Yesterday while riding up a crowded elevator, I heard a girl in her 20’s say, “I’m looking for a real man to marry.” A real man, huh? As opposed to what, one of those mannequins you see in the men’s department of your local JCPenny with some stupid grin on their face? I’m so tired of society measuring the male species by a set of archaic standards commonly known as being a “real man”. Last time I checked, there’s nothing in the Constitution of the United States or any other official documentation for that matter stating what a “man” should or should not be in society. And yet the morons of the world who are obsessed with how other people perceive them have adopted a set of criteria that we…
Some days, you simply have to do the best you can with what you have. Today we place too much pressure on one another to succeed in every facet of our lives – causing undo stress and often broken relationships. We measure and define ourselves against others instead of being proud of who and what we have become in the present. We allow the insignificant and unimportant to become our priorities rather than setting boundaries and enjoying that which truly matters. Perceived failures discourage our spirit instead of teaching us some of the most valuable lessons life has to offer. To do the best you can. We link happiness with possessions and fortune - forgetting how doing the very best for those who deserve our attention will provide us ultimate…
Famed author and renowned lecturer Leo Buscaglia championed the cause of how we seek happiness and create loving relationships over the course of our lifetime. He once told the story of how he was asked to judge a competition in search of the most caring child alive today. To the surprise of many, the young boy who won did so based more on his actions than on his words. The young boy had an elderly neighbor whose wife had recently passed away. Upon seeing the old man crying, the little boy made his way into the neighbor’s yard, climbed onto his lap and just sat there silently with him. When he returned home his mother asked what he had said to the old man while he was there on his…
Today, the cell phone has become like another appendage dangling from our bodies. Whether its walking down the street, shopping or even sitting at work, it seems these tiny electronic devices have become as essential to our lives as breathing. People always harass me that my cell phone is almost always off, but truthfully I’m not interested in being accessible every minute of every day. For centuries, society was able to successfully survive without a cell phone glued to their ear, so it is possible to live quite happily without one. But I realize I’m in the minority here. What I think bothers me most about cell phone use is how often we’re included in other people’s conversations whether we want to be or not. Walking through the grocery store,…
For some odd reason, I now find myself looking at the obituaries in the newspaper on a semi-regular basis. Thankfully, I never find my own name in there, but the practice does freak me out sometimes. I feel like a senior citizen, checking to see if any of the dearly departed are friends or acquaintances I need to pay my respects to. What I have found however, is a very discouraging trend – the age of those listed in this section is getting younger and younger. Sure there’s a handful of those fortunate enough to reach the age of 78, 85 and just the other day 94. But over the last week, I’ve also been humbled to find a loving wife and mother who was only 45, a cherished son…