I\u2019m stalling.\u00a0 There\u2019s about three inches of dripping wet snow on my driveway and probably another couple of inches of the same that will be falling until tonight.\u00a0 I should be out there right now shoveling it.\u00a0 Not snow blowing.\u00a0 It won\u2019t work on it. \u00a0The machine is leaving the bottom inch and that will turn into an ice layer if I try it.\u00a0 So, shoveling it must be.\u00a0 But doing it twice is just too much for my lazy nature.\u00a0 So, I\u2019m stalling.<\/p>\n
I was gonna exercise but I convinced myself shoveling was more than enough of that.\u00a0 I read all the news.\u00a0 Oh, my aching head.\u00a0 Blather and more blather.\u00a0 I\u2019m so tired of it all.\u00a0 I\u2019m even more tired of the talkers on our side.\u00a0 And I\u2019m most tired of listening to me!<\/p>\n
So, I listened to some music.\u00a0 Some country, some opera, some old folk music.\u00a0 All kinds of stuff.\u00a0 That cheered me up.\u00a0 That was good stuff.\u00a0 It got me out of my funk.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s just been too much bad news lately.\u00a0 Local stuff.\u00a0 Like that girl beaten up on the school bus and those elementary school kids in Ohio who were brutalized by the black kids forcing them to pledge allegiance to BLM.\u00a0 Nightmarish stuff.\u00a0 And that synched up with Scott Adams\u2019 statements about anti-white hate.<\/p>\n
So, I was going to write a cautionary piece about schools and homeschooling and Florida\u2019s new laws protecting school kids from CRT and LGBTQ grooming and all that crap but I\u2019m too tired of listening to myself drone on.\u00a0 By now parents should be figuring out their options and doing something about it.<\/p>\n
Today I want to talk about living.\u00a0 We get one life.\u00a0 These buggers are trying to take that away from us.\u00a0 Well, instead live it to the hilt.\u00a0 Cut a swath through this world.\u00a0 Leave your mark.\u00a0 Leave a trail of people who remember you and when they think of you, they smile.\u00a0 Think back on the people you\u2019ve come in contact with in your life.\u00a0 Which ones are vivid and alive in your memory?\u00a0 They were the people who put something of themselves into their day-to-day interactions.\u00a0 Even if you were something as stultifyingly boring as a telemarketer selling children\u2019s books if you put some of your personality into the pitch and some honesty about what you were doing you could turn this dehumanizing rote sales chore into a human interaction that both parties might look back on fondly.<\/p>\n
I know this to be the case.\u00a0 Back in the good old days when I was between careers and schools I once had three different jobs going.\u00a0 On the day shift I was sorting stock certificates at a Wall Street brokerage house.\u00a0 On the night shift I was a telemarketer selling anything we were asked to sell; kids\u2019 books, tv commercial gadgets, whatever.\u00a0 And on the third shift I was a proofreader at a law firm in the World Trade Center.\u00a0 To say that I was in a twilight existence would be putting it mildly.\u00a0 Depending on which day of the week it was I might be having my main meal at 6pm or 1am or 9 am.\u00a0 It was pretty insane.\u00a0 Luckily, I eventually got a full-time gig at a brokerage house.<\/p>\n
But when I was doing the telemarketing, I was in a big boiler room operation and you could hear the salesmen all around you saying the same lines you had on your own script.\u00a0 And it was fascinating to hear the differences between the pitchmen.\u00a0 And what you could tell was that the people who approached it as a human interaction in which their actual personality was present had better success.\u00a0 And they seemed happier when we had our break time in the cafeteria.\u00a0 Now there were exceptions.\u00a0 There was this one guy who was a veritable machine.\u00a0 He never took no for an answer.\u00a0 His hard sell was frightening.\u00a0 I had it from one of the quality guys that \u201cthe machine\u201d had been involved in a complaint where the script said, \u201cWe think (fill in the blank) is eight years old.\u00a0 Is that right?\u201d and the mother answered, \u201cBobby died last year.\u201d\u00a0 And the script handled such an eventuality with the answer, \u201cI\u2019m very sorry for your loss.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry to have disturbed you.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cThe machine\u2019s\u201d answer was, \u201cTell me ma\u2019am, do you have any other children that might be interested in these books?\u201d<\/p>\n
Now \u201cthe machine\u201d was a great salesman but I think the auto dialer that he was connected to probably had more soul than he did.\u00a0 But on the other side of my cube was a middle-aged woman who didn\u2019t use the hard sell and probably only got through 40% of the numbers \u201cthe machine\u201d got through but her sell rate was much higher and she smiled and talked like a human being during the meal break.\u00a0 Now which of those two people can I remember as having an actual face and voice.\u00a0 \u201cThe machine\u201d is just a droning noise and all I can remember of his appearance is that he shuffled along staring at the floor.<\/p>\n
The sales lady was an old woman (to the kid I was) but with a pleasant voice and smiling face and someone willing to help the newbies with advice on doing their jobs and navigating the system at that office.\u00a0 She was a human being with a personality and took the time to make her surroundings better for the people around her.\u00a0 And so almost forty years later she still lives in my memory as a living being.\u00a0 \u201cThe machine\u201d is just a cartoon character and a cautionary tale.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s the point.\u00a0 A human being is an enormously powerful creature.\u00a0 But in order to bring that power to bear you have to find a way to leverage your talents and use them for good.\u00a0 That\u2019s the trick.\u00a0 You have to find a way to bring your humanity to bear.\u00a0 And it seems like the world is making that harder and harder.\u00a0 But that\u2019s what you have to do.\u00a0 Look at your environment and figure out how you can make the biggest impact for good.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to be a politician or a super genius or even an authority figure.\u00a0 Just find something useful and do it right.\u00a0 And treat people like they deserved to be treated.\u00a0 Some of them will turn out to be awful.\u00a0 But give everyone the benefit of the doubt to start with.\u00a0 Later on, you can bring out the brass knuckles.\u00a0 That\u2019s my thought.<\/p>\n
Well, that\u2019s enough stalling.\u00a0 Out with the shovel.\u00a0 Oh, my aching back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m stalling.\u00a0 There\u2019s about three inches of dripping wet snow on my driveway and probably another couple of inches of the same that will be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3366,1263],"tags":[2706,1267,3598],"class_list":["post-22592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-life-in-dunwich","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-enjoy-your-life","tag-photogs-corner","tag-taking-control-of-your-life"],"yoast_head":"\n