Harley King

Telling my personal story has often been difficult for me because my nature is to stick to the facts.  I was raised to believe in factual truth.  I have a bad habit of correcting my wife in front of people when she has the facts wrong.  And she lets me know it.  Old habits are hard to break.



It has taken me years to appreciate the importance of changing our stories in their re-telling — to understand the value of embellishing the facts.  Facts are not as important as meaning.  The truth resides deeper in our memories than facts.


Yet where does one draw the line? Reporters in recent times have been fired or forced to resign because they have played too loose with the facts.  And in some cases, reporters have fabricated the entire story.  Memoirists have been criticized and had their books pulled from the shelves because it was found that they fabricated some of their memories.



Do we violate the reader and writer bond when we embellish our stories?  The reader is expecting the truth and is upset to find the writer has altered the facts.  The trust is broken.  The reader feels betrayed.



Yet the great storytellers embellished their memories to make them entertaining.  Life as we live it has long stretches of boredom.  Life as we imagine it is full of adventure and romance.  Great writers understand this principle.  



Life as we know it is chaotic and without purpose. Imagination allows us to bring order and meaning to events.  Life is lived in the moment and only understood through creative reflection. Life is not as much about names, events and facts as it is about feelings, connections and dreams.  Life is about memory.  Cherish your creative memories.

May your memories grow in proportion 

to the richness of your creative spirit.

Harley King

This is a photo of my maternal grandmother taken in the early part of the 20th century. I remember hearing a story about my grandmother when she was a teenager.  She and a cousin snuck out of the house early one morning and went riding on horses.  My grandmother was thrown from the horse and broke her leg. Rather then tell her parents, she limped back to bed and pretended to be sick.  It took two days for her parents to discover that her leg was broken.



We all have stories from our childhood about our ancestors — the uncle who was a drunk and burnt the house down, the aunt who rode motorcycles and the cousin who died young.  As artists and creative leaders, we need to turn our family history into stories, poems and paintings.



May you be blessed with stories about your ancestors.  For in those stories, we can discover who we are and from where we came.



I wrote a story poem some 35 years ago about a story I had heard as a child.  I showed it to my grandmother when she was 83.  She told me the facts were not correct and she was right.  I changed the details of the story to protect the innocent.  Yet for me, my grandmother lives on in this story.  I discovered my ancestors through the process of writing the story.





Brother AL



He was a little bit of a thing —

knee-high to a grasshopper

as pa used to say.

But his hair was the funnier sight —

white as the coverings

women wear in church.

Been that way since birth.

He didn't seem to mind it, though,

until he met Ruthy Shonkwiler.

She was a big-breasted girl

with farmer's hands.

Seems he fell in love

the moment he set eyes on her.

But as things have a way of happening

in this neck of the woods,

she had her heart set on Stephen,

old Samuel Yoder's youngest,

tall as an oak

with hair the color

of a bull Angus.



Now, Alvin wasn't one

to let obstacles get in his way.

He would stuff pages

out of an old Sears catalog

into his shoes to make him taller

and he was always on the look out

for something to blacken his hair.



It happened one day

that Ma was cooking up

a big batch of prunes

and she set the juice out to cool.

Alvin, in his infinite wisdom,

thought that it was God's answer to his prayers.

He dipped his snow-white cap

into the kettle of juice

hoping to turn it black.

Well, let me tell ya,

it didn't work.

All he got was a lickin' from pa

and a hot bath and shampoo.

Ma, though, thought he should be taught a lesson.

Said if people don't like

what the good Lord gives them,

then the good Lord ought to take it away.

So she shaved his head

clean down to the scalp.

Embarrassed the poor guy to death.

Ruthy, I'm told, laughed and laughed.



Well, he survived somehow

and married, Eli's oldest, Sarah.

Together, they had a parcel of kids,

not a white-haired one among them.

Ruthy went off to college

and married some doctor fellow

from out east.



To this day Alvin refuses

to eat prunes

or order anything out of a Sears catalog.

May your ancestors live in your stories 

and reveal themselves through your memory.

Harley King

Maya Pyramids - Mexico       

My most memorable class in high school was American History my junior year, not because of the subject but because of the teacher.  He encouraged me to think.  In college, I took only required history classes and I could not tell you anything about them today.  History was not something that inspired me.  I came from the generation that spouted such slogans as "Don't Trust anyone over 30."



I did not discover the value of history until I was in my early forties.  I was taking a trip to Mexico with my family and decided to read something about the history of Mexico.  I read the book, The Conquest of New Spain, by Bernal Diaz del Castillo.  Diaz was a soldier with Hernan Cortez when he conquered the Aztecs.  He wrote this first hand account years later.  I was hooked.  I was soon reading other books of history as well as biographies and memoirs.

