She Couldn't Resist: A Parable about Will Power

She had no will power whatsoever. She knew it. Her family and friends knew it. Even casual acquaintances like the merchant in the corner store and the tellers at the bank knew it.

She couldn't resist any sort of temptation, she couldn't impose any sort of discipline on herself or her life, and she couldn't stick to any promises she made to improve herself in any way. She had always been that way. In every other respect, she was a wonderful person.

As she grew into adulthood, she understood and basically accepted this weakness in herself. Sure, she'd always be a bit unhealthy because she had so little self-control when it came to food and because she couldn't stick to any kind of fitness regime beyond a day or two. Sure, it would be great to be that person who would just say no to the bad things in life and yes to the good. But she figured she'd be less happy that way if it meant depriving herself of things she loved, and so she made light of it when talking with close friends, stopped trying to change, and went on with her indulgences.

One day, Mr. Wright came into her life (Tony Wright, a very reputable lawyer in town).

While she might have believed that "love at first sight" was a fiction before the moment she saw him, she would forever after know that it was very real. And for whatever reason, he seemed to feel the same way about her.

They dated. They married. And their love for each other grew as they spent their first year together.

One of the things she loved most about him was that he didn't try to change her; in his eyes, she was perfect "as is". She wished (truly wished) that she could be better than she was if only for him, but she didn't have to be, so she wasn't.

On their first anniversary he gave her an ornate box that clearly wasn't new. It was about the size of the box that had contained her engagement ring almost two years ago by then, but this box was locked. He also handed her an envelope containing a card and a key (presumably, the key to the box). The card said:

Now that we've been married for a full year, I feel that it's time to entrust you with an important secret of mine: one that could have a significant impact on our life together. I'm not telling you the secret now, but a time may come when I have to. For now, I ask you to hold on to this box and keep it safe. The secret lies within it. It is locked away and within your power to discover, but I ask you not to open the box until the time comes when I ask you to. Trust me enough to hold onto my secret without knowing what it is. My gift is trust and love and I ask for the same in return. You know I love you as you are. You know I have never asked you to be anyone other than who you are. I know how hard it is for you to resist temptation. For me, I ask you to resist this one.

(He also gave her some flowers, a nice dinner out, and a new sweater.)

He couldn't have done anything worse to her. The box was constantly on her mind. It gnawed at her. Its presence on her dresser was a constant torment. The key that she put into the top dresser drawer became an obsession. Staring at the box at night, she could almost imagine it throbbing in concert with her heartbeat; pounding as she agonized over its presence. What could be in the box? What's this secret that could significantly impact our lives? Is this a trick? Is he testing me? Is there something really bad in there that I need to know about? Did he love someone else before me? Is it a bullet and he's telling me he once killed someone? Could it be something valuable that he stole? HOW COULD HE DO THIS TO ME?????

She held out for as long as she could...until the next morning when they both left for work.

Circling back to the house after pretending to head off to the office, she went straight to their bedroom, grabbed the box off the dresser, pulled the key from the drawer, and unlocked the box. Before opening the lid, she tried one last time to stop herself, but by this time her hands were no longer within her control...

Inside the box she found a red jelly bean.

Now she had a real dilemma on her hands (along with some red dye). She needed to know the significance of the jelly bean. It didn't make any sense. How could a jelly bean have an impact on their life together as the anniversary card suggested? What did it mean?

But she of course couldn't ask him. She had betrayed his trust. He knew she was weak, he never expected her to change that in herself, but he had asked such a small thing of her and she had failed him. Clearly, she couldn't ask him about the jelly bean. She was stuck in a worse position now than she had been before opening the damn box.

Somehow, she found the strength to keep her questions to herself. She mustered every ounce of self-control and kept silent. For hours. For days. For weeks. For months. For years...

All that time, her mind cooked up explanations for the jelly bean. Most were absurd. None made sense. But she suffered such internal turmoil that it began to change her feelings about her husband. She wasn't sure she could trust him anymore. She began to resent him. Not knowing was having a greater impact on their life together than any possible secret related to the jelly bean could have. But still she kept silent.

The worst times for her were when he thanked her for the trust she placed in him by not opening the box. At those times, her will to keep secret what she had done held, but only barely.

