Tag Life

Fourth (million) and ten

Michael 2 Comments

I can’t help it. It’s been too long. I am going there. I have to do it. It’s time to fuel the fire. So let’s open the controversy right now. I don’t like football.

There, I said it. I don’t like football.

I don’t see the point. There’s no real skill involved, no sort of strategy, and it’s so boring! They budget 3-1/2 hours of TV time to play a 60 minute game, that has a total of maybe 8-10 minutes of action. Bowling has more action. Even golf has more action and I think that’s a waste masquerading as sport also.

But boy people go nuts for that “game.” Billions of dollars change hands every year because of it. According the BetMGM the average team salary of just the players is over $188 million. The minimum salary per player for 2022 is $705,000.  Let than sink in. Everybody out there who will make that much this year, please raise your hand. Anybody? No? Okay, how about this.  That $705,000 is $45,000 more than last year’s minimum salary. Who out there got a $45,000 raise this year for being the lowest paid employee? Hmm. How about, how many of you make $45,000 a year. Ah, finally, I see some hands.  NFL practice squad players earn a minimum of $11,500 per week, which comes to $207,000 for 18 weeks of work. These are the guys the teams use to play act as the opposing team during practices and possibly develop into “full time” team members. Think of them as football interns.

Of course, players aren’t the only ones on the field during a game. Also roaming around between the goal posts are the 8 referees officiating each game (technically 1 referee, 1 umpire, 5 judges and 1 replay official). They make an average of $205,000 per year. And we won’t even talk about the coaches. (But the lowest paid NFL head coach will make $3 million, but I don’t want to talk about it.)   

Enough about what people make playing the game. What about what people make playing on the game. ESPN estimates over 45.5 million people will bet more than $12 billion this year. The teams will split about $270 million of that.

And then there are some people who actually go to the games. They will spend about $10 million for tickets which represent only 1.25% of a team’s revenue. Three billion dollars will be spent on NFL merchandise, 2/3 of that on jerseys. It seems you aren’t allowed into a stadium without wearing a replica jersey. In case the team needs an emergency fill in? 

You might think I am bitter about how much money is generated by a group of people who were not finalists in their high schools “most likely to succeed” voting nor had to worry about which way to flip their mortarboard tassels. (If you understood that reference you probably aren’t an NFL football player.) No, I just can’t figure out how football became the American National Religion. Twenty-two men squat across from each other over a not round ball, officially a “prolate spheroid” (seriously – look it up), and after a series of grunts, they hurl themselves into each other with much banging and clanging of protective equipment. After everyone falls down, they pick themselves up, congratulate themselves on a fine display of testosterone, mill about for a while, then line up and do it again.

Twenty-one million TV viewers tuned into the NFL opener between Buffalo and Los Angeles last Thursday. That’s down from the 25 million who watched last year’s opening game. Hmm. I wonder. Maybe those 4 million people who have seen the light.

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What we do today is because of the encouragement of those who came before us. The generations following us are built on what we share with them – facts and visions. Where will your visions of today fit into the world of tomorrow? Read a tale of encouraging visions at http://www.ROAMcare.org. It will be worth the few minutes.  

 

The Ignoble Experiment

Michael 3 Comments

From 1920 to 1933, America conducted its “Noble Experiment.” I’ve never been able to dig up a good reason for that moniker, yet every written piece on Prohibition in the United States makes that reference. It took over 2 years for the required number of states to approve the 18th Amendment banning the “manufacture, sale and transportation of intoxicating liquors” but conspicuously not their consumption. On the back end, 10 months and 10 days were all that was needed to adopt the 21st Amendment, repealing Prohibition. (Fun facts, the two amendments in between both involve elections – sort of. The 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote (1933), and the 20th Amendment moved the inauguration of elected federal officials from March to January, and limited the President’s term in office to a maximum of 10 years (1935). Funner Fact, the 20th Amendment is the only amendment to the Constitution that has not be challenged in front of the Supreme Court of the United States.)

