I Confuse Easily

One of my Xs from back in the day told me that one of the things she likes about me is that when I say I’m going to do something, I do it.  Now, before you go thinking that this is just gonna be one of those “look at how cool I am” kinda posts, lemme ’splain.

Dane Cook does a bit in one of his standups about someone he knew who exaggerates when she tells stories.  And his problem is that he gets caught up in the exaggeration instead of following the story.

“I got home from work today and took, like, a hundred hour nap…”  NO YOU DID NOT!  You’d be very sick if you were taking hundred hour naps.  That’s a coma.  Say you took a coma after work and I can follow the story.  “I took a coma.”  “Hundred hours, was it about a hundred hours?”  That’s a great coma, that’s a good coma.”

While I am loath to identify with Dane Cook in any way,  this is what I’m talking about.  I get caught up in details like that too.  Why?

I take people at their word.

Now I know full well that sometimes people say things they don’t mean.  Like, for instance, at the end of a conversation.  “We should get together sometime,”  “I’ll give you a call,” or my personal favorite, “Love ya!”  I know that these can be substitutions for awkward silences, but somewhere deep down in my soul, these things give me hope.  Maybe it’s naive of me to actually believe people when they say these things, but I was never taught when I should expect someone to be insincere.

The problem that I fall into with my friends is that it’s a question of managing expectations.  I invited a friend out to see a show with me a few weeks ago and she said she’d call me on Monday to tell me whether or not she’d be going out of town that weekend.  Monday came and went and I didn’t hear from her.  Immediately, I thought, “this can be very innocent.  There are plenty of reasons why someone might be too busy to call.”  But with all the technology available, I have a hard time believing that she didn’t have time to write a text saying yay or nay.  Does that really take a lot of effort?

Is it a rarity that people do what they say they’re going to do?  Shouldn’t we at least expect that from the people who are close to us?  or even ourselves?

Maybe I should expect insincerity from the people around me.  Then, when they actually follow through it’s a pleasant surprise.  That’s not exactly expecting the worst in people, it’s just staying detached.  That’s the alternative to thinking that people out there actually have integrity.  See, I want to be able to believe in the best of people while still not setting myself up for disappointment.  I want people around me to live up to their word.  Some people don’t, and those people are showing me how important their word is when our relationship is concerned.  People are constantly presenting their truest self.  That’s the only thing worth expecting from anybody.  That they’re showing you who they are with everything they do.

Thinking about that, things suddenly become less confusing.  All that, “people just don’t mean what they say” stuff is just bullshit.  Forget what people say and look at how they choose to be.  Does that mean that I hold myself and my friends to a higher standard?  Yes.  But when it comes to friendship and love, why should our standards be so low?

The War on Christmas

There’s a War on Christmas, people!  WAR!

People are taking the Christ out of Christmas and replacing it with an X, or worse, just saying Happy Holidays!  It’s WAR people!  WAR!!!  Happy Holidays is just a watered down politician’s phrase that means, “I don’t want to take the time to find out if you celebrate the Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, something else, or none of them, so instead of just asking, I’m gonna throw a meaningless blanket phrase out there so I don’t feel like an asshole.”  See what I mean?  WAR!

Seriously, I don’t understand why we don’t just say what we mean.  At some point, some very nervous people started spreading the word that saying Merry Christmas wasn’t inclusive (because it’s not), so Happy Holidays or Season’s Greetings became popular.  Usually written next to a big Christmas tree, sprig of holly, or snowflake.  So people started to say Happy Holidays when what they meant was Merry Christmas.  So my question is:  If you celebrate Christmas, and you know I celebrate Christmas, why are you using Happy Holidays in the plural?  What other holidays are you implying?

Is it, then, appropriate to say Happy Holidays between May Day and Cinco de Mayo?  or in June when Father’s Day, Flag Day and the Summer Solstice are upon us?

I even had a friend who posted on their facebook page, Merry Christmas and to all my Jewish friends, Happy Hanukkah.  Sorry dude, but Hanukkah was over last week.  They actually don’t necessarily occur on the same days, and no, they’re not the same thing.

