Society Wants a Rubber Coating on the World

I’ve tried to refrain from letting anger fuel my writing too much. I’m done with that. You want to know why? Because I’m fed up with the insane things that I read about on the web or hear people discussing. The world is a cold, hard place. There seems to be a push lately to over regulate everything and “make it safer”. Frankly, I think society needs to find their balls and shut up.

Recently there has been discussion about football being too dangerous. President Obama recently stated “those of us who love the sport are going to have to wrestle with the fact that it will probably change gradually to try to reduce some of the violence.” He also said he’d have to think about it long and hard if he had a son that wanted to play the game. Baltimore Ravens safety Bernard Pollard said:

“Thirty years from now, I don’t think it will be in existence. I could be wrong. It’s just my opinion, but I think with the direction things are going — where they [NFL rules makers] want to lighten up, and they’re throwing flags and everything else — there’s going to come a point where fans are going to get fed up with it. Guys are getting fined, and they’re talking about, ‘Let’s take away the strike zone’ and ‘Take the pads off’ or ‘Take the helmets off.’ It’s going to be a thing where fans aren’t going to want to watch it anymore.”

I’m going to have to agree with him. The thing that I think everyone is forgetting is that these players CHOOSE to play football and they are well aware of the risks. They get paid millions of dollars to play what some are calling “a collision sport”. If you start over-regulating it to make it “safer” then it will lose popularity and eventually cease to exist. It’s no secret that playing football can cause serious injuries. That hasn’t stopped a lot of guys from playing it anyway. Junior Seau knew that years of playing football could result in concussions and possibly brain damage. He chose to play anyway. Tragically, he decided to commit suicide and now his family wants to sue the NFL because they claim the brain damage he suffered during his 20 year career led to his death. Well, Junior knew this might happen so, while I won’t deny that it is sad, it is a result of his own decisions. He had to weigh making millions to play a sport he loved over possibly being seriously injured. He chose to play. Leave it alone. It isn’t the NFL’s fault that he chose to play, stayed in the league that long, hit other players as hard as he did, and in the end killed himself. That all falls on Junior’s shoulders.

Why is football being singled out here? Boxers get brain damage from taking so many punches to the face. Are we going to start requiring that they wear helmets? MMA is the toughest sport on earth. Are we going to ban it because it is so violent? Every athlete that chooses to participate in these sports knows the risks. For me, that makes it ok for them to get injured. Think about how this applies outside of just sports. Oil field workers can be crushed, burned, and even killed. Radio tower technicians can fall hundreds of feet to their death. These folks are aware of these dangers before they agree to take these jobs. No one is talking about these other sports or professions and some are significantly more dangerous than football. Obama opened his big, fat mouth about football being dangerous and now the sheeple in our country have diarrhea of the mouth about it. If he would have made the same statement about the UFC no one would even be talking about football right now. This pisses me off to no end. Not only is the idea of making football a safer sport ridiculous, but the only reason folks give a shit about it right now is because a person they chose to look up to made a statement about it and the evil news media in this country ran with it. Football is not football if it isn’t a dangerous sport. The people that play these sports or take these jobs weigh the benefits from the risks and choose to proceed anyway. We can’t all be outraged when someone takes one of these risks and something bad happens as a result.

I think a lot of this insanity comes down to the fact that there is no accountability for anything in this country anymore. If a football player gets hurt, let’s blame the sport for being too rough. If someone burns them-self on a hot cup of  coffee, let’s blame the place that served them the coffee. Everything in life has risks attached to it. Even something as basic as eating presents the risk of choking. We are all aware of these risks, yet we like to blame others when something doesn’t go our way. We no longer take accountability for our actions and that is one of the biggest problems in our society right now.

Let’s think about the politically correct nature of society as well. A Taco Bell commercial was banned from the Super Bowl because it showed someone bringing a vegetable tray to a Super Bowl party and said “Veggies on game day is like punting on fourth and one. It’s a cop-out, and secretly people kinda hate you for it.” The commercial is trying to say that vegetable trays aren’t good game day snacks and Taco Bell tacos make a much better selection. The statement is kinda humorous and most people will be able to identify with it and get a kick out of it. Well, vegetarians were offended! Never mind the fact that they are a minority by choice and the commercial was not attacking them in any way. Better ban that commercial because it offends some over-sensitive vegetarians! How about the Volkswagon commercial that was banned for being racist? It showed a white guy with a laid back attitude speaking in a Jamaican accent at work. At the end he takes some co-workers for a ride in his new Volkswagon and they start speaking in a Jamaican accent as well. The commercial is trying to say that driving a Volkswagon brings some sort of happiness to you. Ok, I can follow that. It is kinda funny. Well, evidently it is racist for a white guy to have a Jamaican accent. They aren’t saying anything derogatory about the Jamaican people and there are even some white people that are born and raised in Jamaica that might have that accent. Still, that commercial was banned for  being racist.

