remained in the car chagrined and fussy.

We trekked on until we arrived in the bustling town of Lusk, Wyoming, population 1,567. We pulled into the only place we could see that would possibly serve food, the Triangle 4 Café & Steak House. We entered, and quickly realized that we were not of the same cultural milieu of these people. We both had tight pants and hats, but theirs were Wranglers and cowboys hats, and ours were skinny jeans and snap-backs. Our food was actually delicious despite the abysmal service and unsolicited stares we received from confused ranchers. Wyoming knows how to make omelets. Before getting back in the car we walked around a minute to more fully take in Lusk. Every city and town has its own story, and just taking an extra 5 minutes to poke around and talk to locals can really help you feel the history of that town without ever having reading a dusty book on the town’s history.
We then got back into our beloved Hyundai and continued eastward, next stop South Dakota.

The Dating Anecdotes Vol. 2

The actress Judy Tenuta once posed the morbid question: “Have you ever dated someone because you were too lazy to commit suicide?” Well, hopefully the idea of dating someone is not that gut-wrenchingly terrible, but oft times the whole charade of dating can be depressing and just plain nauseating. In the meantime, or until we find our sparkling counterpoint in life, hopefully we can find some hilarity in our string of lesser paramours.

Here are a few reasons we should consider celibacy or perhaps polygamy:

1. When I was 16 years old, new to dating and enthralled with driving a motor vehicle I found myself in the beginning of a youthful courtship. We went out a few times, and had just experienced our first semi-public kiss together. One special night I was taking her home for the night when tragedy struck. I was driving down a dirt road to her isolated house in the country, so far all was well. We stopped a few feet in front of her porch where conversation ensued and shortly thereafter a kiss that was French in its nature. My pubescent enthusiasm overshadowed my ability to remember one key thing: Put your car in park if you are going to start kissing. Because you will inevitably let your foot off the brake, and not notice the slow rolling of the car. And then you will surely run into the porch with your beautiful 93’ Camry. Well, in accordance with Murphy’s Law, the crash awakened my date’s grandparents who rushed out in their nightwear to see what the problem was. Grandma was distraught and confused, but grandpa was savvy. He took me aside and said, “I’m sure you were just caught in my granddaughter’s eyes.” He wasn’t too far off. Needless to say, my 15 year old sweetheart was mortified and never really recovered from that incident. But it taught me a priceless lesson on brake management.

2. A few years ago I got a girls number in the most classy way you could imagine, at Wal-Mart. If this was a warning sign, I certainly ignored it. She was cool, artsy and from the East coast. I asked her out and she accepted with no small amount of pep. She suggested we go to this café on improv night. Not exactly my cup of chamomile but I was happy to go. As we arrived and sat down, I noticed that she knew the people we were sitting next to. This is very common in a college town, so I thought nothing of it. Within a few minutes I looked over and she was holding hands with the bloke to her left. I am no expert on dating etiquette, but this seemed like a major faux pas. So I decided at the first convenience I would suggest we leave. But she beat me to it. After the first intermission she notified me that she would not need a ride home. Goody. Now I could save 8 cents on gas. That was the last time I picked up a girl in the school supplies section.

3. A little over a year ago I got my waitresses’ number at a Chinese restaurant. She was simple and cute, I liked it. A few days later she came over to my apartment to hang out. We just watched a movie and talked for a while. It got to be pretty late, when without any sort of vacillation of thought she asked if she could light a cigarette. The fact that she was a smoker was well disguised by the perfume and copious amounts of gum she chomped on. But her mask of good hygiene and innocence was immediately removed when she demanded a smoking break. I assured her that I would not permit such an invidious practice in my apartment, so she said, “fine I will just go smoke on the porch.” Classy move. Our relationship blossomed and died all on that smoky night.


Now for a few phenomenal excuses for not going on a date

1. One time I had a date with a girl scheduled for 7:00 p.m. I called her at about 6:45 to see where I should pick her up. She answered the phone and said, “Well I’m at the gym.” I am no stickler for punctuality so I said, “ok, wanna just call me when you get home?” She said, “Well I just got here.” Sometimes personal fitness is really all that matters.
2. “I just don’t feel like going out.” I doubt she would have said that to Brad Pitt.
3. I once asked out a girl, was on my way to pick her up when I receive a text that said, “I decided I don’t want to go out tonight.”

Top things you do not say while kissing someone:

1. I have pneumonia
2. I am engaged (I wish these were different girls)
3. Do you even like me?
4. I am going to go brush my teeth

South Dakota & Spontaneity Part. 1

My friends and I recently decided it was extremely necessary to leave the state of Utah in search of diversion and vacation. We aren’t fond of the drink and we rarely gamble, so our possible destination points were endless. Being that it was the 4th of July weekend we were filled with an inordinate amount of patriotism and jubilee. This joy and whimsy we were imbued with led us to the decision to travel to Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota. We figured it was only 11 hours away, and you have to see it at some point right? So we made plans to leave around 11:00 p.m. on the 4th after the fireworks and related festivities. The day of, we started telling people of our capricious plan to visit the Black Hills and were met with no small amounts of laughter and sarcastic remarks on the supposedly boring and pointless nature of the journey we were about to undertake. Even many who had visited Mt. Rushmore in all its glory opined that it was cool to see, but not worth the 11 hour drive through Wyoming to look at a mountain for 10 minutes, then leave.

We had 5 best friends together and were not about to let the poor attitude of others deflate our elation. So at around 1:30 a.m. we entered the car and commenced our trip to South Dakota. We got about a mile away and decided we needed to consume food immediately. We headed to Sonic, ate mediocre food and took an Instagram with our delicious drinks to commemorate the genesis of our journey.

The drive through the night and into the morning was long and bereft of any gorgeous vistas or exceptional landmarks, but somehow we managed to have an amazing time. The point of this post is twofold: I wish to document the fun trip I had with my friends, but more importantly I wish to explain how easy it is to enjoy any moment in life. We could have had a very boring trip full of complaints and regret, but we had an epic vacation full of spontaneity and poignant memories. I believe two things. I believe that personnel will always trump geography. And I believe that every experience can be wonderful and enjoyable if we only allow it to be. This post will be replete with obvious clichés; but who does not need the occasional reminder on how to follow the Latin instructions carpe diem?

Our driving immediately commenced with loud music interspersed with colorful dialogue and crafty opportunities for photographs. Our laughter and consumption of caffeine fueled us all the way to Green River, Wyoming, our first stop.

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