On Thanksgiving weekend of this year, Best Buy came under fire for having “Happy Eid” on their weekly ad, referencing the Muslim holiday Eid Al-Adha.  People flipped out.  Suddenly people were threatening to stop shopping at Best Buy because they perceived Best Buy to be showing favoritism toward Islam because of one ad.  I’d encourage those people to look back at how many ads Best Buy has put out there with Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays just these last few months.  Better yet, go into the store and see how many pictures of Christmas trees or wrapped presents or bows are in their in-store ads.  I think that if you want to make a stink about representation, look at it in context.  People don’t see Merry Christmas because it’s not shocking nor noteworthy to see in a store ad during December.  An assumptive Christmas is all over those ads (whether you see the words Merry Christmas or not) and just because the higher ups at Best Buy decided to show a little awareness of other cultures, people feel slighted?

A quick sidenote:  Eid Al-Adha commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac, after God commanded him to do so.  Sound familiar, Jews and Christians?  That’s because this story is written in Genesis 22 of the Christian Bible and in the first book in the Jewish Torah, Bereshit.

Back to the task at hand, the WAR.  Some of you may think that Happy Holidays is nice enough written next to a sprig of holly or a snowflake.  Inclusive, right?  But need I remind you that in the southern hemisphere, December is a summer month?  So the “Holidays” occur in the summertime.  How do you think that makes the thousands of Australian Americans feel when they are forced to see The “Holidays” identified with snow?

If someone said “Happy Hanukkah” to me, I, being a Catholic, wouldn’t be offended.  Rather, I’d recognize them as someone who probably celebrates Hanukkah and simply return the gesture.  Actually, I’d like to live in a society where people actually took the time to ask simple questions and found out about other cultures instead of being so afraid of people that they need to invent meaningless phrases to cover their own cowardly asses.

I celebrated Hanukkah for the first time this year.  And let me just say, Jewish people have it right.  A holiday where everything you eat is fried?  Sounds like something we should get going in the Philippines.  In any case, I think Ben Stein has the right idea:

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart:

I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don’t know who Lindsay Lohan is, either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise’s wife.

Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young. It’s not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was  Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, “Merry Christmas” to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

A few years ago, during gay pride weekend here in Minneapolis, I was out with some friends and had gotten so used to wishing everyone a Happy Pride, that I found myself wishing Happy Pride to a friend of a friend who happened to be straight.  He looked at me like I’d just insulted his mother.  What?  Two straight guys wishing each other a happy gay pride?  Maybe that’ll be looked at as a war on Pride.

At the end of the day only people in the majority culture of America are getting upset by this.  Because, they’re not used to having to deal with other people setting a standard or having to adjust their behavior in some way to defer to someone else’s culture.  So to those of you who actually believe that there is some is some crazy marketing-based War on Christmas, I say, “suck it up and deal with the fact that there are things in this world you don’t know.”

Maybe whatever holiday greeting you prefer is the equivalent of the age old, “does this make me look fat?” question.  Some people actually mean it, and some people are just trying to get you to say what they want to hear.

Either way, if you celebrate Christmas, have a Merry one.

It’s what’s inside that counts

For the past few years, I’ve been wrapping my Christmas presents with newspaper.  It started out a few years ago out of necessity (read: poverty), but since then I’ve realized that while wrapping paper was created to wrap gifts and therefore has a destiny of its own to fulfill, it’s ultimately a luxury.  A luxury that, upon the fulfillment of that destiny, becomes waste.

My family (nuclear and extended) have all laughed at this over the past few Christmases.  And that’s fine, but it makes me wonder why.

I’m not a total scrooge, so I get there’s something exciting about unwrapping a gift (Although there might be something equally exciting about having your unwrapped gift chucked at you fastball style from across the room, but I digress.).  And it’s our own sadistic tendencies that compel us to dangle those wrapped gifts in front of the longing stares and drooling mouths of the youngest in our own families.  It’s the anticipation that makes gift giving exciting.  It’s in the knowing that something has been designated for you, but you don’t know what it is yet.  You don’t know what it is because it’s wrapped.

So, really, what does it matter what covers our gifts?  Why go out and buy something separate to use as gift wrap when most people have something right in their own recycling bins that will serve the exact same purpose:  to conceal the gift inside?

