Why I Like Mike

We should all have such friends.

When Mike calls, I need about an hour. He’s loquacious, perhaps even more so than I am. Slightly older at 70, he’s a fellow veteran, but lots more years in the Army. He’s a Special Forces guy, thirty years. A very serious Liberal, not your typical combination.

He’s the last person I met on Match.com before I gave up. For a while there it looked like something might happen, but as luck would have it, the California fires and family pressures have moved him to move back East. Still, a friendship has blossomed.

Here’s why.

Mike’s an athlete. Like me, he enjoys multiple sports, mostly skiing and cycling. He’s a tall guy at 6'4", he put in his time on the slopes and on his bikes, keeping in solid shape over the years. That’s cost him four knee operations, of course. This year the last one meant he had to give up skiing, so now, with a move to the Northeast, he’s headed into rowing.

My kinda friend. He is fully in life, invested in living well. He reads a ton, stays up to date on current affairs, has a rollicking sense of humor, and he loves a life challenge.

When we spoke yesterday I was calling to let Mike know that I had just run down the mountain, my second day out on a hike. I was so chuffed about finally getting out, and even more delighted that I high-tailed it downhill at speed. At 67, like Mike, I delight in movement. This year we both had procedures. I had kidney stones removed, then my ovaries, barely two weeks ago. He’d had work done on his knee and ankle.

I had a fractured finger, new canoes in my coconut, a fractured right pinky toe.

We both bemoaned being temporarily sidelined. And we discussed what we were going to do about it. We have talked regularly, so I know when he started walking tentatively. And I also know when he was back out on the trail hiking again. He knows when I finally got my therapy boot off and finally, FINALLY was able to put on a sneaker and walk like a normal person.

Mike forwarded me an article about what happens when you’re off for two weeks. “Time for us to get back to work,” he wrote, with his typical cheerfulness.

We should all have such friends.

A great many Medium writers, usually beginners, love to hijack speaker Jim Rohn’s famously accurate statement, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” I talk to Mike several days a week. There’s a reason for that: he’s motivated, happy, healthy, funny and focused.

He sends me articles, book titles, stuff that energizes and motivates him. I return the favor. Why?

We both know that the other person is going to order the books, read the articles, and get the message.

Yesterday he gave me a litany of what he’d eaten that day: stir fry veges for breakfast, a salad with salmon for lunch, a banana for a snack, oatmeal sprinkled with cumin, cinnamon and apples for lunch.

I was reminded, and promptly had, oatmeal the next day for breakfast, loaded with banana, blueberries and a spoonful of honey.

See what I mean?

People who eat like that are going to be vibrantly healthy at any age. He bursts with energy and enthusiasm in the same way he holds himself to a very high standard for how he shows up in life. While this doesn’t happen for all of us, part of why is that Mike and I have both traveled extensively. We’ve seen some of the worst the world has to offer, and some of the best. Spending time in the military also offered considerable perspective, as well as plenty of opportunities to fail, fall forward and learn to lead.

Yesterday Mike told me that because of the rise of Covid cases, he had decided to table his big winter plan to take a lengthy trip around the Western half of the country and instead, focusing on getting himself back into tip top shape. He’s already three-quarters there, as am I. However, this year, with its imposed quarantines, gym shut downs and the physical fine tuning he and I both had required have forced minor setbacks.

I am doing the same. What I also know is that the regular calls, messages and reminders are part of what help me deal with isolation. Him, too. He’s a gregarious man, as I am, and we both miss the camaraderie of folks around us. I am now getting that from my daily hikes.

Mike is the kind of person I need and value in my inner circle. We have long conversations about ideas and politics and the world. He pushes what I think, I push what he thinks, we both grow. It isn’t that we tend to agree. We don’t, on everything, and as I have written elsewhere, the gray areas are where we grow. Such people enliven the world I inhabit as it plunges into the darker days of winter, the longest night of the year mere weeks away. He’s a light in that lowering darkness, and a reminder that there are good people everywhere.

Good, because good people support, motivate, energize and encourage others.

For my fellow writers on Illumination, there are plenty of good people, starting with Dr Mehmet Yildiz, who dedicates a big chunk of each day to our development. Do you?

Do you and I take time out of each day to acknowledge, encourage, energize, motivate others?

Do you and I take time out of each day to investigate ideas, articles, material which can help other people?

Both Mike and Dr. Yildiz are leaders in their own right. Are you and I leaders? Or do we claim to be thought leaders without much thought to how we are benefiting others?

Do we spend more of our time worrying about making ten grand a month or how to improve the lives of our readers?

The other day I read a piece by Rasheed Hooda which reminded me that while yes, it’s beyond frustrating that after three hard slogging years of developing a following, last week I barely made 30 bucks for nearly forty hours’ work, the payoff has to be measured differently. He trusts. I love that reminder. I need to do the same.

I can’t think of a more important time than right now to focus on how we can serve others. Mike and I, as military veterans, have a different understanding of what service looks like. Dr. Y, and many of my fellow Illumination peeps, most especially the uber-generous community of selfless editors, are also leaders.

You and I are needed. Mike and I need each other. Readers need you. They need me. What will we give them this season, when things seem so dark?

What is the light you will hold up in the darkest time of the year, when so much has gone sideways, and we so many need friends like Mike and Dr. Y?

You and I get what we give. Mike gives me encouragement, I give it back, pass it on. Rasheed writes about hope, I pass it on. Beth Bruno writes about the beauty of motherhood and appreciating fall, and I celebrate the leaves that scatter all over my patio. The lights within Illumination are everywhere.

Are we light bearers like these people, in a season when sometimes it feels the flame is guttering?

I have my days when I am a guttering flame. Those are the days I call Mike, and read the other people who put a fresh match to my resolve.

Whose light will you refresh today?