The Bare Maximum

Last year, my son got straight A’s on his 10th grade report card. But, let’s be clear, this is not one of those insufferable “My child is an honor student” bumper sticker memes. He admitted he didn't try very hard. Said his classes were easy; he only studied for tests on the bus on the way to school the day of. When I confronted him with his choice to do the bare minimum, he pointed to the straight A‘s and quipped, No Dad, “I did the bare maximum!”

I never said he wasn't clever.

On further reflection, Kai’s cheeky bare maximum maxim made me wonder … did this 15-year-old kid crack the “live your best life” code? How much is too much effort? What’s the proper ratio of pleasure to sacrifice? As parents, Jodi and I focus far more on effort than outcome and, while his effort seemed lacking, you know what they call the guy who graduates last in his med school class - Doctor!

Les Amours Enfantines (Submarine Series), acrylic, pastel, & antique book on paper, 7x6" 2004

But, how does one light a fire under someone who feels he’s warm enough? How do we instill hunger, work ethic and work life balance? As a recovering slacker living in a faraway corner of Costa Rica, I’ve perfected the art of “time well wasted.” But I’m in the third act of my life, whereas my son is early in his first. Still, some part of doing the minimum needed to achieve “successful” outcomes resonates. My son’s case begs the question ... did he, in fact, succeed? Did he actually learn anything en route to his shiny report card? What defines success? I tell my kids I want them to be bookish museum nerds. Yet, they pejoratively refer to the studious kids in class as “try hards.” How did “try hard” become a bad thing?

Kai is a phenomenal person. Soulful. Observant. Funny. Low profile (he’ll hate this post). He is grounded, well-rounded, surrounded by wholesome friends. I absolutely love his company. He’s also a teenager who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. At 60, I know what he doesn’t know. Though he has the voice and biceps of a man, there’s still plenty of boy in him (thankfully). And my goal is to help him land the plane on the runway of healthy adulthood. As a man-child, he regularly overvalues his own wisdom, still couldn’t clean his room with a gun to his head and incinerates hours of precious youth watching 15-second clips of nothing on his phone. Totally on brand for teens these days. Regardless, I feel great optimism in his presence. Many say his generation, the original digital pioneers, will one day fix what we before have destroyed. Will be higher consciousness, respect the earth, fixate less on race and gender. Less on pure profit motive. Be generally more evolved. But then my son tells me reading is dumb and To Kill a Mockingbird was a totally boring waste of time … and I’m thinking this generation may, in fact, be circling the drain with the rest of us.

Buuuut … STRAIGHT A’s ……

Work Life Balance has always been a tricky game in the USA, because our cultural ethos presses its thumb firmly on the scale towards work. As a 25-year-old stockbroker, I was told that every single person I met was a potential client thus, I was always always working. I once ran into my boss on Sunday in a grocery store. I had on cutoff jeans and Birkenstocks. “What are you wearing?” he practically spat into my face. It was Sunday fercrissakes yet, he perceived I looked like a dirty hippie who would offend current or potential clients. It wasn’t enough for him that I had to read three newspapers cover-to-cover by my daily 7:45am office start time and fill every moment on the clock with cold calls or something devoted to generating said potential clients. He wanted my weekends too. If that was success, count me out. Then as now, I needed to be a whole person, not some boiler room shit talker in a Brooks Brothers suit who never ever got to step off the hamster wheel. Now that I think about it, I did the bare maximum for five years to generate enough forward momentum to move up the sales chain and keep him off my back. Managed to become the youngest VP at the firm and made a decent living, but at what price. I hated my job. My soul withered, along with my self respect.

