40 – Page 2 – HappyStinkingJoy

40… a partially positive reflection :)

Yeah, after the pity party of my last post, I thought I should list some of the things that I have going in a positive direction in my life. After all, if all I do is gripe, God may see fit to throw a little Job-action my way to wake me up… and I ain’t ready for that 🙂

God is good. He sent his only begotten Son to die for my sins, and that’s pretty cool.

I have a wife whom I love and who loves me. Yeah, believe it or not, she loves me!

I have two sons that I would die for… when I’m not wanting to strangle them because almost all they do is fight with each other with the sole intention of driving their mother and me insane. I have to remind myself that they are gifts from God and I need to cherish them… which I do. I’d also cherish a little brotherly love from them from time to time 🙂

I have (finally) a decent house. I wish we wouldn’t have had to waited this long to get a decent place, but patience is a virtue that God is trying to teach me (of which I am, I believe, a horrible student.)

I have a job that doesn’t suck (finally.) I like what I do, I feel like I make a difference in the course of our business, my boss is easy to get along with and my coworkers (although the most eccentric group of coworkers I have ever worked with) are all good people that I, for the most part, get along with.

I like snow. It is cold and pretty and it covers up the imperfections of the dead earth created by fall. I really like snow and am thankful for it.

Nebraska isn’t really that bad. Ok… yeah, it’s pretty bad, but things could be worse; I could live in Texas.

I have good friends with good senses of humor (have to have a good sense of humor to be my friend or I’ll drive you completely stinking insane!)

I love my dog, Buffy. She is AWESOME! Beagles rock… even 10-year old ones that shed like there’s no tomorrow.

Life is, for the most part, pretty good. Now that I got the sentimental crap out og the way, I can get back to the griping.

40 :(

It had to happen. It’s approach led to this started-with-good-intentions-but seldom-written-in blog. It has been the Moby Dick to my Ahab. It has been a black cloud on the horizon of my life for the past 10 years. “It” is 40, and it finally overtook me last Saturday.

Turning 30 sucked. Turning 30 meant the end of innocence. No longer a naive 20-something, I felt like my 30s were meant to be my true entry into adulthood. It was during my 30s that I felt I was meant to create my career-life. 30s are meant to be a career building decade and if you play your cards right, you will be well on your way to building wealth and flowing into your “prime income earning years” (40s and 50s) with ease.

Of course, turning 30 sucked. Did I mention that already? As I approached 30, I panicked. “What are you doing with your life?” I asked myself. I was in my late 20s and realized that I was not in a good position to enter anything that involved a long-term career plan. I panicked. I talked my wife into researching franchises so we could open our own business and start down the road to financial independence. We chose a business, we moved to Craphole… er… Scottsbluff, NE, and we tried to make a go of it. All of this panic was caused by the turn to 30.

A few things went wrong.

1st: The franchise we opened did not do bad… we made a small profit in our first year. The franchise did not, however, make enough profit to support my wife and I and our young son. The franchise did not live up to our calculated expectations. We ended up selling it.

2nd: We personally financed the person we sold the business to… and within a couple of months she declared bankruptcy. Guess there was a reason the banks weren’t lending to her…

3rd: After getting shafted by the person that we sold the business to, we could have probably declared bankruptcy as well. But NO… we decided to take the high, moral road and pay back all of our debt. So, instead of taking a lump to the old credit almost 7 years ago (which would have resulted in much less scrimping over the last 7 years and a better quality of life for my family over the last 7 years… and the lump would be healed by now), we have reached a point where we are only a few months away from finally getting rid of all that debt. I know I’m supposed to feel good about this, you know, for having repaid my debts… but I’d really much rather avioded the past 7 years worth of stress and that money, invested, would mean that I would have had a chance to retire some day. Oh well, retirement is overrated, right? Who doesn’t want to work until they die. At least I owned-up to my responsibilities… again, that just isn’t doing anything for me. Retirement would have meant more than making sure the stupid credit card companies got their money. Who’d a thunk that doing the right thing would suck so much?

