Everybody's Got a Price

When I was young, I thought “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase was the most evil man in the world. He would pay people to perform insulting tasks for his pleasure and arrogantly insist that everybody had a price. Obviously as I got older I realized that 1) he was merely playing a character and 2) he was actually one of the nicer people around. I never forgot his cackle and catchphrase. The older I got, the more I realized that everybody does indeed have a price.

Now before you get offended and send me hate mail and empty threats, allow me to explain myself. The price I am referring to does not necessarily correlate to greed. Sure, I have often joked that if I had a price it would be a Shamrock Shake. Honestly, my price is not that cheap. The fact of the matter is that while we choose to believe that our personal code of conduct is concrete and static, offers and circumstances appear to challenge those codes. A person with a crippling fear of public embarrassment might put away those fears if they were given a Toyota Corolla for free. Others might hold out for something more extravagant like a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. When we were in junior high, two of my friends sold the real name of another one of our classmates for spare change and giant Cheez-Its. Everybody’s got a price.

Again, let me reiterate that greed is not the only driving force behind our prices. Sometimes we are willing to compromise our code of conduct when we determine that what we want or need outweighs what we must sacrifice. People believe in certain things, but I would wager that they would (at least temporarily) put them aside if someone they love was in danger. We reach a breaking point where what we want or need overrides the rules and regulations we establish for ourselves.

Even this blog has a price. I have maintained this blog for years because I enjoy writing and expressing myself and a plethora of other reasons that will be further detailed in a later blog this year. But times are tough. Recently I realized I could be getting money for doing something I enjoy. Certainly I have had to tweak some things a bit. Instead of posting hidden links for the benefit of my lone subscriber to this blog, I now post advertisements. I have to alter the content of some of my posts or even write about things I had no intention of writing about. I never thought I would be talking about Chicago auto repair or water pump replacement, but due to the fact that professionally I am not quite where I want to be, I had to do some things I did not expect to do. Am I a sellout? Call me what you will, but everybody’s got a price.

Now that I have established my belief that everybody has a price, I need to say that it is not necessarily a bad thing. Complete rigidity in our lives is not a positive. That said, here are some little tips for maintaining your price. First, don’t sell out for just anyone or anything. You have a code of conduct for a reason. Complete fluidity is as much of a negative as complete rigidity. Second, ask yourself if it is truly worth it. Balance the gain against the loss. Finally, though we all have a price, make sure your price is high. Hold out to make sure the positive outweighs the negative.

Accidents Happen

I am fortunate that I have only been in one car accident in my life. It was not serious, but it was an experience I never want to go through again. Story time!

It was September 2006. I was in my second year of college at ONU and only had classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Only going to school two days a week meant long days. I had to get there early and go home late. I didn’t mind that. However, leaving early meant driving at sunrise. The design of my car coupled with my height makes driving east at sunrise a dangerous thing.

I left that morning from our house in Tinley. I had not even made it a mile when a red minivan pulled out right in front of me! Temporarily blinded by the sun, I rear ended the vehicle. The woman driving the vehicle quickly ran out to check on the van while her son began to take pictures of the accident. However, when the police came, she claimed “personal injury” and demanded an ambulance. Her husband came to pick up the children and wound up rear ending my vehicle! Since there was personal injury involved with my rear ending, I got a court date and ticket. I wound up late to school and only had twenty minutes to take a theology exam. At that point, it felt like one of the worst days of my life.

While none of that was anything I want to experience ever again, it could have been much worse. In Chicago auto repair companies are abundant, probably more so than San Diego Auto repair, so my dad found a place in Tinley to replace both bumpers. I was given a Toyota Camry to use while my car was being fixed (thankfully I was given a car and not the Ford F-150), and oddly that was the vehicle I used to drive my sister and (now) brother-in-law on one of their first dates. The auto repair shop did a great job on my car, and my Cobalt was as good as new. I had to pay a fine in court, and the woman tried to claim “right side injuries” but the ADA declined to press charges. While at the time it was an inconvenience it helped me to be safer and more alert, and I hope to never be the cause of an accident again.

The Importance of Putting Your Best Foot Forward

DISCLAIMER: This is going to be a pretty short entry and not as deep as a lot of my other entries. In fact, when you read this it may seem sort of random. However, keep reading later this month and it will make more sense.

In one of my earlier blogs I mentioned that I am not the biggest fan of Tiger Woods. His personal misdoings really don’t have much to do with my dislike of him. In fact this dislike started even before he defeated my beloved Rocco Mediate in the 2008 U.S. Open. I generally have issues with the overly successful. That said, over the years Nike has done a great job of marketing Woods to make him as tolerable and even (gasp!) likable as possible.

Nike has always been good at touting the successes of the athletes they sponsor. From Woods to Michael Jordan, the brand can tout itself as a winner because it associates itself with athletes who can truly claim to be the best in the world at what they do. Whether showing footage of an incredible shot Woods hit or airing a commercial highlighting Woods’ club-handling prowess, Nike makes the association between the athletes they sponsor and success. This in turn not only makes their products more marketable to the average Joe but also makes their athletes more appealing to the American public.