In their twelfth year of marriage, he got very sick. It looked like he was going to die. She decided that before that happened, she needed to know about the jelly bean. Just as she started to ask him, though, he beat her to the punch: "All these years, you've held my trust. You've kept my box locked. You've fulfilled my belief in you. You've demonstrated greater self-control than any other person could have by not even asking me about it. And now, the time has come for you to learn my secret: Well before we met, I was diagnosed with an extremely rare disease that my doctor said could lie dormant for years before one day threatening my life. That day has now arrived. In the box lies a little red pill that I spent a small fortune to get my hands on. I need it now to save my life. I knew you would be by my side when this time came. I knew you would keep it safe. Please get it for me now."

She was confused: "Why didn't you just tell me that? Why hide that from me? Your illness wouldn't have changed how I feel about you. Why take the risk that when you needed the pill we'd be able to have this conversation and I'd be able to get you the pill your life depends upon? I don't get it."

He answered: "Simply put, I didn't want you worrying about me for years and years and treating me as frail in all that time. It's also true that I have always believed in you and I wanted to show you that you have an inner strength far beyond what you think. I bet my love and my life that you'd be able to resist the temptation to open the box. And now, not only will you save my life by giving me the pill, but you will also discover that you are a far better person for having passed this test of self-control."

"I opened the box the morning after you gave it to me," she admitted with dawning dread.

He paused, then smiling he said: "Oh well. I suspected you might have. But I married you knowing and loving who you are, and knowing and loving both your strengths and your weaknesses. I suppose that hearing that you opened the box - in a way - makes me love you all the more for having kept silent all these years to preserve my faith in you. Now please get the pill."

With resignation in her voice, she said what would turn out to be her final words to him: "Yeah... but I bet you didn't guess I'd eat the little red jelly bean I found in the box. It just looked so yummy."

His final, defeated words back to her were: "No. That is indeed a most unpleasant surprise."

He took his last breath moments later.

Epilogue

Months later she got an envelope from his Executor. In the envelope, there was a letter that had been written and sealed at the time of their first anniversary. It said:

If you're getting this letter, it means I died of my disease and you couldn't save me. Furthermore, it probably means that you couldn't resist the temptation to not only open the box, but also to eat the little red pill it contained. That's a shame. You probably feel terrible. I forgive you. I hope this has taught you a little bit about self-control. I hope the guilt you feel is enough to make you realize that you must exercise greater will-power from...

She stopped reading the letter before she could finish it. Her shows were coming on and she needed a snack. She opened the bag of jelly beans she had picked up for the office party the next day. She sobbed quietly as she polished off the bag.

David Does Deep

"The caterpillar sheds his skin to find a butterfly within." - Donovan, There is a Mountain

I like this lyric. It's kind of nice. It rhymes. And it seems like a good opening for some possibly pointless meanderings...

I grew up with a Dad who made it okay - nay, expected - to repeat the same jokes over and over again whenever the appropriate situation arose (and even when it didn't): 

• "What's snoo? Nothing much, what's snoo with you?"; 
• "You may think it's funny when you sneeze like that, but it's snot."; 
• "Rectum? Nearly killed him!"; 
• And so on. 

If something was funny once, it surely must be funny again and again and again and again.

Dad taught me other things as well; things that he'd probably characterize as wisdom. He would repeat these lessons again and again and again too, presumably making them more sage with each repetition (I'd make a spice joke here if I had the thyme).

One such lesson was that "You don't really become an adult until you are x" where x, until fairly recently, could be calculated by subtracting about 10 years from his age and/or adding at least 10 to mine. (I might be an adult now because he hasn't said this to me for a while, or maybe I will only become an adult at 50, or maybe the target is still moving...not sure.)

But let's assume I'm an adult now, even by Dad's standards. To use the image from Donovan's lyric above, can it be said that adult David is the butterfly and that before becoming the butterfly, throughout his prolonged childhood, he was the caterpillar? Was the process of growing up all about shedding a childhood skin to find the adult within?

Uh, no.

There was always a child-within and there still is, very much alive and well. There was never an adult just waiting to emerge from the cocoon of childhood. Growing up was/is all about constructing a skin around the child-within so that others would see him as an adult:

• The child who wants to stick out a foot as someone runs past;
• The child who can barely suppress a giggle when someone farts out loud at an inappropriate time (which is to presume that there is an appropriate time I guess);
• The child who gets angry when someone cuts in line, or sad when someone says something mean to him.

As I get to know myself better, I am better able to understand and embrace the child-within: I'm feeding my need to be creative by doing things like writing a blog and cooking; I'm getting a lot of pleasure out of running; I'm LOVING playing with a five-year old, and re-learning how to read with her, how to draw with her, and all the songs and books and stories of childhood; And I'm reconnecting with the people who knew me as a child.

