I have made the decision that I have to begin eating better in order to live a healthier lifestyle.  Over the last couple of years my weight has ballooned back up to 188 pounds which is the highest I’ve weighed since 2014.  To remedy this Evelina and I are returning to some previous habits and I have noticed something.

Why is it that when you decide to make a change your body starts craving all the junk food like never before?  We are not going uber-crazy with the changes, but did decide to eliminate candy, chips, sodas, fast food and the like.  This has been going on since Monday and my body has been craving sugar and junk.  I have no idea why.  Maybe it is a mental thing that we crave that which we cannot have?

I’m not sure what the deal is, but it quite annoying to begin having these cravings now!  At any rate, my goal is to be at 177 pounds by the time our Disney trip rolls around in November.

I have observed myself lately and the way I have acted at home.  I have a bad habit of getting snippy when I am not feeling well and thus has been the case as of late.  With my MS symptoms escalating I have to be overly cautious with the way I respond to Evelina.  She has mentioned it a few times to me and now I am trying to be aware enough to pause before I speak to her.

It isn’t easy.  But living with MS does not give me carte blanche nor does it preclude me from the responsibility of treating my wife with love and respect.  It’s not always easy to observe oneself, but it is definitely revealing.

Do you take responsibility for the way you treat others when you aren’t feeling well?  Or do you expect them to understand and accept your treatment?

On Sunday I observed most of the football teams taking a knee in protest during the national anthem.  For those who might not realize, the NFL is in a bit of a verbal war with the POTUS.  For whatever reason the President has decided it is his job to use Twitter to speak to the world.  And that is what has caught my attention.

There are a couple observations I made: 1. There are things that happen which are below the office, and 2. The players have a right to protest and I don’t think they are being unpatriotic, but the opposite.

First, the fact that President Trump responds to every single @realdonaldtrump shows that he doesn’t fully understand the office.  He uses Twitter to speak about policy and does it often.  He needs to stop with the Twitter wars, stop with criticizing the NFL and learn a bit of diplomacy.  Politics isn’t a boardroom where his word is the final say.  Please @realdonaldtrump, please, please stop with the Twitter wars.

Secondly, and more importantly, I don’t believe the NFL players are being unpatriotic.  I believe that by protesting quietly they are actually demonstrating the essence of patriotism.  They are using a platform afforded them by their profession to bring awareness to social injustice and to force people to be uncomfortable enough to provoke a response.

As it is any time racial inequality is brought up, white people across the country are outraged.  And they scream and yell about patriotism.  They object on the grounds of respecting our military.  They jump up on the soapbox and wave their flag.  They try to yell louder than the silent protesters to distract others from what they really need to be doing: listening.

When I hear some of the reasons people are upset over the protests I think “they just don’t get it”.  They are so quick to overreact that they aren’t listening to the pain of a group of people.  They are so uncomfortable with the kneeling that they will not try to understand what is going on.  And I think that is unfortunate.

In a way whites in America are reenacting scenes from the civil rights marches of the 1960’s.  They stood in the restaurants and yelled obscenities.  They threw bottles at the buses.  They released the venom then and they are doing so now, the only thing that has changed is the vehicle for said venom: the internet.  Yet, they still haven’t learned and they still will not listen.

Hopefully people will calm down and begin a dialogue because that is when change occurs.  Until then I’ll watch a group of uncomfortable white people hiss and yell and I’ll still be thinking “Man, they just don’t get it”.

Yesterday I was entering a store while a lady was exiting.  I opened the door on the right and began to enter as she took a step through the same door I had opened.  I politely said to her “enter to your right, exit to your right” and she had no idea what I was referring and gave me the stink eye.  I guess she thought I was holding the door for her, which I would have done gladly had I been exiting with her.

My observation has to do with her getting upset at me and why she got upset.  Was it that I pointed out to her that she was exiting the store through the enter door?  Was it that she thought I was being a smarty pants?  I’m not sure, but she decided to exit through the wrong door and made myself and the 5 people behind me wait as she did so. I wonder how someone can see the exit door is clearly free to be used, yet still want to exit through the enter door while many people are entering?  Oh, I failed to mention that her hands were not full nor was she pushing a cart.

Apparently everyone isn’t aware of the “rules” of traffic flow.

Yesterday I waved at a neighbor as he left for work and he looked right at me and continued on without waving back.  I know he saw me and even though I don’t know him well he could have waved.  In the south you wave even if you don’t know the person and you are expected to wave back.  It’s one of those cultural things having to do with southern politeness and charm.  And I like it.

I have observed several of these types of things lately that lead me down the thought road that our society is becoming more and more introverted.  The inundation of information leads us to believe crime is rampant.  We focus on our smart phones instead of the world around us.  Technology is producing people who do not interact.  In short, people simply are not talking to each other.

Have you noticed this?  Does it concern you?  Will it change?

I don’t think I stop to smell the roses often enough.  It feels like my life is mapped out with goals to the point that I am living from one step to the next step and time is passing so quickly.  I have brief moments when I stop to appreciate what I have and for those moments time seems to cooperate and slows.  But then life speeds up again and weeks pass like days.

I wish I could invent a device that would allow anyone to slow down time.

I am the type of person who does not like conflict in my life, therefore I practice habits and actions which help me eliminate (as much as possible) conflicts before they begin. There are times when you must deal with some type of conflict and there will be times when you must stand your ground.

Sometimes you must dig in on what you know is right or bar the door on things you simply will not compromise.  This could be small things or you might need to dig in on big things.  The simple fact is that if you pick and choose the right times to hold your ground, people will come to respect you more AND will usually not push the limits on things they know you will not relent.

My observation yesterday reminded me of this fact.  I had to pick a small thing and refused to compromise.  I knew that if I didn’t make a stand then I would be allowing for the flood waters to pour into my life.  I made my stand and I was determined to not back down and it worked.

Sometimes you must dig in and refuse to compromise.

It is interesting how life can seem to flip in the blink of an eye.  One moment things could seem dire and something can happen to turn events in your favor.   There is a saying in golf:

When you are playing well it feels like you’ll never play poorly again.  And when you’re playing bad, it never seems like you’ll play good again.

The truth is all things change and I think it is important to recognize that when life seems to be in a downturn those bad times will not last forever.  I had a friend of mine lose his job once and he was upset, as can be expected.  Over a couple of beers I tried to help him gain perspective and I remember telling him that it’s not like he’s never going to find another job.  It will take time, but the bad times will end.  And eventually he found a job.

The emotion of dealing with tough times makes it difficult to maintain proper perspective, but the truth is those tough times will eventually end and the sun will rise on a brand new day.

Our neighborhood has a rule that all dog owners must pick up after their dog goes to the bathroom.  They provide a dog station with a trash can for waste and bags for picking up poop.  I like the rule because without it you wouldn’t want to walk in the grass and most (most) of the residents adhere to the rule.  But there is one resident who walks her dog behind my garage who habitually does not pick up after her large dog.  And we all know large dog means large piles of poo.

As I observed her yesterday I wondered why someone who knows the rule decides to ignore it and is willing to walk away while she knows someone is watching her!  It is inconsiderate of the other residents to fill up the lawn with your dog’s poop.  The manager at the neighborhood office has asked us to report anyone who doesn’t pick up their poo so I did that.

I can’t imagine how lazy and selfish someone must be to refuse to pick up after their dog.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon catching up with an old friend.  Joe and I met in 2003 when he was a restaurant manager for a national chain and I was living in Lake Norman.  I patronized his establishment because they had the MLB package on the television and I liked to go out to watch Red Sox playoff baseball.  Of course over time we became friends.

So yesterday we sat for nearly 7 hours watching football and finding out what each other had been doing for the last 10 years and how quickly time had passed.  I observed how easily we fell back into our friendship.  Our lives have changed and I’m sure the new version of our friendship will conform to our new lives, but the foundation of the friendship is still there.  It is amazing how you can reconnect with someone and it is as if not one day had passed.  It was nice to see Joe yesterday.

Friendships for me are rare; true friendships that is.