tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51238155457632381442024-03-13T15:18:21.897-04:00Stay AwhileClark Covington's BlogClark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.comBlogger277125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-1921158542030014462013-04-12T13:50:00.001-04:002013-04-12T13:50:50.253-04:00Thirsting for The Open Road Again - We Are Children of Our Parents<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The open road keeps calling my name. I hear her whisper to me ever so slightly. C'mon she calls, as if it were that easy. <div>
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Spring delivers a predictable bounty of pollen, rain, and a renewed focus on what we'd like to do outside if we had the time. Some would garden, others walk, and yet I can't get my mind off taking a long, endless maybe, drive to somewhere worth a photograph. </div>
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My father's father was, as they say, a car guy. My father is, to say the least, a car guy. My thirst to drive shouldn't be a surprise then, but it is to me. </div>
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I yearn to drive not for the privilege of reaching the destination, but everything else. A moving target is always harder to hit. </div>
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Children appear in my dreams, reaching for my hand, begging for help. The weight of my arm too great to lift high enough to meet their fragile hands. </div>
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My mother's mother was a lover. My mother, somewhere beneath it all, still is. Lest I fall short there, I must be. </div>
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A man that lay under the roof of a stick-built shed more times than not works harder in his life than a king with a thousand castles. We celebrate the king, shun the man, and yet both are liable to not lend a hand, but maybe every so often for posture. Want to do some good in this world? A swim upstream is in order, the air in our lungs ready and willing to be used, our selfish minds telling the muscle to wait indefinitely. </div>
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We can't wait anymore. </div>
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Look through the windowpane of your childhood, and maybe you see the same? </div>
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<br />Forever we are bound to our parents, their wills and ambitions stuck in our DNA like the very soil we stand upon, trying ever so hard to make it alright. </div>
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Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-8252782573096803512012-11-15T15:07:00.001-05:002012-11-15T16:11:12.102-05:00Embracing EccentricityWhen was the last time you thought about your life? Not when it started, or will be over, but what you're doing with it in the present? So often I overhear people speaking of themselves in past tense with shiny adjectives like amazing, super, player, lover, sportsman, poet, friend, and the all-too-used rockstar. "You've never witnessed a man so good at picking up the ladies than this rockstar in his prime," explains one; "On the football field I was a beast, a certifiable wrecking ball," exclaims another. What about now? What about right now? Where are you my beast? Where are you my rockstar? What happened to all the bravado? Did time take it from you like a wild flame melts the wax off an antique candle? Maybe those moments of fondness come less with age, as we are pushed into more adult roles, gone are the beasts and poets, in come the parents and minivan pilots.<br />
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On a muggy Florida afternoon some years ago I briskly walked through an Aldi grocery store. It was oddly arranged in a manner that required visitors to navigate aisle-by-aisle each section, rather than that of an open market where visitors could quickly find what they sought and go. Beyond the layout, for the life of me I couldn't find a brand I recognized, all the food was from a different universe, one that had yet to buy an ad on TV to tell me how good it was. I cursed Aldi for this, this euro-quirk wasn't charming, I needed Boars Head ham, and I needed it now, enough with the walk-through-the-gift-shop on the way out stuff. <br />
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Five months ago I returned to Aldi with my girlfriend. This Aldi was in South Carolina, not Florida, but for all intensive purposes it had the same odd layout, same quarter-to-use shopping carts, and same white label brands. This trip was different though, from the start the place looked promising, maybe I'm more calm, or maybe my companion has me more calm. As we walked the aisles chock full of discounted knock offs of everything from Nutella to Fage, the world of Aldi started to make sense. With my girlfriend's enthusiasm in full tilt, we found deal after deal. She calmly walked the awkward aisles, pointing out a mix of delicious foods and good deals in a whispery tone meant for just us two. "Those are so good, and man did you see the price of those cheese crackers, what a deal," she'd enthuse. Her energy attracted others, even begging a fellow Aldian to smile and compliment her dress. We bagged, or rather boxed, our groceries into the quarter cart, and were on our way with a total savings somewhere north of 60%. <br />
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Later in the evening my girlfriend unpacked the boxes and made dinner from our Aldi bounty. She was quick to point out that the food we bought today would last weeks before needing replenishment. Her enthusiasm was contagious as I nodded in wholehearted agreement. I'm a believer, let's shop to save! Not that long ago I'd vowed to never shop Aldi again, and now I was swearing off my organic market pension in the name of all things Aldi. <br />
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We all have eccentricities, and what fun it can be to embrace them. My girlfriend loves budget shopping, you should see her at a dollar store by the way, and there is nothing wrong with her. In fact, it's what makes her interesting. I love obscenely expensive coffee from places that start their name with plantation and end with limited. I also like indie electronic music, crowdsourcing, new media, and all kinds of other things that don't have much in common with each other. What it means to me, and what it means to you are two different things, and my suppression of any of these passions, outside of taking away from time with family and work, is no longer cool. Rather, a thoughtful approach to those things I love in life is warranted, one where I do more to embrace them foolishly, rather than with the normal adultsy caution of a thirtysomething trying to exude the confidence that matches their rising age.<br />
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Maybe there is something you've been suppressing, something random to most but utterly detailed to you that you'd love to do more with? Or maybe you've come to terms with existing within the status quo because that's what adults do? Don't be afraid to bust out your most random hobbies and interests with those that love you, and don't be surprised when they love you that much more for doing so. <br />
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Pictured below a shot from my old garage, an ode to my undeniable eccentricity.<br />
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<br/><br/><div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPCAyoTqE3UOnMQJn-bjBPDXgcTFgDaEbvcO4bA0mHZagjz1rOIt2y9HqZb6ifBXtZ6HrOu9w0ehmjdGjcroPt504KCO3kTH9Rw7d7IU7XaAVwktyKtlvqe9WgnJLESNRER2djZ4Od8NY/s640/blogger-image--1630697172.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPCAyoTqE3UOnMQJn-bjBPDXgcTFgDaEbvcO4bA0mHZagjz1rOIt2y9HqZb6ifBXtZ6HrOu9w0ehmjdGjcroPt504KCO3kTH9Rw7d7IU7XaAVwktyKtlvqe9WgnJLESNRER2djZ4Od8NY/s640/blogger-image--1630697172.jpg" /></a></div>Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0Whole Foods Market 6610 Fairview Road, Charlotte35.147609 -80.829926tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-50009608219245553312012-09-11T18:11:00.000-04:002012-09-11T18:11:17.461-04:00Beyond 9/11<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUw2ikri8SOqC_0KLlraohyuVcswJ3nm8kXDOrMGR95y9W-vIBIRWdvaElTOfOefXsvUpoOhodK8EFGOzKLveWxdy0Yq6xuY8nRwTfVMXNR3Opjds6lNsIhVyj3pzykqsFdMKNwoDThOk/s1600/911.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUw2ikri8SOqC_0KLlraohyuVcswJ3nm8kXDOrMGR95y9W-vIBIRWdvaElTOfOefXsvUpoOhodK8EFGOzKLveWxdy0Yq6xuY8nRwTfVMXNR3Opjds6lNsIhVyj3pzykqsFdMKNwoDThOk/s320/911.png" width="194" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">On the anniversary of September 11th we all stop to give
thanks for life, and remember the dead. I'm more concerned with what everyone
will do on September 12th and beyond. If we want to honor those that past we
must look at a way to build ourselves into better people, to give more and take
less, and maybe just maybe we'll see them on the other side one day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rest in peace all those that past that day, my commitment is
to remember you not just now, but forever.</span></div>
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Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-92229756453871750132012-08-16T17:14:00.000-04:002012-08-16T17:14:23.230-04:00The architecture of viral (why I love the internet) <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Not long ago I watched a man named Daym Drops perform a hilarious <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGkHRa64sDY" target="_blank">video review</a> of the famous Five Guys double cheeseburger thanks to curator of
all-things-awesome<a href="http://whatstrending.com/" target="_blank"> Shira Lazar</a> for pointing it out.</div>
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Not a day later my Facebook feed started bubbling up with a
"songified" <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcJFdCmN98s&feature=plcp" target="_blank">version</a> of the hit.</div>
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From that catchy tune came <a href="http://youtu.be/DEDH6C4t_j0" target="_blank">this</a>, <a href="http://youtu.be/VhKhtJch4R4" target="_blank">this</a>, <a href="http://youtu.be/yRN_tzgzGCE" target="_blank">this</a>, and <a href="http://youtu.be/bNtyZDIO7H8" target="_blank">this</a>.</div>
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A guy in his car talking about a cheeseburger leads to
uncountable laughs, views, remixes, and quite possibly fortune. SNL would be
lucky to have any of these people on stage for their upcoming season.</div>
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I've been spending some time lately <a href="http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5F2B1D9C61E21E62&feature=plcp" target="_blank">creating</a>, <a href="http://vimeo.com/46833946" target="_blank">cultivating</a>,
and <a href="http://www.reelseo.com/" target="_blank">reading about</a> experimental online video. It's frothy mixes of talent and
humor like the above that make me happy, and more importantly devoted to
continuing the journey down the path of netified media. </div>
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Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-74040422817403886832012-05-10T12:14:00.000-04:002012-05-10T12:20:51.138-04:00Hope for the Hapless<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A black pistol rested atop a milk colored Formica
countertop, its shape caught my attention as soon as I entered the room. Have
you ever noticed fake guns are always thinner than real ones? Real guns have girth;
a thickness metal provides that separates them from their plastic brethren you
see in toyshops and at the movies.</div>
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Was it a Glock? A .22 caliber maybe? Is that thing street
legal? I wondered if it was loaded as I sat down, even closer to the matte
black weapon. I eyed the trigger, with one pull someone could die I thought as my
palms began perspiring.</div>
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A paper plate holding a still-smoking hamburger patty
replaced the weapon on the counter as my host casually went about serving
dinner. A thought dashed through my mind, I’m not complaining about this meal,
that’s for certain. </div>
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I once heard someone describe Southerners (read rednecks) as
militia-ready, armed to the teeth, good ole boys that took matters into their
own hands a bit more than the law would like. Any impulse I had to trespass dissipated
at that point, and has yet to return. No empirical data to back this claim up,
but shootings from trespassing incidents rarely end up being prosecuted in this
neck of the woods if you know what I mean.</div>
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In life, even at a casual cookout, dangerous situations
arise without warning. When you watch as many Dateline and 48 Hours episodes as
I, you realize the absolute unpredictableness of crime. Things rarely go from
orderly to murder in a liner way. It’s more like drawing a line on a piece of
paper on a train ride, where the intention and the result differ greatly. Life
is just as unpredictable if not more so than those televised weekend mysteries,
just not always made so public.</div>
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On the day of a great musician’s death he gets <a href="http://paidcontent.org/2012/05/08/beastie-boy-sued-for-sampling-on-day-of-death/" target="_blank">sued</a>, an
election-year president goes<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-gay-marriage-20120510,0,2388028.story" target="_blank"> on record </a>with a firm position on a polarizing
issue, a CEO with no need to lie <a href="http://community.nasdaq.com/News/2012-05/yahoo-ceo-lies-on-resume.aspx?storyid=138820" target="_blank">does</a>, and every need to properly apologize
<a href="http://allthingsd.com/20120507/ceo-apologizes-to-yahoos-but-will-the-mea-culpa-work-without-an-explanation-for-the-borked-bio-memo/" target="_blank">doesn’t</a>, and a once credible news organization facilitates a Q&A with <a href="http://ireport.cnn.com/topics/787623?hpt=hp_t2" target="_blank">Snooki of Jersey Shore fame</a>, and this is all just from the past week. We live in such
an unpredictable world that the only thing we can really count on is
unpredictability. If life is going to toss us around like a salad at Olive
Garden, why aren’t we ready, prepared, and helping others as they go through
the seasickness of life’s constant turbulence. Why do we pretend that everyone
should be self reliant, oft in brazen casualness, when the vestige of once well
mannered lives stand in plain view? Now there’s a question for Snooki.</div>
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Helping others, even dying for them, we’re taught is the
ultimate expression of love, and adds a layer to meaning of our lives that
virtually no other act can bestow. The good book offers <a href="http://bible.cc/john/15-13.htm" target="_blank">John 15:13</a>, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f9fdff; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Greater love has no one
than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (NIV). Even the box office
<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/05/06/the-avengers-sets-box-office-record/" target="_blank">record-breaking</a> Avengers movie utilizes this dramatic arc in a pivotal scene in
the film in which Iron Man takes a nuclear missile into a space seemingly
sacrificing his life for mankind, yet (spoiler alert) returns safely to earth just
before being vanished into the ether. Whether from God or Stan Lee, the point
remains that giving, even at a fatal cost, is the most honorable thing we can
do as humans. Yet we struggle to keep this at the forefront of our priorities,
don’t we? If we didn’t there wouldn’t be 2,000 thread count sheets, because we
