From There to Here
An Essay by and About Christopher O'Geary Worley
Within, we discover our depth. In the world, we realize our potential.
Do you have a grand plan for your life? Concrete goals? Absolute certainty about where you're headed? Congratulations... maybe. Let's see how it evolves.
I never had a grand strategy. A gap which I attribute to too much ‘sex, drugs, and rock and roll’… ahh, high school in the 60’s. So, how did I get here and more relevantly, where is here?
Here is now and I am on a continuous journey of growth and evolution with a dash of revolution. Along the way, I accumulated principles and convictions—not from a grand design, but because certain ideas rang true and never left me. You might question whether this is a path to success, abysmal failure, or flopping like a fish waiting to be cut from the line and chopped. I would not argue, but will say that it has worked well for me—my path to here.
Looking back, I can now see three principles that shaped me early. At the time, I wasn't looking for principles. I was simply trying to become more than I was. I decided that I wanted to become physically fit and incorporate God into my life… forever. These stuck and along the way I acquired “the glue” that became my third core principle.
My first roommate in the Army introduced me to a system of mental discipline that I have practiced for more than fifty years. It is a form of mind control meditation which uses intense visualization to ‘program’ desired outcomes into the brain. Through repeated meditations, the outcome becomes programmed into the personality—the glue.
So, at 19 years old I wrote these exact (excerpted) words (1972-73) on flash cards which I still have, put them to memory and ‘programmed them into my being’.
“Serious forethought, strong decision, relentless follow through. I am Christopher O’Geary Worley, a man, a human being, created by the LORD, GOD in HIS own image. Each and every molecule and atom in my body is charged with the positive energy of life.
... I am a man, as great as the greatest of men. I keep myself in the peak of physical condition at all times through hard work and strenuous exercise. I keep myself in the peak of mental condition at all times by reading, analyzing and being constantly aware and thinking at all times. I have a strong positive personality. The following are the strongest character traits in my personality: 1) charisma, 2) concentration, 3) self-confidence, …”
I later (circa 1990) modified my initial statement to include more God:
“I am a man created by God in his own image. I am as great as the greatest of men and as least as the least of men. I am able to do anything any man has ever done and things no man has ever done.”
These principles are part of my being—who I have been and continue to become.
With those principles came three core convictions. I did not deliberately choose them; I gravitated to them as truths that fit who I was becoming. They became integrated into my personality and still surface regularly in my thoughts and conversations. They are: “Nothin’ to it, but to do it,” “Straight Up,” and “Try your best, never quit, and have a team mind.”
In 1974, I was in the US Army and assigned to Camp Humphreys, South Korea. I had begun my fitness journey the previous year while attending language school in Monterey, California. In Korea, I worked the midnight shift, which meant working out either in the morning or afternoon. I remember one particular afternoon as though it were yesterday.
I was working out in the weight room of the camp gym which was a Quonset hut consisting of a basketball court and one room for weight training. It was the middle of summer with the temperature in the 80’s and humidity the same. The building was metal with a low and rounded ceiling, no A/C and one standing fan in the basketball court.
That afternoon, only one other person was in the gym. He was a soldier assigned to work there—probably because, before being drafted, he had played linebacker at Oklahoma State. His name was Moose, or at least that was what everyone called him. My best description of him is a Black Adonis: about six-foot-two and 220 pounds of perfectly formed muscle. I was a skinny little white boy, but we bonded through sweat and perseverance—I guess.
I had finished my workout and was crossing the gym toward the exit—hot, tired and discouraged. Moose was coming out of his office when I called across the gym, “Moose, how do you keep doing it?”
His answer reverberated through that metal building:
“Nothin’ to it, but to do it.”
This was long before Nike offered similar advice, and it was exactly what I needed to hear—then and now. I am certain I have said it to someone within the past month… more than once.
Simple words for a simple question, but a life lesson and mantra for perseverance. It worked during final exams, on long flights and longer days as a consultant, earning a black belt in Hap Ki Do, hiking 40 miles thru Oregon wilderness, and many more of life’s challenging moments. Whenever I need a jump-start or a line pulling me toward the finish, I hear Moose: “Nothin’ to it, but to do it.”
In 1984, I left the military after eleven years of service as a Sergeant First Class 96C Interrogator. I lived in South Korea for five years as a strategic interrogator and Korean/Vietnamese linguist, studied those languages for two years at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, and taught interrogation at the Military Intelligence Center and School at Fort Huachuca, Arizona for the remainder of my time. During my time in the military, I also obtained a BA in Psychology, and a Black Belt in Hap Ki Do.
