I am a fan of business. The idea of creating a product or service, offering it to the public, and actually having them pay you for it is one that has always fascinated me. From an early age, I have tried a variety of entrepreneurial enterprises that were met with a somewhat shocking lack of success. In retrospect, while I admire my gung-ho attitude, my lack of success isn’t actually all that shocking. In most instances, the writing was clearly on the wall. Growing up in the middle of nowhere with virtually no target market (neighbors), and being far too young for any four-wheeled means of transportation, my landscaping conglomerate never stood a chance.

Similarly, my miniature golf mecca, which consisted of 18 handcrafted holes, painstakingly carved into arid, rock hard, desert-like ground, hosted a handful of rounds at best. And those were for immediate family members who not only neglected to pay for their rounds, they even refused to tip their caddy. In my humble opinion, Streight National was as challenging and alluring as any course played by the pros, but as a kid, I apparently didn’t fully appreciate just how discerning golfers’ tastes can be. Or that, at a minimum, they prefer to play on green grass as opposed to brown dirt.

Over time, my love of enterprise has remained, but I now find myself drawn to the area of customer service, or perhaps more appropriately, the shocking lack of customer service in business today. To be clear, some companies understand the importance of treating their customers well, but it seems to me that most just don’t get it. At least not the places I frequent. Admittedly, I tend to gravitate to places that would best be classified as serving “middle America” where value is the name of the game.

When I was working as a consultant earlier in my career, I would occasionally stay at the Ritz Carlton in Pasadena, and they made me feel like a king. Now that I am footing the bill, I am most decidedly not in their target market, but even still, it doesn’t seem like you should have to pay more for a hotel room than the GDP of a small European nation to be treated with some small semblance of dignity.

A few days ago, I returned some recently purchased items to two different stores, and the customer experience was about as opposite as could be. On one hand, it was clear that some companies have really started to grasp the importance of good customer service. Unfortunately, on the other hand, it was also painfully apparent that some establishments still have quite a way to go.

At the first store, which I will refer to as Fal-Mart in order to maintain strict confidentiality standards, I must admit that my expectations were pretty low. I am not a big fan of Fal-Mart, and I tend to try to avoid it at all costs. That said, I am a value addict, and occasionally the lure of “low prices everyday” proves to be too overwhelming and I return.

It had been well over a year since my last visit, so most of my previous Fal-Mart emotional baggage had diminished, but I always never really know what to expect. Return in hand – complete with original receipt – I walked into Fal-Mart ready for anything. At least I thought I was ready for anything.

What I wasn’t prepared for was to immediately be accosted by a 4 foot tall, 103 year old, grey haired ninja. I had only made it about 10 feet inside the store when I heard someone shriek “STOP!” at the top of their lungs. Naturally, given the urgency and volume of the shout, I stopped and quickly searched for the person who was clearly being murdered. Finding no evidence of any criminal activity, I regained my composure and continued inside. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a tiny, scowling, grandmotherly figure running at me.

Like an angry shadow, she came right up to me – much closer than traditional American personal space guidelines would find socially acceptable – and grabbed my arm. She proceeded to snatch the bag out of my hand and hurriedly shuffled back to her workstation, which I now saw concealed behind an in-store display near the front door. Feeling like a guilty child, I tried to act nonchalant as I walked to where she was feverishly entering numbers into a handheld computer.

Me: “I’m sorry, but can I help you with something?”

Grandma Ninja: “I have to check all returns.”

Me: “Why? I have the receipt.”

Grandma Ninja: “The receipt isn’t enough. I have to print you out a label to take to Customer Service.”

Me: “Why isn’t the original receipt enough?”

Grandma Ninja: “It just isn’t. A lot of these people fake them or steal them.”

Me: “Really? A lot? I’m returning an item that cost $1.97. Don’t you think that would be a lot of work for $1.97?”

Grandma Ninja: “Doesn’t matter. It’s our policy. These people do all kinds of illegal things.” – hands me a yellow label with a bar code and $1.29 on it.

Me: “That’s not the right amount. See the receipt says $1.97.”

