Grumpy Ole Men

Hi. My name is Hayden. I am almost 43 years old. Recently I have scoffed at the neighborhood kids for not knowing what a skelly court is. I yelled at the ice cream man for coming down the block too late at night. I told our neighborhood kids to stop throwing the rocks from my front yard at each other (the urban equivalent of "get offa mah lawn").  I fuss with my daughter when she doesn't finish her dinner. Somewhere, out of nowhere ( at least in MY eyes), I became a grumpy ole man! How da hell did this happen?

I came to terms with my age a long time ago. I was ready to put my youth behind me a decade ago. I had a great youth and I had no desire to try to recapture it or to finally do "all those things that I missed out on". I get it: I am a man of a 'certain age' and I'm perfectly fine with that (even though my students insist on calling old and the grey hair in my beard doesn't help). In fact, I actually welcome the trapping of my age: being able to afford better trips, fatherhood, meaningful relationships, better cars, better dates. When you accept it, being middle aged is fun...even IF those young whippersnappers think that you're an old fogey.

What I did not count on was becoming grumpy. I didn't see that one coming. I consider myself to be a laid back, fun loving person. That is the antithesis of grumpy!! Lately, I have found myself tightly wound and ready to scold people! Who is this guy!?? Do we all get to this point because the ranks of Grumpy Ole Men (GOM) are thinning due to death and they need replacements? Is there something that our mates are putting in our food that makes you angry at small children and frozen treat vendors? I hope not.

My wife told me to go take a nap this weekend because I was being a particularly annoying GOM. That's all I needed to right my ship! That is the last time someone will call me a GOM until I am actually old enough to draw social security (that's if it EXIST when I get to 65!) and legitimately consider myself old. In my mind, I'm not old until I'm paying half price at the movie theatre! But 'grumpy' stops now!

...right after I get these kids to stop playing my yard....

These are my thoughts...what are yours?

Happy Anniversary!

Marriage is filled with mysticism. Women are cultured to dream about and it's spoken about in glowing, poetic terms throughout their youth. Frankly, sometimes right up until they actually GET married. Men hear the opposite message and are trained to think that marriage is this foreboding, restrictive part of your life that you should delay for as long as possible. The fact of the matter is that marriage, quite often, is neither of those things and the myths surrounding a marriage are sometimes damaging to people perception of how they should interact with their spouse. This becomes highlighted around anniversary time where Hallmark and the Lifetime channel put forth this image of how you're supposed to celebrate your nuptial. For me and my wife, though, it much more of a celebration that reminds us of what made us a happy couple to begin with. Sometimes  it's romantic. Sometimes it's not. Let me explain.

My wife and I have a tradition that's very simple. We give each other simple gifts in accordance to the traditional anniversary gifts. This year is iron so we will both go out and get a simple item made from that metal. Nothing extravagant. On our actual anniversary, one of us is in charge of planning an activity for us to do. It may be a trip. It may be something right here in the city that we love. We take turns planning each year: she has even years and I have the odd ones (fitting, since I'm the odd one in the couple!). The thing about our anniversary dates is that it may not always fall into the category of what one does to mark the passing of another year of wedding bliss. Take this year: we went to Six Flags Great Adventures. Sounds weird right? Well if you know us for more that a few hours, you know that we LOVE roller coasters and one of our first dates was to GA. This year was the iron year and what better way to celebrate than to ride metal roller coasters all day (without the weekend crowds at that). That worked perfectly for us and we didn't get caught up trying to find an uber romantic spot for us to escape to or a super expensive restaurant just because it was our anniversary. That's not who we are as a couple.

And that's my real point. Your anniversary should reflect who you are as a pairing. If you ate at Wendy all year and Friday night was movie night, why are you trying to go to Cipriani's and buying 4 dozen roses for your anniversary dinner? It's a day that is supposed to remind you of your relationship not the relationships you see on the Bachelor! Find something fits you better. Now I'm not saying that you should go to nice places to eat ever but I believe you should do that on random days not days laden with implications and pretext. For instance, our anniversary dinner was at a place called Casa La Femme which is an Egyptian place that we found through restaurant week. It was perfect (I will be writing a blog about that too) but it was in no way ritzy. In fact, there was grass on the floor! But that suited us perfectly because we LOVE RestaurantWeek.  So my point again is to just to "do you" and celebrate your relationship in your own personal way, regardless of whether it falls into the romantic category or not.

