Pizza Break

Such a messed-up way to respond to someone. To acknowledge someone said something, yet without even completing the sentence indicated by a period, a comma and a word thrown afterwards to discount thought, trump an opinion of another with your own. "But," typically the next phrase intending to discount or argue what the "yeah," recognized. "Well Tim, I think that we should put up Christmas lights for the Holidays." Says Jill very excited about her plan. "Yeah, but what about if we, um, don't." Responds Tim. "I just think that it will add to the holiday cheer and others will like it is all." Jill's response more subdued now. "Right, um, no." Says Tim as he continues to read his paper without looking up or even considering a change. "Yeah, but..." Isn't anything but. They occur all the time and can be done so, as Tim showed us, with different words. What to look for is when these things occur in...

Sweet, lazy, little me.  As a child there were many opportunities I had to make money. My father was always willing to pay me something to work for him. These wages might have been meager and the work the type with no end, however the opportunities existed. In retrospect, I was lazy. It's easy to look back on my former childhood self with these critical perspectives, discounting all behaviors as a desire to be a sloth. When I really think about it though, if I was lazy then, am I not still the same lazy person now? Can a person really do a 180 degree turn and change completely who they once were? You have to remember, I am saying I was lazy as a child, a child who didn't choose as much as acted on impulse. I did not see consequences, I just saw the here and now, living for the moment. I would connive and scheme as to how I could avoid work, but yet weren't those things work in themselves? Was I really lazy when I was actively trying to convince my mom and dad without ...

Eating a "well-balanced" meal seems to be an agreed-upon way to start the day. A "well-balanced" breakfast can include anything from Pop-Tarts to Cereal or Oatmeal, even a donut if they had commercials to tell me so. This phrase, "well-balanced," an often accepted, rarely disputed description of your meals, your job and home life, your use of alcohol, I believe is often misconstrued. If numbers or a 3-steps-to-success is what you'd like next, then I am sorry friend, that is a book written by someone much more credentialed than I. What I have is a perspective shift, that might provide you with more opportunities in life to be content. Actively working on things is difficult at first, but yet, the amount of sacrifice being proposed here is minimal. Just every thought you ever have. Living a "well-balanced" life is the same as ensuring what you are doing never gets out of control for one, but more importantly, never corrodes the quality of ...

"It's too early." Said my friend Jordan as I was texting him about Christmas decor.  It is only October 20th, but I love this time of year. I love the next even more. To me, Christmas time should be a last-quarter-of-the-year event. The time of Jesus's birth should be most of the year, but I have limits. Also, as much fun as Jordan makes fun of me, I counted, and there are only 66 days until Christmas.  Everybody wants to wait, yet then they all talk about how much scrambling they end up doing at the end. Why not take advantage of the nice days and unpack the Christmas stuff now? Of course, I am not going to turn them on, just unpack, make an inventory of what I need. After all, the stores already have their Christmas stuff up, so why not us?  As I notice a break in our conversation, I put my phone in my pocket and continue exploring the goods. I unpack some garland, some Christmas pillows, even a random stocking. As I piled the stuff on the side, I wondered...

When you write, your natural tendencies come out. Some good, some bad, some you didn’t even know existed and wouldn’t until someone else pointed them out. I have noticed in my own therapy, ahem, writing I meant, that an easy go-to for me is negative. I’ve seen it all throughout. Originally, I thought I went negative because it was easy to knock on unhealthy, processed foods and their parent companies than it was to be nice about it. After all, being negative sells and we tend to remember what didn’t work better than what did. I’ve never been bitten by a snake, but you better believe the one time I saw one in the tall grass is the memory I recall versus the thousands of time I didn’t. Well, naturally, I guess negativity comes out which then begs the question, “Am I a negative person?” My wife would say yes I think, though to her I justify it as “realistic.” Anyone else, I try to present as the positive, or at least understanding one. Though, I am easily to see the negative ...

When one falls, they all fall. Besides the game, dominoes represent how things start and inevitably end, unless of course you interfere. Pain can be a catalyst, causing someone to lose hope, give up. Though it can also be a catalyst for good. One thing about dominoes is that when one falls, the impact on the last domino is unknown by the first. In human terms, it means that one occurrence can have a domino effect for change that no human could ever connect or the initial person ever know. The first affects the second and so on, until the change at the end. The most recent church shooting, or a suicide, or a loss of a small child, all things encountered over the last few days, all having meaning, somewhere. No, the meaning isn’t always directly connected with the initial act, such as gun control due to another “mass shooting,” but can come about by changes in individuals effected lives. From here on out, a catalyst to inspire change, a certain determination or grit which onl...

