THE CODIFIED LIFE II

TACTICAL

Need I say more?  No matter what you think of this entry, you will clearly know how I feel based on the outcome of the Rose Bowl. The Spartans played up to and beyond themselves and that is due to the “perfect” motivation for one another that they had going into the game.  Go Green!

Since I don’t have cable, I had a “watch workout” down at Anytime Fitness.  Though I did receive advice that would have had me trim some of my personal expenses by cutting my membership, with considering how little I get out of watching television, I felt that I get more value from being able to workout there than I would either from cable or having the extra cash on hand.  

My anthropomorphic characterization of my depression as “the black dog” was first done because I thought the idea of sharing a trait with someone that I admired like Winston Churchill was cool.  Yet, it was always knowing that I was not clinically depressed but “feeling blue”, my troubles were not because of chemical reactions in my body that I could not manage, but because things weren’t going my way.  I think that a great many people mistake their own individual disappointment for the suffering of depression when their case could simply be solved by their actions toward resolution of their difficulties.  But again, that is me.

That might just be a key reason for my “Rules To Live By”.  I have often observed that people relish (or so it seems) the opportunity to win sympathy and attention, rather than actually trying to solve their issue and “win the day”.  Efforting… MTXE… that is what I deduced was missing from the vast majority who do and do not achieve their goals and was present in the attitudes of those who did and do achieve things.  It is also something that I acknowledge as a key reason for any number of my own personal fails.  I guess that you could say, “Do or do not… there is no try,” is a corollary of my “Rules…”

A MAJOR VICTORY CAN ONLY BE ACHIEVED BY POSITIVE MEASURES AIMED AT A DECISION, NEVER BY SIMPLY WAITING ON EVENTS.  IN SHORT, EVEN IN THE DEFENSE, A MAJOR STAKE ALONE CAN BRING A MAJOR GAIN. -Carl Von Clausewitz

For DECADES (I can’t believe that I am old enough to make this claim… how cool is that..? :0) I have described my personality as “like the weather in San Diego”, which is famous for being as close to perfect and happy as Seattle’s weather is known for being dreary and mournful.  A lot of my contentedness is owed to being able to assess and redefine the word “patience”.  I think that it has a bad rap, mainly due from our childhood.  As difficult as time is to understand as a concept, for a child who is still incredibly new to the world and having recently emerged from a place where every need was met automatically, patience is a hard concept to grasp.  For me, patience is a word that connotes an action.  It is the what you do when you allow the process of working in your own behalf develop.  As Von Clausewitz implies, waiting, simply standing idly by as the world speeds past you, is the same as doing nothing.  Patience, however, is something that YOU do, to allow for your plans to hopefully develop and from which you can make your next move… when you are simply waiting, you are allowing things outside of your control to determine your course.  If my blog is to believed, then by all indications I put much effort into determining whether or not I am the one who is guiding my ship.

Speaking of patience in relationship to MY childhood…

As the oldest, my Mother spoke to me in such a fashion where I did not have to be told to be patient much.  Rather than snap at me for pestering her, she chose to speak to me, along with my siblings, not like children but as “little adults”.  She would explain WHY we could not have certain things, whether it was Ding Dongs or a Cadillac.  From preparing me to become the head of our little tribe should the unthinkable happen to her, to getting the crew up and off to school, I experienced early on that there were few moment to be wasted when things had to be done. This was not something that I saw in many of my peer’s relationship with their parents, and of the few that were similar, they have gone on to career and material success.  Though I would not claim to have been as successful as they have in those areas, I do believe, however, that I have a certain comfort and ease with my life that they perhaps have not, and I certainly have had more fun with my life than most of them!  Getting back to the point, being able to take decisive actions, whether it is through one’s own volition or allowing prior actions to play out, it is integral to one’s success, no matter how it is measured.

In personal relationships, this is how I measure what I call the “niceties of character”.  No matter the level that the relationship is on, I take points away from what I feel is often an unnecessary and pointless delays and circumstantial hindrances, for they allows for the gnawing away of the roots of said relationship.  This comes most often in the form of hiding or keeping to oneself the level of feelings that they may have for me, or worse, prove to me to be unreliable through their own self-absorption.  They wait until more of the markers are on their side of the ledger, that is to say, until things are unbalanced in such a way that is most advantageous to them.  They will let you commit to the point where you are leveraged in such a position that leaves you vulnerable and at a loss should things sour.  “Mean people suck”, as do “cowards filled with avarice.”