2013 Behind me.....2014 Before me.

I am sitting here at my desk looking at a fresh, new calendar for the year 2014.  There’s not a mark on it…but I’m about to start filling the squares with appointments for doctors, dentists, story interviews and get-togethers that are already scheduled and planned.   As I flip through the pages of the retired and marked up 2013 calendar, notes jump out to remind me about the past twelve months of my life.

Looking at these unmarked pages it occurs to me we all start the New Year with some things in common………

For starters, we all have the human body to deal with.  We have all felt the effects of inflation, but even at today’s prices its elements are only worth about $4.70.   Granted, the condition of this vehicle can vary greatly from person to person.  Still…it’s something we all have.

Assuming you have an average human brain, it is processing 400 billion bits of information a second.   At best you’re only aware of about 2,000 of those bits, and your sense of “reality” is filtered through your sense organs.  Think of your brain as a very sophisticated computer….garbage in, garbage out.    

If we are fortunate enough to live, by the end of 2014 we will each have been given 365 days experienced in split second increments. It’s up to use to determine what we do with those seconds, hours, days, weeks and months.  An organized friend of mine says she reaps all kinds of benefits by taking just two minutes a day to be grateful for this life she has been given.  It must be time well invested, because she gets more done in one day than most of us do in a week.

Another friend insists time somehow expands when she fills some of those calendar squares with regular visits to shut-ins, or plans time to sit with a friend who is sick.  Maybe this could be the year you work your plan to visit a nursing home to read to someone who can no longer do that for himself. Perhaps you could fill just one of those calendar squares each month with a scheduled time to reach out and touch someone else’s life.    

Flipping through the pages of this dog-eared date book I know too many of those days were unproductive because I allowed myself to be bored in a world that offers much, but needs even more help.  This used calendar stares back and holds me accountable in a very definite way.

So, here I sit, looking at this colorful new calendar just waiting to be filled with the day to day events that will become the next year of my life.   Even though life is unpredictable and we may not be able to control the number of days we have to fill, we can control how we fill the days we are given.

I’m not suggesting that the year 2014 should be the year you prepare yourself for sainthood, I know I sure won’t.   What I am suggesting is that we all have certain things in common, and if we take control over those we can do uncommon things.  Fill in some of those dates with things that will bring happy memories as you sit and look at 2014 from the other end of the calendar.

                                                      Happy New Year   

                                                           Life is Good 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's Time to say Merry Christmas!!!!

I have discovered the only way I can manage to have any Christmas spirit to enjoy is to be very protective of it.  This year I did something different; I officially started looking, listening and watching Christmas things on December 13^th.  It’s taken some effort, but I think I’ve pulled it off quite nicely, thank you very much!

Since October I have been avoiding displays of Christmas decorations.  This certainly hasn’t been achieved without some real effort…I’ve done it by putting on my shopping blinders and not looking too far to my right or left.  I have dodged displays of the M & M’s characters wearing Christmas hats…Budweiser Clydesdales dancing to Christmas music…and the Grinch leering at me from cardboard cut outs stationed with various and sundry products. 

Recording anything you care to watch and fast forwarding through the commercials is a great way to avoid early Christmas burn out as well.  I don’t know when anything is on…and I can never catch part two of anything…but I have missed all the expensive cars with bows around them…the “as seen on TV” ads for stretchy bras and two hundred foot long garden hoses that you can carry in a match box.  I have also tuned out of the home shopping networks and the Christmas shows that started on November first.  The first Christmas thing I watched was the Celtic Women show on PBS last week.  I was humming Christmas music for a couple of days after that.

I hate to break this news to all the big broadcast companies but…the surprise is over.  Knowing what is coming I’ve turned off my radio.  The war to see who can get 24 hour Christmas music started first has probably been fought in every market…and I don’t care.  When I worked in radio and was forced to listen to Christmas music for eight solid weeks I was ready to bludgeon anyone who wished me “Merry Christmas” by the time it actually rolled around.  Too much of a good thing is….well, too much.

