General Jackassery

NOOOOOOOOO, I didn’t crash, wreck, get hit, hit something, threaten to not wear my helmet or otherwise cause myself damage so you can stop freaking out! What I did do is pop a spoke on my 3 day old bicycle.

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I got back into riding last summer because I wanted to loose weight and get in better shape. I ended up using the bike for much more than getting in shape and loosing weight. I used it to help find my limits, to see what I was made of. Over five years I rode the same bike and I put somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 miles on it. Cycling is something that I’ve always loved because you can ride and ride and while it might hurt to stay on the bike it is so rewarding in being able to be outside, to enjoy all the elements, to cleanse your mind and soul. It’s funny because I almost feel like a traitor. I rode this bike for five years and this morning I rode a new bike to work. Here’s to the passing of an old friend and here’s hoping that the new bike will carry me as far and as well as ol’ whitey!

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Atleast that’s what I thought yesterday by the end of the day. Yesterday was one of those days that you wish you’d never gotten out of bed. I started out still fighting allergies and still feeling generally bad. Work was boring and tumultuous as I still haven’t figured out what I’m supposed to be doing with regards to travel, but since I was supposed to leave tomorrow and I don’t have orders I won’t be going anywhere this week. Really that was a good thing I thought. It would give me two extra days to train for the Cheaha Challenge which is this weekend.

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You know, I’m not a quitter by any means and I don’t have a lot of respect for people who are. However, there is one particular group of people that I really wish would quit the ASCE, simply walk away, because they are the ones that are pointing fingers and causing all of the problems that they percieve exist. They think there’s an “us and them” mentality in the club. That’s funny becuase I don’t see them working everynight that I’m there, how can you say that WE are the ones that cause the “us and them” mentality when YOU are the one that’s not showing up to work?

I really wish that people would learn that “He who is without sin cast the first stone!”

There only several things that I would be willing to lay down my life for: family, several very close friends and my country. Ryan Baskin is one of those friends that I would do anything that he ask me to do because I trust him so much that I know he would never ask me to do anything that didn’t have to be done. He’s one of a very few people that I trust completely and with my life. So it’s with great sadness that I learned of the death of Ryan’s father last Friday morning. Ryan’s dad was a wonderful man. He was probably the most intelligent man I’ve ever met, but he was also one of the most down to earth people I’ve ever met too. As one of his friends described him he was as comfortable talking to an Astrophysicist as he was a garbage collector and those people were as comfortable talking to him. In talking with one of my friends on Friday I told him that I wasn’t sure where Mr. Baskin would go. I wasn’t sure what his beliefs were and for that reason alone I didn’t know if he would go to heaven, though I know for a fact that he deserved the best.

I realized while sitting at the funeral service on Monday afternoon that you tell how a person was by the people they surround themselves with. If you never met Mr. Baskin you could know him through his friends as a very caring, loving, intelligent and extremely humorous man! In my opinion if those were his only good attributes (they weren’t) that should be enough to get him through the doors to heaven. Mr. Baskin’s daughter said that he would never be idolized by Marvel comics as a hero, but he was her hero. To her knowledge there was no one on this planet that had a bad thing to say about him and she can think of no better way to define a hero than that. I think that’s truth. If you can walk through life and never make an enemy you’ve accomplished a lot.

Over the course of the weekend I realized that the saying, “The clock of life is wound but once and no man knows when his will stop,” is so important to think about. Life is short! I spent a lot of time this weekend putting out fires that I had started myself. Accidental yes, but regardless of cause the damage was done.

So I’m sitting in Mo’s cube talking to him when our Secretary comes over and says, “Hey, want to hear a really funny story?” We tell her sure tell us what you’ve got. She starts telling us that this friend of hers was dating this girl for a week. He thinks that he really likes her so after a week they sleep together. He comes back later and tells our secretary that he wants to break up with this girl. She ask why and he basically blows the question off and asks how he should break up with her since they’ve slept together. A couple of days pass and he hasn’t done it, she asks that the deal is and he finally says that she has a tail. Like that guy in the movie, “Shallow Hal.” I was like, what’s so funny about that? Her response was, “She has a tail, I just think that’s funny.” Then she get’s made a me because I’ve been supposedly acting like I’m better than her. Doesn’t that seem a little hypocritical? Here she is acting like she’s better than someone else just because they have a physical deformity and she get’s mad at me because I’m not really interested in hearing her talk about things that I can’t relate to in the least. I’m not interested in sleeping with every woman on this planet and I certainly wouldn’t be sleeping with anyone after just one week, let alone one night. She does that crap all the time. I’m sorry, I know that I have my own issues so I certainly don’t think that I’m better than anyone else, but there are somethings that I don’t agree with. I’m not interested in partying every night so that I can’t get up and be at work on time. I’m not interested in sleeping around. I’m not 21 anymore, I did my fair share of drinking when I was younger, but I don’t care to do it anymore and I don’t really care to be around the people who do. That’s just not who I am. But to get mad at me because I supposedly think I’m better than you when you don’t even give someone a chance because their different from you? That’s a total load of crap. No, I don’t have a tail, and neither has anyone that I’ve ever dated (to my knowledge) but I’d like to think that it wouldn’t matter. By the time I got to the point where I discovered that you had a tail I would think that you would have told me and I would think that my emotions for you would over ride the importance of any physical feature. I guess I’m just weird, I care a lot more about personality than physical features. She thinks that people want her because she’s so beautiful, she doesn’t realize the only reason people want her is because they figure there’s about a 90% chance they’ll get laid. She says she’s not proud of the things she’s done in her life, but I see not effort to change coming from her. If you know and feel that what you’re doing is not right yet you make no effort to change, I have a hard time respecting you. Don’t think I’m the one being a hypocrit now because I’ve had a very hard time respecting myself in the past. I’d like to think that when someone helps to take the blinders off and show me who I really am and not what I think I am that I have the ability to understand that and to change. I’ve already done a good bit of it and that’s probably why I was so offended by her being mad at me.