The newly enlightened David sees that he had the image flipped before: It is the child-within that is the butterfly, the imagined-adult is the caterpillar, and the skin that must be shed is probably fear (the fear of child-like vulnerability, for example).

Is that what Dad was waiting for me to realize so that he could declare me an adult? Or was Dad just making one of his jokes (again and again and again)? 

"First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is." - Donovan, There is a Mountain

First you're a child, then you think you're not a child, then you realize that you never stopped being a child. And that makes you an adult.

"Be like boy! Be like boy! We like Roy!" - The Simpsons, Season 5 Episode 7, Bart's Inner Child

Deep, man.

A Note to My Daughter and My Daughter's Future Analyst

Micaela, to make things easier for you if you're ever seeing an Analyst years and years from now, here's why you have trouble dealing with being wrong...

------

About 7 weeks ago, we took out a CD from the Oakville Public Library that has a bunch of songs on it including "All Together Now". We've been listening to all of the songs over and over and over again.

All Together Now starts like this:
One, two, three, four
Can I have a little more?
five, six, seven, eight nine ten I love you.
A, B, C, D
Can I bring my friend _____?
E, F, G, H, I, J, I love you.

The blanks after "Can I bring my friend" are there because they're the source of this incident.

About 3 weeks ago, I heard you singing the words "Can I bring my friend to eat" while singing along to the song. I corrected you: "No, no Micaela. It's 'Can I bring my friend to tea'." (You will later tell me that I said "Can I bring my friend for tea", but that's not where we are in the story yet.)

You, of course, insisted that it's "to eat", but I left it at that.

Until the next time the song was on and you sang "to eat" again. I corrected you again. You disagreed. And we agreed to disagree.

Then Mom was in the car and it happened again. This time, I turned the volume way, way up so Mom could hear it and tell us which it was - without knowing who thought it was what. You cheated and sang your words on top of the loud music. Mom, realizing that she was being put in the middle of a dispute, chose to say she wasn't sure. (Although I believe she knew the truth).

On it went.

Until yesterday. With your second oldest sister and your Mom in the car, we turned the volume way up once again, you played it straight and kept quiet while we all listened to the lyrics. Clear as day, the singer said "to tea" and you refused to acknowledge it, insisting that it was "to eat". Your sister tried to diffuse the tension by saying it was "to bed" (which is a later verse and pretty funny, but not the point).

Finally, in Longo's, I pulled out my iPhone, Googled the lyrics, zoomed in on the words so they were really big, and had you read them. (Bet you didn't know reading could be used against you.)

I watched your face as you read the lyrics to yourself (Later, as an adult, you'll learn to read a few words ahead before saying things out loud and incriminating yourself in situations like this - but you just learned to read, so I had you). I watched as a little bit of innocence-lost washed over your face. I felt a little bad.

Until you looked up at me and said "Well, you said 'Can I bring my friend for tea' so we're both wrong." Only now did I take the high road and accept your admission of wrongness, flawed as it might be.

I should have left it at that. But later Mom asked what you wanted to do today. I answered "Maybe you should have a friend to tea."

Sorry about that.

In my defense, I should get a mulligan because I was right and you were wrong.

Anyways, tell your Analyst about the good times too.

Love, Dad.

I'm Not Writing a Post This Morning

Just wanted to let you know that I'm not going to write a post this morning. That's right. Not doing it.

Why?

I've got a few reasons:

