The Sadiction

The Sadiction, or for those of you who prefer to speak English the old fashioned way, the Sales Addiction, is a real, living, breathing social notion that has swept our nation clean from poor to rich to wealthy and back to poor again. It's the reason car salesman sit in suits on hot Florida summer days, smoking two packs of chiggarettes, lighting the next from the last, playing cards to pass the time between ransackable potential buyers who show up in rent-a-trucks inside afternoon thunderstorms. It's selling door-to-door fifty times over, five days in a row, all for what equates to be about fifteen dollars per hour, sun up till sun down, around town, laughing and grinding and Jammin. It's all for nothing estimates and quotes to fatcat buyers who shop drunk on the gravy that was but no longer is. It's getting the run-a-around; laughing and squinting, squeezing the forehead, and shaking it off; getting kicked in the teeth, getting up, toothless and enamored and eager but scathed all the same. It's a Real Estate hustle for over a month for the sale of just one house that ends up splitting it's commission two ways and then divides by five because "that's the only way the deal could happen." It's the constant "NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, Get the F out of my store!, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, nah man, not right now, could you come back later, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, let me think about it, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, I'm Busy, It's too much for me right now, NO, NO, NO, maybe, NO, NO, NO, NO, Yesss!....Initial here, here, here, and please, Mr. Customer, sign here." It's the up-down, back-forth emotional pendulum. It's the leather skin jacket one day and 'brush my shoulders off pimpin' swagger the next. It's a day-to-day self-motivate state of mind. (Go, Go, Go, Go, not too fast, not too slow.) It's counting up ten, starting with one million, nine hundred thousand, three hundred and sixty two, in succession, out loud in the truck and in the head on the way to the door and while waiting in a Dentist's waiting room as this, the counting that is, is the only cure for you're otherwise-stammers or you're dreadfully occasional st-st-st-stutters. It's talking practice in the office with your friends on purpose and at the bank and at the grocery store and the holla, holla, holla, holla at the bar with strangers, all in second nature. It's a structured interest in people; in knowing them in a matter of fifty seconds, in speaking to lead responses, in caring for them but from a distance, in the attempt to control them, people that is, yet doing so delicately enough to shield your doing so from their knowing of the strings that are attached as you wield them in all of the directions that you want them to go; and it's being an actor, too, with tragic sighs while feeling felt-found and also in the silent bursting touchdown dances that must be held in with the face until the customer is at your back and you can finally smile outrageously and fist pump as if Tiger at the Masters. It's a killer instinct stare with flared nostrils that breath quietly as if a Lion in a tall grass field, peacefully looking for limp legged antelopes; peacefully waiting and looking and sniffing. It's being a Bull Shark in a bloody lagoon; breathing and smiling and consuming in a frenzied, jerkheaded rage.............and then silence.
And the rage ends and the sadicted salesman is full and warm and satisfied for a little while until the return of the envied NO's as they keep coming as long as he keeps going and they taunt him, building want for the stimulus created upon the execution of his will upon another, upon the world, and upon himself. Some may define this actualized notion of Allbeing as Power and still others prefer to call it Influence. Either way one may spin it, once you've had it more than once, you need it like a baby calf needs his mother's milk in the morning or as a lonely woman needs a hug and a blanket and a soft kiss on the forehead in the evening or like a twelve-year-old class clown needs a grand applause of laughter in the middle of every day that he is alive.

Don't be afraid to be the class clown,

Don't fear the word NO,

Composure is Power,

Do More Now,

The Young, Poor, and Happy Sadict

Ego Breakfast

Yesterday I had a ride-along with a potential employer. On a muggy hot day, we drove from Daytona Beach, Fl to Orlando, Fl to B.F.E., Fl and finally back to my truck in Daytona. The guy who was to show me the ropes, Bill, was nice and I could tell that he used to be interesting. He had a good way with people, a pure salesman, and he had a pretty good sense of humor. Though, later in the day, while driving between the 10 something businesses that we visited, I could see in his voice a slightly telling creek that suggests a saddened boredness. Prior, at lunch, I quizzed him on his present state. On the up end of a flattened-out rollercoaster, renting alone at the beach at 42, a runner and a Nascar fan, nice-natured with a good relationship with his son and Ex, he failed my happy quiz.

