As it is with anything, there will always be tricks to the trade. The same goes for you or your craft. There will always be a little trick that we can pull to make life easier. For a better example, there will always be a way to work smarter, not harder. For a better life or for a better sense of mental fitness, it pays to learn about these little secrets.
It pays to learn them because otherwise, life is too crazy for us to go nuts.
Agreed?
We were talking about the stages of movement and how these moves are accomplished. We were talking about moving freely or about learning how to flow.
You know about flow, right?
What about moving smoothly or freely without giving in to resistance or losing to distraction?
Don’t blow it before you start.
That’s a trick too.
There are secrets that we need to learn. In my case, I have doubts that cause breaks in my system. I have fears and thoughts and whispers of insecure nature. I have mental and emotional distractions that lead me to trip or become clumsy.
However, I am far different from clumsy when I am here with you.
I am very different when I am at my best.
I am good when I am absent of intimidation or free from the visual or external distractions which cause me to lose my timing. Thus, I stutter, or I slip.
I lose my train of thought which causes me to lose my place which, at best, is a primary example of what breaks my rhythm or causes me to pause when I need to move freely.
I want to pull off my trick.
Better yet, I want to learn how to master my life. I want to perfect my art. I want to perfect my motion and lose the intimidations that come from emotional concepts. These are the ideas and concepts that are often inaccurate and frequently unhelpful.
But we still have them.
Ah, the art of overthinking.
We pull this off very well.
Don’t we?
There are tricks to keeping our sanity. Sometimes, the best trick of all is to go insane.
Sometimes, we need this. We need to cut loose.
But life is busy. Business calls.
Bills are due. Deadlines suck. So does the list of unanswered emails, or the impending doom of unwanted items that come to us on a daily basis, like arguments and fights or resentments and other unneeded distractions.
I often tell people that I have grown folk’s business to take care of.
But that’s hard to do when I act like a brat.
Right?
I need to keep my wits.
I need to focus. At the same time, life is happening at full speed, and like it or not, life does not slow down or speed up when we ask it to.
No, life is relentlessly moving at the same pace; however, and in all fairness, all we have is us and our wits. Lose this and then what?
The answer here is nothing less than unfortunate.
All we have is our ability to adapt or to maneuver.
We have to learn new things. We have to adjust to new information and adapt to new practices and new skill sets. We have to find the meaning of acceptance.
As the famous Serenity Prayer suggests, we have to find the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and above all, we have to find the wisdom to know the difference.
And yes. This is a trick.
I admit it.
And this is a great trick too, if we can pull it, that is.
I do believe in the art of pulling a trick (or two) and I do believe in the art of letting go, or the art of love, and the art of war. I do believe in the art of finding peace.
I understand the irony of the above.
I understand what this means to me; however, as a reminder and after meeting a kind gentleman while looking for something to wear for an upcoming appointment, I was reminded of color blindness. I was reminded that I see what I see and others see the world as they see it. Life is subjective. At the same time, no, it’s not.
Life is just life.
Last night was a good night.
I was reminded of kindness as well as the humility it takes to ask for help.
I woke early, as usual. I was thinking about this man who asked an outside opinion to see if a suit jacket fit properly. It was fun to help him.
He asked about the color of the jacket and if the jacket matched the color of the pants that he chose, which they did.
He explained that he is colorblind which, again, I saw this humility as both wholesome and inspiring.
There was something wholesome about this experience. There was something heroic about this as well.
I am not always great at asking for help.
This is not helpful, by any means, but this is true.
Perhaps, this is what I admire most about you because you have the right and the bravery to be who you are. To me, it doesn’t seem as if you care what anyone says.
I know I’ve told you this before.
But in case you forget –
I think this is heroic too.
I often resist help because pride and ego get in my way. Therefore, shame takes over.
I find myself thinking that I am embarrassed because I don’t know, or that somehow, I am somehow weaker or less-than or inefficient because I don’t know.
I have shame because I don’t know how to do something. And in this case, or in the case of finding the right suit jacket, I recall the time when I learned how a suit jacket fits or how to put outfits together.
I remember when I was a “suit and tie” worker, and I was punished and reprimanded by an aggressive sales manager. He humiliated me for not knowing how to dress myself properly or professionally.
I thought I looked good,
but no.
The sales manager was there to tell me that
I was wrong.
For the record, this manager’s motivational tactics were poor and unprofessional at best. I remember when he took my chair away from my desk because I was short on sales.
I was not allowed to sit down until I made a sale. For the record, this couldn’t be just any sale.
Not as far as my manager was concerned. No, this had to be a real sale, as in, one that was worthy of mention. To be honest or compared to his sales, none of my sales were worth mention.
Therefore, I had to stand for quite a while.
(Man, that was rough.)
I remember when my manager threw a stapler at me—and yes, I have asked for official rulings from different human resource leaders. I have asked human resource executives and no, they all agreed that throwing staplers is frowned upon and severely discouraged.