Image by Racool_studio on Freepik

Furthermore, my roommate at the time was a charming, 25-year-old bartender who worked only four nights, yet pulled down a couple grand a week. That’s close to six figures .. in cash. Talk about the bare maximum … working just nights meant he effectively had seven days off. Plus, being a dashing, green-eyed mixologist came with a slew of non-financial perks, many of whom I waved at awkwardly on my way out the door to work. Often, I’d slog through traffic into the house after a grueling 10-hour day to find him asleep on the couch with a new novel on his chest. As I doffed my wingtips and tossed my tie and starched, ring-around-the-collar Oxford onto a chair, he’d regale me with his day at the gym followed by a bike ride to the bookstore, lunch with some cutie he met at said bookstore, followed by the nap I just walked in on. I thought seriously then about whose day was more productive, more valuable, more successful. Thirty-five years later, the answer is still not clear. An aspiring writer, he had the time and freedom to pursue health and creative stimulation. He made decent money. Lived outside the rat race. On the other hand, my job taught me how to engage in conversation with anyone, anywhere. How money does not buy happiness (though it does let you park your yacht right next to it). And the clarifying wisdom of what I did not want to be when I grew up. These are not small things, and they continue to serve me well to this moment. Still, it took me years to deprogram my brain from that “always working” nonsense. To redefine productivity not as “busy-ness” but as the convergence of wellness and self sufficiency.

Over a year has passed since Kai’s “bare maximum” comment. Now 16, he enters 11th grade later this month. What a grand privilege to bear witness to a child’s evolution … from doe-eyed babe to petulant toddler to exuberant kindergartener all the way to self-absorbed adolescent on the precipice of adulthood. But this past year has been unique. Something seminal shifted in my oldest son. Kai’s work ethic grew suddenly, and continues to grow, along with his height. As I type this, he is grinding at a summer job: pulling weeds, sweeping floors, washing vans, cleaning pools … basically, doing whatever it takes to earn his pocket money for the upcoming school year. Because he recognizes it’s “go time” academically if he wants to go to a decent college … and he does. He signed up for his first AP classes and a slew of extracurriculars … and all with a smile. Taking initiative. Making moves. Trying hard.

Tamarindo Surf Film Festival 2019

Sausalito Houseboat living 2008

My little boy no longer defaults to the bare maximum. He’s hitting the throttle. Turning up the heat. Pivoting to the absolute maximum, which I find absolutely magnificent. Doubly so because I too managed an A average in high school with minimal effort. I was the bare maximum king ... but never made the pivot. No sir, I was way too cool for high school. It’s one of the few things I look back on with deep sadness and regret. Because implicit in the bare maximum is an absence of passion. Of sacrifice. Of backbone. Jeff Bezos was my school’s valedictorian the year after I graduated, yet I put no effort into academic bona fides. No Honor Society. No AP classes. No second language. I thought it was better to get stoned and air guitar the lead to Whole Lotta Love over and over in my friends’ bedrooms. What did I achieve? A whole lotta nothing. I certainly wasn’t inventing Amazon. Kai is taking the right turn where I took the wrong one. And that dusts his dad’s old soul with diamonds.

My dad (Art) and grandfather (Max)

My father’s father was a builder and carpenter. He tried hard. And so, my father studied building construction. Became a contractor. Succeeded modestly until he failed. Hated every minute of it. He was curious. He had hunger. He tried hard. My dad loved to write, to create. He was young and married with a kid (me) and believed his choices limited. Maybe they were. Maybe just his ability to perceive those choices was limited. He had a rich voice. Should have been in radio or theater. Advertising perhaps … writing jingles like “You deserve a break today.” Luckily, he found great pleasure in sharing my pursuit of creativity, from film school to magazine publishing to fine art. To this day, my dad’s enthusiasm for my creative adventures makes my swan dive a magnificent 2-for-1.

Kai is on a totally different trajectory than mine at his age, one in which he envisions a future worth trying hard for. For years, Jodi and I have been working to catalyze this transition from “taker” to “giver.” From selfish to selfless (ok, less selfish). From learner to earner. That moment when the child’s notion of “I” evolves from “give it to me” to “I will achieve it.” And, hopefully one day, to "I will share it.” I feel absolute maximum pride and joy for my eldest son. Both of my sons … but this is about Kai. I stand proud of his choices, his foresight, his transformation. And joyous at who and how he is becoming before my eyes. Perhaps his generation will save us.

I think I need a bumper sticker, after all.

FREE, Color Print, 2000 by my talented cousin, J. Danielle Hubbard