RE: Look Out the Other Window – Monday Morning Memo 11-6-00

Look Out the Other Window

A Monday Morning Memo for the Friends of the Wizard of Ads

When Pennie was a little girl, she worried about growing old with a husband. It’s not that she feared losing her youth or beauty, her gnawing concern was “After ten or twenty years together, what will we have left to talk about?”

I’ve been smiling about Pennie’s childhood fear ever since last Friday, when she asked, “How do you do it?” (Next year we’ll celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary.) I answered, “Do what?” and she replied, “Leave all the cares of the office at the office. I’ve never been able to do it.” When I told her my secret, she cocked her head and said, “You really need to write a Monday Morning Memo about that…I don’t think most people have ever thought about it that way.”

At lunch on Sunday, our good friend Akintunde was saying that he hadn’t been able to unwind for several weeks because he couldn’t get his mind off of his troubles and deadlines at work. (Akintunde is programming a new video game for Nintendo and the game keeps inexplicably crashing.) He looked at me and asked, “So how do you do it?” I glanced at Pennie. She was smiling.

Pointing to the east, I said, “Look out that window and tell me what you see.” Akintunde looked carefully out the window and described in detail what he saw there. “Now look out this window,” I said, pointing to the west, “and tell me what you see.” Akintunde spent the next several moments describing an entirely different scene. I said, “That’s how I do it.” When he didn’t understand, I pointed one last time to a bare wall and said, “Tell me what you see.” Akintunde said “I see nothing but a blank wall.” “Keep looking,” I told him. After a minute of watching him stare silently at the wall, I asked, “Are you thinking about what you saw out the window?” “Yes, I am,” he laughed, “How did you know?”

“Akintunde,” I said, “If you will pour yourself into something that will occupy your evenings and weekends as completely as your job occupies nine-to-five, you will find that you will soon be feeling less tired, frustrated and stressed out about what is happening at the office.” Akintunde looked like a man who had just been given permission to live. “I’m going to study grackles!” he shouted. “I’ve really been wanting to, but I thought it would just make me more tired.” “Study grackles,” we told him. Pennie and I fully expect Akintunde to become the world’s foremost authority on grackles.

Like most people, our friend Akintunde had been confusing rest with idleness. Rest is not idleness. Rest is simply looking out a different window. If you have a job, or anything else that you struggle with and worry about, you have a window that looks to the east.

But do you have one that looks to the west?

Roy H Williams

PS – The amazing Chuck Lickert has completely rebuilt the website that showcases the miraculous snapshots of Wizard Academy. Take a look at http://www.accidentalmagic.com

PPS – For the Wizard’s latest comments about the Internet and a new prediction, go to http://www.WizardofAds.com press the “Check the Archive” button and then click the link, “Told You So.”

NOTE TO WIZARD ACADEMY GRADUATES: Please begin emailing us your interpretations of these images as we discussed in class. You’ll find a number assigned to each snapshot to use with each submission so we’ll know which story goes with what photo. We need verbal snapshots… short stories… your ideas of the thoughts and motives of the subjects in each photo… first, second or third person perspective… even omniscient… Whatever insane interpretation you believe will delight Broca. The only rule is that there are no rules. (We need words worth a thousand pictures and you know how to write them.) You can Monet or Frank as you choose, but be sure to Frost everything and Seuss when appropriate. Submissions should be between 30 and 300 words per photo. Send everything to Each story will be fully credited with author’s name, city and occupation. We’ve got to have at least 150 of your stories ready for publication by early Spring if we’re going to make our publisher’s deadline. Your book will be on the shelf Oct 1, 2001.