At the same time, the sales manager was responsible for millions of dollars in sales; in which case, or as it stood in the case of “might makes right,” or how money makes the world go around, I think we find that complaints to human resources about money makers or the big power players will often go ignored or unaddressed.
The again, this is perhaps why it is famously said that the biggest problem with the human resources department (or HR as it’s called) is that the department is rarely human, and it is seldom resourceful.
But hey, that’s a story for another time.
I remember the feelings and thoughts and the ideas of shame, as if I were less than because I didn’t know how to put myself together.
I remember standing at my desk with no chair, thinking I was the worst human in the world.
Meanwhile, it seemed like everyone else was writing up their orders and bringing in “real” business.
But let’s get back to the suit jacket, shall we?
I admired this man last night.
I loved the smile he offered and his unique humility which allowed me to realize the world is safer than I think. Then again, this is also depending upon our surroundings, of course.
Not only that, but I was reminded that everyone has the need and the right to ask for help.
No one knows everything. I certainly don’t.
As I see it, anyone who would look to degrade or put someone down because they asked for help is both cruel and, in most cases, they’re full of shit.
They’re covering for themselves.
This is someone masking a lie or trying to pull off a look or an act, as if to walk around, big and tall, with a false bravado, or as if to appear strong, when, in fact, they are cowards themselves, and weak or frail, at best.
The trick here is to realize this.
See it!
Find ways to free your insecure thinking and do not attach to the brands of insecurity or social snobbery. Do you know what else?
Fuck the snobs.
(You taught me this, by the way.)
Forget about titles or positions and the intimidation of a label, like a supervisor or an executive.
They need help too.
I have met plenty of miserable millionaires.
I have met with executives who couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag, yet their growl is far worse than their bite. They growl though.
All the time . . .
I have met with people who I never knew about their position. They never bragged about their title or bank account. I didn’t know how high they were in the executive food chain because they were both real, and down to earth, and they understood the ruled and the benefits of good, orderly direction.
Keep your wits, kid.
This is a trick, nonetheless, but this trick is the most important one. In fact, this is the key ingredient on how to pull off your real trick. And that’s life.
Do not allow anyone or anything to monopolize your thoughts. Don’t let anyone steal or degrade your feelings and emotions. By any means necessary—never give yourself away for less-than your worth.
Never! Despite the times when we have to show humility and hold our tongue or ask for help, never allow anyone the right to weigh you down or take a position in your head that punishes you.
You taught me this,
and I am grateful.
By the way, I was asked how I would handle that old sales manager if this were to happen to me now.
I wouldn’t have to handle that old sales manager now. I say this because I would never allow myself to be that subservient or so lowly that a person could talk to me like that.
As for the physical part—well, and I’m not going to ask for an HR ruling on this one.
But nobody is ever throwing a stapler at me again.
(No one is ever hitting me with one either. And yep, that happened too. As in click-clink, right into the back of my shoulder with a page of errors on a sales order, right into my back. And this ruined my new shirt. Two little holes and blood and everything.
This would never happen to me now.
Then again, I have been training in mixed martial arts for a while now. I’ve been working on maintaining a regiment of attending Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, mainly three times a week and twice on Sunday.
So, the art of bullying or hitting me with a stapler might not go so well for a sales manager who was suddenly taken to the ground with his shoulder separating from his body. Or, maybe there’d be a choke that sunk in so quick and so deeply that he soiled his pants and woke up to an unfortunate stink.
Just saying.
But again. . . this is a story for a different journal.
Oh and sorry HR, but you were neither human nor resourceful in this so-called scenario. So, in my defense, or in this matter (if it were to happen) I think I might chose to handle this matter separately and in my own way.
More importantly, today is a good day.
Maybe today is the best day ever.
And as for the kind man who found a nice suit jacket and matching pants—
I don’t know what life looks like to him. I don’t know how colors appear or what red looks like through his eyes,
but I do know what kindness looks like.
I know what the smile of appreciation looks like.
I know how good it feels to be human with someone and resourceful, and say hey, I get it man.
Here, try this one on.
There are ticks to keeping our sanity. Sometimes, it’s simple.
Other times, well –
I don’t think HR is listening, so we might have to handle things on our own.
Sometimes the innocent mischief of being a kid is enough to help me be a real man.
Sometimes, going crazy is the best way to keep sane.
But by any means, or in whichever way possible, I have to find ways to keep my wits.
I can lose my shit tomorrow, but for now, I have grown folk’s business to take care of.
I have someplace to be.
So –
Keep your wits.
Focus.
Know your worth.
Refuse distractions.
Keep the smile.
Drop the act.
Step up.
Step forward and take your shot.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help . . .
(you taught me this).
Don’t be intimidated by the idiots who put you as the brunt of their jokes.
Besides, that’s about them anyway.
Not you.
Remember that!
The Written Addiction 