would’ve spent all that money on insecticide treated bed nets to end <a href="http://www.malarianomore.org/malaria" target="_blank">Malaria</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f9fdff; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Marxist
theories aside, why are we dispositioned to constantly struggle for our own
gain in a world where we are taught the ultimate gain comes from helping
others? If you look at those that have all the financial wherewithal in the
world like Putin or Bloomberg, what you see today are people at their core that
in some fashion are trying to help others, or at least utilize such provincial power
to be perceived as doing such. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Recently a group of <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/parents-cheer-autism-friendly-mary-poppins-16244729#.T6vPvcRYspM" target="_blank">do-gooders</a> decided to tone down the Broadway
version of Mary Poppins enough for Autistic children to enjoy it. The result? A
weekend sellout and lives changed in a profound way for the better. Are we
always losing if we’re helping others? Can’t we all win from the art of
assisting those in need? I think so.</div>
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I rarely write about my own business ventures, because
frankly they’re boring. Unless I’m talking to someone sleep deprived looking
for something dull enough to doze her off, I try to steer clear of the topic. Today
however I think a nugget about my business experience might help, and here it
is; when thinking of a business don’t think about how to make money, think
about how to profoundly help fix a problem that many people encounter. Help is
the operative word here, you might not be able to fix the problem, but you
might help the fixing of it. Big difference here. I can’t help all self
published authors reach the levels of exposure big imprints do, but I can help
contribute, maybe even shine some light on an idea or two that gets remixed
into something bigger, bolder, and you guessed it, helpful for others in a
profound way. </div>
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The times I’ve thought about making money as the primary objective with a business they always seem to end with the floor filled with pools of blood worthy of a dead
ox, conversely when I’ve thought of sincerely and earnestly solving a big
problem things worked out pretty good, at least well enough to keep me riding
the roller coaster they call entrepreneurship. </div>
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There’s hope for the hapless if we intend for such. How much
do we really need, and how much can we really give are questions I think about
a lot. Maybe now you will too. </div>
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</div>Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-76004696572070428402012-03-26T11:12:00.000-04:002012-03-26T11:14:00.868-04:00The Fields We Tend<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Beyond the thrice-cracked concrete patio a torrent of cantaloupe green brush hangs high in all directions. Petals of dead shrub dash through the sea of tall grass like highlights bleached into a tween girl’s first unsupervised cut and style. Beyond a landscape challenge of whether a mower can handle grass so high without combusting into shards of uselessness sits a declaration of unease. No, we’re not green thumbs. We’re not even really here.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Backlit keys absorb daylong ten finger assaults with ease. Systems are built to manage systems, which are managed by people, chiefly to make sure the systems that manage the systems will, you know, function like systems. The business, while built around passion, is rooted in a foundation of preparedness, earthquake, recession, power outage or food fight we are ready for anything because we prepare for it all. Yes, this is working. We’re always here.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sacrifice, the act of giving up something good for something better, is all too often characterized as a win/win when in fact it’s win/lose. You win whatever you tend, and what goes unattended you lose, why would you ever be surprised by what happens upon neglect?</p><p class="MsoNormal"> Are you surprised at the child that acts up in class when at home there is no one to tell her not to?</p><p class="MsoNormal"> Are you surprised at the single mom that can’t make girls night out because she’s working her second, third or even forth job serving food to other people’s tables so she can put some on her own?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Are you surprised at the once-comrade that doesn’t remember your birthday since you last spoke to her many years ago?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Are you surprised at the bitter homeless man for hating you for your job, clothes, and home?</p><p class="MsoNormal"> Are you surprised by the musician that laughs at your weekend guitar playing while their callused fingers correct your chord progressions?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Are you surprised by the marathoner that lacks sympathy for the fast food junkie that feels irritated by the slightest pain upon an inaugural treadmill expedition?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Fields need tending to prosper, to turn into lively beauties, and yet even with our eyes fixed so firmly on them, our hearts pumping life into encouragement in the form of good intentions, nothing changes. Not yet anyways. </p> <!--EndFragment-->Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-54241409351527044842012-03-04T17:58:00.000-05:002012-03-04T17:59:10.169-05:00Around Here<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">On an old wood table sits a new camera bag. Thick canvas protrudes proudly in all directions, as the girth of twin supple golden suede handles spout to an arch as perfect as St. Louis. I’ve never quite seen a camera bag like this one, and frankly as beautiful as it is, I’m bothered by the newness of it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">My house is nothing more than a pile of bricks atop a modest hill. The home sits nestled between two houses just like it. The vehicle in the driveway that so eloquently dons masking tape over a knocked out taillight was built when Clinton ran the country. The neighborhood, filled with plumbers and tow truck operators, welcomes home residents in uniforms that offer first names via a sewn patch on the chest. I haven’t spent much time in Detroit, but I imagine my town is the smaller southern counterpart.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In this part of town, my side of town, luxury is defined by having job, and getting your hands dirty. There aren’t a lot of passport-touting yuppies around here. No slick talking hedge fund managers, or eager beaver executive know-it-alls to tell us all what to want and how to act. Gentrification may never come this direction, and by all accounts that would be just fine by the sincere folks that call these single story ranches home.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">A boy a few doors down spends hours practicing his jump shot on a decrepit plastic basketball hoop slanted just enough in one direction to render it useless in actually perfecting any type of shot one would use in real game, yet he shoots undeterred. He plows away in the frigid cold of winter, as frigid as South Carolina gets anyways, and the scorching, are-you-kidding-me heat of summer. I often wonder where his iPad went? If he has the chance to sip on the cocktail of apps and air conditioning his peers across the track so often quench their techno thirst on? Sometimes as I pass in my car, or on foot, I watch him long enough for him to notice, then I nod approval his way, I can relate to that gut-wrenching feeling of wanting to be outside of the home, anywhere, but inside. He shoots, he scores.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Real people live here, they are too busy practicing the art of getting by to pretend to be someone they are not.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">With no money you are no different here. You are accepted here without financial audit. You don’t need to say where you went on vacation, or what you drive, or where you work, you can just exist, and frankly that’s good enough. And so it comes as no surprise the property values in this neighborhood hardly ever go up.<span style="font-size: 100%; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-3825963556870337912012-01-25T12:38:00.002-05:002012-01-25T12:46:10.964-05:00Better Than BeforeWhy won’t the C drive backup to the F? I’ve got four years of business failures to save here, this has to get done before the new machine gets setup, I thought as my morning began today.<br /><br />Letting the antsy dogs pile through the now open sliding glass door is a test in anxiety, as the largest Jack quickly bolts toward the fence that divides my and the neighbors homes, I try to muster a no to yell, too late, he’s gone.<br /><br />Staring at my closet I count dozens of shirts needing to go to charity, even more shoes, and the uncategorizable that haven’t been worn in years. Why was I holding on to this, and where is my sense of responsibility this morning? Get with it Clark.<br /><br />Back at the computer client and contractor emails demanding more of my time intertwine into the very strand of DNA this company is made of, I need coffee.<br /><br />Flipping through new music on Spotify I spy Gotye, an artist my sister showed me a few weeks ago in some odd body painting video. No time to waste as Jack’s probably getting shot at by the neighbors, surely armed to the teeth in this Carolina working class town, I need to get to the shower before hell breaks loose, Gotye will have to do.<br /><br />Miniscule task by miniscule task modern me goes through the assembly line of life with Gotye providing the soundtrack. Old boots and khakis that are too big for me on bottom, a pocket tee on top, something warm over that, and some cold water for my hot dry throat. Is that a bark I hear? Gunshots? Time to get Jack.<br /><br />With a defecation dodging dash through the backyard I find Jack on the neighbor’s side of the fence. He can’t get back over, it’s time for my morning dead lift, 65 lbs of dirty dog up, and down. His paws caked with dirt are eager to share with my fresh t-shirt. I try to dead lift him over the fence without allowing the paw pat with outstretched arms and half-succeed.<br /><br />As I walk back to the house I think about my doctor’s visit last week, and that clipboard with the white blood cell count on it. You look at those things differently when a friend has cancer, you realize, if for just a millisecond, the pain and utter fear of the unknown they feel each day of their life, my body shudders at the thought of it, I fight back a tear.<br /><br />Inside now Jack sips from a steel water bowl resting on the kitchen floor and decides to share his mud with his siblings, Rufus and Jill love nature, fresh mud to them is akin to the best stadium pretzel you’ve ever tasted at the big game, sinfully delicious.<br /><br />Muddy and frustrated I stand in front of the computer, no sign of digital preservation via my C to F backup, I want to yell in frustration. My email count grows, some with subjects like <i>Can You Help Me with This Now</i>, and <i>If You Could Just Review These 50 Pages Real Quick</i>, why is good coffee so hard to find when you need it?<br /><br />I pause, think about all that needed to get done today, and that’s when it happened, old Gotye started to play something half decent. A song about life, about being down and out, and now doing better than before. A familiar storyline in my life, I turn the volume up.<br /><br />I think back to my sister’s assessment of the album; the title track Somebody That I Used to Know standing in far contrast in terms of quality and toe-tap ability to the others, and mostly I agree with her, until the better song arrived, aptly titled I Feel Better. As I brushed the now-dry dirt off my shirt, I started to grin, life was better, everything was and is better, like a thousand years of championship seasons my team sat atop the podium victorious, arms heavy only from holding the trophy of victory so high for so long. Any possible thing I’ve wanted over the years, real friendships, love, stability, progress for my family, honesty, a relationship with God, it was all at my desk, right there in front of me. Life at 32 is stunning.<br /><br />Pinch me moments these days come early and often, life is everything that I want it to be, and here are the two reasons I think it’s there now, and why I think your life, despite your dog-over-the-fence moments can, and should be, just as good.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Accountability as Zero-Sum<br /></span><br />If you aren’t taking accountability for something in your life, that something, whatever it is, will take away from your capacity to achieve success. Look no further than my alma maters last year.<br /><br />South Carolina’s baseball team suffered a tremendous loss of talent throughout the regular season and playoffs from a cavalcade of injuries in 2011. The team had lost the previous year’s College World Series MVP, Jackie Bradley Jr., along with many other key players, and just as one would get healthy another would bite the dust, an injurious cycle evolved to the ranks of something college baseball had rarely seen. The team’s motto? Win anyway. And that’s what they did, tearing through the playoffs and College World Series to a tremendous second-straight <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/baseball/2011-06-28-south-carolina-florida-world-series-final_n.htm">national title</a>. Throughout all the injuries there was no excuses made for not winning, the team bought into the zero-sum game of accountability, where any reason, valid or not, to not perform at their best each day was unacceptable to consider. Win anyway.<br /><br />Ohio Wesleyan University has a tremendous soccer program for any size school, as the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204262304577068500242533514.html">Wall Street Journal</a> recently pointed out regarding the oxymoronic nature of college soccer, the smaller the school the bigger and better the program. So it might not come as a surprise to many that OWU won their second Division III national championship this past year. What might surprise many is the fact they did so just days after having all their gear stolen from their team van, everything from personal possessions, laptops with a semester’s worth of homework on them, and all else in-between. Having to borrow equipment from other college teams to play their playoff games, they took the zero-sum approach to accountability, and despite incredible odds <a href="http://www.ncaa.com/news/soccer-men/article/2011-12-03/ohio-wesleyan-wins-national-title">won it all</a>, making the coach, most likely the disseminator of the zero-sum attitude, the winningest college soccer coach of all time, that very game.<br /><br />If you feel excuses creeping into your life, as we all tend to each day, work to fight them off. Realize that by taking full accountability for your actions each day the result will be like none other.<br /><br />Of course the other part of this equation involves having a stable enough life to adhere to such a provocative schedule of self-reliance.<br /><br /><b>Surrounded</b><br /><br />You need something desperately and it’s 3 am, who is there to drop everything, most likely sleep at that time, and come to your rescue? Anyone? This small assessment of your friend circle, what I call the 3 am test, can quickly flesh out who is unequivocally your friend and who is conveniently hanging around, know the difference and ditch the ones that would do the same to you if they had something better going on. Ironically they’ll respect you more for being so blunt.