Betr@y

     I work in a highly competitive work environment.   Some of my co-workers can be very greedy in their need to be promoted or make the next pay increase.  Today I had a co-worker throw my team under the bus to make themselves look better to the customer.  We all work for the same company and have the same customer.

     I should not be surprised.   But I still get angry when I see co-workers sell out their peers to get ahead.  I’ve seen people use personal information against peers to get ahead.  I’ve always maintained a position that personal or home information stays home and work issues stay at work.   I have too many co-workers who bring their social, economic and personal issues into the work place.

     I absolutely love what I do for a living.  But the business and office politics, creates a working mine field that makes me go home frustrated and tired.

     But on a lighter side of things, I had a round table discussion about my engagement.  It was good to sit with my close male friends and have an adult male conversation.  I learned that someone was pregnant and two other people were actually on their second marriages.   They talked about how much they enjoy the second marriage and the lessons learned from their first marriage.   It felt good to be encouraged by the fellas and they were excited for me.   

More Random ....

While I work on my vacation post, here are some random thoughts.

When you are sad and not in high spirits or the right frame of mind, or when you feel that life and circumstances are un-favorable, you might end up feeling vulnerable and start wallowing in self-pity.  Don’t go there, get focused on something positive.

When you are vulnerable you tend to share your feelings with family members and coworkers but you don’t realize that you are confiding in people who may not share their true feelings for fear of spoiling their relationship with you. These people might listen to you and reluctantly agree with you but may not be in a position to help you.  They may also be jealous of you or even worse, may not have your best interest at heart.

Confiding in your confidant, reduces stress, strengthens your bonds with them and creates a support person that keeps you grounded.

Analyze your thoughts. Scrutinize your motives. Remove selfishness. Calm the passions.  Destroy egoism. Serve and love God. Purify your heart. Cleanse the dross of your mind. Hear and reflect. Concentrate, meditate and pray often. Put God at the center of your life.  Make it a point to making a difference in someone's life.

Do not murmur when you get difficulties, troubles, tribulations and diseases. Every difficulty is an opportunity for you to strengthen your will, increase your power of endurance and to grow strong in your faith. Conquer the difficulties one by one.

Be hopeful always. Face all difficulties, tribulations and anxieties in life with a smile.  Always repeat this mental thought: “Even this will pass away.” You will always be beyond grief and sorrow.

Pain is a blessing in disguise. Pain is an eye-opener. Pain is your silent teacher. Pain will turn your mind towards God.  Pain is your body’s way of telling you something is wrong.

To get the right answers, you must first ask the right questions.  God answers prayers.

B&K

     I recently enjoyed a couples only round table discussion and dinner.  It was enjoyable for a number of reasons.  There were some key moments where everyone shared a good laugh, some really good food and moments where everyone contributed to the conversation. 

     One of the first points was made my me.  I talked about not going to bed angry at your spouse.  To me this is an important ingredient to a long lasting relationship.  When you go to bed carrying that grudge against the person lying next to you, it weighs on you like a wet sack of potatoes.  Those unresolved problems fester into bigger problems and then eventually explodes like a volcano all over the landscape of the relationship.  You must find a way to express yourself without causing pain to the other person.  If you hurt a person by your words, then apologize and make it up to them.  Better to apologize and reach an understanding then hold it in and have it fester later.

     The next key point centers on a person’s mindset.  What are they thinking at the time you’re having a conversation with that person?  Are they focused on what you’re saying or are they distracted by personal issues or outside influences?  What’s on a person’s mind, has a direct influence on how well they listen to you and understand the point you’re trying to make.  This is one of those moments where the voices in their head are drowning out every word your saying.  Active listening is the art of repeating what someone's telling you.  It demonstrates that you are listening and your connected to the conversation.

