Stagnation

I have had a bad couple of weeks. As you can see by the title I am in a bad place. Rare for me, as most times I have always been a, the glass is half full kind of guy. Not of late! My mind and body are here but the rest of me, is definitely somewhere else. And the shocker is, it’s not Florida! The wife and I have found our little piece of heaven and it’s called The Villages. It lies 51 miles north east of Orlando and is Disneyland for adults, more on it when I feel better however.

I am at that age where you start thinking about laying it down and retiring. My job of late has been a constant source of pressure and unhappiness. It is very hard to keep a team together when the atmosphere everyone is in is thick with stress and unrealistic expectations. However, rarely do we all feel badly at the same time. There seems to be one of us, on the team, that is always pulling the rest of us along. The member changes from day to day and sometimes minute to minute, but we always seem to make the finish line. Here lately I am not even interested in the race. I have always been a guy that wants in the game, the give me the ball guy. Now I am not even sure I want to watch the game. It is simply not fun anymore. How arrogant to think that you should actually enjoy what I do to make ends meet. Strangely I always have had a blast making a living, equally as strange is about every 10 – 12 years I have changed careers and when in a totally different direction! Well I just passed 12 years with my current company and I can see the signs. Total lack of interest, I feel like this is due to the fact, they, read my company, has a total lack of interest about me and my team. They are of the opinion that a clan of cave bears could do what we do every day and they would save $1,000 of dollars. Well I got bad news. If my team left altogether I promise they couldn’t make another goal for 5 years!!! We are a special group of people that really get it. We build houses every single day and none of us have one single hammer or even one nail but somehow these people everyday go out and make miracles happen and not one person above me has ever acknowledged their success. There are 3 divisions in my company. Mine, another and, a combined division of the two working under separate accounts. My team has an over $225,000 surplus to goal working with our fiscal year ending in 2 weeks!!!! They are going to walk to goal. The others you asked one is a million dollars behind and the combined division I have their shortfall made up in my area made up for them!!! Not one person other than me has ever stuck their head in our team meetings and said good job!!! So tell me how do you motivate people when there are taken for granted? But I guess that is how Corporate America rolls. I still do not have to like it.

I was working at a previous job and will never forget actually voicing my opinion about this praise issue I have with corporate America and my boss telling me that they paid me to do my job and my paycheck was all the praise I should need! I was floored. I was that guy that got there 30 minutes early got everything set up so that the day when smoothly stayed late if needed and never bitched. Some of the other guys, never on time, never did anything other than their job, and they were getting the exact same thing I was, a paycheck. What a standard! So I vowed to be like them. Sadly or not I couldn’t!

So here I am again in a state of stagnation. But this time I really can’t leave I have a lot of people depending on me for a lot of things. So I guess it’s time to make lemonade!!!

Thanks for listening and please pass the sugar!!!!

Peace,

The Blessed Man

Support

I really haven’t talked a lot about my Dad in this blog but I think it’s time I did. He was the hardest working man I knew. He would sometimes work 3 jobs near Christmas so he could provide for us kids whatever the current have to have thing was. He always wanted my Mother to be a stay at home mom. And she was until us kids were either, out of the house or in High School. I can remember when my Mother told him she wanted to work. It was like he had failed at being a provider. He had a lot of trouble with it until Mother started buying her on Romance Novels, which she was addicted to that he realized maybe this working thing wasn’t a bad idea. He was a DI for the 101st airborne during the Korea war. He was 5’ 10” of romping stomping do what I say or it’s not going to be pretty guy. I can remember whenever we would get out of line the famous you wait until you Father gets home line. Man then you spent the rest of the afternoon waiting until he arrived and were in a blind panic until you knew she wasn’t going to rat you out and you would live to see another day. I also remember having to be so quiet during the day. He worked for a large airline for over 38 years. He also played in a band at night. His shifts were all over the place. Days, early morning, late afternoons, evening, and even mid nights so he sleeping habits were about as set and wet concrete. He always looked tired and seemed to live on hot black coffee and cigarettes. He was always in his underwear, and didn’t care who came to the house he was still in his underwear unless my mother just put her foot down, then he would put on the ugliest shortest the world has ever seen. I think he got those shorts out of the trash at least 10 times before my mother finally took them to a neighbor’s house to throw them away!! So as you can see he was a character to say the least. He was am man of much love that always showed it but never said it. I think that might have been his army training. I’d hear him tell my mother so many times it was drilled into my being that that is how you treated your mate in life. He loved her beyond anything I have ever seen. He would buy her anything and everything she ever even mentioned. This is another habit I picked up and wished I had not. He would go into debt for anything she wanted and it took me almost 40 years to figure out that was not the smartest way to show you love and commitment. But he was a stand up guy to say the least and there is not one day that goes by that I don’t miss him to the point of pain. It is said you become a man the day your Father dies and no truer words can be spoken. I almost beg him for advice sometimes when I am having difficulty with anything in my life. Man I miss him right now. I can hear him saying no body reads that stuff why you writing all that mess about us. What a guy.