1. I've got absolutely nothing to say. When I get that way, I make stuff up that isn't true and I don't want to betray the trust of my readers (dwindling as they might be, see below). Besides, as my Mom always says, "if you don't have something nice to say, have a sandwich". (She's never said that actually, but that's not the point.) 
2. I don't feel like it. The girls just went back to school after a great Reading Week together and I miss them. The last thing I feel like doing is writing a blog post. Speaking of Reading Week, it seems like a bit of a misnomer. And speaking of the word "misnomer", there sure are a lot of people who misuse that word. Look it up. Then look up the word "ironic".
3. I'm too busy. I simply don't have the time to devote to the creative process. It takes me days - even weeks sometimes - to write these posts. I don't want to cheat all of my readers (dwindling in numbers as they are, mind you) of my usual quality. See my earlier poem about cheese if you doubt what I'm saying.
4. My readership is dwindling. My recent scintillating posts barely attracted any eyeballs. Rather than doing something about it, like writing more scintillating posts, I'd rather just mope and write nothing. So there. (I don't know how to put emoticons into the post, or I can't be bothered, but if I did I'd put an emoticon of a little guy with his arms crossed, slightly perturbed eyes, a frowny face, and a clearly expressed "hmmmmph".) (By the way, the 'm' key stuck when I was typing "hmmph", but I like the way it came out so I left the extra 'm's in.)
5. I'm starting to forget when I've told someone something already, and I don't want to accidentally say something I've said before in an earlier post or Facebook status. For example, I know I've told a lot of you about my wife cancelling our fixed-fee snow shoveling service this winter because over the last couple of winters it hasn't paid. But I can't remember if I've already written a post about it, so I don't want to risk repeating myself by mentioning it again.
6. I'm starting to forget when I've told someone something already, and I don't want to accidentally say something I've said before in an earlier post or Facebook status. For example, if I mention how much my back is hurting this winter, I run the risk that I've already told you that.
7. My 'mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm' key keeps sticking. I could work around it by avoiding that letter, or by using the backspace key, but that key requires a long reach from mmmmy right pinky finger and I'mmmmmm having trouble mmmmmmustering the effort to mmmmmmmmake the reach.
8. I'm struggling to focus on anything for more than a few minutes. Even things that require only a tiny bit of focus, like keeping up my sticking 'm' key gag, are a challenge. If I'm not careful, this could lead to unsighly errors and lost credibility.
9. My dear wife (who cancelled my shoveling service this winter because over the last few winters it hasn't paid) says I'm writing too many posts and she doesn't have time to read all of them. I wouldn't want to do that to her, what with all the shoveling and all.

So there you have it. That's why I'm not writing a post this morning. I just thought I owed all of you devoted readers, both of you that is, an explanation.

David.

These Olympics Feel Different

It's not that long ago that Canada was a sadsack nation when it came to the Olympics - winter or summer. It wasn't that we never won anything; it was that we always seemed to be underachieving in sports where we legitimately should have done better.

When the medals came, they were truly special. They were generally unexpected. We were proud that we had finally managed to penetrate the veil of mediocrity that seemed to lie over the Olympics for us. Our winners were heroes. But so were our losers.

From our perspective, we were the good guys. We tried hard. We were nice. We were happy to be there and just happy to represent our country, even if that meant finishing 26th. And even when we were caught cheating, if felt like we were the only country nice enough to allow ourselves to be caught: The bad guys were getting away with it.

After every Games, we would wring our collective hands with angst that we hadn't done better. More money! Bigger and better sponsors for our athletes! More athletes! More pride! A killer instinct! Stronger support from Corporate Canada! And so on.

Well now we've arrived. We're with the big boys in Sochi. We are expected to dominate. We are expected to win. When we finish 26th, we get passing mention. When we win a Silver but were supposed to win a Gold, we've let the country down. When we come out of nowhere and win a medal we weren't expecting, that's a story; if we were expected to win it, it's just taking what was rightfully ours.

When we don't win something we were supposed to win, our first thought is that someone else must be cheating.

For me, this isn't nearly as fun as the Olympics used to be.

We used to pride ourselves on following all the sports and all the athletes, not just the Canadians. We used to be David and they were Goliath. We used to be sweet and gracious. The Olympics were a time when we proudly put on display our sportsmanship, not our egos. We used to be righteously indignant at how the Americans behaved. Now, we're the Americans.

Before you have to tell me I'm being unfair, I'll readily admit that my opinion has been formed based on a relatively small sample of Olympic viewing. The 9-hour time shift has me watching events after they've happened. Watching all day long, I might be seeing all the stuff I used to love: The events where we have no shot at a medal; the profiles of the athletes who aren't contenders; the sports that aren't on the North American radar at all.

I know there have been beautiful moments; there always are. Athletes who have devoted their lives to attaining world's-best status are amazing people who do amazing things. The problem I have isn't with them. It's with us.

I used the word "we" throughout this post to call out an Olympic (and sporting in general) pet peeve of mine: "We" aren't doing what the athletes are doing; They are. They have put in time, effort, passion, devotion, persistence, ... that we couldn't even imagine (now I do mean "we"). They have made the sacrifices. They have put their lives on hold. They do this every day, and once every four years we pay attention to them.

How ridiculous is it that they feel the need to apologize to us when they don't get the medal we expected of them? Who are we to expect anything?

---

Gotta go...short track luge is coming on.

The Lovely Princess Serena - A Parable

The lovely Princess Serena lived in a beautiful castle, surrounded by a lush countryside with babbling brooks, gently flowing hills, and green forests perfect for walking, picnicking, and playing.

