I love to read. In particular I love reading books.

When I find a meaningful passage in a book I love to save it for future reference. When I read paper books I would underline, highlight or transcribe meaningful sentences or paragraphs. Now that I primarily read digital books highlighting and annotating on the page are possible, but I prefer to copy and paste my notes into documents.

Months have passed and mysilentscream has been silenced. Silenced by circumstances. Silenced by my busyness. Silenced by the many demands for my words. I chose; no one else.

Today, I’m stepping out of the darkened room. I’m hoping you’ll join me again.

Years ago some friends and I rented snowshoes and drove into A-Basin (Arapahoe Basin) in Colorado. When we arrived we strapped on our snowshoes.

Though we were all about the same size with the same size snowshoe, no one seemed to have any trouble, except me. For some reason I kept dropping through the snow-pack. I kept getting stuck.

The worst was when I had one leg plunged deep into the snow all the way to my groin and the other flat on the ground. While trying to extricate my left leg my right leg plunged through the snow nearly reaching the depth of the other. I howled something impolite as I realized that I was now going to dig myself out of the snow while wearing my snowshoes.

A long day had become a longer night. It was by then a cold and snowy night.

As they often do, snow-covered roads made driving a challenge. And, more than once I heard the rattling sound of my anti-lock brakes trying to slow my slide.

It was 11:00 P.M. and the roads were empty. I saw no one until I bent around the right curve of Brookdale Drive. There walking on the snow-covered sidewalks was a man. We traveled in the same direction.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this…” and the story continues.

Don’t get me wrong, I love their trust. I love your trust.

I’m honored to share your joys and your sorrows. To hear the details of the journey you’re on complete with proud smiles and guilty smirks, pain-filled glances or a losing fight to hold back the tears. Or, sadly, the flat affect from being so worn down by the long list of past pains.

I just wish there weren’t so many detours.

Detours

“Don’t settle…Don’t settle…Don’t settle.” That’s my self-talk. It’s easy for me to get lazy, give in and grab junk and eat it.

I wrestle with responsibility. I assume you do too.

Note: Today’s my 25th anniversary at TreeHouse, and this is the final post of the “10 for 25″ series on ten important lessons I’ve learned at TreeHouse.

As you may know, when I was younger one of my best friends said to me, “common sense is not common to you,” and he was right. He didn’t know the whole story, I was young and even more reckless than he realized. 

These days I’m learning not to do stupid things. I knew I was supposed to do good things, but I didn’t really think about why I should.

Then, years ago I read in my Bible, “Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.” 1

My parents have taught dog obedience training classes for forty years. They are well-respected for their expertise throughout Chicagoland.

When they are teaching their students (human and canine) they say “halt” whenever they want progress stopped. At that point the human stops and the canine stops and sits.

Halt as you know, means to stop or pause.  H.A.L.T. is also an acronym that relates to an important decision-making principle.

This is part-8 of the “10 for 25″ series on important lessons I’ve learned at TreeHouse.

H.A.L.T.

This is a picture of my friends Tiffany and Barry. I’ll see Barry next month. I last saw Tif in 1991.

Tiffany, Kris, Jenny, Eric, Rajjon, Adam, John, Beng, and Tyler, all TreeHouse teens. All gone. Way too soon.

Life Is Short

This is post is part of a series entitled “10 for 25.” It’s about ten lessons – most of them hard lessons to learn – that I’ve learned over my twenty-five years at TreeHouse.

Life is short. Our time with loved ones is never guaranteed.

Choices, like yours and mine, often make sense at the moment of decision, but too often impulsive decisions come with unexpected consequences. This is part-6 of the “10 for 25” series on important lessons I’ve learned at TreeHouse.

The Moment Of Decision

I love softball. Several years ago while playing in a softball tournament I was faced with a decision that has affected thousands of people since.

Let me explain.