The 99c man…
I liked the 70′s television show, “The Six Million Dollar Man”, starring Lee Majors. Today we’re not too far off from many of the medical procedures in the show, a friend of mine has new knees & someone else I know has had laser eye surgery to eliminate the need for glasses. Bionic legs, artificial hearts, when you think about it the whole concept is surreal.
I was thinking about that concept today, rebuilding. Rebuilding my own body, my life. Of course not in the sense of having expensive surgeries (I’m worth something, but nowhere near $6mil), but rather replacing components that don’t work with ones that do.
I have the tools, I have the knowledge, it’s just the drive & motivation that is missing and in need of replacement. I think I have come to the “elevator revelation” time, in reference to the first time I made the choice to change my life. I decided in the elevator at my office building that I was going to change my life on my own instead of relying on surgery to force me to change.
I’m getting tired of the crap and want to rise above it. I hate looking at old photos of my previous progress and remember when I could do certain things as if I could no longer do them (I can, it’s a matter of building back up to that level). To look at clothes in the closet that no longer fit, the need to sit down more often, the slowed walking pace. It’s all coming to a head.
Stewing on that for a bit, but wondering what my motivation should really be. Is it to please others, to get healthy, to show others up? I based my motivation before on the accolades & encouragement of people, once the people were gone and the limelight subsided I crashed hard. I can’t make that mistake again.
Doing it for me has got to be my motivation, telling myself I can do it and I’m worthy is the challenge…
MattyV
“P*ssing off the pope…”
You ever hear that expression? I’ve heard it a few times and its always intrigued me. I assume that getting on the pope’s bad side is not the best place to be since he is so close to God.
I’ve p*ssed a few people off today and I feel that I might tick a few more off tonight. None of the incidents today were intentional by any stretch of the imagination, they were misunderstandings made by the other party. Misunderstandings that could have been clarified if the party had asked questions initially regarding coverage or billing.
The thing of it is, even though it wasn’t intentional the people still harbor a bad feeling – like I swindled them in one form or another and that leaves a bad taste in their “mouth”. What makes it a little worse is that their bad feelings are directed at me and I take that personally. I shouldn’t, just like they shouldn’t have badfeelings towards me for their own misunderstandings.
I feel a little sick to my stomach and have a twinge or two of guilt like I did something wrong (even though at the time I did what I could and did not forsee the misunderstandings that occurred otherwise I would have nipped them in the bud right away). When I get that way I tend to steer myself towards some self-destructive behavior like binge-eating. The guilt builds and instead of dealing with it and sorting it out in my mind, I retreat into escapist ways.
I’ve tried dealing with the guilt the more rational way, talking things through, reminding myself that it was their misunderstandings and nothing I really could have done at the time they happened to alleviate them. There were suggestions in one particular case of finding a more competitive premium elsewhere if the “real” circumstances were known at the time. An idle threat. I told myself, “Hey, if they want to go elsewhere for their competitive quote – then feel free. I am sorry they misunderstood but the information I provided was clear and they could have questioned the premium when the policy was delivered to their home…”
Caring too much can be just as bad (if not moreso) as caring too little. Finding the balance is going to be hard but is necessary if I am to succeed.
MattyV
Foreshadowing…
I saw it coming. I told Bren I saw it coming long before. The signs were all there. Bren came home from work last night and gave me some news about an acquaintance of ours. It’s as if I could see the train barrelling down the tracks but feeling helpless to do anything about it.
I said I saw it coming long before. Before I was de-friended on Facebook by this person, the ramblings & posts had me wondering. The depressive posts, the “no one understands me or what I’m going through except so & so”, the odd behaviors & photos tipped me off that something was coming. I hate being right about stuff like this.
The word “judgement” comes into my mind, but really I don’t think its a judgement but more than a conclusion. I wasn’t judging this person, I was merely looking at the facts and combining them into a possible outcome (which came to pass).
I am currently reading a book by Adam Carolla (famous for “Loveline w/ Dr. Drew” & “The Man Show”) and although he has some rough language in it, I agree with many of his points about the declination of America. He makes a good case about how our problems today should have been seen long ago and instead of asking “Why is this happening?”, we should be asking “How can we fix it?”.