<br /><br />Somewhere on the internet a study exists that states our personal income can be determined roughly by the mean of our social circle’s gross income. In other words, if we hang with a bunch of people that are unemployed we are apt to be as well. Conversely if we roll with big timers we’re probably in the 1% too. While what you make financially is inconsequential to whom you choose to befriend, what is important here is the real-life example of how statically we are similar to whom we surround ourselves with.<br /><br />How do you view you? Loving, kind, selfless, interesting, adventurous? Are those the choice descriptors that you’d award to your friends? If not, remember the above equation of us being the financial, and quite possibly emotional, mean average of our friends. We don’t need friends that are exactly like us, especially if we are negative pessimists, but certainly we need friends that share a positive outlook on life, if progress is the goal. If you want to surround yourself with positive people think about visiting with the volunteers at a shelter or church or homeless mission, trust me those people will change your life for the better.<br /><br />If we commit to surrounding ourselves with people that will make us better instead of comfortable, greatness can and will occur. It took me years, nearly a decade to be exact, to put to bed the relationships that held me down, and now I’m here to challenge you to do the same.<br /><br />By no means do I have much of anything figured out, but as I grow older and count my failures in dozens instead of digits, I realize the wisdom in ideas I once thought cliché, to us both comes the spoils from following such ideas earnestly.<br /><br /><b><i>This post was inspired by the song I Feel Better by Gotye</i></b><div><br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/sRC--2qC_Qs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-14352326563482945432011-12-28T14:46:00.001-05:002011-12-28T14:47:42.334-05:00Paralysis of TragedyJust like any other night on Two Notch Road, cars blinked past streetlights at speeds high enough to paint a mahogany ember over the deep indigo midnight sky. Buildings arose into sight as quick as they disappeared. A Cadillac with thick charcoal tinted windows came centimeters from my front bumper in what seemed like a second. No stop light in sight, my size 13 tensed the brake just enough to stop behind him in time. <br /><br />Two flashes of blinding light turned night to day for an instant, and then back to night, followed by the torturous noise a volcano might make in full eruption. <br /> <br />Growing up part of the generation that witnessed the first fully televised war, Desert Storm, and the subsequent proliferation of all-things-media in every battle since, it’s no wonder I had a fairly good sense of what it might feel like to stand near a bomb detonation. <br /><br />I yelled, not out of surprise, but out of something primal, like a drum beat it was over. I touched my face, was I alive? <br /><br />That feeling right after a headlining rock concert ends, when it’s silent but for the crowds whisper, yet a layer of sound still hisses in your ears, that’s the feeling I had as I swung open the door to my truck. Everything slowed down, next to a sedan now resting driver side up stood a family of six, all crying, shouting, where were the paramedics? Where was the ambulance? Can someone do a head count, no body count, now? Please God.<br /><br />Prayers aren’t always exercises in meditative stamina. I shot a prayer to God, please God, help them, whoever them was at that moment.<br /><br />With my husky SUV shifted into park and the wide body rear fully blocking traffic I walked toward the wreck, now pushing smoke to the air like a steel tipi, I wondered for a second if anyone was alive inside, and then to the question of what might happen if the evolving push of smoke turned to fire, surely I’d die.<br /><br />When tragedy happens the dead have a way of kissing you goodbye, ever so slightly letting you know that the steps you take are among ghosts now. When my grandmother passed away, the patron saint of my childhood, she said goodbye to me in a dream. When my uncle came to tell me the news that summer morning all those years ago I already knew my hero had left this earth, bound for the heavens above. <br /><br />The family, now kneeling to the ground in pain, stood dangerously close to the fuming car. A man ushered them away, motioning with his eyes for me to get back. His bravery led to a pop of adrenaline chasing the fear out of my bloodstream, as my eyelids began extracting from their usual sleepy posture to just about the back of their sockets. I started to run, towards the car at first, and then into the hand of a man that pushed me back, telling me nobody alive was in the car with a shake of his head. Before I could speak he was gone, was he ever really there?<br /><br />I regained my footing, standing still as a statue in the middle of a fatal pile-up scene. <br /><br />Silence, the great exasperator, did her best to make me feel like there was something I could’ve done to save the passengers of that wrecked fuming collection of steel. I stood still while the paramedics darted by me on both sides.<br /><br />Whatever time we have left is precious, and far too important to spend entirely on the road of self-fulfillment, for when the collision of life and death occurs we’ll want to pass on with a spirit of selfless giving, even in, or maybe in spite of, the paralysis of tragedy.Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-92107204547638337242011-12-20T16:54:00.001-05:002011-12-31T12:29:51.834-05:00Running Towards RedemptionTen summers ago I ran a road race with my father. It wasn’t anything serious, a sleepy 5k on a sticky summer night in South Carolina. One learns quickly upon moving to the south that outdoor events, during the summer at least, are reserved for the evening, because frankly it’s too damn hot to do much of anything when the sunlight radiates it’s suffocating heat into the thick muggy mid-Carolina air.<br /><br />As I nervously approached the block of runners stretching near the starting line my dad tapped me on the shoulder, and whispered to follow him. We waded through hundreds of people on our way back. I wondered where we were going, the starting line was the exact opposite way, why were we walking away from it I thought confounded by what seemed to be an obvious disadvantage we were now placing on this father and son team. <br /><br />Right before the race began we reached the very back of the field, and my father quietly said something I’ll never forget, he looked forward to the sea of bodies, and back at me, and explained that he liked to start in the back so that he’d spend the race passing others instead of being passed like those that might start at the front but not be in good enough shape to keep pace. It’s the psychology of it he explained, and we were off. <br /><br />A penny, if you spin it the right way, on a flat surface can turn for seconds at a time in revolutions so fast the coin itself appears blurred, tails and heads become almost one, until the coin slows enough for gravity to pull it down to one side or another. The penny can fall, in theory at least, on either side just as easily.<br /><br />When a man loses his money he feels inadequate, in his DNA is the need to provide, and with no money becoming a provider all the sudden doesn’t quite sound possible. With no money a man becomes almost irrelevant to a culture set upon, run by, and worshipped for monetary measures.<br /><br />When a man loses love he has no shoulder to cry on, no one to listen to his feelings, to rub his shoulders and tell him it’ll be alright, that everything will be alright. No love to hold him up when he is too weak to hold his own weight, to push him for the better, and to champion his interests and goals as if they were her own.<br /><br />When a man loses his car he has no transpiration, which often means the freedom he once had is no more. When a man has no torque in front of him, no rubber beneath, no wheel to rest his hands on, his life is at a perpetual stoplight, always red, never green, at least in a city with scant public transportation.<br /><br />Combine the three, no money, love, or car, add in that unforgiving Carolina summer heat, and you have all the ingredients baking toward a depression of serious proportions. You also have something else, a gift, a wondrous gift that is so special, so unbelievably amazing, it has no price that one could pay for it. Beyond the bitter taste of what you don’t have, lays a honeycomb sweet opportunity to change your life in magnitudes otherwise incomprehensible, for the better. <br /><br />Running from the back of the field in that road race a decade ago was so exhilarating, just when I thought I couldn’t possibly pass anymore people as I steamed through 3.1 miles, a few more bit the dust behind me. Finishing nowhere near the top wasn’t even on my radar as my feet dashed the finish line, because I knew that I was far from last, that my time was respectable, and that my effort was worthy, simply by counting all those that ended up behind me. Psychology indeed.<br /><br />The gift of starting at the back of a race, and in life, is in experiencing something from nothing. Seeing progress not in the context of a lifetime of progress, but in that of having nowhere to go but up in the moment. Instead of carrying the faults of ambitious goals gone ary, we celebrate the smallest of victories out of nothingness. A strip steak to the rich is dog food, to the poorest of the poor it is a meal reserved for only the most special of occasions.<br /><br />This past summer, years after the road race, when I thought I’d surely have it all figured out, a season of despair had arrived so unexpected. Just when I thought things could not get much worse, they started to get better. The fall and winter brought so much right, so many smiles and laughs have been had, and my old Subaru has to be the best car I’ve ever owned if for nothing else that it cost $2,500 and runs like a gem. The money I make now comes from the hardest work I’ve ever done, and is the most gratifying. I do as much pro bono work as paid, and it’s totally awesome. Life these days is as sweet as the tea down here, not because everything is as good as it’s ever been, but because everything is now the way it should be. I am who I want to be, finally, and while arriving at the destination of being my true self is enormously fantastic in it’s own right, the real blood pumping, finger tingling, eye bulging excitement comes from what I, no we, can do now. The world really is my oyster, and yours too. <br /><br />That penny spinning, I envision you like that, all of us actually, a motion-filled entity that can at any given time land to do good, to give unselfishly, to toss ego in the trash can, and just serve and build a better place, as it can fall on the side of self-gratification, one-upping the Joneses, and far worse deeds that arrive from our inner desires to do wrong. <br /><br />When I speak to others and they share with me, maybe because I welcome openness, or maybe because of some otherworldly reason, they share their desire to do more with their life. To build a business that matters, or to give to the poor, or the church, or to students with no school supplies. Each time I hear such wishes I think of that penny, and of the race, and how if we just take a minute to walk to the back of the pack, shedding all our thoughts and perceptions of who we are, or what others think we should be, before a nightmare of a life does it for us, we are capable of so much goodness… Maybe even enough to change the world.Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-33541558141229245362011-12-03T13:56:00.002-05:002011-12-03T14:02:19.198-05:00Preservatives<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Not long ago I purchased a laptop desk after hearing from friends and reading in the paper that extended use of a laptop computer as the namesake suggests on one’s lap can possibly cause infertility. Being tethered to my MacBook Air for more hours in a day than I care to admit, it seemed like a smart preventative investment. Preservation of unborn children has been on my mind lately.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">A crazy man stands firm in the middle of a busy four-lane thoroughfare in an industrious area near my home. Wielding dolls that look straight out of a Chucky movie, and grotesque picture signs of lifeless fetuses while dodging cars and trucks that almost seem to speed up as they near him, the man finds time to wave at passersby. I don’t know his name, but for at least a decade, the time I’ve lived here, he’s furiously waved his signs and dolls in an effort to get expecting moms to think twice about having an abortion. If you live in Columbia, South Carolina long enough you too will get the shock treatment.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">On 60 Minutes recently Scott Pelley interviewed a homeless Florida family living in a van. What was more striking than the picture of Pelley, an upper middle class income earner to put it modestly sympathetically interviewing a poor homeless family, was the nature of the children. Calm and resolute, the children stood as reflections of their parents, the words whispered from their mouths could’ve easily come from mom or dad, like a circus maze mirror, distort the size of their parents and you’d get the children. As brother and sister stood side-by-side extolling the benefits of the simple life their parents proudly looked on like a young couple would at their son or daughter’s first soccer game.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Over craft beers with a friend last night at a local pub, by the way that’s what people do in their thirties, they drink craft beers at pubs instead of buds at dive bars, a woman caught my attention. Tall with dark hair that curled off her head ever so slightly falling in her firm-as-can-be snow white face, no smile or smirk evident, like she hadn’t grinned in her lifetime she beamed of natural beauty. You know the kind of beauty where makeup isn’t needed, and just about anything she wears looks like her go-to best outfit? That’s the kind of beauty this woman had.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">As she floated across the floor she glanced at me, blatantly catching my eyes fixated on her, headed somewhere intentionally, or maybe just to stretch those long legs, she went gracefully through the cluttered beer boasters and chatty girls with their cell phones and gossip. I turned around, surely there was a clock above my head, or maybe a window beside me, something that would call her attention to where I was sitting, or was she looking at me? Minutes passed, lost in conversation I’d almost forgot about the whole thing, when she appeared a second time. She navigated the swelling crowd eyes meeting mine, body moving effortlessly. I stopped to take the scene in and as my eyes froze on her, she reciprocated, just to walk out of the bar never to be seen again.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">My mom told me, some years back, that I was to have an older sister, her name was to be Jean Vee Ev, which I guess means Genevieve in French. What a beautiful name I told her, my mom smiled and nodded. Jean Vee Ev was never born, but her ghost still visits often.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Colton, the young boy profiled in the bestseller Heaven is for Real, a tale about visiting the other side, was interviewed not too long ago on TV about meeting his miscarried sister, which made me feel better about thinking of Jean Vee Ev from time to time. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I wonder if you asked a healthy happy ten year old girl how she felt about the zealotus doll waver if her mom had decided to have her after being accosted by one of the very signs the man waves so vehemently. Would she not thank him for her life? If all of this insanity led to her safe arrival, in a crazy ass way is this not the best thing that ever happened to her? </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Would the homeless jobless parents give their children up if they could? It surely doesn't seem to be the case. Would they take their children back if they could, just to save them from suffering a fate most children could never imagine after hearing the humility and wisdom in their young voices on TV? It seems as if in their own way, van and all, they’re doing well enough, and are thankful enough for their children to not take anything back.