These are my thoughts...what are yours?    

Planting Weeds

Every year I dig up my front and back yard and put in new plants to brighten up our outdoor space. I get great, fortified and enriched soil. I buy the best blooms from a reputable nursery and spend an entire day planting them. I spend subsequent days minding them and defending them from cats and raccoons. I do all of that and a week later they are over run by...WEEDS!!

These varmints occupy every available space in the garden like Wall Street protesters and have the nerve to grow taller and more robust than the plants that I INTENTIONALLY planted!! To be even more obnoxious, they are resilient. I can strip every leaf off but unless I put them out by the root, they will be back the next week. Meanwhile if I pluck the wrong leaf off of one of my my pansies, they wither and dies. These weeds have the nerve to use up all the resources and attention that was meant for my designated plants! Next year, I'm planting WEEDS!!!

That reminds me of teaching. Crazy right? But here is the parallel: I am constantly trying to target certain groups on campus and help with their development. Inevitably, they don't see the value and don't get what me and my colleagues are doing for them. Here is the interesting things; sometimes groups and people who were NOT our intended focus benefit from what we are doing and are truly appreciative. I guess the moral of the story is to do good work and you will affect SOMEONE'S life. Even if they aren't your target. Even if they are weeds.

These are my thoughts...what are yours?

The Real McCoy

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I went to a spa recently. It was a Korean spa and because I knew that it was supposed to be a representation of a particular culture, I began to look for verification of authenticity. And then I realized that I do that all the time. And so do a lot of people.

New York City is the center of the universe. That might be a biased opinion but I dare people prove otherwise! Regardless of whether you agree with me or not, the one indisputable fact is that there are snippets of cultures all across the city. Want an authentic Greek meal? We have that! Need a Russian bath that makes you feel like home? Got that! Want to go to a club that reminds you of the Caribbean? That's here too! The problem is that for every authentic ethnic/cultural/national experience that's out there, there are equally inauthentic places as well! There are tons of place, especially food establishments, that boast of "just like home" experiences that are so far off the mark that it makes you want to sue them for misrepresentation! You can get as many jade lions or steel pans or Kemlin replicas as you want, if you're not the real deal, it shows!

So how do you then determine whether a place is true to the original? Here is my (and probably a lot of people) method: look at the patrons. Are they from the culture that the establishment is boasting to be a good representation of? If not, you're probably in a fake place. If you go to a roti shop and and no-one there is speaking with a Trinidadian or Jamaican accent, LEAVE! If you go to an upscale Chinese restaurant and no-one there is Asian, you're probably not getting the real deal. However, if you go somewhere an there are plenty of patrons from that culture in the place, then you can rest assured that you're in a good spot!

People who identify with certain ethnicities, myself among them, are always looking for reminders of home. We won't spend our money or hang out in places that don't provide a reasonable facsimile of their beloved culture. But when they do find a locale that makes them feel like they are back in the old country, they become loyal patrons...and they tell their friends! Pretty soon it's the local joint and everyone knows their name. So those are the people I look for. You can have your Zagats and Yelp. I'll follow the indigenous people as my barometer of authenticity.

These are my thoughts...what are yours?

Measuring up.

I made a status update on Facebook the other day and i was semi joking. The post was about making myself look good while my wife and I were watching True Blood. TB has become the repository for every man with a well chiseled body and I wanted to make sure that my wife didn't look at the screen, then look across the couch, and be disappointed that HER man doesn't look good.  It got a BUNCh of 'Likes' which surprised me and my wife.

