Success

Week #10 on the Island of Misfit Toys: The wife of one of the counselors in our bishopric taught today's combined, fifth-Sunday lesson. Because, as we've all been hearing repeatedly for the past week, women have no real authority to teach and don't have a voice, nor can they really do anything at all significant in the Church.

No, seriously, I'm not going to get into that topic today.

This was an inspired lesson about "success" and the choices/behaviors/habits that will lead us to real, lasting success.

She began her lesson by passing out pieces of blank paper and asking us to write down specific actions or goals that would lead us to success. I began rather tongue-in-cheekily, jotting down a list that included:

- Getting 100 likes on a Facebook status

- The Jazz making a smart draft pick at #5

- USA winning the men's World Cup, or at very least not getting terribly, embarrassingly beaten by Belgium Tuesday

- Burning down the South and then doing baptisms for the dead

- Eating bacon

- Climbing atop the Rameumptom to thump your chest, and then shouting out to the world exactly why you and your kin and your entourage are better than everyone else. Use good grammar, and give specific examples.

- Having muscles and a jeep. Or a Mini Cooper. I won't judge.

- A six-figure salary. Or more!

- Owning your own mansion, fully staffed with a butler, maid, masseuse, personal trainer, jester, llamas, and other servants/pets (what's the difference, really?) you can apply the strap to mercilessly whenever you feel like it.

 - Beating everyone else at Mario Kart

By the world's standards, that's a pretty good list. Well, the world's standards, as usual, are wrong.

I also wrote a list of "real" reasons, which included:

- Keeping the commandments

- Being Christlike

 - Building up, rather than tearing down, others. True success is a win-win proposition whereas, according to the world, you must lose and I must win in order to be successful.

- Peace of conscience/mind

- Perspective

- Serving others

- Family

- Saying "please" and "thank you." A lot. Because some of the most miserable people I know are also some of the most ungrateful.

- Friends/being a friend, without regard to another's creed, religion, beliefs, sexual orientation, etc.

- Finding joy in the journey

- Magnifying my talents/callings

- Tender mercies of the Lord

I like the second list better. Also, I put "eating bacon" over on the second list.

Blah Blah Blah

Sometimes, you just sit there, staring at the blinking cursor. This goes on for a few seconds. Then, it has been a few minutes. Soon, minutes upon minutes have passed, and, before long, it's been an hour. By this point, the cursor is not only just sitting there, but it's also flat-out mocking you, you silly knucklehead who can't even put a few lousy words together.

Type something, for the love of bananas! it screams at you. Even Stephnie Meyer made a career out of this, writing about shirtless werewolves and sparkly vampires and teen angst and mustache dads and a crucial subplot involving the loch ness monster working as a welder by day while dreaming of being a dancer at night. Probably.

Writer's block. It happens to the best of us. It also happens to me.

The Angry White Loner does not only blog for "fun," because that's what this is (right?), but he actually also does a good deal of writing for his job. Yes, believe it or not, folks, I'm a professional.

Some people make a career out of using a lot of really swanky, cool-sounding words but, at the same time, don't actually "say" anything at all. They just babble, blather, bluster, cackle, cajole, chinwag, converse, discuss, double-talk, flibbertigibbet, gab, jaw, natter, parley, pontificate, quip, schmooze, whine, yak, yammer, and yap, over and over again. Some of them, in fact, even become *ahem* president of the United States.

It's almost like they have nothing better to do than to Google synonyms of the word talk.

Maybe I should have gone into politics. I wouldn't be the first Angry White Loner to do so, and I certainly wouldn't be the last.

Benefit of the Doubt

There's something about driving in the rain that makes people's IQs drop by 50 points, I remember thinking this past Thursday afternoon. I was frustrated because I was in a hurry to get somewhere, and what should have been the quickest route had become the most time-consuming one. A brief cloudburst of much-needed summertime rain, and everyone on the road I was driving on slowed to about 20 miles per hour in a 50 MPH zone.

