63 Comments January 4th, 2009 by Natural
A blog can be compared to a newborn baby. In the beginning, we’re really excited about our “baby”. We tell everyone about the baby and where they can go to see the baby. We can’t wait to try on all the new clothes we have just for the baby.
We love our baby so much that when we wake up in the morning, the first thing we do is check the baby for “movement”. Maybe we give the baby nourishment for the day to sustain it, keep it alive, as we continually check on the baby throughout the day.
Gradually the baby starts to grow and demands more and more of our time, but we don’t have the energy to take care of it. Now the baby is crying for attention because we haven’t fed it in a while. Instead of the once carefully prepared meals we used to provide, we find ourselves sitting in the drive-thru at the fast food chain of “I’m Not Dead” and “I’m Still Here” for a quick meal.
We still care for the baby, maybe we change a diaper here and there, but the excitement of the first born has worn off. In fact, we’re looking for a baby sitter.
Unlike real children who we are committed to for at least 18 years of our time, energy and expenses, that’s not the case with our blog. We change as do our interests and what was once important, our baby, is no longer.
Maybe I took the scenic route to ask a simple question: Regarding your blog, do you have a gauge for calling it quits? Will you not be motivated or excited about blogging? Maybe there’s nothing left for you to blog about or you’re not getting the response you hoped. Maybe someone has trashed your efforts and you wake up one morning and wonder: Why am I doing this again? Maybe none of this is the case, would you still contemplate throwing in the towel?
I won’t participate in the comment section for this post, but will be, and I am interested in, reading your thoughts.
Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.
65 Comments December 26th, 2008 by Natural
Who's pulling your strings or controlling your life?
Do you care what other people think about you? I asked a few people this question and they said they don’t care what other people think. Well actually they said they don’t give a rat’s *** what people think, but I was putting it nicely.
Sometimes it seems like the attitude today, and not just from the younger generation, is: I’ll do what I please and if you don’t like it, then you can shove it. Some people like to believe that they live in their own world and nothing they do affects anyone. There is more concern about self and less concern about others.
Then there are the people pleasers who spend too much time caring what others think about them. They don’t live their life based on their thoughts, but on the opinions and approval of others. They thrive and need acceptance from others to feel validated as a person. I was reading something that said this need is like a drug, “it’s so addictive that most people will not give it up – they will keep looking for approval because the hit is so intense.”
“The price of the approval drug is freedom – the freedom to be ourselves.”
Personally I don’t care what others think about me, most of the time people get it wrong anyway, but I do care how I am perceived. That means I’m okay with being weird (or being different) I can contently dance to the beat of my own drum, but if someone thinks I’m a horrible person, then we need to talk. I do care about my character, who I am as a person.
My question to you is: Where, and how, do you draw the line on how much influence and control you give other people. The comment section is open for your participation.
Michael Miles, the author of Thirty Days to Change Your Life, for Free said that we should “live our life by means of a set of values - not values imposed from the outside by others, but innate values which come from within. If we are driven by these values and not by the changing opinions and value systems of others, we will live a more authentic, effective purposeful and happy life.”
Photo by starpixie on Flickr
77 Comments December 12th, 2008 by Natural
Many years ago when I was much younger and could stay up late, I had a night time ritual. Every night before I went to bed, I would watch at least an hour of stand-up comedy on television.
I studied comedians, got to know some of them by face and many of them by name. One night there was this new comedian performing, I don’t remember his name, but I remember a portion of his act.
He joked about how everyone was always in a panic to be first. First in line to get the latest gadget. First in line at the bank. First in line at the grocery store. He said: You know what? I don’t wanna be first, I wanna be next!
Even though it was meant as a joke, I’ve never forgotten it and consider it one of my life lessons. It made me wonder why we make everything, simple things, a competition to be first? I don’t know, maybe we are inherently competitive and can’t help ourselves?
There’s a guy named Greg Packer who makes a “hobby out of attending public appearances and is known for being first in line for such occasions. He is even credited with being first in line to purchase an iPhone in 2007, 110 hours before it went on sale.” Why?
I guess we love being first. We get the attention, the bragging rights and let’s face it, sometimes it feels good being on top, but sometimes it’s an exhausting race to nowhere.
“Does being first really have the upper hand over being second or even fifth? Not necessarily. Sometimes getting the formula right matters more than doing it first.”