She had everything a Princess could want: Loving parents and siblings; playmates who would happily spend hours with her playing in the fields and woods on the castle grounds; tutors who taught her all about the world and marveled at her attentiveness and desire to learn; a magnificent home with endless rooms to explore; an incredible array of fresh, delicious foods and drinks; and the seemingly unlimited potential to do anything she wanted now, as a child, and throughout her life.

Everyone saw in her the great Queen she would become one day, but what Serena wanted for herself was to be a Knight.

Her parents, siblings, playmates and tutors knew that Serena was an exceptional girl, and always spoke encouraging words to her, praising her for her competitive fire, her willingness to work hard in all endeavours, her sharp mind, her keen sense of humour, and (of course) her overall loveliness. They often marveled at the possibilities for the young lady, and talked with her about all that she could do in her lifetime as a Princess and future Queen. But when she shared with them her dream of one day becoming a Knight instead, they just shook their heads and said she couldn't do that.

At costume balls, all the other girls in the castle dressed up like princesses, fairies, and cute little farm animals. Serena wore chain mail and a helmet.

When she played tag or hide-and-seek with her playmates, Serena always changed the game so that the other children were being chased by dragons or wolves, and she was the brave Knight sent to rescue them.

In her lessons, the tutors taught her how to run a Kingdom, but she just wanted to hear about the daring exploits of the Knights who protected it.

She loved her parents, siblings, playmates and her tutors, but didn't understand how they could praise and encourage her in all things except her most precious dream. This led her to decide one day that if those around her weren't going to support her hope for her future, she needed to find someone who would.

The problem was that almost everybody in the castle was a parent, sibling, play-mate or tutor, or someone who served her family and would never stand with her in defiance of their wishes.

The only other person she could think of was the sullen and unfriendly stable-boy, Myron.

Myron wasn't like the rest of the people in Serena's life. He didn't fawn on her. He didn't seek her approval. He didn't smile. He didn't praise her. He didn't give her attention of any kind. In fact, he usually didn't even say "hi". Myron stood out to her as a potential ally exactly because he was so different from the rest in how he treated her.

Putting aside her usual discomfort with the stable-boy, she approached him one day and asked him to come riding out into the countryside with her so they could talk. He refused. The next day, she asked him to join her for one of her amazing meals in the castle. He declined. The day after that, she all but ordered him to sit with her while he ate his meager lunch during his brief mid-day break. He said no.

Giving up on Myron, she decided instead to enlist her father, the King, as the ally she sought. He, amongst all the others, at least didn't say she "couldn't" be a Knight, just that he'd "rather" she not. With that in mind, she confronted him a few days later as he was mounting up to tour the many villages around the castle.

He, of course, disappointed her as well. Impatiently, he said: "Serena. I don't have time to talk of this right now, but surely you know that this childhood fantasy of yours to be a Knight is something you will outgrow with time. You're a girl. Girls can't be Knights. You will one day be a Queen and that should be more than enough to make you happy." And then he rode off.

As Serena stood there, crestfallen, she heard Myron (off in a corner of the stable sweeping out a stall) mutter: "That's pretty cool that you want to be a Knight instead of a Princess."

Serena, embarrassed and angered by Myron having witnessed the scene with her father, spun on him in a rage: "What do you know about these things? You're just a lowly stable-boy!"

Myron lifted his head and answered her with quiet dignity: "No, Princess Serena, that's not true at all. I'm a Prince who always dreamed of being a stable-boy. I had to leave my own castle to become one, but here I am happily doing what I always wanted."

Serena and Myron never spoke again. They didn't have to.

Serena didn't need an ally or another friend. She had enough friends and family to last a lifetime. What she needed was the courage to do what she really wanted, even if she was the only one who believed she could.

And she did.

Making it Work

Making it work takes a little longer;
Making it work takes a little time;
Making it work takes a little longer;
Making it work takes a little time...

Doug & the Slugs, 1982

--------------

Recently, we switched the cable, internet and phone provider for our house. I am a little embarrassed to say that the process created a surprising amount of stress in my life. (Must be a pretty nice life, right?)

It got me thinking about a few things.

I started my career as a programmer years and years ago. In High School, I first learned about computing using punch cards. In University, it was languages like COBOL and Fortran and JCL. During my co-op work terms, I was programming chips, writing command-line processors, and even tinkering with machine-level techniques (writing Assembly language code, re-routing system interrupts...) to make DOS do crazy tricks.