So why this history lesson? I’ve been struck by the similarities of what went on with alcohol then to what goes on with marijuana now. Although you may not realize it, and movies depicting life in the wild west might suggest otherwise, America wasn’t a drunken wasteland prior to Prohibition. Alcohol was a part of daily life and contributed to life’s problems, but not to the extent temperance supporters had suggested. The final push for Prohibition came not as a result on the revivalists activities but ostensibly to shift the use of grains to the manufacture of food verses drink during the first world war.  In fact, twelve states had already adopted prohibition laws before the 18th Amendment was out before Americans for ratification.

That doesn’t mean Prohibition was universally accepted. For a while, ten states refused to enforce prohibition laws after ratification, and Prohibition never did result in a total ban on alcohol. Sacramental and ritual wines were excluded and any individual could, on a physician’s order, buy up to 10 ounces of alcohol as often as every 10 days at a licensed pharmacy. (It is probably just coincidental that the Walgreen pharmacy chain grew from twenty stores to over 500 in the 1920s.  Breweries were permitted to manufacture and distribute “near beer” that contained less than 0.5% alcohol. Distilleries sold malt syrup and wineries grape concentrates with instructions for home dilution and fermentation. If the westerns depicting bawdy saloons were overly fanciful, movies featuring Prohibition era speakeasies may be have overly kind. Black market alcohol was estimated to be a $100 million business (equal to about $1.5 billion today).

The repeat of prohibition was strictly economic. Prohibition had cost the federal government $11 billion in tax revenue ($191 billion today). But the repeal was also not universally accepted. Several states maintain prohibition laws, the last, Mississippi, finally reversed its prohibition status in 1966. There are still to this day various counties in ten separate states that continue to ban the manufacture, sale, and distribution of alcohol.

Where are the comparisons to marijuana? There aren’t many except for a few million people clamoring for its legalization, states unevenly enforcing federal prohibition against it, local jurisdictions “decriminalizing” it, shyster shamans touting it as a medicinal, unregulated relative compounds sneaking their way into the marketplace, and states drooling over lost tax revenue that they never lost because they never had it in the first place.

You might assume from that last paragraph that I’m not a fan of legalizing marijuana. Yes and no. Are there medicinal benefits. There are indeed benefits of cannabinoids but not of the whole plant. And there are means to extract these cannabinoids, refine them, and compound them into consistently reproducible absorbable forms. And they are in fact already on the market and no I don’t mean CBD (although that has some limited use). For the rest of it. No. Alcohol and marijuana other are both addictive hallucinogens and any purported medicinal benefit from either is related to that. There is nothing that a bowl of marijuana will do that a shot of whiskey can’t. Except for one thing. I’ll explain it to you very simply.

Let’s say the two of us are sitting on my porch. I want a beer and you don’t. I drink the beer. Nothing happens to you.  You might have to listen to me sing the entire ABBA canon a cappella, but once we finish that you can get up and walk or drive home unimpaired. Let’s swap out a joint or a bowl for that can or bottle. Given enough time imbibing in your marijuana and I will be just as likely to test positive at the next random drug test on the job.

Don’t believe in passive absorption? Go ask a flight attendant with lung cancer who never smoked. But you better find one quick. There are a great many of them who will be among the 7,300 will die from passive smoke related lung cancer this year. Next year too. And so on and so on and so on.

Do we need another Noble Experiment? That’s not for me to decide. I’m not a legislator. Sort of like it shouldn’t be for a legislator to decide what makes for good medicine. Cheers.

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That’s what happiness is!