Another example of this type of thing exists in our public schools now. There is a zero tolerance policy for fighting which I support in some ways. It has been taken so far that now kids can be expelled even if they are just defending themselves. Rewind 15-20 years ago when I was in school. I got into a couple of fights and I never started any of them. Hell, one of the fights I was in started with a kid walking up to me and punching me in the nose. We didn’t like each other, but there were no words or events leading up to this. He just decided that he wanted to fight. Did I stand there and take it? Hell no! I fought back. A janitor took us to the principal’s office. After speaking with both of us and the janitor, the principal was able to determine that the other kid started the fight. He was suspended for 3 days and I got detention for 3 days. The principal later told me that he had to give me some sort of punishment so the other kid’s parents wouldn’t throw too much of a fit. That made sense to me. If I didn’t fight back, I could have been seriously injured. There was no walking away from that fight, I was simply attacked. In today’s society I would have possibly been expelled for defending myself.  I believe we need to teach our kids how to defend themselves and how to deal with these uncomfortable situations. According to the schools and the parents we should tell our kids to run away even though that isn’t always a possibility. What are we teaching them? We are so concerned that they might get hurt that we’ve gone to ridiculous lengths to try and prevent it resulting in the creation an environment where they aren’t even allowed to justly defend themselves.

Let’s go back to sports, but this time think about little league baseball and children’s soccer leagues. Now they don’t keep score in a lot of those leagues because they don’t want to hurt the kids’ self esteem. What are we teaching them? I tell you what we aren’t doing and that is teaching them how to be a good winner or loser. There’s that old saying “You win some and you lose some”, but I guess we don’t want kids to figure that out until they are adults now. We’re just sugar-coating it for them. They aren’t trying their hardest to win and they don’t have to deal with losing. We might as well start teaching them how to apply for welfare, unemployment, food stamps, and medicaid in high school now. Forget teaching them how to be hard workers and how to survive in a competitive workforce. Let’s coat the world with rubber so it doesn’t hurt when they fall.

There are risks in life that we choose to take. Sometimes they will backfire on us and sometimes they won’t. We need to accept responsibility for our decisions when things don’t go as planned or bad things happen. Society is trying to make everything easier, softer, safer, or whatever and that isn’t the reality of living in this world. What we definitely don’t need are a bunch of committees or government organizations trying to meddle in every aspect of our lives to make things safer and easier. We know when we are taking a chance. If we get burned then hopefully we can learn a lesson and move on instead of screaming for laws or rules to be changed because something isn’t “safe”. I don’t want to live in a world where everything is dumbed down and has a rubber coating so we can’t get hurt.

American Political Parties Have Changed

Personally I think a 2 party political system is a joke. Unfortunately, since the average American refuses to even consider a 3rd party anymore we are now stuck with a false political dichotomy. The majority of folks only see Democrat or Republican when they are voting. Good job America. You’ve essentially handed complete control to these 2 parties now and now that they have complete control they can do whatever they want. Since this has occurred, our 2 main parties have been changing what they stand for. As a result, what you may view as only being left and right is actually a bit more complicated than that.

If you consider the old definitions of conservative and liberal and compare those definitions to our politicians today, you will start to realize that the change has taken place. For me, it was difficult to describe or analyze for a long time. Then one day I stumbled across a chart that is basically perfect for further understanding of the political parties today. I did not create this chart, but I have posted below.

Nolan Political Spectrum Diamond

Looking at the Nolan Political Spectrum Diamond above, you can see the true Democrats on the left and the true Republicans on the right. That’s how most of us think about it. In addition, you can see the vertical “freedom axis” having what basically amounts to communism or totalitarianism at the bottom vertex and anarchy at the top vertex. You could say that a line for socialism could be drawn from 50 to 50 on the bottom 2 axes and a line for libertarianism could be drawn at the same place across the top.

Since seeing this for the first time, I have viewed political parties much differently. After giving the current platforms of the parties some consideration, I was able to see where they actually fall on this graph compared to where they should or used to fall. Democrats no longer exist near that left point. Instead, they have slid down from the left corner and lie somewhere more closely to center of the freedom axis making them more like socialists than liberals. Republicans seem to have moved a little bit left towards centrist and a little bit down toward socialist as well, although I don’t think that they’ve moved as far as the Democrats have by any means. Below I have drawn on the points where I think the current parties actually lie on the chart, and just for grins I added where I felt Ron Paul lands on there as well.