It took a long time and a lot of effort to make those "early" computers do what you might believe to be laughably simple today. And when one encountered a bug, it could be days and even weeks of digging through bytes and bytes of dumped data to find the problem.

Eventually, it was always possible to find a solution. Sometimes, you didn't know why the solution worked, but it did and you would carefully document what you had done, cross your fingers that the fix (or workaround) would keep working, and move on.

Then all that machine-level stuff - having become relatively stable - would be neatly encased within higher-level languages, function calls, APIs, objects (etc.) so that no-one would ever have to re-write it and things would keep working. The low-level stuff became a construct we could count on.

And of course, that's the legacy inherited by everything that relies on computing today. Including the cable and internet in my house: Constructs within constructs that tend to work.

In the course of switching my house over from one cable/internet/phone provider to the other, some of the stuff that was working stopped working: My television could no longer connect to the internet so that I could use it to watch Netflix; My phone stopped being able to tell me when somebody left a message on it; TV shows would intermittently freeze for no reason; Network passwords changed and kept getting lost; My beloved TV channels were all over the place without any meaningful connection to where they used to be; And so on.

To get on top of it, I had to fix a bunch of micro things that I hadn't had to touch since the original provider had installed their equipment. My constructs were under siege!  

Observation #1: When stuff you count on stops working, even minor stuff, it is very very stressful. And when you change what's working, or change is thrust upon you, it inevitably stops working for a while (or it at least stops working the way it used to). It is far easier not to change, even if the end-state will leave you better than you were. 

Extrapolation #1: When change isn't a choice, the stress is worse.



Now in the case of my provider switch, MAKING IT WORK took a bit longer, took a bit of time...but a few weeks later, everything had pretty much reverted to normalcy...except some TV channels were still occasionally freezing.

We called in the technician.

The technician wasn't an idiot. He seemed like a nice and very intelligent guy. His training told him that when some TV channels freeze, try switching the cable box for another one. If that doesn't work, try switching the modem for another one. If that doesn't work, try switching the cables themselves, and the cable connectors. If that doesn't work, try switching the cable box again. And again. And again.

The technician sat in front of my family room TV for 4.5 hours working his way through 7 cable boxes (the first 3 were refurbished and the next 4 were brand new). He never once opened a cable box to see if something was wrong inside. He didn't tinker with any code. He didn't call another technician. The cable box was a construct for him. It worked or it didn't work. If it didn't work, it was broken.

I remember a few years ago one of the PC manufacturers started "fixing" your laptop's problems by sending you a new one. Presumably, that was a far easier, far less expensive solution than trying to actually find out why something was going wrong. We all lauded the manufacturer for their amazing customer service.

Other technology companies started doing the same thing, and today I'm guessing most of them do. I think, for example, that smart phone manufacturers will give you a new phone when something goes wrong with your old one rather than trying to fix the old one (if it's still under warranty, that is). Clearly, the cable/internet/phone providers have embraced the same service model.

Great when it works. Frustrating and pretty silly when it doesn't.

At around 11:00 pm, I put on my programmer hat and engaged the technician in a brief dialog about what else might be going on (beyond an amazing streak of broken cable boxes). Within 5 minutes we had hypothesized that maybe my TV's Netflix-enabling internet connection was conflicting with the cable box's internet connection. Within 10 minutes we had proven that to be the case and had found a work-around (connect the cable box first, then connect the TV). It may keep working. It may stop working again. The technician and I are both crossing our fingers.

Observation #2: We come to rely on our constructs.  When they stop working, we don't particularly feel like expending the effort to look inside and find out what's wrong. Sometimes, it doesn't even occur to us to do so.

Extrapolation #2: Change sometimes puts our constructs in jeopardy. Making them work again might take a little time and effort, including looking inside, but it is entirely possible.

So now, if you're still with me, I have a few questions for you:

• What change in your life is currently undermining one or more of your carefully protected constructs? Are you recognizing the stress that change is creating for you, understanding where it's coming from, and accepting that the stress is perfectly okay? 
• If you are stressing about a change, are you able to identify what constructs might be under siege? Can you see them for what they are (carefully created layers of solutions upon solutions that you stopped challenging long ago) and somehow muster the energy to look inside them to see what's no longer working?
• Are you willing to invest the time and effort to make it all work again?

Just because the technology companies have adopted a customer service model that says if something is broken just replace it with one that works, doesn't mean we should. To me, that's a dangerous construct that renders things (relationships? careers? people?) disposable once they stop working.

And that, dear friends, is my attempt at a little wisdom on this cold and miserable morning.