Grandma Ninja (eyeing me like I was, in fact, the devil): “Well, you’ll have to take that up with Customer Service. If you are telling the truth, then don’t worry about it, it will ring up correctly with your receipt.”

Me (admittedly more sarcastically than I should have been): “If I’m telling the truth? If I have the time to create an exact replica receipt for an item I actually have, do you really think your misprinted yellow label is going to foil my attempt of stealing $1.97 from you?”

Grandma Ninja (angry): “Customer Service is right around the corner.”

Given the speed and ferocity with which she originally attacked, I decided not to push it any further. Suffice it to say that Grandma Ninja was not the nicest greeter I’ve come across.

I had been in the store mere minutes, and I was already offended. I’ve got to believe that is not the type of relationship the leaders of Fal-Mart want with their customers.

What I found most intriguing was all this talk of “these people”. I had no idea who “these people” were that she kept referring to, but one thing was clear, she did not particularly care for them. And apparently I, with my original receipt and insidious plot to steal $1.97 from Fal-Mart, was one of them. When I finally arrived at Customer Service, I found well over 40 people standing in line and, despite having 5 workstations, only one attendant actually working.

After an eternity in line – plenty of time to mentally draft the perfect scathing letter to Fal-Mart management, a letter I will never actually write or send because I am too busy/lazy to actually sit down and do it – it was finally my turn. I approached the attendant armed with item, original receipt, and Grandma Ninja’s yellow sticker. Quickly, with neither a word nor even the slightest hint of eye contact, Maria informed that $1.29 would be returned to my card. After a brief tete-a-tete in which I proudly, somewhat surprisingly, maintained my composure, I had $1.97 returned to my card. But I couldn’t stop there.

Me: “So, what’s the deal with the crazy lady at the front door with the yellow stickers?”

Maria: “We have to check all inventory that comes in for returns.”

Me: “If I have the original receipt, what’s the point of printing out a sticker that doesn’t even have the right price on it?”

Maria: “That’s just our policy. A lot of these people try to steal from us.”

Me: (now admittedly tired of being referred to as “these people”) “Who are ‘these people’ that you all keep referring to? Do you mean customers – the people that buy the stuff you sell so you can stay in business? Are those the ‘these people’ you keep talking about?”

Maria: “We occasionally have merchandise stolen from our store.”

Me: “Really, even with the high-tech, incorrect, yellow label system?”

Maria: “Next.”

It was obvious at this point that our debate was over, and that Maria was not inclined to do anything at that particular moment to try to change company policy. To be fair, her line had grown to about 80 people and it didn’t look like she was going to get any additional help, so I am sure she just wanted to get back to work. Needless to say, if I ever sit down to draft that letter to Fal-Mart management, it is going to be a doozy. As constructive as possible to be sure, but still, definitely a doozy.

My next stop was at, again for confidentiality, let’s say Farget. You know Farget, the one with the bullseye logo. For my return at Farget, I did not have the original receipt. In fact, I had no receipt. And I had the item in a Marshalls Department Store bag. I was fairly confident this was going to be ugly. As I cautiously entered the store, I immediately noticed the Customer Service desk immediately to my left. Oddly missing were the 40 angry “these people” and the frazzled attendant. Behind the counter, Angel greeted me with a warm smile as I approached. Sheepishly, I began my speech about not having the receipt, fully expecting to be immediately thrown out.

Angel: “Oh no problem sir. Do you happen to have the card you used to make the purchase?”

Me (confused): “Sure, I think I do. Here try this one.”

Angel: “Thank you.” – another warm smile.

The next 7 seconds were a blur. Angel was intently keying information into her computer while I nervously readied myself for another Grandma Ninja-like attack. But this time, there was no attack. Angel simply handed me a receipt.

Angel: “There you go, $16.23 has been put back on your card. Thank you.”

And that was it. No “these people steal” or “if you’re telling the truth”, just service with a smile.