The truth is that women's struggles to keep up with images in the media are WELL DOCUMENTED, however, men are not immune from this pressure either. I will grant you that it is far less than the women deal with but we do get a twinge of jealousy when we see women, especially OUR women, swoon over these dudes. It's hard not to when Idris Alba, Djimon Hansu, and cast of True Blood are running around bare-chested and making the rest of us who are past our 'college prime' stare at our gut and yearn for younger days!  It's the stuff that mid life crises are made of!

Since I don't have the money to go out and buy a sports car or a brand new motorcycle, I will rely on keeping up with the things that made me sexy to my wife to begin with; a fresh hair cut, witty conversation and a big ole...pair of arms...<snicker> Don't get me wrong though: I have started running and trying to get in shape both for me and her. In the meantime though, the least that i can do to 'keep it sexy' for my wife is cut my damn hair! LOL

These are my thoughts...what are yours?

Hey Guys...Hey Guys...

I am a very friendly person. To a fault, actually. I have blogged before about the fact that I say hello to everyone who passes me on my block and I often say hello to people in the street. It's my thing and it sometimes drives my wife crazy. Unfortunately, I seemed to have passed that onto the Mushroom, my daughter!

She is the friendliest kid that I have ever seen (not that I go around measuring the friendliness of toddlers). She walks up to adults and children alike, introduces herself, and try to strike up a conversation. Luckily, is enrolled in an enrichment program that also has a bunch of friendly kids that all know each. So when she reaches out to people in that environment, it is reciprocated. However, in the 'outside' world, they're not so nice.

I have seen my poor child say hello to kids on the playground and get completely ignored. She loves playing with older kids and she is always saying "hey guys....hey guys!" to a group of kids who are busy doing their own things and , frankly, don't even see her trying to get their attention. I struggle with this. I tell her that when people don't respond, it's because they're not as nice as she is. But the truth of the matter is that she needs to know that not everyone wants to talk to her. That doesn't change how my heart breaks for her when I see her trying so hard to get noticed...and I have to suppress the urge to walk up to the offending kids and shake them saying, "HEY!!! DON'T YOU HEAR MY DAUGHTER TALKING TO YOU!?!?!?!" Not sure exactly what to do. I'm sure there is some developmental lesson happening there but really...kids are jerks....

These are my thoughts...what are yours?

Serendipity and missing home.

This is bonus blog! No...there is no prize at the end. No...you don't get entered into a contest just for reading.  And no...there will be no number to call for monetary compensation in the last paragraph...or is there... This bonus is that this blog is a two-fer. I saw something and it made me think of two entirely different topics. Rather than bore you with two blogs, I'm cramming them into this one. You're welcome...

So here you are. This week's entry is about the kite in this picture (know you can barely see it...blame my crappy camera phone!). I was walking home one evening and above me was a reminder of my childhood: a mad bull kite.  A mad bull kite is a homemade kite. You can't go to a store and buy one (or at least, I haven't seen that you can). It's an octagonal kite made from butcher paper to make it durable. It has a hitch in the front to invite air currents and strung across that opening is a flap of paper that loudly announces its presence to other kite flyers. Back home, we would attach razor blades to its tail and have kite battles. Mad bulls are hard to make and even harder to make properly. The skill required to complete one automatically vaulted that boy into the hierarchy of the neighborhood social structure. The kites were dangerous and deadly to other regular kites and I always wanted one. But as I said before, they weren't available for sale and I had just learned how to make a simple kite. Mad bulls weren't in my future.

So here I was on a street in Brooklyn where the tallest structures were multi-family apartment buildings, not trees, with a mad bull kite floating in the sky. It was fluttering loudly above my head, in between apartment buildings and it looked completely out of place. There were no open fields or piers from which to launch its flight. Furthermore, I wondered how it had managed to clear the power lines. I followed the line from the kite and, low and behold, it originated from the roof of one of the buildings! Of course! That's the only way you could get a mad bull up on this street. And that made me realize two things: the ingenious lengths that immigrants go to in order bring aspects of their culture to this land and serendipity. Let's talk about the latter first.

