Jun 28 If it’s true that the importance that things have wavers according to what else is happening then I guess it just goes to show that this blog didn’t have a really high place in my heart. While I have been making sure that it’s still running and checking on it every now and then, I have not written a new post in quite awhile. But now that I am sitting here in my very own house with this ring on my finger I guess that the blog is rising back up.
I sure am glad because I have not had a public place to air my thoughts. And that means that either I have been keeping it in or even worse I have not been having any interesting thoughts. I enjoy writing posts that act as a running commentary on interesting thoughts that I have rather than those of a personal nature, but I figured that I needed to break back into this whole blog thing with something easy. And what is easier than spilling about what has already happened to you?
So that was my way of saying sorry for not writing, but I was busy buying a house and getting married! But I’m back!
May 21 Nothing gets my blood brewing like unsolicited advice. Maybe it’s because I like to try things myself. Or perhaps it’s because I just don’t like other people telling me what to do. Perhaps it’s because I get the sense from people giving me advice that they are somehow better than me. It seems to me that oftentimes the advice giver is simply someone who is older who feels like they must direct the uninitiated, and to me age is just a number that does not automatically entitle people to give advice.
I know that mistakes are not pleasant. Sometimes mistakes hurt. They might even hurt a lot. But just because something is unpleasant or hurtful does not necessarily make me want to avoid it. While I do not relish pain, I do appreciate lessons learned. No lesson is as well learned as one through a mistake.
As I go through life I have grown to appreciate silence from others. It’s a good thing to fall off the bike and get up to try again. The problem is that people that have fallen off of the bike before do not want others to fall off, too. They want them to go straight to riding perfectly. Or maybe they want to ban bikes altogether.
While I like trying things out, I can definitively say that I do not know much in this life. I know some things. I will learn other things. And hopefully there will always be people around me that I can turn to for some advice. The thing is, I only want advice if I ask. And likewise I will only try to give advice if asked for it.
Apr 23 When I think of basic rights, there are certain things that come to mind. There is life, which is the right to not be killed without a just reason. There is liberty, which allows us to have the freedom to do whatever we want to. And there is the pursuit of happiness, which allows us the freedom to find the ever elusive happiness (granted of course that this doesn’t interfere with others’ rights).
In this day and age apparently people’s perceptions of human rights are changing. We are entitled to a good job (even if we do not deserve or cannot do the work), keeping our house (even when we cannot afford it), health care (even though it’s an optional service since our right to life is not an entitlement to a set number of years), and high speed internet. So while all of these things really deserve their own respective thoughts, I just have to say this: really, high speed internet? What an entitled and distorted society we live in.
Mar 31 We make decisions everyday. Some conjecture that we make hundreds of them. But really who knows because who really has the desire to count every single thing that we consciously decide upon. There are little choices like how many squares of toilet paper to use and there are big ones like what university to attend. Besides being categorized as big or small, we can also characterize its importance and its urgency.
On initial glance, it would not seem that importance and urgency are as diametrically opposed as big and small. However in daily living, decisions that are strong in one aspect seem to butt up against other decisions that are strong in the other aspect. The question that we should (but do not often enough) ask of ourselves is whether we are making choices that we are comfortable with. It is easy to answer choices on paper, but actual actions indicate our actual choices.
I doubt that there are many of us who would say that answering a phone call about work is more important than continuing a discussion with a friend. Nor would anyone say that clean dishes are more important than spending quality time with a child. But when we step back and evaluate it, it sure does seem like we make some decisions that we regret, doesn’t it?
Maybe it is time to let the house get a little bit dirty, let voicemail fulfill its intended purpose, be cured of our iPhone ADD, and put work away. Then it just might be easier to look back and be comfortable with what we have decided to do with our lives.
Mar 26 As the weather warms up, I start to see more people out and about getting their exercise on. That is, they’re either getting out of the stuffy gym for some sunshine or they are actually realizing that it is nice to be outside instead of sitting on the couch. Whatever their reason, it is good to see them out there.
Unless of course they are old. Yeah, that is probably an ageist statement no matter how you slice it.
Anyways, my whole point is that an old person should not be running in 85° F heat with either a plastic suit or a sweatshirt/sweatpants on. There are some things that are good and important (like exercise). There is also a fair amount of wisdom in knowing when to take it 100% and when to err on the safe side. A young guy trying to sweat out some water to make weight for high school wrestling can take the plastic suit a little better than an older gentleman in his 60s who is just trying to slim down for the ladies at the retirement home.
So remember, friends don’t let friends let their grandparents go on a crash diet to get ready for cage fighting. What, cage fighting? Yeah that definitely seems like the only reasonable place for anyone over the age of 22 (i.e., post-collegiate wrestling) to wear a plastic suit.