4th: The wonderful panhandle of Nebraska is not a good place to attempt to open a specialty retail business. Not only is there little disposable income here, if you can’t make a living with the new business, your job opportunities in the Craphole are, well, quite limited. Let’s just say that bright futures aren’t created here. The Craphole is a retirement community… the Craphole is an agricultural community… people either come here to grow corn or people come here to die. People shouldn’t move here to open a little business (in an effort to avoid the stress of turning 30)… because the odds are that you will fail.

Turning 30 may not be a walk in the park, but turning 40 after getting yourself stuck in stinking Nebraska… I don’t know much about growing corn, so I guess I’m part of the retirement community in the Craphole just waiting to die. At 40, it’s really kind of too late to start all over again. Guess I’ve kind of just given up on having the kind of career making the kind of money I went to college to make. At least I have a loving wife and two great kids… if only I could provide for them the way I always imagined I’d be able to. And it’s not that we’re doing bad… it’s just that I always thought I would be financially successful… not fighting to remain middle-class.

I usually try to make these gripe-sessions at least a little funny. You know, cynically tongue -in-cheek. I just really can’t find anything too amusing about the entire situation… not this time.

Softball #3

You know what? I played softball Friday night and for the first time this season I felt like I could actually run! Did I stretch more than usual? No, I stretched no more than usual. Have I been running sprints on the days between games? Haha… seriously, run on days I don’t have to, that’s funny! So what, you may ask yourself, is Adventurer Rich’s secret to being able to run without feeling like the muscles in his legs are actually going to explode?

When I was a wee tot, I remember something my grandma had around the house. It came in a small bottle with a funky, sponge-like applicator at the top. When I would press the applicator against myself, cool green liquid would erupt onto my skin. Within a matter of moments, the liquid was absorbed into my skin and a mild heat consumed my flesh. This was an amazing liquid that my Grandma rarely let me touch. She, however, reeked of this liquids pungent odor almost all of the time. This magical liquid was the reason for my ability to run in last Friday’s softball game without feeling like my groin was going to burst. This magical liquid is… Absorbine Jr (I can’t believe I actually found an Amazon link for Absorbine Jr 🙂 )

Absorbine Jr. is amazing. The cool of the (I’m sure mildly toxic) chemicals that first splash across your skin is invigorating. The oddly green appearance of the liquid is reminiscent of the Grossolium 90 that transformed Melvin Junko into one of the oddest superheros of all time: The Toxic Avenger . Remember that awesome flick? I could do a whole post on how much that single film transformed my entire adolescence… or not. Anyway, back to the Absorbine Jr. The cooling of the skin is of course followed by the mild burn that never quite gets hot enough, you know? It starts to burn pretty good, and just when you think it is going to kick into a full-fledged Icy Hot type burn, it levels off leaving you wanting more. And that classic smell… that classic “old person” smell… that classic “old person” smell that stays with you for hours after the warming sensation has disappeared and reminds me of my grandma; the smell is unforgettable.

So I bought a bottle of Absorbine Jr the other day because I’m feeling a little sore all the time now since softball season started. I know it was good enough for my grandma, so it’s gotta be good enough for me. I get home and I sponge it on all of my sore spots. The cool feels good, the warm feels great, and the smell waxes my nostalgic. I’m wishing they would sell the green, stinky magic juice in 5 gallon buckets so I could fill a tub with it and just soak. Another great thing about Absorbine Jr is the fact that you don’t have to beg a family member to put it on you. You know how no one wants to rub you down with Icy Hot or Bengay because they have to spend too much time washing the crap off their hands after rubbing you down with it? With Absorbine Jr, you need no one. You just rub the green toxin all over your body with the handy applicator-tipped bottle (or, if you find it in 5 gallon buckets, just soak) and let the magic begin. The smell is just annoying enough that you will keep various family members away from you (which often helps your muscles relax as well).

