Fear and Happiness

Posted on June 16, 2025 by Michael Kane
fear, happiness

Fear and Happiness

Fear is an ever constant cloak that we all wear, all the time. Sure, most of the time we tamp it down under our conscious mind. We fill our lives with activity and busyness so that we never have to think about it. But it is always there with us, usually under the surface and driving many of the decisions we make in life. Our fear prevents us from acting, from taking chances and mostly fear prevents us from change, there is a lot of fear in the uncertainty of change.

One of the things that I’m dealing with now as I go through my recovery is that my life is a lot smaller than normal. I’m not working so the space taken up by the mental exhaustion and stress of my job are not there right now. I’m limited on what I can do and with a still broken sternum I can’t exactly extend myself too much at this point. So as my world shrinks, as I start get back to more a solitary day to day existence, my mind gets quiet enough to hear the fear that’s always whispering to us.

People who know me, would likely not consider me a fearful person, in fact a large number of them would probably describe me as relatively fearless. And that’s the key point of tonight’s post, we all have fear, but what’s important is how you address the fear, and what you do with it.

Fear is a liar

Fear is absolutely a liar. Let’s get real and deal with the core fear we all live with constantly and run from as much as we possibly can. We’re all going to die. That idea, that fear, terrifies all of us and there’s a reason we run from thinking about it, because if we think about it all of the time we’d likely go mad. So we bury that fear until it dances up in the quiet of the night, just as your about to fall asleep, or when you’re alone watching a movie, then we get swept in terror and fear. We all have this, it is what both makes life completely pointless and poignant. The real question is, what do you do with that fear? For me, I’ve taken it to heart and used it to motivate and drive me. If I only have one life, and it’s finite, then damn it I’m gonna grab every part of this existence I can get my hands on. I’m going to eat all the foods, go to all of the places and try nearly every damn experience I can with a reasonable level of safety and to be honest, occasionally, sometimes when it’s not all that damn safe if the experience might be worth it.

But I have all of the millions of fears we all have. Hell right now I’m swimming in them. Any bone click in my chest and I’m convinced my sternum is not healing correctly, my heart rate is higher than I like right now so I’m sure it’s a problem, wake up sweating, well it’s obviously night sweats a symptom of afib. A hundred times a day something happens that I wonder is this connected to my surgery, is my heart ok? But logic and information are beautiful things. Taking a deep breath, thinking things through, reading up on my conditions, talking to my doctors are all ways to alleviate these fears. It’s when you don’t address your fears with these tools that you allow your brain to runaway with things and that’s when anxiety takes over and wins.

So my advice tonight is to not hide from your fears. Address them, find ways to use them to motivate you, defeat them with education, logic and information. Find ways to take your fears and have them drive your happiness. For me, my fear of death has driven me to travel, take chances, have experiences and to make sure I tell people what they mean to me. It’s what pushes me to do random nice things for people, to pay a compliment someone doesn’t expect. We’re guaranteed nothing, so make the most of everyday as best you can. As someone who just went through open heart surgery, who now is on the clock for how long his replacement valve will last, this drive is even more intense for me. Which is part of what is driving me a tad bit crazy right now, I have things to do, places to go, changes to make, but for the moment I’m harnessed and need to take it easy until I’m healed. We all have these things from time to time, but if you don’t, or you can find a way to move forward in spite of them, then let your fears drive you instead of paralyze you and you’ll have happier days my friends. ~ Rev Kane

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Happy Father’s Day

Posted on June 15, 2025 by Michael Kane
happiness family
My maternal grandfather looking quite dapper with my mother

It’s a wise father who knows his child. ~ William Shakespeare (Merchant of Venice)

Happy Father’s Day

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there, both conventional and non-conventional. Every year I wish my mother a happy Father’s Day. If you do both jobs, you should get both holidays. I’m happy to say that I know a lot of great dads. I have a number of friends who have done a great job raising their kids. Hell a couple of them have even done it through divorce, co-parenting is not an easy gig but I know a few of them really pulling it off. My brother I’m happy to say is also a great dad, more proud of him than I can express for that. One of the best dad’s I know is my friend Rikki, she’s raised an amazing kid, just graduating from high school, and like my mom, very much did both jobs.

