Welcome to the September edition of Tips and Topics.

In SAVVY, I offer antidotes to workaholism and the drive for productivity; to rampant and growing income inequality; and to political divisions and polar opposite visions for America.

In SKILLS, what does it mean to be a “mountain person” versus a “beach person”? There is value in each type. We don’t have to divide ourselves into mountain people and beach people. We need both. And if we’re lucky, we get to be both.

In SOUL, why it’s hard to give a simple heartfelt apology to those we offend. It takes a lot of trust - not trust in the person offended, but trust in yourself that you are a good person who wouldn’t intentionally be hurtful. When that trust is living in you, there is no need for defensive explanations and complaints.

As we head towards the end of summer in the USA, this TIME Magazine article caught my eye. I grew up in Queensland, the State in Australia known as the Sunshine State because of its warm climate, numerous beaches and the Great Barrier Reef. While it has many mountains worthy of beautiful scenic, healthy hikes, I am a beach type, not a mountain person.

In this article, the writer, David Litt, speaks to the contrast between a mountain person and a beach person. He raises some thoughtful insights about workaholism, goal-directed versus quality time leisure, income inequality, and multiculturism. All that may sound like a stretch of topics to emanate from, whether you are a beach or mountain person.

I’ll excerpt points from his article and format them in the Tips and Topics style.

Tip 1

An antidote to workaholism and the drive for productivity is to celebrate the absence of achievement.

I am often taken aback when I hear some people say, “I haven’t taken a vacation for years.” The USA, in contrast to other developed countries in Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia, places a high value on material consumption and productivity, often with negative impacts on work-life balance and spawning workaholism.

The beach, Litt writes, “celebrates the absence of achievement. It gives a quiet, content middle finger to our nation’s workaholism. In its own laid-back and lackadaisical way, beachgoers argue that life’s most valuable reward isn’t a yacht or private jet or invitation to hobnob with the rich and powerful. It’s extra time—and the chance to spend it with people you care about.”

Litt “didn’t really get beach people. I understood beach activities: boogey-boarding, bodysurfing, fishing. But just hanging out on the sand, sitting on a rickety chair in the shade of a flimsy umbrella, with nothing but a book or human being for company? That didn’t seem merely strange to me. It seemed scary. The Jewish Talmud refers to sleep as 1/60th of death. That’s more or less how I felt about hanging out at the beach.”

Tip 2

An antidote to rampant and growing income inequality is the access to beaches to hang out with people you care about.

For most Americans:

• The beach is the country’s most accessible public land.

• Many of America’s most pristine woodlands or peaks are deep in the wilderness. That’s part of what makes them pristine.

• The beach is different—and far more densely populated. While coastal counties make up less than 10% of the lower 48 states’ landmass, they’re home to 40% of its people.

• For many American families, sun and sand are the most affordable nature around.

• In our often privatized and commodified country, American beaches today remain surprisingly accessible. There are ongoing fights about the dwindling number of public beaches.....But for now, in both law and theory, the beach belongs to everyone.

Tip 3

An antidote to political divisions and polar opposite visions for America is that the public has a legal right to access the beach.

“California and Texas like to present themselves as polar opposite visions for America. But one thing they have in common is that the public has a legal right to access the beach.”

• “While the fantasy of a private beach remains the prevailing one in beer commercials or posts from travel influencers—in real life the beach is increasingly a melting pot.”

• “Nationalists like Stephen Miller suggest that when people from different backgrounds share the same space, the inevitable result is chaos. The beach belies that.”

• “When people from vastly different groups hang out on the beach, what happens is pretty simple: they enjoy themselves. That’s not because they’re trying to prove a point about multiculturalism. It’s because, if you’re not enjoying yourself on the beach, who even are you?”

SKILLS

Here are some TIPs on the value of being a mountain person AND a beach person.

Tip 1

What it means to be a goal-directed “mountain person”

• “In the mountains, you pick a point and work hard to get there. If you’re hiking or climbing, the goal is above you.

• If you’re skiing, snowboarding, or mountain biking, the goal is below.”

• “Either way, in the mountains, a sense of satisfaction and wonder comes through hard work and achievement. You earn your views.”

Tip 2

What it means to be a “beach person” and go to the beach

Dialogue between mountain person Litt and his beach person girlfriend:

“What should we do?” I’d ask in the morning.

“Go to the beach,” Jacqui would reply.

“Okay, but what should we do at the beach,” I’d ask.