     Then there is the big guerrilla in the room, communication.  You can trace 90% of the arguments, fights and problems, to some form of mis-communication.  It clearly comes down to one person not knowing, listening or understanding what’s on the other person’s mind.  In this case, you’re really shouldn’t assume they know anything.  Now if your deliberately trying to keep secrets, don’t worry, God will drag them out into the open eventually.  When the communication is there in abundance, then trust will grow and flourish.  It takes a great deal of time and effort to build trust within a relationship.  But it only takes a few minutes of stupidity to destroy that trust.  I watched the young couple look completely disconnected from each other.  He didn't know how to talk to her and she desperately wanted to connect with him.   This gathering helped everyone, but I hope they learned a few things.

     One of the other finer points of the discussion was the discussion about respect.  You must treat the other person with respect.  This begins with how you think about the person.  If you have respect for the person in your mind, then you will perpetuate this level of respect for the person when you talk with and work with them.  If you don’t treat the person with respect, don’t expect the communication, trust or other aspects of the relationship to survive.

     At the end of the night, there were some moments where I squirmed in my chair.  Moments where the conversation was making me uncomfortable because the topics were striking sensitive thoughts in my mind.  I found myself reaching for a seat belt because I was itching to say some personal things about my past that were raw feelings that hadn’t healed.  There were some wounds that had scabs that I thought were healed but had been lying dormant below the surface.  Specifically, the exchanges about respect and communication had me practically ready to throw my hat on the floor and launch into a tirade about my ex.  She truly put me and children through some changes.

     My biggest fear came to the surface of my mind that night.  There were moments of clarity that have allowed me to sleep well since.  Some of my biggest fears center on being left with carrying another person’s burden.  I’ve been hung out to dry emotionally, financially and socially by my ex.  I'm not afraid to admit that I'm not interested in another relationship filled with drama, confusion or issues.   I want to be with my best-friend and enjoy all the joys and struggles that God means for us.  We all want to be in a relationship that is supportive, loving and intimate.  I think the key to all of it, is having God at the center of the relationship.  I went home at the end of the weekend and I had a long talk with God.   I prayed for a long time that night.  He has answered my prayers.

R#F

     I referee basketball as a side hustle and for the enjoyment of the game.  There are many reasons for doing this and I will highlight the obvious and personal reasons in a few.

     The basketball season finally ended and I’m exhausted.  I finished the season refereeing 10 games over a 4 day period.  I love the game of basketball on so many levels.  Its starts with the camaraderie of a bunch of guys, working together, helping each other to win a few games and getting in some exercise along the way.  I enjoy teaching basketball and my few moments of coaching have been fun. 

     What we do as refs is a difficult job.  We have to memorize and apply a 300+ page book of rules and by-laws that ensure the safety of the kids and proper application of the game.  As game officials, we truly care about the game, the kids and the game play.  Anyone who knows a good ref, you can see the desire and the hardwork they apply to the game to be good professionals and officiate the best they can.  There are officials who are just into the game to make a few dollars.  But the good ones outnumber the bad ones.

But Officiating a game also gives me the opportunity to exercise different parts of my persona.  I’m a peace maker and that is part of my personality.  That part of my personality conflicts with my need to control a game as an official.  There were some recent games where my ‘peace-maker’ side was in direct conflict with my ‘kick this fool out of the gym’ persona.  This is why I love and hate to officiate games.  I love working with kids, teaching them and coaching them from inside the confines of the game.  But there are coaches who use the game as a personal soap box to announce their stupidity to everyone in the facility.  People forget that young, impressionable children hang on every word that you say as a coach.  When coaches act crazy on the sidelines, the kids mimic this same behavior on the court.  Then the official has to correct the behavior both on  and off the court.
     Coaches can sometimes see that you have a tolerant attitude and will try to dance on the razor's edge of the Ref's patience.  The paradox begins with the coach trying to get as many calls as possible in his team's favor.  The opposite side of that condition is while the coach is working over the ref, they are no longer coaching the team.
     The most exciting moment of reffing was standing next to this young, enthusiastic little girl who worked hard, smiled and told me she was happy just to play the game.   That is the reason why I like to ref games.
     But this one particular Coach kept giving me a hard time, every-time I reffed his games.  Every-time I made a call against one of his players, he had something negative to say to me when I approached the table to report the incident.  We are trained to ignore the coach and focus on the game.  But in this particular incident, I waited for him to make a critical mistake.  He accidentally sent six players onto the court, following a time out.  I wait for the play to begin and immediately called a technical foul for to many players on the court.  He jumped off the bench and started screaming at me for calling the technical foul.  I stood there and waited for him to recognize his mistake.  But he didn't stop there.  He continued to shout at me from the sidelines until the commissioner of the league walked over to him and asked him to calm down.  He proceeded to tell off the commissioner while his team was still losing the game by 22 points.  In a subsequent  game, two 5th grade boys collided and one of the players hit his head on the floor.  The same coach had the audacity to ignore the crying player, blame me for the collision of the two athletes and started screaming at me.  I was forced to help the player, then assess the coach a technical foul.
   Morale of the story: for every minute you are fighting with the official, that's one less minute you are coaching your team and losing control of the game.

Ig-Nant

     While at work recently, I had the pleasure of listening to a conversation between two young ladies that made my blood boil.  We were standing near the vending machines and I hear the exchange: “He won’t dare tell me how to spend my money!  Not even my DADDY can tell me how to spend my money!  I don’t care if he is my husband or not!”  What caught me off guard was this same type of phrase was used in a sermon recently.

Definition: ig-nant is short for ignorant. 

     Where did we go wrong when we raise ig-nant fools who go into relationships thinking they can talk like that about their spouses and think this is correct?  Seriously!!  I really don’t get it.  I was standing with a friend, looking at the vending machines and I could not believe my ears.  She seemed so intelligent and carried herself in such a professional manner, that this one completely took me by surprise.  She was acting like her husband was just a passenger on HER train.  Amazing! 

So I decided to sit near them in the lunch room so I could do some ear-hustling.  I couldn’t help myself because I was intrigued by her self-righteous attitude and I needed to find out how stupid this woman was.  She didn’t disappoint me.  She talked about her husband being only good for the occasional sex and his money.  She would often take his money and treat her girlfriends to a night out, clothes, jewelry and concerts. 

     The more amazing part was they thought it was so great to abuse a person you’re in a relationship with.  WTF?  You’re telling me this witch has the nerve to sit here and brag that she has put her husband in his place?  REALLY?  So let’s play this thing out and look at what she’s accomplished.  Let’s say that she has $50 and he has $50.  So in her eyes, she has $100 and he only has $50.  Now I know some smart a$$ gold-digger will cheer this ratio and say Amen.  But here is what will eventually happen:  Someone else will offer him $50 so that he has $100.  Believe that and don’t sleep on that.  Don’t ever think God won’t repay your bad behavior.  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. 

     This ig-nant fool (Steve Harvey voice) will be the same chick in a later time frame, complaining because he stops giving her attention and money because someone else will give him that money he needs.  I just don’t understand how people can try to be so slick about things.  Yeah, your ig-nant a$$ (Steve Harvey voice) talked some ish and got one over on him.  At some point, her actions will catch up to her.  When this thing comes full circle, She will sit back and say, “I don’t know how this happened?”  If you do someone wrong, someone will eventually do you wrong.  Know dat.

     So was pulling this trick really worth the end result?  Did you have so little respect for them and yourself by trying to get over on a person, only to have it comeback to get you later?  I was really offended by the commentary of this young lady at the lunch table that day.  Eventually I felt sorry for her sorry dumb a$$ because she’s eventually going to have to sleep in that bed she made.

     I have one last problem with this.  What you say about a person, will eventually get back to that person.  This is especially true if it is negative.  You can talk ish all day long but be prepared to deal with the consequences when you throw the person who is paying your bills, under the bus.

Consciousness

     From time to time you need to sit back and do a self assessment of who you are, what your thoughts are and where you’re going in life.  I’m the type of person that always looks at things with a critical eye.  I examine how things work, how they operate and how they sustain themselves.  This is a side effect of being an engineer who spends his days taking apart problems and solving them.  One of things that I’ve learned is that people do things based on their motivations. 

