Gratitude vs Greed

There's been a lot of churn recently over how soon people and businesses should be promoting Christmas. I for one like to celebrate my holidays in order. Each has its own merits and they should be celebrated without feeling pressured or getting muscled out by another holiday that's riding its heals.

Back when I was a kid you never saw anything related to Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving.  Halloween stuff didn't appear until the beginning of October.  Thanksgiving ads didn't show up until the first of November.  This year ads and displays for Christmas started to appear in September. WTH?!

Seems ironic, or actually sad, that the season for acknowledging and celebrating gratitude is being nearly wiped out by the season of greed.  Now don't get me wrong I love Christmas for it's the celebration of the birth of Christ but let's be real, friends. As far as our society is concerned Christmas is all about consumption and I don't mean food and booze.  We are pressured for months into going out and spending beyond our means, to get all those "perfect" gifts everyone is entitled to. Gift giving has become more of an obligation rather than a loving gesture because of the over-nurtured sense of expectation many people have.  Cars, jewelry, electronics, power tools and expensive clothing seem to be the norm.  Clever marketing has created a need for all these toys and the pressure to buy comes sooner and more intense each year.  Hence, this year some stores are planning on opening Thanksgiving day.

I've heard some folks on local radio and TV stations say they''ll refuse to shop at any store that opens on Thanksgiving.  Doesn't matter what deals they're offering, for the remainder of the holiday season they won't spend one dime in any of those establishments.  I applaud that commitment.  Hey, I know life is all about choices and we live in a country where our freedoms of expression (or in this case, spending) are joyfully exercised.  So why not exercise the "freedom" to open stores on Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving isn't a religious holiday so it seems odd to hear some people say, as a justification for opening stores on Thanksgiving day, "not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving."  Hmmm,  so not everyone feels compelled to say "thank you" for all the wonderful things life has provided them?  Really?  Can't spend just ONE day in 365 to stop and say "thank you"?  Wow, that's tragic.  You know there are stores in my neighborhood that are intentionally closed on Sundays because according to the owners they want everyone, customers and employees alike, to spend the day with their families.  They're placing a value on family and encouraging others to put aside one day of their week to slow down and enjoy life.  This whole issue of stores opening on Thanksgiving isn't about religious freedom or the right to spend money.  It's about being the kind of people, the kind of community we want to be.

These stores may say there's a demand.  Not really sure how they've determined that, but sure, "if you open, they will come."  But if you close, will they riot?  Hey I get it.  You put a glass of wine in front of me and I'll drink it (assuming it's good).  But if you don't, that doesn't mean I'm going to throw a fit over it.  We bitch, piss, moan and complain over how selfish and self-centered our society has become and yet we turn around and promote just the kind of behavior we seem to think is so reprehensible.

You know if you want to shop then shop.  Knock yourself out, I'm not one to judge.  I personally choose to hang out with family and friends.  But just keep in mind that our actions, whatever they may be, are a reflection of who we really are and our collective actions are a reflection of how the rest of the world sees us.  

No more Kool-Aid...

Un-f'ing-believeable!  A quarterback gets drilled in the chest by a linebacker, he fumbles the ball, it's recovered by the defense and the officials throw a flag for "unnecessary roughness".  Are you kidding me!?  At what point did the NFL forget the fact that football is a contact sport?  I know this all sounds like the rants of a frustrated fan who saw his team lose for the second week in a row and it pretty much is, but this goes much deeper than the bitching over a horrible call on the field.

For the officiating committee and the zebras on the field to say the hit on Drew Brees was "unnecessary roughness" galls me to no end.  The justification for this so-called rule is to better protect players from the violence that IS football.  My questions is "why"?  Football is a violent, contact sport.  It's meant to be.  Any football player who frets over how rough the game is should consider playing baseball or curling.  Millionaires are playing the game and they are more concerned about their checkbooks rather than their performance.  The threat of season or career ending injuries would threaten their lucrative salaries.  Seems ironic that back in the day when players had to get second jobs in the off season to pay the bills, the amount of violence was far greater than it is today.  Other than the deception created by the NFL regarding the severity of concussions, for the most part everyone knew the risks and dangers of playing the game and it was accepted.  If you ask me, I think the larger the salaries, the greater the violence.  Give me $10 million dollars and I'll be anyone's punching bag for a few months out of the year.