In Bill’s defense, however, the job is legit. The company sells chemical cleaning solutions to industrial facilities at a great profit in a great niched system. The benefits of the job include salary, truck payment, and an opportunity to make a very significant commission. The problem, for me, is the product – SOAP. Do I really want to be a soap salesman? (Me, a strong, smart, passionate man with the potential to change the world; me, as humble as I am cocky; me, a once to-be-when-I-grow-up professional baseball player / astronaut?) Do I have it in me to lay down my pride so as to again pick up a paycheck?

I think that this is a dilemma that I have in common with about sixty-one million and seven (61,000,007) Americans – Swallow my ego, my pride, my passion, my freedom for the sake of survival. How many of us eat a daily Ego Breakfast for the sake of keeping our home and making a truck payment? Many, eat this breakfast selflessly and so honorably as they do it for the sake of their kids or their parents or their significant loved one. Many more, still, swallow their once-passionate pursuits of doing for the sake of an extra 1,000 square feet and a boat payment as they keep up with the Amercianized greed-gravied Jefferson’s. What is the value of your ego?

How many people sleep on sidewalks under the Life section of Sunday’s newspaper, wearing brown-streaked Hanes and an old, brown Falcons toboggan with their ego well in tact? Probably not that many. And there is the bitch of the dilemma – where is the threshold to the point where there is no turning back? At a certain point, the preservation of things like passion and freedom that exist inside one’s figurative ego can crush a man under the weight of the real money-needing world. Conversely, similar to the saddened boredom inherent in Bill yesterday while on the road in the blue Honda, too many people live out their life one Ego Breakfast at a time in a constant state of denial and in the ignorance of their one-day regret.

I read a good short story the other day that does a great job to annunciate the Dilemma that I describe. Many mid-twenty unemployed and newly employed world citizens are faced with this dilemma. The story, How Much Land Does a Man Need by Leo Tolstoy, describes man’s incessant need for more in lieu of what is his inherent place. While I by no means promote life-complacency, there is a Josh-Implied lesson within the story that should not be missed or misinterpreted.

“Each man has a unique set of skills that is his talent. His talent is created by and improved upon according to his interests. His interests are given from God in his nature. He is Free only in the doing of his true interest.”

If you have to eat your Ego for breakfast, do it for but a short while and drown it with extra syrup,

Pursue your personal passionate freedom with your pride intact,

Do More Now

Sheet Karate

There are two types of Sheet Karate.

1) Your alone in bed and you can't quite get comfortable enough to sleep. You constantly reposition from the back to the side to the stomach; legs and arms flailing as if trying to tread water amidst the sheets. If someone were watching from a "fly-on-the-wall" position, they'd think you were practicing a Mr. Miagi inspired Kata.

2) While in bed with your favorite lady-friend, you constantly find yourself waking up cold and half exposed. It's two A.M and you've got to be up in three and a half hours. The sheet tug-of-war that ensues is the Sheet Karate Dual that is of interest.

The how-to-win for the later, Sheet Karate Dual depends on the answer to one basic question: 'Do I want to get some action in the morning?' The strategy, from a man's perspective, is vastly different dependent upon whether the answer is Yes or No.

If the answer is No, then you will most likely subconsciously-half-asleep jerk the covers from her as if you were trying to set a hook on a flounder. She will wake, jerk back, the two of you will exchange butt-to-butt sighs and go back to sleep. At this point, rest assured that the battle is a tie but realize that this is not soccer and so the bout is just in between awake rounds. Eventually, maybe forty minutes later, you wake from your Bikini-Ring-Girl dream, cold and blanketless. At this point, you have a couple of options - a) repeat the previous hook-setting blanket jerk, waking her up even more pissed and returning to a quasi butt-to-butt slumber or b) forgo to her either the sheet or the comforter and wrap up tight and alone in the other. After all, your not looking forward to her morning anyway. Sleep now with your dreams with another (either past or future or Only); half-warm in the solitary blanket of your choosing; waking, half-rested and contented but without enthusiasm.

