A little perspective…
As I sit here and think about all that I have done I start to wonder about many-a-thing.
For example…I have a kid on the way and I am stressing…some kinda major. Yes, partly because I don’t feel, nor will I ever, that I am fit to be a parent but also because of the amount of money it cost to raise a child. Now, if you know me…I don’t like the idea of stress, in fact I prefer not have it at all…but alas, it comes with the territory of life I suppose. Reguardless, a few things have got me thinking on this February spring evening.
1) It kinda all dawned on me tonight that we don’t live for the luxury of life, and while it may suppress our desires it is not our true desire.
2) My kid may not grow up with the privileged lifestyle of some of his friends…maybe or maybe not…but he will be loved and loved abundantly by me, my wife (his mother) and the rest of our friends & families.
3) What are we truly living for? Now, I understand that many people may differ on what it is that we are living for…for some it may be God, some it may be another deity, or even if you live for nothing more than harmony in life…we still all have one common goal. Community.
I started thinking about this and what it means for my kid.
Community can raise a kid. Community can save a family. Community can bring someone from suicidal tendency to a place of complete transparency. While it may sound hippyish of me, I truly believe that the idea and function of Community will over come most of the hardships that life brings. We can grow together…We can love one another…We can help each other in need… We can do these things because we need each other. We need more than nice things to help us finish our day.
At night when I sleep I bank on few things… That I have worked hard, that I have lived and done as I should, and that the community that surrounds me will help when my best is not good enough. This world is messed up but I know that my son will be okay because the people I love…the people that love me will make sure of that.
Currently a huge trending thing is tiny houses. It’s just as it sounds…a tiny house so that you use less energy and live life more as a minimalist. Now, if I were a single guy…I could totally see living in a tiny house…but I am not single. It did however get me thinking…I’d love to have one of those tiny houses to be my office. While I am not willing to shell out the cash for something like that…I did run across something pretty stellar…an office pod. It looks like an office designed by Apple. Rest assured its on my christmas wish list.
The Stigma of being dubbed a “runner”
I am a horribly inconsistent runner. I’ll run for a week, take two off, run for a month, take three weeks off, run two days and then just stop for six months. For the past few days I have felt really convicted about my inconsistent exercising habits so I finally went out for a run this morning. Only two miles but that is significantly better than yesterday which I clocked in a whopping zero.
The problem with my inconsistency is that I am always in the beginning runners phase…which SUCKS! I don’t know why I am so inconsistent…maybe I mentally think that I can’t be a “runner”, maybe its the stigma of being dubbed a “runner”, maybe it is self sabotage and I sub-consciously will not allow myself to get physically fit for fear that I will not stick to any sort of plan. Regardless, I see the value in exercise and I want to be consistent with it. That is where you come in Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr followers! I have an idea that I am borrowing from another friends exercise situation that may be of interest to you.
I am writing two checks, each for $100. One will go to my wife and the other to one of you…the deal is this:
I run at least four times a week for the next 60 days then the checks do not get cashed, they are ripped up and basically I get to keep the money…BUT if I miss just one week and do not run the allotted four days then both you and Amy get to cash the checks and the money is yours to do what you will! Here is the snag…you don’t cash the check until the 60 days is up pending you win the arrangement and YOU have to hold me accountable…meaning, you also have to check in with me FOUR times a week to make sure I am exercising.
Reply to me and let me know of your interest, first come first serve!
Let the games begin.
I want a record player. Doesn’t have to be this one, but if someone is interested in reading up on a $2500 player then here is the article to read up on it… I mean, if someone happened to decide to buy it for me then…I wouldn’t turn it down but I bet there is a cheaper option for me out there…
http://uncrate.com/stuff/denon-100-turntable/
Take care peeps.
I am a better person because of Hip-Hop.
I have been listening to a few different artist over the past couple of days and one common theme seems to be pushing to the forefront of what I am hearing. Love, compassion, perseverance, and an over all drive to do and be better. To strive to make a difference and really fight for change rather than wait for it. Now don’t get me wrong, there is a ton of Hip-Hop out there that is filthy, sexist, egotistical, and sends out a very poor vibe… BUT some of it truthfully pushes me to become a better person.
Currently I have been listening to a couple of artists. One goes by the alias MURS and the other is Lupe Fiasco…you may or may not have heard of them, probably have, I am old (forgive me). What they do, and do oh so well, is bring about great music but spread an extremely positive message.
In the song The Show Goes On by Lupe Fiasco, for example, he talks of overcoming adversity and being content with what you have, not what you want.
The lyrics are:
“So no matter what you been through
No matter what you into
No matter what you see when you look outside your window
Brown grass or green grass
Picket fence or barbed wire
Never ever put them down
You just lift your arms higher
Raise em till’ your arms tired
Let em’ know you’re there
That you struggling and survivin’ that you gonna persevere
Yeah, ain’t no body leavin, no body goin’ home
Even if they turn the lights out the show is goin’ on!”