Michael 2 Comments

A couple days ago I was doing my housework and had just completed the vacuuming part of the dust and vacuum routine. I looked across the room as I was stowing the machine’s cord and broke out into a big smile. I might have broken out in song but if so I was singing subconsciously. If I was singing at all, I would have been singing along with the Ray Conniff Singers as they warbled they way through the 1966 Parnes and Evans composition, “Happiness Is,” for few things instigate as big a smile on my face as seeing those parallel tracks of the vacuum wheels across a newly cleaned carpet. I was struck so happy by the event, I actually remarked on it to a friend later in the day, questioning if she too experiences that odd joy. “No,” she literally deadpanned, “but the husband does. It must be a guy thing,” and dismissed the entire event as something only half the world could enjoy.

Eh. She’s probably right. In fact, vacuum tracks in carpets bring inordinate happiness to probably even less than half the world because I know for sure there are way more men who haven’t even pushed a vacuum around a living room to have seen such a remarkable sight. To them, an oil pan drain plug not leaking after a DIY oil change likely brings that profound happiness.  The point is, as Ray’s singers will have you singing along, happiness is “different things to different people!”

These aren’t the pillars of happiness: life, liberty, and the pursuit of really big, life changing events. These are the little things that are part of getting us from one hour to the next, the things that turn drudgery into if not joy, at least something faintly tolerable.

It won’t solve all of earth’s problems, but it is possible that if we spent more time enjoying what makes us happy and less time becoming frustrated when we can’t figure it why we aren’t as happy as others doing what makes them happy, or worse trying to foist our idea of happiness onto anyone else, we might all end up a little happier. And happier people are less likely to instigate world wars.

People are unique. Even people who grow up together, live together, and love together, don’t have to love everything about each other. Yes, it is the differences among people that make us collectively great, but it is appreciating the differences and encouraging others to pursue those differences that bring them happiness that make us collectively awesome!

Somewhere in your psyche is some quirk of life that brings you immense joy. Relish in the quirk and savor that joy. Don’t give it up for anybody and if somebody should ever admit to you that they get untold happiness from hearing the creak of a rocking chair, encourage them to creak all they want and hope they someday will encourage you to continue chasing your dream of parallel tracks on carpets, or whatever makes you smile at the enjoyment of living life. Because, that’s what happiness is.

What’s your happiness?

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Happiness Is

Blog Art (16)Did you stop by ROAMcare last week to read the meaning of life in five words. It’s worth the 3 minutes it takes to read the other 495 at www.roamcare.org. And check out the rest of our site too. Everything you need to refresh your enthusiasm for life with that extra motivation you need to push through the day! Stop by and visit, then share us with your friends and family!

Mortgaging the future

Michael Leave a comment

Mortgaging the future. That’s a term now more often associated with sports. When a team’s general manager is willing to trade young players and prospects for an established star player who can help the team win right now, usually at trade deadline, usually with the hope that one roster addition means the difference between a championship and an also-ran season, he is said to have mortgaged the future of the team, knowingly trading away the two in the bush for a bird who might not eat out of his hand.

What got me thinking about giving away the farm for a chance at immediate fame and glory? It was a different blog for a different audience at a different site doing the final edits for this Wednesday’s post to be released on the ROAMcare site. That post has nothing to do with giving anything away, especially the future. Quite the opposite. I will share the teaser for it.

“We have a responsibility to prepare for the future even if we might not be here for it. We become truly great when we are willing to plan, prepare, act, and do that which will not benefit us. Are you ready for that?”

When you spend so much of your time always motivating you can, and I do get a little wacky now and then. It’s hard to be motivating without getting emotionally wrapped up in all that those topics touch. Perhaps we should be called emotionalvating authors and speakers! Anyway… I got to thinking. If we become great when we do something now when we know for sure it will not benefit us at all in the future, what do we become when we are willing to give up something we know we are guaranteed to have in our future for a few extra minutes of immediate gratification.

First, let us understand there are sometimes when it might be perfectly acceptable to trade something in the future for something in the now. For example, there might certainly have been some time in your life when you said, “I would give up anything to be able to [fill in the blank].” That might well be considered an altruistic approach to life. No, the type of trade off I am thinking of is more like, “I don’t care if I ever get to do that again if I can only have what I want right now.” And not even what I want right now and then have forever. Just for what I want right now. For another example, would you give up having contact with your entire family forever if you only could have an hour of somebody’s unwavering attention right now? Preposterous, you say? Nobody would ever do that?