The Absorbine Jr works so well after a softball game, I’m thinking to myself (which is always a dangerous proposition) that maybe putting the stuff on before a game would be a good idea. So, that’s exactly what I do, I douse myself down with Absorbine Jr before driving to the Carpenter Center to play ball. On the way there, the warm tinglies are kicking in and I’m feeling great. I get to the fields and find some of my teammates. I saunter over, feeling pretty cool and collected with my major Absorbine Jr vibe going on. One of the young kids starts to look around and wrinkles her nose. “What’s that smell?” she asks. I kind of drift off to the side of our group.

I grab a softball and ask who wants to warm up. Another whipper-snapper says he’ll warm me up, and we disengage from the rest of the group and toss the ball back-and-forth. We throw and we catch and we throw and we catch some more until the whipper-snapper finally asks, “You warmed up enough yet?”

I know that if we go back to the group that I’m sweating just enough right now that the Absorbine Jr smell is at an all-time high (it appears that it somewhat lodges in the pores of your skin and when you sweat… POW, the smell really comes alive!) “Just a few more throws,” I holler back to the whipper-snapper. We throw the ball until the game is ready to begin.

The thing with Church League co-ed softball is that you always have plenty of guys to play, but you never seem to have quite enough gals to play. Since there were more than plenty of guys, a few of us sat out for the first couple of innings and would go in as replacements at a later point in the game. Now, with me being one of the older dudes on the team, sitting out for two or three innings after already having warmed-up freaked me out a little. I just got through stretching out the old muscles and letting the Absorbine Jr work its magic. If I just sat on the bench for two or three innings, those muscles would tighten right back up and I’d be in serious trouble, so instead of just sitting on the bench, I’m outside the dugout running little sprints, laying on the ground stretching muscles, and doing everything I possibly can to keep those muscles warm. In the meantime, I’m working up a little sweat and stinking to Absorbine Jr high-heaven.

When I finally get to go into the game, I’m up to bat. I can tell that the stink is pretty heavy on me, and it’s making me a little self-conscious. I get up to bat and I glance back at the catcher. The catcher’s face is all twisted up in a wad and I can’t help but think it is because she can smell my Absorbine Jr reek (it could have been that the lady just had a kind of wadded-up face, but I wasn’t thinking too clearly… I think the Absorbine Jr fumes were getting to me.) I hit a little dinker down the third base line and off to first I go. I’m safe on first. The first baseman has a funny look on his face and I’m dead certain that he smells the “old” on me. I start sweating harder which makes the Absorbine Jr stench stronger and when the gal at bat blasts over second base I run like a bat out of hell so that no one can smell my stink. I run harder than I’ve ever run and any pain in my muscles that had hampered my play in previous weeks was nowhere in my mind as I attempted to leave the hideous old person smell of Absorbine Jr in my dust.

Needless to say, I was out at second. But throughout the rest of the entire game (which we lost) I ran without giving any thought to my old muscles. The pains and flair-ups of previous weeks were gone as, with every move that I made, I attempted to keep those around me from becoming disgusted with my smell.

The funny thing is… the way I was pushing my muscles in an attempt to seperate myself from my stench should have made for days of sore muscles and aching joints. After the game, I felt just fine. The day after the game, I felt just fine. Here it is, Sunday, Father’s Day, and I feel just fine. I’ll admit, the hideous odor following me throughout the game made me rather uncomfortable; however, I feel better than I have felt in weeks. I think my grandma was really onto something with Absorbine Jr. I love and miss my grandma very much. She has passed from life on this earth around 17 years ago. I am very thankful that she passed the secret of Absorbine Jr onto me… I just wish I didn’t have to smell like her to enjoy its benefits.

Canadian Wisdom; An Oximoron?