To quote famous stand-up comedian George Carlin (aka Rufus in the Bill & Ted's movies):

"Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?"

I'm sure we're all tempted to feel this way at times. We have our eyes wide open when looking at others' perceived faults and have our eyes half-closed regarding our own.

No more than two minutes later, I turned a corner—and, in the process, I inadvertently cut off someone else, who likely had to press his brakes hard in order to not collide with me. Vertently or inadvertently, I had messed up.

This person, in fact, then changed lanes and pulled up parallel to me at the next stoplight. I turned over to look at him and saw that he was now making eye contact with me, and I mouthed the words, "I'm sorry." He then proceeded to roll down his window to say something back to me.

Dreading or fearing what lewd gesture or comment this person had in store, I was both surprised and relieve to hear him say, with a smile, "It's okay, dude!" He even gave me a thumbs-up sign and drove off as the light turned green.

Whoever you are, random, kind stranger, thank you for reminding me that we all make mistakes, and that forgiveness is always a good option. You didn't let me cutting you off ruin your day.

The next time someone cuts in front of me, fails to signal a turn, or commits any one of a number of "oopsies" in traffic, I would hope to give that person, as this stranger gave me, the benefit of the doubt—that said person is somewhat like me, a reasonably good and safe driver who happens to have just made an innocent mistake rather than some escaped mental patient on the loose, running over curbs and cats and small trees and driving the wrong way down one-way streets and committing other serious and/or scary traffic violations.

For that, we have celebrities.

God Is in the Details

Week #7 on the Island of Misfit Toys: The bishop gave his first talk involving "actual doctrine," to use his term for it. And it was unforgettable. It was, indeed, simply profound.

Like improv, you just had to be there.

I'm not one who normally takes notes during sacrament meeting, but this discourse was full of such insightful teachings that I ended up taking a few. His theme was a play on the old phrase "the devil is in the details," except he turned it around and told us that "God is in the details."

He talked about the fact that we all experience disappointment at times, and these moments are when we are inclined to just stay home, close the drapes, and not answer the door—either literally or metaphorically, or both. The key to overcoming these moments in our lives is serving others. He added his belief that God has already prepared other people to answer prayers that we haven't even prayed yet.

"No one was foreordained to fail or be wicked," he said. I didn't write down many things word-for-word, but that statement was one of them.

"Don't goof up your orbit," he added, stating that our personal orbits have caused us collectively to meet in this ward at this place and at this time, and that it is for a special purpose. He concluded with the idea that the star of Bethlehem didn't just appear in the sky on the night of Christ's birth but that Heavenly Father sent it on its path billions of years prior.

Granted, that last statement may be speculation or from the Book of the Bishop, but he got his point across well.

Island of Misfit Toys? Yep, sure feels that way. And there's no other place I'd rather be right now.

With Six Eyes, You Get Eggroll

Not to sound too much like a stand-up comedian—though I'm probably going to end up sounding like one anyway—but today's topic is sunglasses: What is the deal?

I've been trying to figure out why sunglasses trouble me so. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that I already wear glasses and have had them since high school, and if I tried to put on yet another pair of lenses to keep the summer sun out of my already nearsighted eyes, then that would give would-be bullies an excuse to call me "six eyes" or something of that sort. That's why I prefer to wear hats.

I can already achieve the "Six Eyes" effect any time I go to a 3D movie. Additionally, that's also a lot of weight to be putting on your poor nose.

Other people wearing sunglasses also make me nervous. (Obviously, I'm not referring here to someone like, say, like Stevie Wonder.) Why? Mainly, it's the fact that I cannot see their eyeballs. I don't have any idea how they're looking at me when they're wearing those things. Like if they're rolling their eyes at me if I bring up something like Star Wars or "Weird Al" or any one of dozens of other topics.

And what's up with people who wear sunglasses indoors and on the tops of their heads all day long, nestled in their hair? Do they not have pockets or purses or a car to keep them in? Is it really comfortable to wear sunglasses on top of your head throughout the entire three-hour church block?