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The woman in the pub, she made me think of Jean Vee Ev, dark haired and stoic like her mom, would she have been happy to live life on this earth? To endure the ups and downs of life for a chance to make a difference in another life? Unsettled and out of place in that pub, ready for things far more important than a martini to come her way, she walked out the door assured that the next day she’d get to her volunteer gig at the shelter earlier. Surely like my mother she’d be a difference maker, a world saver, wouldn’t she? Some days I can only wonder. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-37082172704394278542011-11-29T12:55:00.002-05:002011-11-29T12:58:28.934-05:00I woke up this morning and asked God why He gave me another day?<br /><div><br /></div><div>God replied, to do my work.</div>Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-5787274957926770462011-11-23T15:05:00.001-05:002011-11-23T15:10:40.045-05:00Reimagined in Ruins<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Not too long ago I <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/ClarkCovington/status/123991319029886976">tweeted</a> that I’d be better off with no material possessions. A smart apple tersely responded surely I wouldn’t want my material cache of belongings stolen. Time passed. I let his tweet echo in my mind for sometime, the notion of giving versus being taken from, and the idea of what it would be like to have nothing swished around in my mind like a soapy sponge on last night’s dinner plate.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Today, in front of me, after a good cup of coffee, stood the unanswerable Socratic paradox, if we work to accumulate material possessions, then it would be unimaginable, or counterintuitive at the very least, to give them all away, nonetheless have them taken from our grasp? Surely running water, an insulated home, and a stove to cook food with is necessary for modern life. Case and point - that delicious cup of coffee required some boiling water to drip into the ceramic cup, not to mention the electricity that propelled the grinder blades to crush the roasted beans into a handful of sandy goodness. Surely we shouldn’t live without everything I concluded, as many of you have very long ago, but all that other stuff, you know, everything that doesn’t serve our daily needs, are all those things really necessary?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve been robbed three or four times, my mom a few times, my brother at least once, my father a few times, and my various businesses in the tens of times, not to mention close friends and family that’ve fallen victim to the act countless times. What universally seems to come from robbery emotion-wise is not so much the loss of possessions, but rather the feeling of violation.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t know about you, but my robber is dressed in all black, wearing a perpetual scowl on his lips wet with the fresh drool delivered from the adrenaline rush that his thievery so often delivers. My robber loves to take, destroy, and dirty the very place I call home in a way that shows he is not only a taker, but a controller. My robber hates what I love, and would kill my dogs if he knew how much it’d break my heart. My robber is forever a thug, a wild man with a heart for terror that waits for everyone to sleep so he can cowardly slip through the door and take what is not his like Bank of America tagging on new debit card fees for it’s customers. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">My robber wickedly does what he can to cause strife, profit from my loss, and create chaos, fear, and hopelessness. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Here is the funny thing about the robber, he’s not up on mythology, at least not the story of the phoenix. See the phoenix of Greek lore actually ignites itself on fire after nearly a dozen centuries of life, just to see itself reborn out of her own ashes for a new life of fruitful existence. In essence the very person that exists to hurt us is helping us, freeing us from all that we own and associate with in grand fashion, allowing for our new selves to emerge in way we would never self-perpetuate. Our robber ducks in, tosses a match on our nest and resting bodies, and lights a fire of change that we would never ask for on our own account, but are so grateful for after we see the beautiful ashes the fire left in it’s wake. Given a life reimagined, what would you do different? Exactly.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Look around your living room, your office, or bedroom. Would you buy that same desk if you could? Surely you’d think twice about that snow globe with the snail in it you thought was so cool five years ago you had toss it on the checkout counter at the surf shop, or about that t-shirt you got at that Limp Bizkit concert before they were lumped in as has-beens from the nineties. If you really look around, and really ask the question, not do I need this, but how often do I use this shirt, snow globe, watch, or candleholder to better my life? If you really ask that honest question for all the items in your home, the answers might start surprising you. Nine out of ten possessions will suddenly look out of place, as there simply is no need for them anymore.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">When all your belongings are taken, stolen from under your grasp, what really happens is opportunity disguised as tragedy. We are gifted by the visit from someone so greedy they take everything you own, and leave you with so much less than you would’ve ever tossed out on your own. You have nothing now, so finally you are free to live the life you know is best for you in all that wisdom you’ve acquired through the years since you purchased all those things to being with. Living with less might just provide that blank slate you wanted for so long, but never knew how to ask for, once you have a roof over your head and a stove to cook with of course. </p> <!--EndFragment-->Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-77431799003566642782011-11-15T13:56:00.001-05:002011-11-15T13:58:34.594-05:00The People That Encourage Us<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Growing up near the city dark was relative. Streetlights flickering connected to a grid of a few million more all dancing to the beat of electrical currents. It was dark then, but never blindly so.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the country a porch light after the sun diminishes is washed out by darkness rendered nearly useless. Stand outside in the country on a night when clouds cover the moon and your celestial views disappear. You can’t see anything tangible allowing for all the rest to arrive in front of you. All those emotions all the sudden transcend from a feeling to a color to an object standing right there in front of you. Reach your hand out and burn your fingers on the heat of your anger, or risk frostbite grasping the bitter cold that comes with being alone. In the black night a pulse can be felt, read even, that doles out memories with uncanny regularity. We become history students of our own mind.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In times like these our minds have priorities of their own, our thoughts become discourse, our minds the judges. We play out scenarios of the past, people no doubt, who somehow put us down. We wonder how we could prove them wrong, how we could impress them, how we could satisfy their often impossible demands of us. Like a wild tiger in a phone both, the panes of our fragile sensitivities are broken over and over, the phone rings to bring us out of this disastrous place, but tigers don’t know stop as well as they know go.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sometime ago Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth fame wrote in an essay that we pay to go to concerts to watch other people believe in themselves.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Believing in ourselves, having the absolute faith we can do the unimaginable, we are ordained to be successful through the practice and patients that self-belief fuels. If only we knew where to get some?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">A black chandelier sits in my garage, gorgeous and regal, it stood to make a wonderful addition to whatever room it graced. Problem is the chandelier arrived broken, a few pieces missing and thus it emits no light. Our thoughts of those we can’t please are a lot like my black chandelier, broken and useless, incapable of providing light. To think that entirely focusing on our detractors will get us to where we want to go is akin to the bookstore owner asking the librarian for advice on selling more books. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">When running we can’t walk, when talking we can’t be silent, and when thinking of the negative we can’t fully embrace the positive in our lives, the great encouragers.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Great encouragers are often the last thanked at the party. They’re the ones we take for granted, as if they somehow owed us their encouragement. We say thanks to them, but do we really mean it? Do we realize the true power of their positive words?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Great encouragers are those that without immediate benefit offer support in praise regardless of our personal wellbeing. Great encouragers can be found among our family, friends, and even strangers in the street.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So many instances exist where great encouragers do their work, often without hoopla or bravado, they go about providing the love and assistance we all need in order to build that priceless thing known as self-confidence.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">An email arrived late one evening a year ago, the subject something about writing, and the body something about how I made someone chase their dreams. I did the minimum, I thanked them, and never spoke to them again.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">On the phone after a few hours of venting off frustrations from a summer filled with struggle my brother pointed out the possibility I haven’t ever embraced my true gifts. I agreed to get him to stop talking about it. Never did I mention how much it meant to me, not till now at least. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I got a text message not long ago from a friend I hadn’t talked to in a year, it in a roundabout way said their life was better with me in it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> Great encouragers innately are synced with our emotional clocks, they know when to say what and how. We often serve the same role to others. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">A student once told me they wanted to drop out of college because they felt like they didn’t belong. I told them they were gifted, rattled off some initial ideas of what they could do with their life, and a year later they told me that’s why they stayed in school. I never heard from them again, I wonder where they are now? </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Some years ago I dated a stripper for a few months, she hid her occupation from me out of embarrassment. When I found out we talked, and discovered that she had flawless math skills. Next thing I knew she’s done taking her clothes off for money, and now gets it from helping kids wrestle with numbers for standardized tests.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">At a cocktail party this past weekend I told a young man I believed in his idea, his confidence grew before my eyes. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Did the writer pursue their passion because of my book? Did the friend really live a lonelier life without me? Would the stripper have quit without my tutoring pitch? Would the man chase his dream idea without my words? Who knows? If my words, something I’ve got a near unlimited supply of, even influenced any of the situations in the slightest towards the positive was it not worth saying to them?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We all might not have the abilities or personality for that matter to be great encouragers to others, but we all have the capacity to love, cherish, and embrace those that encourage us. </p> <!--EndFragment-->Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-58788680950295485962011-11-04T17:02:00.001-04:002011-11-04T17:04:26.508-04:00Paring it to Essential<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Why were we so happy as children? Can a brain scan really tell us it’s all science? Are dopamine levels all we really need to gauge human happiness?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Remember being happy as a child, you know, laughing in the forest on a chase with a sibling, tossing in bed incessantly from the utter excitement of going to the amusement park the next day, and the holidays, it’s like a three-month trip on the euphoria train for adolescents like we used to be. Can you recall those times? When our happiness was so abundant it was nearly omnipresent. So what happened between then and now? From the times when we were happy little children to jaded disappointed adults? Where did all that happiness go exactly?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Stuff consumes our beings in ways freightingly unintended. The more things we own the higher the probability something needs to be fixed, cleaned, updated, or at the very least used. Stuff with value can’t be given away, for those that need money and if the time ain’t right to sell it, well the burdenous cycle continues. We just become people with stuff accumulating more stuff in an effort to quench a never-ending thirst for stuff. Not to mention the monetary debt being in the stuff-cycle brings, and all the enslavement that comes with being in debt, it gets really unhappy real quick. Stress, unease, fighting, and even fatalities are results of such.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Having copious amounts of money isn’t much better if we aren’t wise with our spending. We never had to worry about our pets surviving a turbulent private jet trip to the Caribbean island we own, or the lack of veterinary care to treat them upon arrival before all that money fell in our laps. No, with money, after a certain point at least, comes big whoppers of unexpected problems and hassles. Problems everyday Joe’s working the night shift at the tire factory never, ever, in his wildest dreams would worry about. What’s the going rate to heat a McMansion each year? And the pool costs how much to maintain? It’s a tough nut to maintain if the money well ever dries up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Stuff and money sap us of the one great pleasure of youth, simplicity. We lose our simple lives of routine for the grand production of a delicate balancing act, where balancing atop the razor thin wire of focus and purpose is a daily routine.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Some of the biggest companies in the world, many of them to be more specific, prey on our needs for more stuff. Apple is far from an ambivalent party here, there are product cycles geared towards our insatiable need for the latest and greatest. A child in the Horn of Africa just wants some food so he doesn’t die that day, but we maxed out our credit cards on something far less important than life-sustenance, we got something tangible that has neither a heart or a soul. If only we could pin our grievances on materialism and the trappings of such, but it’s more complicated than just what we buy, it’s also what we say, and what others around us say.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> People pollute our minds with mental junk.