Just funny

Do people know they are ridiculous? How is it that two people so often can disagree and both be totally convinced in their own mind that the other one is crazy? I have been in a dispute before where I was thinking to myself that the person I was talking to must have absolutely lost their flippin mind. Gonzo. In my egotism I have felt that there is no way anyone could really think that about me. Even when I have been in a disagreement and the other person tells me I am nuts I still think they are just saying that because they know I'm right. They telling me I am not making any sense because they are trying to make me think I am crazy so they won't be proven wrong. My logic skills are above reproach. You are talking to the man who first thought of, but did not apply for patents soon enough, spray on sunblock. Yep, my idea. Who has two thumbs and thought of built in child seats? This guy. I own intellectual property rights on a button you push on your T.V. to make your remote beep so you can find it. I am a genius!!! I thought of the soon to hit the shelf cheese greater. Its a cheese grater, but greater, thereby making it the cheese greater!!! Inconceivable by anyone of mere normal intelligence. If you are reading this I want you to know that you are the crazy one not me. I have never done anything stupid. Like that time when I was a kid and I threw a baseball bat up in the air in a crowded area and yelled "Heads up!" and ran. That was no mistake. The kid who actually responded by looking up deserved the concussion. Who really looks up when someone yells that? Normal people cover their heads and run. Oh and that time I drove a work truck that was too high under a bridge that was to low? Well the resulting crash was no mistake. That was payback. I was caught in a flash flood in that very same spot years earlier in the dead of winter. My car was completely flooded and I had to get out in thigh high water, push the car out and walk for help. Now who's laughing bridge? Not so funny with a water truck up in your face. I only use good solid logic all the time. Even financially. All of my purchases have been so smart. Like my four or five workout pieces of equipment that I only used once or twice. Brilliant! Buying those kept me from getting a gym membership which would have cost me even more money. And my paintball gun I had to have and used once. Another great buy. It is in mint condition and nearing collector status. In the end I am just glad I am of sound mind, all the time.

Feeling a bit retrospective maybe??

I dunno. I dunno. Maybe it is my grand old age of 32. Or perhaps the happenings of the last couple years have just shifted perspective so much that I am just not settled in my new vantage point. I really don't know. The other day I got some perspective on the term "The weight of the world". I was doing my normal thing, listening to a little Kenny G, candles lit soaking in a nice bath. Made sure I exfoliated. Called my wife in like it was an emergency so she could see me make my own jet tub from my rear. Typical bath night. I was there, half floating and tired. So I rolled on my side in the fetal position and closed my eyes. I kicked the drain plug and just let the water drain. I didn't move, nor did I want to move. I could have stayed warm and just laid there. No need to get up. The water was draining and I had one ear in the water and one ear out. Listening to it drain. As the level dropped I could feel my weight taking hold. Its funny, even though I know I didn't gain weight during the soothing melodies of K.G. I feel the water leaving the tub and I feel heavy. Just heavy. Like, unnaturally heavy. I felt like I didn't, maybe couldn't get up. Then I thought about babies. What a royal pain in the ass getting born must be for them. Here they have been, in a nice warm bath for as long as they can remember. Listening to a little Kenster a.k.a. mom's heart beat soothing them. They lay there in the fetal position not a care in the world. They don't even have to get out to eat. How awesome is that?! We interrupt this blog to bring you a brilliant idea I just thought of. Bathing in warm pudding. That way you can eat while you lay there. Back to the lecture at hand. The baby is there in little day spa heaven and then they can hear the water draining. Next thing they realize their head is going down the drain! Oh snap. Glad that doesn't happen during normal bathing. But nevertheless, next thing they know, they are out of the tub. They fell heavy, not twenty minute bath time heavy, but nine month never lifted a finger to do anything but poke mommy's bladder type heavy. You know what they feel? The weight of the world. The weight of the world on their shoulders. They can cry and moan but they can't lift their head its so heavy. Its damn bright and they can't seem to open their eyes. Poor kid is confused. He just got kicked out of club med and tossed into the ghetto without shoes or a wallet. That's how I felt for that brief moment. Like, "where did the water go?" I was heavy. Air felt heavy. I felt weak. Cold. Like Linsdey Lohan any given morning, just blah. I felt like that on the inside too, just the weight of the world on my shoulders. Then I thought about that whole baby thing, and then I thought, "How do friggin babies handle it?" So I pooped in the tub and cried until Shan cleaned me up. Now freshly diapered and in my bed, I thought about what else babies do. They fuss and cry and continue to insist on being pampered for a while. But eventually they decide to open their eyes and see whats up, they lift their head, start moving and adjusting to the weight of the world. Eventually they even decide to open up some to the people around them and talk a bit. Before long they don't want help anymore, they want to do it themselves. The weight of the world didn't go away, those little suckers just got stronger and adapted, eventually thriving with that same weight still there. I thinks that life has stages, at least for me. Like mini births where you feel the weight of the world all over again. There's that whole being born thing, thats a pretty big stage, then it was my parents divorce, graduating high school, marriage, my little boys birth, being a sole provider and whatever else has come my way. During these times where you feel that weight you react like a baby a lot. You whine and cry like no tomorrow. You want someone else to help you, you try to keep your eyes closed thinking its all a bad dream and somebody is going to shove you back into your weightless wonderland. Sometime you need that for a while too. Someone to carry you. Gosh I feel waves of thankfulness for my wife as I type this. She has carried a very immature young man, a very angry man at times and nowadays an old man who sometimes feels like things are just moving way too fast. I hope I have carried her a time or two. Our two amazing kids? They have carried me more than they may ever know. When the weight of the world makes me not want to get up they will hug me, or hand me a piece of paper that tells me how great I am and I get up and move on. Some people, when they feel that weight, they don't have the strength to get up anymore. I guess that can be depression, just an inability to hold up the sky. I really don't have an end to this blog just like I barely had a beginning. Just a thought I thunk the other day and decided to write down.

Lowered expectations?

Just the other day, as I was driving in my car and in a competition to not let some guy get around me before my exit, I heard a commentator on my A.M. dial bring to remembrance a truth I have known, but not thought about, for a while. Let me pause to say that I realized I was no longer as cool as I thought I was when I started hopping in my sweet ride and cranking Dr. Laura as the base pumped and I leaned like a cholo while declaring to the neighborhood teens "I am my kids mom." That's how life is though. One day you graduate high school, the next you see pictures of your angel daughter in her sports bra plastered on FB. I used to pop my D.J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince tape in. Now I tune in to news talk 590. Back to my talking point. What was brought up was the fact that your happiness depends on your expectations. If I expect to wait an hour to be seated at a restaurant and it takes 30 minutes, I am happy I got seated so fast. If I am expecting a 10 minute wait and it takes half an hour, I am pissed. So it goes for everything in life. My expectation will guide my level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. For instance, my expectation that Brittney Spears was going to gain 400 pounds and eat her cell mate at the loony bin makes me so much more happy with her last CD. A masterpiece of song writing with songs like "If you seek Amy" and lyrics for the ages like "ha ha, he he, ha ha, ho." Brilliant!! Bravo!! So much better than head shaving child endangering antics! That's why sequels suck. We think they'll be good. That's a larf. Although I am to the point where I think all sequels will suck so bad that they now are better than I expected. Its magic!

The problem for me is finding the sweet spot. How do I not set my expectations so high that I am bound to be disappointed and at the same time not set them so low that I settle for less than what I deserve or am capable of? I need to admit that I have failed at this worse than the Raiders fail me on any given Sunday. Die Al Davis. Probably because I never had clear expectations growing up. My parents expected a lot but didn't have the same expectations for themselves. Can you say mixed messages? There is no single expectation I have for myself. Like most things its not so simple. I have my own expectations on how I am at work, at home, as a husband a father a friend and on a spiritual level. Some things I think I do OK with and others I think I am lousy at. It doesn't benefit me to expect nothing of myself so I will be happy with whatever happens in life. Those people are called the children of famous people. So the key to happiness is finding balance in your expectations. Being flexible in them as well. My work has a saying for that, "My best is good enough for today, tomorrow I'll do better".

My big problem is that my expectations for those around me are always so much higher than they are for me. So I am less happy because people don't meet my expectations. Even worse is that when I really stop and think about my expectations, I find that they are unreasonable. I feel like publicly apologizing to my wife. She is amazing. She is beautiful and smart. Funny as hell. As we have grown up together she has been amazingly strong through very difficult times. But in reality my own expectations for her have been so ridiculous that I am surprised she has been able to put up with me. Of course the expectations I put on myself as a husband are far less. I work hard all day, so why should I come home and work more? I would never make that an issue, so why does she? Why can't she just be happy? That's a funny one, why can't she just be happy. That's like asking, why can't she just have such low expectations of me that I seem like a great husband? Does anyone really want that? I don't. I don't want my wife to have low expectations of me. I want them high because she deserves it. As I earnestly consider what my expectations of her are, unfortunately, they haven't been realistic or fair. S and I married very young and have always had our ups and downs. I have never really given her credit for the ups or me blame for the downs. What a fool.

I am now choosing to evaluate all of my expectations. Not on a broad scale, but one expectation at a time. What do I expect from myself tonight after work from myself? From my family? Is that expectation fair? If I expect something unreasonable who is to blame if I am dissatisfied? The last few days I have just been trying to do these self checks all throughout the day. I am walking in to work. What are my expectations of how it should look when I walk in? What do I expect for the day from my employees? What do I expect today for myself? I am trying to be realistic and set myself up for a challenge that will lead to success. Not an impossible goal that will only lead to failure. My hope is that I am a better man because of it. That my family and friends benefit from being around someone who truly appreciates them for who they are instead of someone who expects more than they can be.

I will probably struggle with my happiness philosophy, but that's OK. I expected as much. It is helping me so far. I feel more content at this moment than I have in a long time. I need to continue to expect more out of how I expect. Easy enough.

XOXO - Blogger Guy