Think about it. Isn’t that what an unfaithful spouse is gambling? The loss of a lifetime partner in exchange for an hour of physical bliss. What about the child who leaves home, swapping all the ups and downs of being a family to set out alone because “they won’t support my dream?” What about the addict, knowing they are an addict, but having to have that “one more bump even if it’s my last” and not caring if indeed it will be? These are far different than “I’d give anything to have one more dinner with my deceased parents.” These are, “He (or she) makes me so happy I don’t care if you don’t ever talk to me again” and really meaning it, which then more often then leads to “I’d give anything to have one more dinner with my not yet deceased parents.” And really meaning it.

Often the idea of giving up the future to satisfy the present really doesn’t mean giving up the future. Perhaps it means altering it a bit, but rarely do people truly mortgage their future. The otherwise never disgruntled employee who leaves a job because he “can’t believe they would promote that fool,” doesn’t leave without knowing he still has a talent he can sell, and he will still see his colleagues at meetings and conferences. He isn’t giving up anything.  But when that same person who says, “These few minutes with you mean everything in the world to me and I don’t care who knows it,” when he is not speaking to his wife and his wife knows it, and so does her lawyer, now he has mortgaged his future. The child who says to his parent, “If going to school across the country means I never see you again in my life, then I would rather never see you again in my life,” is mortgaging his future.

Have you ever wanted something so badly you would give anything (really, anything!) to get it? Have I? Had I? Is it possible we may have had done just that without realizing it? If you think about it, the people who would trade their futures, and presumably others’ happiness, to indulge themselves would seem to be pretty low on the “nice to be around” scale. But maybe at the moment we don’t realize that. They, or we, likely have many good qualities. They may enjoy professional success and the company of friends. Maybe it is only after discovering there could have been something more permanent, more committed, more faithful, that the question of “what brought me here?” is raised. Maybe they (we(?), I(?)) have traded the commitment of close companionship or the unconditional love of others for the attention of the few and immediate gratification and not yet realized it.

So, are there any good people who thrive on commitment and pure love? Yep, there are. They are the people willing to do now that something they will never get enjoyment from so others will benefit in their futures. I will be speaking of them in that other blog on Wednesday. It’s a better story than this one. Mark you calendar to go read it in a couple days.

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roamcare_logo-3If you haven’t had a chance to visit ROAMcare yet, stop by, refresh your enthusiasm and read our blogs, check out the Moments of Motivation, or just wander around the site. Everybody is always welcome.

Revisiting the Middle Seat

Michael 4 Comments

Back in July of 2020, July 9 to be exact, I published “The Middle Seat Hump Syndrome,” a clever little ditty if I say so myself wherein I compared the then fairly new encounter with the coronavirus, which we don’t even call it that any more. Toward the end of an honest to gosh true tale of summer family vacationing, I said with much assurance that we will all be fine in the long run. Guess what? I was right! Politicians, social media “experts” in-laws, naysayers, leftist, rightists, centrists all aside, I was right! We are pretty much okay as long as you don’t ask the 6.35 million people who lost their lives. Yes that number could have been smaller had we paid less attention to the politicians, social media “experts” in-laws, naysayers, leftist, rightists, but we’re stupid so we didn’t. Maybe next time we will.

Because today is the Fourth of July, which of course everybody knows is officially American Independence Day, and because the entire country is out there burning gas we don’t have to pursue their right to a family vacation, I thought I’d regale you again, with “The Middle Seat Hump Sydrome,” with that pesky typo corrected even!

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You need to be of a certain age to remember summer vacations in the family car with enough family that it filled all the seats, three across, and the middle seat made the leg room in coach on Delta look generous for there, right where your feet wanted to be, was “the hump,” the growth in the floorboard that rose nearly to seat level, to allow whatever it was that transferred the up and downs of the engine to the round and round of the rear wheels to make it’s way from the motor to the where the rubber met the road. I am of that age and had been on those vacations and I got that middle seat.