Ooooh.  Cuz you want your presents to look pretty!  I get it now.

So listen up, kids, cuz apparently this is important:  All that talk about being beautiful on the inside is crap.  Really, life is about being pretty and looking good while lying under a cut-down tree.  It’s what’s inside that counts, ultimately, but only if you have a pretty outside, with colors and bows and other superfluous embellishments.  What you gotta do then is to give yourself as a gift to someone else who will totally tear apart your pretty looking outsides to get at what is inside.  Then, and only then, will your coverings be worthless.

Is that the analogy?

OK, if you want your gifts to look pretty and colorful, here’s a compromise:  use the ads.  Target, JCPenny, Kmart and Kohl’s are usually bright red, Best Buy has a bright yellow or blue background.  Grocery store ads are pretty colorful too.  And for the kids, save up the Sunday Comic Strip sections a few months before.  You’ll have plenty.  And if you insist in putting a TON of thought into it, you can wrap gifts for your favorite sports fan in the sports page, art or music hounds get the A&E section, anyone who keeps up on politics or national/world news… you get the idea.

So breathe new life back into your recyclables.  Give your newspaper a chance to be smiled at at least once in its existence.  Then, when it’s all over, put it back in the recycling bin where it would have ended up anyway, but now can go to that beautiful recycling center in the sky knowing that it made a kid smile before it was viciously torn apart.

CHRISTMAS UPDATE:  Only a few people are still laughing at my awesome wrapping jobs now.  They’re getting used to it.  My 14 year old niece, Jessica, even said, “that’s a really good idea.”  She’s the smart one.

This Messed Up World

I overhear a lot of conversations during my job.  Such is the life in the restaurant biz.  It’s usually benign bits and pieces, but every once in a while someone says something that makes my ears perk up.  The other day I caught a chunk of someone’s “why would you want to bring a child into this messed up world?” tirade.  So I got to thinking, why would I?  And here’s what I came up with:

I know every parent dreams of their kid becoming the President, or doing something else hugely impactful.  Maybe my kid won’t reach high office, but maybe (s)he will.  Either way, (s)he is gonna make a difference.  My kid is gonna love someone.  My kid is going to have a best friend.  My kid is gonna share their toys and their lunch.  My kid is gonna brighten someone’s spirits one day, and even if they’re my spirits that need brightening, my kid is gonna make my day better just for that one moment.  And the ripple effect of something like that can be enormous.  My kid is gonna save lives.  My kid is going to break hearts and help people realize who they are.  People are gonna admire my kid, cry over my kid, and envy my kid.  Some people might even try to emulate my kid.  My kid is not only going to take up space walking around on this earth, but my kid is going to fill that space with something that feeds the souls of others.  My kid is going to change the world.  This messed up world.  And my kid is going to leave this world a better place than it was when (s)he came into it.

Yeah, we can all be cynical about the world being one itchy asshole after another, but how do we expect it to change without being a part of that change?  Or at least having the hope that the affect we have on the world is a positive one, especially if that means we bring into being the next Martin Luther King, Jr., or Mother Theresa, or Bruce Lee.

Because it’s not all about how the world will affect each of us, it’s about how each of us affects the world.  And anyone who believes that our society is so terrible should quit yapping, step up, and do something about it.

As I re-read this, it makes me think of It’s A Wonderful Life.  We get caught up thinking about how we’re not getting what we want out of life rather than how the world is made better by our mere presence in it.  And we all don’t have the luxury of Clarence the Angel on assignment to get his wings.  We just need to take a good, long, honest look in the mirror.

Having a kid shouldn’t be a vanity exercise or a way to secure a legacy.  For some people it might be, but then they’d answer the question differently.  But if you ask me, I’d bring a kid into this messed up world to be part of the solution.

Merry Christmas You Ol’ Building and Loan!

Some of you may be wondering…

…what the hell is he talking about?

Believe me, I’ve been wondering that same shit lately.  I’m sure you get it by now: I’ve been cheated on and feel pretty salty about it.  Ok, now that that’s out of the way, let’s unpack it a little.