I still don’t know exactly who “these people” are. At least according to Fal-Mart. I think it might just be a generic term they use for people who fight with Grandma Ninja. Either way, it doesn’t seem like good customer service to make your patrons feel like criminals. Unfortunately, like Fal-Mart, I sometimes catch myself putting stereotypical labels on people for a variety of reasons. The truth is that, much like a misprinted yellow label, none of my “reasons” make much sense. Over time, I’ve started noticing that people have a tendency of living up to the expectations placed on them. As I continue to work on treating people more like Farget, I’ve noticed that most of “these people” are actually pretty good folks.

A couple of years ago, before Kailey was old enough to remember much about it, we went on a family vacation to Disneyland. I, myself, don’t remember many of the details from the trip, other than the fact that it was a lot of fun, and no one was kidnapped. By all accounts, a definite success. With Tyler now 6 years old and Kailey 3, the timing felt right for another family vacation to the happiest place on Earth.

For the better part of two months, Andrea worked feverishly preparing for the trip – booking the perfect hotel room that had the most desirable value-to-distance ratio, planning an optimal schedule that would maximize our enjoyment coefficient, packing for any and all potential weather phenomenon, and timing the purchase of tickets down to the minute to ensure that the most inexpensive tickets were purchased at a time when we could ensure the health of all family members. Like a five star general preparing for combat, she developed an impressive vacation enjoyment strategy that Sun Tzu himself would have been proud of.

The trip was wonderful. The opportunity to experience Disneyland with youngsters, seeing the joy and amazement in their eyes, was incredibly gratifying.

Kind of made me feel like a kid again. Granted not all elements of the plan were executed as flawlessly as we had hoped, but all in all, the vacation was fantastic. The kids had a blast, Andrea and I maintained, for the most part, our sanity, everyone had a chance to meet their favorite characters – my personal favorite was Belle, who I think might have a little crush on me –

and Tyler and Kailey tore it up on the Matterhorn. I knew Tyler was a daredevil, but I had no idea that Kailey would also have a serious need for speed. She even tried, several times, to make me throw up in a spinning teacup.

Upon returning home, coming down from the adrenaline high of a 300 mph Disney getaway, and reflecting on the trip, I find myself somewhat amazed at how revealing the whole experience was. Below are just a few of the insightful things I learned:

5 Hour Energy Really Works – One of the most stressful parts of our “driving” vacations is the fact that they all normally start with a 3:00 am departure time. It works out great for the family because they are able to sleep through most of the drive, but there’s a catch. I am not a morning person. Not in the least. Unless it’s Christmas or one of my children sounds like they are dying – and Andrea is unavailable to tend to the dying child – I find it virtually impossible to jump out of bed and get going. Staying awake in the pitch black, on a few hours of sleep, with three snoring family members – heading to Disneyland or not – is inherently challenging for me.

In the past I have used a variety of techniques to stay awake during those first few hours. Yawning, stretching and lip syncing have proven to be mildly effective at best. Intent on the safety of my family, I have resorted to hair-pulling, regularly punching myself in the thigh and even pinching. While this has safely kept us on the road, I do worry about the potential impact it might have on my kids if they were ever to wake up and see me beating myself up.

Always looking to minimize their future counseling, I was excited when a friend recommended 5 Hour Energy. At the first stages of fatigue, I opened the tiny bottle and took a drink. To say that I was skeptical would be an understatement. Normally, I can never tell if these energy type drinks ever really work, but after I had put the car in cruise control, held on to the steering wheel and ran next to the car at 80 miles an hour from Stockton to Kettleman City – roughly 166 miles – I can unequivocally state that 5 Hour Energy really works.

My Wife has Kenyan Ancestry – For as long as I have known Andrea, I have always pegged her as having European heritage. We’ve never really had any formal conversations about our genealogy, it’s just never been something that we focused on. Given my relative ignorance in this regard, I found it interesting when I learned on our vacation that she is actually more Kenyan than anything else. To be clear, she didn’t explicitly tell me this, it’s just something I learned through observation. It’s the only possible explanation I have been able to come up with to explain the cardiovascular endurance she displayed throughout the entire trip.