If the answer is yes, then the solution is simple. Forgo not neither of the blankets, but a piece of your bed-position. Spoon-cuddle and sleep-flirt. When it is time, she will wake smiling and thirsty. Simply follow the smile-instincts with which the early morning blesses.

Single and usually in-between the aforementioned no and yes, I am by no means an expert on sleeping, either with or without woman. If you constantly toil in a solo Sheet Karate as mentioned earlier, endeavor to dual, I suggest to find someone to sleep with. Wheather at bars, or coffee shops, or at postachio parlours with the nearest Publix, talk mad shit to the woman you think that are just a hair out of your league. Trust me, they are not. At the very least your will be moving towards a we and away from the dreaded by-yourself I. For even sleeping, and eating for that matter, with one from whom you are partially detached is far better than that lonely opposing option. There are so many woman (or men for the woman out there) that are nightly available while they wash thier single finished-with dishes - one fork, one plate. No matter how small or big or at-first-glance grotesque, they are out there and we should be too; we, the single, un-understood-for-now and competing Main-ful Lions; this is a dual that we can win, but only if we get off of that uncomfortable TV-infested couach and dare to begin. As for woman....what a great dilemma that I hope to forever absolve to understand, but deep-down wish never fully know.

Searching is as Fun as you wanna make it,

Do More Now

Gimpy-Gazelles

The other day, as has been the case for most of the last few weeks, wearing a backpack filled with my planner and this computer, I rode my bike 11 blocks North to my then-office, the Jacksonville Beach Library. Upon arrival, I realized that I had forgotten not only my computer charger, but also my bike-lock. Being that I had no charger and being that I needed to use the Library’s free Wi-fi to check email to see about some job search inquiries I was involved in (and fantasy baseball and facebook), I decided leave it unattended and unlocked for the 45 minuets it would take for my computer battery to die. When I returned, dead-batteried-computer in my sack, my bike was gone.
I sighed and thought, “that’s what I freakin get.”
Don’t be that Gimpy-Gazelle, always lagging behind at the water’s edge during the dry season. Believe me; ‘That Lion ‘el BITE-CH-YOU!’
Lions. Though I’ve never been to Africa, I’ve always been fascinated by lions from what I know of them from the Discovery Channel. How they fight. How they play and travel in Prides. It’s fascinating how they scheme at night. Observing, I notice that the only animals that ever feels the lion’s bite and ultimately fills their belly is the weakest of the weak of the more peaceful jungle animals such as zebras, antelopes, or gazelle’s. Beyond that, it seems that the Pride doesn’t even target the fast ones or the strong ones or the ones that stick with the group. Upon further research, however, I found that Lions aren’t in fact prejudiced toward gimpy, slow-running meat. In fact “Lions are opportunist hunters, and, after a careful stalk, will take the closest animal regardless of its age, sex or condition…” (link)
And what of the Gazelles – the Grasseaters. They roam across the countryside. Quietly; always together; their food ever-present; it seems as if they never need to squabble or kill or fight. It seems like they are at peace.
Grasseaters are the animals (or humans) who are content to live off of the bland, do-able facets of the world which are in abundance – on which one can survive all the way to death. They are peaceful beings, content to live on the Tofu Taco’s and veggie-burgers. “Wildebeasts are gregarious animals, and scattered individuals will often attach themselves to a herd of some other species…We have noted no aggressive behavior or display of any sort between wildebeests and other herbivores.” (From the book, The Wildebeast in Western Masailand, by Talbot and Talbot)
The way of the Grasseater is as if a good dream that can only be in that uber-world that I suppose most Liberal pixies exist. Socialism, as far as I can tell, is just that – a pareto-peaceful-Neverland that would be palatable if only all men were content with the lesser-life – the saltless, the ham-less, the WNBA existence of basketball without slamdunks, crossover-360-no-look-allyoops, and last second Jordan-esque heroics. But what the leftists – the Grasseaters – don’t realize is that the peaceful gazelle’s of the world need their gimpy counterparts to occasionally get picked off and devoured by the hungry lions that constantly ambush the herd. They need them because they would otherwise slow them down. They would otherwise disrupt their peace.
As I was walking home from the library that day I thought, “It was probably some bum (who stole my bike). I shoulda known. They’re always hanging around there. Afterall, it’s a free place to hang around if you’ve got nothing else to do.” (If you have no job or no money to blow someplace else – afterall, I was there too) I guess I trusted in the inherent goodness of people. Still, I shook my head and laughed softly as I thought of a quote I’ve kept from an old GSU professor – “If we make doormats of ourselves, should we be surprised when people wipe their feet all over us?”
So then, what is the answer? Darwinism? Ah, yes, the survival of the fittest. The old, the sick, the retarded and eternally injured ones of us – are better off dead. If they can’t keep up; if they aren’t savy enough investors; if they don’t have the UNMPH it takes to make it big or even scratch by in this world, then the world, then our whole human race is for the better if they are gobbled up and forgotten. That is the way, right?
No, that couldn’t be. We are not animals. We are understandingful, compassionate beings. That is what separates us from animals – compassion that is. So then the choosing few that can and do work our little knuckles to the bone will continue to do so. Through storming recessions and even in bull-headed-blue-sky wealth, tighten our grip upon the rope and bear the load of the poor and lazy and eternally sick and injured and retarded masses. We will sacrifice our hardworked-for freetime at soup kitchens and give to charity. We will always give-the-penny, never expecting to take.
Isn’t there a happy medium? Isn’t there a way to get mine but still give back. Socialism definitely isn’t the answer. Look at Russia. That didn’t work. Look at Kali-forn-yia (sorry Arnold). Back to Russia; it didn’t work because there are Lions amongst the peaceful herd and these individuals have a blood-thirst for the finer things of life - for power, for more than the bland diet necessary for mere survival. This is the system of difference that was created. There is an idea behind capitalism and that is that every man holds a self-evident truth – the pursuit of self interest. That is, each man, at his core, will act in the best interest of himself and the culmination of the actions of all men (whether in cooperation or in opposition) will be the result of the civilized economy of the whole. There is one statement-question that, to me, summarizes the dilemma presented here:

“To do what is best for all, is best of all, always?

But what do we do with the Gimpy-Gazelles?

I am in the process of starting a study of just that. The name of the study, the name of the to-be organization, the name of the fixinta-website is 1000 Phalanges. The idea is to develop an effective method to analyze the hopeless, the homeless, and the jobless person and then help him pull himself up so that he can rejoin the rest of us working, playing, contributing many - grasseaters and lions alike. This is not to be a soup-kitchen charity. It is to be a concentrated effort to pick up one worthy man or woman at a time. I will not knock off early nor quit my job (once I get a new one) to extend to this person. I will, however, sacrifice some of my extra time. A friend once told me in an email, “you’ve got to take care of yourself first, so that you will be able to take care of others.”

If you ever find yourself acting like a Gimpy-Gazelle – always whining and grumbling and excusing and lagging – you best change your balls and pull yourself together, ‘cause if you don’t,

That Lion ‘el BITE-CH-YOU!

Bad luck is for losers,

Be the Lion or learn to run with the herd,

Don’t be a Gimpy-Gazelle,

Do More Now

Change Your Balls

Last month, I went to Memphis, Tn for their annual'Memphis in May Barbecue Fest.' If you've never been to Barbecue Fest, you should. Picture 300 Keg Parties - all complete with fine music, even finer woman, and some of the best Barbecue you've ever put in your mouth.