We still get the Sunday paper at our house, so for two months the first thing I’ve done is pull all the “Christmas Giving” sale papers out and toss them in the trash.  Two weeks before Christmas is time enough to look at that stuff, too.

In my sincere efforts to not become a “Christmas Curmudgeon” I have likely missed some good sales…probably missed some Christmas programs that were not too bad…and definitely missed the “After Christmas Sales” that started in mid-December.  But you know what?  I have a healthy Christmas spirit because I haven’t used it all up trying to fend off advertising and premature celebration of an event that should be cherished.  I’ve said “Merry Christmas” and meant it…and I am going to be this protective of my Christmas spirit every year from here on out because it works for me.

Now that I’ve confessed to having become a bit reclusive about my holidays I do have to admit I may have overlooked something.  On the way into work this morning I heard Silent Night done to a calypso beat.  When did that happen?

                                     Merry Christmas to all…and to all a good night.

                                                             Life is Good

 

The Duck Hunters

 

Of all the things I am totally sick of, and there are too many to count at this point, the media set-ups and all the corresponding drama has got to be near the top of the list.

Today it is the Duck Dynasty debacle.  I have never seen the show and nothing I’ve seen on the news makes me want to change that fact.  I do not know the name of the long bearded, head banded, Willie Nelson look alike they’ve shown on the web today.  He has also shown up in my email on “support whatshisname” posters for a couple of days now.  He is the latest in a long line of victims in the media shooting gallery…I don’t envy him.

What is the media “shooting gallery” you might ask?  It is the entertainment/news hybrid that now passes for news/information in our society.   This machine selects candidates from a long list of people who are ‘out there’ in the public eye.  The stronger they are in their belief systems, the better target they make.

Enter the long bearded, head banded, Willie Nelson look alike that produces duck calls somewhere in the Deep South.  He and his clan (from what I’ve gleaned only in passing) are very wealthy, very hairy, and very opinionated.  In this instance, I gather they are born again Christians who make no apologies for their beliefs.  The clan is promoted in a reality TV show that showcases their ability to grow hair and produce duck calls…all wrapped up in their box of family values with a big red religious bow on top.

Now….here comes the fun part!!  You get the long bearded leader an interview with one of the hip and sophisticated writers of a trendy magazine.  Can you feel the fun beginning to build??   The bearded man is who he is, and the cagey interviewer knows exactly who he is talking to.  It doesn’t take a lot of figuring to know if you ask this man a direct question he will give you a direct answer.  After all, you’ve gone to their home to make fun of them and show everyone what these plain talking, backwoods hicks look like, right?  This is your opportunity to create something bigger than just a one-time interview, so you ask direct questions you know this man cannot (and will not) back away from.   It’s a short walk to use that answer to stir up a big old controversy that will sell magazines, fill news casts, enrage and outrage a good segment of the population, and make even more Americans afraid to answer a direct question honestly.

These set ups are manufactured by a drama hungry media that has no respect, no sympathy and no conscience.  They love to create these tempests in a tea pot to fill air time and print space.  It really doesn’t matter if the storm is about race, sexual orientation, politics or something else…it all sells.

It’s sad to say, but with each one of these we lose a little more freedom of speech and a little more control over our lives.  We could all do well to live our lives with more dignity and fewer “my way or the highway” thoughts about our fellow man.  I am completely disinterested in what the bearded fellow had to say about his religious beliefs (to which he is entitled, by the way) but I am dismayed by the fact that he is being punished for saying it. 

There will always be disagreements about religion…there will always be rights to fight for and changes that need to be made in this and every society.  Our precious freedom of speech has already been fought and paid for with the blood of our ancestors.  That right gives any bone head, whether he/she is gay, straight, white, black, Christian or atheist, the right to speak out and speak up.  It’s a double edged sword…but it is a righteous one.  

This country desperately needs a hero; someone who can promote the dialog between groups without seeking the spotlight or worrying about producing advertising revenues.  I haven’t seen anyone like that in a long, long time.     

                     In the worlds of the late Rodney King, “Why can’t we all just get along?”