No, not this guy, but you get the idea. "Good morning sir." Says I.   "Good morning." Says the gentleman much older than I.   "It's a cold one out there." Continues the elderly man.   "Yes it is. Have to work at staying warm today." I respond.   "How you doing today? " Responds the man.   "I'm good. (pause) So far anyway. (slight chuckle)." Says I heading away from the conversation at this point.   "Ha ha so far anyway? Maybe we better just stop here. (slight chuckle)." Says the gentleman one last time as I head on my way.   The conversation was nothing more than that. A straight-forward representation of a typical "old man conversation," as I like to depict it. These conversations are typical in my life and pleasant. There is no obligation for anything more than the here and now. The conversations state the obvious without any insight or analysis expec...

I have no idea what I am doing. I run the ship, but I fear it run ashore through my negligence. I don't even know where the shore is either, I don't know what destroys ships, I don't know anything about ships. Instead I got behind the wheel, stayed there, and been driving it now for 32 years. Sure I had some help in the past and even now I'm steered clear by the Coast Guard, but I cannot count on others to always tell me I am wrong. A few times I have scraped the bottom, this did some damage, but made me aware of what to look for when approaching dangerous waters. I have ran into a few other ships, some on purpose, some on accident, with intents to get ahead of them towards a destination unknown. I have hurt some people's livelihoods I would imagine, for I will never see the totality of my effect.  While sailing in my early years, I focused on the deck, the shine on the outside, the parts passer-byers could see. I did little maintenance to the outside. I barel...

Trash overflowing the plastic can in the kitchen. Just one more shove down and I can get this final oatmeal container in. (Squeeze) EEEEEhhhhhh   Ah, look at that. I've got another half a day of garbage before I have to actually take out the trash, to the larger trash. It is almost Wednesday and then the trash guys will take it to an even larger trash. After that, it's magic I'm guessing. Magic!   Every bottle, can, carton, used container, wrapper, towel, paper plate, all of it from just our house gets shoved into this plastic receptacle and taken to "the dump," all of our trash except that junk I was talking about those people on Facebook. The negative response I had to the news, the judgments I held deep, my sick attention-seeking for an act that appeared as charity, oh, and let me not forget the sick curse words about some guy who intentionally cut me off in traffic. Yea, this trash, this trash stays here. Right here, right in the...

The news, a presentation of recent, supposedly relevant, information. A biased perspective with an agenda to sell, for most. There isn't anything wrong with it, it's capitalism. If I want to influence people to buy a lifestyle then I need them to see their reliance on emotion to do so.  Fear is a primary emotion to feast on. Staying scared and "in your lane," maybe edging towards the dotted yellow line, at times crossing when no officer is present, guarantees a place in this world. For the most part, the mass portion of society stays where they know to be safe. We go to work, pay bills, do something for entertainment outside of work, and much of this is without question. We go to movies the commercials sell us on. We buy products we think we need. We buy upgrades on those products because the new version is better.  Even the people who are "different," are part of a crowd of also "different" people. Alternative can be the new mainstream in ...

So God created mankind in his own image,   in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.- Genesis 1:27 Man is God's greatest creation. God created man. Right there in the first part of Genesis. The only reason we weren’t created first is because in the first 26 versus of the Bible he had to create somewhere to put us. Like having a bunch of toys with no storage, God didn't want to step on anybody.   The world is filling up. Not just with God's best creation, but what his creations create. Our words, ideas, thoughts, all able to be published and sent into the world for any and everyone to see. Words of hurt, hate, negativity, all pollute our world. Topics created as insignificant attempts at attention all contributing to an underlying negativity. Experiences are being tainted by the excess of information unable to sift through or interpret truth. As an adult, I can read through a biased article and pull out what I need, ignoring t...

Being that any psychological job is at the bottom of the hierarchy of sciences, I figured I would delve in the realm of the mathematical. People like numbers (psychology) people get confused and turned off by things they cannot rate. How do I know something is better than something else if there is no RESEARCH to determine it? How can I argue somebody and prove them wrong if I don’t have numbers flowing in my favor? How in the world do I know what to choose for my kid if there are no numbers to determine good, better, best? So, why not attempt to put qualitative data in a quantitative definition so people know what to do to be successful. Here it goes: X+y=xy BAM ! Your problems are solved. The problems including lack of funds or no ladies or gents wanting you are all wrapped up in that algorithm. Just like in algebra you have the theory, so now you just plug and chug baby. Obviously X is you and Y is what you believe you can do, so the end result is the version of ...