On the Thursday-of, we went out early. It was hot - real hot - so my cousin left his girlfriend, Suzanne, and me to wait in the shade while he went to fetch us some frozen drinks. Suzanne, her and I just beyond the weather-talk stage, said "We're gonna have to walk back to the hotel before tonight. I'm gonna have to take a shower, change clothes, change socks..." I interrupted instinctively, "Change your Balls." When my cousin returned we all laughed profusely then and throughout the rest of the trip.
Though I didn't realize it then, the statement "Change Your Balls" can be very deep, a bit discomforting (ha), and, perhaps even, inspiring.
About five years ago I created a "secret" word with myself - Fearless Facade. (The word, still in my vocabulary, is on my Fixinta list so it may show up on here at some point.) A man's Fearless Facade is the outer layer that he (or she) wears when he is uncomfortable or anxious or scared. Under this cloak he can mingle with Cake-Eaters at coaster-parties and can comfortable take prospective clients out to lunch. I feel that, to some extent, we all have a fearless facade that we occasionally slip on. We incognitoedly wear it like the magic sunglasses that Julian wears in the movie "Big Daddy." My fearless facade is a lightly smug, partially cocky, sarcastically laugh-at-himself-funny persona. Thinking back, there were phases in my life (like High School) where I rarely took the mask off. Thinking forward, there has got to be a better way.
On Monday, June 8, 2009, at about 8:21 A.M., I was fired (technically put, "laid off") from my JOB as a Project Manager for an industrial construction company. I have a mind to present a pretty good see-what-had-happened-was story about the events that lead to my Walking Papers acceptance, but I won't do it. It doesn't matter. I was boredly employed in a mediocre job; now I am not.
Being that I got the heads-up that what went down was going to be going down two weeks ago today, the contents of the 8:21 conversation with our President came to me lacking surprise. I was ready with a good "C-mon man" response, but he didn't ask me for one. Since the day (two weeks ago today) that I found out about my to-be-firing, I've been flipping through the closet of my personality for that all-too-familiar, fearless, incognito robe. The only problem was, the skin that I searched for didn't seem to fit as well as it had in high school.

How can one, while sipping a Crown-drink at an after-work networking event, arrogantly say "I'm unemployed." I guess I could say that with an enunciatedly deep voice and a cocky / humorous aire and get a laugh or two, but ultimately, when the day is done and the party is over, I am either (whether employed or unemployed) going to forced to look at one man in the mirror. How can I ensure that I like who I see?

As if putting on a fitted hat a year after losing it in the garage, my Fearless Facade just didn't seem to be comfortable any more. What can I do? I could drown my sorrows in a sea of rum and CoorsLight. I could apply for unemployment.

On Monday night, I can honestly say that I was sporting my whoa-is-me-little-girl-Balls. Recurring questions like "What am I gonna do" kept playing in my mind like someone pressed the repeat button. On Tuesday night, I occasionally itched at my Tow-up-from-the-flo-up-cause-I-don't-know-whats-up-Balls. Today, I have been after it since the A.M. I put the finishing touches on my Resume, contacted a head hunter, signed in to a few relevant job-search websites, and was fortunate enough to have a friend contact a fellow alumnist about a new opportunity. Today, I'm wearing my Bad-Ass-Mother-Fucker-Balls. I am sucking it up getting back out there. Changing, this time, what lies within in an effort to produce a new career, a new life, that most accurately reflects who I am and so what I want to become.

All too often, we are all too quick to throw a mask over the dreary and the mundane. All too often, we change our face in lieu of our attitude. I will introspectively search myself for my next, best move. I will outrospectively search for the opportunities that are available. If you know of any, hollar at me. From my end, I'll keep you posted and I'll leave you with the daily quote from my Franklin Covey planner from the day immediately following the day I found out I'd be canned.“You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you. – Walt Disney”

Optimism is the only way,

Change Your Balls,

Do More Now

Fixintas

There is a disease that afflicts millions of men and woman each year. It is, in the long run, far worse than the swine flu; worse than cancer; worse than AIDS. The Fixintas is an procrastination-affliction that begins with the Put-it-off-till-tomorrow’s, progresses to a sour, helplessness existence called the Doldrums, and, if left untreated for the youthful part of one’s life, can lead to a dreadful result of the Shoulda-Woulda-Coulda’s.

It starts, in most instances, by a casual 4:30-laziness. An attitude that wafts the wants of ‘today’ toward tomorrow. Often, the above-mentioned wants are the seemingly trivial, day-to-day events such as a call-back to an old friend. At work, I commonly put off the need-to-be-approved-invoices and the need-to-be-called potential clients. Instead, I cruise Facebook till the end of the day. Annually, it is just as easy to put off a Canada canoe trip till next year. After all, it’s Canada and it's not going anywhere any time soon. Moreover, I am so BUSY. I am way, way too busy this year. “Maybe next year, if I can find the time.”

The problem is that these seemingly insignificant tasks that we “put off until tomorrow” stack up on each tomorrow until they are lost in a waste basket of last month’s lists. Some, and oftentimes many, of these to-do’s are foregone the second they are put off.