My opinion of the current political parties

The Democrats have moved toward socialism and the Republicans seem a bit confused these days. Both parties seem to have made a movement toward the bottom point which equates to less freedom. Although this movement isn’t as scary as the fact that the majority of folks insist on only seeing their options as Democrat or Republican, it is still very bad for us. The truth of the matter is that our government is rapidly growing. They are controlling more and more aspects of our lives and they are spending money that we don’t have on more and more social programs. Taxes are only going to continue to go up, government handout programs keep receiving extensions, and our freedoms are becoming less and less each day. In the meantime, our government is becoming increasingly powerful.

So what can we do to stop this madness? Well, unfortunately there isn’t anything we can do for a quick, easy fix. We can still make a difference though. First and foremost, we need to abolish our loyalties to political parties and vote on the best person for the job. Sometimes we might need a conservative calling the shots to help the economy, handle a foreign conflict with force, and overturn some extremely controversial laws that have been passed. Other times we might need a democrat in office to reform our social programs. More often than either scenario, we need an independent, libertarian, or tea party candidate to play both sides of the spectrum and bring things away from that bottom point that are 2 main parties have migrated toward. The reality of the last scenario happening anytime in the near future is pretty slim because no one takes 3rd party candidates seriously anymore. That brings me to my next point; we need to start giving more consideration to 3rd party candidates. That will take some of the power from our 2 main parties which is a step in the right direction. We can also demand term limits for every branch of government in Washington so we don’t end up with career politicians that make laws according to the amount of lobbyists’ money gets dumped in their pockets. Being a politician used to be considered serving your country. Now it is career if you’re willing to give in to corrupt influences and pretty much all politicians these days are willing to do that. We have to stop letting our thoughts be controlled and start letting our voices be heard.

Bottom line…unless more folks are willing to take off their blinders, destroy our loyalties to parties, and change our way of thinking about politics then the situation in this country is only going to get worse. For those of you that are hardcore supporters of a party, you need to give careful to consideration to where your party now lies on the Nolan Political Spectrum Diamond and re-assess whether or not you actually agree with where that party is heading. For those of you that do not claim a political party, I thank you for being smarter than the majority and hope that you keep it that way. We need to make some serious changes to our political system and that cannot happen if the citizens themselves don’t spend any time changing the way they think about it all. Let’s stop our government from taking any more of our freedoms and from making laws about any other aspect of our lives! It’s time we separate ourselves from the petty quibbling that is going on between the 2 main parties and make some changes that will secure the future of this country.

Where Did All of the Tough Guys Go?

Since man has walked the earth there has been a primitive need for man to be tough. The early cavemen had to hunt and kill their food with primitive weapons or they would starve. When man became “civilized” he had to add fighting in wars to his tough guy list of things to do. Whether someone is building a structure, landscaping, drilling for oil, or doing any other sort of activity that requires you to have strength and endure the elements there is a level of that manly toughness required. It is in our genes to be tough. It’s part of our purpose in life. Men used to have a certain level of pride directly tied to how well they could handle physically demanding, painful, and even life-threatening situations. Unfortunately the whole “tough guy” trait seems to be dying out.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of tough guys out there. I just remember a time when it seemed like every man had at least a little bit of that tough guy persona. I don’t doubt that most men still have that trait, but if they do then a lot of them are letting it be trumped by their laziness. As technology and the economy have evolved, the nature of our employment opportunities have as well. We still have roughnecks working oil rigs, farmers tending to their crops, and a few other professions where you are required to work long hours in dangerous environments. There are a lot more professions these days that have moved us indoors though. Cities have grown into massive metropolitan meccas of concrete and asphalt so tending to the yard has become a thing of the past for those folks. We no longer have to hunt for our food, and if something around our house or apartment breaks we can just call a repairman to take care of it for us. For the few that actually use tools anymore, they’ve all become electric or pneumatic taking a lot of the hard work out of things for us. Most men do not have to be the epitome of power and stamina anymore.

As a species, with some exceptions, we’ve mostly eliminated the need for testosterone fueled tough guys. I think the genetic groundwork for those traits are still in place though. There are definitely still situations where toughness is needed for any male. An example of this would be working through a minor injury or illness. Now days there are so many people willing to use any excuse they can find to miss work. My dad has grown men that work for him that will call out of work if they have the sniffles or a pulled muscle. Why? Because they can miss work, still get paid, and keep their jobs. There is no sense of pride in one’s work these days. My dad, on the other hand, tore a few of his quad muscles along with tendons and ligaments  in his left leg on Thanksgiving day. He is currently trying to get a surgery scheduled to repair the damage he did. Is he hobbling around on crutches and missing work? Hell no. He hasn’t missed a day of work yet. His thigh is purple and black and twice the size it normally is. He is having to be careful with how fast he moves and how much he lifts, but that isn’t stopping him from outperforming folks half his age. He’s still going to work because he knows that the center he works for needs him there being that this is their busiest time of the year. His absence would have a huge effect on how well his center performs right now. A couple of years ago I was in a similar situation. I broke my hand in 9 places and needed a major reconstructive surgery to repair it. Luckily I had the week after the injury occurred scheduled as my vacation long before and I ended up having the surgery on that Friday. The next Monday I was back at work with pins sticking out of my hand, whole arm in a cast and sling, and full of pain pills. Still, I showed up to do my job because no one else in my area does what I do and I didn’t want the work to backup on me. The doctor wanted me to miss 3 weeks of work. I never missed a day. I even handled my normal workload and I was having to do it with one hand.

