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The Thanksgiving Struggle

11/23/2016

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It never ceases to amazes me how sometimes, the things I am thinking or talking about with a friend are driven home by an event that has nothing to do directly with me.

Kayne West had some kind of melt down this week.  He was rambling on stage, cancelled a concert and ended up in a hospital for a psyche evaluation.  Kayne West. Beautiful wife, two beautiful children, more money than anyone could ever need, fame, adulation.  One unhappy mess.

Reminds me of someone else who had it all. Whitney Houston.  Stunningly gorgeous, a beautiful daughter, tons of talent, tons of money. So unhappy, she had to fall into drugs that eventually brought on the end of her life.

This came to mind because I was having a conversation with a dear friend of mine.  He has struggled over the last decade, trying to put a life that has gone off track back on track.  During the conversation, we talked about the struggle to be happy.

Yes, the struggle to be happy.

Some of you are reading that last sentence and you have no idea what that means.  Struggle to be happy? HUH?

I don’t know if it is DNA, upbringing or just some weird chemical thing, but there are people who are just more inclined to happiness.  Not related to what they have.  Not related to what they do.  Not related to who they are with.  They just walk around feeling pretty good most of the time.

I think of my uncle, who passed away earlier this year. He did not have a high powered job.  He did not make a ton of money in his life.  He was not adored by millions.  His life was very simple.  He worked at the same job his entire adult life, lived in the house he was born in, in the same small Wisconsin town.  Yet, the only time he was ever unhappy in his entire life, was when he had to go to a nursing home.  When he had to leave that house he had lived in his entire life. Two years of unhappiness out of eighty isn’t a bad record when you think about it.

So many of us will never have that record.  We compare ourselves to others.  We constantly say, “If only I hadn’t moved, lost that job, married that person, blown that record deal,” then I would have been happy!  The past, that didn’t quite work out, becomes that point where we were at the fork between real happiness and fulfillment and a life not quite complete.

Or is it?  What more could Whitney Houston have accomplished?  Or Kayne West?  Still, they struggle with keeping it together.  With being happy.

I had my own little epiphany this week.  It is not the life that makes you happy.  It is what you make of the life!

Having been a member of the “nothing is ever good enough club” I can tell you, it is not an easy transition.  I truly have been eating the elephant one bite at a time.  Finding joy in a job that can sometimes be stressful.  Remember that even when hauling in the equipment and dealing with the sound issues is a major pain in the ass, singing someone’s favorite song still makes their day.  Realizing that a slightly neurotic dog who loves you more than anything on this earth, is as wonderful as a perfect dog who loves you just a little.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. A day of gratitude. Yet, sometimes we struggle to find what we are grateful for.

I will be celebrating whole heartedly this year.  Thankful I still have my house, thankful I have an interesting job that I don’t have to commute to, thankful I can entertain people and make their week just a little better.  I have wonderful people in my life, two wonderful pets who adore me, a roof over my head and outlets for my creativity.
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Wow, when I read it back, it sounds like I have a wonderful life.  So many of us do.  Let’s remember it tomorrow and the day after. And maybe the day after that.  Three days out of 365 of happiness is a start.  Not quite that seventy-eight years, but a start.

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THOSE PEOPLE

11/10/2016

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I did not vote for Donald Trump.

I sat down on Tuesday night, hoping to watch an election night celebration!  Katy Perry was going to sing.  The Glass Ceiling was going to come down, both literally and figuratively and history was going to be made.

It didn’t quite turned out as I hoped.  I was angry, I was disappointed and a little sad.  What I was not, was surprised.

As the night wore on, my mood lifted.  Not because my candidate was going to win, but because I found some real humor in watching the election coverage on one of the major networks.  Somewhere around an hour in, they gave up trying to be unbiased and starting going through The Seven Stages of Grief.

Denial:  “Maybe she can tie him if half of Wisconsin lost their ballots!”

Depression: “Trump is going to be President!  Why? Why?”

But what I really found hysterical was the SHOCK.  “How could this happen?  How could we not see this coming?”

How indeed!  I flashed back to a cartoon I once saw titled ,  “A Map of The United States As Seen By The Entertainment Industry.” It shows California and New York clearly outlined. The rest of the country is simply titled, “The Fly Over Zone.”

I have a bold statement the major news media outlets do not want to hear.  They are part of the entertainment industry.  I know they believe they are Journalists, but if it walks like a duck….They hang with entertainers.  They live in Los Angeles and New York.  They are treated like celebrities.  To say they don’t quite know what the average American is thinking is an understatement.  They live in an alternate universe.

As they continued to try to search for answers for this shocking turn of events, they finally had a revelation when a very pregnant Savannah Guthrie announced we were witnessing, “The White Washing of America.”  Tom Brokaw and the other “news” people nodded their heads in agreement.

Oh yes, those angry white straight males.  The ones we all knew were going to come out and support Trump!  Yes, yes THOSE people!  They had somehow cloned themselves and brought in numbers that no one could ever see coming! Cloning must be the explanation for their oversight!

I went to bed.

The next morning, amidst the mayhem on social media, I started to notice some interesting posts. People happy about the election who were not white and not males.

In my office, two people confessed, (we are in California after all!) that they were one of THOSE people.  One was a man, one was a woman.  One was Jewish, one was protestant. One was gay, one was straight.

As the day wore on, I began to realize, THOSE people are friends, co-workers and yes, our families. They do not believe that other people’s families should be ripped apart, people should be put in determent camps or even that their candidate is going to be able to build the much talked about wall.  So why did they elect a reality star billionaire with no political experience over someone who has worked in the political arena almost her entire life?

The one common answer they gave, is they really wanted change.  THOSE people are sick of the same people with the same names, getting into office and doing the same things. Jeb Busch didn’t do well this time around either, did he?  They are tired of politicians who take the party line and block good things from happening in this country because the other party thought of it first. They are tired of a political system that can be bought and sold to the highest bidders.

And I realized we had a common ground. 

Despite all the anger and name calling, we are starting to talk about some interesting ideas.  What if we dumped the Electoral College?  I say that not because my candidate won the popular vote, but what if instead of politicians spending their time worrying about “Swing” states, they went and talked to people from ALL states to find out what was really important to them and their families?

When we first started this country, The President was the person who got the most votes and The Vice President was the person who came in second.  I would have given one month’s salary to see Donald and Hillary, on stage together, holding hands and talking about how they were going to lead the country together!  Think how different a campaign would go if you knew at the end, you were going to have to work together?
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Crazy talk right?  Almost as crazy as a woman running for president and getting beat by a reality star.

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