It wasn’t always like that. For a while there were just two of us in the back and we would each get out own window seats with plenty of room between for the picnic basket and cooler that were only opened at planned stops along the way. Then the third one came along. At first it wasn’t such a big deal. She started out in the baby seat in the middle of the front seat (yes, that’s where we put them when we used them back then). After she outgrew that space, she shifted to the back but because those short, stubby legs didn’t even make it off the seat, the hump was not impediment to her comfort. Eventually though, she grew and with that, so did the complaining. “I don’t want to sit on the hump!” And the word came from the front, “take turns.” From then on, whenever the car stopped, the back seat crowd reshuffled, and everyone got a turn being uncomfortable where we decidedly didn’t want to be.

That’s a little like what’s going on in the world now. Each time it appears to be stopping, or at least slowing enough to risk opening the door and get off this crazy ride, the virus comes back, and we have to reshuffle. Do we limit contact, should we close down again, does this mask make my nose look big? Regardless of the answer, some bodies are going to end up decidedly where they don’t want to be doing what they’d rather not be doing or not doing what they’d rather do. Think of the world as an early ’64 Chevrolet and were all taking turns sitting on the hump.

I’m going to spoil the ending for you. It all works out. Nobody was permanently damaged from sitting with a leg there and the other one there. We climbed out of the backseat a little stiff and a little sore but we made. We’ll make it through this also. Maybe a little worse for the wear after this ride that you are certain we got lost on because no way it should be taking this long, but eventually we are going to climb back out into the world.

Middle seat hump syndrome was never that horrible and may have been the inspiration for some future engineer to design SUVs with higher cabins that clear all those mechanical doodads or to shift the driving wheels to the front and obviate the need for a hump running down the middle if the cars interior. Along those same lines it could be someday we might even get to go out and not have to check that we have our masks with us. We just have to wait for the right expert to come up with the right solution. They are out there. There will find it.

In the meanwhile, Happy Motoring!

roamcare_logo-3If you haven’t had a chance to visit ROAMcare yet, stop by, refresh your enthusiasm and read our blogs, check out the Moments of Motivation, or just wander around the site. Everybody is always welcome.

Just because you can

Michael 2 Comments

Just because you can

Who’s with me on the “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should,” AKA “It seemed like a good idea” bandwagon? I guess you can also call these, “Who came up with this one” queries.

I’ll start.  I recently had to purchase a new microwave. For me to buy almost anything is a moment to be celebrated. Except for chocolate chip cookies at the bakery, I buy very little unless it is absolutely necessary. One could argue that a microwave oven does not top the list of necessities but others, especially those who tend to lose their coffee mugs and make repeated reheating visits to the appliance will confirm its necessary-ness.  With my sparse microwave purchase history you can be sure that the one being replaced didn’t have all the bells and whistles of today. In fact, its only bells and whistles were a bell that dinged when the timer was somewhere in the vicinity or ZERO and a whistle when it ran for more than 2 minutes at a stretch, probably from microwaves leaking into my space. I was surprised to see the power and timer dials had been replaced by a touch pad, but eventually I got the hang of it. One thing I was not expecting was it turning into a nag. Once a particular task is complete, it wants its recognition and it wants it NOW! If you aren’t quick to relieve the appliance of its load, it periodically, seemingly randomly periodically, will beep a shrill reminder that there is still food in its cavity. Like, chill man. I know there’s something in you. I’ll get to it. Who doesn’t remember they put something in the microwave and has to be reminded to come and get it? (Maybe its bell should be a dinner bell!) And then it dawned on me. Who doesn’t remember food? Stoners. What with all the state assemblies tripping over each other trying to prove politicians know more about medicine than doctors and passing medical (hah!) marijuana laws, not to mention the ones that figured out addicts will pay any amount of sales tax to get high, “stoner” is the latest addition to high school career day fairs. And these are certainly the people who would stick a bag of popcorn in a microwave and completely forget about it in 90 seconds.  Oh wow man.