She has always been a go-getter, and she is always in incredible shape, but at the Disney parks she definitely kicked it up a notch. Like an elite marathoner in training, she covered more mileage from sunup to well past sundown than even the heartiest Disney aficionado. For three days, I made a valiant effort to keep pace, but most of the trip boiled down to me trying to pick her backside out of the crowd while pushing a stroller that was moving so fast its wheels were smoking.

There are 563.76 Miles of “Line Dividers” at Disneyland – I am not entirely sure if “line divider” is the correct technical term, but the various rope, chain and metal dividers that ingenious engineers have developed to trick people into thinking lines are shorter then they actually are, can definitely crush your spirit. On more than one occasion, we were physically less than 5 feet from where people were boarding a ride, only to find a hidden, serpentine switchback that revealed a sea of humanity that made it abundantly clear we still had a long wait on our hands.

Once I had made peace with the fact that what I saw with respect to apparent wait times was not, in fact, anywhere close to actual wait times, I gradually became amazed at the seemingly magical appeal the line dividers had with children of all ages. After three days at Disneyland, I can confidently state that there are exactly 563.76 miles of line dividers in the park because, despite my best efforts, my children, pulled on, pushed, hung on, sat on, licked, stood on, yanked, swung through and jerked every single inch of them.

Every inch. On a positive note, I do believe that, having miraculously survived the trip without catching typhus, Tyler and Kailey are most likely immune to virtually every known strand of disease on the planet.

Disneyland Will Make You Feel Like a Good Parent – At least Disneyland has the capacity to make you feel like a good parent. There will also be plenty of opportunity to feel like a total deadbeat as well, but the fact remains that there are a lot of parents, in a lot of stressful situations, spending a lot of their hard earned money at Disneyland. It’s like the stressful parenting stars are perfectly aligned to bring out the best and the worst in all parents.

Maybe the expectations are just too high. After all, Disneyland has declared itself the “Happiest Place on Earth”, and while I don’t disagree with the fact that some of the happiest, most magical moments do occur there – it still brings a smile to my face thinking about how happy Tyler was when he finally met Donald – I don’t necessarily think that “Happiest Place on Earth” is 100% accurate.

I feel like maybe “Most Bipolar Place on Earth” might be a little more authentic. For every heartwarming smile and family hug, I saw an equal number of arms yanked out of socket, threats of disownment, children in tears, and parents curled up in the fetal position praying for strength and patience. There is just something about families, vacations, Disney and paying $8.99 for a 12 ounce soda that lends itself to some serious family dysfunction.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be, but to me, seeing other parents lose it is oddly comforting. I have a tendency of thinking that I am the only parent out there who wants to occasionally sell my children, or that I am the only parent in the world who looks like I am about to have an aneurysm while explaining to my kids that they don’t always get what they want. Seeing other parents – a whole lot of them – fighting the same battles is, as weird as it sounds, kind of reassuring.

Attitude Might Not Be Everything, But it Does Count for a Lot – The whole “attitude is everything”, “if you get lemons, make lemonade” school of thought is one that, if I am being completely honest, I have never really valued before. Whenever someone would throw a cliché like that at me, I would smile on the outside, but on the inside I would roll my eyes, dismiss them as a hippy, and move on with my life. That being said, the past few years have proven to me that my attitude is incredibly important. Not only does it dramatically affect my happiness, it is also many times the only thing I can control in any given situation.

When we awoke on our last day at Disneyland it was apparent that weather was going to be an issue. The skies were gloomy, and rain was imminent. After breakfast, as we walked to the park, I kept hoping that the weather would hold off, and I could feel myself getting more and more tense as the skies became darker and darker. This was my precious vacation and I felt entitled to three sun-filled days at Disneyland, despite every farmer in the world bemoaning our need for rain. As if completely oblivious to my demands, it started raining right as we arrived at Toon Town. My attitude was definitely not in alignment with the “Happiest Place on Earth” vibe of Disneyland.