My wife says that I kill people. Now before you go off and call the authorities, let me explain. If I ever, in casual conversation, muse about whether a famous person has died, be assured that if the grim reaper hadn't already visited them, he is on his way to their house! I once told my wife, while at a Yankees game, that the guy announcing Derek Jeter had recorded that intro before he died. Problem? The man wasn't actually dead...then. Three days later he passed away! That happens all the time. I also "talk things up". I'll mention something or wonder about its existence and poof! there is a news report about it. She says I need to talk up some money! And that happened to me with the kite. I had JUST finished reading the chapter in the Kite Runner that talked about the kite fight on the train and I walk out to see this kite from MY childhood flying above me. Ridiculous coincidence or maybe a harbinger... Either way, I wondered if that happens to other people as often as it happens to me.

The other issue is that this kite was flying in the sky at all. Think about it: someone had to have wanted to desperately fly this kite near their home. I live a short train ride from Prospect Park and a bus ride from Floyd Bennett Field, both ideal places for kites. But here was someone who wanted to have this particular experience in this specific place on this day. He or she was going to make it happen then and there.  They took the time to make this kite (a mad bull takes hours to make) and found their way to that roof and just like that, they were transported to their homeland. No passport needed. I see this everywhere. Snippets of a former life, a distant culture burgeoning in the concrete jungle. Hindu worship altars in front yards scarcely larger than the offering itself. Steelbands practicing in garages crammed together in a space like a high school rock band. And the list goes on. We find ways to make this place seem more like home, no matter the inconvenience. To us, it's worth it. It's hard enough to survive in NYC to have to do so without the comforts of home. So we cook meals for 40 people out of kitchens in Queens studios apartments. We do tai chi in Chinatown parks next to drug addicts. And we fly kites from the roofs of Brooklyn apartment building. Don't judge us...we miss our homes.

These are my thoughts...what are yours?

Slow down.

I'm going to make this quick for all you New Yorkers out there. In fact, that's the point of this post today. I just read an article in Time Out New York that talked about being an authentic NYer. One of the things that it talked about is that Ny moves at a very fast pace. In fact, it's manifested pretty clearly in how fast people move while walking. NYers always seem to have somewhere to go or something to do...RIGHT NOW! The article said their you're on the escalator and you're standing not walking, make sure you stand to the right and let people pass. Besides, don't you have somewhere to be? Why are you just standing there!?!?!

The article made me think: is this really true? Are we like sharks: in a constant state of motion? Not literally, of course, but do we move from one thing to the next thing to the next thing constantly? This is not to say that we don't have fun because I'm also referring to those of us who go from one recreational activity to another, like bar hopping. My question is, do we know how to relax? Do we know how to sit and do nothing in New York City...and I do mean IN NYC. I think we're skilled in going on vacation and laying on a beach or in a meadow or on an iceberg (don't think I forgot about you crazy people who miss winter). But do we know how to waste away an afternoon doing nothing without worrying about what the next item on our agenda is?

When I went to the spa I saw guys just laying around. No waiting for their massage time to come up. Just laying around. Not checking their blackberry (ok I mean iPhone or Android. No-one carries a BB anymore) to see if someone is looking for them. Just LAYING around! I was jealous of them. Some of them looked like retirees but some looked like regular working aged folk. As parents it's harder to accomplish this but wouldn't it be great to just not schedule ANYTHING for that day! Nothing. Slow it down to just doing NOTHING for as long as you pleased.

I had a conversation with a colleague and she mentioned that people who migrate to The Apple feel a pressure to experience it all. Her opinion was that when she had a non active day in the city, she felt that she was wasting time that could be spent going to a museum, or to brunch, or catching a burlesque show on floating table on an indoor lake (yeah, that exist! It's New York after all). If that's the case, then people will always be in a constant state of motion because you can never see it all in NYC. It's just impossible. The best you can hope for is to cover most of the times that are important to you and a smattering of things that are outside of your comfort zone. If you try to get to everything, you indeed will never be able to stop and smell the $5 street vendor roses!