A little story: One day several years ago, I think sometime back in 1999 or so I met this girl, we were in a Karate class together. I had decided to take Karate just because I’d spent my entire college career taking classes that I was supposed to take and I’d never taken a class that I really WANTED to take. Anyway, I met this girl in my Karate class and we got along pretty well, but she was involved in a long term relationship with another dude. In what has always been my normal operating procedure I developed a significant crush on this girl. I thought to myself, “Man if I ever had a chance with this girl I would make her love me, I’ll be the best boyfriend she’s ever had.” Anyway, the class ended and nothing ever happened between us. Several months later I walked into an Economics class that I was taking for my Liberal Arts degree, sat down and settled in for what was going to be an extremely boring class when she walks in the door, sees me and comes and sits right next to me. I thought, “Wow, this is great, now maybe I’ll have a chance.” The class came and went and nothing ever happened. Finally, several months later she got involved in the ASCE and started paddling. One Saturday night after the ASCE regional conference banquet I finally realized that I was going to get my chance. We dated for about a month and in that time I went all out! I feel head over heals for her and I did everything I could to make her fall for me. Unfortunately I fell so hard and so fast that it scared her off. While she never said it directly, she broke it off with me by just not coming around or calling anymore. I was absolutely crushed. Really mad! I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t good enough for her. What it was about her boyfriend that was so good that I didn’t have. I stayed pretty mad for several months, through Nationals and I had the summer to pretty much cool off because I graduated and took the summer off. (I say I took the summer off, I went and worked on my Dad’s Catfish farm for the summer. Not exactly taking the summer off.) So I came back the next fall and things were a little better between us. Far less awkward, but I was still mad and hurt. I was too stubborn not to be around her though. I would stop by paddling practice despite her being there and I would do my job as President of the ASCE regardless of whether or not she was there. I guess that contact made things easier over time, helped me get over her quicker. (Or so I thought.) One January Anthony decided to buy a car in New Jersey. So, me, Anthony, Justin, and this girl loaded up in my old white truck and headed to New Jersey. We had a great time, we went through Washington, D.C. and up to Atlantic City (to the Casino’s) and then into NYC. It was a lot of fun, tiring, but a lot of fun. I realized during that trip that I never had gotten over her and I really wished things had worked out between us, but I realized another thing too. Things NEVER would have worked out between us. There wasn’t ANYTHING I could have done to make them work. It had NOTHING to do with whether or not I was “good enough” for her or if she was “good enough” for me. The fact of the matter was that we simply weren’t meant to be. While there were things that she liked about me, there just wasn’t the connection between us that I thought there was and that I wish there was. A couple of months after that trip to get Anthony’s car, things started to change between Sarah and I. Now, that other girl is sweet and fun to be around, but she doesn’t hold a candle to Sarah and looking back I really am glad that things DIDN’T work out.

The point is, you can sit there and say, “Why did she pick him over me?” “What’s so much better about him than me?” “She just want’s him because he has this or that.” But none of that is anywhere near the truth. The truth of the matter is that it simply wasn’t meant to be. I’m not “better” than anyone else, I’m just different and somethings fit better than others. It’s like comparing apples to oranges. The question is are you man enough to turn around and face that fact? Are you man enough to take her for what she is, a great friend? It takes time! It took me nearly a year. But, in most cases, it has nothing to do with you, and it has nothing to do with her being a bad person. Though for a while a really did think she as a real bitch. She knew where she had me and she stomped on my heart like it was roach crawling around the kitchen floor. That’s how I felt anyway. In reality, she probably thinks that you’re a great guy and she loves spending time with you, but when it comes down to being in a really serious relationship it simply doesn’t fit and you aren’t what she wants. If you were on the other side of things it would be a lot easier to understand that.

Don’t compare yourself to someone else, you’re always going to find differences. There’s no way to measure a man’s true worth when compared to that of another, there are too many differences. I never claimed to be “better” than anyone. Sure, there are somethings that I can do better than others, but I have enough skeletons in my closet that I have no right to judge or compare myself to another man and try to claim that I’m better than him.