So happy Father’s Day to all the dads, take a moment to congratulate yourself and have a happy day. ~ Rev Kane

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Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: 30 Days Past Surgery

Posted on June 9, 2025 by Michael Kane

Patience is not simply the ability to wait – it’s how we behave while we’re waiting. ~ Joyce Meyer

Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: 30 Days Past Surgery

Yesterday was one month since my surgery, this is the fifth day of the fifth week of my recovery. It seems like there’s always one small issue or another, and this week I’ve been dealing with a pulled muscle in my neck. I pulled it, then when I massaged it out I think I hurt it even worse. So my neck is sore as shit and there’s even some swelling. If the swelling doesn’t subside in a couple of days I’ll be getting an ultrasound, but tonight finally it feels like it’s starting to improve.

I’m officially cleared to drive but my apartment complex is painting the outside of our building and parking structure. They were supposed to do it three weeks ago, but par for the course in corporate apartment living. Hopefully this week sees my first driving, the return of the patio garden and my neck gets better. It will go a long way to starting to feel more normal.

I’ve truly been blessed with people helping me out over the first month since I’ve been home. They’ve honestly been great and I know I’ve said it before, but I’m humbled and honored by the help.

Overall I’m doing well, I’m eating ok, and am up to walking three miles a day. The combination of fewer calories and the walking has led to me dropping some weight since I’ve come home. I’m actually about seven pounds less than I was the day of my surgery and about two pounds under where I’d been for some time.

The tough part now is just being patient, something I’m oddly both terrible and amazing at, depending on the reason. I’ve got a good solid daily routine going and I’m starting to get the itch to write a bit, I’ve finally also started reading again. So, one month down, two to go!

Have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane

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D-Day: Always Remember

Posted on June 6, 2025 by Michael Kane

So much of the progress that would define the 20th century, on both sides of the Atlantic, came down to the battle for a slice of beach only six miles long and two miles wide. ~ Barack Obama

D-Day: Always Remember

The anniversary of D-Day always makes me pause and think about my grandfathers. On that day in 1944 my mother’s and father’s families had never had any contact. On that day, my two grandfathers would end up passing within ten feet of each other.

happiness family
My POW and I in 1966

The pictures above show Grandpa Kane on the left and Grandpa Cordato “POW” on the right. These two men were incredibly important in my life. POW would die when I was only five years old, but as a toddler I was attached to his hip, I idolized him, followed him around, spent a lot of hours with him and he was thrilled about it. My granny would tell me many times growing up, that I was the only baby whose diapers he ever changed. The picture shows us doing shots of beer together. He would fill up his mug with beer and fill a shot glass for me with milk. We’d drink our shots, slam down the glasses and I would yell, “more beer POW.” I have tons of memories of being with him, but not a single memory of his death or funeral although I was there, my brain has apparently buried that pain.

My paternal grandfather, Grandpa Kane was a hard man. Wasn’t the greatest parent but mellowed with age and became a great grandfather. He taught me to plant roses and tomatoes, walked with me in the woods, told me stories about the Indians in the woods (they didn’t exist), gave me my one and only taste of chewing tobacco that I never touched again, gave me my first outdoors book with swearing in it and would go deer hunting with me. But more than anything else we would talk and tell stories for hours. He led an amazing life.

We often here the sentiment expressed on the D-Day anniversary about the brave 19 year-olds who stormed that beach, but that’s not the whole story. The draft missed my grandpa first time around, by time they got to him, he was 33 and had four children. They didn’t care, his first beach head was on D-Day, he was 34 years-old. He only ever told me the story of that day once and suffice it to say, if you saw the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, you’ve pretty much got it. He cut off his pack, flipped over the side of the landing boat, stormed the beach, made it to the rocks, climbed them, lobbed grenades into the bunkers on top. The fact he survived is utterly amazing to me, he was a complete badass.

After the battle had wrapped up, my other grandfather, who was out on the ships off shore with the first army’s armor came rolling to shore. Grandpa Kane was directing traffic at the first intersection, so almost certainly POW rolled right by him in that intersection. An amazing little nexus point in my life, twenty years before I was born.