The ironic thing is that even though I know this, I feel like I'm in perpetual motion myself! I, as I mentioned, know how to slow down when I'm away but this summer I vow to have some "nothing" days with my wife and daughter and maybe waste an entire day away on Governor's Island or something. Maybe...

These are my thoughts...what are yours?

Which way would YOU run?

There is a new Army commercial (by the way, all military commercials annoy me because they are intrinsically deceptive) where they show a group of soldiers running INTO a clouds of smoke from an apparent explosion. The tag line at the end was 'which way would you run?' and the point was that there are certain people who run into danger to help people or to fight a battle. Those are the people that the Army is saying that it wants in its corps. Well what does that make the rest of us?

In every horror movie, there are people who hear something go bump in the night and, rather than high tail it out of there, decide to go investigate. We laugh at those people for being nosy and usually they are the first people to die in the film! Get away from danger in normally what we think people should do. I am no soldier. I am not a crime fighter. When there is a specter of danger, I run...the other way! The Army does not want me. And to be fair, I don't want the Army either. But does that make me a coward? Does that make me less of a citizen than those people willing to run head long into an ominous situation? Or does it make me smarter?

When the planes hit the towers in NYC, there was an immediate rush to help all of the wounded in the city. It felt like everyone wanted to be a 'first responder'. On that day, I stayed put in Brooklyn and I drove to a pharmacy to get medication for one of my late fraternity Brothers who had gone into sickle cell crisis. That's where I was needed but more importantly, I am not an EMT/firefighter/policeman type of person. Is that a character flaw of mine or am I just a part of a swath of society that needs to exist to complete the Venn diagram for the city? It has always been a point of internal shame for me that when my fellow Greeks were mobilizing in the following days to provide help, that I did not volunteer. It still felt dangerous to me and my instincts told me not to go. As it turns out, the air in that area was toxic and we still don't know what the final side effects are for the people who breathed it in. So was I a coward or was I smart?

Bravery, like people, comes in many forms and it is not always manifested in the physical manner. The commercial seemed to imply that those that ran into danger were braver than those who would run away from it. Even in the school yards when we were growing up, running away had its stigma. Well, here is the difference: I never run away from MY fights. On top of that, I often run to the aid of people and I never use my legs. In society, we need soldiers and fighters and rescuers.  We also need people who will defend their families and teach people and heal those that have been hurt. It takes courage to sit across from a person who has just told you that they were raped by their sibling and are now considering suicide and not run out the door! I don't think any less of those who can't do that because that's my calling. It's not a job for everyone. Just like being in the military is not for everyone either.

I write this primarily because I truly believe that there are many ways to be a good citizen (or permanent resident...don't judge me!) without taking up arms. Very hippie of me to say, I know, but if that time taught us anything, it should be that we should all respect the way each of us decide to live. Furthermore, we have to respect what we each bring to table. Some of us are braver than others but if we were all equally brave, who would be left for us to save?

These are my thoughts...what are yours?   

Sometimes I wonder...

You ever wonder if Sasha and Melia have to clean up behind the First Dog?

Modesty PLEASE!!!

I went to the spa the other day with my wife. There is something about going somewhere where everyone and everything is designed to relax you that automatically puts your mind at ease. Well, that relaxed feeling went away quite quickly at this particular spa and made me pause for a moment.

If you have read this blog before, you know that I did not go to high school in this country. Coming here for college was a bit of adjustment. My friends always joke with me that it couldn't be that rough because my home was an English speaking island which was heavily influenced by American culture. That said, there were some aspects of American culture that were not the same. The list is actually long, and we can go into it another time, but the one that became apparent at the spa was the fact that, in Trinidad, we didn't have communal showers. Translation: we didn't walk around naked in the locker rooms!

