Taking the Leap

For the longest time I have had this book floating around in my noggin.  It is a series of random events, experiences, observations, recollections related to my trips to Japan...11 to be exact.  The hard part is that I have never considered myself a writer.  That is probably due to my lack of interest in anything to do with English courses back eons ago when I was a kid in school.  But I actually enjoy writing.  I enjoy taking the electron pulses between my ears and putting them down on paper...er...I mean computer screen.  But I am a "pecker" (insert rude thoughts now please).  I HATED  typing lessons in high school so much so that I never took a typing class.  That's right...not one lesson

I think this is why I am enjoying the blogosphere.  Blogging is like writing...but quicker and easier for my lack of attention retaining ability...uh...what was I doing?  Oh yeah, explaining why I like to blog.  So blogging has been a great outlet for me and a way for me get my toes wet in the pool of literature.  But I still have these Japan memories that I want to share and get out of my head so it is official...I am taking the leap from blogger to writer.  And below is an excerpt from my potential future book, "No Gaijin Allowed."

"Again...that is when I knew, I am no longer in the comfort of my social and geographical surroundings.  Little did I know that some customs that we like to hold onto are not that normal of a custom in other parts of the world.  At first I had thought that my airline seat neighbor was some sort of barbaric neanderthal who had checked his manners in along with his luggage.  So here I stand now...the flight is over.  I had survived the longest flight of my life.  Since me and sleep and flying do not really all go together, I am now in the line at customs in the Narita International Airport.  My business partner for this trip is standing along with me even though we were unable to sit next to one another on the flight.  He looks like I do...sleep deprived and punch drunk.  The clock says something like 4:00PM in the afternoon local time, but we have been awake now for almost 24 hours.  So you get the idea, we are tired and not in our right mind which is why we both lost control with laughter when some of the local men made us aware again that some things are now ok to do in public such as make noises from the lower half of your body that resemble a buzz saw.  After a few rounds of that, he and I just looked at each other and nearly fell to the ground with laughter.  I know, it sounds juvenile, but again we were tired and not fully aware of some the small differences we would see upon our arrival in Japan.  But we were receiving a quick education."

Now if I can just stay motivated to get more of my thoughts officially entered into this book, I might just finish it someday and, even if it never reaches the shelf of your local bookstore, I will feel good that I gave writing a whirl.  There is yet some more of my inside poop...

It Was the Goat's Fault?

Now please do not take what I am saying out of context, but most everyone has heard the news of the mountain goat attack in the State of Washington.  One man was mortally injured during the attack.  My sympathy and prayers go out to his family for their loss.

But my question is...why do we blame the goat for attacking someone and then sentence the goat to death because of it.  This same reaction occurs anytime you hear of a hiker or natural park visitor being attacked by any wild animal whether it is a bear, a cougar, wolf, goat etc. If the guilty animal is found...we kill it as if it were a criminal.  Why are WILD animals treated as murderers and sentenced to death (if caught) because we, human intruders, walk and hike into THEIR territory? 

We treat the wild animals the same as we do domestic dogs who attack someone, which is usually attributed to the owner’s bad training.  These mountain goats and bears  and wolves are in their OWN territory and signs are usually posted everywhere saying “warning, wild animals in this area” (or something to that effect).  Maybe these goats are becoming more aggressive towards people because humans have been aggressive towards them (i.e. Shooting at them, tracking them etc).  Maybe it was a natural reaction to make sure they were protecting their young.  So we fault them and kill them because they did what was potentially natural?

It seems to be a contradiction of preservation when we go into a WILD animal’s territory and then set the rules of conduct for the animals and punish them if they don’t obey our laws.  We can control our actions, but WILD animals react off of instinct and survival.

Does anyone else see an issue here with how we react to things like this?

Not a Great Society

"Not a great society."  That is a line from one of my favorite movies, The American President.  The President, played by Michael Douglas, makes that stateroom during a news conference and his staff scrambles to spin it in not such a negative light. 

Well...I am hear to tell you that we (the USA) are not a great society.  We like to think of ourselves as great.  We like to tell other nations how great we are, but the the reality of our daily living proves otherwise.

I believe we WERE a great society, but OHHH how things have changed in the last 50 or so years.  A “great society” does not have citizens who look only to their own self-interests at the expense of everyone else.  It does not have people who look at someone else’s property as simply something to take when the true owner is not looking.  It does not have an abundance of people who lack simple decency for the elderly and disabled of its society.

Let me give some concrete examples of what I mean.  Have you noticed that it is no longer acceptable to slow down before making a right or left hand turn off of a street?  Just look in your rear-view mirror the next time you go to turn off of a street and see how many behind you are throwing their hands up in disdain or are giving you the one-fingered salute.   I guess we now expect everyone to go up on two wheels as they make that 90 degree turn at 50MPH.

Have you tried to merge into traffic and realize that no one wants to make eye contact with you as they keep passing you by and as you sit there with your turn signal on just hopping someone might actually notice you and let you in?  How dare you try to come onto a street that so many already have laid claim to.

Have you ever watched people in your local store rush ahead to beat that poor slower elderly person to the front of the line or cut them off out in the parking lot as they tried to get to that closer parking spot? 

On a personal note...I left my digital camera in the golf cart this past weekend only to learn that someone who took the same cart out after me decided to keep my camera as their own.  I am sure they thought...”wow, a gift from God.  It just magically appeared in my cart.”  Or maybe the person simply thought...I have been screwed in the past so it is my turn to screw someone else.  You know, that good old golden rule of do to others what they have done to you.  Or maybe the person didn’t think about anyone else but her or himself.  I am sure they looked at the many pictures on my memory card where I had shared some great memorable moments with my cancer surviving wife during our 5 year celebration of being cancer free and they thought..."poor fool, he should have taken better care of his camera."