We took shelter on the train that rides around the park, and at subsequent stops, several others had the same idea. At New Orleans Square, a very sweet, yet very unaware of American personal space requirements, party of Asian tourists boarded the train. As a group, they continued to file into my area until I had been relegated to roughly 6 square inches of real estate for me and my pity party. At that moment, in the midst of the pouring rain and wedged in an uncomfortable pile of cultural diversity, I looked at Tyler and Kailey and they were still smiling, having a good time, and looking forward to the next ride.

I don’t think they even noticed the rain. Nothing was going to slow them down. I decided that there might be something to the whole attitude is everything mindset and, while it didn’t make the rain go away entirely, it definitely made sure we had a great last day at Disneyland.

I love family vacations. I definitely have a hard time keeping my expectations in check, and I have been known to end up in the fetal position more than once, but just getting the opportunity to get away with Andrea and the kids, experiencing new things, building new memories, and riding through the highs and lows together as a team can’t be beat.

I am afraid to admit this, but if push came to shove and my wife was forced to choose, odds are 50/50 – on a good day – that she would choose me over Facebook. She is someone who thrives on relationships, and Facebook is all about staying connected with friends and family. She has countless friends who would be there in a moment’s notice for her because she is that kind of person. She is outgoing, loving, caring, and just honestly loves interacting with people. I also enjoy being around people, but it can take quite a while before I warm up to new relationships. I don’t know if its insecurity, trust issues, or some other self-imposed hurdle that I have, but new situations tend to cause me some heartache. Andrea, on the other hand, could be dropped into a room of complete strangers and within hours she would have several new, meaningful friendships. That’s just who she is. I have always been impressed, and a tad jealous, of her ability to be herself, be outgoing and develop these great friendships in a variety of different situations. She was a “social networker” before there were social networking websites. Now that Facebook is around, she has taken it to a whole new level.

To be perfectly honest, I am a fan of Facebook. But just like overindulging in anything else, too much Facebook can lead to potential problems. Don’t get me wrong, learning that Susie in Wichita got a high score in Bejeweled and that Doug from Sioux Falls is happy it’s sunny is a great way to stay connected, but the bottom line is that I just want to see a bit more of my wife. She is a Facebookaholic.

At first, I thought it was just a phase she was going through, just reconnecting with old friends. But as time passed and Facebook became an increasingly important member of our family, I began to get a little worried. My wife is addicted to people, and Facebook is her enabler of choice. I knew we were heading for trouble when, upon returning late from a night out with friends, Andrea proceeded directly to the office to log in to Facebook to post comments to the very friends she had just spent the evening with, about the evening they had just spent together. Literally just spent together. Within roughly 2 minutes of them saying their good byes, 7 status updates, 15 wall posts, 172 comments and 37 photos had been uploaded and distributed throughout the Facebook community. The whole group was addicted.

As a short term remedy, I went ahead and created my own account, and thankfully she accepted my friend request. At least now I can send her communications that I am on my way home, I am downstairs, or on more than one occasion that I am standing beside her waiting for a response to a question I had just asked while she is fully engrossed in her Facebook world. I just can’t compete with the comings and goings of her 23,745 best friends. I think rock bottom for me was when I logged in and Facebook suggested that I reconnect with Andrea.

It seemed to be mocking me.

I do like Facebook though, because it is fun to catch up with people. It has allowed me to stay a little better connected to some old friends I had lost touch with. It’s nice. But Facebook isn’t the number one social networking site on the web, and its creator isn’t a gazillionaire, because it’s nice to occasionally catch up with old friends. It is successful, because people like Andrea, people who appreciate and understand the value of relationships, are totally hooked. It builds, or in some cases rebuilds, connections, and it allows people to easily stay in touch. At first, I didn’t really get it. I didn’t quite understand why anyone would care what I had eaten for dinner, how I felt about the current weather, or where I was going next weekend. I didn’t get the significance of the connections, or the importance of the relationships. Seemed like a cute idea, but kind of a waste of time if you weren’t careful. I thought about, as a joke, posting something along those lines as my status update, but I didn’t want Andrea to “unfriend” me.