The lie has grown to such proportions that many are starting to believe it to be true.  This has nothing to do with the protection of the players.  Chop blocks on defensive linemen is not only legal but encouraged.  The simple fact of the matter is that the NFL is not about competition, it's about revenue.  It's all about ticket and merchandise sales, marketing revenues and profit margins.  Men like Ronnie Lott and Lawrence Taylor could never compete in today's NFL for the simple fact they couldn't afford to pay all the fines levied by the NFL bean counters.  Superstars such as Drew Brees and Tom Brady, who've amassed insane statistics over the past several years, are under greater protection by the NFL than a person who's under the witness protection plan.  I'm of the mind that these superstars wouldn't have the statistics they have if they didn't have the luxury of the no-touch rules that they currently enjoy today.  Hell, just two weeks ago his royal highness Peyton Manning had his ankle rolled up on and immediately the talk switched to modifying the rules to provide even MORE protection for the quarterback.  Oh, and the NFL was considering fining the guy who committed this HORRIBLE crime of trying to tackle the quarterback.  

There's a saying that defenses win championships and offenses sell tickets.  That is very much true.  The constant rule changes that restrict the defenses from actually defending gives the offense such a lopsided advantage that scores are soaring and offensive records are dropping at an incredible rate.  Americans want to see points on the board, or so we have been conditioned to believe so.  It's no wonder soccer has never really taken off in this country.  Low scoring games are just another yawn festival.  It's also true that without all the great stars of the game, who's really going to watch?  Stars get hurt and ticket sales drop, it's a known fact.  Who wants to pay a week's wage to watch a sloppy game of football by a bunch of understudies?  But hey, injuries heal and the stars re-emerged.  But with every booboo suffered by a quarterback the NFL takes even greater steps to protect their cash cows.

It's embarrassing for me to realize I've gotten so upset over the success or failure of a bunch of millionaires who "play" for a living.  Like movie celebrities that get paid stupid amounts of money to play make believe, much like we did as kids.  But don't get me started on that group.  I'm sad that the teams and heroes I admired as a child no longer exist.  These days the NFL, along with most other professional sports, is all big business.  A Super Bowl ring is merely a byproduct of what really matters to the players, coaches, owners and stakeholders…. money!

I can't bring myself to watch the games any more.  It's not the football I grew to know and love.  I'll always be a devoted 49er fan and I'll maintain hopes that common sense might some day prevail, but I'm not holding my breath.  Football is heading down the path of professional wrestling.  It's a just show, manipulated and modified in order to entice the mob to spend money they don't have in order to make rich people richer.

Drink up, people.  I'm done here.

Measure of a man...

The shit some men say to women!

"So honey do you prefer your men in briefs or tighty whities?"

"Do you like having big boobs?  I mean look at those things?"

"You are SOOO f-ing hot!  Do you like older guys?"

Yes, those are all actual quotes uttered by local knuckle-draggers at this sports bar near my hotel. About the only thing that made listening to those morons tolerable was the way the young waitress bitch slapped them back to reality.  

"You can't keep your wife happy, what makes you think you could do anything for me?"

BAM!!!  Sit down a-hole!

I get that alcohol plays a part in all this and of course flirting for tips is part of the job but what happened to playful and classy banter?  A well placed compliment, a very slightly off-colored innuendo, or just a little wink-n-nod, all lost arts among the losers that frequent the local watering holes these days.  "Sure, I'll have another beer.  And NICE ass!"

I know these girls are mostly good sports about the crassness but deep down inside I know it's hurtful and it only goes to reinforce their perception that all men are pigs.  Granted many of us are hogs but the lengths these young women go to earn a little more than a 10% tip is disheartening and down right degrading.  

I blame the parents for much of this.  For most of their lives these punks are encouraged to be the tough guy in the classroom and on the playing field and they are not expected to be held accountable for their personal actions.  "Hey, my son just got a free ride to Nebraska, so what if he put your kid in a trash can."  

Guys, neither the length of your penis nor the width of your wallet is a true measure of a man.  Your respect and compassion towards others and your willingness to stand up for what's right in the face of adversity is the difference between being a man and a man-child.  Grow the hell up and get a REAL pair.  Be the person women adore and men respect.  Anybody can be a punk. It takes personal strength and courage to be a real man. 

Oh He's Listening...

"Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it."  Don't know who coined that phrase but it was quite prophetic last night.

I recently joined a men's bible study group through my church.  We typically meet on Wednesday nights at a Starbucks located within a local King Soopers grocery store.  It's not a big group, usually no more than three to five of us at a time.  We pretty much dive into the scripture from the previous Sunday service.  Our conversations last night got into some of the prejudices we experienced in life and how in our particular community we don't face a lot of the social issues we see across the country due to our demographics.  We agreed that we need to be challenged at times regarding our faith and our compassion towards others.  Little did I know that God would take us up on our request so quickly.