Thanks fellow citizen.  You not only took my camera, but you took away memories as well.  Bravo to you!

These are just a few examples of why I say...we are NOT a great society.  We are a society now made up of “me first, screw everyone else” peeps.  We are so busy making ourselves feel better by comparing ourselves to other nations and exposing their faults while ignoring our own degrading societal issues.

What has happened?  Are we not teaching our children the idea of respect any longer?  Are we so wrapped up in our quest for more that we have lost sight of what it means to truly live?  I am not sure what the real answer is but I can say that I am sick and tired of it and hope someday and somehow we wake up to what is going on and try to make a change.

There is some inside poop for the day...

We Are Killing Ourselves

 For the record...I am not a rocket scientist.  I am not a graduate of MIT.  I was not a member of Mensa.  But I do not feel you have to be in the top 5% of the intellectual elite to see what is going on around us everyday.

I currently reside in a small, Midwestern town.  Compared to a lot of U.S. cities, you might even consider the town to be rural.  If you were to visit this town for more than a day, you too would not have to be a genius to see what is happening to its residents.

Let me set the stage for the point I am about to get to.  If you drive up the main street of this town, you will see a seafood buffet restaurant, a pizza buffet restaurant, A Chinese buffet restaurant, another Chinese buffet restaurant, yet another Chinese buffet restaurant, every fast food chain you can think of, a Golden Coral Buffet restaurant, another all-you-can-eat style restaurant and a host of other eating establishments specializing in everything fried and smothered.  To further help with the visual, all of these restaurants (minus the fast food chains) still have the "smoking" option when it comes to seating.  You will also see "discount tobacco shops" every so many blocks up and down the street.

So with this picture painted in your mind, now picture walking into one of these food venues and seeing folks clinging to their oxygen tanks while taking a drag from one of their freshly lit cigarettes.  Then picture the majority of the patrons all being as much as 75 to 100lbs overweight.

That is what I see on a daily basis as I go about my business around town.  We are becoming known as the obese nation.  We are the ones who go on cruises and demand multiple entrees for our dinner.  We are the ones shuffling along with canes and cruising around on scooters because we are severely overweight.

And the real problem is that other Countries see us as we are but we refuse to talk about for fear of being somehow less than sensitive or even worse...politically incorrect.

Meanwhile...children are being subjected to horrific eating habits.  Our smallest of infants are being forced to inhale massive amounts of smoke.  We have decided it is time to accept everyone as if obesity is some form of lifestyle or ethnicity and smoking is a "human right" regardless of the facts related to the dangers of second hand smoke.

The sad part to me is that our rural parts of the Country are offered little in the way of help or better, healthier eating options.  We cover up our awful food choices by referring to them as comfort food or "homestyle cooking."

It is time to wake ourselves up and face facts; We are killing ourselves everyday that we ignore our weight and poor health.  Lifespans are being shortened and health care costs are going through the roof.

And you don't have to be some brilliant person to see it.  It is happening all around us and all we have to do is wake up and look around.  It saddens me to see so many young people and children who are obese.  It saddens me to see so many of my fellow residents barely able to get around, but yet make it a daily practice to visit their favorite fast food restaurant.  Our Country needs a wake up call.  Let's get our heads back out of the sand and face the reality of where we are and make the decision to change.  Stop supporting all of these horrible food venues and actually try to find healthier options.  It is a shame to see healthier options go out of business while "Bob's Chicken and Pancake Hut" thrives.

Just some more inside poop that I needed to share...

Just Being Me

I heard Mark Zuckerberg once say..."integrity is being the same person to everyone you meet."  That coming from a friggin genius seems a bit over simplified, but he hit the nail on the head.  We are in a day and age where so many are trying to "brand" themselves in the realm of social media.  They try to portray a certain image through their posts and tweets.  And I have heard some of these same people say that they only tweet things that relate to their "brand" and, if they want to also be who they are in real life, they go as far as setting up multiple accounts on Twitter and Facebook so they can separate their personal life from their "branded" business life.

Well you know what I really think of that?  It's a bunch of hooey!  That's right...I said HOOEY!  So many are just afraid to be who they are because they think being themselves is not what other people will want if they are a someone offering a product or service.  Who made up this rule anyways?  Who decided that a person in business had to be some stiff, unemotional, always motivational, fake robot?  Who came up with the idea that being a professional meant you had to go out and buy a book of famous sayings and go around with a cyber-bullhorn announcing them all day on social media sites? 

I decided a long time ago to test this theory and I decided to cast aside the suit and tie back during my real estate days and just see how my clients and prospective clients reacted.  Low and behold they loved it.  They loved the sight of me coming to a property showing in my flip-flops, jeans and casual shirt.  Some made it a point to say..."thank you.  Thanks for not being so stodgy and uptight like other Realtors."  I noticed as well that I was able to build up a trusting relationship more quickly when they realized I was being me and not being the person someone else told me I had to be if I wanted to succeed. 

So I say that to say this...if someone chooses to cast me aside because I am who I am...adios amigo.  If someone thinks I am somehow less intelligent and less capable in what I do for a living because I refuse to turn myself into someone who only talks business 24/7, then I say...Aloha!

So there are my thoughts.  There is the inside poop.  If you want to know what I am thinking...all you have to do now is just come on inside.