New Year.. Same Odds

52% start confident they will succeed at their resolution.

12% achieve their goals.

One would have to be pretty motivated to nuke the New Year's odds. I say - no matter how bad they may be it is always better to have odds... than to be odd.

Let's hear them - best New Year's Resolutions?

Senator Fehrenbox

No need to be a presidential candidate to do a fact check on those around you - just listen...

What percent of people's statements are false?

In speaking with a new found friend regarding a very important topic, I was concerned when the information brought to the table on their behalf was, in fact, not true. How long had this opinion been developing, mind scheming, frustrations building - over something inaccurate? So naturally, I quickly corrected the fallacy and start in on the lecture against letting other people determine your opinions. And in my moment of haste I was mercilessly humbled. How many tales have I told? How many truths did I stretch? How many 'close enoughs' did I share with others and cause them to walk away fancied by a fib?

Frank McCourt says it plainly - "you have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everything else but you can’t make up an empty mind. Stock your mind. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace."

Vote for Senator Fehrenbox - for a fallaciously free world.

Plodding Pandora

M-i-ss-i-ss-i-pp-i.
This great state we learned to spell so many years ago presents us today with a perplexing paradox:

#1 Lowest per capita income
#1 Highest charitable donations per capita

Why is it that the poorest people give the most?

In an attempt to sort out this contradiction, one suggested it is because they themselves experience the need for charity and therefore understand its necessity, resulting in their monetary support.
This spun a web of thoughts...

As middle class citizens if we do not eat three healthy meals a day, it is our own fault. We drive our cars to work, consume ourselves with topics of choice, watch our entertaining television shows, and sleep in our warm beds. In our daily lives we may not experience hunger, abuse, third trimester abortions, child trafficking, mental illness, loneliness... we may even ignore it.
To the homeless on the street we say,

"they should get a job, i worked hard for my money".

To the lives lost at abortion clinics we say,

"i would never do something like that".

To those who have no one to share Christmas with we say,

"I have two families to see and a turkey to cook, I can't possibly spare 30 minutes".

Perhaps our greatest fault is we are afraid to open Pandora's box. We are afraid to see what evils are in this world. Because if we don't see them, they may not exist. If they do exist, we may be responsible to do something about it - how can we truly live knowing that others suffer injustices.

If we were exposed to those same injustices, would we respond similarly as our fellow Mississippians?


...maybe Pandora was on to something

A Love/Hate Relationship

Winter.
For those who have justly experienced Madison, you will recognize the snow-smothered terrace tables overlooking lake Mendota.

For some this picture brings anxiety and fear. For others, relief; they do not have to de-ice the car, bundle the face, or chapstick the lips.

And yet for others in mind, it brings excitement and joy and a world of activities the summer just cannot offer. Such as kite flying on a frozen lake, snow shoeing, cross country skiing, chili cook-offs, ice fishing, tea in front of a fire...

I have found no middle ground. People either love the winter, or hate it.
Are you in a love or hate relationship?

Those who experience both extremes within the season are perhaps distracted at first. The beautiful first fallen snow, the 4WD adventures, the stimulation of a new season, the anticipation of holidays the snow brings with it. Does this love endure? Or do the countless car-thaws, ice falls, wind-chills below zero, and frozen gasoline tanks turn us quickly into the greenest grinch?

The Adult Child

There are a few difficult stages in life I am aware of and will try my hardest to prevent total self-destruction. Those times when you stop and say - Who Am I?

life post college, entering your vocation, empty nesting, retirement...

The latest growing pain is... the Adult Child. A delicate mix of desiring to make decisions on your own, yet battling the opinions and guidance of the people who have parented you for the past 20+ years. Unfortunately they do not have an 'off' switch.

The irony of it is, no matter how hard we try to break away, to develop our own thoughts, to make our own decisions, to pave our own paths, we are a product of our childhood. We are brainwashed, biased, and bonded to our parents.

While trimming (painting) the ceiling of a friend's house, my father sat on my shoulder, "Slow down! Haste makes waste, Kate..."

While considering the productivity of my day and whether the laundry should get done that afternoon, my mother whispered, "Maybe tomorrow..."

While embarking on a trip to the airport to pick up a friend after dark, my father made his way to my ears, "Buckle up, watch for deer!"

Although most consider insanity when voices enter their minds, there is comfort in knowing I am most likely not the only one - what do you hear?

525,600... decisions

Everyday we make an incalculable number of decisions, and we have become experts at it.

honey nut cheerios or regular?
blue shirt or gray?
shower or snooze button?

Every so often we find ourselves presented with a decision of great impact and our rhythmic decision making tactics are launched out the window and time stops.

peace corps or business school?
job A or job B?
mr(s). right or mr(s). almost right?

Although we are never really sure of the outcome of the path we did not choose, we are mostly relieved when we are content with the one we did choose.
How many decisions in our life, like the decisions above, are good vs. better? We often are forced to choose between two appealing paths, otherwise what effort would a decision take?

Where some may say, win/win - look at it again... why choose good when you could have better?

Better takes sacrifice, Better takes patience, Better takes you outside comforts. And perhaps that scares us into Good. It is important to analyze our decisions to ensure we are not settling for Good - and if not today, when?

And when time does start again, there is no day but today... or life is yours to miss.

102... And Counting

Elizabeth "Libby" Tresp - November 13, 1906

Swallow this:
Life Expectancy - 47 years

Wars/Battles - WWI, II, Cold War, Korean, Vietnam, Stalingrad, D-Day, Pearl Harbor, Cuban Missle Crisis, Iraq, Pakistan, Desert Storm

Threatening Diseases - Polio, Tuberculosis, Smallpox, Pneumonia, Influenza, HIV, Cancer, Heart Failure

People like - Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Picasso, Babe Ruth, Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde, Amelia Earhart, Anne Frank, Henry Ford...

The Great Depression - Nuclear Weapons - Establishment of 5 US States - Communist China - Landing on the Moon - The Transistor (and all that is computers) - Internet - Plastic - Haley's Comet (twice) - Parachutes - Titanic - Crossword puzzles - Grocery Stores - Daylight Savings - Commercial Radio Broadcast - Women Gain Right to Vote - Prohibition - King Tut's Tomb - Talking Movies - Winnie the Pooh - Bubble Gum - Mickey Mouse - Sliced Bread (not a joke) - Dictionary - Pluto - Air Conditioning - Splitting an Atom - FDRs New Deal - Monopoly - The Hoover Dam - The Panama Canal - Manhattan Project - Mount Rushmore - T-shirt - Microwave - Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Flight around the World - Color TV - Disneyworld - Sputnik - McDonalds - Velcro - Berlin Wall - Olympic Games - Oklahoma City Bombing - Mt. Saint Helens - Y2K......

And she always tells me, "If we would all just take responsibility for ourselves, where would this world be? Yet we can't even do that..."

Is it so simple? Are you taking honest responsibility (integrity) for yourself?