What you do with your life is your own decision, you choose who you want to be and you can choose how you want to be, but you can’t change the things that happen to you and you can’t make decisions for other people. Be yourself, don’t compare, do what’s right for you and you will eventually find what’s right for you. It took me 27 years and I’m still learning and changing. I’ll never stop and I don’t think anyone should nothing in this world is perfect. Nothing in the world will ever be perfect, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t try to be as close to perfect as possible.

That’s a question that’s been going through my head for a couple of days now. Seems like most people think about what they want or what they want to do, but they don’t really think about how they want to be. Life is nothing but a series of choices that you make. Sometimes there are things that affect you that you have no control over, but for the most part in everyday life there is little that should affect us to the point of altering our actions or emotions because of that one particular input. So, baring the death of your best friend, there’s no real reason why you can’t choose to be happy everyday. I’m of the mind that if you believe in something strongly enough you can make it happen. So, instead of thinking of three words that people would use to describe you, start thinking about three words that would describe how you want to be. Everyday, think about those three words and make it happen. If one of those words is “passionate,” find something that you can be passionate about and make it happen. If one of those words is “loving,” then show your friends and family that you love them everyday! Life is a series of choices, make the choice to make your life your own and choose to be whatever and however you want to be. Believe in it, and make it happen.

How do I want to be today? What words would I use? “Loving”, “Passionate”, “Determined”, “Devoted”, “Caring”, “Accepting”, “Patient”, “Dependable”, “Responsible”, “Excellent”, “Hard Working”, “Dreamer”, “Creative”, and “Happy”!

Incase you didn’t know it. I love you guys (the ones I know anyway)!

One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name.
Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down.

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“In the lonely light of morning, in the wound that would not heal is the bitter taste of losing everything I held so dear.” “Sleep has left me alone to carry the weight of unraveling where we went wrong.” “Cast me gently into morning for the night has been unkind.” These are lyrics that have resonated with me since I bought the CD. This has been a year of wonder for sure. I wonder if I’d known what I know now if I would have gone through what I went through? I wonder did this all have to happen to force me to make the changes that I’ve made? I lost a lot of sleep these last 5 months or so. Jackie and I were talking the other day and he said that he thought he could loose 30lbs in three months. I told him that I thought that was a little ambitious because it’s really hard to lose 10 lbs a month. He said, “you did it.” I told him, “Jackie, it’s not safe to do what I did. I was literally trying to kill myself. I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping, and I was killing myself on the bike. It’s not normal for a person to drop as much weight as I did as quickly as I did it.” It takes the fuel of rage, sadness, the thought that you are going to loose everything you ever wanted, the only thing you wanted. It takes the feeling of total helplessness (is that a word?) I was as low as I’ve ever been, I’ve never REALLY thought about killing myself directly, but there were times that I almost wished I would get hit by a car when I was on my bike or have some sort of accident that would just end it all. It seemed at the time that was the easiest solution for everything. If I was out of the picture it would make decisions easier for some people and it would just make others happier because they wouldn’t have the competition anymore. Who would miss me? THAT is how low I was! I could NEVER take my own life, but I could wish that something would happen that would. Looking back I realize how selfish that pattern of thought really is. When it was going through my head I thought that it would be best for everyone else, I thought that it would make her life easier and I’ll I’ve really ever wanted was for her to be happy. But I realize that I was only thinking about me. The EASY way is to end it. The hard way is to fight for everything that you want, to persevere through the hard times in your life and to never give up hope. If things are meant to be then they will happen, if they’re not meant to be then something else will come along. I’m not an overly religious person, but I do truly believe that there is a God and that there is a plan. It’s funny because I went to Church on Sunday with Mo and the pastor said something that struck a chord with me. He said that David was anointed King when he was a teenager, but he was never crowned as the actual King until he was about 30. He said, “I am always in a hurry, but God is not.” “Have you ever thought about the enormous amount of free time that God has?” I’m always in a hurry to get what I want, to get what I think I need, but God has a plan and he’ll execute that plan in his own time. Sometimes it’s really difficult to let things go. I tried and tried to make things happen, but they happened in their own time. Would they have actually happened had I not pushed as hard? Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll never know because I can’t go back and test the theory. The point is that I don’t feel anymore secure in where I stand today than I did 3 months ago, but I’ll never allow myself to go as low as I went again. I’ll never stop working for what I want and once I get what I want I’ll never stop working to keep it, to keep improving it. I was asked the other day what my New Years resolutions were and I honestly hadn’t made any until that moment. Now I’ve made a resolution. My resolution is to love a little more everyday for the rest of my life. No matter what happens to wish for one’s life to end is not the answer because life is filled with mountains and valleys today I might be in the valley, but tomorrow I might be at the summit of Everest admiring the beauty that is this life and the gifts that we’re given everyday just because we get to live and see the sun rise one more time.