My next “just because you can” is actually directed to those politicians and their wannabe rivals. Having just gone through the primary election campaign barrage of uninformative advertising and not looking forward to the general election version of same (which started on primary election night!), it seems our friendly neighborhood do-nothings have discovered text message advertising. I’ve gotten dozens of text messages a day, and almost all of them, after pummeling the opponent with more vitriol than a Hatfield spews at a McCoy and vice versa, would remind the reader, that they are on the side of the hard-working citizen. Um, Mr. POS, you realize some of those hard-working citizens actually have to pay for each incoming text? Duh.        

For my last trip down, “It seemed like a good idea” Avenue, I present me, or rather I present my shower head with a major assist by me. When I do buy something seemingly frivolous, like a handheld shower massage head, I want a good product. I research and find the one with a reasonable build quality that won’t pop its hose when I least expect it, which would be every time I use it. Now I’m not sure if it is fortunately or unfortunately, but the model I decided on has ten settings, everything from gentle mist to Niagara Falls. I don’t know the anybody needs that many choices to rinse shampoo out of one’s hair, but it had good reviews and strong connectors and I figured just because it has 10 settings doesn’t mean I have to use them all.  And I don’t, but somewhere along the way, probably during a fit of domesticity and extreme cleaning, the control unknowingly was set to Niagara. Oh my word!

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Do you have any examples you’d like to share? Please, if we get enough of them, maybe we can make a “Just Because You Can” calendar.  

roamcare_logo-3If you haven’t had a chance to visit ROAMcare yet, stop by, refresh your enthusiasm and read our blogs, check out the Moments of Motivation, or just wander around the site. Everybody is always welcome.

 

 

I Participated

Michael Leave a comment

I was working on a blog post for the foundation when a thought occurred to me. Let me give you some background. That post is about the carrots and the sticks we use on ourselves. It began with a package sent to a friend. When I asked a few days later what she thought of it she said that she hadn’t opening it but was saving it as a reward for herself when she completed a project she was working on. And there that post begins down the trail of why we incentivize our happiness with promises of work completed rather than the other way around. If you want to see how that ends, it will hit the ROAMcare website in a couple weeks. Until then, let me tell you some of the things I thought that I didn’t write.

You see, days went by, a week went by, then a week and some days went by and then project was not much nearer completion than before the first days that had gone by. The project ran into snags. Other work encroached. Another job came up. The package remained unopened.

Perhaps this is something we’ve learned along the way to becoming mature adults. As children we were likely subject to bargains such as “If you get ready for bed I’ll come in and read you a story,” or “You can have dessert when you eat all your vegetables.” As we got older, we may have heard, “You can get a driver’s license when you get better grades,” or “You can go to the dance when you can buy your own dress/suit/dancing shoes.” Even as adults we tell ourselves things like “I’ll take a break when I finish this order.” We’ve grown up with the enticement of a reward for completing a task.

The all wise and famous “They” say a mark of maturity is to be able to defer gratification. Another sign of maturity is unconditional respect for others. “They” don’t say what to do when the objectives conflict. If you decide you that you won’t make your favorite dessert until you complete a project and if the project completion Is delayed, only your joy is interrupted.  When another enters the equation is it fair to defer their gratification also, to take away their joy when they cannot assist on the side of the equation to improve the situation. Or is that when respect trumps deference.

The point of the blog that someday will appear on the ROAMcare site is that decision should never have to be made. We should not go through life bargaining with ourselves to be able to enjoy life.

image0There are still those who feel participation awards for children eliminates their sense of accomplishment when there are no winners or losers. The argument may be valid on a baseball diamond or tennis court, but not in life. In life, living is the reward. There is no part of life that is a reward for doing something. The reward is being able to do something because you have mastered how to enjoy life. When my life is over and I look back at what I have done, I will feel much better being able to say I participated and not worry so much much if I won.