This has always bugged me: nakedness in the gym/locker room. I'm not a shy or modest person. In fact, when I was younger, I would be considered an exhibitionist by some people. I have been skinny dipping in college, and when getting a massage, fully disrobing is not an issue for me. So I'm not quite sure why it's an issue in the locker room. Am I now embarrassed by my less than athletic body? (ps. That's what I put on forms that ask about my body type! "Less-than-athletic" sounds MUCH better than FAT, which is what I actually am!) Am I afraid that someone will come over with a manifestation of manhood that makes me feel minuscule? It might have to do with not wanting to have a conversation with a dude while his leg is propped up on the bench that I'm sitting on while his twigs and berries are dangling from his tree!

Whatever it is, I tried to get over it and experience the spa (which was a fully clothed facility once you got past the gender specific areas). My wife and I had a great time that day but that first jarring moment where I had to be in a room filled with naked men took a bit of getting accustomed to. For those of you who are even more modest than me, bring a towel. I wish more men did in the locker room! LOL

These are my thoughts...what are yours?

The first rant

So here is the first rant of the year for me. As I mentioned in my last post, I haven't done one in nearly a year and I have held a loooot of stuff in. Here are some of the things that have bothered me.

Mild winter complainers
In NYC, we had a VERY mild winter. In fact, we barely ever went below 20 degrees F and it snowed twice with minimal accumulation. The heaviest snow we got was actually in OCTOBER and barely anything else since then. This is the same city that got pummeled by Snowpocalyse last winter so in my humble Caribbean based opinion, we deserved a break. So imagine my surprise when I hear people COMPLAINING that we didn't get snow and how mild it was. I might be inclined to listen to those who are purporting this as a harbinger of global warming...might. But when you're mad because you like the snow and the cold weather and you're mad because for once NY skipped a season and it wasn't FALL, I bid you a adieu and suggest you move your frigid behind to Montreal or Siberia (same thing) and co-habitate with penguins and yaks. And these are ALWAYS people who don't have to shovel a yard or dig out a car! We got enough snow for TWO winter last year, you inconsiderate yeti. Cut us some slack.

Close sitter.
Subways are crowded. I get it. This is not about that. I know when there are a bunch of people on the train that we should all be considerate and take up only the space we need and no more. But when the damn train starts to clear out and there is an empty space next to you that no-one is even attempting to sit, move your ass over! This always happens to me when I am stuck near a pole and can't get away from the close sitter. I start to wonder if the Axe shower gel that I used really does attract people or if they are trying to pick my pocket. Either way, they need to do like Onyx and back the **** up!

Technology snobs
I have an iPad. It's an original iPad and it's not 4G wireless. It does what I need it to do. I am normally not one of those people that has to get the new gadget as soon as it comes out. I may WANT it as soon as it debuts but I'm frugal (read: cheap) so I don't run out an buy the new toy on the day of its release. I may eventually get it but I'm in no rush. I especially won't get the new thing if I feel like I will never use the new features and if the current machine suits me just fine. But here come these tech snobs acting like I'm working on an abacus because I'm still using an original iPad. Really!?! You think you're hotter than me me because you burned 3 vacation days camping outside of an Apple store or you preordered yours and lived in a constant state of alternating anticipation and frustration as you waited for it to arrive? Well if that's the case, you win my geeky friend. The battle is yours but you are clearly losing the war on "cool"...woefully.

The MTA
You didn't get what you wanted in your last contract negotiations. We get it. Now we just need you to admit that you're sabotaging our service! There are less trains during rush hours and good luck catching one off peak. We understand: you're pissed. But don't blow smoke up our asses and tell us that your service is getting BETTER!!! We don't believe you. You need more people (thanks Jay). Ughhhh

Ok I'm done...for now...

These are my thoughts...what are yours.

Back from the Block.

I have the dreaded affliction known as writers block. For a novelist, it's an issue that they can work through because there is a not a need for output on a regular basis. For a blogger, it's a death sentence. There are 14,417,716 blogs for people to choose from and if somehow you managed to actually GET people read your blog, you better make sure there is a constant stream of new posts for them to read each time they return to your page. Writers block for a blogger is a game killer, especially if this your bread and butter. For the casual blogger like myself, it almost feels like you have broken a contract with those seventeen people who have begun to follow your thoughts. They could have read a bunch of other blogs but they started reading mine. I feel like I owe them something for the time that they took to click over to my page to see what I was rambling on about this week. Writers block means that now when they visit, they are forced to read posts from months ago...and no-one does that right?