This decline of general toughness has had an effect in other ways as well. If someone is treated poorly they just quietly move on with life and avoid confrontation. Lots of folks will give up on something at the first sign of resistance. It takes a certain level of inner strength to force your way through a difficult situation and prevail. When a lot of folks are presented with these situations they either run away or let it get the best of them. Let’s use employment status as another  example here. Lay-offs are more common than ever. It used to be that the man of the household took pride in his ability to provide. If he was laid off then he would find day labor jobs or take 2 or more lower paying jobs to support his family. You have to be strong willed and determined to get through those kinds of situations well. When a lot of folks lose their job these days they immediately turn to unemployment checks. They will milk that cow and and make no real effort to find employment. Sure, they will casually look for a job with salaries comparable to what they were used to making, but even then a lot of folks don’t put in much time or effort to obtain a position. That shows weakness and laziness to me. The idea of working 2 or more lower paying jobs to make the same amount of money is something that people rarely choose to do now. It used to happen all the time. People were tougher in the old days and had pride. Generally speaking, neither seems to hold true in modern times.

There’s also the matter of a man’s appearance. Women used to prefer strong, burly men that could provide and protect. Muscles were gained through hard work, not by protein shakes and gym memberships. Hell, even the majority of the gym-bodies are focusing their workouts to sculpt their body rather than trying to gain strength. I used to lift weights because I wanted to be able to bench press a house, not because I wanted to have perfectly squared pecs. Hair used to be kept short because we didn’t want to have to spend time taking care of it or kept long because we didn’t want to have to mess with having it cut all the time. Just 20+ years ago, the idea of using hair gel and a blow dryer was a foreign concept to a large number of men. Now there seems to be a majority of guys that spend a significant amount of time and money having their hair cut, died, and styled periodically. Also, why did body hair removal become popular for men? There are tons of guys walking around with carefully waxed chests and abs these days that are smoother than a baby’s bottom. I find it kind of disgusting. Our body hair is a direct result of the fact that we produce large amounts of testosterone. Coincidentally, men go bald on top because testosterone creates more DHT which causes baldness. This is why few women go bald or have thick body hair. More and more you find men removing their body hair and having hair transplants to reverse the balding process, yet these are two byproducts of…well…BEING A MAN! Being covered in hair used to kind of be a sign of toughness as well. Now it seems as if a lot of the population finds it to be a sign that you don’t groom yourself well enough. Men used to refuse to wear pink and purple clothing, and now pink Polo shirts and button ups are fashionable. Why have we allowed ourselves to become “metro”? It is emasculating!

I don’t know there are so many girly men out there now. I don’t understand why men have become over groomed and highly stylized. I’ll stick to wearing my plain jeans, black t-shirts, and black Harley boots. I’ll keep my beard, keep shaving my head, and let the thick, built-in sweater that God gave me stay where it is. I’d rather be an old-fashioned, gruff, burly tough guy any day than be caught wearing girls jeans and sporting a swoopy hairdo. I’d rather go to work with pneumonia and earn my paycheck than call out because I have the sniffles. I’d rather super-glue myself together and slap a bandaid on the wound than run to the ER to be treated and have FMLA paperwork filled out. Man up!

Microsoft and the Every Other Release Rule

The majority of folks use Windows. Macs have become more popular (to my dismay) and Linux is still mostly for geeks like me and the few who have actually been open minded enough to give it a whirl. Microsoft has started cranking out new builds of Windows more frequently in the past decade or so, and it is understandable that new versions equates to more money. There has been a noticeable trend you should be aware of though.

Let’s go back to the good ol’ days (I’m going to skip 3.1 and NT because most folks don’t even remember those). Remember Windows 95 and 98? Well Windows 95 was a beautiful redesign of what we were used to seeing in 3.1/NT. It had it’s bugs, but it modernized the appearance of Windows nicely. Windows 98 wasn’t really a new version as much as it was a set of fixes and enhancements. It added support for newer hardware and introduced a more efficient FAT32 file structure, but it was fundamentally the same as 95. They could have just called it a service pack, but high speed internet wasn’t a widespread luxury yet so downloading it as a service pack wouldn’t have been an option for the majority of folks. Might as well sell it as a new version, right?

