Who wants a story?
Many years ago (in a former life) I was the lawyer for a woman who sued her daughter. The details of the case, although interesting, are not important. What matters is that, shortly after filing the lawsuit the daughter’s attorney suggested mediation and we agreed.
For those of you who have never been involved in a lawsuit, well bless your little hearts. They’re horrible and there are no winners. Anyways, mediation is when the parties sit down with someone (a mediator) who’s usually a semi-retired lawyer or a retired judge who will try and drive the parties to settlement. The mediator usually tells the parties to block off two or three hours, but once started it’s not unusual for these things to take all day, and sometimes run into the night. I once had a federal judge keep us until around 11:00 at night. It worked; we settled.
Extraneous details: this case was actually extraordinary. We started the mediation at nine or ten in the morning. According to the judge, we were getting close around noon. So lunch had to be delayed. We did finally take a break around three or four in the afternoon. Mind you, if my recollection is correct, this was a $4 million case; so the stakes were considerable. Anyways, the point of the matter is that everyone was abused to the point of exhaustion. The judge made fun of the lawyers and accused the parties of behaving like children. It was probably just after seven in the evening when he announced “I don’t care if we have to sit here all night. No one is leaving until this case is settled.” And he meant it. This was in Detroit and I had flown. Missed dinner. Missed my flight. Had to find a hotel at midnight and fly home standby in the morning. Good times.
The mediation process – generally – is that the parties sit together with the mediator and each side gives a short rendition of their position/story. Then the parties relocate into separate rooms and the mediator moves from room to room dealing with each side one-on-one. The job the mediator is to break down and convince each side that they have no case and should settle. The process is mentally taxing and a well skilled mediator can make it absolutely grueling (see above.) Pro tip: bring snacks.
This particular mediation (with the mother and the daughter) wasn’t so bad. Long story short, after a couple hours the daughter simply caved. So we all got back together in the same room and it took maybe half an hour to draft a settlement agreement.
As everyone was packing up their things, the mediator looked at me and said, “Mr. Bosco, I noticed you have a very interesting way of speaking. You don’t use many words. You are a master of the succinct.”
The mediation was over, so I had already switched my brain to “off”. Not thinking clearly, and as I wasn’t really sure what he meant, I humbly mumbled, ” T h a n k y o u ? “
He laughed and said, “No, no. I assure you I meant it as a compliment.”
I don’t know why but that story has always stuck with me. Master of the succinct.
I’m not even exactly sure what it means; but I like it.
On the Medical Front
Couple of things.
First of, it’s been two years without the trach. So that’s kinda cool. For those that don’t recall, my doctor told me if I made it two years that I would probably be okay without it. So here we are. Woo hoo!
I still do a fair bit of daily coughing and wheezing. I suppose because I’m not constantly twisting and turning, shifting my weight and moving side to side, things tend to settle in my lungs. After a few hours they build up and have to be coughed up. C’est la vie.
The other problem in this regard is that I tend to sleep on my back with my mouth open (which is horrible and nobody should do.) So that dries out everything on the insides and makes it harder to cough up. Thankfully, we have a nebulizer so I take a “breathing treatment” as necessary. That helps.
On the other end… Well. Is the other end.
Again, because I don’t do a lot of turning and shifting, things tend to settle in the bowel on their way out. For a while – as in for a few months – we really didn’t realize what was going on. Then for a little while, we realized there was an issue but we did not take it too seriously. Then we had a problem.
I will spare you the gory details. (You’re welcome.)
It’s been about 10 weeks and it finally appears we might just have this under control. Don’t know if you guys are familiar with Senokot, it’s fairly common. On the side of the box it will tell you the standard adult dose is one tablet per day for the “gentle overnight relief of occasional constipation.” Now I’m not saying that I’m special, but I take two tablets twice a day.
Things you gotta do to keep things running.
That’s it. Don’t want to jinx anything, but I was just thinking the other day that I haven’t been admitted to the hospital in over a year. Kind of a weird milestone to celebrate but I will take it as a win.
Anyways…
Back in September we talked about how most people default to truth; even to their own detriment (or when things ain’t true.)
Then in October we talked about some truisms in ancient writings. These are principles that have proven to be correct over tens-of-thousands of generations spanning hundreds-of-thousands of years. We’re talking about a timeframe that makes ancient Egypt modern history.
Seriously, these teachings are the fundamental building blocks of society. Well, at least a civilized society.
And as I was contemplating some of these teachings, I had a thought – a succinct expression – that simply expressed the summation of order in a society. I call it The Prime Directive:
It’s in everyone’s best interest that everyone make good decisions.
Master of the succinct indeed.
Oh sure, now that you’ve read it you think it’s nothing but common sense; at least it should strike you that way. (If you disagree be sure to let me know.)
Seriously, can you think of any situation where you could point to a member of society and say, “I hope that guy makes a truly horrible decision”? Of course not. We hope family members make good decisions. We hope strangers, other drivers, pilots, fast food order takers, etc. make good decisions. And we certainly hope that politicians make good decisions.
Now this shouldn’t need to be said, but I’ll say it anyways; this isn’t political. I know my readers. Some of you are slightly-left and others slightly-right. Some of you are wacko-left and some of you are wacko-right. I have a few Zionists readers and a few “from the river to the sea” readers. I know that some of you are environmental Nazis and others are drill baby drill. But that’s not the point.
Regardless of your political persuasion, you should be able to agree that
it’s in everyone’s best interest that everyone make good decisions.
The rub comes when we try to define “good decisions.”
Naturally, a lot of people believe “good decisions” is synonymous with “in my best interests.” And sometimes that’s the case. But often not.
Anyways, that’s enough for now. Next time we’ll get into a little bit more about “good decisions” and how they are made.
So until then, thanks for reading and go make some good decisions.
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