action and time

welcoming 2025

This sunrise above opened 2024 for us, a fringe of snow decorating Peace (ok, it’s actually Peach but Susan always calls it peace appropriately) Glen, Pennsylvania. We had spent two glorious evenings with beloved friends of thirty years after we had similarly delightful time with family en route. The photo signaled the start of a year of so many highs to include amazing travel and occasional lows such as losing our cherished EleanorRoosevelt.

It’s so seductive to focus exclusively on the EVENTS, the grand EVENTS of which there were many but life is constructed of infinitely more micro events (for lack of a better word) that constitute the fabric of our lives. It’s actually predominantly those micro events that lead most of the time to consequences.

It’s also to become frustrated by EVENTS of any stature we cannot control. I am not here to tell you any of us can control everything: I am here to assure you we definitely cannot. No matter how much I might want to be 40 years younger, I am powerless over the inexorable march of time, of physics, of genetics (no, I won’t ever be five feet eleven like Janet), or a number of other aspects of life.

We do, however, have the power to choose many of our actions with wide-ranging consequences. Do I remember to wait until the sun moves in the morning before lifting the blinds at some points in the year? Uh, no, I do not (autopilot is not always a good thing) so the sun’s rays are washing out a print a colleague gave me as a gift a decade ago; I have got to be more aware. Did I check to assure we were driving with a full tank despite thinking otherwise because the rental agent said it was full? Nope, so we ran out of petrol on a harrowing interstate near the North Carolina-Virginia line in June. Did I realize that not eating huge quantities of “healthy” meals could have an incredible positive impact on my health? No, I started eat deliberately smaller meals to avoid heartburn but I had been operating on the premise “healthy” was a free ticket. In making a decision, I was addressing a preferred narrative I was trying to avoid, despite my obsession about health and weight: what I had been doing to myself over too many years in the name of “health” was creating painful effects. And the list continues, of course.

We invest our time, even if daydreaming, in the things that give us most pleasure if we don’t recognize trade offs involved. It’s not that we are ignorant but we are bombarded by distractions as we live our lives. I can’t see much way around those distractions so I am not advocating that you simply ignore them. If you’ve been reading this column for any period, you’ve probably realized I don’t think too many things are as simple as we assume much of the time (some are, of course, proving that few absolutes exist beyond reckoning with our own mortality).

Instead, I am suggesting we each take a few moments to consider in specific terms what matters to us most, then set about to invest our time in that person/subject/concept/etc.

Of course I realize this sounds wooooo but it’s the most tried and true reality of life: if we love something, care about it deeply, because some incentive we receive then it becomes the item for which one would expect us to invest the most of our supremely limited privilege of time. The concepts of how we spend our irreplaceable time on one thing or another is about as zero sum as anything can be.

I am suggesting as you brush your teeth, as you spend yet another visit to the web surfing rather than digging your desk out from the under all the stuff you promised yourself you’d file before midnight, or as you drive between Saline and Dunfermline, that you just ask yourself where you most prioritize relationships or outcomes. What most matters to you??

We can’t change everything as I have said, no matter how much thinking we put into any topic. My decades’-long friend who lost her son to the cruelist violence in early February cannot bring him back; I know the sadness, the questions, and so much else haunts her but that tragic consequence is an immutable. I know that many friends wish they could take back conversations they had over the years but, as the phrase goes, one cannot put toothpaste back into the tube. (I have such a long list of precisely those issues). I am not saying one should replay those constantly or self-flagillate. The past is precisely that. The consequences may be ruptured relationships from several directions.

But we can ask ourselves what outcomes we have control over, then look at where we invest our time. I Cynthia can’t change the fact that Vlad the Impaler became the supreme political figure in Russia fully a quarter of a century ago today but I Cynthia can decide how investing my time should prioritize this question versus other options. ( I am not suggesting you eliminate things like trying to change Putin altogether, unless you recognize concretely you think that an action is not benefiting you in any manner—or you are a so certain your trade off in optional uses of time won’t advance your preferences as it wouldn’t with Vlad since I have no power to instigate change.) I definitely want to be aware, I want a government that recognizes the threat he poses, and I act accordingly but Vlad doesn’t rise to the level of something I want to spend the bulk of my time on (as it does for a true Russia expert like Bill Hill).

But I don’t want to feel I am a victim, either. Too much of our collective and individual reaction to everything these days is prioritized on victimhood. Seriously, folks? Come on. Focusing on the actions—or lack thereof—resulting or associated with things outside the span of our daily control at the time we whine about them is pretty ineffective. But it must be making us feel better since we are not abandoning the behavior.

A couple of years ago my husband was finishing up a major, extended volume. He announced, on morning, to my surprise, he was dropping out two chatrooms he had been in for several years because he appreciated that the discussions were consuming more of his time than he felt he could expend. It was a conscious decision on how to prioritize. It wasn’t a full out rejection of the chatrooms or the members but a preference to rank them lower so that he have the time to work on what he really wanted to publish. I was so impressed he made a choice rather than feeling he had been backed into some corner by inaction. I was struck how rarely people are willing to sacrifice something—the enjoyment he had interacting with others—to get to a most desired outcome.

All I am suggesting is as we all move into a new set of 365 days we call a year, it might be worth pondering these types of trade offs in a more deliberate manner than we often do. So many are so angry these days because we feel helpless when we have often in fact surrendered some of the power to address our priorities. Again, not everything is achievable nor are we always in control of circumstances but we would benefit, I suspect, from more conscious, deliberate actions that create consequences (good, bad, or indifferent).

What say ye?

On that note, I consciously offer you a bookend to sunrises this year. It was a clear, beautiful morning as the revelers prepare.

Thank you for reading Actions create consequences, today or any other day. I sincerely welcome your thoughts, objections, rebuttals, or suggestions as I don’t have a monopoly on knowledge. I write to increase our measure, civil dialogue in a complicated world with billions of problems and opportunities. Please feel free to circulate if you find this of value.

I especially thank the subscribers who offer me financial support. I confess to spending on average three hours daily conceptualizing, writing, editing, and responding to these columns and the interest they generate. Financial support is a measure of finding out it’s valuable to others as well. I do this, however, because I want more dialogue in society.

I wish you the healthiest, hardiest, and most successful of new years in 2025. Be well and be safe. FIN