Buddha - Asia

History at its heart is about storytelling, not dates and names.  And history like all good stories has many lessons to teach if we are paying attention.  Nations and their leaders, unfortunately, have a tendency to repeat the mistakes of the past.  We never seem to be able to learn from history.  By the second or third generation after a key historical event, the lessons are being forgotten.



But history goes beyond nations and their leaders.  Artistic disciplines also have a history.  Beginning artists study past artists.  Beginning writers study great writers.  Beginning musicians study previous musicians.  Failure to know the historical roots of one's artistic profession will often lead to mediocre artistic endeavors.  As creative leaders we need to know from where we came.



The same is true in business.  If business leaders do not know the history their organization and their industry, they will make the same mistakes that their predecessors did.  History has so much to teach.  We need to pay attention.



And we also have personal histories.  Where were you born?  What was your childhood like? Do you know the history of your family? What mistakes did you make?  Have you learned from your mistakes?  Or have you repeated your mistakes again and again?

May you learn the lessons that history has to teach and pass them onto others.

Machu-pichu, Peru, Inca

Harley King

Conversation is becoming a lost art.  People pass each other like shadows in the night, absorbed in their small worlds.  We seldom listen to the stories that people have to share about their lives.  We have little time for family and friends and rarely do we risk speaking to strangers.



Growing up in a small midwestern farming community, we left our doors unlocked and our cars running when we went to the post office.  Everybody knew everyone else and rarely did we meet a stranger.  Our conversations were filled with stories, gossip and laughter.



Yet, today I live in a much different world.  I lock the doors of my car even when it sits in my driveway and I always lock the doors of my house even when I am home.  And most of the people I meet are strangers and rarely do we speak.



Life is about the relationships we develop with family, friends and even strangers on the paths that we choose to travel.  Some of the best conversations that I have had in my life have happened on an airplane with someone I had never met and will never encounter again.  



With strangers, we often open up and share our stories in ways that we do not with family and friends.  We know that the strangers are passing through our lives and that it is unlikely that we will meet again.  When we listen to stories of strangers, there is so much we can learn about the world and the people that inhabit it.  We will often find that we are alike and have much in common.



Listening to the stories of others can spark our creativity and make us better writers and artists.  Something they say may plant a seed that will grow and bear fruit.  Something they say may free us from the chains that bind our thinking.  Listening to the stories of strangers will give us small moments of pleasure and joy.

Harley King

Many people in our society are afraid of growing old.  The slogan when I was a teenager was "Don't trust anyone over thirty."  Researchers project that almost 300 billion dollars will be spent world wide in 2015 on anti-aging products and surgical procedures to remain young.  Over a third of that will be spent by Americans.  



People often fear the loss of their youth.  The physical changes to our bodies and our minds can be very challenging.  One of my favorite quotes is: "Age is not for sissies."  The elderly face memory challenges and chronic pain.  Even creative leaders worry about losing their creative abilities as they age. 



Yet age can bring something that is rarely found in youth — wisdom and peace.  If we have paid attention to the lessons that life has bestowed, we will have earned a measure of wisdom and peace.  Yet, some fail to learn these lessons and are doomed to repeating the same mistakes.



Are you unhappy with your life?  Disappointed with the path your life has taken?  Do you have regrets and keep living in the past?  My brother-in-law was like that.  He was never happy with what life had tossed his way.  He was always looking for the next opportunity, the next pot of gold.  He died just short of his 51st birthday still seeking success.  He failed to see what he had in front of him — people who loved him.  



From time to time we all need to pause and reflect on what the challenges we have faced have to teach us.  What did I learn this week or this month that will make me a better person?  Why do I keep making the same mistakes?  How can I better serve the people I love?  What am I thankful for?



Part of the wisdom of age is learning to accept our lives and to appreciate the gifts we have been given.  We need to find peace with our desires and to accept what we can not change.



Here are five actions that you can take immediately to help you find peace in your life and to develop the the wisdom of age.

1. Create a gratitude journal.  Every day write down something that you are thankful for.  My six-year-old daughter and I do this verbally every night at bedtime.


2. Find ways to say thank you to the people who have made a difference in your life.  This could include family, friends, teachers, and colleagues.


3. Remember people's birthdays.  I once met a woman who every year sends birthday cards to the more than 1500 people she knows.  For most of us, our birthdays are a special day.


4. Volunteer to help someone in need.  The opportunities are endless.  Service to others in their time of need is a privilege.


5. Write down the stories of your life.  Our lives are best understood through the stories we tell ourselves and others.

May the wrinkles of time 

create wisdom and peace 

within your soul.