Sometimes You've got to Deal With It

  As I type this, I'm sitting outside the DMV, waiting for them to open so I can get my ID renewed to match my new feminine appearance. The purpose of this, among other things, is so that I can donate plasma. Previously when I've tried to donate, they turned me away because my face didn't match my ID. Hopefully now that won't be an issue anymore.

Once that's done, I'm going to be walking all over town to look in even more places for a potential job. Such are my days lately. More and more it feels like I have to walk a kilometer for every dollar I make. Just getting by day to day feels like a struggle, but I still manage. I manage because I must.

This life we're all in varies in difficulty for each of us, and I'm sure at least one person reading this will look at my complaints and laugh, knowing they survived far worse; but it's that laughter that is why I persevere.

My situation feels bad and it may be a struggle, but I know there are those out there worse off than I am. I know that there are people even worse off than them. I may have to work for my money, but at least there's money to be had, in some places they have none.

I want you, the reader, to consider that the next time you're waiting in line at the grocery store. Think about the places in the world where they don't have stores. Think about the people out there who don't have the money to buy food.

The next time your phone is having a bad signal, be happy you've even got a phone in the first place. Just keep this in mind: Life is tough, sometimes you've just got to deal with it.

Farewell, Fluffy Prince

  My posting has been slightly delayed because we experienced a loss yesterday. Duncan, one of our beloved cats died. He'd been ill for a while and it finally claimed him. We buried him on a hill at the edge of the property where another cat had been buried. Since the site was now officially a cemetery, I went hunting for stones and built cairns for both of them.

  This is a valuable reminder of how we must treasure every day we have. Duncan was one of a litter of three and the only one of them that made it to adulthood. A genetic defect caused his two brothers to die, and he only barely survived. That defect, however, is what eventually claimed him.

  Duncan stands as a reminder to me of how frail and short our lives can be. Before too long, every one of you alive to read this will be dead. For some it'll be forty years, for others sixty, or if you're young and living a healthy life you may just be regaling this story to your great great grandchildren a hundred years from now. But you'll still die eventually.

  This is why we must live for today. Planning for the future is fine, as a matter of fact I highly recommend it. But, don't let your plans for the future cause you to waste today. Embrace the moment, take joy in the small things. Life's too short for petty things like rivalries and grudges. Life's too frail for politics and he-said-she-said.

  Life is something we only get one of, and when we leave it, we're leaving our descendants with lives of their own to experience, so stop worrying about what everyone else is doing, and just worry about you. So long as you're doing the right thing, so long as you're living up every moment, and so long as you're doing your species and your family proud, the actions and the emotions of others are nothing but fluffy clouds, brushing past as you soar.

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”

Marcus Aurelius

Lemonade

  Life loves to give us lemons. You know it, I know it. What we do with them is entirely up to us. My lemon of the day is a sore back and what I suspect to be a sprained foot. This means that I can't make the five kilometer walk I planned on doing today in my never-ending search for a job. But, just because I'm stuck at the house doesn't mean I can't do anything. I'm using that time made free to make phone calls and process some paperwork. This is what people like to call making lemonade, and it's easy once you learn how.

  Any time you're given a lemon, you've got some options. You can just sit there and suck on it with a sour look on your face, waiting until it's drained so you can move on to sweeter fruit down the road, or you can find some sugar and make lemonade like other people do. You could demand life take them back, stand proud like Cave Johnson and threaten to make incendiary weapons out of them, or you could get crafty, wait for them to ferment and make some sour Limoncello.

  There's a lot of options you've got when you get stuck with a lemon. The only variable is how creative you're willing to get to make the lemons work in your favor.

  "When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don’t want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these?"

Cave Johnson

Sometimes Fate Has To Slap You

  My position in life is hardly notable or brag-worthy. Often times it feels like a difficult struggle for me but I carry on. I remind myself that there are people worse off than I am and that I shouldn't complain because I've got more going for me than they do.

  One of those things I've got is a five kilometer walk to the nearest place I can apply for jobs. Roughly three kilometers of that is forested and the rest is rural residential areas (AKA trailer parks). Several times while walking that road I've been offered a ride, and I've accepted them.

  This has been universally described as stupid and reckless by my roommates. They say that you can't trust the people around here, that I'll end up raped and dead in a ditch. This morning I was ground down enough that I was ready to believe that.