I’m learning to be content with next.
40 Comments December 2nd, 2008 by CardioGirl
[ Note from Natural: I'm honored to present this guest-post by CardioGirl as a contribution to ThinkingOutLoudBlog.com. When I first found her blog, I read it quietly, in awe. Cardiogirl's gift, in my humble opinion, is her ability to write about a variety of topics and make it interesting and humorous. Show some love and support to CardioGirl as she blogs about The Day of the Fight. ]
It’s time to jump into Mr. Peabody’s WABAC (pronounced “wayback”) Machine And if you don’t know who Mr. Peabody is, you must check out the link. But please tell me you know about Mr. Peabody. I don’t want to believe I’m getting old.
Okay, let’s set the dials to Spring of 1982. There were two girls in my 8th grade gym class who did not like me — K!m S. and Lis@ F. I don’t know why, they just did not like me. I know, that’s shocking. So they would both bump into me during our gym class and do things that could be construed as a little extra game play. So the teacher didn’t do anything about it.
I’m not completely clear why, but K!m was the leader of that twosome. She was really preppy and one of the pretty girls. So she didn’t really get her hands dirty by pushing me around. She had a wicked tongue, as I recall, and hurled quite a few insults my way. She did push me around on occasion, but Lis@ was really her henchman.
And Lis@ was a burnout.
You know what a burnout is, don’t you? A person in middle school or high school who smokes! And that same person, if she’s a girl, wears black eyeliner under her eyes and black clothes. The guy burnouts just wore black clothes and smoked. No eyeliner. That was a burnout.
Of course I told my mom about this and she said, incredulously because she couldn’t understand me, “They bumped into you and you didn’t beat the crap out of them?” Um, no. No I did not beat the crap out of them Mom. I’m a pacifist.
So it went on for a while longer and as I told my mom about it she started getting angry at me because I wasn’t fighting back. She said the only way to get through to people like that is to pound them into the ground.
Yes, that’s what she said. My mom was really animated and grew up on 24th Street in Detroit. She had a lot of fights in her early life. She grew up in a crazy family and had to literally fight her way out of Detroit. You kind of have to consider the source when you hear about the advice she gave me. Plus, all of my sisters and my brother had gone down this path before me.
My mom was used to other kids beating up on her kids and her advice was always the same: beat the other kid back with everything you have so you teach him never to touch you again. This is the motto she lived by and it served her well all those years ago in Motown.
Now the one piece she did not make clear to me was that the other kid had to initiate the fight. If the other kid touched you first that’s the clearance to go medieval on him. My mom did not make that piece clear to me and that will become important later on.
I think the abuse from those girls started in the winter and continued into the spring. My mom was getting angry at me for not defending myself against K!m and Lis@. She finally gave me an ultimatum: if you don’t fight them today you’ll have big trouble when I get home from work tonight.
You know, as I lived through that experience I didn’t really focus on what my mom said to me. My thoughts on that have always been about K!m and Lis@. But when I write that out in black and white it seems kinda crazy.
My mother threatened to beat me if I didn’t beat up the girl at school. At least that’s how I interpreted that. I was more afraid of my mother’s wrath than I was of fighting the girl at school.
I think it was May of 1982 when The Fight finally took place. My sisters were home so they were excited because they knew to expect a call from the principal that day.
My mother reminded me that morning, before I left for the bus stop, that it was okay that I was going to get in trouble at school. She knew the principal would call her at work and she was totally fine with that. She told me she would be expecting that call today. My mom curled her lip and said, “Just beat her with everything you’ve got.” She then shook her fist in front of me to emphasize her point.
As I walked to the bus stop I felt the knot form in my stomach.
I did procrastinate in the morning as I really didn’t want to get in a fight. But I quickly realized I was going to have to fight K!m at lunch time because that would be my first opportunity to see her. I remember sitting at the round lunch table telling my friend Karen, “I am going to beat up K!m Sh@rp right now, I’ll see you later.”
I slowly walked toward K!m’s table as my heart started pounding crazily. There was no turning back, I realized, as I weaved my way through the tables. When I got to K!m’s table, she was holding a sandwich and her head was turned away from me because she was talking to someone else.