     I have to learn not to be jealous of other relationships.  This is something I need to identify and work on.  Each relationship is what you make of it.  I should come to admire what others have established and learn what makes those relationships special.  One of the things that has always tripped me up has been my trust in others.  All of us have forgotten to tell that special person all of the background information to a situation.   A person can’t possibly know everything about every situation or person.  When people forget to inform me of things, it is usually unintentional.    Unfortunately I come from a background where my mother and sister hid a great deal of family information from the family because they didn’t think we could handle the truth.   This is a topic that everyone faces.  We have to reach an understanding that we are not going to know everything.     Accepting the fact that others will posses information and will control that information as power trip, will always happen.  It doesn’t make it easier to trust people, it just allows you to see people for what/who they truly are. 

     If someone loves and trust you, they will not intentionally keep things from you.  Mistakes will happen and it’s important to be as open and honest as possible.  What people fail to realize is that all things come out sooner or later.  You can try hiding things, but at some point, God will bring things to light.  What upsets a person is when they find out from someone else.

     Jealousy is a very bad emotion that runs through all of us.  It is difficult to have a relationship with a person if that person has insecurities or jealousy that can impede the growth of the relationship.   But you can NOT solve another person’s insecurities or jealousies, nor should you attempt to compensate for these issues.  Those of us who have been in jealous relationships understand full well what happens when you attempt to give up things to compensate for these issues in the relationship.  It really becomes a no-win situation.  You become increasingly held hostage by the other person’s emotions.  This eventually forms itself into a detectable level of abuse in a relationship.  

     Then there is the jealousy of co-workers, friends and family.   I never truly understood this level of jealousy.   If a family member is successful, we should be cheering them and encouraging them.  I just don’t get it.  I can understand when you out-hustle someone at work and they get the promotion.   But if they are sucking some meat or kissing some tail to get that promotion, it’s a hollow victory.    So I might be jealous of them for a few minutes, but then I have to remind myself that when I out hustle them, someone will notice my efforts.  I could care less how big their house is and how many cars and jewelry they have.    Sometimes you just have to be happy with the blessings God gives you.   Better to have a peaceful sleep and live within your means, then to always be worried about what you want and don’t have.  You’re not jealous of someone having something you don’t, if  you don’t obsess over them having it and you don’t.  #IJS

Mental Centering

FYI:  The center of my life is God.   I pray often.  I don’t follow or worship a preacher.  What I do, I do in service to GOD.   I hold myself accountable to GOD from whom all blessings flow.  I’ve seen too many people led down a wrong path by a charismatic leader who becomes drunk with power and control.

     Yesterday’s Sunday school lesson and sermon were good and they resonated with some thoughts that had been on my mind for a while.  God has a plan and his plan has timers.  There are things he needs to have happen in people’s lives when they are ready for those blessings.  When we become impatient for his blessings, we forget where are place is, in his plans. We shouldn't do things just to appease other's desires.  We should always hold firm to our beliefs and wait for God's plan to bring the blessings we deserve.  Time and patience are keys to God's plan.

God makes changes in our lives for a reason.  

     There are times when I walk into my job and I’m overwhelmed with the number of people who depend upon me to provide direction.  I don’t sit around and brag about my accomplishments and my level of education.  But over time I’ve developed this sharp sense of seeing the ‘big picture’, formulating a plan and executing the plan to complete the task.  I have to admit that I sit there and I tell people, “I’m going to get you there, we will get through this” and they calm down and start to follow.  I work really hard all day to the point where I can’t think straight when I go home.  I sat in my chair one night and couldn’t do simple math because of mental fatigue.  But God gives me the strength to rise up that next morning and take on those complex problems again and I thrive with each new problem. 

   I’m truly blessed to be paid to do what I love to do. 


I need to become more mentally centered around the important things in my life.  I have a plan for everything I do in life.  But I need to pray more to get my plan in line with God's plan.

By the way, my girl got up there, grabbed that Mic and SANG her nervous tail off!   I’m proud of her. #IJS