There is a famous quote from Canadian hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky that is often thrown out there to try to motivate people to action:

“You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”

Wayne Gretsky is perhaps one of the greatest hockey players of all time. He was known not for his presence on the ice or his unbelievable skills; he was known for being a very intelligent player who had a knack for knowing where the puck was going to be before it got there. Wayne’s quote can be a powerful motivator… unless you really think about what it means. How can you miss a shot you do not take? You can’t! Apparently the Canadian educational system let Mr. Gretzky down. His statement is incorrect. You will never miss a shot you do not take. Your odds of making a goal are significantly impaired if you never take a shot, but you will never “miss” a shot you do not take.

Ok… I know… I’m just being kind of nit-picky. We all know what Wayne means, and we can all agree with the premise of what he was trying to say. Still, his statement is fundamentally flawed.

Which of the following courses of action do you usually follow:

* Risking the shot and potentially making the goal (risk = potential reward)

* Not taking the shot to avoid the consequences of missing (risk = potential penalty)

I know this may seem like the old glass half-full/half-empty debate (it’s half empty… duh!) This dilemma is a little different, however. I have a feeling that most successful people see risking the shot as the only way to succeed, and they would, for the most part, probably be correct. Each shot you make is a potential goal. Each scored goal gets you one step closer to winning the game. Successful people are willing to keep chucking away at the goal, pucks flying wide left and right. However, every time they miss, they learn; every time they score, they learn. They work toward perfecting their game and learn when to take a shot and when to pass the puck. Non-successful people (or, the vast majority of us) don’t even take the shots. If we miss, the crowd may boo. If we miss, we may lose our position on the team. We are happy (not satisfied, but happy) just being on the team. We will never be the star player. We will never have our name in lights. We will never make the huge salary. We will never be embarrased. We will never be booed off the ice. We happily skate around the ice and pass the puck to the star players in hopes of helping them win the game… and, deep inside, we are miserable. We want to be a star but the fear of the penalties of a missed shot are too much for us.

The puck-passing, non-goal-attempting players are important to a team but are easily replaceable. The stars are hard to replace. If we could find a way to care less about a booing crowd and more about perfecting our game, our chances of becoming a star are greatly improved (but not guaranteed… stinking unfair life). Too bad we can’t all be Wayne Gretzky… but then, who really wants to grow up in Canada?!?

Softball #2

So the first game was a couple of weeks ago. We batted first, and when I got up to bat, I really wanted to make that ball fly. I swung as hard as I could and the ball flew… straight into the pitcher’s mit. Seriously, the dude didn’t even move; the ball just went straight into his mit. At least I didn’t have to run.

The next time I got up to bat, I bopped it right over the infield and I made it to first. I don’t know what really happened next. I don’t know who batted next and whether they got out or not. You see, I am so out of shape that all I could do was breathe in – breathe out – and try not to pass out and all this was just from the run to first. None of this seems right. I have been exercising almost every day for almost 6 months: 30 minutes on an elliptical or exercise bike daily. I guess the smooth movements of exercise “equipment” doesn’t really prepare a guy for an all-out sprint from home to first with all of the flailing arms and flying spittle and whatnot… nor was I prepared for what followed.