If you haven’t had a chance to visit ROAMcare yet, stop by, refresh your enthusiasm and read our blogs or check out the Moments of Motivation archives. Everybody is always welcome,

You’re Invited

Michael 3 Comments

I have an invitation for you all. I’ve mentioned several times about the work I do in my spare time, which is like most of it! ROAMcare is a program I my co-founder partner have put a lot of work into. And them we tore it down and rebuilt it. What started as an education foundation for people -centric institutions was veering more into general inspiration and motivation topics. The more we veered the more we were noticed. And it stood to reason. The principles we were advocating to more genuinely recognize and appreciate a co-worker are the same a mother would use to encourage a child’s growth into a new life stage. What managers need to motivate themselves to make it through a new year planning session is the same a homeowner needs to make it through this week.

While we were refreshing workplace enthusiasm we found we needed refreshing. And so we did. ROAMcare’s new mission is to support your efforts to refresh your enthusiasm for life by dealing with challenges, confirming your choices, or just finding that extra motivation you need to push through the day! No matter who you are!

So I invite you to visit ROAMcare.org and explore our offerings. There is nothing to buy, no dues or fees, we ask nothing of our visitors other than to leave feeling good about themselves and what they do. We do a weekly blog and a weekly motivation. We will soon re-introduce our podcast and offerings on our you tube channel. The site still has all the old content so there may be medical or business references but the concepts are universal and the most recent posts are specifically non-specific. We plan to re-open the forum for site visitors to interact with each other.

Take a trip around, and if you like it, you can register for weekly emails or just show up once a week and see what’s new.

roamcare_logo-3https://www.roamcare.org/

Present Tense

Michael 3 Comments

I did it again. I was working on a project for the foundation and man, did it ring true. Naturally they are supposed to be relatable. If not, the topics brought up there would hardly be inspirational and that’s the whole point of it. Sometimes, ‘relatable’ and ‘chill-inducing’ cross paths and it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up and take notice.  And believe me, when you don’t have much of it, you notice where your hairs are doing something.

Three weeks ago, we posted to the ROAMcare website and social media accounts the message:

Days don’t check in with your calendar or daily to do list. They go where they will and your only choice is to go where they take you. You take what’s given and make the most and the best of each one and every day you still show up because every day is a gift.

 It’s not the most profound thought in the world. Everybody has heard the old saw, “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why we call it ‘The Present.’” So said First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. And so said billions and billions of others since. Okay so maybe not quite that many people but a lot of people have worked “today is a gift, that’s why we call it the present” into speeches, articles, and the occasional blog post.

In this particular blog, just two weeks ago, I opened a post with these words:

Do you ever do something and surprise yourself at how profound you are? Me neither, but I did something that really had me thinking for a few days. I kept saying to myself “Yeah, that’s me, damn it. I can do better!”

Truer words were probably spoken but I can’t recall when unless they were those same words a week earlier when we were batting around the “Days don’t check in…” and I found myself going back to those three little sentences over and again for days! Yes, once again I said to myself, “Self,” I said, “that’s me!”

Days indeed go where they will, they don’t check in, and we’re only along for the ride. But here’s the thing. We aren’t in control of the ride and that annoys the dickens out of a lot of people. Our intent with that now three week old post was to acknowledge our lack of control, but in exchange we get an opportunity to make the best of each day as it comes. As with so much of life, that is an opportunity easier granted than accepted. It certainly makes sense, but how can we show up every day and make the most of it. And still I pondered.

Those mental meanderings brought us to this week’s entry on the ROAMcare site. This week we expanded on that thought from early May with:

“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why we call it ‘The Present.’” Eleanor Roosevelt knew what she was talking about. For over 8,000 Americans, tomorrow won’t come. Transform “It can wait till later” into “There’s no time like the present!” If you want to do something, if you need to say something, today is a great day to do it, a great day to say it, a great day to go for it! Today is the gift!!