The importance of relationships was made abundantly clear to me recently at work. During a staff meeting, a short video clip was shown and it really made me think. It was one of those videos that shows the earth from increasingly farther and farther distances. From a purely visual perspective it was very impressive, and I am sure it was meant to be motivational. That being said, as the camera panned farther away, I found myself getting more and more depressed. It felt like this:

- 1,000 meters: Beautiful mountain range, feeling good

- 10,000 meters: From the sky, still very impressive, loving life

- 100,000 meters: See the whole earth, love my planet, life is good

- 1,000,000 meters: Small planet, lots of other celestial bodies around, feeling smaller

- 10 light years: Sun, moon, earth just specs amid many specs, beginning to question my place in the universe

- 100 light years: Milky way just a cluster of lights, can’t see earth, can’t even really see the sun, feeling insignificant, beginning to wonder what the point of my existence is

- 10,000 light years: Millions of tiny, barely visible specs, supposedly one of them is the Milky way, woefully depressed, wondering why I even get out of bed in the morning

- 1,000,000 light years: Nothing but tiny specs of light, a new-found appreciation for just how insignificant I am, impressed by the scale of the universe, but fully convinced that there is absolutely no point in getting out of bed ever again

Given the positive and encouraging environment within which I work, I know for a fact that this was not the intended takeaway, but I couldn’t help but feel the weight of my insignificance in the grand scheme of things. The only analogy I could think about was that of ants. I thought about ants and how they toil away endlessly in search of food. I suddenly felt like a tiny little ant toiling away for food, money, validation, you name it.

On a positive note, I realized just how ludicrous it was for me to stress out about some of the relatively inconsequential details that I often worry about. Suddenly the 20 pounds I have been wanting to lose seemed to matter far less. But the downside was an overwhelming sense of “what’s the point”?

After I moped around for a day or two feeling pitiful and insignificant, Andrea pointed out to me that I was better than an ant because of the relationships in my life. For as long as I can remember, I tied the value of my life to what I had accomplished. The goal was to always get ahead in a measurable fashion – raises, degrees, promotions, titles, money. The reality of the situation is that if I didn’t have any one to share the successes and failures with, the entire journey wouldn’t have been as rewarding. The friends and family I have in my life are what make it all worthwhile.

My relationships are the answer to the question “what’s the point” – they are why my life is significant. And the more meaningful, rewarding relationships I am fortunate enough to develop, the better. Suddenly, and part of me hates to admit this, Facebook made a lot more sense. At some point in the near future, I will admit this to Andrea, but I am too tired to log in right now and make it my status update. Maybe tomorrow.

For the better part of my life, I thought I knew it all. It feels a little weird to admit that, particularly given my relative abundance of random insecurities, but it’s true. It’s not like I walked around announcing to the world that I thought I knew everything, I just worked incredibly hard trying to convince myself that I had it all figured out. I am not sure of the exact genesis of this particularly charming personality trait – who doesn’t love to be around a know-it-all – but I actually think a lot of it developed as a result of some of my basic insecurities.

We all have various ways of compensating for our shortcomings. I chose an approach that was about as subtle as a driving a lifted monster truck with humongous tires. Growing up, I often felt as if my best was never good enough, so I chose to overcompensate by telling myself that I knew everything. Eventually I got to a point where I started actually believing it. Luckily, with age, a little maturity (very little) and some humility, I now realize how absurd my story had become.

The wonderful thing about humility is that it can make its presence felt in a variety of ways. It can come roaring into your life like a tornado and leave you with a worthless 3” black and white television, or with the patience of Ghandi, it can continually remind you of your hubris through subtle signs and patterns. You might not always see the signs, but in my case, I have found that humility will not stop until you do. Having a lifetime of “I know it all” under my belt, I was not particularly well-equipped to properly interpret the signs of foolish pride. After all, my life had been built upon a constant desire to be perfect, to have all the answers. What would it mean to admit that I didn’t know it all? What would I find if I really took a “good, hard look at myself”?

As a man, I have been blessed with an innate, incredibly accurate sense of direction. I would go so far as to say that you could drop me anywhere in the world, with neither a compass nor a map, and I would be back home by dinner. With groceries. At least that is what I have long believed about myself. I am sure there are many people, men and women, who can make that claim, but sadly I am not one of them.