The next thing I remember is our stinking coach getting up to bat. I think that at this point I’m on second, but I could be mistaken; everything is fuzzy and I find myself breathing heavy just trying to remember! Our coach is a young dude… early twenty-something, just out of college, freshly engaged to be married, still probably thinks life is going to be fair (and given these negatives, I still like him) and he can run like greased lightening (and I don’t even know what greased lightening is but I think it has something to do with John Travolta and Olivia Newton John and I’m assuming it’s really fast!) So he hits it deep into the outfield and I start sprinting. Before I get to third, I can hear Coach round second behind me! You’ve got to be kidding… when did I turn into the slow old guy?!? I struggle around third and sprint for home. The ball is still out in the outfield and I could have let up a little, but I don’t want Coach behind me to have to hold up at a base just because the old guy is in front of him (I used to get upset when an old dude held me up in my base running… and now I’m the old guy) is limping along. I hit home and try to stop. I can’t stop. I run straight into the chain-link fence behind home and steady myself. My lungs are on fire, my legs are burning, and the cheering hourd on the otherside of the fence is fading in and out of focus (ok, there are like two ladies cheering from our church, but “cheering hourd” sounds cooler than “couple of ladies”). I stumble back to the dugout, yearning to place my rear on the bench for a couple of minutes. Suddenly, someone hands me my glove and says, “We’re in the field.” Apparently the next batter had no respect for the elderly and got out immediately… stupid whipper-snapper.

So, the rest of the game is a blur because I never really got a chance to catch my breath. I am relatively certain that an inordinate amount of brain cells died that evening due to a lack of oxygen. My wife and two boys had watched the game (which we won) and waited for me after the game.

“How do you feel?” my wife asked.

“I feel great,” I lied.

“You looked great out there,” she lied.

The walk back to the car was painful, but I tried to walk as normal as possible. I couldn’t let my family know that their husband and father was really a semi-pathetic geezer who is too old to play softball.

A week passed until our next game. During that week, I was a little sore but never felt like total crap. When the second game rolled around, I thought I was ready. I was mistaken.

Before the game, I started stretching. Something didn’t feel right. My thighs started to semi-cramp. ‘No big deal,’ I thought to myself, ‘just stretch it out.’ So I stretched and I stretched and I stretched some more. By the time we were ready to play, I’m thinking that I’ve got to have about the most stretched muscles in the WORLD (or at least at the Carpenter Center’s Church League Softball games for the night).

We start playing and everything seems just fine. I get up to bat and I smack that silly ball right between the 1st and 2nd basemen. I start my sprint to first, and I think aliens may have temporarily taken my thigh muscles… seriously, it’s like they were not there! You have no idea how important your thigh muscles are to your ability to run until STUPID ALIENS TAKE THEM! I had no power to run! I couldn’t sprint, I couldn’t run, I couldn’t even jog; I think “mosey” may be the only word that can possibly describe my jaunt from home to first. And the crazy thing is, I was safe!

Ok, so now I’m freaking out. I’m miraculously on first base and must be prepared to make it to second if the batter behind me hits it. With my thighs missing, I’m trying to figure out a way to make that happen. I reach down and feel my legs where my thighs should be and my fingers are greeted with cries of pain from my thighs! Stupid aliens somehow put them back, but they must have put ’em in upside down or something because they most definitely do not feel right! Sharp, shooting pain is flickering across the surface of my thighs like someone lit a sting of Balck Cats on my thigh on the Fourth of July. My thighs are starting to cramp so I’m standing there on first base pulling my foot up to my butt on one leg and then another trying to stretch out the alien evil from my legs when the gal batting behind me hits one right between short and third! CRAP! I start my limp/hop/mosey toward second as fast as I can when I feel a small fire starting right between my legs in an area where fire, no matter how small, is most unwelcome! I glance to where the ball is: an outfielder is winding up to chuck it to second. I know that if I push just a little harder, I will beat the throw. I know that if I push just a little harder, the fire between my legs will stretch into a full-blown inferno and I will be safe at second with the prospect of finding a way to third with a pulled groin safely beside me! My mosey slows to a … I don’t even know what’s slower than a mosey, but I found it, and I watched my impending out come to fruition as my foot hit the base less than a second after the ball hit the glove of the opponent already on the base… but my groin remained un-pulled:)

“Waddle”… that’s it… that’s what’s slower than mosey, because “waddle” is what I did back to the dugout. “Waddle” is what I did through the short amount of game I was forced to play through before someone younger and stronger than me who didn’t move about like a STINKING DUCK took my place!

