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"My Summer Vacation"

Written by: Tom Peters

Article Overview: As you know, I haven't been Posting a lot in the last few weeks. True, I've had seminars in Kenya and Brazil, but my calendar is mainly filled with blanks.

"My Summer Vacation"

As you know, I haven't been Posting a lot in the last few weeks. True, I've had seminars in Kenya and Brazil, but my calendar is mainly filled with blanks.

My craft this summer has been brush-cutting and landscaping. I've been putting in about 6 hours a day at it—each session ends when exhaustion makes it end. Typically, I do one in the morning around 7:30 a.m., and one in late afternoon, around 4 p.m. I religiously avoid the midday sun.

Yes, I love Posting and love seminar-ing. But I can honestly say that this has given me more pleasure than anything in recent, or not so recent, memory.

First, there is one helluva lot to say for doing outdoor work in the sun, hour after hour, to that point of exhaustion. This may be particularly true for those of us who spend most of our lives parked at a keyboard or parked in a conference chair or parked on a tarmac. Our primal bodies need this sort of thing! And while regular exercise is great, this is of a whole different character—this is really participating in the outdoor world, not just using it to tone heart muscles, important as that is. Second, this is a seriously cool project of my own design; doing heavy-duty yard (farm) work is one thing, and rewarding—but creating something that you dreamed up is a whole different deal. Third, every day brings surprises. Nothing beats surprises! (E.g., I didn't even know that wonderful boulder was there, as it was covered with brush! What a beauty!) This project started out as a simple effort to clean out a stream filled with debris from the forest in which it started—perhaps 20 years of debris. But the "work" meandered and grew day by day into this opportunity to create a fascinating, enchanting zen-like space that reveals a smidgen of the magnificence of this little piece of Southern Vermont heaven. I never know how the day is going to proceed—how sweet that is. Fourth, this project doesn't aim to impress a soul. At 64, I still have hundreds of stomach-knotting "final exams" every year—my 65 or so speeches where expectations are invariably ridiculously high and a "bad day at the office" is not an option, and the likes of the numerous Posts at this Blog (not every Post is a home run, or even a single, but every one is the creation and exposure of something that will be measured by an incredibly diverse crowd. I am "my own man," and somewhat known for my independence of thought—but there are always those external customers, up to 3 or 4 thousand at a speech, tens of thousands here at tompeters.com. Each one is an examining magistrate. Well, there is one customer for this project—me. To be sure, Susan, the artist in the family and a first-rate gardener, offers suggestions, and we and various visitors will use, and perhaps appreciate, the space. But I firmly feel that I am doing this for the sheer joy of doing it, unbidden. Hall of Fame basketball player Larry Bird was once asked what he wanted his epitaph to be; surprisingly, he said that he wanted to have played as hard at practices where not a soul was in attendance as in Game 7 of a World Championship series. Nice.

So that's the deal. Why am I posting less? Because I'm out in the yard (on the farm) doin' my thing, and when I'm not in the yard I'm recovering from that work, and bandaging a thousand cuts from brambles (it looks like I stepped on a mine and barely survived, a friend said—no photos attached) and putting ice on twisted ankles and the like.

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Article Tags: aim, beats, conference chair, cool project, debris, exhaustion, heart muscles, heavy duty, ing, kenya, keyboard, late afternoon, magnificence, midday sun, project doesn, smidgen, southern vermont, stomach, surprises, zen



Related Forum Posts
Re: Let me introduce myself, I'm Zacman - Hi Zacman, You are welcome to this great forum. How are you enjoying the cold. I prefer winter to Summer here in South Africa. The heat is so much that people nearly put on cloth here
$500,000 Give-away - I like dreaming so here goes... note: I didn't have much time to dream this up... 1. pay off my mom's mortgage 2. Take family (mom and brothers) on Vacation - probably send each one off to their own destinaton - no need to mix pleasure and family members. 3. buy some beach front property in the US 4. Invest in a business 5. Buy myself some nice suits and shirts.
Re: Moderators on vacation - Vacation was great! Lots of boating, swimming, sun bathing, and over eating! Yes, I am having a heck of a time getting re-focused. I've been back for over a week now and still haven't gotten a single thing done business wise. To make it even worse, I am in the process of planning another 10 day vacation for next month so my mind isn't coming out of vacation mode.
Creativity generation from the Office - Here's what i got from people in the Office: 1. On the Toilet while reading 2. While walking the dog 3. While networking 4. While relaxing on the beach on Vacation (expensive method huh!) 5. While writing in a Journal 6. While reading past entries in my Journal 7. While cutting the grass 8. While jammin on an instrument (several people mentioned different instruments) 9. dreaming (day or at night) 10. while commuting in the Subway (some mentioned that the subway ads gave them ideas)
Current Status Idea - Greetings All I recently wasn't able to come on the forums for about a month and a half recently due to going on holidays, moving house and having extra pressure on at work. I was thinking about this and thought that everyone would believe that I only came on for a month to win a prize therefore possibly decreasing my credibility. In saying this, is possible add an option in the Profiles called "Current Status" that allows a user to select an option like "On Vacation", "Out of the state", "Away", "Overseas" etc (maybe displays in brackets next to the username) so that everyone knows they are actually unable to participate in the forums at any given time during the year? Kind regards TheAnonymousMan


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