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m secretly bothered by people that talk about other people, because mentally they are creating clutter on the most sacred human space of them all, the mind. Their mind is now clogged with it, and they are fast filling up my brain shelves with it as well.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We verbally butcher people for the craziest reasons, and yet it never satisfies us, so we keep at it, hoping one day there might be some fulfillment from putting someone else down, though as far as I know true peace has never arrived from such. I’m not talking about written critiques of elected leaders, or investigative journalism that uncovers the world’s most hidden improprieties, no, I’m talking about gossip. Gossip blogs, gossip from our lips, gossip from others, it’s useless, and propels us to stock our mental shelves with the unimportant in the most valuable of places. If we are so concerned with Kim Kardashian’s wedding failure or Justin Bieber’s paternal DNA test, what just got shoved out of the way? What if instead of Kim and Justin we thought of homeless Bob on the street corner and Mary in an abusive relationship? Our mental shelves offer only so much capacity, and our wellbeing is much better off for focusing on the Bob’s and Mary’s instead of the Kim’s and Justin’s of the world. Heck, we might just be able to help Bob and Mary.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">How can we ever be happy with so much in our minds, homes, and banks? Truth be told we can’t, we never will be, and we shouldn’t expect to be until the art and act of simplicity is fully embraced.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Simplify everything, where you live, what you buy, whom you hang out with, and what you say. Try it for a week and see if it isn’t easier to be a better person, and as important, simply be at peace with world. Simplicity works in our world because our world is full of distractions, and without a clear and well thought out plan we don’t stand a chance at making it through unscathed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Simplicity offers at the very least a road to a home built on the fertile soil of peace landscaped with trees of calming focus, and a door open wide enough to let whatever shows up come through with ease.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>On a personal note I’ve been working on simplifying my life for the past 13 months. Everything in my life has taken a turn for the better, and while I still have a long road to travel to achieve anything close to peace of mind, I feel empowered by what simplicity has offered me thus far, and the above is my testament to such. </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-3097380863030566752011-11-01T23:04:00.000-04:002011-11-01T23:05:52.617-04:00Searching for Solace in Rejection<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">There is a level of brevity in being painfully rejected. Whether or not I could play kickball as youth, I certainly didn’t look like I was any good. When the schoolyard picking went down I was at or near last picked for as many games as I remember ever playing. I wondered if maybe, just maybe, I was a sleeping Frank Thomas of the kickball diamond, a Pelé of the asphalt, or just as bad as they thought I was.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">As much as I’d tell myself back then that rejection gets easier, it clearly doesn’t. The only consistent element of rejection, or the feelings that accompany it at least, are that they eventually go away, or so we’re taught with clichés like time heals all wounds. Does it really?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">With age we replace being thought of as insignificant on the playing field for being thought of as insignificant in life. We aren’t invited to certain cocktail parties, to chair or even be part of given committees, and if single, we aren’t always loved back in the way we wished. We grow envious of people with stuff we don’t have, and when desperate, put those down that have less. Less money, education, humor, wisdom, hair, you name it, anything to dial down our own feelings of rejection.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Stubborn loyalty exacerbates the scope of rejection’s reach. We, as souls that have felt the pain of being last picked in the game of life a few times too many hold dear to the bonds we were able to form, to the team’s that did pick us, even if it were for just a single game.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">My grandmother never remarried after her divorce. My mom still asks about my dad, 25 years after their marriage ended. I look at my only brother and see a reflection of my own thoughts on the matter, us both still clinging on to things long past. I can’t help but hope the pattern ends with us, but reason tells a different story. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Here is the paradox of life, if we want to participate we must allow for the possibility of rejection to exist. In other words, if we wish to satisfy our human DNA for love, appreciation, growth, and fellowship we must risk feeling totally and utterly rejected in all categories. If you are like me, and equate rejection with sharp torturous soul-stirring pain, then you understand why we’re almost being reckless by participating at all. Enter the modern life. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">You hang out with whom you trust, read whom won’t hurt you, and pander to those that potentially may. You seek guidance from those that seem immune from rejection, hoping it’ll rub off on you, and in effect bolster their reputation for immunity. We live in a dog eat dog world, where those that are self-aware enough to admit having trust issues are in fact making themselves ripe targets for rejection to occur. Like a wounded rabbit limping along in the open coyote infested California desert chances of a pleasant outcome dwindle with each minute passed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Can we decipher anything but bitterness from the taste of rejection on our lips? I believe so. We all feel enslaved to certain people, standards, and cultures, and when rejection occurs, it offers freedom from such slavery. You no longer are shackled to whom you had to be to exist in the place you were told not to enter anymore, you are now free to be different. Fired from a job? Now’s the time to try something different. Dumped? Now’s the time to date someone different. Kicked out of the house by your roommates? Now’s the time to live somewhere different. See a pattern? In our rejection we gain freedom, and maybe a little courage to do something crazy good.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Not a day goes by I don’t think about some type of rejection in my life. We lost the state championship in football my senior year of high school, we never were able to enter that elite club of winners, the loss still stings 14 years later. I still wonder why my ex girlfriend left the country and never came back, and why that magazine book critic didn’t like my debut novel no matter how unsatisfying she thought the ending might have been. I wonder, ponder, think, vent, and stare at the walls blankly. At the end of the day my ticket to freedom is the only tangible thing I’ve got to show for those rejections.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And you, do you feel free as a net result of yours? Are you free to live, work, and do in a better way from being rejected, or did all those no’s just leave you without a yes worth living for? </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-20440023408029151742011-10-19T16:51:00.001-04:002011-10-19T16:55:07.572-04:00Tools of Empowerment<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">The Dali Lama, Tibet’s exiled Spiritual leader was rebuffed in his efforts to attend the first peace lecture put on by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa due to an official reason of a still-pending visa application, though many suspect the South African government has other motivations for keeping him out. Safe to say, the Dali Lama wasn’t able to physically attend, so big brother wins right? They strong-arm the vocal minority with big brother like tactics, such as, well, never approving a visa application by the Dali Lama for entry.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Home-jailed world-renowned Chinese artist and human rights activist <a href="http://clarkcovington.blogspot.com/2011/03/giving-revised.html">Ai Weiwei</a>, fresh off a several-month real-jail detainment is forbidden from leaving the country due to supposed tax evasion. Popular fashion imprint W magazine wants Weiwei to art direct their annual issue dedicated to art, a role traditionally performed on set for obvious reasons. The Chinese government wins right? Game over, Ai Weiwei’s art direction would be impossible without his presence, surely the establishment wins again, correct?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Twenty years ago, yes, today, no.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We live in an age where technology transcends boundaries once thought impenetrable.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> The Dali Lama met Desmond Tutu in a <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/dalai_lama_to_host_google_plus_hangout_tomorrow.php">Google+ Hangout</a> (video conversation) that was broadcast to anyone in the world with an internet connection that cared to join. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Via Skype and a laptop Mr. Ai directed a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/arts/design/ai-weiweis-photo-shoot-from-china.html">striking photo essay</a> virtually from his home in China set at Rikers island jail, a symbolic location for the assignment.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> Is the world better for the meeting of the Dali Lama, and by virtue of the forum, being able to watch it live, and the Ai Weiwei photo essay? Time will tell, but certainly at first glance simply allowing people to participate peacefully in acts that aim to shed light on issues plaguing people today is, to understate here, important.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Our world now has tools, communicative and otherwise, that can be harnessed to achieve the once impossible. The kicker here, the really funny bit of all this, are the tools used in both cases above are readily available to anyone with a laptop and the internet. The days of governments using big bankrolls to defeat vocal outliers are numbered in large part by the affordability and accessibility of such tools. For a few dollars you could feasibly use Skype in every capacity for a year, and Google+ is entirely free. In other words, the tools that empower movements the most are readily available to nearly anyone with a computer and the internet, which at last blush includes the majority of Americans.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the information age the arms race is no longer Scud missiles or WMD’s, but control of Twitter feeds and Facebook accounts. As powerful as the truth is, as high of a standard as democracy in the U.S and other first world nations have set, no second-rate government of oppression is acceptable to the world’s people. Somebody in North Korea watched Real Housewives of New York, and asked why they couldn’t one day drive a Bentley or become part of a societal elite, or at least make enough to have running water, a reliable power grid, and fresh food to eat. The answer to the question in their head haunts them, they know it’s possible, they know democracy is a living growing organism, and they are starting to figure out that via social networks and the internet the days of oppression-focused regimes are numbered. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">A wonderful quote from an organizer of the Arab Spring revolutions went something like this, we use Facebook for organizing our protest, and Twitter to tell the world about it. These revolutionaries didn’t need to ask the FCC for permission, or beg NBC or CBS for airtime, they simply used the same social media websites we all do, and brought cause and call to action to the message.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I wonder what bright minds around the world might be able to do if they thought more about the tools we have at our disposal for circumventing once dominate oppressors? Can you imagine the Berlin Wall being up today? Would someone not think to share information online, organize, and protest until it was torn down, the regime with it? Surely they would, and now comes the question, what Berlin Walls remain? What revolutions are bubbling to the surface, and if important to you, knowing the incredible power of the tools available, how can you be part of them?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-59293354618643989442011-10-06T15:12:00.002-04:002011-10-06T15:21:45.835-04:00Convenience as an Elixir<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Shave ten minutes off the morning commute by taking the highway over the scenic route some might suggest. Toss that bag of frozen vegetables in the microwave instead of plucking them fresh from your backyard garden others might advise. Forget the book, just watch the movie version instead a friend opines.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> What if a silver fox stood atop a tree stump, waiting to run from your eyes as you passed it in your Honda?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">What if blood rushing to your sore back after picking peppers from the ground led to a humbling reflection on how your forefathers survived famine, war, and poverty?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">What if a line in the book never made it to the movie, but inspired you to change the course of your career?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We live in a world taught to march to the beat of convenience at a tempo measured by time saved. Heartache is taboo.<span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Why is convenience synonymous with good? Do we really get as much out of being on time as we think we do? Should we stuff our daily schedule fat as a Thanksgiving turkey in an effort simply to ignore our deepest pains and sorrows? Is reflection worthless?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They say great art is often conceived from pain, the little I know about art seems to justify this. The dramatic arc, a foundation for today’s mellow dramas, has as much to do with pain and suffering as it does with chipper happy endings filled with resolute characters hugging and dancing in joyful poses.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">For whatever reason, call it intuition, it seems as if generations of old are much more acutely aware of the healthy process of grieving, of taking the longer road, of walking when they could drive. The younger generations, X, Y, Millennials, and whatever we’ll call the ten year olds touting cell phones have little understanding of this. It’s the instant gratification crowd, where songs are achieved in a push of a button instead of a visit to the record store, food is delivered in minutes not hours, and the latest and greatest place is hosted online somewhere, but physically available nowhere. Convenience is paramount, and the slow down movement doesn’t seem to even exist, I checked Facebook before writing this.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> The intoxicating effects of living a convenience-centered life, where reflection and introspection take a back seat to the next thrill is gender ambiguous, with young men choosing to binge drink in the name of masculinity and young women replacing the pain of an old boyfriend with a new one.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">By age alone I’m in this generation, though I’d like to think I’ve lived on both sides of the fence, and deeply believe the lows in life are much greater lesson teachers than the highs. A few suggestions for taking a step away from convenience, and the traps that come with it follow.