So today I think about both of them, and honor them with food. I’ll eat a homegrown tomato for Grandpa Kane and I’ll make a buster burger for POW. POW loved mixing ground sausage and hamburger and topping it with tomato sauce. So dinner is set for tonight. What those men did on that day and for the whole of that war forever changed the world and all of our lives, we can never forget their sacrifices and bravery. Have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane

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I haven’t worn pants in weeks!

Posted on June 4, 2025 by Michael Kane

Being in control of your life and having realistic expectations about your day-to-day challenges are the keys to stress management, which is perhaps the most important ingredient to living a happy, healthy and rewarding life. ~ Marilu Henner

I haven’t worn pants in weeks!

First a sidebar, tonight’s quote is from an incredibly interesting person. Most of you probably remember her as the red-head from the TV show Taxi. But she’s also a real life Sheldon Cooper, by that I mean she’s one of the very rare people with an actual eidetic memory. Must of made memorizing lines easy, but she’s a talented actress, beautiful incredibly smart and possesses this memory gift.

Back to our regularly scheduled program. For a guy who is not vain, I had a little vanity streak run through me a couple of years ago, but I’m passed it now, this experience has been interesting. I really don’t care what I look like. Tomorrow will be four weeks since my surgery, since before the surgery, I’ve not shaved, my beard or my head. I currently have the hair style of every Eastern European prisoner in Nazi death camp movies, but I’m much fatter. Not that I’ve put on weight, in fact, the stress of the surgery led me to put on about seven pounds, I was right around 187 before that and as of today I’m at 188. So for the most part, I’ve lost my pre-surgery stress eating weight.

On the walk I’ve just returned from, I was quite a sight, tiny colorful socks, grey hush puppy looking slip on shoes, gym shorts, gleaming white legs that could save ships in a storm, a black cotton shirt over a tie-dye shirt, topped with my psycho bunny hat, accompanied by lovely oak cane, stained cherry. But it doesn’t matter, the fact is modesty went out the door on surgery day one.

For a week I walked around in the hospital in that damn gown with my ass hanging out for all to see. When Gina, one of the patient care staff, came to assist me with my first shower she brought me “modesty” underwear. Gina was easily in her late 40’s or early 50’s, so I asked her, “how long have you been doing this?” She said 18 years, I looked at her, “is there anything you haven’t seen?” She shook her head no as she laughed and I dropped the gown right there and walked into the shower. She also came in and washed my back, that’s the most action I’ve had in years, she was incredibly nice.

I have no idea what I’m going to do with my hair and beard. Semi-bald afro, old hippy pony-tail, back to bald? As for the beard currently it’s a angry, old sea captain kind of style, maybe I’ll trim it back, maybe I’ll go full Gandalf as my nephew suggested. Hell, I’m still wearing my hospital ID bracelet. And seriously, I haven’t worn pants since before the surgery.

The thing I’m really not wearing right now is stress. I heard some extreme bullshit from work today and laughed it off. While I’m recovering and nervous about my heart-rate, blood pressure, blood thinners, all of it is at least working ok, if not well, my doctors aren’t nervous, so I’m pretty damn relaxed. Just more to convince me never to return to the toxic stress hellhole that is my old job, at least not for very long, it might be fun to reign hell down on people who drove my replacement nuts for a few weeks before I pull the plug.

Honestly, take your pants off, lose the stress anyway you can, it is literally killing you. So get out from under it and have happier days my friends. ~ Rev Kane

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Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: The Doldrums

Posted on June 2, 2025 by Michael Kane

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: The Doldrums

Well, we’re quickly coming up on a month since my surgery (4 weeks to be more accurate). I knew the first four weeks were going to be tough because of pain, lack of independence and a need for a lot of help. Happily, things have gone better than expected, I’ve had no major complications, the pain has been far less than expected (I haven’t even had any Tylenol today), people have been incredibly supportive and I’ve had a lot of help from a lot of great people and have been able to be more mobile and independent than expected.