Then there was the Windows 2000/ME days. There were issues with graphics cards, USB devices, security exploits, Add/Remove Programs, logons, baud rate, drivers, and much more. In Microsoft’s defense, home computers were becoming more common at an exponential rate and the amount of hardware out there was growing even more quickly. Windows 2000 was a turd. Still, it was a turd that many people purchased and Microsoft made millions. This is when society was being conditioned to buy the latest and greatest version every time something was released. If nothing else, Windows 2000 was successful in that it really got us all on board with this trend. From an IT standpoint, it was a nightmare.

In 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP. This was the first consumer-oriented released based on the Windows NT kernel. Sure, XP had it’s bugs, but the fixes were getting pushed out fairly quickly. This is when Microsoft began their “push it out before it is perfect and push out the bug fixes as quickly as possible” routine that they are still practicing. Still, XP is the version of Windows that was used during the time that most people became computer literate. The XP GUI is a familiar site to almost everyone over the age of 20. The networking aspect of XP was revolutionary, the GUI was refined and intuitive, and the amount of compatible software was unparalleled. Glitches and bugs aside, this was a great version of Windows. You will still find XP installed on computers to this day, especially in corporate environments. It isn’t the most efficient, the prettiest, or the most advanced, but it has had the longest life and for good reason.

Once upon a time Microsoft released the biggest turd that has ever existed. You probably know it as Vista. Chances are, you might not know it because this was a release that wasn’t all that popular and didn’t have a long life. Vista was pretty. It was also insanely slow and full of bugs. Microsoft said at one point that there was a graphics card fit to run it well. Doesn’t it make sense to design an OS that will run well on the current available hardware? Come on! Microsoft started moving stuff around on us in this release so for folks in the IT world Vista was met with some resistance. We couldn’t find the tools we needed as quickly and when we did, they looked different.Visually, Vista is what we wanted Windows to be. Under the hood, it was a freaking nightmare. While it still has it’s hardcore fans, you will find that some refer to Vista as Microsoft’s biggest mistake. It was so bad that it caused Microsoft to accelerate the release of Windows 7. RIP Vista (and good riddance).

Yeah Windows 7! Here we are again talking about one of Microsoft’s best releases. You get a nice combination of speed and visual aesthetic with Windows 7. It is backwards compatible with software from older versions of Windows (in most cases) and it added some great features as well. The aero themes look fantastic, the various ways to resize windows to half screen and full screen are real time savers, and network sharing is easier than ever which is great for the average user. I feel like Microsoft hit a home run with Windows 7. In fact, I only have one machine at home running Windows and it is running Windows 7. I have no plans to upgrade until something better comes out.

That brings me to Windows 8. Unless you have a touchscreen monitor or laptop, don’t waste your time with Windows 8. Microsoft had the idea to make Windows look uniform regardless of what device you are using that runs it. Windows 8 Phone is an amazing OS and I find myself more and more curious about possibly buying a Windows phone each day. The Windows tablets that have recently come out are powerful machines made specifically for Windows 8 and it is a match made in heaven. Windows 8 on a laptop or desktop is just pointless. The start menu is now a scrolling, fullscreen box of tiled icons. This is great for a touchscreen, but cumbersome for a mouse. There is also a real lack of development for Windows 8 apps that take full advantage of this new feature. Other than the unfortunate UI changes, Windows 8 isn’t much different from Windows 7. With that said, there really isn’t any point in upgrading. I will not be upgrading. To add to that, Windows 7 is just over 2 years old now. Why fix something that isn’t even broken?

What will Microsoft release next? Well, if the pattern continues it should be a great product. If you’ll notice, every other release of Windows is great and the ones in between are turds. Let’s hope that, at least for this next release, the pattern continues. Maybe after Windows 9 (or whatever they will end up calling it) is released Microsoft will slow down a bit and focus on quality over quantity? No, probably not. Enough folks buy the bad releases to justify them. It’s more about taking your money than it is about innovation and quality.

When Do You Throw in the Towel?

Life presents a lot of challenges. Sometimes we can overcome those challenges and sometimes our efforts are futile. I’d love to believe that hard work and determination can make you prevail 100% of the time, but unfortunately that is not always true.

Some challenges are of the physical type. For example, I’d like to lose 25 pounds by July (which would put me at 160 pounds). It is a reasonable goal and I know that I can do it. Just a little over 2 years ago I was a workout machine and I was about 30 pounds lighter than I am today. I had a severe injury to may hand which had me on pain pills and in a sling for several months. After that the depression kicked in and the weight kept piling on. I’m about to start my diet and workout routine again. I’ll lose that 25 pounds. Now if I had set my goal to lose 55 pounds then it is safe to say I’ll never hit that goal. I don’t consider this “throwing in the towel”, but instead it is a matter of unrealistic expectations. I’m a wide framed, kinda muscular guy so 130 pounds just isn’t going to happen unless I starve myself and let my muscles deteriorate.  Having the determination not to throw in the towel during my weight less adventure won’t be an easy task, but it can and will get done. This is the type of situation where you should never throw in the towel. A lot of times these situations are pretty cut and dry.