Deep down, whether or not we admit it at the moment, they are missed and it is the missing that leads to the second phase of the Fixintas: the Doldrums. In my mind, this is a green, slimy place. In my mind, it is the place from the kid’s movie – The Phantom Tollbooth.

In the movie, the main character, Milo, navigates his red convertible through a dark, slimy cave where he meets the Lethargians. As they pull him in to the slime-covered slow-paced existence in which they live, they tell him that "Why, you can do anything (in the doldrums), as long as it's nothing. Everything, as long as it isn't anything; so don't say there's nothin' to do in the doldrums. We dawdle a bit and then we loiter a while, and dawdle again. We gather our strength to start anew on all of the loafing and lounging we still have left to do. So don't say there's nothing to do in the doldrums, it's just not true."

Though the excerpt-poem per the Lethargian in the movie is well put, in a figurative and holistic sense, don’t take it too literally. The Doldrums can exist within a weed-ridden couch or inside the unchallenging white walls of a square office. The Doldrums are at the table at an early-to-late-morning-gas-station-coffee-stop; they exist on the other side of a Soap Opera with-in the restless suburban housewife; and they hang out on ghetto street corners. I can think of two people close to me who I believe presently exist in the that drull, circular place.

One works in the office next to me, the other, is one of my best friends. Each man has a job, goes, does his duty, and returns home. One, I believe, sulks all day and night every day and night in his misery. The other escapes by chemical means. The whole world is against each of them. Nothing, it seems is thier fault and I can relate to each of them, because I have been there.

It is kind-of like the central theme from another great movie –Groundhog Day, with Bill Murray. In case you live in a cave and you haven’t seen it, the gist of the movie is this: Bill Murray’s character, Phil Conner, continues to wake up on the same day, Groundhog Day, in the same small town of Punxsetawney, Pennsilvania. He begins, sour with life and the monotony of having to come to this same small town each year just to report on the ability of one little “vermot's” ability to see his shadow. One scene in the movie and the quote therein stands out in my mind. Phil, discouraged that he will ever get out of this dreadful day in this dreadfully boring town, is drinking heavily at a Bar that is in the town’s bowling alley. Sorry-for-himself, Phil says to the two towney-drunks that sit next to him – ‘do you ever feel like every single day is exactly the same as the previous and nothing you do or could ever do REALLY matters.’ One of the drunks responds; “That pretty much sums it up for me.”

Phil proceeds to give up on any hope for a future ‘meaningful’ life as he goes on a hilariously suicidal, armored-truck-robbing, town-hottie-seducing rampage. In the end, however….well, let’s get back to the point.

The third and final phase of the Fixintas is the Shoulda-Woulda-Coulda’s. My father and his brother (my uncle), reportedly used to call my Grandmother Shoulda-woulda-coulda. While they called her this in jest, I’m treating the term as the advanced and irreversible stages of a tragic ailment - the Fixintas. Once a person has contented through his healthy years, unproductive and easy-going amidst the Doldrums, he gets to a point of ‘awakened regret.’ The Shoulda-Woulda-Coulda-infected man looks back on his life as if he were J. Alfred Proofrock– the old, perpetually-indecisive man of the similarly named T.S. Elliot poem – as he wonders what life would-of been like if only could-of dared to try. Notice the many-a-old-men who are languidly crippled in there scowling, jealous-of-youth yearning for a relief-ful death from their constant, what-if-headache that continues to drain their capacity for any appreciation of the otherwise inherent beauty of day-to-day-life. As they usually wish their fate on all men, these grumpy old men are the Letharigians that coax and grumble new potential subjects into the Doldrums.

So, how can we avoid this seemingly inevitable, potentially horrible existence.

First, I look to the opposite of the above – kids. Why are they seemingly Fixinta-immune? Are they issued a behind-the-back vaccine just after birth. Notice that you never hear a kid say, “Let’s play ‘King of the Hill’ on Thursday.” No; they see, they want, they do. Children don’t plan; they never put off; they don’t have it in them to develop a case of the Fixintas. They are immune because they are daring. They are daring because they are unscathed. They are scathed because they are irresponsible.