So, as I’m sitting on the bench watching our team painfully lose a game we come relatively close to winning, every stinking muscle in my body is screaming at me. It’s as if last week, my muscles gave me a break, you know?

“What’s this idiot doing running around and crap, ” my thighs said. “Does he not realize we’re all too old for this?”

“It’s delusions of grandeur,” replied my bicep. “Let’s give him his last moment of glory without making him look like a total boob. After he makes himself look semi-tarded tonight, he’ll never want to do this again.”

Of course, my muscles didn’t realize that I’m not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. My muscles didn’t realize that by showing me mercy, they were inadvertently increasing my confidence! When the second game rolled around and there I was trying to push my stupid muscles to the limit… the muscles pushed back!

“Ok, this jerk isn’t getting it,” screamed the muscles in my back.

“Let’s show this idiot what’s what,” my thighs demanded.

“All together now,” hollered every single muscle in my body in unison, “GIVE OUT!”

…and they did.

If I had a tail, it would have definitely been between my legs as I limped home. Upon entering the house, my wife asked, “How did it go?”

“We lost,” I replied.

“Too bad,” she said. “How do you feel.”

Now, my wife had warned me that this would happen… I was going to hurt myself. Although I was more incredibly sore than anything, my pride was hurting like it never has before. “I feel fine,” I smiled. And I just stood in the dining room, not moving… not wanting my wife to see me limp.

“Good,” she replied. When she turned around and started back into the kitchen, I slowly trudged toward the bedroom. She turned around and faced me again, and I froze. Her confused expression started to slowly morph to recognition. I stood like a statue and smiled my idiotic smile.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” she asked, a small grin starting to form at the corners of her lips.

I was not at a point where I could deal with an I-told-you-so, so I continued to hold perfectly still and smile. “Never felt better.”

“Ok,” she smiled and again turned into the kitchen.

Once she disappeared from sight, I waddled into the bedroom with every intention of taking a nice hot bath. However, once I made it to the foot of the bed, my muscles were screaming with ear-splitting intensity and I collapsed into a pile on my stomach on the bed, and I knew I would not be getting up anytime soon… and then I heard my wife’s footsteps as she entered the room!

CRAP!

“Just… uh… just taking a little breather,” I said, beating her to the punch and hoping that would be enough to get her to turn around and leave the room while I struggled to obtain an upright position once again.

The footsteps got closer.

CRAP!

As she sat at the foot of the bed by my legs, my body rolled slightly toward her and I think I may have squealed ever so slightly like a little girl from the pain.

CRAP!

Then her hands were on my back, rubbing out many of the small knots that had accumulated throughout not only the night but the past week. As the muscles in my back began to release me from their painful grip, her hands moved down to my legs and those muscles too soon gave up their punishing intentions.

When her hands stopped, I muttered a “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. No “I told you so”, no “are you ready to quit”, nothing negative at all… just “you’re welcome.” And then, “What time is your game next week? I think me and the boys would like to watch another game.”

So, tonight is game # 3. My body is feeling pretty good, my family is behind me, I’m representing my Church in a league where sportsmanship usually (but not always) takes precedence over winning and I’m having some fun. I may have to pick up some cleats at one of the local sporting goods stores when they put them on clearance in another week or two. I figure I’ll be able to run the bases better next year if I’m in cleats. 😉

The Dreaded 40

Sometimes at night, just before I drift off to sleep, I sense something moving under the bed. On my way to work on some mornings, I glance in the rear view mirror and see a movement in the backseat… but nothing is there. At various points throughout the day, usually in the shadows, I sense foreboding movement while everything is stationary. The presence I feel more and more as time goes by is the dreaded age of 40 creeping up on me.

Turning 30 sucked. Turning 30 was kind of like the true end of childhood. Turning 30 meant I had to start being responsible. Turning 30 meant that it was time for everyone under 30 to start looking at me as an adult. Turning 30 sucked.

