Wise Men and Other Stories by Mike O'Mary

well with my wife. I had a number of household projects that I had been putting off. I wrote it all down, then folded the list up and tucked it in my wallet.
    When I pulled out my list a year later, I was amazed how much things had changed in my life. Some of my problems were gone. Some new problems had taken their place. But overall, I had accomplished much more than I would have imagined.
    Since then, I have produced a balance sheet and a list of accomplishments every year. Some of the things that made my list this year: I did more writing last year. I also argued less with my wife. (I’m sure the two are related.) I paid off some debts, saved some money, started one new friendship, and renewed an old one. I even started piano lessons again—something I had started and stopped years ago.
    Among my ten best days, I’d count any of the dozen or so that I took my daughter to the playground so she could play, after which we sat and watched the evening sky turn orange, red, pink, and purple.
    In the strange category, I was asked to join a group of local citizens who are campaigning against substance abuse. That’s strange because when I was younger, I probably could have served as their poster boy. So I had ambiguous feelings about joining this group. But in the end, I realized they were primarily against “abuse” (as opposed to “substance”), so I joined their cause.
    The result of all this is that I highly recommend taking a look at where you’ve been and what’s going on around you right now. And if you need a confidence builder, make a “done” list instead of a “to do” list. List ten things that you’ve done in the past year, and then check them off.
    You’ll find that you’re not drifting aimlessly through life. Whether it was conscious or not, you’ve set a course for yourself. The things that are important to you will become obvious because they will crop up again and again on your list of accomplishments. Or else you’ll notice that after listing your accomplishments, you still have an empty feeling. Some one particular thing isn’t on the list. In either case, you’ll learn what’s important to you, and you can determine whether you are on course, slightly off course, or in need of a refresher course in cartography.
    In our trek through life, we tend to revisit the same places. Sometimes the best way to figure out where you’re going is to look at where you’ve already been.

 
The Scrabble Tournament
     
    One holiday season, I found myself a passenger in a car hurtling across a wintry Midwestern landscape en route to downtown Chicago where I had an appointment with destiny. Yes, my coworkers from the Northern Illinois Gas corporate communications department and I were on our way to play in the big charity fundraiser Scrabble tournament in the hoity-toity digs of the Chicago Athletic Club on Michigan Avenue. Little did I know that before the night was over, I would test my mettle in a head-to-head competition against the reigning National Scrabble Champion. But I’m getting ahead of myself…
    I’m not exactly sure how I got into this thing. I am not a big Scrabble player. I had played enough, I suppose, mostly when on vacation visiting my friends, John and Julie, out in Idaho, where Scrabble made for a fun and relaxing after-dinner activity. John is author of five books and a professor of creative writing and Julie is a freelance writer/editor, so they were excellent opponents. Beyond that, I played a few friendly games now and then, but I had never been in a tournament. Not even close. But this was a charity fundraiser for the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind, and my boss got the company to sponsor a team, so there I was.
    When we entered the Chicago Athletic Club, it was everything you would expect of an exclusive and historic downtown men’s athletic club. Doormen greeted us and held open the lead-glass doors. The lobby consisted of marble floors, heavy dark paneling, a