For No REal Reason

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Have you ever felt like you got all dressed up and then went in a different direction than you had in mind?

Not sure about Fank and Al, They do look like they are dressed for an R2D2 look alike contest.

Add a couple of toilet plungers and they could pass for darlek prototypes.  Maybe not.

We have all been challenged to be the best we can be. We hear all the time to pursue excellence. I agree we should be the best we can be and pursue excellence.

However, we can’t all excel, not all are going to be outstanding at what they do. I have to say there is something to be said for mediocrity. It works, it keeps people functioning. Mediocrity is what keeps the world going so some people can excel.

I for one excel at Mediocrity. I know many others who do the same. I’m not excellent at anything. I’m mediocre at almost everything. But I make a difference. I’m a writer with 5 blogs, none excel all are mediocre. I’m a photographer, hey guess what anyone who points a camera and clicks is a photographer. I will never be a world class photographer at best I am mediocre. Yes, the sky replacement in bad, mediocre at best, but it was the least I could do for a mediocre post.

All my pursuits in life have managed to make it to the level of mediocre. I have not excelled at anything. I will never be recognized as being the best at anything. But this doesn’t mean all of us who seem only to be excelling at mediocrity don’t contribute or make a difference.

If it weren’t for all of us doing our mediocre jobs, contributing to the overall good of the world, where would be the opportunity for others to be the best they can be and pursue excellence.

Just because you are mediocre doesn’t mean you don’t make a valuable contribution to the world around you.

If you feel your life is mediocre don’t give up the pursuit of excellence. But if you aren’t excelling don’t just give up.

The next time you see someone in a mediocre job give them a smile this might just be what they are doing while learning to excel. But if not, they are at least providing a service so you can go on with your mediocre existence.

Have a Great Day

When I was growing up during those “Formative years”  the common response to “Thank you for your help” or just “Thank you” was “You are welcome”.

Service or kindness rendered, thanks offered, “You are welcome” stated in return.

When I was a Sr. in High School there was an honors banquet for local leaders of the Boy Scouts of America.  I was chosen to help serve at the banquet.  It was for Old Guys in scouting, not scouts themselves.  You know people my age now, but let’s not go there.

When the evening was over and we walked to the door the sponsors of the banquet said “Thank you for serving tonight”  I responded “Thank you for the opportunity”.  I thought it was cool to see all these guys who work behind the scenes to make scouting what it was.  Till that night I had no idea all the work that was involved.

My dad, a scout leader himself, attended the banquet, after the door closed he said, “What was that?  You don’t respond to thank you with thank you, you respond with you are welcome”.  I had broken an unwritten norm.

Over the years I saw “You are welcome” often replaced with “Thank you for the opportunity”  I had to smile every time I heard it.

Now the language has evolved even further and with each evolution it takes on new meaning.

Now we are up to “No, Problem”

I still prefer Thank you for the opportunity to serve.  Each phrase indicates how we view ourselves and those we are engaged with in life.

You are welcome.  “Yes I took time to render a service or kindness, but I don’t mind doing it for you.”  Emphasis on the one rendering service as benevolent and kind.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve. “The one rendering the service has gained from the service and they view it as a personally enriching experience.”

No Problem.  “Yes, you bothered me, yes, I did something for you, but it’s not a problem”  Subtle focus on “I had to take time to do something for you but it isn’t a big deal.”

I am now past the age of my dad when he informed me of the social norm of “You are welcome” personally I find I prefer either You are welcome or Thank you for the opportunity more desirable and polite than No Problem.

Living through and in this social evolution I fell like “No Problem” is dismissive and devaluing of both myself and the service rendered.

If you don’t agree.  No Problem!

I met these two guys on my recent road trip.

Ran across them in Illinois just standing there.

I was going to feed them some “Well, garbage” when I decided to take their picture and strike up a conversation.

These guys are really funny, or I had too many McDonald’s Ice Coffees XL.

Good Things Come To Those Who Wait

This was originally an advertising campaigns promoting Guinness-brand draught stout

I think it was written by a young man who wasn’t very ambitious in life and knew he would inherit the family fortune. While waiting he was consuming Guinness stout and writing advertising dittys.

I was told recently by a member of the other side of the gene pool that men make noises when they are tired of waiting.  I didn’t know that.  I must have missed school that day or was late getting back from the playground when we had that lesson.

It appears from what my friend said there are a series of noises which indicate varying degrees of impatience or “let’s move along dear” sounds.  Some are little grunts, and she didn’t go into detail of what others might be.

I checked on Amazon to see if I could order a “Set of Noises Men Make When Tired of Waiting” but nothing was returned in the search results.

This has left me for my entire life using alternatives.

• I bring a book or magazine to read
• I find a seat or bench in the store
• I find a place up front by the door and count the tile or ceiling squares
• I wait to see how many people leave the store before “We” are ready to leave the store
• I count how many people go through the security thingy before someone sets off the alarm and doesn’t quite know what to do.  Some Freeze, some go back with bags open, some ignore it like someone’s car alarm just went off.

I never thought of making noises, low, guttural or otherwise.

After a life time of alternatives I don’t know if I could adjust to the noise making routines.  Especially if I was already using an alternative.  Just sitting on a bench in the mall making noises might be construed as something else especially if they were grunting sounds, low or otherwise.

It was like an annual rite of passage. The snow would fall and continue to build up in the ditches as the snowplows would come down the road as fast as they could navigate and giant plums of snow would cascade from the front of the plow at times appearing to blind the driver!

Every year it seemed a driver would get too close to the ditch and would take out (destroy completely) the mailbox and post.

Over the years dad tired a variety of different configurations.

• Set the pole back further
• Raise the pole up and extend an arm
• Paint the pole a bright red
• Get a bigger box (easier to see)

None of these seemed to work every winter same ritual.

It was after I had left home and gone off to college I noticed once again Dad had a new mailbox and post.  But this wasn’t just a mailbox post it was like he had sawn off a 12″ tree and mounted the box on top of it.

There was a slight curve to the post putting the box exactly where the mailman (yes, back then they were all called mailmen) could reach it easily from their mail truck.

When I got in the house I asked Dad about the new mailbox (always a bone of contetion.  He said last year it was snapped off as usual and this past fall he had to cut down a large locust tree.  (Locust trees are hard wood and back in Ohio the bark is stripped from them and they make exellent fence posts.)

He decided it was going to be his new mailbox post instead of fuel for his stove in the garage.

He cut it so it was almost 10 feet long and dug one very deep hole and poured cement around the post and mounted the mailbox on top of the post.

I ask him if he thought this one would last.  He said “Yep, I think this one will last.”

I asked why he thought so, here is what he said.

“About a week ago we had a couple of snow storms and the trucks were coming down the road every couple of days.  Then we had one really big storm and the ditches were already getting pretty full.  I was watching from the window when the truck came down the road and I could tell he was going to hit the mailbox post.  He did, and when he did his truck spun right around in the road and landed in the ditch.  My mailbox post never moved.  I don’t think he will be hitting my post again.”

When mom and dad moved from Ohio to Tucson that mailbox and post were still at the end of their driveway.  It was never hit again by a passing snowplow : )

I hear a lot about print media being a dead media. For some advertising I can see why this would be said.

I also wonder about some who spend their advertising dollars in a media where they are brutalized by the publication. For Example: Would the Beef Council advertise “What’s for Dinner Tonight” in the PETA monthly magazine?

But it is obvious to me there are some things you can advertise in local print media which will still catch your eye.

So how many times did you look? Did you count them?

Did you find this post hard to read or were your eyes drifting to the “Print Media”?