I noticed during our session that a younger fellow sitting across the room with a couple of friends would periodically look over at us.  On a couple of occasions he walked by to either throw away some trash or refill his water, each time walking a little closer to our group trying to listen in on our conversations.  As we were about to wrap up with our closing prayers he made his way over to us.  This is where the fun began.

He hesitated when he approached, not wanting to interrupt us.  Our pastor assured him that he was welcome.  At first he genuinely seemed interested in what we were doing, asking us about our group and what we were discussing.  But it quickly became clear he had another agenda.  His questions were not about gaining a better understanding for himself but rather to challenge us in our beliefs.  

He started pulling out random lines of scripture to try and prove some point that basically no one is saved.  He tried to suggest that any relationship with God would only be offered to a select few which really had nothing to do with faith.  It was clear to me that even with all this vast knowledge he possessed about the contents of the Bible he was not a person of faith.  He started grilling us on whether we could recite the Ten Commandments or if we knew what a particular verse in the Bible was.  I don't know about you but I couldn't recite every chapter and verse of the Bible in any great shakes.  Several times he would stop to ask if he should leave and stated he didn't want to make us mad, each time looking at me when he said it.  I guess I never really did have a good poker face.  Perhaps he thought I was going to explode or worse yet, fly across the room and pound him.  To be honest those thoughts did cross my mind a couple of times.    

Finally at one point Pastor Steve and another gentleman from our group, Stan, offered to have this man join us so we could pray for him.  He bristled and said, "Why would I want to pray with someone who doesn't know the Bible?"  Well, that was it for me.  Now I generally stayed quiet throughout this exchange but now I had to chime in.  "You mean to tell me that if we could answer ALL of your questions, the way you want them to be answered and we could recite each line and verse of the Bible, you'd sit down and pray with us?"  His stammer was all the proof I needed.  I told him that I questioned his intentions about why he approached us in the first place.  I admitted I can't recite every verse in the Bible nor explain every nuance of each Gospel.  But I do know that Jesus is my Lord and Savior and no amount of
brow beating is going to change my faith."  

Yeah to say I was a bit spun up was an understatement.  Last night certainly pointed out my spiritual flaws in high definition.  My insecurities stemming from my lack of knowledge about the contents of the Bible does put me on the defensive at times when I'm confronted.  All I can say is I know what I know.  There's an understanding, a truth within me that can't be explained in words.  Even without a Bible in hand I know my relationship with God through Jesus is real.  No amount of lawyer-speak and word twisting is going to convince me otherwise.  

I know this guy was basically trying to pick a spiritual fight and unfortunately I let him get under my skin.  It wasn't until later as I was driving home that I understood that this poor guy is essentially lost.  Somewhere along in his life he was convinced that he wasn't good enough.  Someone sold him a bill of goods that his life and his soul didn't matter.  I think the episode last night was an attempt on his part to reach out and find someone that would say he was OK.  I realize that it's not enough just to have faith.  For those of faith we have a responsibility to share our faith and provide comfort to those who are suffering, especially to those that don't even know they are.  I know the next time this type of situation presents it'll be helpful to have a stronger grasp on the contents of the Bible but more importantly I need to bring forth more compassion and patience.  It's always been in my nature to want to fight back when I get attacked.  I just pray I can do it from a position of love rather than anger.

Here's to doing it better next time.

Old Man River...

I've come to the realization that old guys aren't the goofy geeks everyone thinks they are. On the contrary, they've just come to the point in their lives where they don't give a rat's shit what other people think of them. This epiphany came to me as I sat in the hotel lounge by myself, drinking my Stella while playing solitaire on my iPhone. I'm sure I looked like a dork but the degree of my ambivalance couldn't be measured by any mechanism known to man. You know it wasn't so long ago when I looked upon guys like me with a sense of pity and disgust. Little did I know that they had a keener grasp on the realities of life than I did and they were far happier doing their own thing while the rest of us tried doing the so-called cool thing.  And I'll be honest, I failed miserably at being cool.  

But I will say there is one thing I find pretty creepy and incredibly uncomfortable to watch and that's the old guy trying to put on the moves on a 20 something. It's just wrong on sooooo many levels. I mean, dudes, really?  You're hitting on someone old enough to be your daughter.  Now that might fly in Kentucky or Arkansas but the rest of the civilized world frowns on that kind of behavior. I just want to remind them that back "in their day" they never could've landed such a hotty so what makes them think they could do any better now?  And unlike fine wine, their flirting skills DON'T get better with age. My brothers, it's like watching a train wreck when you try to be all Senior Suavy to the youngsters.  Consider yourself lucky that they're polite and respectful enough to spare you what they're really thinking.  

A piece of advice - back away from the babes and keep your hands where we can see 'em.  There are plenty of blue hairs to nail at the retirement home and most of them won't even remember you failed to "bring your A game."  