My acting teacher carries one of those huge podium-style dictionaries in a bag whenever he comes into class.  He says that a lot of times, even when we think we know what a word means, we might have something to learn from the dictionary definition.  So, whenever we come across a word in class that seems important, he whips out his big dictionary.

What I’m getting at is that a lot of people out there might have a working understanding of what it means to cheat or be cheated on, but after being told that it’s time to get over it, I’m starting to think that it might help to whip out my big dictionary and really understand what is going on.

According to my computer’s dictionary program, to Cheat:

To act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage, especially in a game or examination.

To deceive or trick.

To use inferior materials or methods unobtrusively in order to save time or money.

To avoid something undesirable by luck or skill.

The overarching theme is that cheating benefits no one except for the cheater.  That might seem obvious, but if to love is to give, to cheat is purely selfish, the polar opposite of love.

On the effects of cheating: The last definition is to avoid something undesirable by luck or skill.  Something undesirable.  Just to be totally obvious, the “something undesirable” is the partner being cheated on.  I’m sure there are experts out there who can speak to the myriad psychological effects of being cheated on, but the bottom line is that to cheat is to deceive, which opens the door to a slew of issues with commitment, trust, and self-esteem.

There’s a dude out on the west coast, Dr. John Gottman, who’s been studying relationships to scientifically quantify them and what makes them work.  He’s found that relationships are the basis for emotional health, cognitive development, and ultimately, how we learn throughout our lives.  One of the things he’s found from studying romantic relationships over the last 35 years or so is that healthy successful relationships have a positive-negative ratio of 5-1.  That means for every negative thing someone does to their partner, they do 5 positive things.  It doesn’t take a scientist to know that people are more inclined to be self-critical, so for their partner to reinforce something negative about them would require at least 5 positive things just for the sake of balance.

So let’s put this in the context of cheating.  In order for it to be a wash, according to Dr. Gottman’s findings, the cheater would have to do some positive action that carries the impact of cheating 5 times.  Here’s where the cheater’s argument often loses steam.  The argument I’ve heard the most is, “You have to forgive me.”  Ok, yes forgiveness can be helpful, but doesn’t that just let the cheater off the hook?  Why isn’t it the cheater’s responsibility to earn back their partner’s faith and trust if they want to continue the relationship?  So the question should be, “what are you gonna do, cheater, to earn that forgiveness?”

People who are cheated on often blame themselves, are made to feel inadequate, and have trouble with trust in the future.  So what does it say when we focus on whether or not the victim is capable of forgiveness rather than the work that the cheater needs to do if (s)he wants to work it out?

If you’re like me and have a big ol’ red button about being cheated on, that positive thing your partner does for you might have to end up feeling like an Olympian winning a gold medal.  Now try to do that 5 times.

Is it an uphill battle?  Yes.  But if you’re gonna cheat on your partner, you’re bringing that on yourself.  Relationships are already hard work without adding bullshit expectations about being forgiven for something as shitty as cheating.  You’d be lucky if your partner gives you another chance after being cheated on, so take your destiny into your own hands and do what it takes for the relationship to work.

There’s a quote that I’ve always liked from an alternate ending of The Last Kiss :

It’s always amazed me how much a choice you make in a fleeting instant can change your life forever.  I just feel so lucky that the choices I’ve made have led me to exactly where I am… I can’t honestly say that Jenna’s completely forgiven me and for all I know she never will, but a wise man once told me you can’t fail if you don’t give up.  And guess what?  I’m not giving up.

So what is this all about?  Well, it’s time for me to stop feeling sorry for myself.  It’s time for the Wily Filipino Online Pity Party to turn the lights on and kick everyone out.  The hardest thing for me to realize is that for all my self-blaming, the onus falls on the woman who acts dishonestly.

Let this be the warning to you ladies out there.  You’ll never meet another guy like me.  Don’t fuck it up.

When was the last time you played?

As I douse myself with antibacterial hand sanitizer, I can’t help but smile at all the cute kids at the Halloween costume contest at the Mall.  Ok, so escorting the big shrimp isn’t the most glamorous job in the world, but every once in a while you get to remember what it was like to be a kid.  Today was one of those days.