A lot of the literature talks about the mental state after surgery, people often go through some heavy emotions and a lot of folks get depressed. Given my history with depression, this is something I was a bit concerned with during my recovery. I’m happy to say none of that has been an issue so far. One of the things I was concerned about in recovery are the next three weeks. We’re coming up on a weird time, colleagues from work are between semesters and many are leaving for the summer, the heart surgery thing gets old. By that I mean, people thought that how they would need to support me would be to literally walk with me, cook and clean for me, etc… I’ve been mobile enough that really they’ve been mostly conversation and company (which I highly value) with moving some plants and some grocery runs involved. So, it’s not quite the imagined emergency they thought it might be, I look and am doing well so a little motivation falls off. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still got plenty of help. But at this point, my old friends have all reached out, we’ve had our long conversations and things are about to get a bit quiet.

So for the next few weeks I imagine things will slow down, I’m still not back to normal and I expect things to get a bit boring over the next few weeks, we’ll see how it goes. My hope is that as I continue to feel more normal, my interest in reading and writing will come back stronger and that will be what gets me through the next couple of weeks. ~ Rev Kane

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A Happy Day

Posted on May 29, 2025 by Michael Kane

Remember this, folks – I am a Hillbilly, and I don’t always Bet the same way I talk. Good advice is one thing, but smart gambling is quite another. ~ Hunter S Thompson

A Happy Day

It’s been a really good day. Today I had the final appointment with my surgical team and they were very happy with my progress. They gave me some interesting and some good news. My sternum is double wired together with steel wire, and they said that while I’ll possibly set off airport metal detectors, I can still have an MRI, but I need to research that last bit some more. They approved my walking plan and how I hope to continue to expand that as well as telling me I can lift up to ten pounds. Finally, they confirmed that after next week I can drive. So think about this, after this week I can drive and lift 10 pounds, except for Chicago deep dish, there are no ten pound pizzas!

Secondly I got a big surprise today. I have a really wonderful business teacher who teaches business statistics, a class that these students really don’t want to take and she does a great job of making the class interesting and engaging for them. One unit she does is on the probabilities of gambling in which among other things she discusses roulette and craps. The first time I heard this lecture I pulled her aside and mentioned that her craps discussion was rather rudimentary and could be a lot more interesting. So she said great, next time come in and you can do the craps part. This has grown into, if I’m available, me coming in and doing the gambling lecture and teaching the students how to play craps. It’s a lot of fun, has a legitimate basis in probability and so they learn while they are having a good time. We also talk about lottery odds and what those really mean.

So today my assistant stopped by and said a student brought me a gift, the dice you see above. After reading the card I realized it was a student I’d encountered in a couple of different business classes and who is very nice and I’ve had some really good discussions with, she also dug the craps lesson, hence the dice. Her words were incredibly kind and really made my day, hope you had a happy day as well my friends. ~ Rev Kane

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A Happy Time of Year

Posted on May 28, 2025 by Michael Kane

Commencement speeches were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated. ~ Garry Trudeau

A Happy Time of Year

This is one of my favorite times of the year. After nearly forty years in higher education graduation is really special to me. First, if you know about all the madness that happens behind the scenes, it’s a damn miracle anyone ever graduates. So I call it the miracle of graduation. It is both for the students, faculty, staff and administrators the culmination of the student’s journey, or at least this stage. I am incredibly proud of every student that walks across the stage every year.

Due to my surgery I missed graduation this year, but have been happy to have reports, see photos etc… of the ceremony and of students celebrating their achievement. It’s not just their achievement though, like any achievement, almost no one does it truly alone, it truly takes a family, a village a community for people to get to this point.

One of the things I remind my staff, that is true at any level, but especially true at the community college level is that we don’t just change lives, we change the trajectory of families. For community college students, so many are first generation college students. So many are overcoming a wide-array of barriers from finances, to family responsibilities and at times even homelessness and food insecurity. At our college we have programs to support first generation students, historically under represented students, veterans who often have PTSD and other issues, former foster care students and even formally incarcerated students. In community college we truly change people’s lives and by extension the path of their families and often for people who at some point, so no future.

Watching mommy or daddy get a degree will make a kid want to be educated. Being able to get a degree or certificate that leads to a good job can change the trajectory of generations. And nothing beats the feeling of confidence from achieving these things.

