And now, a few words ...

Geoff West

I’ve been thinking about four-letter words lately. Now, don’t get all

excited, I’m not talking about those four-letter words, the ones that

seem to have saturated casual public discourse more and more in the

last decade or so. I’m talking about some others.

Four years ago, as we ramped up for the last presidential

election, there was a little joke going around: “No matter who wins

the 2000 election, we’re going to end up with a four-letter word for

a president.” I smiled then, and I’m smiling now. Among the

four-letter words I’ve been contemplating lately is “work.” It’s one

of the few four-letter words many of our kids don’t seem to use these

days, especially when combined with another four-letter word, “hard.”

Seems to me that too many of our young folks just kind of skate

by, willing to drift with the tide rather than work hard to

accomplish their goals -- academic and otherwise. Of course, not all

of them are set on cruise control. There are many outstanding

overachievers in this neck of the woods. There seem to be many on the

other side of the equation, though, and it’s a problem.

I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because the levels of academic

achievement have been so ratcheted out of reason to avoid damaging

self-esteem that even accomplishing a straight-A average seems not to

be enough. How can we expect our kids to keep their eye on the ball,

when we keep changing the target?

A couple other four-letter words I’ve thought about recently are

“love” and “hate.” Both of these seem to have gotten diluted. Hate is

a word that has gotten watered down by overuse. People will say they

hate someone when what they actually mean is, “I don’t like your

opinion,” or “You’re different, and I don’t understand you.” They

hate the dress, when they actually mean, “I don’t like that color

much.” Heck, I use the word -- among others -- when I’m tied up in

traffic. It’s an easy word to use, although not always accurately. I

do know what real hate is, though. Hate is what I felt as I watched

the airplanes hit the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001 and

viewed the aftermath later. I hated the cowards who conceived the

plan and those who fulfilled it. Almost three years later, that

feeling has not subsided, and I still find myself contemplating

appropriate punishment for those responsible.

Drawing and quartering is one of the more mild solutions I’ve

considered. That is hate.

“Love,” on the other hand, seems to have gotten confused with

another four-letter word: “lust.” Believe it or not, I was actually a

teenager once -- a long time ago -- so I still remember lust. It was

easy to confuse the words back then. Today, the difference is quite

clear to me. Lust is seeing Halle Berry in a black cat suit and

Sharon Stone in a white pants suit, frolicking together on the silver

screen. Love is what I feel for my sweet wife of 37 years every hour

of every day; it brings a smile to my face and makes my heart skip a

beat when she walks into the room. Love makes me ache when we are

apart.

“Fear” is another four-letter word I’ve thought about, usually in

close proximity to “hate” in my thought process. Fear is what the

Sept. 11 terrorists have given to this country. I guess I do hate

them for that. Fear exists in our community for other reasons, too --

fear of the new, the different, the unknown. There are those who use

that fear to fan the flames of hate and try to convince us that their

way is better. Sadly, sometimes that plan seems to have worked. I

think we all need to do a better job of overcoming that fear and

douse those flames.

Another four-letter word rattling around in my skull lately is

“best.” You know, as in “be the best.” Lance Armstrong’s recent win

at the Tour de France has made me think about this word. Can there be

any doubt that he is the very best at what he does? Even if you

ignore his successful battle with cancer, his accomplishment is

without equal in sport.

In this Olympic year, we are seeing young people from around the

world become the very best and marvel at their accomplishments. We

sometimes let “be the best” overshadow “do your best.” In the

Olympics, for every winner there will be others who will not stand on

the top step of the podium and hear their national anthem played.

Many of those individuals will have done their very best and still

not win the gold.

Being the best is an admirable goal, achieved by very few. Doing

your best can be attained every time you compete and in everything

you do. In my mind, it’s OK if you are not “the best” as long as you

do your best.

The last four-letter word on my mind a lot in recent months is

“life.” There are many aphorisms that describe views of life, but

I’ve discovered one thing at my rapidly advancing age: Life is

usually not what you anticipated. This message was driven home to me,

loud and clear, last winter when I spent 45 days at the bedside of a

man who had been my best friend since we were 5 years old. He didn’t

expect that he would crash his motorcycle, but he did. I certainly

didn’t expect to be the one to tell the doctors to stop trying to

bring him back at the end of his life, but I was.

So, I leave you with these thoughts: It is hard work to lead a

good, happy, productive life, but it’s worth the effort. A little

lust is OK, but not at the expense of deeper feelings. Don’t let fear

of the unknown overcome you. Don’t let others turn it into hate. If

you do your very best, that’s good enough.

Finally, learn what true love is -- and share it.

* GEOFF WEST is a resident of Costa Mesa.