You're welcome. 

Deeeeeep cleansing breath...

I've never been good at conventional meditation.  Aroma candles, spa music on Pandora, comfy clothes and a soft mattress are a recipe for nap time rather than an opportunity to meditate.  As much as I enjoy all those sensory treasures, they'll put me to sleep quicker than I can say "Aaooohhhmm".  Forcing myself to sit in a dark room and go through some checklist of things one must do in order to meditate just doesn't work for me either.  If I'm going to get the benefits of meditation then I need a better method for combating the demons in my head.

Not sure how common or uncommon this might be but my best meditation happens while I'm in the throws of some athletic endeavor.  For years my therapy sessions took place along the Pacific Coast Highway, "PCH" for all you So Cali's.  I would ride or run for miles, all the while getting lost in thought and prayer over any and all topics that occupied my life at the time.  Today all those years of pounding the pavement have limited my ability to run and meditate.  Nowadays when I run my thoughts are more along the lines of how crappy my knees and back feel rather than sifting through the cobwebs of my mind.  So my new venue is the pool.  Getting in the water at 4:00 AM, with the pool all to myself, I can delve deep into my thoughts.  Sure that first jolt from the cold water is not exactly how I want to greet the day but it's a good wake up call for the mediation to come.

I guess the same way that music and scented candles help some folks set the mood for meditation, the rhythm of my stroke, kick and breathing help put me into a mental groove that opens my mind and my heart to all kinds of thoughts and feelings.  The only challenge for me is trying to keep count of my laps.  My obsessive compulsive nature forces me to keep a highly accurate count of my laps so I know exactly how far I've gone and when I can stop.   Hey, no short cuts!  And if I lose count, then it's an extra lap just to be sure.  If only I could meditate my way out of that behavior.  Oh well.

Meditation is something we all need from time to time.  You can't keep running around like a crazy person trying to solve one problem after another without making time for yourself.  We all need time to decompress and think upon issues in our lives and come to grips with how we feel about them.  The great thing about meditating is you can think and feel any way you want without filter or judgement.  Don't let someone try to tell you exactly how you're suppose to meditate.  There are some fundamental aspects that you should consider and music and candles aren't necessarily for everyone.  The key is eliminating distractions.  Kids, spouses, friends, etc, they all need to take a back seat while you work your way through the things that are weighing heavily on your mind.  One of the greatest benefits to meditating is you can go through a string of emotions over something and more often than not by the time you're done you've come to some understanding about it that is most likely somewhere in the middle of the extreme feelings you felt.

So do yourself a favor and give yourself a moment or two throughout the week to be calm and quiet and think about the things that are most important to you.  You need this every bit as much as you need to eat and breathe.  Just try not to fall asleep.  :-)

Training Day...

In the Army we use to say, "Train the way you're going to fight."  In a training environment you'd be put through hell so that when the time came when you truly need courage and strength you'd be able to draw upon those resources that would get you through your situation.  In my obsessive days of triathloning and marathoning I would literally push myself to near collapse so that anything race day could throw at me I'd be ready.  If I hadn't pushed myself so hard putting in all those miles in the pool and on the road the physical and mental challenges on race day would have certainly consumed me.

As we all move through life we may experience from time to time severe hardships.  Most of the time we look back on those experiences emotionally and physically scarred, usually harboring feelings of anger or resentment.  The unfortunate thing is that we miss the most important lesson of those experiences and that's the acquisition of strength.  Now I know we've all heard the phrase, "What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger."  It's an overused statement intended to help someone recover from a horrible situation.  It's really come to mean that you merely survived a difficult time in your life and nothing more.  At no time has anyone ever said, "Well, this experience has certainly strengthened you for other things to come in life."

Think about this.  After the suffering we've endured other difficult events have come along and in our minds they didn't seem nearly as bad as the one that nearly crushed us.  But imagine if you hadn't had that one really bad experience.  Imagine how much more difficult those subsequent events may have been for you if you hadn't had the opportunity to grow and become stronger through that one horrible experience.  Trust me I'm not saying we need to go out looking for trouble.  Trouble definitely has a way of finding us.  But hopefully when the
day comes and while in the depths of your despair perhaps you might entertain the thought that the event, as horrible as it may be, is a training day for you.  Perhaps it's intended to help strengthen you for other things life will be throwing at you.  

Hardships will present themselves to you and you will be beat about the head and shoulders but in the end you WILL find yourself still standing.  At that time remind yourself you didn't just survive, you conquered.  You emerged victorious and gained great personal strength through it all.  You will find that the more life throws at you the more you can take and the stronger you will become.