Turning 40 is going to MAJOR suck. Over the last 10 years, my body has started to sag; not that I didn’t sag in the first 30 years… I’ve been a sagger for most of my life… it’s just that the sagging has become much more noticeable over the last 10 years. I used to think man-boobs were funny. Man-boobs are most definitely NOT funny. Gray hair has taken up a permanent residence on my head… and on my chin. I used to think it was kind of cool when I’d spy a new glistening white hair amongst my brunette locks. Yeah, it ain’t cool anymore. My 30s have been a slow decline in body and spirit. I really can’t believe that my 40s are going to be better. Turning 40 is going to MAJOR suck.

No good can possibly come out of turning 40. There’s a guy I work with who just took the 40 plunge. The dude used to be really active, you know, riding his bike all the time, going on hikes, not the kind of guy to sit still. Then he turned 40… and everything changed. He turned 40 and shortly thereafter he got The Gout. Seriously, The Gout! Now he walks slow and funny. He isn’t active anymore… because of The Gout. He spends a large portion of his time sitting around with his gouty foot elevated griping about The Gout. Something that everyone who has to turn 40 can look forward to: getting to the age where the old-person ailments start kicking in… The Gout, Rheumatism, Shingles, Arthritis, Cirrhosis, High Blood Pressure, Heart Disease, Diabetes, Dropsy, Dementia, Alzheimer’s… oh my, what good times lie ahead! And that’s just the diseases. That doesn’t include all of the fun stuff like hair on the back and coming out of the ears, liver spots, wrinkles, weakening strength, hunching over, using a cane or walker, losing hearing, and more and more and more! Of course, turning 40 gets you just a little closer to that wonderful senior discount at Perkins (yippee).

I’m already beginning to act the part of a 40-something in certain ways. After a long day at work, sometimes I’m just too lazy to lose the black work socks in exchange for white socks. So, yes, sometimes you will see me mowing the lawn with shorts, tennis shoes and my stupid black socks up to my knees. I swore I would never go there, but there I am. I always wondered how a man gets to that point that wearing black socks with tennis shoes and shorts doesn’t seem dorky. I’ve come to realize that, yeah, we know it’s dorky, but we just don’t care. In my case, I’ve been married for almost 15 years. It’s not like I give a crap about what the cute young women driving by think of me while I’m mowing the lawn. They weren’t that interested in me 20 years ago when I was single and less saggy, so why would they glance twice at an almost-40 sagging dude… the color of my socks isn’t going to make a difference.

In college, I used to imagine how my life would turn out. With my business degree, I was going to take the business world by storm. By the time I was 40 I was going to be raking in six figures in some high powered position with some major corporation. Well, 40 is less than 6 months away, I ain’t making close to six figures, and my position is about as high powered as a Nerf dart gun.

I think this is the point where the mid-life crisis kicks in… a major benchmark (40) is approaching and those stupid goals (money and power) haven’t been reached (and most likely never will be reached). If only I could afford a stupid convertible sports car. Guys going through a mid-life crisis are supposed to get a stinking sports car, right! Yeah… I’m screwed on the sports car thing. At least I get an affair with a hot woman half my age, am I correct? Mid-life crisis guys at least get the young hottie, right? Oh yeah, too many hotties have seen me mowing with those stupid black socks up to my knees… CRAP! Did I mention that turning 40 is going to MAJOR suck?

The Purpose

When dreams and reality collide, we’re often left with one big pile of happy stinking joy. Seriously, a humongous pile. So, what exactly do I mean? Some people actually achieve their dreams; not many, but some. The rest of us settle, or wait, or settle for the fact that were put on this planet to wait. What are we waiting for? We’re waiting for our dreams to come true. Why are we settling? Because we are terrified that if we actually try to accomplish our dreams we will fail… and if we fail at our dreams, what do we have left? So, we settle and we wait and we are envious of those jerks who actually accomplish their dreams. Half the time we can’t even figure out what our stinking dreams are!