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Allow Pain</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In bodybuilding pain is a sign of progress. When the muscles tear, and the fluids start rushing through them, the body is showing progress through pain. Unfortunately for those not in the hunt for the World Fitness Champion belt pain can be perceived as having the opposite effect. Often it’s like acknowledging and allowing pain to exist is in some fashion a sign of regression. Nothing can be further from the truth. Allowing pain to exist, being open about it with people you trust and professionals, can help nurture recovery.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Everyone feels pain, and when you have the courage to allow for it in your life flowers blossom from ugly dirt. By being honest about your pain, and seeking professional advice in books, from friends and family, or from a professional sense can be made of the pain, paths to recovery can be formed, and above all else your authentic self can emerge.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> The process is slow, it won’t update as fast as your Twitter account, nor will it refresh as quick as your browser on the Urban Outfitters website, it’ll take time to sort this thing out, and that’s the best part about it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Allow Failure</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In sports we love to congratulate the winners, some even make it to the White House to meet the president. Winning is absolutely important, but what makes it so special is that on any given day just as many teams, players, and contest entrants are losing. Where there is a winner a loser must exist. Understanding that statistically we’ll all be losers as much as winners allows for the mind to open up to the idea of losing. You can, and should, shoot for high goals, but do so understanding that the higher the goal the higher the likelihood of failure.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Living with failure can be difficult, because everyone wants to congratulate the winner. It’s easy to envy the winner, to look at the winner and think there is something more special about them than you. Don’t buy into that trap, as a loser you hold the key to learning what went wrong, and you have a perfect tool to center your mind into a state of true humbleness. Allow for the hurt of failure to exist, and the analysis of what went wrong and why to happen before jumping into the next game, it’s our best tool for becoming the winner that we know we are capable of being in the end.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Allow Soul Searching </b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It is alright to ask questions about who you really are, no matter who you think your friends, family, and coworkers perceive you as being. Chances are they are so wrapped up in their own lives that they won’t even think twice about accepting a changed you, so don’t feel like you are locked into whoever you are perceived to be. Soul searching is not only helpful, it’s therapeutic. Allow your mind to dig deep into who you are, who you want to be, and where you want to go. If you aren’t asking these questions about yourself, chances are nobody else will.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Allow Love</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Let the guards down for a minute, if you don’t call Bob who will? If you aren’t emailing Susan to see how she is, will she likely email you? Allowing love to exist in this world isn’t easy. People want to be courted, and often dislike being the courter. They’d rather be called upon, than do the calling. What is stopping you from being the caller? The connector? The person that knows they might get hurt by reaching out but does it anyway, because they consciously allowed love to exist? </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Convenience tells us to hide from the above like boy in a heated game of tag. It shows us small rewards in exchange for our utmost loyalty. It give us bragging rights to the meaningless things in life, empty as a plastic bottle protruding from a garbage can at the gas station. We allow for convenience to be our master by proxy of engagement, we say it’s ok to be this way because everyone else is, and then, sometimes years later, we wonder what the hell went wrong.</p> <!--EndFragment-->Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-73793913685179560102011-09-30T12:34:00.003-04:002011-09-30T12:38:50.688-04:00The Case for Organic Growth: Lose the Money Box<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span >I’ve had four people ask my advice on various business ventures this week. Four friends mind you, not people that would qualify as clients. I get asked often about aspects of starting or running a business, and for the most part I have no qualms giving advice for free. I’ve been hustling in some fashion for 15 years, and self-sufficient (living entirely off my businesses) for seven years. The precise value of my experience is not readily available on Salary.com, but fair to say it’s worth something.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span >So how do I decide who gets free advice and who has to ask nicely, and who has to actually pay? My simple test usually involves a mental history query, has this person done me wrong in the past? No, ok, sure whatever you want to know I’ll tell you. I’m not vindictive to those that have in some fashion wronged me in the past, I’m happy to give them advice too, for some money of course, as they would fall into the client category rather than that of friend. Anyone else asking, such as a stranger, I’ll usually give them my thoughts free, really I don’t care about money anymore than I have to for my friends at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage or The Fresh Market require.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span >Enough about me, let’s get to the crux of the issue that keeps gracing my ears as of late, how do you build and maintain a business with longevity in mind. In other words, how does one build something that is less one-off and more of a daily revenue generator? My answer to all four people was almost verbatim the same, and it will be repeated here for those of you watching at home. Grow organically.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span>With the advent of green washing, and an all around pension of those in the media to overuse terms like organic to the point of rendering them near meaningless, it is necessary to explain the word in relation to growing a new business.</span><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span >Organic as defined by the online iteration of Merriam-Webster: <span>of, relating to, or derived from living <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/organisms"><span style="text-decoration: none; ">organisms</span></a> <<i>organic</i> evolution>.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span >Just as evolution is an oft-taboo topic among Christians, growing organically is just as much something aspiring entrepreneurs do not want to talk about. What do you mean we have to wait to make money? What does it mean to give away my product, I thought I was trying to make money, not lose it? If you look close enough at their faces you can see the blood drain from their cheeks, as the skin settles back from the form of smiles to faces of inquisition.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span >Growing a business organically is so easy to compare to virtually any other organizational feat in life, think sports teams or ascending through higher education, I won’t bother you with such. Instead, just imagine a new business as something small and vulnerable, something that needs nourishing and protecting. Build it slow, let it fall before it walks, let the masses tell you it isn’t going to work, let people make fun of you for quitting your job to do it, let all of the awkwardness take place. Don’t try too hard to make it something it isn’t, just fail and adjust accordingly.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span >When you allow for the business to be small, imperfect, and open to change, you are in effect allowing it to be affordable to run, flexible to pivot into new directions, and above all else authentically yours. People seek realness from a business as much as they seek a quality product or service; look no further than your own curiosities. How many times have you visited a restaurant or clothing store and asked whom the owner was, and what their story was? Or online, how many times have you visited a website and rushed to click the About Us tab before all else? By operating on an organic level, of slow natural growth through effort and sweat over splash and big money, you will have a great story to share with all those inquiring minds, not to mention a sustainable business.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span ><i>This blog post was partly inspired by the Jamie XX remix of Eliza Doolittle’s song Money Box. Somehow her lyrics, and the melody itself, provide an aura of less is more that perfectly speaks to the ideology of doing more with less. So often businesses are taught to think in terms of spend, spend, spend, when the best businesses can do with less, less, less and make more, more, more.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span"><object height="81" width="100%"> <param name="movie" value="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F8795632"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="81" src="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F8795632" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"></embed> </object> <span><a href="http://soundcloud.com/tsiabaannah/eliza-doolittle-money-box-jamie-xx-remix">Eliza Doolittle - Money Box (Jamie xx Remix)</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/tsiabaannah">Tsiabaannah</a></span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Instead of going out to dinner tonight</span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); font-size: 11pt; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">We can grow vegetables</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Underneath the skylight</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Clicking these downloads everyday has its price</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">We can lounge on our couch</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">And listen to our 45s</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">So take your Dollar</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Your Yen</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Those Euros I can't spend</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">I won't get down with no pounds</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Never need to leave this house</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Don't need a moneybox</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Cos I got lots and lots</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Of what I need right here</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Right here with you my dear</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Don't need a cash machine </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">To make our days happy</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">So do me a favour</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Don't jingle your change Sir</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Instead of going to the movies tonight</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">There's no shame in us playing</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Dust of that Sega Mega Drive</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Hand me your trousers</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">You got holes in your knees</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">It's no fuss patch them up</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Forget about that shopping spree</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">So take your Dollar</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Your Francs</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Your Rupees no thanks</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">I won't get down with no pounds</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Never need to leave this house</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Don't need a moneybox</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Cos I got lots and lots</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Of what I need right here</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Right here with you my dear</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Don't need a cash machine</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">To make our days happy</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">So do me a favour</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Don't jingle your change Sir</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Lock up your moneybox</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">It's not much of a loss</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">All that gold just goes to waste</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Cos you're worth more anyway</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">No need to travel round London tonight</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">We can play Monopoly</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Buy Mayfair in our own time</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">So take your Dollar</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Your Buck </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">I couldn't give a penny </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">That's enough leave it out</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Never need to leave this house</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Don't need a moneybox</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Cos I got lots and lots</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Of what I need right here</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Right here with you</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">I know I know I don't need a cash machine</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">To make our days happy</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">So do me a favour </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Don't jingle your change Sir</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Don't need a moneybox</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Cos I got lots and lots</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Of what I need right here</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Right here with you</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">I know I know I don't need a cash machine</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">To make our days happy</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">So do me a favour </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Don't jingle your change Sir</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">So do me a favour</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Don't jingle your change Sir</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(164, 164, 164); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">Loobee loobee loobee loo</span></span></i><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:black;background:#A4A4A4"><i><br /></i> <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br /><!