My nephew Mikey is graduating this year, massively proud of this kid. I congratulate and wish all students who are making the next step good luck. Now more than ever, we need a more educated populace. Have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane

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Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: Milestones

Posted on May 27, 2025 by Michael Kane

Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be. ~ Khalil Gibran

Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: Milestones

First of all tonight, thank you for indulging me, I imagine you’re all getting relatively bored and tired of the heart surgery posts, I’m sorry but it’s kind of the whole ball of wax for me at the moment. As you can see, the swelling and bruising is lightening up and the incision line looks pretty good.

Pre-surgery I had set myself a number of goals. Survive, wake up the day of my surgery, get walking the next day. Little did I know one of my goals would quickly become a first bowel movement. A big goal was getting out of ICU quickly and then getting home. A huge goal/milestone that I achieved, was throughout this process never having to have someone else wipe my bum.

At home, the first goal was getting up the stairs to my apartment, all 12. I expected it to be a slow deliberate process, I was ecstatic to walk straight up all 12 without a pause. I have walking goals from my doctor that I’m absolutely meeting. I had goals about how long it would take me to stop sleeping in the camping chair, buying an adjustable bed changed and achieved that, still the best decision I’ve made post surgery. It was an exciting day when I actually put on a shirt that pulled over instead of buttoned up.

Tomorrow is a big goal, 21 days post-surgery. Tomorrow I meet with the surgical team and if they’re happy, they wash their hands of me and fully hand me back to my cardiologist. So here’s hoping I make the next big milestone tomorrow. The next really big milestones are being cleared to start walking uphill and week 6, the shortest time my breastbone could likely heal, and week 8, the longest it should take.

I hope you’re making some of your own personal goals and milestones this week and that of course you’re having a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane

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Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: My Little Friends

Posted on May 23, 2025 by Michael Kane
Family, happiness, nieces, nephews
Picture purposely blurry to protect our identities, 🙂

Children see magic because they look for it. ~ Christopher Moore

Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: My Little Friends

I love little kids, particularly toddlers. And I really wish that in our society expressing that thought as an unmarried man didn’t lead a lot of people to make unsavory assumptions about you. I love how free children are, how the world hasn’t weighed them down yet, how their imaginations run free and and they can so easily experience joy when they play. My jobs have always been highly stressful, when you manage people that’s just the way things go. So I’ve always been someone who looks for ways to escape each day from that madness and try and keep my stress levels down. About twenty years ago there was a playground in a park across from campus, so I would take a sandwich and go eat lunch in the park and watch the little kids go nuts, it was a great stress break. One day a police officer approached me and said that a parent had called in a complain that I was stalking the little children and couldn’t be in the park. I agreed to leave, but not before pointing out to him that he had zero grounds to make the request, but the last thing I wanted to do was let that parent pump those fears into their child. A lot of this comes from the child abduction scares and Satanic panics of the 80’s. If you listened to the media and various advocacy groups, thousands of children were being abducted weekly by strangers, secret groups at day care centers were conducting Satanic rituals on children. ALL OF IT, was bullshit. There is a great CBC Podcast on the Satanic Panic you should check out. The fact is, stranger abductions are pretty rare, and yes, there are monsters out there, but not nearly as many as people believe. The fact is, the overwhelming majority of child abductions are done by parents in custody disputes.

So, as much as I like munchkins I very much limit and control how I interact with them, primarily to limit the fears and reactions of their parents. And I’m lucky in my job, part of my responsibility is to oversee our child development lab school. As a play based program I get to occasionally pop-in and go crazy on the playground with my little friends. Shortly before my surgery I had one day where I made the mistake of catching a ball one through me, it immediately turned into a smash the dean dodgeball attack, it was wonderful. I’m grateful to our staff at the center, they do a wonderful job with our kids and I’m always so proud to see the development that the munchkins achieve.

I also have several faculty who have small children who are my friends. I’ve talked about the Tiny Dean recently and showed the card she made me, today I have another to display, this one is a bit different. This little friend is very smart, but also very much a little wise-ass and I got this card delivered to me yesterday. Her mom told me she’s been very concerned about me and my surgery.

I love my little friends, children are such a gift and that amazing toddler time passes quickly. I was lucky to spend a chuck of that time with my niece Rooney while I rehabbed an injured knee, she’s pictured above when we were playing ninjas together.

Have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane

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