Taking Ownership
Anticipating my birthday in a few days leads me to reflect on where I am, and from whence I’ve come.
The story begins and ends with waking up, literally.
Every day, I wake up around 5 or 6 am.
If it’s closer to 5 am, then I will lay in bed and peruse the news, starting with Facebook to see what friends are doing. I then go to Twitter for a mish-mash of information, entertainment, and social media effluvia, followed by The New York Times and The Daily Wire. I subscribe to both, in an attempt at balance between Left and Right. It doesn’t always work.
Every day at 6 am, I will forgo further bed. No earlier, because downstairs doesn’t like noise before 6 am. I make coffee, take vitamins and baby aspirin, fry 2 eggs over hard with bacon, shave, shower, and catch the Number 4 or 7 to work.
Every OTHER day at 6 am, I exercise. I pull out my Chuck Norris Total Gym, Model 11000 (yes, it’s quite ancient), set it to Level 3, and start the morning with inverted sit-ups, 2 sets of 15.
…Click-swoosh-click, click-swoosh-click, click-swoosh-click…
Over the next 30-45 minutes, I will finish the “Beginning Workout”, which covers the upper body, midsection, and lower body fairly well. I’ll likely never add to the workout. I’ve gotten into a routine,1 and will exercise forever until I can’t or die.
I exercise now because I take responsibility for my health. I am privileged to be able to say that, lacking a major malady. I have not always been responsible. In 2016, I weighed 250 pounds at 5 feet and 8 inches of height, smoked a pack of Marlboros a day, and had become an alcoholic.
My first wife and I separated in 2017, divorcing the following year. She took the treadmill (which she used), and I took the Total Gym (which I hadn’t used). I figured now I was going to have plenty of time. Moving back to Madison in the Spring of 2017, I started slowly. It was embarrassing how little I could do at first.
But I kept at it. I had gotten fat, and I wanted to lose a lot of weight. I resolved to exercise every other day. When I reached what I considered proficiency at Level 1, I moved to Level 2. In March, 2017, I weighed 230 pounds. 7 months later, I had dropped 40 pounds and weighed 190 by October, 2017.
I was more disciplined. Good day or bad, I exercised. Only vacations or illness excused not exercising.
Simultaneously, things were slowly improving at work. A major project drifted my way, and more and more, people had work for me to do. It seemed to me at the time that the positive energy I was developing in one area of my life, health, was bleeding over into another area of my life, work. That positive energy at work likewise fed back into the health arena. I had self-reinforcing habits.
What had changed?
I had taken responsibility in a part of my life. I had taken ownership.
What does it mean to take ownership?
Ownership is defined as “the state, relation, or fact of being an owner.”2
And what is an owner? An owner is “a person who owns something, one who has the legal or rightful title to something, or one to whom property belongs.”3
Ownership changes everything. It says something belongs to you, or is owned by you. You are responsible. What do you do when you are responsible? You act. Ownership thus leads to a sense of agency, that one has the ability to act as a force in the world.4
Why do some people not take ownership? There are other actors, as well as the systems within which we all operate, that constrain us. These interpersonal, systemic, and institutional issues become foci for our attention. This seems to be putting the cart before the horse. We have at least a bit of control over what we do. We have little to no control over what others do. The real danger in trying to fix systemic issues before personal ones is finding explanations for one’s circumstances in the outside world that now excuse your failures. Now you can avoid personal responsibility.
However, the main reason people turn away from ownership are costs, some of which are unpleasant, undesirable, or contrary to one’s desires. In property of the real estate variety, ownership fully engages this human folly, as Liberals become lovers of fences and Conservatives become lovers of government regulation. Taking ownership and being responsible can mean doing things you dislike. That’s why they are called costs.
People do not like to pay the costs of ownership, and so choose the personally cheaper path. If you don’t own, you rent. Status goes from agent to victim,5 to someone who is helpless before "the system".
If you want to play, you have to pay. I was taking ownership of my health. My health was mine. I was responsible. I was going to act. To become healthy I had to start controlling my appetites, and exercise regularly. This cost pleasure and time.
What I had learned, however, was that a task was better for you if it was enjoyable, rather than pleasurable. To “enjoy” seemed to entail effort toward some goal, and the reward was accomplishment. One only had to be an animal to have “pleasure.” Ownership can change one from an animal into a human.
But, of course, I was still smoking and drinking. Thankfully, I got arrested for drunk driving in May of 2018. To the total cost of $10,800 per year for
drinking ($20/day times 30 days = $600/month) and
smoking ($10/day times 30 days = $300/month),
I could now add an additional $10,000 in fines, remedial class tuition, and car repairs. All things considered, a small price to pay for not killing anyone.
Sometimes the best thing to do with a thing is not to do a thing. It was time to quit drinking and smoking. I was going to be completely responsible, not partially so. I suppose I am being Manichean,6 but one is responsible, or not. You own, or you do not. One is an owner, or one is not.
So, sometime just before Midnight on Christmas Night, 2018, at the neighborhood living room called The Crystal Corner Bar, I sipped my last Jameson, toasting my friend whose birthday it was, and then went outside and had a last cigarette.
Early 2019 was a good time for a “polar vortex”. In addition to the weather assist, the emotional reservoir of determination I had accumulated through exercise now paid dividends. I was no longer a smoker nor drinker.
I had taken ownership. This essay partakes of that effort.
Ownership means assuming responsibility.
Responsibility entails work, which means goals.
Goals mean accomplishment.
Accomplishment is enjoyable.
And this feeds upon itself. It is as if we are witnessing an embodiment of the Pareto distribution,7 or perhaps The Parable of the Bags of Gold: “For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”8 Success breeds greater success, and failure breeds greater failure. Ownership is a path choice.
This path is a difficult one to traverse. I recommend giving oneself rewards at certain milestones for personal incentive. It’s also true that we should sometimes spoil ourselves, if possible. We are human.
Apropos of that sentiment, in October, 2017, after the success of losing some 40 pounds, I combined my love of travel with a search for greater meaning and made a type of pilgrimage to Israel. A week in the Old City of Jerusalem transports one to a truly different place, if you want to go there.
While in Israel, I spent most of my time in Jerusalem, visiting Temple Mount and The Dome of the Rock, walking the real and true Stations of the Cross to and through the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and visiting the Western Wall many times. I also saw Bethlehem, Jericho, The Dead Sea, Caesarea, Haifa, Acre, and Rosh Hanikra at the Lebanese border. Finally, I was privileged to partake in a Shabbat dinner with an Orthodox family.
However, it was actually a late Thursday evening I found to be the most personal. I had taken to walking through Jerusalem’s Old City at night. The Old City of Jerusalem in the middle of the night is wondrous. One evening I walked from Damascus Gate to my hotel.
This evening I walked to the Western Wall, placed a kippa or yarmulke on my head, took out my phone, launched Kindle Bible (ESV), and read The Story of Cain and Abel.9 I meditated on Cain's sacrifice being wanting. I then wrote out a prayer.
The beginning picture for this essay was taken without looking. As I placed my prayer note within the stones of the Western Wall, I just clicked the camera on my phone, not knowing what I’d see. I suppose, for a moment, I had faith.
Taking ownership is, ultimately, an act of faith in yourself.
Ownership means assuming responsibility.
Responsibility entails work, which means goals.
Goals mean accomplishment.
Accomplishment is enjoyable.
“Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son,” said Dean Wormer in the movie Animal House.
Indeed.
P.S. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!10