“Oh, You’ve Got Way Too Much There to Enjoy”

November 16, 2008
“Dad, will you keep this for us,” my oldest daughter said as she packed her kids up for their flight back to Los Angeles. I eyed the two gallon sized freezer bags filled with a large assortment of Halloween treats as the glee of forgotten youth surfaced from somewhere in my age-d psyche. “Sure will, “I said as if I was actually going to mail these ill-gotten gains. Oh, never mind that this candy was now two weeks old and was actually second hand treats from my other grandchildren. It was the simple pleasure of gaining a trove of candy, er, I mean, helping my daughter in her time of need. Yeah, OK, you can see through my ruse. I know, I am selfish but you can keep your “taking candy from a baby” judgmental thinking to yourself. It’s getting something for nothing that we’re talking about here.Well, my daughter and her family made their plane arriving home safely. Thank you for your concerns. They did make it back in time to breathe the latest wildfire winds lapping at the outskirts of greater Los Angeles.
However, in reference to the candy, it laid on the kitchen counter for the better part of the next week. For some reason I didn’t pay much attention to it until the other day as a Twix bar called to me from beneath its hiding. I felt compelled to freed it from its freezer bag prison, pealed it from its scrunched wrapper and as I bit into this squashed chocolate and cookie bar I instantly was presented with that unmistakable taste of staleness. It just wasn’t as delectable as I had hoped or imagined but something inside me reminded me to not disappoint my dearly departed mother. You see, growing up my mother often admonished me that somewhere children in some forgotten continent would appreciate eating vegetables I didn’t like and I figured I shouldn’t waste this candy bar either.
Of course, when it comes to justifying ill behavior it doesn’t take any of us very long to master our own deception. Oh, we’ll rationalize and moralize: “Oh, they have way too much there to enjoy.” “Only this once” or “It ain’t so bad” or maybe “Oh, they’ll understand.” Rationalize, justify, minimize one’s mental negotiating but down deep inside where the psyche battles against a stung conscious a person knows. Call it what you want but give it enough time to chew on a person and eat at their gut and the God’s honest truth is known. We were built to know deep down inside that it is just plain wrong to take something that isn’t ours or eat too much candy and so it is with giving what isn’t earned. Any of the three will make eventually make a person and a society sick. Even the Good Book says if a “person doesn’t work they shouldn’t eat.” (Hold on here, we’re talking about people who can work not those who actually need us to provide for them. That is our moral obligation!)
Now, there is a moral to this story. A person can justify just about anything when it comes to getting what they want even though it isn’t what they need. You may think that I am stretching to gain an illustration for a lesson but I don’t think so. Plainly and simply put: it smacks of corruption to gleefully gain something at someone else’s expense and things gained freely are not quite as scrumptious as when they are earned, no matter how sweetly the deal sounds. Of course, if you take what someone else has worked to secure without working yourself then it is just plain wrong.
It has been a few days since I swallowed what was given to me and every time I think about it I still get a bad taste in my throat. No, I am not mailing the candy to my grandchildren in L.A.…their Grandmother announced that we didn’t need it and threw it all away. She said it would make me sick.
Well, one of these days The Reaper is going to hand in his final report to Someone higher. Until then don’t make yourself sick ‘cause there’s a lot of sweet sounding junk being bagged up and handed out.
THE-GRIMM-REAPER-REPORT © 16 NOV 2008
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“Your Ticket to Survival”

November 11, 2008
Few of us who are reading this blog entry are probably living in the survival mode. Oh, we talk about our lack of finances but the truth of the matter is we probably have more than enough things to liquidate before we actually get into merely surviving. In fact, we are probably living in more comfort than any generation before us. Consider that the apartment or house we live in probably has an air conditioner and furnace. We have cable TV, cell phones and an internet link to the rest of the world. We probably have more than enough to eat in our refrigerator and if we didn’t feel like making something we’d order a pizza. Like I said there are few of us who are probably living in the survival mode.

However, there are many of us who have experienced a crisis in our life. Some of us have thought that they were going to die or possibly prayed that they would. There are those who are reading this article who will admit that they have had times that possessions, full cupboards or even having a large bank account wasn’t their number one thought. For all practical purposes they were living in a basic survival.

Unless you are from another planet you have experienced a time in life when finances were the furthest thing from your mind and the thought of gazing into one’s fridge or ordering a pizza is repugnant.

Welcome to the flu season.

