Free To Be...

"They're going to take away our freedom,"

says the guy who spends ten hours a day at a job he dislikes bookended by two awful one-hour commutes.

"They're going to take away our freedom,"

says the gal who gave up a career in medicine to marry her college sweetheart and have two kids by the age of twenty-six.

"They're going to take away our freedom,"

says the morbidly obese guy who avoids going upstairs these days because stairs.

"They're going to take away our freedom,"

says the guy who spends three hours each evening arguing online about gun rights.


You keep going on about freedom when all you've ever done is voluntarily give yours away.

A Profoundly Unsophisticated Approach to Life

If there's anyone who should write a book with the above title, then it's this guy right here...

Admitting the gamble

You'd be hard-pressed to find someone about to board a plane who would say with complete confidence that there was absolutely zero chance of that hunk of metal machinery falling out of the sky during that flight.
"Hey, you could be killed just walking out your front door in the morning, right?"

"Yes, and you could be killed in your sleep the night before."

Not admitting the gamble

You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who would say that getting divorced is no big deal.
"Hey, sometimes you've got to do tough things; if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out, right?"

"So, you'd get married with the belief that it might not be for life?"

"No. of course not; marriage isn't something to be taken lightly."

"What if your future spouse were to cheat on you?"

"I'd get a divorce, no question about it. But, I wouldn't marry someone I couldn't trust completely, so..."

"But, could you guarantee, 100 percent, that your future spouse wouldn't cheat on you?"

"Like I said, I wouldn't marry someone who I thought might do that."

"But, it is possible for them to do so, right?"

"So, what do you suggest, not getting married at all because there's a risk?"

"I'm not suggesting anything... So, you're admitting there's a risk?"

"Well, I guess... I mean, we're just having a hypothetical conversation aren't we? If I actually thought there was a chance of my partner cheating during our marriage, I wouldn't marry that person."


And, so it goes...

Always Be...

We know who coffee is for. The bigger question is, Is coffee the end or the means? Or both?

Before I have my first morning cup, it certainly is seen as a means. The end? Well, that amounts to something like the avoidance of absolute carnage. However, somewhere between the consumption of two-thirds and three-quarters of that first cup I start to think things like, This is all I need. What else is there? And then, of course, coffee seems like the end.

It's funny that many of the same people who say the journey is more important than the destination will often say that the result is more important than the method used to achieve it.

Or as Gretzky (maybe it was Gretzky) put it, They don't ask 'how?'; they ask 'how many?'.

Some might make mention of the idea of putting one's soul at hazard or selling one's soul when discussing such things, but knowing that personalities can change dramatically and core values can be changed completely, if someone were to say to me, Pity, you having sold your soul like that, I would simply say, That's alright; I've got a new one these days.

Here's an entertaining read