Perhaps strangest of all are those who wear sunglasses at night. Unless, of course, the point of this is to watch people when they weave and then breathe their story lines, or to keep track of the visions in their eyes. In that case, don't switch the blade on the guy in shades.

I'm jiggy with that.

Ex-Women: Days of Future Past

Some of my siblings and I went to a concert a couple of weeks ago, enjoying the music and new songs of a favorite band of ours that had just reunited for a new album and was touring again for the first time in seven years. One of the siblings' wives had traveled out of town unexpectedly the day before, so I got to attend in her place.

Not that I'm complaining about that. 'Cause I'm not.

Before introducing one of the songs, one of the band members asked those in the audience if they had ever dated a horrible or terrible person. Several hands went up, while others cheered or hollered. He then explained that the next song the band would play was taken from his "Bitter Box," and, though he had never dated someone he would call a "bad" person, the "Bitter Box" of music is his way of dealing with break-ups and relationships that did not go according to plan.

I really like the concept of the "Bitter Box." I'm not an Angry White Loner for no reason, after all.

At the same time, I also do not endorse bitterness as a way of life. Being "bitter," at times, is a normal, albeit "Natural Man," emotion, I think. I understand that. I have my own "Bitter Box" cache of music to help me get through break-ups—not as a means of pointing fingers or assigning blame to myself nor to anyone else but rather as a means of giving myself a few days—no more than a week at most—to sulk, to forgive, to heal, and then to "climb back on the horse" and begin dating again.

Like the writer/singer of that song, I can also claim that I have never dated a "bad" person, let alone a horrible or terrible person. In addition, I hope that no one who has dated me would ever think of me as a "bad" person, either, though I may have unwittingly given them a reason to do so. I'm a work in progress, and I make mistakes. Daily.

I've dated only good people who have made mistakes, too—and who are not at all "bad" but are, rather, "different." I've come to see a break-up as not a bad thing but as a good, necessary thing, though it sometimes is a pill that is nastier than cod liver oil to swallow. Nevertheless, I can choose to look at my dating experiences with bitterness, or I can choose to look at them as a learning experience, in which I have gained valuable insight into my own behavior, as well as lessons about women that will help me be better in my present and future opportunities.

Given the choice, I choose the latter.

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Primary

At week #5 on the Island of Misfit Toys, we heard the counselors in the new bishopric speak. The bishop himself did not speak as he was out of town, visiting grandkids.

One of the bishopric members spoke on the theme "All I Really Need to Know I Learned on the Farm," based on the Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Both talks were great and got me to thinking, with all due to respect to both counselors and Mr. Fulghum, of a list of my own:

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Primary.

1. Nobody cares if you can't sing well; join in anyway. And if a song has actions that accompany it, such as "Popcorn Popping," you better darn well do them.

2. Speaking of which, you won't always sing soprano. Enjoy it while it lasts.

3. Be quiet and polite when others speak, just as you hope others will give you the same respect when you speak.

4. Respect and listen to your teacher. That may be your calling someday.

5. Speaking of which, be afraid of the Blazer B boys. Be very afraid. It's strange how karma works.

6. Even so, some bratty or misbehaving kids turn out to be fantastic, well-behaved adults. And vice versa.

7. Speaking of which, some girls I once thought of as "plain" grew up to be downright foxy. Just as flowers and trees need time to grow and blossom, so do people.

8. Drawing with crayons is still one of the best hobbies you can have in life.

9. Mom wrote me some pretty darn good talks.

10. Don't do rotten things to your friends just to fit in with "the crowd."

11. People make mistakes. Jesus taught us to love them anyway.

12. Pioneer children sang as they walked, and walked, and walked, and walked . . .

13. Sharing time is fun.

14. There is a time to sing and to play, and there is also a time to be reverent.

15. Say please and thank you often.

16. "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" is pretty good exercise.

17. I am a child of God.