That’s the answer, then. The anecdote is to forgo planning, right? Wrong. The answer is to forgo responsibility, right? Wrong. We, as adults, must be responsible. Responsability is, to me the precursor nesessary in order to define one as Adult. But adulthood is no excuse for the Fixintas.

Next, I'll borrow a soundbite from the number one golfer in the world. While he did end up choking yesterday at the TPC, Tiger Woods recently let loose a quote from an interview with Scott Van Pelt. It is possibly the most empowering statement from a man who otherwise should be perfectly content. You can find a more complete summary of the interview here, but the quote, in raw form, follows:

SVP: So there’s no point when you can sort of put the feet up on a Tuesday afternoon and say ‘Today I’m not going to the gym’.?

Tiger: “No. Because the next…that’s…I look at life as: the greatest thing about tomorrow is that I will be better than I am today. And that’s the way I’ve always lived my life. So I have no understanding why people do hit the snooze button because you have a chance to become a better person, become - for me - a better athlete…all the different things you can do to become better for tomorrow. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of that?”

With that attitude, it isn’t hard to see why the man is a living legend in his respective sport. But, let’s be real; it would be a whole lot easier to get up early every day to train to play golf. To train to do what it is that we REALLY want to do. Is that the answer? - Probably. Do I know all the answers? - Probably not. Am I presently (as I type) trying to figure out MY Fixinta-Remedy? – Yes.

To summarize, here is my current, always-evolving, step-by-step solution to Paralysis-due-to-Procrastination:

1. Determine what it is you want to do. What are you passionate about? Don’t look too hard. You know. Deep down, you know. Just acknowledge what you like, follow that curiosity, and accept that this is your passion.

2. Make lists. Daily; monthly; and yearly.

3. Borrowing a term from Stephen Covey, “Choose big rocks” to put on your lists i.e. Limit your commitments to those things that you can readily handle. Plan to achieve those commitments. Do.

4. Regulate on your waste-time. Don’t eliminate it, but regulate it. We all need our Beer-Couch-FamilyGuy-time, but be mindful not to melt into the lazy-boy. Relax for a while after work, then get up and get going.

5. Make a side list of things that you want to one-day do but don’t have the time to get to right now. I’ve named mine the “Fixintas.” Re-read those things each time you add to or check off your Fixinta items. Make time to Cut and Paste from this list to you current to-do list. Do.

6. Find the courage to dare to do. (Not just any kind of courage, on the kind of courage in the following poem: The Hill, By Nissim Ezekiel)

7. Develop the discipline to keep doing. Here is the step that I still struggle with. Maybe I'll revisit this post one day when I figure this one out.

I write this long post on the folly of the Fixintas because I have a bad case of them and I constantly struggle to overcome them. Until recently, my pride-fear paired with my fauma have me looking back on a life full of shoulda’s, woulda’s, and coulda’s. Lucky for me, I still have my youth. I can still change my non-ways and one-day contribute as I continue to appreciate. For me, this is just the first step. Stay tuned for the next; I’ll need you there as I need you here.

And You…out there; if your still with me; if you feel me; how do you avoid the in-the-rut-“Groundhog-Day” existence of your life? What is your passion? How do you make a difference?

Do More Now,

- Not Just Another Dog Named Tag

The Should-Be

Often I hear people say things like: “They shouldn't be treating people that way”; "Guys should know to put the toilet seat down after you’re finished peeing”; “Popey’s should’ve had plenty of chicken stocked up” (funny youtube video); “That’s just not the way things are supposed to be.”

Well how should they be? And, more importantly, according to whom? The should-be is a widely used, specifically subjective term. The way things ‘should be’ to me - a southern, middle-class, mildly conservative male who likes Pork Chops and Succotash with his stove-top, hot sauce and beer - would be drastically different than a Petit English woman named Ms. Gertrude Prudey, whom prefers non-fat Jam on her crumpet, which she enjoys daily with a small glass of pinky-finger-raised hot tea. How different is the should-be for a 17 year old Somali pirate on the verge of starvation and beyond the outer limits of hope. How should things be if you were the mother of an Arab terrorist that is under a waterboard, on a table, in the middle of a windowless torture-for-vital-info room? But we will get to that shortly; for now, on the lighter side, let’s consider the Toilet Seat example.

