Finding Things To Do
I want so very much to remain upbeat and positive and I know I prize achievement orientation above most things, but I am still more at loose ends than I feel comfortable. Today is an instructive day in assessing my current problem. It is a week before Christmas and it is a sunny day here in San Diego County with temperatures ranging up to the mid-60’s. I do not see any clouds in the sky and its clear enough for me to look right from my living room sofa seat and see out to the Ocean in the distance over the dark green and stone-scattered chaparral. If I look to my left through the Yucca and cactus garden with its towering and interesting array of succulents, I see aloes, agaves, aeonium, rosemary, euphorbia, lavender, echeveria, and paloverdes all set amongst the boulders as the land falls away to the East with the mountains beyond. I have addressed the various garden groundcover needs with river rock over here, mulch and low creepers there and plantings of all sorts all around. I am guessing that this year alone I have bought and planted four trees, three hundred shrubs and plants, countless small succulent cuttings and fifty or more decorative grasses. That is, of course, in addition to what currently stands as five indoor bonsai and at least twenty-five outdoor bonsai, all of which are still thriving (I will also admit to five or six dead soldiers along the way). All of these things bring me joy both in the doing and the looking at. For some reason I have always liked sitting back and admiring my accomplishments, especially as they relate to the natural setting of my home.
As I think about it, I guess my efforts have been largely focused on creating places to sit back and enjoy the views of my property and the surrounding wonders of nature ranging from the Pacific Ocean to the wonders of the night sky. Sometimes I want to gather the sunshine and warmth it brings, other times I want to shade myself from the heat of the sun and have both a patch of shade and even a space that attracts the breezes that rush alternately between the Ocean and the Mountains. My house is perfectly positioned to catch all the good air and air movements that this location between the major heat and cooling sinks that nature offers. Sometimes the Ocean side is warmer and sometimes it is cooler, but it’s always more of what we desire to soothe our limited comfort range. I find myself staring out at distant vistas more often than I have reason to. I have suffered no tragedies. I have not had a hard life. I do not have any obvious maladies nor have I suffered any loses of note. I suspect I just need to get used to having less to do than I generally prefer.
Today was a day when I needed to suit up, one of the few times in 2020. I had a funeral to attend at 9:00am and a trial in which to give testimony at 10:30am. One required a show of respect with a white shirt and tie and the other required similar formality to stand up for widows and orphans whose retirement income security has been put into harm’s way by irresponsible handling of what is known as their fiduciary obligations. The funeral was a somber affair with insufficient audio capabilities to allow the 57 of us online to hear much of the tributes being offered up for our lost comrade. The arbitration was a serious affair with the welfare of hundreds of retirees on the line, but also 27 lawyers, arbitrators and experts and court reporters online. On the surface, that’s a smaller group, but remember, all 27 were being paid to be on. As best I can tell, only one person, the presiding rabbi, and perhaps the woman from the funeral home, were paid attendees. I do expert witness work because it is interesting, uses my 40-year career skills and knowledge base, pays me well and is an opportunity to stand up for what I believe is righteousness in business dealings.
Funerals are usually 80% obligation and only 20% true feelings. Today was different. This was someone important to me and important to my life story. What might have been a visual box-checking was turned into something special by virtue of getting on a private Zoom call with the children of my dear lost friend. Reconnecting with my friend’s sweet daughters was a way for me to feel that I was recapturing some wonderful old times (ones that involved my own children), but mostly I was able to be of service to these lovely young women in helping them get through a difficult time. In so doing I was doing more for my old friend who could no longer comfort them himself than anything else I could have done in life or at a virtual funeral. That’s a good thing to do.
When I am answering cross-examination questions or questions from the judges and arbitrators, I sense that they think I am invested in my position for the self-interest of being on the team that is paying me. I am sometimes asked how much I am being paid or how many billable hours I have put into this case. those questions make me feel that I am being judged a mercenary. Then again, I have also been asked if I have only acted as an expert witness on behalf of claimants. There is a part of me that thinks they are implying that I am available to be bought by either side. On the other hand, they might also be suggesting that I am a zealot that has lost professional objectivity. I am fortunate that I have, so far, only been asked to testify on behalf of parties (both claimant and respondent) who I have thought have been in the right. Strangely enough, my initial pre-research sense has only been reinforced as I have dug into the details of the cases. Could that be a self-fulfilling prophecy? I am smart, but not smart enough to find validating truths amongst cognitive dissonant data. The simple truth is that I am a man of passion who gets invested in the righteousness of the positions I feel deserve advocacy. Ultimately, it is what I seem to enjoy the most about my expert witness work. That’s a good thing to do.
But the cases I have worked in 2020 have either been intensive and all-consuming (two of them as such in April/May and September/October) or long and drawn out like the one I wrote about in Q1/Q2 and then have been giving testimony on in a series of arbitration’s since July (and likely to continue well into 2021). Who knows if this will always be the case. But then, I have confidence in my strong sense of social justice and I think that will keep me aligned similarly in the future. That will be an even better thing to do.
So, today involved some personal obligations that turned into the only important things one can do in life. Standing up for people who need your help is the highest of callings. From now on I will be leaving myself open such that finding things to do leads me to do the sorts of things we should all do.