--[endif]--></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-5853348917032812392011-09-21T19:50:00.001-04:002011-09-21T19:52:06.538-04:00First Things Last<div> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">A struggle for many of us comes with the comparison of what we have to what others might have. In the sermon below Amos Disasa helps illustrate the point that comparison, and our conventional views of equality are not important when it comes to gaining entry into Heaven. This moved me when I heard it last week, and I hope it is helpful to you as well.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><object height="81" width="100%"> <param name="movie" value="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F23871856"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="81" src="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F23871856" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"></embed> </object> <span><a href="http://soundcloud.com/downtown-church/first-things-last">First Things Last</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/downtown-church">Downtown Church</a></span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <!--EndFragment--></div>Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-53352278139241650192011-09-21T14:50:00.001-04:002011-09-21T14:54:17.957-04:00Two Clouds<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">The battery in my smoke alarm must be running low, as it beeps every few hours in all it’s pitchy irritation. My eldest dog Rufus doesn’t like high-pitched sounds, other dislikes include thunder, strangers, and half full bowls of food. If a sound is loud and the pitch is high enough he’s been known to quickly hop on a lap, or curl up close to the nearest set of feet he can find until the startling sound storm passes.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> Why this morning one of my many smoke alarms wanted to put the house on notice about an apparent lack of battery life at 5 am is a mystery to me, but Rufus wasn’t having any of it. With each pitchy chirp of the alarm his paws would scratch my bedroom door a little faster, my pets scratch instead of knock due to height restrictions. I tossed over in bed, hoping the sound and the canine notifications would go away, of course neither did. After twenty minutes or so listening to the cascading noises of door scratching and insanely loud beeping I got up and took care of it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now my home has one less smoke alarm, and Rufus, still shaken by the episode, has resorted to sleeping on my usually off-limits bamboo bathmat, as if to punish my tardiness in removing the battery from the device. Rufus might hold on to this grudge for a few days, or until I get some fresh bully sticks for him to chew on, whichever arrives first.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Our relationships, human ones that is, are a lot like the smoke alarm fiasco described above. We react in a state of panic when we must defy our presented character, in the case of the Pekingese regal, tough, unafraid, protecting, and evolve into survival mode, discarding the normal behavior, which surely at that hour would’ve involved collecting some of the 18 hours he sleeps each day.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Dogs hear sounds up to five times greater than humans experts argue, which would have this already piercing noise to the level of unbearable for poor Rufus to handle, akin to a human being shut in a room with deafening noise played intermitantly over and over again for hours on end. No wonder he had to go primal, he had to get to safety, and show his fear without regard for what either of his brothers or his master might think of him. While the incident is sad, it is similar to how a human might react if their house was on fire, and say someone they’d been arguing with was in the home with them. Forget the argument, let’s get to safety! Is there a way to be this honest with each other when a crisis is not occurring? Or are we never really this honest unless lives are on the line?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Often when we talk to each other we present our character foremost to match the context of the conversation, putting our true feelings on the back burner. The pop culture slang for this is putting up walls. I can’t count how many conversations I’ve had in the past few years where neither of us actually said what we meant, and the more this persists, the more it grows into the norm.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Take your pick of examples, a coach talking to a player, a parent to a daughter, a scorned lover to an ex, anytime there is a context, this notion of whom we want to be perceived as rather than who we really are comes into play. Add in the societal elements that go with being a citizen in the world today and you’ve got a person having a contextual conversation instead of a real authentic one. Sigh, roll your eyes, pause, take it all in, because it’s a lot.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">With such a complex web of expectations and preordained rules, how in the world do we ever actually really talk to each other anymore? Perhaps by being above it, literally.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Imagine if we started off each meaningful conversation with each other by collectively stating the following-</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Forget what we’re supposed to say, or what people might want us to say, or how people typically say what we’re about to say, and let’s just each get on our own cloud, and float above this place and all the norms that go with it. Let’s really just talk to each other with no preconceived notions, stereotypes, historical references, or anything else, just two people on two clouds facing each other above the rest of it.</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">What does removing ourselves from our normal place do? Could it give us a way to communicate without all the messy intricacies of following social protocol? Might we actually be able to say what we mean to each other more effectively, and maybe, just maybe, both arrive from our journey better off for it? </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-45687855398207855582011-09-16T21:10:00.001-04:002011-09-16T21:14:03.983-04:00I Love My Mom<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">The noise left my house around 4 pm today, silence comes early on Fridays, with all the chatter from clients following their bodies to Vail, or Palm Springs, or wherever they weekend. I wondered how many of them were looking forward to spending time with their kids, soccer games and spilling stuff in the back of the minivan. I’ve always said I want 10, maybe it’s time to stop talking like that.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Not sure why I was thinking of my mom so much today, it was as ordinary of a day for me as any. Woke up too late, answered emails, took client calls, spent a few minutes on the phone with pops talking about father and son stuff, read girls, and then he’s back to the office, I better get back to mine. More calls, more emails, wrote some web copy, sent some tweets, and then hit the market. Mom was on my mind.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I texted a love interest yesterday, she never wrote back. Today I drove past a lost love as I left the market, she didn’t turn around to wave, 0 for 2 in love games this week. The thought brought me to mom, and how no matter what she’s always ready to talk. Frued, you might be right, maybe men do just want to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/opinion/13dowd.html">marry their mom</a>? Or at least someone that’s <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tracy-mcmillan/why-youre-not-married_b_822088.html">nice to them</a> consistently.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> I was working late tonight, silence replaced by Swedish electronica, packing boxes for client giveaways, on guess the subject, moms. Dang, I thought, why don’t I send my mom all this stuff like I send to these strangers. I need to do more for her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Dinner alone is no different than lunch or breakfast alone, I just sit and wonder, thinking about the past, the present, and the future. I say thanks, so much to be thankful for, I swear I almost died three times already, and that’s not counting childhood. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Most clients won’t call my cell past dark, sans the international ones, so when my phone started buzzing away in my pocket I thought it must be mom, of course it was. We spoke, she told me she was wearing the Clark Covington <a href="http://www.shoemoney.com/2008/12/28/less-then-24-hours-left/">internet marketing rockstar</a> shirt I sent her years ago, I laughed, she asked what it meant, I told her nothing anymore. She asked me to send her something to read, I told her better yet I’d bring her a book soon. She got excited, and then asked how the dogs were, she knew better than to ask about the girlfriend. </p> <!--EndFragment-->Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-48012653400323261192011-09-10T10:43:00.001-04:002011-09-11T16:33:27.848-04:00Love, Forgive, Repeat<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Friends will steal from you if they knew they would get away with it, and sometimes even that assurance is not necessary for them to jack your stuff. Friends will chat about you, no gossip, to others about your shortcomings. Friends will literally step on your back at the chance of coming closer to the summit on the rock of achievement. Friends will gently listen to your most delicate insecurities and load them up in their insult rifle, finger pressed tightly on the trigger, to fire back at you as soon as you offer a criticism of your own about them. Friends will look at your shortcomings and relish in them, knowing that at something somehow somewhere, they are better than you. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So let them be better, let them hit you with their best shot of what they think will hurt you the most. Let friends use you to get ahead in life, let them talk about you to make themselves feel at ease with their own person, and yes, let them take your money. Thank them for being part of your life, forget that you loved them and they hurt you, and forgive. Don’t forgive just to let them off the hook, though that is a residual effect of such, but rather to live your life in illustrious glory.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">You did not choose to want to be around people, it was already in your DNA from birth, or maybe prior? Our collective desire to be around others is fueled by the utter sense of fulfillment people bring. Validation of being is only truly achieved through the prism of others, as we are never fully able to become sincerely sure of our life course alone. People matter.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Our entrée to deep relationships with people is trust, that sticky thing that can so quickly get broken. Trust allows us to open up, hey I trust you, so I’m going to tell you that I have awful sleep patterns, and anxiety, should I see a doctor or drink less coffee? Trust destroys walls of secrecy so the true you can arrive. Trust is reciprocal, you can’t fly the friendly skies because you’re claustrophobic, you think your neighbor Bill is stalking your wife, I’m here for you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We have to invest our trust in order to receive the pearl that is friendship. We have to put everything on the line to say, you know what, even if this person does me worse than anyone ever has, the fact I have a chance to build a meaningful relationship upon which both our lives could be richer is more important, the risk is worth taking.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So let ‘em talk, let ‘em run wild all over your heart, because in the end, when you love, you forgive, and when you repeat the process you open your life up to endless amounts of beautiful, saint-like, amazing people. </p> <!--EndFragment-->Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-6282653670166950582011-09-02T11:57:00.001-04:002011-09-02T12:00:12.997-04:00Appreciate it All: Thoughts of Taxidermy and Motherless Children <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">My computer transmits information to my mind via the blink of an eye. Three blinks, payment sent, payment received, quote work for new job dispatched. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Eight tabs compete for my attention like twin boys after the first plate of mac & cheese. Dinnertime.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">My mind wanders, scores of buzzing, bleeping, and blinking, what was I doing again? </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I didn’t actually attend my ten year high school reunion, but if I had, I would have no description for what I do, nonetheless who I am. I’m not a lawyer like Tom, or an Engineer like Billy, or a teacher like Sarah.<span> </span>I’m an entrepreneur? What’s that? Sounds a lot like unemployed to most people. My neighbor asked yesterday, she isn’t the first to think I’m a drug dealer. Should I tell them different, what would it matter?</p><p class="MsoNormal"> A year ago I was still trying to tell them, still trying to make my life matter, which is a fruitless endeavor for those that are still in the identity trap. Be forewarned whatever you do to enrich yourself personally won’t actually make you feel much better, not for long anyway. I reflect back to this day one year ago, all I see is dark clouds, no twins, no tabs sitting on the screen strong enough to distract me from the pain. Riddled in debt, dating, LIVING, with a girl I couldn’t even stand, driving a truck that leaked energy, literally and figuratively, we all fall short.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">One year later I’m like my Chow German Shepherd mix Jill after being gone 18 days, she was found immobile in a patch of brush on the side of the road. I was found in my home, not on a single day, but in a single year, I was found. Jill had a deep gash on her leg, and was tied up like a Christmas tree to a roof of a car in rope-like branches that held her from walking. How long had she been there, in the 100-degree heat no less, days, weeks? She was wounded but alive. The first time I saw those sweet tender eyes in nearly a month I broke down, the whole animal hospital staff did too. The tenderness of being alive was more joyous than any cut, scrap, or disability on earth. For those that never loved a dog, they feel anxious, happy, sad, aggressive, and lonely. Dogs go through many of the same emotions humans do each day, as Jill’s wet eyes ticked up to meet mine, as she bowed her head down in exhaustion, all I could do was thank God. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Being thankful isn’t easy in a world full of people trying to impress us. You live where? You drive what? You vacationed in what country? I wonder what that really makes people feel inside. The great irony of trying to impress other people is that it often turns them off entirely. I don’t know about you, but I’m far more touched by the single mom working 60 hours a week to pay for their child to go to a good school than the socialite posing in designer duds on a yacht in the Rivera. To quote a Sia album title, Some People Have Real Problems.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We can have it both? That’s the rational I hear the most, we can have balance, you know hit the Rivera one week, and then the soup kitchen the next. Here is the problem with this theory, once you hit the Rivera being around homeless people in the soup kitchen is less of a calling than a duty. It’s gratitude bargaining, and it never works out right.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Being thankful for your life, for what you have, isn’t just about not living opulently, or looking down at people that have less, or making their life worse by intentionally pushing your more in front of their less, it’s about being true to who you are as a human. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Being gracious sets off a domino effect of goodwill that will properly season your insides to be better on the outside. You’ve got to be proactive, just like you are with your budget, or your diet, or your time, or anything else in life, sacrifice your selfish desires for the better. In a world full of people proposing the opposite, this is often easier written than done. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m surrounded by two things all day, commerce and money. Commerce the court on which entrepreneurs play their game, and money the scorekeeper. It’s easy to get caught up in the hype of what it all means, of what you picture in your mind is a successful entrepreneur- Ferraris, private jets, foreign models, and a casino. Right, that is what you think entrepreneurs live like when they make it right? That is what the media has portrayed us to be, free willing sin-machines, with a little charity sprinkled in for good measure. It’s thanksgiving, somebody get a turkey for the homeless people, let’s throw them a bone. Disgusting.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We come in all stripes, some entrepreneurs don’t care about money at all, that’s how they make so much of it, they just don’t care. I’d like to think I fall into this category, though I’m tempted, I’m human, and dang if Porsche isn’t making this Panamera for me, it’s got 380 horsepower, vroom vroom.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We’re all tempted to just look inward, when so often we would be happier if we looked and acted on what we could do for others. Seriously, this post is for you, to make you happier in your life, like I’ve been in mine lately. Less is more, this is a movement.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So what I do to refocus my energy on others might help you. It might make me you think I’m crazy, but that’s ok since I stopped caring about my identity about a year ago, so either way this is what I’ve decided to share with you. An exercise in being grateful, take what you will, and know for me it works every time.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Lately I’ve been nurturing a fascination with reindeer. Maybe two or three years ago I learned they were real. I thought they were just as made up as the person they’re most associated with. But no, reindeer are definitely real, thanks to my zoologist friends for setting this straight.<span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">After discovering the existence of reindeer I bought a picture of one and placed it in my room. It sits atop a metal storage rack, a casualty from one of my many failed businesses. The reindeer is docile, but massive, it’s body plump, antlers so pronounced they steal the show wherever the reindeer goes. If you look at the antlers closely on a reindeer, it becomes clear they are one of the highest reaching antlers of all the mammals walking the earth today. Stunning.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m a tactile guy, I like to feel and touch, not just see. Luck would have it I found someone that sells arctic reindeer hides, my bedroom needed a rug. Match made. This is what I think about when I start having impulses that aren’t in line with giving, with being a better person. I think about the cruelty of life, that if not our grandmothers, our great grandmothers were skinning and cooking these animals to live, to survive. Our life hasn’t always been about the iPhone, Netflix, or Lap Band surgery, it was once about finding enough food to eat.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> So many people in our great nation are totally unaware that in some parts of the world, they still can’t get enough food to survive. There are no arctic reindeer for them to skin, they eat little to nothing and eventually perish. 20,000 air-breathing humans will have died from the famine in the African Horn region this year. And you want to go on a cruise? To upgrade the thread count on your sheets. There are people dying in Africa.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We sit back, and nod, we’re numbed to the pleas ever since homeboy got on the infomercials in the eighties and beat the subject to death. African starvation is like theatre, it’s in front of us, but it’s not real, right? Wrong.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I saw an interview recently on TV with a man from one of the hard hit regions in Africa where people are starving, ironically he is now working here in the states at the Plumpy’nut factory, where they make bars to sustain those starving in Africa. This one effort, started by a single mother of four no less, has surely saved thousands of lives. The man, he stood with a hint of anger in his face at the factory, and said something to the extent of, when we were starving we wondered why people didn’t come sooner, why they weren’t doing anything if they knew we were dying over here. This was his words, the gospel that compels us to do more for others is not always sugar coated, should we wheel barrel the dead bodies to your doorstep to get you to do something, when does it become real to you? I wouldn’t write this blog post if I didn’t think it is entirely in our power to eradicate world hunger forever. It is people, we can do this.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Gratitude is understanding how lucky we are, and acting on our thankfulness by reaching out to others and giving from the well of what we have to offer. Time is so valuable, if you knew how much I spent on people’s time it’s in the tens of thousands of dollars each year. Money is fine, but other currency exits. You have ideas, share them. You have connections, start connecting.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We become machines of change when we oil our soul with the humility that being thankful brings about. The engine for change already exists in our hearts, it’s just waiting to be fueled with gratitude and put into drive with execution on all that stuff you’ve been meaning to do.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the hour or so I’ve been writing this post at a coffee shop a couple next to me has kept their arms around each other the entire time. Gratitude can be manifested outward, and if you take a minute and look around, you’ll see it is everywhere. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123815545763238144.post-40350805088821619102011-08-25T13:07:00.001-04:002011-08-25T13:07:31.265-04:00Smiles: My Reason for Living<p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-ErxpboJyzSY/TlaBS-8j_sI/AAAAAAAAATo/tc16GNpqT_g/s1600-h/Boxes%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Boxes" border="0" alt="Boxes" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-ZY72rBTWYPE/TlaBTQsfOmI/AAAAAAAAATs/u4PGxG6W9ZE/Boxes_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="369" height="280" /></a> </p> <p>What’s a Contract Postal Unit? It sure doesn’t look like a normal post office to me, it’s Saturday, and these boxes need to go in the mail TO-DAY. The thought vanished as quickly as it came, as the tiny Latino woman took hold of the scores of boxes in my hand. She grunted quietly, I wondered ¿Hablas Inglés? No reply. </p> <p>My pyramid of packages toppled her at first when she went to grab the lower box, this puzzle starts from the top dama. Ok, let me show her with my eyes, as my big browns rolled up to the sky, and slowly down to meet hers. She nodded, grabbed the first of a dozen boxes from the top of the pile, and placed it on the scale. With perfect timing as the first box touched the scale the screen went black, this was going to take awhile I thought, as samba sounds from the telenovela playing on the awkwardly hung flat screen lingered in my ears.</p> <p>As the minutes passed so did the boxes, slowly, methodically, this contractor was posting box after box. By now her daughter, someone’s daughter, sat behind me tapping her foot, even she was ready for me to leave. And then, right when I was losing all hope, the last box left the counter, and she mouthed 122 dólares. Si, I said quietly handing her my debit card. So she didn’t speak English, but maybe she understood it, this poor lady had to deal with a commercial haul of mail, probably for the first time, and I wanted to thank her, I’ve been on the other end of the counter proverbially many a time. </p> <p>“Thank you, you did a great job, I appreciate your hard work,” I said slowly the way people talk to non-English speakers when they want them to understand something, and that’s when it happened. Like the most amazing picture of the brilliant sun peeking through post-rain clouds she paused, looked up, and gave me a smile larger than her gaunt face might usually afford. It was beautiful, I tripped my way out of the shop. </p> <p>Smiles, real and authentic, are like feeling God’s finger touch your forearm. Shockingly gorgeous, like a regal cardinal perching on your windowsill just long enough for you to see her vivid red coat as she spreads her wings and ascends high into the heavens. Smiles are the good to life’s bad, the better of the best, and not always earned, beautifully and serendipitous as it seems, sometimes they just arrive.</p> <p>Two Hispanic women stood facing the counter, waiting for the CVS clerk to figure out how to activate their phone cards, were they calling family back home? I wondered if they knew about Skype? I glanced at their backs, they were wearing matching sundresses in different colors, I imagined they were the type that could make anything look good, sometimes fashion isn’t brand-oriented, it’s people. After a minute or less the problem was solved, gracias. They turned around, the taller one looked right at me and smiled, I smiled back, they left the store, I looked at the clerk even he was frozen for a moment. The right smile can stop you in your tracks.</p> <p>I’ve experienced a lot of smiles this past week, just the day after my contract postal unit experience I’m in a big building watching a young minister, does he have a twinkle in his eye tonight? When we have lunch he doesn’t have that twinkle, but man, this guy is happy tonight. I can’t blame him, his fledging church is growing like weeds, and when growth equals stability, a spiritual entrepreneurial thing, we all share a laugh. A smile signifies a risk paid off, a path cut with a machete of ideas in a jungle of very old thinking, we are talking BC people. </p> <p>Animals smile too. I see my little dog Rufus smile every time I give him a slice of American cheese, he knows how to get what he wants. Smile, sit, act good for a minute, then be bad again by sleeping on Dad’s leather couch. He glances at me as if to question whether that trip to the furniture mart in Atlanta wasn’t actually a mission to buy him a dog bed, sigh, his smiles still get me. </p> <p>My two eldest dogs smile for a different reason, they made it out of that backyard, that dark nasty yard. They made it out of the tall grass, towering weeds that split at the top like stalks of corn, and from behind that shed, the very shed where their brothers and sisters weren’t so lucky. They survived, rescued no less, so they smile, and they protect what they have now, comfort, stability, I’m sure that yard isn’t ever too far from their hearts. Dogs feel pain too, but smile, maybe they can, in their own canine way identify with perseverance, two barks for yes, one for no, ok? </p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-jnshM6Eiygo/TlaBUKQO7eI/AAAAAAAAATw/ZgxYc6wt4a8/s1600-h/729%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="729" border="0" alt="729" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-yAOPSU4jDww/TlaBUfHEfEI/AAAAAAAAAT0/nJfxt9IzbMM/729_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="380" height="290" /></a> </p> <p>I soak in parental smiles, collect them actually. Mom in Myrtle Beach, her eyes fixed on the ocean and her hand patting me on the back, literalism is the best approach for teaching me lessons, as she very well knows. She’s waiting to go back, and when she does, you bet I’m doing the trip for another smile.</p> <p>I watch my dad smile anytime we talk cars, MPG’s prompt them, as do belts, bolts, tires, and differentials. We talk cars like we talk dreams, it’s not what you couldn’t drive now, it’s what would you drive now, there is such a difference, we both smile at the thought of it.</p> <p>Are you smiling in public, around family, friends, and pets? You should be. Gone are all your material possessions sans the clothes on your back, you stand helpless in a parking lot far away from your comfort zone, what weapons do you have in your battle to get home to safety? Here is a hint, scowling won’t get you far. We always have smiles, they are universally available in our personality repertoire, yet we so rarely decide to fire them off. What are we so afraid of? Can we just smile for the heck of it? Apparently not, just ask Congress, a group that is caught frowning more than a New Yorker that just missed the N train.</p> <p>Smiles on occasion come in pairs, stuffed like a turkey with irony. In college the smile on the face of my financial aid advisor during an exit interview spoke of sadness, you’re 22 years old here’s $32,000 to pay back, we train leaders here, aren’t you ready lead? Just like the counselor’s smile came another a year later, when friends laughed at my idea to import intimate clothing from India to pay for graduate school. It worked, I chuckled my way through a masters degree on the magic carpet ride made of intimates from another land. Funny, but it worked, the mother of innovation is… </p> <p>We hold on to the smiles of those gone and past with special reverence, if we can just hold onto that image for a lifetime, we will be better for it.</p> <p>Grandma dancing around the kitchen with me after my SAT score arrived, acceptable enough for some college, any really, to accept this late bloomer. We laughed, we danced, and that smile of hers on that day is so very close to my heart, 14 years later, I can still feel that moment of elation, all in a smile. The very thought of sharing one more smile with my grandmother waters my eyes more than the gardens of my green thumb neighbor are doused with on a steamy summer day.</p> <p>Or Jenny Dixon at college, we’d walk around campus talking about how we were battling for the worst reputation on campus, a partner in fodder. She smiled, and I smiled, God forgives, she’s gone but not forgotten, her smile and approving nods still linger all these years later. Surely she’d be proving those naysayers wrong right now, a flower that never fully was able to blossom withered far too early that night in Columbus.</p> <p>My first roommate in graduate school, his mother by our sides, feeding us, setting up the blinds, telling us we were going to do big things one day, that smile, the encouragement, we all celebrated it. Even if we thought we knew better, we really needed every emotional push she had to offer, may she rest in peace knowing her son is as successful as she said he’d be, despite enormous winds depressing his sails, his boat still floats. She’d be so proud.</p> <p>Or an artistic football player from high school, angry for reasons that were hard to discover, always nice to me, always welcoming, always treating me as an equal. His smile sits with me, gone too soon Greg. </p> <p>A welcome smile tells us we are accepted in the foreign place we risked our sense of security to visit.</p> <p>An approving smile tells us that our volunteering is time worth more than money multiplied into inspiration for others.</p> <p>A thankful smile offers the notion that we are doing something for someone that can’t do for themselves in some fashion, we smile back in hopes of preserving the moment, even just for another few seconds. Who feels better the giver or the recipient? The answer might surprise you.</p> <p>If smiles are such an important part of our lives, how do we ensure there are enough to sustain us? The answer is not within my grasp, but a good idea might be to start by being thankful for those smiles of the past.</p> Clark Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07665002733324382165noreply@blogger.com0