Oh, did I mention that we justify?

Man, I really want to start my own business… but I need to wait until I’m financially secure. (people who haven’t accomplished their dreams are rarely ever going to be financially secure)
Wow, I really want to go back to college and major in something that will lead to a career which doesn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out every morning on my way to work; but I’m too old to go back to school, and I’ve got to worry about how I’m going to put my kids through college, and money is a little tight, so I guess wanting to gouge my eyes out every morning is something I will just have to deal with. (education does not guarantee happiness or success… it never has and it never will… trust me)
I really want to write a novel, I’ve got all kinds of good ideas for a story, and my writing isn’t bad, but I need to reach a point in my life where I have more free time to devote to my writing. (the only time you will ever have enough perceivable free time to try to break into writing as a career is when you are dead… you can’t write when you’re dead… this also goes for exercising to get in shape or lose weight, learning a new skill, volunteering in your community, and just about anything that would be an addition to your schedule… although you will definitely lose weight when you are dead but not in an attractive kind of way… just ask Nicole Richie… I believe she has died multiple times)
I really want to start my own blog, but I need to wait until I actually become an expert at something. No one wants to read a blog from some jerk who isn’t an expert at something. (even if you are an expert at something… which I am not… there is a really good chance that there is already someone who is more of an expert at your area of expertise than you are who already has a blog… this should not discourage you… there can never be too many choices from which to gain knowledge or be intelligently entertained)

We settle, or we wait, or we settle to wait. It’s as if we’re waiting for the lottery of life to suddenly hand us a jackpot. Look at that, no effort and all of a sudden all of our dreams have come true! Seriously, can we be any more ignorant than we usually are? Please don’t answer that question… I’m trying to muster a little faith in humanity:) The major problem most of us run into with the settle-wait-hope approach is that given time, heat, and pressure, “settle-wait-hope” tends to morph into “stew in disgruntled bitterness”. No matter how blessed we are or how great the family and friends we surround ourselves with are (this is the “happy” and “joy”), we still have that big pile of STINK surrounding us because we haven’t realized that personal dream.

I turn 40 later this year (which scares the crap out of me) and feel like I may be on the verge of a mid-life crisis. I have a job I don’t hate, my friends are encouraging, and a wonderful wife and kids who make life worth living are living their lives by my side. Yet somehow, the mild stink in my life has rapidly turned into a horrendous stench and I often find it difficult to breath. Thus, a blog?!?

I have had more than my fair share of meaningless, dead-end jobs. I know a little about a lot but a lot about nothing. I’m probably not the ideal sort of person to try to start a blog. However, I am searching for my dream (whatever that may be) and I figure this may be a start… not a good start, but a start. I am hoping that by posting on this site a couple of times a week I can start to figure out what my dream is. Of course, there will be a lot of complaining too, because those of us who have not realized our dreams tend to be cynical gripers. I’m looking for input. I’m looking for direction. I know that some Joe or Jane off the street commenting on a blog is not going to open my eyes to some magical world of self-fulfillment (or maybe he or she will), but dialog is always good. Good dialog is a great way to open one’s eyes to new ideas, and new ideas tend to lend themselves to the beginning of the fulfillment of dreams… or at least this is what I keep telling myself:)

I am by no stretch of the imagination a cheerleader. “Motivation” is not one of my stronger traits. By following this blog, you are in no way going to be enlightened or find a new more positive way to look at the world (or maybe you will). You will not be persuaded to search out your own dream (I pray that you will). Entertainment is unlikely (but possible). Crap… you might as well go to one of my links and find a real blog to follow that will teach you something (but you could hang out with me as well and maybe… just maybe, at the very least, you’ll get an occasional chuckle following the mid-life ranting of Adventurer Rich on the adventure of everyday life in small-town America while he attempts to prevent life from just passing him by).

Are you up for the adventure?