Lunch with Tony

 Tony said life is a hockey game.

Three timed periods move quickly and are fraught with change.  Birth to thirty years old is period 1.  Thirty to sixty years old is period 2; sixty to ninety years is period 3.  Hockey and life include overtime.

At birth, the most important question Tony wanted answered was, "What kind of 30 year old do you want to be?"  Newborn limitations postpone interrogation. When Tony asked a ten year old, common answers included, "Thirty?!  It's taken my entire life to get to ten."  Tony queried a twenty year old, "Thirty?!  That's old; I'll never be thirty."

At thirty-two years old, in Tony's dining room, he told the author, "You're a very nice young man but you are also common.  By the time you were thinking about your thirtieth birthday, it was too late to do anything meaningful: you were in your late twenties.  We've spent an hour in conversation about the twenty-something you used to be.  If no one interrupts, you'll spend the next decade trying to reproduce your twenties."

Tony's lunchtime invitation failed to include anything to eat.  His massive table was empty; a legal pad and pen lay between us.  Refuting his accusation with data (graduate-trained husband and father of two) made him snort.  Only a lifelong mentoring relationship created space for his continuance, "You wasted your chance to become a thirty-year old of substance, but you get another chance.  Can you please describe kind of sixty year old do you want to be?

"Thinking about your sixtieth birthday is uncomfortable for common thirty-something's.  If today is to be worthwhile, you will leave with uncommon thoughts about your life."

His questions exposed an unintentional, unplanned and short-sighted end of hockey period one.  His rebuke also uncovered the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of hockey period two.  Tony prescribed a grand vision that will require thirty years to achieve.

Tony suggested swapping scariness for strategy by:

1. Cloud Gazing: Fix your eyes on people you admire and want to mirror.  They're changing as clouds are changing.  You may have to see some of them from afar; like clouds some of your models may grant read-only access.  Other people will be available for dialogue; take full advantage by stewarding your time with them.
2. Castle In The Sky: Write the fantastic vision for your 30-60-90th birthday.  What does your dream fulfilled look like on paper?  If you were unavailable to describe your desired end, what document / medium will help first-time hearers understand your goals?
3. Cloud Hazing: Clouds move and produce storms.  When life sucks and plans fail, revisit your vision and implement the lessons disappointments teach.  Your document may need to be shelved during life's storms.  Rain ruins documents; know when to put your long term vision into relationship with short term disappointments.
4. Building A Staircase: Write the plan to become the desired 30-3-60-90 year old 
5. Building An Altar: Your castle will cost; get used to daily, weekly, monthly, annual and once-a-hockey period sacrifices.  Rewards require risk.  Create a lifestyle of surrender.
6. Finding A Tribe: Discover / create community around and away from your Castle In The Sky.

Far removed from Tony's barren table, his counsel still nourishes.  A touchstone for more than a decade, the written vision of my life has been revised and edited annually.  Nevertheless, the document follows the same pattern Tony's perspective solidified.  

Solid ice is needed for hockey.  Each period of a hockey game is twenty minutes and each part of Tony's model is thirty years.  Perhaps readers are afraid to consider the next thirty years.  Tony's game is over but he persuaded where there is time, there is hope.

Whether this reading finds you approaching your thirtieth, sixtieth or ninetieth birthday - or lacing up for overtime - where there is time there is hope.  Consider casting a compelling vision and following Tony's six steps.  

Step five is however split into two parts.  For Tony, surrender included accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior.  Six steps to an ideal future might be self-help without Tony's firm conviction about Heaven.  He believed and taught death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.  

At a table, with nothing to eat, Tony prayed for the futures of commoners.  May his prayer be fulfilled in your reading.  May his strategy lift you from common to uncommon pursuits.