I have never been able to understand, for the life of me, why woman make such a big deal about us putting the toilet seat down once we are finished with our “number one” sequence. It is as if all women, once they reach the threshold of the bathroom instantly become completely blind as they apparently do not have the where-with-all to see that the seat is up before they sit down. Or, maybe, yall (women) approach the toilet as if you were a defensive back, backpedaling, eyes strait ahead until your butt just happens to reach the toilet. And once you sit down, unbeknownst of the present position of the toilet seat, you have a 50-50 chance of falling in. Do woman actually do this? Do you girls actually sit down into a bowl full of toilet water? It’s hard for me to believe. Maybe. But, I don't think so.

I think that the reason why you make such a big deal about it is because of a social disconnect that exists between men and woman. You (woman) take our (men) leaving the toilet seat up as an inconsiderate and dis-respectful thing to do. While some of the threshold-blinded-defensive-back women may actually end up with wet-ass-syndrome, most of the commotion as it relates to upright toilet seats can be attributed to a misunderstanding of cross cultural perspectives. (….whoa, too much caffeine, I know, I know, I'll slow down.) It is this social disconnect that I am concerned with as it relates to the should-be. In college, while at Georgia Southern, a speaker in an introductory business class said, “We see the world through cultural lenses” - Changai Mwetti. What I feel that he meant was that all people see all aspects of their life according to the culmination of experiences that have shaped their current view of the world. Furthermore; by nature, we are subjective beings and we judge others’ actions according to what we know as REAL, what ‘I would do’, and what ‘should be.’

Back to the Toilet Seat Example, the social or cultural disconnect between what should be from the perspective of the Man and the Woman is rooted in incentives that have been reinforced or challenged via experience throughout the course of the given person's life. Me as a man, thinking logically and in my own best interest, think to myself upon shaking it, zipping it, and buttoning it: “it sure is a good thing that I put the toilet seat up because otherwise I would have gotten a little bit of over spray on it (the seat) and no-one wants to sit in that. Not because I am too lazy to put it back down, so I’ll just leave it up so that it can dry before the next person comes in here.” As I walk out I pass a beautiful nice-butted brown-haired woman. She, being a sort of female anomaly that is neither blinded at the threshold nor feels the need to back peddle toward the toilet, sees the upward oriented seat and thinks to herself: “Even though that guy was ruggedly good looking, he has terrible manners. Why wouldn’t he just put the seat back down when he is finished? How freaking hard is that?”

Each player in this example has a completely different idea of what should-be; of what is GOOD. Notice that we have created our conception of the right way things should be done according to incentives that meet our best interest. Being that either up or down toilet seats for men and women respectively suit his or her best interest, consider the idea that such a conception is constantly reinforced (on average, about 4 - 5 times per day).

Another example, would you steel if it were the only way you could eat? Would you steel if it were the only way your family could eat? Somalia, as are many communities all over the world, live in a hopeless poverty that I cannot even fathom. In a society where genocide is commonplace, where can a young man be expected to find his place; where can he find a common ground with life; can he see a light at the end of his dreary, dark tunnel? The answer for many men and women all over the world is that they there is no way to make an honest life via hard work and education. So they steel. At first, at six, a loaf of bread. Later, at twelve years old, a pick-pocketed wallet. As a man, at seventeen, much larger opportunities arise. All his life, the only way he has known is to steal. This is his should-be. To him, a man who isn’t expected to live past nineteen, hijacking cargo ships is a once-in-a-life-time 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' opportunity to live; really live. It doesn’t matter to him that US Marines can blow his head clean off from 450 yards away. Economically speaking, he is risking a two year loss versus a fifty plus year gain. To him, pirating is the only way. To him, this is a GOOD should-be..

Now, a personal question: how is your should-be? How is your should-be when it comes to using torture techniques such as waterboarding in order to obtain vital information? Think about the person you love the most. Picture their smiling face. Think back on the last time you saw them. Now, imagine that he or she has been kidnapped and is being held in a very unpleasant place (...like the girl in the badass movie - "Taken" ). You know that if you don't find him or her soon, they will be killed or worse. Finally, imagine that a man sits in front of you who knows exactly where to find your missing loved one. What should-be done to find out what you need to know?

Do More Now