I politely tapped her on the shoulder and when she turned to look at me I punched her in the face. I do remember seeing her Wonder Bread sandwich take flight in the air.
Of course she stood up and thus began The Fight. I kept punching and aiming for her face, I don’t really remember what she did to me. I do recall the lunch ladies trying to pull us apart and I actually thought to myself, ‘It’s gonna take more than a lunch lady to pull me off of K!m.’ And that turned out to be true. It took a male teacher to pull me off of her. And I was secretly proud that it took a man to pry me off of her.
Soon after the fight was over I learned the particular technique I employed is commonly referred to as a “Sucker Punch” and is not highly regarded in some circles. When it was all done, I had a swollen lip and K!m had a bloody nose. She was talkin’ smack to me on the way to the principal’s office and I remember telling her, “I’m not the one bleeding.”
Anyway, in the Principal’s office we had to tell him what happened. K!m was all self-righteous telling him she was just eating her lunch when I came up out of nowhere and punched her in the face. Her attitude was such that she was sure I would deny starting the fight.
So she told her side as I patiently waited my turn. Then the principal turned to me and said, “What happened?”
“I walked up to her at lunch, tapped her on the shoulder and punched her in the face.”
So of course he wanted to know why I did it.
I told him the truth, “My mom told me to.”
He sat in his chair stunned. Then he said, “I can’t believe your mother told you to start a fight.”
I said, “Call her. She told me I had to fight K!m S. today.”
As you can see, back then I wasn’t quite the storyteller I am today. I am quite certain I did not give him the back story of how K!m had been spearheading a bullying campaign against me for the past four months in gym class.
It was my mother who explained the circumstances that led up to The Fight. She told me later that the principal apologized over and over but said he had to suspend me because I had started the fight. My mom was totally down with that and reassured him that it was quite alright. She looked at it as a well-earned vacation from school.
Since she couldn’t leave work to pick me up, my mom sent my sisters to get me. When they got to school they were really excited to hear all the details of the fight. They were shocked, as well, that I just walked up to her and started pounding away.
Later, my mother clarified that it should be the other person who pushes or shoves first. The other person has to initiate contact then it’s a fighting free-for-all. And she gave an example: “Remember when you were in gym class and they shoved you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s when you should have started the fight. Because they pushed you first.“
So I filed that information away for future reference.
It was split among the school as to who actually won The Fight. I will say I had the majority vote as the winner and I did earn the respect of some kids at school. But K!m lobbied and won a few outlying precincts.
Most importantly, she and her henchman Lis@ never touched me again.
Now, tell me about your most memorable fight. Why did it happen and how did it come to blows? Did you win? It really doesn’t matter if you won or not. I’m just curious.
75 Comments November 19th, 2008 by Natural
“Has the Internet seduced us into thinking that we can in fact live in a world without other flesh and blood people, we can just deal with screen people.” Paul Comrie-Thomson
Photo @ illuminati-news.com
The other day I was talking with a friend who commented on how the use of the Internet has made people so impersonal that it’s taking the place of human interaction.
She said that “people are missing out on real pivotal moments in life because they are too plugged in, always stuck in front of the computer.”
After I got off the phone, I called at least 3 people to say hi, not that I don’t call them anyway, but I’m technology dependent, and sending an email hello is “normal”, preferred really.
Instead of picking up the phone to emotionally connect with someone and listening to their voice, phone calls have been replaced by text messaging, emails or tweets. Technology has made it so that we don’t have to deal with humans if we don’t want to.
A few weeks ago, we had dinner with an elderly family friend, she has to be at least 89 years old, visiting from Virginia.
She passed out her calling card printed with her name, address and phone number on it. After examining the card for a few seconds and looking on the back side, I said: “Where’s your email address, how am I supposed to contact you?” She said, “Use the phone number.” Sometimes a phone call is better because we get to hear emotions and true feelings that we would not get in an email or text message.
I love the Internet, its usefulness, its convenience but life is not the sum of conveniences. In fact, it would probably be less convenient, but it might also be more meaningful, especially when we examine the social and psychological dislocations that it’s caused.
How do you stay “human” when technology makes it so easy for us to be emotionally detached. Does time spent online outweigh the time spent interacting with family and friends? Has technology affected our thinking and way of life that it is fast becoming, not our servant, but our master?
Additional Reading:
Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob
