Expectations

Why is it that expectations we place on others affects us so much. Are we not our own people? Are we not supposed to make our own decisions based on what's best for us? Why should we expect others to act in accordance to our expectations? Common courtesies aside, you can tell more about a person from what they do than what they say.

We all know someone, or many people, who are so into their lives that they don't care about others. They go where they want, when they want and do what they want, when they want without caring how it affects others. Is there something wrong with that? To the others I guess. To that person, it's who they are.

Is that good enough though, to excuse them because "that's who they are"? I don't think so. I mentioned common courtesies earlier. These include calling people on their birthdays or other days that are special to them. Remembering special days. Being thoughtful and anticipating what someone would like and doing random acts of kindness. One smile or kind word can turn someone's day around, and it doesn't take much time out of your day to do it.

Had a situation this week where it was my wife's birthday. It's customary in our family to call the person who's birthday it is and sing/wish them a happy birthday. Most of us are good about doing it, but there are a few who are caught up in their worlds and either don't have time or take the time to call. As much as I can say that that's to be expected, and that's who they are, it hurts, because after 16 years of marriage, my wife is as much an extended family member as the rest of us. However, what hurt the most is when our oldest daughter didn't call. My wife said to let it go, she had a good birthday, it's okay, she's learned not to expect much from some people so she won't be disappointed. Well, I wasn't fine with it. I called our daughter and told her I wasn't real happy that she didn't call her mother on her birthday. She needs to realize that what she does affects other people. My sister tells me not to give up on those that are close to us, but careless in their actions. Okay I won't give up on them, but I'm not going to give them a green light to continue to get away with their unthoughtfulness. I'll let them know that they forgot to do something or call someone and I'll remind them several times. When the time comes where I know they just don't care, then I'll start to drift to giving up on them.

What do you expect?

It's Amazing

People are amazing. Life is amazing. Things are amazing. Define amazing. Anything and everything that makes you shake you head in wonder, do a double take, take a step back to ponder. Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, New England Patriots, San Diego Chargers, Miami Dolphins - Amazing. Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, France - Amazing. Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs - Amazing. Every day, something somewhere will make you ponder. Is $275,000,000 too much to pay a baseball player? Obviously not. Amazing. Is growing abnormally over the course of a couple of years, yet denying it all the way to jail aver the top? Apparently not for some. Amazing. Is going undefeated the same year the only historical undefeated team goes win less out of the question? Guess not. Amazing. How about a team who supposedly has some of the best players in the game, playing .500 football. Out of line? Not at all. Amazing.

I can go on and on. Nature gives us amazing things every day. Birth, death, life; all around us, every day. Amazing. Unconditional love, conditional love, love that is and shouldn't be, love that should be but isn't. Amazing. Sunrises, sunsets, snow fall, rain fall. Amazing. Albert Einstein had a great quote, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." Amazing.

Friggin Sports

What is it about team sports? Win or lose, our team can totally control our emotions. From high school to professional, they make such an impact on us. Why is that? Is it that they represent us? They belong to us emotionally? They build us up and let us down? I don't know. I think it may have to do with expectations. If you live in a bad sports town, where the teams continually lose, you don't expect much, and you don't get disappointed. However, once good year can make you believe that there should be other good years and the expectations go up. When the next year isn't so good, there's disappointment. When you grow up loving sports, and you marry the local teams, you live and die by what they do. When they win, you're great. When they lose, it's the pits. The Padres have a play-in game today. It was a season of ups and downs. They don't have the best team, by far, but they've played well for the most part. It's hard to love a team like that 'cause you never know what you're going to get. You don't want to get too excited because you figure they'll let you down at some point. This weekend, they only had to win one of two games. They lost them both. Now, they have to win tonight or they don't make the playoffs. The Chargers...supposed to have some of the best talent in the league. Finished 14 and 2 last year and expectations were huge. Super Bowl huge. What do we have? 1 and 3 so far this year and they are looking horrible.

Did you hear about the Oklahoma fan who about killed a Texas fan for wearing a Texas shirt into the bar in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma fan, a 56 year old minister no less and not even an alumni, tore into this guys crotch and caused him to get about 60 stitches to close the wounds. The stories go on and on, about parents berating the coaches, parents beating up other parents, fights in the stands, etc. What is it?

I guess if you go deep, it's like protecting your country's flag, your city's honor. I will fight as long as my team is fighting. If my team fights no more, than the heck with them, and I'll let them know that they've disappointed me. I'll boo, I'll stop going to the games, I'll stop tuning in. That'll show them. But wait, they've won a game, maybe, just maybe that'll turn it around for them. Maybe I'll be able to hold up my head and support my team, support my city again. The expectations...Friggin sports.

It's only cheating if you get caught

A couple of weeks ago, Bill Belicheat of the Patriots was "caught" video taping the defensive signals of the other team. Said he didn't understand what the league meant when they said there will be no video cameras on the sideline, coaches box, etc. How much clearer could the league have made it? No means no, as in none, not ever. Yet, he did it and he finally got caught. According to most interviewees, it's been going on for years and that it's part of the game. Barry Bonds "supposedly" has been taking steriods and HGH for a while, ever since Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa had their incredible homerun seasons. Barry is now the *homerun king of baseball. He will hold that title for a while because he hasn't been caught. Most baseball players, although recognizing him as being a jerk, accept what he's done. Track and field, swimming, basketball, you name it, it's all done for competitive advantage, and for the most part is accepted as part of the game.

Well, competitive advantage is the driving force in our world as well. Parents enrolling their 3 year olds in school and learning centers so that they can get into the best colleges later in life. Parents lying about the childrens' ages so that they can stay back a year and be better than the other kids in their class or sport. Must have more; must be better. That's a lot of pressure on the kids and a lot of stress on the parents. From parents fighting with coaches, kids beating other kids with bats, parents yelling at their kids and others, it makes me wonder where this world is going. Then, there's the other side. The side that says kids can't play tag because there will be some kids who aren't as fast as the others who will always be "it". They'll have their feelings and egos hurt and will have to deal with that later in life. There are those who say everyone must be a winner. Well, believe it or not, that isn't the case in life. There are those with better skills who will exceed in different ways. Just because someone isn't as fast as someone else in tag, doesn't mean they don't excel in other ways. We should encourage children to excel in what they're good at and not force them into things they aren't. That's not to say to never have them try new things but if it's obvious that they don't have the aptitude for certain things, chances are they never will. People have enough stress without having to try to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Growing up, we learned to deal with our own issues. If an adult other than our parents caught us doing something we shouldn't be doing, generally they told our parents and let our parents deal with us. Parents behaved at sporting events. There was no name calling, no cursing. Professional athletes, for the most part, behaved liked honorable people, people you could look up to and call a hero. I don't want to say it was a simpler life, but it was a different life. We played sports and had fun. Yes, there was competition, but you competed on natural ability. Some people were better than others. It hurt when we didn't win, but we moved on. We didn't think about cheating so that we could win that next game. Life is about victory and defeat. Every day we have battles with certain things and we win or lose and we move on. If we win by cheating, where's the value in that? You don't need to worry about getting caught if you don't cheat. There's a lot of value in that.

The Opportunity Was There...

The other night we had some family pictures taken. It'd been a long time, about 7 years, since the last time and the opportunity came up, so we took advantage of it. We got to the gym while the family before us was finished so the kids and I played a little basketball and dodge ball and volleyball. Yes, we were all dressed up, and yes, it was really hot, but the opportunity was there, so we took advantage of it. The pictures were for the church directory, but since they were taken by a photo studio, we had Misty join us for some complete family pictures. We took some of the family, and then some of kids, and then one of Nanci and me. When the kids were posing for their pictures, I was overcome with how blessed we are. We have three, really gorgeous, very photogenic kids. Did I mention that they are really terrific kids as well, most of the time?

How often do we get caught up in our own activities, our own lifes, our own minds and forget about taking the time to look around us and really appreciate what we have? Well, the opportunity was there, so I did. I'm blessed with a wife who really loves me. I'm blessed with kids who started life with very little but pain and ugliness and now have love and beauty. I'm blessed with an extended family who are all pretty terrific people. I'm blessed with a job that is very secure. I'm blessed with people who truly care about me and my well being, and not those who just say that they are (and I can tell the difference). I'm blessed with a mind that is always learning. I'm blessed with a body that can get out of bed every morning, 365 days a year, with barely a sniffle now and again and a few times a week lets me run several miles to start my day. I'm blessed with a great home, that's pretty much just the way we want it now. I'm blessed with a bank account that increases monthly. I am truly blessed. And why did I sit and think about all of this?

The opportunity was there, so I did it. Needs to be done every now and again, and it sure feels good when it is. Take the opportunity and do it yourself.

What Is My Destiny?

Do we make our own destiny? I think we do, up to a point, with the choices we make, the decisions we make, every moment of every day. We could choose to walk in front of a truck, thus ending our life. We could choose to eat healthy and exercise and perhaps live much longer lives. I say perhaps, because we can't choose when we die, unless we take our own lives. I believe that only God knows that and there's not much we can do about it. However, what happens between now and then, it's all up to us. We move forward with our lives and create our existence. In one of the books I've been reading, it says that everything that is here was first just a thought. Thought brings action which brings reality. Therefore, our thinking brings about our reality. Can we think ourselves great? Of course. Can we do the actions that will make us great? Of course. Can we decide that we don't want to let lifes hurts keep us down? Of course. There are enough examples of individuals who have gone above and beyond what the world said they should have done, just as there are plenty of examples of individuals who never fulfilled their potentials. Some say that if you want to be successful, do what successful people do. it's been proven time and time again. So do I think we make our own destiny? Yes.

Free Will

Did you know that the Lutheran Church says we don't have free will? It's a theological thing. Not sure what it all means but I think I'll have to take it up with someone and have them really explain it to me. In looking into a little bit, it seems that since God, being all knowing, knows what we are going to do before we do it, so the choice isn't really ours and there is no free will, 'cause that means that God has no control over us.

To my way of thinking, when we were given choices, we were given free will to choose. Sure, some of those choices, well all of those choices, come with consequences, either good or bad, but it's our choice, our free will, and our consequences. If you keep God first and foremost, then you'd most likely choose on the side of good, but so often we choose based on what's going on with us at that time; who we're with, what mood we're in, etc. Eve chose to eat the apple and Adam chose to go along with her. Cain chose to kill Able, and so on. I feel that God gave us choices to empower us. God wants us to better ourselves, to prove ourselves. We do that with the choices that we make.

The other day I was at the grocery store. A man with 3 kids came up to me and pointing at the floor asked it that was my $100 bill. I thanked him and told him it wasn't but that I would turn it in to the store manager, which I did. We both made a choice. He did the right thing in front of his children, teaching them right. When I turned the money in, the manager took my name and number and said if no one claimed it, it would be mine. That wasn't right either, since I wasn't the first one to find it. I got the first man's number and told him that if the manager called, I'd have him call him and give him the money. An easy choice since it was never my money to begin with. Turns out someone did claim the money so it went back to the original owner. My choices were easy. I didn't find the money and I didn't lose the money. It would have been wrong for me keep the money. Free will? Yes, I freely and willfully turned the money in. Did God know that I was going to do that? Sure, but it was still my choice.

We're here to learn lessons. We're here to live consequences. Not every choice is the right one, or the smart one, but if we learn from it, then it was the worthwhile one. I can't see a God who dictates every thing we do. We don't do that as parents. Now, I'm not saying we are as all powerful and all knowing and all loving as God, but we know enough to let our children make mistakes and learn from them, even when we know in advance what they're going to do...because we mostly, in free will, did the same things ourselves.