In the case of Tiger Woods, Nike has done an exceptional job of humanizing him and highlighting the importance of family to Woods’ life in commercials like this. While the company can do nothing about Woods’ continued ability to shoot himself in the foot, they repeatedly make remarkable attempts to make him seem more like a man and less like an island. Without the marketing Woods has received over the years, his winning would still speak volumes, but it is likely that he would be even more disliked without Nike’s attempts to give the public a reason to like him.

So what is the point of this? We are our own personal Nike. It is our job to make ourselves tolerable and likable to potential friends, employers, and love interests. We all have our selling points as well as our flaws. While it is necessary to be cognizant of our flaws, it is necessary to build around the strong points. We must recognize our successes to truly put ourselves in a position to succeed in the long-term.

Pay no attention to the people on your screen

I have never understood society’s worship for those of marginal fame. Sure, I am a big fan of Randy Orton and I loved Scottie Pippen’s work with the Bulls (and was so elated when he returned in 2003), but when the cameras are off them, I stop caring. I just don’t get why mainstream society scrutinizes anyone who is even remotely recognizable.

Jerks exist, but being a jerk is not exclusive to being famous. Granted, some celebrities are absolute jerks and deserve to be recognized as such. Tiger Woods is an infidel. What he did is absolutely uncool. For that, he owed his wife much more than an apology. He owed the same to the sponsors who did keep them. But he owes me nothing. Tiger Woods has absolutely no accountability to me. The worst thing he’s done to me was indirectly cause me to waste an afternoon watching him beat Rocco Mediate in a playoff for the 2008 U.S. Open.

I’ve always thought Ben Roethlisberger was a piece of work. I can’t stand him. His actions range from immature to dangerous. He owes a lot of people a lot of apologies. But the only apology he owes me is for being the beneficiary of one-sided officiating in Super Bowl XL. Simply because I watch (and root against) him does not give me any right to judge him or demand any sort of behavior from him.

Unfortunately we live in a society where the general populace renders their lives as mundane at best or meaningless at worst. Instead of doing something about it, society latches onto whomever or whatever is interesting at the moment. We live in a society where people can become famous for being famous (e.g. Paris Hilton, any of the Kardashians). We live (and leech) vicariously through these people, feed off their successes, hold them to higher standards than we hold ourselves, and feel betrayed when they inevitably falter.

Living in the spotlight does not take away the humanity of any of these people. Many famous people do not crave as much of the spotlight as they receive. When we commoners falter, we do not owe an explanation to the entire world. Just because their failures occurred with a camera does not mean that they owe us anything. We are accountable to those we are close to.

The best advice I can give is to not idolize those whom you do not know. Live your life, worry about yourself, and be the best you can be. Set high standards, but set them for yourself. “Common” life will seem much less mundane if an air of accountability is present.

Progress: Keep Moving Forward

Progress is a tricky thing. It is at times difficult to be gauged individually, and the rate of progression varies not only from person to person but from situation to situation as well. Sometimes it is very difficult for us to keep moving forward, especially when everything around us seems to be falling. At times it even hurts to keep moving forward, but progress is a necessity. It guards us from two very dangerous things.

The first thing that progress guards against is regression, which makes a great deal of sense because regression is the very opposite of progress. The worst thing we can do is to fall back to where we once were. We work so hard to get from where we are to where we want to be, and to return to an inferior version of ourselves would be a demoralizing blow. Not only is it demoralizing but it is also a massive waste of time. Very rarely do we get closer to where we want to be without spending time getting there. To regress from that point not only wastes the time we already spent but also adds additional time to simply return to where we were. The statement “Sometimes in order to take two steps forward we must take one step back” is occasionally true, but a continued habit of moving backward will never take us to where we want to be.

The other thing progress guards against is stagnation, or a settlement in one place for a prolonged period of time so that neither progression nor regression occurs. Stagnation comes in a variety of shapes and forms. At times it exists because there are impediments to progress that must be dealt with. At other times it is a result of complacency. This is the scary form of stagnation. In this case, we are not where we want to be, but we are farther along than when we started. We take too much enjoyment in what we have done that we lose sight of what is still left to be done. Stagnation can be described as this: Say I am on a road trip from Illinois to Idaho. Along the way I make a stop in South Dakota. I am fascinated by the sights and stay there. Enough time passes and I miss my targeted arrival to Idaho. Sure, I am farther along than when I started, but I am not yet where I want to be and am wasting time.

I know that there are times that it is hard to move forward. Other situations in our lives can discourage us and cause setbacks on our path. We must not lose sight of the finish. Some journeys take much longer than we would like, but as long as we keep moving forward step by step we will end each day closer to the finish than when we started the day.

Sometimes in order to move forward to make the brightest future we must let go of what we have today. I know this is not easy. I am living this myself and don’t particularly like it. Since I graduated college I have not exactly had a ton go right in my life. I have had one amazing thing that has unfortunately had to occur at the wrong time of my life. To make the best future for myself and whom I believe to be part of my future, I must do things the right way. It’s not easy now. I know some might hate me for it, and that hurts, but I do it as much for them as I do it for myself. I need to keep holding on and keep moving forward so that the best of our todays will be the worst of our tomorrows.