He basically says…no matter what you do, no matter what the circumstance…no matter what, NEVER GIVE UP. I hear these lyrics and I think…thats what I should be doing, what WE should be doing. We should fight to help those that desperately need help. We should fight for an opportunity to love. We should desire to show people compassion. Its so easy for us to watch…to know that someone desperately needs a shoulder, a hand, a smile, something…and assume that someone, somewhere will pick up our slack. We are not in the life alone…we are a community, and as a community we can change the world.
Murs, who along with Lupe is brilliant, takes a similar approach to this philosophy. He says that love can over come. While this is an extremely “hippyish” idea, there is some truth to it. In the song “Can It Be” he talks a lot about the problems that America is going through and how we are all at each others throats…pushing the blame on each other rather than working together to fix the problems. There is a line in the song that says “Trying to save the youth from the way of the gun, If I can save one then my job is done”…His whole idea is that all people are worth trying to help. He doesn’t say anything about needing a cause or a certain number of people for it to be worth his time, rather that everyone is worth trying to reach…trying to help to understand that if we all work toward peace and an end game, great things can be accomplished.
I know that my writing may be scattered and completely random…at best, but I will try and sum it up like this. We are here to love, create, grow, and push each other to our best. I want to strive to be better…to do more…and to love unconditionally because life is too short not too…
This is totally my favorite scene in scrubs. Yes, partly because its a poison song and its awesome but also the overall message that gets us to this point in the episode.
A man is on his death bed in a coma and one of his request is that Poison’s “Talk dirty to me” is played in his room once a day. When Carla goes to the Chief of medicine to ask about carrying out these request he tells her no because he doesn’t want his hospital turned into a circus and unless a living relative comes in to make sure that the last requests are carried out then the request is ridiculous and will not take place in his hospital. Fast forward a bit in the episode and Carla plays the song anyway and the Chief comes in and gives her an earful about it. She even gets a relative to come in but the relative doesn’t care enough about his uncle to carry out the request because he is not getting any money in the end…
Enter the scene I just posted. Carla and Ted, who is the hospital lawyer, sing the song to the man anyway, knowing that they could get in trouble because they respect and feel that his last requests are something that he deserves, conscious or not…so it leads me to a question….
How far would you go to help out someone that you didn’t know? Would you take on your boss over something as silly as a song?
I took my little sister to six flags yesterday and while it was a lot of fun, I couldn’t help but notice a few things.
1) It cost $52 to get into the park, what?!?! Do you really think that your park is worth that amount of money. Currently they are running a web special and you can get into the park for $37.50 but that is a limited time offer…
2) When you get there you have to park right? Well, they charge $15 to park your car and that is pretty much your only option…drive to the park and pay the money to make sure that you can get home from the park.
3) They no longer have little shelves to put your bag or loose items off to the side so that you don’t loose them on the rides, instead…you have to pay a dollar to rent a locker to store your stuff…
So, lets assume that you take your family of four to six flags for the day and the web special is no longer being offered.
(park ticket fee) $52 X 4=$208
(parking) $15
(lunch expenses) $40. Assuming you eat at the park, however $40 may be low.
(all day locker) $12
Total: $275 which doesn’t include the money you spend on games or snacks.
While I realize there is a cheaper way to go to six flags (packing lunch and snacks, cutting out games) it’s still a ridiculous amount of money to pay for one days worth of entertainment in which you spend a vast majority of your day standing in line. For that same amount of money a family could drive to the beach for a day or two…
With all of that said, I want to thank my parents for spoiling me rotten when I was a child. I had no idea that the things that we did as a family were so expensive and I fear that when I have children they will not be as fortunate as I was.
I would not consider myself a fan of soccer. I mean, I get into it when it hits the olympics and I’ll watch when the world cup is on, but overall…not a super fan. However, yesterday I became a fan of the USA women’s world cup team. Yes, I am jumping on the bandwagon and saying I am a fan now.
I admit that it’s easy to start to enjoy a team when they are winning…but that’s not why I became a fan yesterday. It was the never quit attitude that the ladies had that blew my mind. More often than not, in sports on a professional level I feel that they get lazy and quit…its no longer about the love of the game but all about that bank account. Sure, there are times when they put it all out there and not all professional athletes are like this, however those times and those athletes are few and far between.
I don’t know how much women soccer players get paid but regardless of it being a high dollar sport or a low dollar sport, the team played like it was all about the love of the game. The goal that tied it all up came with one min remaining in stoppage play…WHAT?!?!? The announcers had even written them off…talking about the streak of the semi’s coming to an end.They literally never quit and that is what won the game for them.
It made me proud of my country and a fan of woman’s professional soccer. All I wanted to scream from the rooftops yesterday was
USA USA USA.