There was a woman, who I later found out was Grandma, standing in line to register for the costume contest with her toddler.  I’d guess 2-3 years old.  Pacifier in mouth (the kid, not the grandma).  I walked up holding a sticker out for him and said, “Hey Spiderman, do you want a sticker?”  And Grandma promptly answered, “He doesn’t talk yet.”  Thanks, Grandma, The pacifier was a big hint.  I bet your grandson isn’t, in fact, Spiderman either.

I’ve always wanted to have a kid, and I didn’t really know why until today.  Yeah, kids are disarmingly cute and they have unbelievable imaginations and you can mold and shape them into little versions of yourself.  Perhaps even cooler versions of yourself, if that’s possible.  But that’s not why I want to have a kid someday.  I want to have a kid because they give you a whole different perspective on life.

As a dude in his 30s (yeesh), I know I have responsibilities.  There are rules to follow, and a lot of that boils down to one word: Fear.  Fear of what people will think, fear of losing everything I’ve built up, fear of failure, fear of looking foolish.  You probably won’t be surprised at how many adults turn down the stickers I hand out, while this one sticker seems to make their kid’s day.  The stakes are high for us grownups.  But when was the last time you played?  I mean, yes, we all have responsibilities to attend to, but why can’t we do both?  Why does being an adult mean that we have to abandon the joy of life that being a kid brings?

Kids remind us that we all have the capacity to believe, to love unconditionally, and to live for each moment.  They’re not trying to win some prize or tell themselves “I’ll be happy when…”  Their mere presence in a room changes the energy of that room completely.  Something innocent and pure; they wear their emotions on their sleeves, along with the requisite amount of mucus.  Their joys and their sadnesses are fully expressed, they don’t get self conscious or try to hide their feelings for anyone else’s benefit.  They just are who they are.

I think I have a lot to learn from kids.  There’s a part of me that’s yearning to remember what it was like, and one of the few ways to do that is to be around them every day.  To be invited to play and be silly.  To give myself the permission to smile and laugh as boldly and completely as I feel.  And to let my life be affected, changed by someone else.  Maybe even someone cooler than me.

Speaking of playing:

The Second Rat

There’s a guy I work with at the restaurant who is best described as your classic bullshitter.  He hits on girls at his tables, girls at other servers’ tables, well, pretty much any girl that comes into the restaurant.  To my knowledge, he’s got a couple baby-mamas, and yet he somehow gets by with working at the restaurant, where I make just barely enough to take care of myself.  He and I get along pretty well, but I tend not to take anything he says too seriously.  So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself thinking about something he said recently:

“The early bird gets the worm, but the second rat gets the cheese.”

Someone told me that when it comes to critiquing your art the person who is usually full of shit most days can actually be insightful every once in a while.  In the immortal words of Wesley Snipes, “Even the sun shines on a dogs ass some days.”  Well, this doesn’t really have anything to do with art, but it does have to do with a moment of sudden profundity.

We all benefit from other people’s hard work.  Whether it’s the first Filipino immigrants who picked asparagus, carrots, tomatoes, lettuce, sugar cane, or grapes and paved the way for families like mine to follow, or the migrant workers of today who make it possible for my grocery list to stay affordable, I recognize that their situations are often far less than ideal, but the reality is that their hard work has a direct effect on how we maintain our lifestyles.

A while back I found out that I was hired for a job after a friend of mine turned it down.  After the Sloppy Seconds feeling went away, I realized that being the last choice, the right choice, is what’s important, and the rest is just ego. You know how people say one person can make a difference?  Most of the time, we don’t see what we bring to the table, let alone how the things we bring to the table affect the people around us.  But in this case, it paid off.  I happened to have a couple of skills the director didn’t know about in my back pocket that really contributed to the project, so it felt serendipitous that my friend turned it down.

I suppose what I’m saying is that, as cliche as it is, everything happens for a reason.  A little patience and intelligence goes a long way.  We can learn from the mistakes of others if we take the time to really see what’s going on.

At the end of the day you gotta ask yourself:  What is the ultimate goal?  Is the goal to beat everyone else to feed your ego with a moment of satisfaction, or to get the cheese?

