Small Favors, I Hope

This is from my weekly email series, The Weekly Mixtape. To get it the right way, please subscribe to the newsletter

I came across the following line in an article this week: “There are basically only two kinds of hard choices in life: Choosing between two very good things or choosing between two very bad things. Even fools tend to be able to choose between a very good thing and a very bad thing.”

I would back that up a little and remove the “very.” So much of life is choosing between two goods (or, unfortunately, two bads). As much as we try so very, very hard to make one choice seem slightly better than the other, usually it’s something that we can’t know. Even after we’ve made our choice.

This week seemed to be full of extra big choices. None of them between the good and the bad. I’ve started punting so much I could be in the NFL, which is, of course, a choice of it’s own.

For example, I’ve been trying to get an adjunct teaching position in the Denver market for…well, a very long time. Every time a position pops up, I apply, usually to be met by silence. This is a relationship game, and, unfortunately, I haven’t had any contacts in the right positions.

Finally, this year, almost every university in the Denver Metro has been asking for accounting professors. All at the same time. So I went through the steps to apply like I always do. And…well, I got one (with another interview lined up).

Time to celebrate, right? This is what I’ve wanted!

Except the timing is really not great. COVID is finally calming down in the US, but there are plenty of things in my life that will make doing this so much more difficult than if it had come up a year or two ago.

Two good choices: take this teaching position that I really want to do but will be difficult to juggle, or focus on the million other things that I really need to get sorted out?

I’m taking a deep breath and going down the teaching road, telling myself that it’s the better good choice. We’ll see if I’m half dead by the time the class is over.

And that’s a choice between two good options. There’s choices between bad things looming on the horizon that are keeping me up at night…

What are we to do about all of this? The best we can. We’re all making these kinds of decisions. They always are painful. Obviously we need to exhaust all our resources trying to figure out the best choice. But sometimes we just need to take that next step forward.

It’s amazing how often a leap of faith looks more like a small fork in a road than an actual jump.

The Links

• My latest: Hey look, I put up a business book review. Read it now!
• Jet Set Radio has to come back! As long as I don’t have to use those pain inducing Dreamcast controllers.

Service Dog Update
First things first…our service dog has a pseudonym now. From now on, I’ll refer to him as “Wilson.”

I probably should go back and change the old posts, and maybe I will if readership ever really picks up. The thing is that service dogs need to listen to ONLY their handlers. And some people, once they learn the dog’s name, won’t stop calling out excitedly to the dog whenever he passes by, or, worse, try to give him commands. This can be really bad for the dog. The trainers have told us to give out a fake name so that people won’t use his name to give him commands.

So Wilson it is.

Anyway, during our training sessions, one of the trainers always talks about reserving the dog’s favorite treats for when he does something really, really good. But Wilson is super picky when it comes to treats, and it’s hard to say that one is his favorite (though there are clearly many that he hates).

But this week, I think we found his favorite.

A few weeks ago, we brought home some donuts. I put them on the middle of the table, but one of the kids grabbed one and left the box open and near the edge. When I came back, the donuts were gone with Wilson licking the inside of the box.

Not good. Fortunately, he didn’t get sick, but clearly not good behavior. It’s something we’ve been working on, and he’s usually pretty good about not grabbing things off the table. Especially when it’s more gluten and sugar than the insides of another animal.

This week I brought home some more donuts. The box was closed and almost in the middle of the table. I went upstairs…then heard a crashing from down in the kitchen. I ran down, and found Wilson lunging towards a pile of original glazed on the floor.

Fortunately, I got them away before he ate them. But…come on!

If it wasn’t so bad for him, I’d put those donuts in his treat pack. Because apparently Krispy Kreme work better than duck.