Memorial Day Thank You

Ditch the Wife, Sell the House, Trade Your Kids In

Well summer is here, again. No vacation or end of school celebration for adults though. It is just another day with its own problems. I remember the whole transition from a school routine to a real life work routine. The loss of many holidays, the structured ending of classes and the beginning of the new ones. The immediate feed back of grades and test scores. All that is lost in adult life. Now it all runs together. It is difficult to know exactly where you stand from day to day. You only get the sense of change or accomplishment by looking back over long periods of time. Typically by the time you can see differences or changes you are so far into it that it is difficult to change. Somehow slowly you add more and more anchors. Those long term commitments and responsibilities...car loan, marriage, mortgage, pets, kids and etc. Your flexibility is lost and I wonder if it will ever return.

Fat Nation Not Helped By Federal Programs

So you gotta wonder, when I was kid (in the sixties and seventies) there was the Presidential Fitness deal...we had to do this 12 minute run/walk every quarter it seemed, maybe it was once a year, after we were in Jr. High (7th grade up for you Middle Schoolers). They still do this today at my son's school. He brought it up because he noticed no matter how much better he got, the PE teacher only commended the "fat" kids who got better. His words, "they walked it faster".

I've not ever done any research on the subject, and this is purely from memory and personal experience, but my belief is this was some kind of program pushed down from the department of education, much like standardized testing, to assure the physical fitness of us kids. But here we are nearly 40 years later and we are flat out the fattest nation on the planet, and our kids are the fattest generation of kids ever. So much for Federal mandates.

Myself...I'm still the same size I was as a Senior in high school, 6 foot, 187lbs. Considering we spend most of our time each day going from bed, to car seat, to office seat, to lunch booth seat, to car seat, to dinner table seat, to couch, to bed...how many calories can you burn only making 6 minute walking trips to your next resting place. No wonder there are food courts in malls...what American wants to burn so many calories walking a mall before they have to replace them with a high calorie Chinese meal? Hell if not the mall would be filled with dead, starved to death individuals otherwise.

I'd Do This For Free, But My Life Won't Let Me

I don't know where life took such a turn, but I'm pretty sure this is not the path I should be on. I truly believe in capitalism, and in my profession I have but three assets...TIME, INFORMATION and ETHICS, but I would give the first two to you for free, I'm not about to sell my Ethics, as a matter of fact I would say I have them priced out of reach. It has been said that as a salesman you don't sell a product or a price, you sell trust. I've bent over backwards telling the truth. Hell I hesitate not to say, I speak the truth and seek the highest mount from which to spread my truth...those who are true to themselves hear my words, those who want self affirmation will turn a deaf ear to me, only listening to that which does not challenge their beliefs.

But speaking the truth...doing to others as I would hope they would do unto me has not really panned out. In some other's eyes it may seem what I've accomplished and accumulated is grand and spectatular. It is all spit and tissue paper.

I regularly struggle with how do you establish trust. I've always been accused of being rather straight forward. Hell if you are going to be honest, be honest, why beat around the bush about what you know...let it be known. Point out what you think, and know. If you feel you are sharing the best, most honest idea, why not spill it all...but for some reason, people don't trust honesty...they seem to recoil and distrust, so I'm forced to play this uncomfortable game of let's slowly get to know what you want and what I can do. It only leads to me feeling like I've given all, they've taken it, and I've gotten nothing. My Life Won't Let Me Do This For Free!!!!