Ok, so it just wouldn’t be a Wily Filipino blog post if I didn’t mention something about being cheated on.  So here goes:  I’m fully aware that my heart has led me to be the first rat, and trust me, that big metal bar snapping down on your head sucks balls.  The problem is that I’ve been seeing myself as the rat, and what I need to start doing is see myself as the cheese.  I’m not saying that I ever want to be the other guy.  I just want to be with someone who is aware enough to know that it’s not about stringing me along while she gets something out of her system.  Someone who can resist the urge to rush into things with me when she’s not ready just because I’m “nice.”  Take a second, think, and breathe.  If you really want the cheese, it’ll be worth the wait.

Sometimes winning isn’t everything.  I guess that depends on your definition of “winning.”  If you want to look at it as “second place is the first loser,”  that’s fine.  I’ll be the one with the cheese, and you’ll be dead.

Be the Man You Want to Marry

I gotta give due props to Facebook cuz this isn’t a Wily original.  I was checkin’ out the ol’ news feed the other day and a friend of mine (someone who I don’t really keep up with) had this as her status.

My sister used to have one of those lists.  Several of my Xs have had one of those lists.  I get it.  It’s cool, a girl’s gotta have standards, right?  But you gotta ask yourself, if you’re demanding that you won’t even look at a guy who isn’t–

taller then you, who supports himself, will cook for you, rub your feet, watch girly movies with you, makes enough money to spoil you, knows how to dress himself, stays in shape, is spontaneous, surprises you with flowers for no reason, has a nice car, will go shopping with you, has a great sense of humor, is a free spirit, wants to travel to exotic places, loves his mom, won’t get jealous of all the guys you hang out with, will take you to a fancy dinner every once in a while, will tell you you’re beautiful and not just “hot,” won’t make a big deal over girl’s night out, has a six pack, doesn’t even look at other girls when he’s out with you, opens doors for you, will go with you to the Art Museum he hates just because you want to, will tell you he loves you even in front of his buddies, reads, keeps up on current events, is a good listener, watches all the same trashy reality shows you do, can keep up his side of a conversation and be intellectually stimulating, will hold you when you’re sad or depressed, has blond-ish hair and dark eyes, doesn’t try to fix all your problems when all you want to do is vent, has something in his life that he is passionate about, and can meet your needs in the sack,

–then what exactly do you bring to the table?  How many of your own criteria do you fit?  If you think these things are important for you to receive, as a strong independent woman, why don’t you do them for yourself?

Realistically, how often do we look at the person we’re dating and think, “What do I do for them?”

As my last relationship began to wane, she told me she wanted me to be more philosophical and mentally stimulating in our conversations on the phone.  Part of the problem was the idea of being put on the spot during what was usually a 5 or 10 minute conversation before bedtime because we live in different cities.  ”Can you do it?” I asked.  ”If I said, ’say something profound,’ could you?”  ”No,” she replied, “but that’s what I want in a partner.”  So I tried to keep track of anything halfway decent that would pop into my head through the course of the day, so I could tell her about it, hoping to meet her needs.  And when it came down to it and the long distance was starting to get to me, I asked her to help me feel more secure about things by admitting that there’s some stress in our relationship from being long distance.  ”…Do it yourself,” she responded, “why should I be responsible for whether or not you feel secure?”

Dear Sarah,

Dear Sarah,

Ok, so it was a heated debate via Facebook status comments.  Well, it was a lukewarm debate.  I get that you felt strongly, but I guess I thought we’re all adults and we can disagree and still be facebook friends.  Yeah, so we went to school together almost 10 years ago, and we were never that close.  I give you that.  So being defriended over something like this isn’t that big of a deal.  Honestly, I’m not really gonna miss you.

I know that I’m a stubborn guy and I tend to take things pretty personally, but I also know that the best way to learn, grow, and change is to challenge your own ideas.  It may not always seem like I’m open to hearing you out, but I will always hear you out.  I might not always admit that I’m wrong right away, but I will always eventually admit it when I am.  Blame it on the introversion.  It often takes me a while to process things.  That’s what’s interesting about commenting back and forth via facebook.  It gives us all a second to sit and think.  So what does it mean, when you’re given a chance to sit and think, that you’d rather remove me from your friend list than question your own ideas or formulate a response?