  I set out on my daily routine of job hunting adamant that I was going to refuse anybody who offered to give me a lift. I was telling myself that people are bad and that I can't trust them. Fate slapped me when the oddest thing happened.

  A man driving the opposite direction I was walking, and in a Camaro no less, offered me a ride. Before I had time to respond he did a U-turn...right into a ditch. This well dressed twenty something in a shiny sportscar got stuck and he felt embarrassed, but he kept a cool and level head, and he was kind and courteous despite that as he tried to rock it free the mud guard got broken off of his front bumper.

  Together we cleared a mass of fallen branches with the intent of him making a small circle through the woods to come back around to the road, but then Fate gave me a second slap. Two men in a 4WD truck stopped and offered help. Both were bearded beer gutted baseball cap wearing epitomes of the visual stereotype one usually associates with "good ol' boys" yet both were nice as could be, offering to help push the car backwards so we could get it out of the ditch.

  Together the four of us got the car free, though with some minor cosmetic damage. Despite all of that, he was still offering me a ride. I accepted, largely because I felt an obligation at that point, and he not only drove me to the market plaza, he took me door to door to every stop on my list for my job applications for the day and even took me to an interview.

  Not once did he come on to me. Not once did he pry into my personal life. Not once did he ask for my phone number.

  One man who was visually the epitome of a spoiled rich kid, and two who would best be defined as hillbillies reminded me that you can't judge somebody based on looks or environment.

  I woke up this morning ready to doubt everything, I'm going to bed tonight knowing that at heart, people are decent. You've just got to give them a chance.

"¹Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ²For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
Matthew 7:1-2

Climb or Whine?

  Life's full of obstacles. Some of them random chance puts there, others we bring on ourselves. Any given day we face one hundred hurdles to jump. At any point in time we've got one we're working on.

  For some of us they're huge and feel like mountains, for others they're just a little speedbump. And there are those who try to pretend they're not even there. However you interpret them, we each have a climb before us. That straight, smooth track we envisioned when we were young always looks rougher when we see it up close.

  When we come to one of these walls, we have two choices before us.

  Option number one, you can stamp your feet on the ground, pout and complain, and blame the builder for putting it there, then try to find some way around or arrogantly stand and wait for somebody to clear the path for you.

  Option number two, you can suck it up like a man and start climbing.

  It may seem unfair to have to face an obstacle others don't. It might seem like the lane you're on always has more boulders than the person next to you, but complaining won't change what's in yours. The solution to an obstacle always starts with the one who's faced with it, so when life throws up a wall, I give you two choices;

  Are you gonna climb or are you gonna whine?

Determination

  It's been a long time since I've posted anything, but I've come to a point in my life where I feel it's worth the effort again, because I have more wisdom I'd like to share for anyone willing to hear it.

  There's a guy I know. I won't say his name and I won't say how I know him, but for all extents and purposes he's a total dick to me. for certain reasons I'm stuck with the guy. The type of behavior he exhibits is the kind that most people would get annoyed and angered at, and I've even had people tell me as such about him, but why is that?

  What, as humans drives us to be aggressive towards those who show us aggression or show us hatred or dislike? The obvious answer is that we're compelled to, emotions react on their own, feelings surge and rage, and you just explode, retaliating. But what does this accomplish?

  Sure, at any point in time I could have blown up in his face, but where would it get me? A moment's satisfaction, maybe, but what good would it do for him? for me? for humanity as a whole? I'll confess that for a while I had temptations to be passive aggressive. I felt like getting him back for how he was treating me, but then I asked myself, why?

  We're supposed to be the smartest species on the planet, and once upon a time we here in the United States were supposedly the most advanced. Why the hell don't we act like it? He acts like he does because that's what he knows, because that's what he learned from his environment. And that environment was formed by people doing the same. Just getting mad propagates that.

  That's why instead I'm going to show determination, and you, the reader, I ask you to do the same. When somebody says you're a failure, when they say you're no good, when they call you a piss-ant and say you'll never get anywhere, you look them right in the eye and say "watch me." Fists will win you nothing, you'll only prove their point in their mind. The best revenge is success, and you'll come out better than you were before.

  So put down the bat and pick up a book, you'll do better in the end.

  "No, I won't kill him, No matter what he's done I can't do that. When you build this new society, I want you to base it on that, on the man who wouldn't."
Dr. Who