As I write this article there are hordes of people across this nation learning to multitask in ways that has humbled even the mightiest. Put bluntly there is no dignified manner in which to experience attack on one’s digestive system. Once you are within its grasp social standing no longer matters, nor does prestige, pedigree, race, religion, gender, economic status or political party.

We can put humanity on the moon, we can develop instantaneous communication; we can build monuments to the sky all in the boast of our accomplishments. Yet, one small flu bug as uninvited as a common fly and all our social plans, all our world conquests and all our financial gains are of little comfort.

As the calendar tells us that winter is not far away and just as the leaves on the trees have changed color and fallen so too the flu bug will do to each of us.

Some day The Reaper will hand in his final report to Someone higher. Until then be forewarned – prepare thyself – get a flu shot before it’s too late...it's your ticket to survival.

* title taken from article by Tom Martin “Leadership isn’t a commodity It’s your ticket to Survival” on 10.23.08 for Advertising Age http://adage.com/smallagency/post?article_id=131967

THE GRIMM REAPER REPORT © 11 Nov 2008
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“Somebody’s Gotta Do Something”

05 November 2008
You know what I am talking about: You’re standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, through the front window you see some clown cut a little old lady off from a parking spot close to the door. Maybe you are driving down the road and three lanes over you witness the male driver smacking a woman in the passenger seat. It could be that you see a middle aged man reading a newspaper while he’s driving his BMW down the freeway in rush hour traffic oblivious that he’s crowding the next lane where two Hell’s Angels are riding. Regardless of your opinion of justified mob violence there is something down deep inside you that cries, “Somebody’s gotta do something!”

Now, I must confess I am not always the most finessed public speaker when idiocy takes up dwelling in a person. I don’t have a lot of patience with myself so there isn’t a lot to draw from for others. In my youth I dreamed of being like John Chrysostom (“Saint John, The Golden Mouth” 347 – 407 AD) who could speak with such pathos that he swayed masses to Christianity. However, time has since passed my youth into a distant memory and while colleges have attempted to train me as a public orator, I have yet to be called “golden.” In fact, there have been times when I have sounded neither golden nor saintly. Maybe this is the reason I found writing “The Grimm Reaper Report” to be more compatible with my basic demeanor. Oh, trust me, I can get my point across and leave very little to the imagination. One of the reasons I probably developed this trait was because I have heard enough talk when action was needed and truth demands that, “Somebody’s gotta do something.”

Once I was speaking with a fellow professional who just happened to be in the process of writing a book about communication. Our particular discussion was over resolving a partnership conflict needing serious restructuring and honest readjustments for fairness to all personnel involved. As I addressed the situation as it stood at that moment he waxed eloquent. He delved into quoting himself as he espoused vocal tone techniques, citing proper stance, emotional sensitivity and “seeking to be understood not merely attempting to be heard.” I listened respectfully for a matter of minutes as he was a learned individual for whom I had respect. Yet, as I listened I became painfully aware that he was lost in his theoretical approach to the problem and not the practics to solving the problem. He finally paused or maybe I had merely tuned him out as a basic survival instinct. I looked him straight in the eye and said, “And sometimes someone just needs to get up off their butt and do something.” Of course, this was not the polished articulate dialogue that he expected or evidently wanted to hear because the whole partnership dissolved pretty much after that.

My point is simply that we need leaders who have some God given backbone to make a decision. Now I don’t mean someone who is merely egotistical demanding their way or the highway. The last thing this old world needs is another person filling a leadership role who is half nuts, half baked, half informed or half egotistical. We need someone who will articulate the problem, provide a solution and take charge to fix a problem. To quote a gospel song by Bill Gaither, “When the house is burning to the ground there’s just no time to stand around arranging all the pictures on the wall.” The fact is, “Somebody’s gotta do something.”

Well, the election is over, we voted and the next President of these United States of America has been elected. Some are crying, some are rejoicing and some will do what they have always done – they’ll complain, complain, complain.... These are the people who are more part of the problem than part of the solution. I say either we are part of the fix or part of that which needs fixed. If you need more money – get a job. If you have a job and you are not happy, then get retrained or increase your education so you can get a better paying job. If anything in life isn’t to your liking stop your belly aching and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Stop looking for someone else to bail you out, YOU DO SOMETHING.

When The Reaper hands in his final report to Someone higher it will be too late to do what you needed to do but you can bet your soul, Someone higher is gonna do something!

THE GRIMM REAPER REPORT © 05OCT 2008
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