I like to listen to books on audio and podcasts while I workout and do mundane chores. It helps pass the time and I generally gain some knowledge or it gets the gears turning in my head and thus inspires a blog. Here lately, I’ve noticed many of the podcasts I’m listening to have a self-help quotient to them. I don’t think they are aiming to do that, I think it just happens organically. Now that I think of it, I’ve noticed a bump in the self-help phenomenon everywhere – Facebook posts, Youtube channels, even just text conversations with friends about the latest self-help book. It’s worse than New Year’s resolutions. It seems everyone is on a kick to make themselves into a better version of themselves.
I have nothing against bettering oneself. One must do a certain amount of bettering oneself just to sustain – like eating right and getting enough sleep and exercise. But, as of late, it seems like nothing is good enough. It almost seems like we are encouraged to find something wrong and fix it. This isn’t just our looks – that has been going on for generations. I see it more and more with personality traits and behavior. There seems to be a desire to slap a label on everything and everybody and then once the problem is labeled it must be addressed.
For example, if someone had demanding parents which turned that person into a super overachiever that person is them somehow flawed. When did being a Type A perfectionist become flawed and how is that a problem? Let’s say a person happens to be the last born in the family and a natural entertainer. Why is it now a bad thing to be a natural born entertainer or a pleaser or a fixer? One podcast I listen to is a husband and wife team. The husband in this duo has a medical condition – ADHD. I love listening to him because I also have ADHD. It’s like I’m listening to myself only with a deep voice. The duo recently had some family therapist on the show telling the man how despite years of learning coping mechanisms so that he can better function in the “normal non ADHD world” he is still broken and he needs to change. It was taking every ounce of self-control I had not to start yelling out loud back to the podcast. Why does he need to change? I understand how hard it is to keep one’s shit together with ADHD. I understand how life with a perfectionist can be hard to live with. I get that being around the entertainer can be exhausting for those who just want to chill. But, having those traits do not make a person broken or in need of change. If a person is happy with themselves and a functioning member of society why do they need to change in order to make others happy? Where would our world be without the innovators, the free thinkers, and the overachievers? In today’s spirit of inclusion, why can’t we embrace that some people have certain strengths and weaknesses that others don’t possess? I can’t help but wonder if this is the modern version of the search for the meaning of life or is this our way of evolving? Are we so interested in making everyone the same that if you aren’t the same you must be broken?
Photo Credit: Lifted off the internet. No copyright infringement intended. Blood/turnip. I’m broke and do this for free. Don’t sue me just ask me to take it down if it’s yours.
I’ve found one of the shittiest parts of getting older is watching the heroes and icons of your childhood get older and subsequently die. Much like half of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, I just read where Burt Reynolds has passed away. Two of my earliest childhood memories involves Burt Reynolds.
I don’t plan to get old. I’m fighting it pretty much kicking and screaming. In all seriousness, longevity genes do not run in my family. My Mother was 45 when she died and her Father was 55 when he died. Although I know they had risk factors I don’t have, it’s still unnerving to look at how old they were and realize how old I am and think, ‘Damn, I may only have a few good years left.’ It is that thought that makes me fight getting old. It also helps that I’m a big kid in an adult human suit.
When one looks back at the discoveries and advances we as a society has made in the past 100, 50 or even 20 years, it quite literally boggles the mind. And, then I see articles like the two I’m going to talk about today and I’m left wondering if all hope for the future is lost. Have we really devolved so quickly?
I’ve always been fascinated by time but as I have become well and truly middle aged, I’ve become acutely aware of how quickly the years seem to pass, how short some days seem as opposed to how long others seem, how some moments feel like just yesterday when in fact they happened 10 or more years ago. As July draws to a close, I know we are in the last days of Summer. Yes, I am well aware the temps are in triple digits and many in my state of Texas haven’t seen a drop of rain in over a month. But, according to my school district and the email they just sent out, Summer will officially end in a couple of weeks. I’m not ready – not in the least.
Do you remember your first celebrity crush? Mine was Erik Estrada. He played Paunch on the 1970s cop show, CHiPS. I was four and completely obsessed. One time I threw an epic fit in the middle of a store over a poster of him. He was wearing a gold lamé speedo, a 1,000 watt smile and nothing else. The incident went down like this. I was scream-begging at the top of my lungs for said poster of a half-dressed man old enough to be my father while simultaneously ratting my mother out to the masses about her Elvis poster on her closet door. She was screaming back at me about how inaproriate it would be for me to have said poster. She would later drag me out of the store and give me the beating of a lifetime for acting like a dumbass in public. To this day I still say that beating was worth it even though I didn’t get my poster. I made my point, stood my ground and fought the good fight.
“I don’t wanna grow up. I’m a Toys R Us kid.” I can still sing every word of the song even though I haven’t heard it in years. I’d be willing to bet at least half of you can too and immediately started singing it in your head when you read that line. According to news outlets, all Toys R Us stores close their doors today, Friday, June 29 2018. If you go to the store’s website you’ll see the picture on your left. When I was growing up, half of your Christmas or birthday presents came from Toys R Us. You always begged for a gift certificate or you just took the money you got in cards to the store and spent it You would have sold a kidney for a real shopping spree. The idea of being cut loose in that store for 10 minutes was the stuff of many daydreams. I know I had my fair share of items from Toys R Us. My Cabbage Patch Kids came from Toys R Us and I still have them. I still remember test driving my first grown-up bike down the aisles of Toys R Us. My children’s baby furniture, stroller, and car seats came from their affiliate, Babies R Us. While my kids have outgrown most toys, I still managed to go in a couple times a year. It had become a tradition to walk the aisles and make a Christmas wish list now that lookbooks are pretty much a thing of the past. I’m not sure what we are going to do now. I guess we’ll walk the aisles of Walmart and Academy Sports. I’m pretty sure those stores will survive the rest of my kid’s childhood but what about their kids?