Other challenges in life can be emotional, psychological, and/or involve other people. These are the difficult situations that a lot of us choose not to even deal with, but they have to be given thought to ensure a healthy life. Let’s say, for example, you have a really great friend that you’ve known for 10 years. You shared everything with this person and have really built a nice set of memories together. At one point in time you couldn’t imagine that this friendship would ever end. Then, as people tend to always do, the both of you change a bit with age. The friendship goes through some low times after a while and you feel more distant than ever from this friend. You aren’t the quitting type so you try to talk about things with this person hoping to figure out the issues so they can be fixed. This person has a lot of anger and hostility toward you so these conversations never go well. Still, you pry some info out of them that you can use and you pray that they actually paid attention to the things you said and will try to make some effort towards repairing the friendship. You do your best to make some changes in how you approach things with your friend. You were able to see the error in your ways after hearing about it and giving it some consideration so the small changes seem like a bit of personal growth you should probably be acting on anyway. Even though you’ve done everything in your power to fix this relationship time after time after time, your friend just doesn’t seem willing to make any changes, take notice of the changes you’ve made, or have any part in repairing the situation. When they do something that hurts or bothers you there is never an apology or even any indication that the person realizes that they have done something wrong. When you try to point it out to them it always ends poorly. I’m not usually a quitter, but giving up seems like something that has to be seriously considered in this situation. The question is, when do you give up? I’d love to say you never give up on a friend, but at some point the relationship becomes toxic to you and affects your mental and emotional health. Sometimes it is in your better interest to throw in the towel. Determining when to do this can be one of the hardest decisions of your life depending how close you are to someone. These are the decisions in life that no one wants to make.

A problem that stems from these type of situations can occur when people don’t deal with these types of situations at all. Some folks will stay in an abusive relationship or one-sided friendship forever because they avoid confrontation and live in denial. Over time, this can greatly diminish your sense of self-worth and force you into depression which can lead to many other bad things. No matter how hard you work at a relationship of any kind, if the other person isn’t going to put forth the same effort then it may never become a healthy relationship again. There comes a point in time where you have to really give things some serious thought and you might end up having to make one of the most difficult decisions of your life. The thing is, sometimes it is ok to throw in the towel. Sometimes you have to think about how things are negatively effecting you. You may have a long history with someone full of great memories, but if things have gone south long ago and there appears to be no hope that they will ever be good again then it is time to start thinking about ending the relationship for your own good. Sometimes the initial pain of ending a relationship can seem overwhelming, but in the long run if you are happier without that person in your life then it is more than worth it to end things. I’m not saying don’t put for any effort. I’m saying that once your efforts have been exhausted and you really feel like there is no hope then you’ve got to at least give honest consideration to cutting that person out of your life. I can’t tell you when you make that call. Only you can figure that out.

Bottom line…life is going to crap on you sometimes. You may have a million blessing in your life, but it doesn’t seem that way when you have a billion curses. I’d say that 95% of the time you should never give up on a goal, a friendship, a marriage, or anything else. The other 5% of the time, it might make your life better. Don’t be one of those people that refuses to honestly think about these situations and lives a long miserable existence because they won’t consider throwing in the towel on something. Don’t be one of the millions that throws in the towel too early either. There’s too many quitters with no determination out there already. Just know that there will be times that you might have to at least consider throwing in the towel on something and you should put a lot of time and energy into figuring it out. If you make the decision to give up and you can honestly say that it gives you a sense of relief then it is probably time to move forward with it.

Why?

More random observations today. I’ve been to busy to think of any good subjects to write about so here’s a little bit of everything.

Why is it that when people are at a stop light they will keep creeping up a couple of inches every few seconds? Are they trying to get as close as possible to the car in front of them? Is there an internal debate going on whether or not to ram the car in front? You don’t get to your destination any sooner. I’ve always thought this act to be pretty ridiculous. Still, I sometimes find myself inching forward every time the car in front of me does so. Usually it only takes a couple of times before I realize I’m doing it and I’ll stop. Then I just make fun of the person in front of me that keeps doing it. I don’t understand why this takes place.

I’ve recently learned that there is such a thing as a “vocation vacation” where you can pay a significant sum of money to travel elsewhere and spend your vacation doing some other type of work. Is this type of thing aimed at workaholics? I thought the point of vacations were to relax and have a good time. I’ve always thought it would be cool to learn to be a glass blower or blacksmith, but I’m not going to take a week off of work to go do another kind of work and fork over thousands of dollars to do it. I’d rather have a staycation than a vocation vacation. This seems pretty silly to me.

