It's been a tough week to be a news junkie. I've never jumped on board the "media gets it wrong" bandwagon...until now. It's been a constant stream of Benghazi this, IRS that, the government is after the AP. Of course, the American public seems to largely not care about these "scandals" polls show. The President's approval rating was at 53% over the weekend...not exactly an indictment that he's being blamed for the news. Add to it the fact that all the "scandals" have underlying explanations that take them from terrible to mundane and it gets boring. Embassies were defunded under the very Republicans trying to blame the attack on the White House. The conservative groups being targeted for scrutiny by the IRS were all trying to hide their donor lists under nonprofit status instead of properly being political groups. And the AP reporter from Fox being "targeted" was part of a CIA leak investigation where a source was disclosing classified information...I weep not.
So I've been on a little downer about what's going on in the world. Yes, even me, the ultimate current events watcher. I think most people get that way most of the time. We're busy raising our kids, trying to teach them positive things. My kid's favorite part of the day is when the garbage truck comes to empty our dumpster. Ain't nobody got time for people making big mountains out of tiny mole hills.
Some parents got all up in arms here about a book being taught at the middle school...don't read it then. Now you've gone and wasted all our time having to defend our right to read the darn book against your personal opinion that it shouldn't be there. Time wasters.
And then you have the horrible tragedy of the tornado yesterday. I had to stop listening to the morning radio reports. We used to be big fans of crime dramas but don't watch anymore. There's just too much of that in the world. I actually love Kelly's rather karma-like philosophy on negative energy--she shushes you before you can talk about bad things usually. She cuts you off with a quick "don't put it out there." Kind of has taught me a lesson or two about the power of not wasting energy on negativity.
I'm slowly learning to not respond to every idiot in the world...and the internet is full of them. I'm a know-it-all by nature coupled with being a highly educated one to boot. It's sometimes all I can do to not correct people or provide some insight into the other side of their argument in a devil's advocate kind of way. Nothing annoys me more than stupidity...sadly, the world is full of it. Even more sadly, we waste so much time paying attention to it.
Somewhere, buried in there, is a teaching moment about living your life away from the suffering. That's the Buddhist way of looking at it if we want to frame the question that way. But you get the picture...humanity is often so wrapped up in the awful that we forget the amazingness of the beautiful. The brightness of the light.
I posted yesterday that one of my pet peeves is people--usually stepping up off the couch--who say they want to run a marathon (or whatever). And I hate...absolutely hate...when they get an answer along the lines of "you should do a 5k instead." Maybe I'm just defensive about my own Ironman goal here. But I also was, at some point, that guy who just wanted a big goal and set about trying to achieve it and was looking for help. I've run 5 of them now and am addicted to endurance sports in a way that makes me healthier, happier, and more fulfilled in life. Why ruin that possibility by discouraging anyone's potential or big dreams?
That's not to say people shouldn't be informed about risk in life. But just because there's risk doesn't mean you don't do it. Rewards are only rewarding because there is some obstacle. Doubt. Danger. Sometimes just the fear of things being different than they were before. I know quite a few people about to have their first child and am here to tell you your life will never be the same. That's a fact. How you spin that depends on you. Kids, racing, heck brewing a decent cup of coffee are all hard things to do.
I hope all of my readers--my children too--go out into the world with confidence about both the risks and the opportunities.
So I've been on a little downer about what's going on in the world. Yes, even me, the ultimate current events watcher. I think most people get that way most of the time. We're busy raising our kids, trying to teach them positive things. My kid's favorite part of the day is when the garbage truck comes to empty our dumpster. Ain't nobody got time for people making big mountains out of tiny mole hills.
Some parents got all up in arms here about a book being taught at the middle school...don't read it then. Now you've gone and wasted all our time having to defend our right to read the darn book against your personal opinion that it shouldn't be there. Time wasters.
And then you have the horrible tragedy of the tornado yesterday. I had to stop listening to the morning radio reports. We used to be big fans of crime dramas but don't watch anymore. There's just too much of that in the world. I actually love Kelly's rather karma-like philosophy on negative energy--she shushes you before you can talk about bad things usually. She cuts you off with a quick "don't put it out there." Kind of has taught me a lesson or two about the power of not wasting energy on negativity.
I'm slowly learning to not respond to every idiot in the world...and the internet is full of them. I'm a know-it-all by nature coupled with being a highly educated one to boot. It's sometimes all I can do to not correct people or provide some insight into the other side of their argument in a devil's advocate kind of way. Nothing annoys me more than stupidity...sadly, the world is full of it. Even more sadly, we waste so much time paying attention to it.
Somewhere, buried in there, is a teaching moment about living your life away from the suffering. That's the Buddhist way of looking at it if we want to frame the question that way. But you get the picture...humanity is often so wrapped up in the awful that we forget the amazingness of the beautiful. The brightness of the light.
I posted yesterday that one of my pet peeves is people--usually stepping up off the couch--who say they want to run a marathon (or whatever). And I hate...absolutely hate...when they get an answer along the lines of "you should do a 5k instead." Maybe I'm just defensive about my own Ironman goal here. But I also was, at some point, that guy who just wanted a big goal and set about trying to achieve it and was looking for help. I've run 5 of them now and am addicted to endurance sports in a way that makes me healthier, happier, and more fulfilled in life. Why ruin that possibility by discouraging anyone's potential or big dreams?
That's not to say people shouldn't be informed about risk in life. But just because there's risk doesn't mean you don't do it. Rewards are only rewarding because there is some obstacle. Doubt. Danger. Sometimes just the fear of things being different than they were before. I know quite a few people about to have their first child and am here to tell you your life will never be the same. That's a fact. How you spin that depends on you. Kids, racing, heck brewing a decent cup of coffee are all hard things to do.
I hope all of my readers--my children too--go out into the world with confidence about both the risks and the opportunities.