It doesn’t seem to say much more than we already said but oh, yes, it does! It comes right out and says, “There’s no time like the present…do it…say it…go for it!” If you don’t, you may never get the chance again. (And will notice, we gave credit to Mrs. R.)  

At the risk of looking back rather than ahead, please always remember, “You can’t change the past. You can only learn from it.” (Now that quote has been attributed to all manner of people and the words always get changed just a teeny bit.) Really you can’t change the past. You can’t play “what if” with something that’s already happened. You can’t ask for a do-over from life.

In my life, there have been many times when the right moment for the right words or the right gesture presented itself and I chose to wait for a better opportunity, when the boss is in a better mood, when the sun is a little brighter, the words chosen a little better, or the setting a little more perfect. Second chances don’t happen. Once upon a time I wrote a blog post claiming the odds of anything and everything in life happening are 50/50. Everything from hitting the lottery to meeting your soulmate can be boiled down to it will, or it won’t. There is no it might if I wait for things to be just a little better. Once the moment is gone, the moment is gone. Once the present becomes the past, it is untouchable but until the future becomes today, it is unreachable.

Your only chance is to do it, say it, go for it today, because today is the gift of all gifts, the gift you’ve been given, the one and only time you control. And that is a most wonderful present.

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Do you know the way?

Michael Leave a comment

Do you know the way to San Jose? Well, when you get there, please turn out the lights.

The U.S. is coming up on a milestone – one million COVID deaths. That’s 1,000,000. About the population of San Jose, California (1,005,000 give or take). Or if you’d rather think about it this way, that’s a little more than all of Delaware (990,000 plus or minus), or just about half of New Mexico (1,054,000 a couple years ago, that would be half of all the New Mexicans), however you want to think about it. You probably should, although you likely aren’t.

COVID news has been pushed way off the front pages. So much so you’d think it isn’t around anymore. For the week ending May 13, the United States averaged 302 COVID deaths per day. Those families are likely thinking about it. Worldwide we averaged 1,803 for that same time period. (New York Times, WHO). That doesn’t seem like a lot. But it’s more than those who die of diabetes in the U.S. (283/day), not far from how many die daily from stokes (385), and way more than those who die in another form of unnecessary death, violent crime (67/day) (CDC).

I bring this up because locally our case numbers are rising. Schools are returning to mask requirements and people aren’t happy about it. “The CDC says we don’t have COVID anymore” is their battle cry. Which at least is a refreshing change from “COVID is a hoax.” Neither is true but folks are in a tiz over it. Isn’t two years enough, they ask.

Another reason why I bring this up actually is just that. It’s been two years. COVID had a remarkable run in the public eye. The American attention span is seldom much longer than the current NFL season. We’ve already moved the war in Ukraine off the front page and that’s only into its fourth month, which perhaps not too coincidentally, is about as long as a football season.

I’m a big fan of Eleanor Roosevelt’s favored observation, “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why we call it ‘The Present.’” Eleanor Roosevelt knew what she was talking about. For over 7,700 Americans in addition to the 302 that will succumb to COVID, tomorrow won’t come. But that’s not to say we should no longer take caution to try to improve the chances that tomorrow will come.  I don’t say we should all be locked in our homes, venturing out only when covered in full surgical garb. I’m saying we should take note of the world around us. When mask mandates were lessened or eliminated two months ago, it wasn’t a sign that all is right with the world. But it was a sign that we are getting better. If we can get better with a dastardly, ever changing, so small you can’t see it with the naked eye enemy, why can’t we work to get better with the so many other things out there threatening our tomorrows.

COVID is still among us. As are flu, heart disease, dementia, war, unrest, questionable judgement among awards show attendees, violent crime, and bad breath. Some of that stuff will kill you. I’m just saying, let’s be careful out there even if you don’t remember why and may not be here tomorrow anyway.

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