Why is it that the new generation of guitarists don’t want to learn music theory? I completely understand that you can play guitar without learning it because you develop your ear over time and pick out little shapes for improv that you know will work. Still, wouldn’t you like to be able to jump into a jam without having to pick around for a while to figure out what to do? I can jump into any jam in any key with any progression and never play a wrong note. Doesn’t it make sense that you should learn that stuff so you can do the same? Plus, if you write music then knowing theory will open your mind to tons of new possibilities that you would have never considered otherwise. It isn’t easy to learn. It takes time and patience. Still, playing guitar without ever learning theory is like trying to put together a large, complicated piece of furniture without reading the instruction manual. You might eventually get it together, but the guys that read the manual will do it much faster with much less effort.

Have you ever noticed that over the past couple of years there has been a growing number of people that go out and purchase DSLR cameras? I know some excellent photographers that have done this, but they have either gotten an education on photography, tirelessly sought out tutorials on photography methods online, or have just spent tons of time with their cameras getting to know all of the features and as a result they take amazing pictures. I know exponentially more people that have dropped big money on DSLR’s and never take the damned thing out of “auto” mode! Why didn’t you just go drop $400 on a nice point and shoot instead? If you’re not going to learn how to use a DSLR then you should stick to point-and-shoot cameras because “auto” mode is essentially the same thing. Then you end up with a whole slew of people that think they are photographers just because they have DSLR’s and all of a sudden your Facebook feed fills up with unimaginative, poorly executed, and horribly edited photos. Buying a DSLR and never taking it out of “auto” is like buying a Ferrari and never taking it out of the garage.

Why is it that some folks will have symptoms of a possibly life-threatening condition, but they will avoid going to the doctor because of it? News flash; things don’t magically go away because you ignore them. Time is of the essence with this situation. If that lump in your back is getting bigger then get your ass to the doctor! If that mole on your shoulder starts getting weird on ya then run straight to the dermatologist! If you catch things like cancer early enough then you have a much better chance of survival (I should know, I’m a cancer survivor). If you wait until it becomes unbearable then it might be too late. Who knows, you might go get a lump checked out and find out that it is just a benign cyst. Then you have peace of mind and don’t have to worry about it anymore.

Why do fat people give skinny people flack over eating healthy? I’ve heard people say to me “Why are you eating a salad? You look just fine.” Well, first of all I’m about 20 pounds overweight. Just because I’m not 100+ pounds overweight like you are doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be trying to lose weight. Second, how the hell do you think people stay skinny? Do you think that they possess some magical gene that allows them to eat 17,000 calories a day and they never gain a pound? NO! They make better decisions than you do. THAT’S WHY THEY ARE SKINNY AND YOU AREN’T! My wife gets this in the worst possible way. She’s a skinny-mini. She works out and eats right and that’s how she maintains her weight. Sometimes she’ll say something about being on a diet if she wants to lose like 5 pounds or get her stomach to be flat again some family member or friend will lay into her for saying that. This pisses me off. Let the girl do her thing and shut the hell up! She should feel good about her figure because she works at keeping it that way. Don’t make her feel bad because she’s skinny and you’re not! Anyone can be just as skinny if they eat right and workout for a while. Those that choose not to do this have no right to give flack to those that do.

Why is it so hard to get a straight answer from people these days? I’m an INTP personality that’s emotionally challenged. I function of of logic and hard facts only. I hate it when I ask someone a question and either get a response that doesn’t answer anything or a question about why I’m asking. When I say something like “Did you do the dishes yet?” I just want to hear “yes” or “no”. If I ask something like that it is because I want to know if I’m going to have to hand-wash something before I can fix myself dinner or something along those lines. Getting a response like “you could have done them yourself” or “no, because I’m lazy and never do anything” doesn’t answer what I’m really asking. It also indicates that the person responding to me thinks I have negative feelings toward the issue or I’m implying that they are at fault for them not being done. No! Anyone that knows me even a little knows that I say exactly what I mean. If I ask a question like that I simply want to know that status of the situation. There’s no dramatic or argumentative hidden agenda. This also creates negative feelings toward me that exist under false pretenses. I encounter this type of thing daily from multiple people in multiple situations. Is everyone trying to harness their question-dodging skills because they are secretly aspiring to become politicians? Answer the damned question you are asked folks! I think society is always looking for hidden meanings behind things. We all need to start communicating in a straight-forward, cut-and-dry fashion. It saves time, confusion, and undeserved ill feelings. Don’t make a simple question into a big deal.

Quit Idolizing Celebrities

People are very wrapped up in pop culture these days. One of the things that has always baffled me is the obsession with celebrities. Some folks take this bizarre obsession to unhealthy levels and I’m quite bothered by it.

