Out Running a Crumbling Bridge

Ever see one of those movies or cartoons where the hero has to dash across some bridge that is crumbling behind him as he runs and he barely makes it to the other side? It just dawned on me that visual is pretty much my life analogy.

I didn't realize how depressed and unhappy I must sound after looking back a some of my recent postings. And it was becoming apparent that I've been looking at things as if I was in the aforementioned scenario but running in the other direction. I was feeling as if I inevitably was going to run right into the canyon, that there was no chance of survival. But it dawned on me, I've always out run the ever present and disappearing footing beneath my feet. Somehow or another I keep just one step ahead of catastrophe, and I guess there is no reason to believe I won't continue to out run the collapse.

Oh, yeah there are days when my heels are hanging in the air, and it seems like I won't make it, but I do. I realize if I were to stop running, and I never do, I would loose to the collapse, so there is motivation to keep running. To keep trying.

Guess that is what is meant by you never fail until you quit. As long as I keep trying, things will work out.

Liars and Cheats Beat Honest Individuals

I watched a collection of shows over a recent weekend that deeply depressed me: "To Big To Fail", "60 Minutes: Tyler Hamilton interview on doping in cycling and Lance Armstrong", CNBC: "Collapse of Enron" and a bit of the CNBC special on the mortgage debacle.

The common thread I saw was success, measured in wealth, was achieved by individuals that decided to just not follow the rules. Additionally, if there weren't explicit rules disallowing a particular action, then it should of been very clear that on a moral, right/wrong or Golden Rule paradigm the actions clearly were on the dark side.

What depressed me further was recognizing that even though these characters were being caught, that they would never be punished to the extend that they'd wind up on the street in a box. It was pretty obvious that either they would have enough money left to live far better than the top 1% of Americans, and their names would not be so tarnished that they would not be able to step right back out there and be paid to tell their story of redemption, or take find another company willing to hire them.

I consider myself very honest. I practically go out of my way to do the right thing. Whenever there is a decision to be made where different outcomes could either benefit me greatly or not, and if the scenario that benefited me the least was the best for the other person, I always default to take the back seat. There have been any number of times I was confronted with these very uncomfortable decision, and it makes me sick to even realize I have to make that decision.

I recognize, or feel, some of my reluctance to cheat and lie comes from my youth where if I ever got close to that line, or barely crossed it, I got caught. But it really just grips my ass that with all my honesty I'm still beat by those that lie and care less.

Greeting Cards - One Guy Drawing

Store - Shirts, mugs, hats and stuff

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!!!!