Those eleven years shaped me and built an identity that can be inscribed on my epitaph: Christian, Interrogator, Hap Ki Do Man.
While in the Army, I became a single parent. I decided I wanted more for myself and my son, Jack. That decision led me to Miami University in Ohio where I obtained a degree in Systems Analysis in 1989 and fell in love with my wife, Judy. We married in 1987.
As graduation approached, I assessed my skills entering the corporate world. Realizing that the psychological aspects of interrogation and behavior assessment were ingrained into my thought processes, it was clear that these could give me an unfair if not nefarious advantage. I envisioned that could be valuable in the unknown (to me) corporate world, but that was not the person I wanted to become. I kept the skills that helped me understand people and left behind those that were designed to influence them.
I labeled this state of being “Straight Up”. I would be and behave in a straight up manner without hidden agenda or manipulative intent in all transactions and relationships. To this day, I describe myself as “straight up” and I have always taught and encouraged my children to aspire to the same.
As a single parent, Jack and I were roommates and became very close. We played and practiced baseball, football and basketball constantly—I hope he enjoyed it as much as I did. When he was seven, I signed up to coach his first t-ball team. My first responsibility was to figure out how to “lead” my team of 12 seven and eight year-old boys.
I needed a grand strategy, an identity for the team. I love team sports and played a lot of ball in the army so my “grand strategy” for these seven year-olds was something I had been living by for many years but had never articulated—an unfettered joy of competition. I presented it to the boys as our motto: “Try your best, never quit, and have a team mind”.
I felt the most important thing to teach them was how to compete and the most important part of our identity was to “have a team mind”. That is the foundation of team sports. It enables a team to become greater than the sum of its parts.
The goal of every team sport is to win the game. However, that is not the true measure of victory. Victory comes from the combined effort—trying your best, never quitting, and 12 minds and hearts focused as one—team mind. We recited these words until they became part of who we were and we became what they said.
Some of my greatest experiences in life were coaching each of my children—Jack, Brandon, and Breanna—and their teams for 20 seasons of youth basketball and baseball. I cherish each team, each season, but most of all, the unique bond forged with each of my children through striving together. We had ups and downs, good seasons and less good, but we always tried our best, never quit and had a team mind.
In retrospect, it is clear that these principles and convictions are intertwined and inseparable from my faith. And there is one additional core of me, a “core oddity” if you will, COW4.
Early in grade school, I and everyone else realized my initials were COW and so my nickname became cow which I did not choose and in fact was embarrassed by. At some point I told my mother I hated that nickname. She told me (real truth or mother’s truth) that if your initials spell something, it is lucky. I believed her.
Along with that, as arithmetic and numbers started to become real, I felt the need to choose a favorite number. There was only one logical choice and it was 4. After all, my birthday is 4/4/53 so two 4’s and 4 is between 5 and 3 – no brainer.
So, for 30 years now my license plate has been COW 4 and for much longer than that I have named everything associated with me COW or COW4. I am COW and if I had a tattoo, it would probably be COW4.
As you may have ascertained, I have not been a “grand strategist” with my life course. I have done many things and made many life decisions along the way, but never really created a conscious plan of what I wanted to be, who I should marry, where I would live, and so on. I do not discourage that, in fact, I strongly encourage it, but that is not the way I shook out.
My faith in God was instilled by my parents during childhood. In early adulthood, I ignored God. But since the birth of my first child, God and family have been the most important part of my life. I have relied on prayer and His guidance for all major life decisions since leaving the military and that too was probably the most major of them all.
That said, I have not surrendered myself to God, but have acted on my own accord, recalcitrant if you will, trying to be a Christian while trying to be in control. How well that worked, I believe one day I will find out.
I encourage everyone to seek out God and to know Him and His Son, Jesus, personally. If you do that, and decide it’s not for you, no harm, no foul. You will have explored something that has been integral to humanity since the beginning.
“Within, we discover our depth. In the world, we realize our potential.” This is my philosophy for processing and impacting the world. Seeking my depth, I found core principles and convictions. I sought the ranges of me—love, hate, fear, courage, rage, calm, compassion, faith—and with this understanding of myself, I approach the world to realize my potential.
I believe that all living things are either in a state of growth or decay—there is no equilibrium—grow and evolve or decay and die. Thus, living becomes a continual flowing dance where depth seeks its release in potential, and realized potential feeds depth for growth and evolution.
Enough about me—for now. I will be using this mode to post more philosophy, poetry, fitness thoughts, and various other smack. Hope to see you again.