Not all of my friends agree with me, and I’m grateful for that.  Some of the best relationships I’ve had have been ones that challenge me.  And I’m a better person for it.  I know that it might take a while for me to turn thought into action, but in the meantime, I have friends who will call me out when I’m talking the talk and not walking the walk.  And having them there to call me out often helps me reach my goal.  Some people in my life don’t appreciate my calling them out, but I will always have their best interests at heart.  After all, they are the ones setting the standard for themselves.

In this case I try to take a word of advice from the bible:  “you must first remove the plank from your own eye before you can take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”  This is probably one of the hardest things for me to do.  It’s always easier to see what’s going on with someone else than to take an honest look at yourself.  But I try to keep in mind that whenever I point my finger, there are always three fingers pointing back at me.  A lot of times the failings we see in others are a manifestation of the failings we see in ourselves as we project them onto someone else.

So I guess I should thank you, Sarah, for reminding me to take a step back and look inward.  And I suppose that’s the final lesson I’ll learn from you.

If all your friends jumped off a cliff…

Inhale deeply.  Smell that?  That, dear reader, is change.

It feels like we’re all standing on a precipice.  ”Leap and the net will appear.”  The second you take that leap, everything changes.  What’s important to me is how I approach the leap.

Japanese Zen buddhists believe in makyo, a kind of vision you have when you’re meditating.  It’s not an enlightening vision, but it might feel that way.  I had had some visions so I talked to the man who was leading my meditation class.  He told me to “sit more vigorously.”  The problem I’d had was that my mind was constantly racing.  I had a hard time not indulging the thoughts that would pop up in my head.  That’s where the world seems to be right now:  Standing on the precipice, about to change the world, knowing that there’s a greater purpose to it all, but completely over-indulging in the bullshit.

Taylor vs. Kanye, Death panels and other misinformation, and Michael Jackson’s brain, just to name a few.

Change is inevitable.  We change every day of our lives.  I’ve always firmly believed that we are given what we need, not what we want, by whichever god we choose to put our faith in.  Oscar Wilde said, “When the gods want to punish us, they answer our prayers.”  I hear a lot of parents say, “I have to do what’s best for my kid.”  What’s best.  The thing I take away from both of those quotes is that we don’t necessarily know what’s best for us.  Ultimately, my faith goes into the fact that I’ve been given what I’ve needed, not what I’ve wanted, from life.

But, hey, I can be pretty stubborn.  I can sit there and say, “I want to do this,” or, “The woman I’m dating has to have these qualities,” or, “I am this or that kind of person.”  But I’ve found that that kind of thinking basically boils down to “I will be happy when I have this (thing/experience/whatever),” or, “I’ll be happy when the I find the person who fits all my criteria,” or, “The only way I’ll be happy is if other people see me in a certain way.”  I get closed off.  I’m not being open to the possibility of the world around me affecting me.  I’m not letting myself be changed by the life that’s happening around me because my mind is focused on those desires rather than the reality that’s right in front of me.

The thing about it is that it takes courage to see that reality.  It’s easy to view everything through the black and white lens of “Does this fit my preconceived set of criteria?”  Then, rather than seeing the world in front of you, you’re chopping it up into pieces that fit your past thoughts, and pieces that don’t fit.  And we’re off to the races, not seeing or appreciating that which is unfolding right before our very eyes.

The big picture problem with all that is that we have our parts to play when it comes to what’s best for the world.  Just doing what we want, without any thought to how we’re contributing to or affecting the world, is easy.  And selfish.  I watched Stranger than Fiction recently, and this quote stuck out to me:

“it’s a book about a man who doesn’t know he’s about to die. And then dies. But if a man does know he’s about to die and dies anyway. Dies- dies willingly, knowing that he could stop it, then- I mean, isn’t that the type of man who you want to keep alive?”

If only the seemingly mundane choices I make in my life could have that kind of meaning.  Maybe it already does.  But either way, it’s about living your life artfully; making it count.  Approaching the precipice with purpose in mind.  And then, just making the leap.  Ready?  3…2…