I say all of that because yesterday I had an amazing thing happen to me. I really have no bad memories of my father than the one or two times maybe he had a small battle with the alcohol, mainly beer for him. But they were rare to say the least. I think they come to mind because they bothered my Mother so much. But he was able to break out of the bonds every time and cold turkey at that. He had amazing will power over everything in his life, but I digress. There is one thing that I didn’t realize meant anything to me until yesterday. You see I went to watch my son, he was in a professional competition and I was there of course. I have always been there through his basketball. I can remember when he lived with his Mom driving two and a half hours to watch a forty five minute game, but I was there. When I was younger I played every sport that would have me. I played Football, Baseball, Basketball, Softball, Bowled hell I even played tennis for a brief period of time; Get this I was even in the Chess club for Christ sakes!! I say all of that to say the reason for this post. My Father never saw me compete in anything I just mentioned. I always blew it off when I was a kid understanding he was either working or sleeping from the two or three jobs he always seemed to have to support us. However, yesterday standing there watching my son it all came rushing back to me and I almost started crying. I felt like some kind of retard standing there in a room full of people, that were having a blast, fighting back tears. I guess I wanted him to feel what I was feeling that he never did. That sense of pride of watching your off spring growing up, competing, just enjoying the simpler things of life. I think in a small way it validates that you were an OK parent because your kid is doing something that is fun and enjoys. I was watching my son as he was in the middle of the competition always looking to make sure I was watching and paying attention to his every move. And the second it was over he came straight to me and was asking what I thought and did I think he did Ok? It was all I could do to hold it together to answer him. I was too busy missing my Father and wishing I had had this exact moment with him.
Wow as I sit here writing this I’m tearing up again; so I guess this really did mean a lot to me.

I always close by telling you where the blessing are in the story so here is what I think about this one. I was blessed to have the special Father I had, he always provided anything and everything we ever needed. He loved us and tried his best to make sure we were safe and comfortable. So that’s one blessing. I was super blessed to have shared with my son hundreds of times where I was there in the stands supporting him. Be it sports or professional I have been there. There is one other thing I found interesting yesterday. I think I was the only parent there. I guess you never to get old to support your kids. And please know every time you watch them it means something to them even if they don’t act like it now. I have some dear friends who never miss a chance to support their kids. Like me they will drive hours to make sure they are there to support and cheer. I only hope their kids understand what a blessing it is they are there.
Well I rarely write about things this close to home but somehow now I feel better about my situation. I understand my father couldn’t be there. I only wish for him he could have the feeling in his heart I had yesterday and the numerous times I have watched and cheered my son.

Well there you have it, a post for me. I think it is time to go and tell my dad I love him wouldn’t want him to get the wrong idea. Love you Dad and miss you madly….

Peace,

The Blessed Man

Serenity

As has been mentioned here I have recently returned from Vacation. This was not your average vacation but more of a journey for sure. I have written about the start now I will write about the experience.

We stayed in a style to which I could become accustomed too quickly. We were about 3,000 feet above Acapulco bay and looked directly out over this vista that every morning almost took your breath. There are views in your life that sear themselves into your memories. This was such a view. The first time I saw it was coming down the steps and into the open-air area of the patio it was stunning. The sun shining and the bay below were simply beautiful. Then at dawn the next morning is the sight I will never forget. The sun rising over the softly rolling hills, the first light of day cascading over them and onto the far points of the bay below. The colors of orange and yellow remind you of a Vermont forest as the seasons are changing. The flicker lights looking like fireflies dancing across the bay running up the hill, as to say, the sunlight would steal their life, like the sun destroys a vampire. Watching this scene play out morning after morning gives you a sense that there truly is a power larger than us and that that power wants us to understand it knows beauty.

Now that is the place I’m in, here is the circumstance. I am with my Memphis Family. There are 4 couples as diverse a group as I guess you could arrange. Not quiet like Gillian’s island, but close. What sets us apart is the unconditional love we have for each other. Think about your situation is there four couples of your friends you could go and spend a week with in a 5 bedroom house that you know going in your are not leaving for a solid week? We played games, watched TV, read and listened to books. Gathered at every meal and simply had a blast. It is so comforting to be in the arms of people that love you. I was allowed to do whatever I wanted, and was not judged if in the middle of the day I wanted to go into the room and take a 3-hour nap. I have friends I will call the “Vacation Nazi” every minute of every day is set for an activity and we are sticking to this schedule and we will have fun DAMN IT!! Not my style.

As the week progressed you could see the stress leaving all of us. A sense of calm came over the house like the morning fog as it rushes up the San Francisco bay. Bathing everything in a calming cloud of peace. We became closer we started sitting around talking about our feelings and how we enjoyed being at this place. When it finally came time to go I think we were all ready to return to the hectic lives we lead comfortable in the knowledge that we had each other to fall back on in times of need. We also had the memories of this wonderful place, and they were a simply thought away. I have been back now for almost 3 weeks and there hasn’t been a day I have not closed my eyes and pictured that early morning scene standing there watching dawn take control of another day giving hope and promise.

I have been blessed in my life, to travel many places. I will go back to this place every year the good lord gives me the resources, and the health to return. What makes this place special; it’s not only its place, but my people, my family, my peace and comfort. Making it the most special place I have ever been.

So as I close, imagining the feeling of the breeze blowing and the sun warming my face. My wish for you is to spend a week like I have. To understand that it takes more than you to make you. To understand how important family and friends are in ones life. To learn to trust and love unconditionally and the amazing benefits that come from that bold life style.

I think I will go sit in my chair and go back to Acapulco one more time before I start to work. I can almost taste the fresh Guacamole now.

Peace,
The Blessed Man