Routines
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Are traditions the same thing as routines, they're just done less frequently? And if the tradition is both loved and hated, what does that mean? On today's Keepin It Real, Cam shares that he both loves and hates them. ----- I have a routine that I practice nearly every day. I both look forward to it and hate it. I wake up shortly after 5am. I have clothes laid out on a chair next to the bed and I dress and go into the kitchen and start the coffee. I fold laundry while it brews. I then pour myself a cup and sit in my morning chair and write in my journal for about thirty minutes. I then...
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Work Week
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, it's Friday and Cam's brain has had enough. He once wanted to keep going. Now, he's just hoping to make it to today. ----- I can remember complaining that there simply weren’t enough days in the week to get all the stuff I needed get done done. I wished that each day was longer and the work week had more days to it. I wanted a twelve-hour workday and a ten-day work week and a three-day break at the end. That would be preferred, I thought. That way I could get everything done and take a break when it was over. Wow, have times changed. Or maybe I’ve...
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Turn The Page
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, another chapter closes in Cam's life. And he wonders what comes next. ------ John Cougar Mellencamp has a song called Ain’t Even Done with the Night. It’s one of my favorites. That song became a regular part of my days four or five years ago. I’d pick my daughter up from her volleyball practice and as we made the turn from the gym onto the larger road, I’d ask Siri to play it. My daughter would protest and moan. “Not again, Dad” she’d say. I’d sing it loudly. It became our song in a weird way. She didn’t like it, didn’t want to hear it...
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Side By Side
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston continues to be interested in the research he's doing on retirement trends. He's discovered something called a Men's Shed which is different from a Man Cave where men can go and stand next to each other. ----- My work continues to lead me into retirement research. Specifically, how to make retirement fruitful and productive. One of the leading causes of an unhappy retirements is too few friends or no friends at all. Referred to as social isolation, the US Surgeon General said that social isolation is as unhealthy as smoking fifteen cigarettes a...
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Retirement Ready
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston and his buddies are beginning to discuss retirement. Cam's learning, though, that maybe working so hard to get to retirement may not be worth all the effort. ----- The subject of retirement has come with my crowd lately. A few years ago, we maybe whispered about retirement, but now it’s a full-on conversation – when are you going to retire, we’re asking each other. How will you know it’s time? The answer from nearly everyone is “as soon as possible” and “I’m ready right now.” Last week I had breakfast with a lady in healthcare...
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Meeting and Convention Bingo Card
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week’s Keepin It Real, Cam’s on his way home from a conference. He began making notes a few days ago about what his years and years of attending conferences has taught him. A bingo card might be fun, he says. ----- I speak at few dozen conferences each year. My audiences are the same – thinning brown haired, slightly overweight, middle aged white guys dominate each room. These are my people. I’ve learned how they like my content delivered and I do it for them each time. If I do it well, it may get me invited back. After twenty plus years, I’ve seen hundreds of events,...
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It's Different This Time
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week’s Keepin’ It Real, Cam admits he feels helpless in today’s political climate but he’s found something he can do. It’s very small, but at least it’s something. ----- I have quite a few friends who, over the years, have tried to persuade me to get out of the stock market due to some crisis or another. “Pull all your money out,” they say, “this time it’s not some run of the mill crisis. This one’s real. It’s different this time.” It’s different this time. We are so often tempted to think that whatever the crisis, this one is different. Rarely, very...
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Large Adult Pool
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam's visit to a hotel on the Gulf this wekend got Cam to thinking about how some people, well, they just don't get it... ----- Tuesday I checked into a hotel in Gulf Shores at the Gulf State Lodge. “Where is the free parking?” I asked. “We don’t have any. You can pay to park or pay a little extra and I’ll park it.” This is the bell staff at the front door. I handed him my car key. “Where is a luggage cart? I have a bunch of stuff to get to my room for my workshop tomorrow.” “Guests aren’t allowed to use luggage carts. Only bell staff.”...
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Mercenaries vs Hessians
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
In today's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston laments the significant changes happening to the things that he once believed were fixed in place. Attitudes and beliefs once firmly held are vanishing. Even predictable things like football rankings have been deeply shaken. ----- To say that our world is undergoing a remarkable paradigm shift today is a ridiculous understatement. Each morning I look over the headlines prepared to be blown away by how formerly predictable things are now upside down or simply gone. On the political front, an economist at a meeting a few years back told us it was...
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Pushing Electrons
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam discusses his largely sedentary life and the fulfillment he gets on the rare occasions he can see the results of his work. ----- Most weeks, my work mainly involves pushing electrons around. I sit at a computer and do stuff. Recently it’s been requests for short training videos for clients to use with their teams. I write scripts, edit scripts and record videos. Other weeks I prepare presentations. Lots of PowerPoint editing, lots of rehearsing content. Lots of time online. Lots of buying tickets. It’s all sedentary stuff. Me plus a keyboard plus a...
info_outlineI think by talking too much about my superstitions, I ended up jinxing the team.
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Well, I think I jinxed them. My sons’ football team fought hard all season and last Friday night they were bested by a very fast and athletic opponent. The boys were gloomy for just a little while. They quickly realized they had overachieved and then they held their heads high. I’m very proud of them.
I guess a jinx and a superstition are two different sides of the same coin. Superstitions are proactive and meant to bring hoped-for results. I once carried a tiny single serving bottle of Tabasco in my travel computer bag because I had never died in an airplane crash as long as it was in there. Superstitions are intentional. And it is my considered opinion – meaning I’ve thought about this for about thirty seconds now - that jinxs bring bad luck and are a realized in hindsight. Such as me talking so much about my superstations for my sons’ football team actually jinxed them. It’s in hindsight that this has now become abundantly clear.
Since it’s the Friday after Thanksgiving you’re wondering if the food hall-pass you gave yourself yesterday to eat and drink much more than a responsible human should is still active. Well, it is. That hall pass lasts until midday Sunday. So, yes, go get the mashed potatoes and a half-dozen Sister Shuberts for breakfast. Dinner, too! Carbs don’t count until midday Sunday. Myself, I’ll be cooking a pound of Bill E’s bacon in the oven and putting it on my Sister Shuberts. It is my considered opinion that Bill E’s Bacon is the best in the world. They’re based in Fairhope. Please don’t even consider raising your voice to argue. I won’t have it.
It's the Friday morning after Thanksgiving that I carefully go through yesterday’s family conversations and try to remember if I offended anyone. Happily, that rarely happens anymore. The whole Marston family - seventeen of us - will have been under one roof last night. Those tight quarters along with the delirium of a food comma and, perhaps, a glass of wine too many may have caused me to run off at the mouth. Friday mornings I retrace my conversational steps and begin rehearsing my apologies if needed. I’ve learned that one pre-emptive apology at 2pm Thanksgiving Day for everything that I might say later in the day or that night doesn’t count. I wish it did.
However, my family seldom goes down those paths anymore. We’re able to keep controversy out of the celebration or, more likely, avoid dangerous topics. And it helps when you really like your family, your in-laws, and your nieces and nephews, and I genuinely do. I don’t want to get sideways with any of them. The same is true with my wife’s family gathering every summer on the Carolina coast. We had sixteen people under one roof for a week last summer and everybody got along. I kinda miss the days when there’d be a misunderstanding, someone would get angry and, if we got lucky, they’d blow up and make a scene. It offered some wonderful diversions from good cheer and wholesome togetherness and family bonds and all that.
Aww, heck. I’ve probably just jinxed myself again.
I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to Keep It Real.