Well the one cure for the 'block' is to just start writing...anything. So I will. Tomorrow signals the return of the rant. I stayed away from the rants that I became known for but, for me, the easiest way out of the writing doldrums is to return to the one thing that I know how to do virtually unconsciously. Plus I've held a lot of things in for the better part of a year! Doctors say that's not healthy and y'all want me to be ok right? So starting tomorrow, when I feel like some stupid has entered into my world, you'll hear about!! The hope is that it will keep me writing and I won't have this long of a hiatus again.

Come on. You know you've missed me! :-)

These are my thoughts...what are yours?

The Story of the 'Hat'...

This morning I had a irrational moment. You know what I'm talking about: one of those moments where you say to yourself, "did I really just think that?" I was getting dressed and I wanted to wear one particular hat with the outfit that I was wearing.  It matched perfectly. The only problem was that had wore that same hat the day before! Gasp, I thought. What will people think!?!? The same hat two days in a row?!?! A little background for those of you who don't know me personally...

When I first started in the work place, my job was to do presentations at high schools. At that time I still had a very youthful look about me and since I moved from school to school, the school security would often mistake me for a student wandering the halls. To try to remedy that, I would always dress in a suit to distinguish myself from the kids. Around that same time, my fraternity chapter decide to shave their head in tribute to the Nuba tribe in Africa. After reading a book about them, we felt a certain connection with them across the ocean, backwards across the Middle Passage. So we shaved our heads. Here's the thing about hair; it protects your head! When you remove it you need to replace that protection with something and, most of the time, that comes in the form of a hat. But when you wear suits to work, you can't wear a baseball cap (or at least back then you couldn't). I bought a fedora and started wearing that. On a service project in Bloomington, Indiana one year, I picked up a black short brim from a thrift store, very Bear Bryant. That became my 'hat'. I had one and I became known as the guy in the suit and the hat because back then, I was the only young man wearing fedoras regularly in my circles. Slowly, fedoras became more and more popular and I purchased another hat. And another. And another. Pretty soon it got to the point where I am now where I never wear the same hat two days in a row. Fast forward to this morning.

That moment made me think about two lessons. Firstly, how often do we stop ourselves from doing things because we think that people will judge us for our actions when the reality is that people don't really care about that thing...or even better, they aren't even really pay attention to what we do anyway! I had to stop and remind myself that NO-ONE cares that I wear the same hat two days in a row except for the man staring back at me in the mirror. But was all do this: we all have those moments when we think that we're under FAR more scrutiny that we actually are and we let it stymie us. What could we accomplish if we did not care what people thought about our deeds? I bet Steve Jobs could answer that.

Secondly, it made me realize just how complicated we make our own lives. I used to have ONE hat. Black suit? Black hat. Blue suit? Same hat. Grey suit? Same hat. Brown suit? You guessed it: Same hat! There was no back and forth about matching. I grabbed my hat and started my day. Simple. Sometimes we need to get back to simple. In this society where many of us have sooooo many choices for EVERYTHING, we get caught up with the variety and lose precious moments of life living. Whereas my delima cost me all of 5-10 minutes of my day today, how many hours and days do we labor over other more substantial choices when they will all give us comparable satisfaction, losing precious time in the deliberation process. My fraternity Brother Gladston lives by the K.I.S.S. philosophy: Keep It Simple, Stupid. As a result, he is decisive and gets right to task at hand (which sometimes is cleaning out my refrigerator). I like that. We analyze things to death. Some of us just need to act. Really.

Well, who knew choosing a hat would make me want to write a lengthy blog (yeah ....sorry about all the words and stuff). And in case you're wondering, I am wearing that hat that I wore yesterday. Just call me Honey Badger today: I don't care!!

These are my thoughts...what are yours?