Litt:

Jacqui would give me a confused look, as though I’d asked what we should do while wrestling alligators or piloting fighter jets through a hail of enemy gunfire. For “to go” was the only beach-related verb needed.

It’s hard to believe that there was a time when I thought that a “beach day” was the same thing as “a day spent at the beach.” The latter is a description. The former, I now know, is a ritual. The details are unique to each beachgoer, yet the experience being summoned is the same.

For my then-girlfriend, now wife, it began at Wegman’s, the grocery store that plays the kind of communal role in Central New Jersey that cathedrals once did in Medieval Europe. There, like a witch carefully selecting spell ingredients, she’d pick out provisions. Turkey sandwich with provolone and spicy mustard. Ruffles potato chips. Sparkling water. Blueberries. (Jacqui eats other kinds of berries, of course, but never at the beach.) We’d throw our haul in the cooler, set out in search of a parking spot, and haul our chairs toward the sand.

It's hard to describe how antsy I felt in the absence of a concrete, mountain-person goal. We’re letting entire hours fly by! I’d think.

I can’t point to the exact moment when I began to feel kind of beachy. But in a way, that’s the point. A beach day isn’t about discrete moments—it’s about time melting into itself like provolone cheese on a turkey sandwich. It’s one of the few instances when “Where did the time go?” can be asked with delight rather than regret.

Tip 3

How to be both a mountain person and a beach person

• There is value in being a mountain person and the sense of satisfaction and wonder that comes through hard work and achievement.

• Likewise, however, there is value in being a beach person who “celebrates the absence of achievement.” No need to feel guilty for not being productive and just hanging out all day on the sand reading a book.

Litt:

“One night, almost a decade ago, Jacqui and I went to Long Branch, New Jersey on July 4th. We staked out a spot on the jam-packed sand and laid out our blankets. There were at least a half-dozen languages being spoken, but no translation was needed. We sat together, chatting in anticipation of the fireworks, enjoying a quintessentially American experience.

After the last boom echoed over the shoreline, everyone went their separate ways. But not immediately. There was a moment when all of us—thousands of us—lingered and listened to the ocean. We sat there on the edge of the infinite, each of us knowing that, for a moment, anyway, we had all the time in the world.

We don’t have to divide ourselves into mountain people and beach people. We need both. And if we’re lucky, we get to be both.”

SOUL

Recently, I hurt someone’s feelings. I said something that was offensive to them and I immediately could tell by their body language and their verbal feedback that I had severely stepped on their toes.

I was horrified as that was the last person I would want to offend. But I did, it happened, and I needed to apologize.  It takes a lot of trust to genuinely apologize to another with an open heart.

Not trust in them, the one I had offended, but trust in me, trust in myself.

In full self-disclosure, I have not had a good track record in genuine, heartfelt apologizing.  That’s not because I don’t care about other people, am narcissistic and self-centered. It’s because I have not trusted myself that I am the good person I believe myself to be - an old, self-defeating story of “I must be doing something wrong.”

• Instead of a simple, heartfelt “I am so sorry I offended you” and conveying that with my body language and energetic connection, I would say the words but then quickly and defensively proceed to:

• Explaining how I didn’t mean to hurt them and didn’t know what I didn’t know.

• Complaining that they should know that I am not a mean person.

• Giving a lot of context as to where my offensive comment was coming from and declaring emphatically that I would never intentionally be offensive.

You get the picture, and can see why a heartfelt apology was not actually given nor received.

I diluted the “apology” with insecure, defensive explanations because I didn’t trust in myself to be the good person I believe myself to be.

I don’t know if you identify with this or not, but it helps me to journal this self awareness and learning lesson. Taking it from another angle, imagine you are in a crowded space wearing heavy boots and you accidentally stomp on someone wearing open-toed sandals.

You would not murmur a cursory “Sorry for stepping on your toes” and then proceed to:

• Explaining that there are so many people in this crowded space that you didn’t even see them.

• Complaining about the crowd and reassuring them that you are not a violent, selfish person.

• Giving them the context that heavy boots and open-toed sandals don’t go together well.

• Suggesting that it wasn’t necessary to cry out so loud and curse profanities given the crowded space and accidents happen. 

An unambiguous “Oh, I am so sorry for stepping on your toes and hurting you. Are you OK?” comes willingly because you trust yourself to know it was an accident, with no explanation necessary of why it happened.

The next time you offend or hurt someone, take a look to see how well you trust yourself to give a straightforward and heartfelt apology.

UNTIL NEXT TIME

Thank you for joining us this month. See you in October.

David