Don’t get me wrong, it pains me to admit this. Only a couple of months ago, had Andrea questioned my sense of direction on any one of the countless times I had taken a wrong turn, I would have blamed everything on incompetent city planning. Oh, the power of denial.

The universe first attempted to make me aware of my inadequate geographic sensibilities while Andrea and I were working in Europe. One weekend, we rented a car and were planning on driving to Germany. Given that we were working in Switzerland and the countries shared a border,

I thought this seemed simple enough. I was confident I had it all planned out. Even though I felt like it was a waste of money, I even bought a map.

We hit the road and within 20 minutes we were lost. Switzerland is known for many things, one of them being their quaint open-air marketplaces with shopping and dining. For being a patient and neutral people, the Swiss get surprisingly angry at tourists who drive through their pedestrian-only marketplaces.

I am not sure exactly how it happened, but I made a wrong turn and the next thing I knew I was navigating through shopping booths and people sitting at tables eating their dinner. I would have put the car in reverse, but it was a European model that I had never heard of. Plus, the driver’s manual was written in German. My knowledge of the German language was limited to finding a bathroom and ordering a sandwich, but rather than admit to the rental agent that I couldn’t put the car in reverse, I just decided that this would be a “forward only” trip. As a result, I had to embarrassingly drive a complete loop through the entire marketplace in order to return to the street through which we had entered. If anyone ever tells you that the Swiss never get upset, they are lying. All it takes is driving a car through their restaurants.

My nerves finally began to calm once we found our way back to the highway. Once again, we were on our way. The road signs were difficult to make out,

but I was confident we were still on the road to Germany. Further along our journey, it began snowing. Snowing hard. I began worrying in earnest when we seemed to drive straight uphill for hours. By this point it was pitch black, snowing unbelievably hard and we were apparently trying to crest Mt. Kilimanjaro in a small sedan on our way to Munich.

I was down to my last frazzled nerve, when through what had to be divine intervention, a gas station miraculously appeared. We pulled in to find only one other car, which had a small group of – believe it or not – Texas-sweatshirt-wearing Americans. They seemed unfazed by the blizzard we were in, but that probably had more to do with their four wheel drive vehicle with chains than anything else. As a native Houstonian, Andrea happily went to ask for directions. I would have asked, but I was sure that Munich was only a few short miles down the road. Surprisingly, Munich was still hours away. We were in Austria.

You would think that an experience like this might make me begin to seriously reconsider my beliefs about my navigational savvy, but it didn’t. Nearly running over a few shocked Swiss diners could be chalked up to coincidence, but it is hard to deny the significance of missing your destination by an entire country. I should have learned my lesson and realized my limitations, but happy to be alive, I just blamed it on poorly made maps, horrific road planning and terrible road signs.

Undeterred by my obliviousness, humility began a more methodical approach to revealing my foolish pride. Years of forgetting where I have parked, getting lost running simple errands and having to “agree to disagree” with people (usually over things that I eventually find out I was wrong about) have finally started to sink in. As badly as I still feel like I need to know everything, I am finally getting to the place where I can comfortably say “I don’t know”.

There is something incredibly liberating, at least for me, in saying “I don’t know”. It takes a lot of work trying to convince yourself and others that you have it all figured out. Not to mention the fact that it is impossible. Admitting that I don’t have all the answers has given me the freedom to try to find out who I really am, and what I really know. It has become apparent that I know much less than I thought I did. And I am okay with that. That’s why we have Google, Wikipedia, and even Facebook. If I ever need to know something, I can quickly find it.

It took a while, but humility finally showed me the depth of my foolish pride. There are things I know, things that I am good at, and there are countless things that I don’t have a clue about. I used to worry about what people would think about me if they knew I was just as clueless as the next guy. The reality is that many of the relationships in my life have improved as I have started getting more and more comfortable with who I really am. No one has asked me for advice about driving through Europe, but the people I care about still seem to like me.