He’s had some pretty harsh things to say about the concept of welfare & free school lunches. One quote that caught my attention during his rant about welfare is a pretty poigniant one:
“I’ve seen enough promos for “The Biggest Loser” to know that even the laziest and most pathetic individual is capable of soaring to great heights given some structure and motivation…”
He spoke in the regard that those on welfare are not motivated enough to try and get off of it and instead becomes angry at the government for not giving them more benefits. He speculates that if given proper motivation & structure that the welfare program won’t have to be a permanent “dead-end”.
I saw this evident in an article I read on Fark.com about a woman “caught up” in the cycle of poverty. She says she had been looking for a job and when offered a position at a local pizza place she had to take a food safety test. She failed the test and instead of studying for the test and trying again, she gave up. I thought she would’ve had some motivation since she has 4 children, one of which is beginning to show signs of bad things ahead (being arrested, kicked out of school, etc.), but apparently there is none.
I want to accomplish more than my parents have, I want my kids to accomplish more than I have – that’s what being a parent is all about.
Right now I can see the writing on the wall in my own life. The signs are there, even though I’ve been trying to ignore them, pretending that they aren’t there. But I can’t try and fool myself any longer. I need to make decisions before decisions are made for me. The foreshadowing is catching up and I don’t want the outcome to be a reality…
Ignoring the signs isn’t a good thing, you’ll end up falling off the cliff…
MattyV
Really mature…
Responsibility hasn’t come easy for me. In that respect I am still a bit immature, but I am learning. I’ll drag my feet on stuff, selectively “forget” things, or just plain cancel out on plans because I don’t want to be responsible.
Being a husband, parent, & working member of society I have had some hard lessons to learn about responsibility. I’ve learned what can happen if you don’t balance your checkbook daily, I’ve learned what happens when you forget to turn in library books, a lot of learning has taken place and I am still constantly learning each and every day.
Some days I don’t feel like being responsible, like I would rather withdraw from the world, from my obligations, to shrink back to my childhood when I didn’t have a mortgage or have to take care of kids or maintain a house. Times when I could sleep all day, veg out in front of the television for hours on end, just do mundless stuff and not have to answer to anyone or anything.
We all gotta grow up sometime and that “inner child” will claw at your gut and want you to remain stagnant. Maturity is a process and I swear that it is getting harder and harder for people to mature. In a society that is “all about me” & “gimme, gimme, gimme”, I can see why.
I know some of my own peers that seem to have stagnated in their maturity. It’s as if they had never left high school, somehow on a permenant summer vacation filled with partying, goofing off, & what seems like to me no responsibilities. Almost as if they were the antithesis of 1 Cor 13:11…:
“When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.”
Maturity doesn’t have to be a death sentence to fun, just a different level of fun is all…
MattyV
Catching a break…
Catching breaks are an exhilarating experience. Some call it luck, I call them blessings. This weekend when it was warming up rapidly, I decided to flip on the air conditioner. The house started to steadily cool, a bit slower than I had liked but I figure it would have to work overtime to get the temperature down (the house was 84 degrees, I had the thermostat set for 75 degrees) and let it go at that.
Flash-forward to 3am. I get up to use the facilities and notice the air conditioner is still running. I check the temp and see that it had dropped a whopping 6 degrees since 7pm. I check Javan’s room (he has a vent within easy access) and notice that cool air was coming out, but not the ice cold air I am accustomed to from our conditioner.
I shut off the air, change the filter, cycle the breakers, and try turning on the air again. Still the cool air streaming from the vents. I decided to just shut the whole thing off and go back to bed. Later on in the morning I tried once again but this time warm air was spewing from the vents. Oh, crap…
We made it through the day with the windows open (thankfully our home is mostly shaded). It was a bit steamy in the house, but thankfully we all had fans and there was a cooling front moving in for part of the week. I called to make an appointment to have a repair person come out and prepared for the worst (while hoping/praying for the best).
I did some Googling to see what the causes could be for the hot air and got answers including a coolant recharge to an entire unit replacement. Both of those options were expensive (recharge of $300 or replacement of $750-$1,000), but instead of pulling myself down I decided to let it go.
I had asked a few people to just pray for an answer and that the cost was something we could handle ourselves without having to go on a payment/credit plan (I hate not being able to pay for things straight-up).
Bren called shortly after the technician left. Turns out the trouble was a faulty condensor (fairly common for the age of the central air unit), and the tech was able to cut us a deal on the part which saved us a nice chunk of change. We were able to pay for it totally (thank you Emergency Fund!) without having to go on credit or a payment plan.
Just when I thought things were getting better, my car started leaking coolant badly. A friend of mine does repairwork on the side, so I called him to see if he could check it out for me. He stopped by my office and we looked at it together. “Hmm, I think its probably the water pump…” My heart sank. I was hoping it was a simple hole in a hose or loose connection, not a water pump.
“What do you think it will cost?” My mind was racing, but I calmed down enough and figured I would find a way to pay for the repair somehow. No sense in getting in a tizzy, I was thankful the part went bad while I was around town instead of on our way to Pennsylvania or Chicago.
“Well, I could probably get a refurbished one for around $20 or a new one for like $50 or so…” I was dumbfounded. Usually when you hear “water pump” you think of big dollar signs, but here we were. I gladly paid my friend for the part & labor to install, thankful to have a friend that can do work like this.
Catching breaks is a great experience, seeing God work is amazing…
MattyV
Ch-changes…
Talked to one of my best friends from school this morning. We’ve been best friends since the 3rd grade and one of the only ones that I talk with on a semi-regular basis in person. He stopped by to pick up my car to do some mechanical work on it for me and we spoke a bit on people from school.
He asked me if I see anyone from school around town and I mentioned that I work across the street from one and have had dinner with a couple others, but haven’t had contact with many others in person. He commented he had seen one girl from school that he barely recognized, she had “increased her appearance” by quite a lot (trying to be nice).
Change is a part of life. I think that’s from the movie “Forrest Gump”. There are some people out there that look the same as they did back in high school. There are those out there that have drastically changed (and not necessarily in a good way), and still others that have aged gracefully over the years.
I’m glad for change. If we didn’t have change then there would be no reason for hope. If there is no reason for hope, then there is no reason for life. And well, if there is no reason for life – then what are we doing here?
Changes, good or bad, are necessary because they help us to grow as people…
MattyV
Flash Forward
Ever have one of those times where you wished that you had a time machine to flash forward to find out the outcome of a decision or issue?
I admit I’ve had a few of those in my life & have been thinking about that concept lately. It’s like I want to read the last chapter of the book to find out how my life ends up instead of following the story as it progresses. Anxiety, anger, resentment, those are just a few of the emotions that come to mind.
I can be one impatient person at times, letting my emotions get the best of me & lashing out or acting on them instead of waiting and rationally thinking things through. Reminds me of a video game I recently purchased. When it came out last fall it was $60, with some retail outlets offering it for a little bit less around Christmastime ($50 or so). I was interested in it, but not at that price.
I figured it would have to go on sale at some point in the next 6 months and I would pick it up then. It did, dropped down to $30 but I still didn’t pick it up. Through some of the frugal websites I frequent, I came across a post on some sales that GameFly was having (GameFly is the “Netflix” of games, subscription-based rentals) on titles they were pulling from service. In amongst the titles was the one I had wanted to purchase for $18. Thanks to a little windfall I had won, the game had cost me all of $5 out of pocket. Much better than the $60, $50, or even the $30 previous pricetags. The game was Gears of War 3, if you’re interested…
On the other side, I ended up purchasing something else for full retail that ended up going on sale at another retailer for about half price less than a month later. That purchase was driven by emotion. I was angry, frustrated, & tired of dealing with the issue that I went off and bought it to make the whole ordeal go away. It solved the temporary issue, but in the long-term I think it was the worse thing I could have done.
I’ve got a couple of issues right now that I wished I could “flash forward” to be sure that things turn out alright. For now, I guess I need to lean on my Creator & trust in Romans 8:28…
MattyV
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