My parents used to drill into my siblings and me, "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything." I've taken that a step further lately with the adage, "If I don't have something meaningful to say, don't say anything." -- hence my hiatus from the Cheap Seats blog of late.  But I'm back.

I was reading a book over the Easter weekend entitled When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. Not my usual reading fare (I lean toward murder mysteries, legal and police procedurals), but we were away for the weekend and I found myself with some rare idle time. Having finished the book I was reading, I picked up this one that my wife had just finished.

It's a memoir of Kalanithi's too-short life as a gifted Stanford neurosurgical resident and cancer victim, mostly written before he passed away at age 35. I hoped for some takeaway lessons ala' Tuesdays with Morrie.

What immediately struck me was that the workload and resultant lifestyle (or lack thereof) of a surgical resident is one of the few careers that are way worse than a golf course superintendent's in terms of hours and workload. Sixteen hour days are often the norm. Thirty hours straight in the OR is not unusual, but is beyond ridiculous when one thinks about it, particularly from the standpoint of the patient being operated on. This goes on for seven years for a neurosurgery resident.  I guess the old adage of "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" must apply.

...the workload and resultant lifestyle (or lack thereof) of a surgical resident is one of the few careers that are way worse than a golf course superintendent's in terms of hours and workload."

With a terminal illness, the author reflected on the many phases of his life to that point. He assessed his accomplishments, his perceived failures or shortcomings, and what remained on his evermore urgent bucket list.

While not specifically addressed, the concept of being a net consumer or producer during one's lifetime came to my mind.  In a nutshell, do you produce more for others (family, industry, community, society at large) than you consume from them, or the opposite?

As a method of self-assessment, I thought of the plus/minus (+/-) statistics that are used to rate professional hockey players, both during an individual season and cumulatively over their entire careers. If you are on the ice when your team scores (produces), that's a +1 for you.  Conversely, if the opposing team scores while you're on the ice (consumes), you get a -1. Pretty simple.

So, one could divvy up one's life into chunks of time and dole out some plusses and minuses for each.

As children, we naturally take (-) from our parents more than we can give. But children do return inestimable enjoyment, satisfaction and pride (+) to their parents, enough to sway at least the infancy and toddler periods into the plus column for most.  Now, maybe a colicky infant (as our Daughter A was) or a period of the Terrible Twos (as our Daughter B was -- or perhaps more accurately, the "Terrible Twos to Teens") might temporarily offset some of the plusses, but the net result for most would be a pretty good positive. Otherwise, the birth rate would be in serious decline over time.

Teen years? Not much argument that most teenagers are in serious net consumption mode. High minus.

College/young adult era:  This is when most people, if they are going to do it at all, start to turn things around.

Career mode: While most measure career success in terms of salary (consumptive), the truly successful are actually net producers, at least over most of their careers. They give to their employers more value than they receive in compensation.  Savvy, attentive employers recognize that and reward for it with increased promotion and longevity.  Sadly, not all do, but the +/- balance between employer and employee tends to even out over time.

While most measure career success in terms of salary (consumptive), the truly successful are actually net producers, at least over most of their careers. They give to their employers more value than they receive in compensation..."

Parenting era (birth of children to whenever?): This is arguably the flipside ratio of the infant-toddler-adolescent-teen-young adult years. While we're going through it, most haggard parents would likely assess this period as net productive, i.e., we give much more than we consume in return.  But in hindsight, as all things tend to pass, we remember the highs and not-so-much the lows.  The +/- moves toward neutral (or better) as we age and our memories become foggier.

"Mature" adult:  I'm not sure I will ever really fit into this, as my mantra has always been, "I don't mind getting older but I never want to grow up!"... to the chagrin of my wife at times.  But this is the era (if ever) when one realizes how little one really needs to be happy and stay productive.  We purge of excess baggage and belongings and move toward "right-sizing" our lives. With children grown (albeit never completely free of the occasional need for guidance or counsel), careers hopefully stable and acquisition of material goods in steep decline, we can focus again on net production and moving our lifetime +/- rating well into the positive.

We volunteer as our skills, interests and time permit. Now retired from teaching, my wife is as close to a "librarian" as our little town library has, and helps with the local food bank and literacy program. Nowhere near retired, I nonetheless found time to upgrade and continue to maintain the town website.  All in low-profile mode, well under the radar.

Behind the TurfNet scenes, I counsel many of those who find themselves recently disassociated from their employment (having been there, twice). I try to mentor and guide some of the fledgling entrepreneurs among you. I like to help guys put their best feet forward with a custom look for their blog or maybe a signature graphic for their email. None of which goes on my resume, as it were (and of which I thankfully have no need), but which quietly bolsters my personal plus column... not that I'm really counting.  One doesn't need to; you just feel it.

Those of you who mentor assistants as they come through on their way to positions as head superintendents on their own know what I mean.

Back to parenting for a moment. One of things a "dad" continues to do in the plus column is pick up the check when the kids are in town, or when we are visiting them. I recently made an exception to that during a weekend visit with Colleen and Matt (Daughter A and Hubby) in Boston.  I had sprung for four ridiculously expensive resale tickets to a Bruins matinee game (fourth row, behind the visitors' bench), figuring that at least once in our lives we need to be down near the glass (we're all Bruins fans, my wife arguably the biggest of all) rather than up in the relatively cheap seats.  Factor in a couple of hotel nights in a notoriously expensive city and I was well into the ++++ column, at least financially.

An epic weekend, down by the glass...

Colleen and Matt live in Boston's famous North End of mostly Italian restaurants, so we ate well.  To his credit, Matt always tries to pick up the check, even to the point of faking going to the restroom when in fact he stops by the host to pre-arrange payment. If we catch him, we always say that we're happy to pick up the check while we can. That implies, of course, that some day we might not be able to... in which case we would defer.

In this instance, when the check arrived he grabbed it and said, "Look, you bought the tickets... let us pick this up."  My quick mental calculus told me to agree, figuring that sometimes it's good for them to have some skin in the game, so to speak. And that contributes to their + column as well.

All told it was one of those epic weekends that those "priceless" commercials are made of. Matt attends a lot of sporting events (Patriots, Celtics and Red Sox in addition to the Bruins) and he later said it was the best event he had ever been to. Visualize my chest puffing out a bit.  Patty spent most of the first period on the edge of her seat, taking it all in. Going out on a limb for those tickets and risking some spousal blowback paid huge dividends for all, way beyond whatever investment was incurred. 

I have come to like that term "skin in the game".  It's good for everyone, at most stages of life, to have skin in the game.  it signifies involvement, commitment, contribution, personal investment... all of which are positives that will ultimately come back to roost.

Lastly, a thought about +- with your spouse.  Chances are that most golf course superintendents and assistants rely pretty heavily on their spouses during the bulk of the year to manage the family and domestic stuff, often in addition to their own career. There may come a time when you have to shift that balance back toward taking more or better care of your spouse rather than them taking care of you.

The take-home messages here: First, read. It opens your eyes. Second, take time to assess your personal +/- rating, whatever stage of life you're in.  You will likely have more plusses than you realize.  And if a slight correction in the rudder is evident, so be it.  Do it.