The Simple Inch

In the movie "Any Given Sunday," Al Pacino gives an inspirational speech about how football is a game of inches--that in order to be successful, one has to sacrifice for the greater good of the team.  Watch the video here:

Inches Speech

What I especially appreciate about this clip is its relevance to everyone in life, not just football players and other athletes.  He claims that inch by inch we can improve ourselves. I would like to add that inch by inch and minute by minute we can also help others improve.  And this might just make all the difference.

Too often we read about how someone escaped major catastrophe by mere inches or one more minute would have resulted in disaster.  Let's spin this in a positive light:  An extra minute spent with a friend could lead to a life-long bond.  Or answering one more question from an admirer could help them uncover their true passion.  There are a million examples:  holding a door open for an extra second could change the complexion of someone's day just as helping someone change a flat tire on the side of the road.

Most of you have probably seen the commercial that takes place in a busy city where a good deed is witnessed and subsequently passed on.  And most of you are probably familiar with the cliche "a little bit goes a long way."  I'm just not sure we realize how true this statement is, however. Typically we move throughout our day at the speed of light allowing little buffer between meetings, practices and other obligations.  To set a schedule this way eliminates any opportunity for improvisation and drastically reduces the odds (no scientific proof) of us taking "extra" time to spend with a friend, colleague or stranger. Extra time that could make a world of difference, literally and figuratively speaking.

We are all on the same team on this planet, like it or not.  Our success, as Pacino claims, will be determined by our willingness to go an extra "inch" and as I have discussed, to spend an extra "minute" helping others.  It's that simple.




--Schmidty

What a Dog Knows (Or Doesn't)

So much has been written and researched when it comes to our happiness, but if we were able to understand how dogs think we would have all the answers to our questions.

So, what does a dog know that we don't?  I think the better question is, what do we know that a dog doesn't?  What we know is that life gets difficult and as we get older we are expected to "grow up" and eliminate the amount of "play" in our lives.

We have a terrible habit of slowly eliminating the amount we play in our daily lives as we grow older because of the pressure to make money, have children, a house, a spouse and, of course, a dog.  The irony here is that each of these things are good reasons to play instead of keeping us from doing so.

Listen folks, we are all in this big world together--why then, do we choose to make our lives so much more complicated than they need to be?

This is where my analogy about dogs comes in handy....Dogs aren't racist, prejudiced or materialistic--those are all man-made features.  Dogs represent what we used to be when we were naive and carefree children.  They live to play!

I'm actually glad we can't communicate easier with canines because that would give us the opportunity to infect them with our views of the world, which, in turn, would cluster their lives with information detrimental to a carefree existence.  But I do wish we could take some hints from our furry friends and collectively realize we are way off track to the true course of happiness.  Dogs embody happiness because they don't know how to act any different. Further, when a dog encounters something it doesn't like, it doesn't do it!

A quick aside:  My mother hated it when I tried to feed the dog people-food because she said it was bad for its health---so, why the hell do we eat 99% of the crap we eat if it isn't even good enough for the dog!!!?

Dogs don't have to ask themselves why they do what they do.  They simply exist and do it happily.  We need to eliminate the things in our lives that keep us from this type of existence. An existence where it is second nature to only do things that make us smile, to only eat things that are pure and good and to build relationships around a focal point of carefree living.

They say that dogs are a man's best friend.  That's because deep down we really wish we could be more like them.

We make hundreds of choices every day. What proportion of the choices you make are likely to please the dog?




--Schmidty

Just for me, I guess...

This was an odd weekend for me--for some reason, I was reminded of the past over and over and over again.  The rain reminded me of home, talk of travel reminded me of an old girlfriend and Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" reminded me of my time in the Coast Guard and my Mom.

I think memories have a much deeper effect on our overall happiness than we realize.  I made the mistake of sending an email to an old friend recalling some of the good times we had only to be shunned for doing so. This reaction should have little bearing on my happiness because our good times were so long ago, but I would be lying if I said my feelings aren't hurt.

It's important to always be moving forward and not dwelling in the past, but I would argue that dwelling in the past can feel really good. Despite the unexpected reaction from my friend, our good times are sealed forever. They can't be taken away. However, sometimes memories are better off when enjoyed alone.



--Schmidty

Read It and Don't Weep.

I happened to be rifling through random blog sites the other day and I came across one that had me hooked--for about 30 minutes, which happens to be eternity in the blog "stickiness" world.  The young woman who authors it is documenting her courageous fight against cancer.  The irony is, I didn't read any negative commentary and I read various postings that spanned months!

If you don't happen to read a newspaper on a daily basis I encourage you, just this once, to read the headlines of various publications the next time you pass a kiosk--Almost everything that makes the front page is a downer.  A common phrase in the world of journalism is, "if it bleeds, it leads." Yuck.

Psychologists have said for a long, long time that for every negative thing someone hears, it takes approximately 20 good things to counteract its effect.  Let's do some math...If an average of four articles are on the front page of most popular newspapers and 75% of those articles aren't feelgood stories, before you even have a cup of morning coffee, you will need at least 60 positive things to happen to eliminate the positivity deficit.

Getting back to the blog that captivated my attention, I am left almost speechless. The author could easily write about the horrors of cancer, dwell on the negative aspects of what must be a miserable time in her life and follow traditional media standards.  But she doesn't.  In my book, one positive thing written in her blog can act as a guide in eliminating every negative headline I will read for the rest of my life.

Happy Reading.



--Schmidty

Get it on paper.

I have a few passions/obsessions in life, one of which is making lists.  At some point I will share some of my other passions in more detail, but I don't want to get off topic here...Today, I found a list scribbled in green pen in the back of a book I finished reading more than 2 years ago. It made me laugh and then almost cry--As I read through it, I remembered the emotions I was feeling back then.  This will sound terribly corny, but lists are my personal poetry--when and how they are written are equally as expressive as the topic being pondered.

What is your form of expression?  Music, travel, writing, exercise?

Here's a (short) list of some of my favorite things:

--IPA's
--Dogs
--Trail Running
--Bodyboarding
--My Family
--Flip-flops
--The silence on a warm summer evening.
--Fall Rain.


It's incredible how therapeutic writing lists can be.  In fact, this post would have been completed 5 minutes sooner if I hadn't started daydreaming about the Fall.



--Schmidty