I have a hard time sitting down and reading like I used to. There was a time that I could read for hours. Now I fall asleep much too easily.

I can sit or lay in bed and write for hours and never even think about going to sleep. I guess it’s the active / passive thing. May just be how my brain is wired or cross-wired in my case. Reading is much too passive for me.

This may be why I watch very little sports. I just don’t understand sitting watching someone else doing something. I want to just go out and do it myself. I can actually take a nap sitting in a stadium full of 50,000 screaming sports fans.

I’m even that way about about work. When I drive up on a job site, I don’t do well observing. If I’m there I want to get busy and do something. I can’t just sit and watch someone work. I’ve actually been known to drive seven hours to Oklahoma City to a job to put my eyeballs on it and be headed back in the matter of minutes, once I say my hello’s and goodbye’s.

Oh that’s if everything looks like I had imagined it should look. If not, then it’s a whole different story.

The blessing of me writing and telling my stories is active. When I start thinking about something that happened 40 or 50 years ago, things start popping in my head that won’t allow me to go to sleep. I guess it’s the ADD/ADHD thing.

If in fact I am ADD (that hadn’t even been invented when I was a kid) it has always been a blessing and a curse. I think it’s that way with many people with that condition. Once you figure out there are obstacles that stand in your way you make adjustments over your life if you choose to get things down.

I see two kinds of ADD people. You spend your life using it as an excuse for underperforming and scapegoat your every failure on that or you work harder at organizing and learning ways to get things done because of that condition.

I found out early in my life that I had to write things down usually on yellow legal pads. Once I do that, I don’t always need to refer to the list. Once I see it written out I can remember it.

But there is something about making a list of maybe two dozen items that need my attention in the upcoming day (done at 2:00 or 3:00 AM) then spending the day marking through line after line as they get done. At the end of the day, I know that I have actually done something. On the days I don’t make “The List” I find myself going the through the day aimlessly, never feeling a sense that anything is getting done.

Once the iPhone came along it became my constant companion. So much less clumsy than trying to carry a yellow pad with me and keeping up with a pen. Now it’s right there in my hand or close by almost 24 hours a day.