What is a celebrity? Google defines it as “A famous person”. Simple enough. There are many types of folks that become famous. To list a few there are actors, writers, athletes, news anchors, talk show hosts, producers, musicians, designers, etc. What do all of these folks have in common? Their jobs are high profile. What they do for a living is seen by many. No one watches me while I keep a call center up and running so I’m not a celebrity. People aren’t watching my mother at her job or my father at his so they aren’t celebrities. Most of us work harder and have more education than most celebrities. In a lot of cases we probably are more talented at what we do than celebrities. We just don’t have high profile jobs. To me, that is most significant difference between celebrities and everyone else. It isn’t like they do things that are very difficult or important, they just have millions of eyes tuned in while they work.

Still, society has elevated celebrities to ridiculous heights. People will see a movie just because a certain celebrity in it. Folks stay glued to the TV for shows like Entertainment Tonight or TMZ which talk about nothing but celebrity gossip. There are even parents that name their children after celebs or they give their child the same name that a celeb has given theirs. It is idolatry. Now we have “reality” shows that follow celebs around. Why do you care what a certain celebrity buys or where they buy it? Who cares what these people do in their free time or how their relationships work? What is even worse, why do these types of shows sometimes follow people that aren’t really even famous but they become hugely famous afterwards? The Kardashians are an example of this. They are just a bunch of shallow, soulless women with money that haven’t really done anything of any significance their entire lives. They are famous for being famous. How stupid is that? There are millions of folks that latch on to every word these people say. If you really what to know what is wrong with this country shift your attention from the corruption in DC for a while and think about how millions of folks idolize the celebs. For crying out loud, some folks even voted based on who their favorite celeb supported. Way to be a bunch of mindless puppets!

Celebrities are just people like you and me. “Yeah, but they are better looking.” Ok, well if your job required you to look good and you had tons of free time and money then spending 5 hours a day at a gym and having a dietitian plan your meals would not only make a lot of sense, but would be a lot easier to pull off. Not everyone could look as good with the same amount of diet and exercise, but a lot of folks could. “Well a lot of celebrities make large charitable donations.” Ok, well pay me 10 million dollars to spend 9 months shooting a film. I’d have no problem taking 1 million right off the top and giving it to Children’s Miracle Network since I’m a childhood cancer survivor. Plus, I’d get to use that large donation as a tax right off. I’m not trying to say that I don’t appreciate the fact that many celebs are involved with charities, I’m just saying that it is easier for them to do than it is for the average Joe. “But they always have to deal with the paparazzi!” First of all, there are plenty of celebs that live relatively low profile lifestyles and don’t have to deal with it as much. Second of all, I think it is a widely known fact that fame comes with this kind of baggage and people choose to go that route anyway so I’m not going to feel bad for them for a second. Celebs have health concerns, love lives, struggles with their weight, mental and psychological battles, etc. just like all of us. They are just people that have been seen by the right person to become famous. Someone had to give Johnny Depp his first role before he was anybody. Some record company had to sign the band U2 and pump millions into building their fame. They were regular folks before they were discovered.

Let’s consider the jobs of celebs vs the pay. Actors basically read a script and act like a certain character while in front of a camera. Athletes play games. Musicians make recordings and perform live. They don’t have to possess higher intelligence to do these things in most cases. They aren’t making contributions to science. Their jobs don’t require back-breaking labor in most cases. These people have it pretty easy. Now I will say that athletes have to maintain their strength and fitness to perform and that can be a challenge. There is a certain amount of talent involved in sports as well. Is that talent worth $20 million a year? HELL NO! There are a few musicians left with actual talent and an education in music. Most have less talent then the bands you will find playing at your local bars for $300 a night. A lot of “musicians” have their material written for them, play at a rather elementary level on their instruments, and use auto-tune to make their vocals sound perfect. These people just have the right look or wrote a song with the right hook or even just agreed to play whatever garbage the record company supplied. Still, even in the case of the actual talented and educated musicians, is playing music really worth making millions a year? Nope. Sounds more like fun that work to me and I’ve been in a band that busted our asses trying to make it big for years so I know what can be involved. Artists deserve payment for their art regardless of whether it is music, acting, painting, etc. but the amounts they receive these days far surpass their actual value because of their celebrity status. These people are entertainers. That is their only contribution to society. When you consider being entertained vs everything else in life then you might realize that what they actually do is less important in the grand scheme of things than what you do for a living. The only argument that makes any sense to me is that if the studios/record companies/team owners/etc are going to make millions off of something you had a part in then you should get your share of the pie as well. That is the only justification for the ridiculous sums of money these people make for the things they do.

Bottom line…quit idolizing celebs. They are no better than you and me. They are just people that got lucky in some way or another and now their lives are largely visible through multiple forms of media. Quit getting wrapped up in their drama and focus on your own for a change. Quit basing decisions of who to vote for, what car to buy, what to wear, and what to name your kids off of what your favorite celeb does. In the end they aren’t any better than the rest of us so quit elevating them to god-like status.