To be, or not to be, thankful.

I wish I had some crazy story to tell you, some hilarious off-the-cuff moment in life that necessitated the near 3-month hiatus from writing that I've had as of late. But the truth is, life happened and I sort of put it in cruise control. I can also be very, very lazy.

But some very, very great life happened within those three months: Whiskey & the Wolves continues to gain momentum, albeit a little slower than I wish; my wife and I moved into our first place together after over two years being married and over seven years of being together; one of my dearest and oldest friends got married over a 4-day weekend extravaganza that might have killed part of my liver but revitalized a part of my heart (the ole' give and take); my old band 9 Paces West reunited for a 6-song set after almost a decade - still got it, but playing power-pop-punk-rock definitely took its toll on my body (getting too old for that shit?); I got to see my parents after a much too long year and a half; and the Minnesota Vikings are dominating the NFL..

Good Times. Good Times.

I wish I could say that life couldn't be better. That would be a lie. And as much bullshit as we sling here at BD&LL, I think we do our best not to lie to you, our readers. Perhaps because we're good people (questionable) but really, honesty makes the best stories and without it, life lessons have no footing. So, honestly, life for me is "Okay" right now. There have been some pretty significant bumps in the road. I struggle some days and want to crawl into bed assuming the fetal position and say 'fuck it' to the outside world. We've - probably - all been there. If you haven't, good for you.

Bad Times. Bad Times.

The former we can choose to be thankful for and let's be honest, it's pretty easy to be thankful for the good times and I think most of us usually are, though we may take them for granted.

The later, we usually choose not to be thankful for. Actually, most of us would take being thankful for the bad times as a proof-positive sign of insanity. And perhaps saying, "be thankful for the bad stuff," is putting it wrong. Maybe it's more like, be thankful for the opportunity to better yourself, to realize what you don't want; be thankful that whatever bad shit happened, it left you standing, if not a little busted up, to see another day. Depending on the significance of the bad stuff, this really is the hardest life lesson to learn. On that level, I'm a poor teacher. The bad stuff I've encountered has been pretty mild compared to those who lose their children, soldiers who lose their friends, political prisoners, and those held in slavery around the world including those crippled by devastating poverty. Those are things I don't think you can be thankful for. But for those who have survived without losing hope, they may be the best life lesson teachers this world has to offer. Out of the terrible comes the beautiful and enlightening.

You can take that as academic BS if you like. I wouldn't blame you. Anyone who has encountered heart breaking moments would erase them if given the chance. But to ignore the travesty of life belies the truth that this stuff happens all the time and if we can't, either individually or collectively, learn to cope and make something better out of them, then we have lost hope. Hope is fundamental to survival. And that's really what this game is all about. Survival. Some of you may have noticed that I attach arbitrary numbers to my life lessons. Well here is one I haven't shared but is scribbled all over in my notebooks. It is is the only life lesson that doesn't have an arbitrary number: Life Lesson 1: Survive. On the one hand, it's a truism, a "life lesson" at its most basic level. On the other hand, I think it reminds us that there are different levels of survival: surviving well, and surviving poorly. I'll let you interpret that as you wish.

I read this somewhere: "Do not regret growing old. It's a privilege denied to many." So be thankful for those gray hairs, aching bones, and the more frequent trips to the neighborhood doc. If those are the worst things to happen to you, remember you're alive, as painful as that can be at times, and that since your conscious, you can reestablish the priorities that make living at least bearable and at best, completely awesome.

If Life is the headmaster, then we are all students. As in any class, some of the best learning happens when the students teach each other. "I get by with a little help from my friends." That's what this blog is about. That's what this life is about.

I hope you found this time of Thanksgiving to be full of the love, hope, and happiness. If not, maybe it's time to reflect on the things that prevent, and the things that may bring along those things. As Jason reminded us with his last post, we can be anything we want. Except an apple. You can't be an apple. But you get it.

I'll close with some incomplete thoughts, some quotes, and general debauchery:

..the Blues comes from the bad times, or rather as a coping mechanism for dealing with the bad times, and the Blues is a beautiful thing.

...it's the darkest nights that make the magnificence of the light of the day so obvious..

"Buy a ticket, take the ride" - Hunter S. Thompson

"Good times, bad times, you know I had my share; When my women left home for a brown-eyed man, well I still don't seem to care." - the Mighty Ones, Led Zeppelin

"The conditions what make things like they is today. Conditions. You know, when you don't have no money, no job, no place to sleep, you go to work, you start thinking evil... So conditions make these things happen today." - Howlin' Wolf

~Mike B.

"What do you want to do when you grow up?"

I got the idea to do a blog on this subject earlier in the year when a discussion centered on this topic came up on my school bus route. I can’t remember how it came about but I started talking to the kids about the subject and the details that they were presenting to me were so fantastic that I thought the sheer fact that it got their imagination going so much was reason enough to cover the subject for BD&LL…but then I got busy.

Things started to slow down recently and the other day I got to drive the senior class over to the elementary here, where the older kids were going to interview the kindergarteners about what they wanted to be when they grow up. After they did their interviews they then got to go back and watch what they had to say about what they wanted to be when they were in kindergarten. We didn’t do this exercise while I was attending good old Lafayette, but I think it’s a wonderful exercise on multiple fronts.

First it lets the young kids use their imaginations. They haven’t been exposed to too many things at this point and have not seen the difficulties that arise throughout one’s life that can effect what they end up choosing to do. The possibilities truly are endless and when it comes down to it some of the most chosen future jobs involve helping others; teacher, policeman, fireman, nurses, doctors and even superhero. But they also want to be actors, writers, marine biologists. They want to make cartoons, run restaurants and hotels, and very few of them want to be the boring stuff. Not one kid I asked said they wanted to be an Actuary…sorry Dan.

It’s not only neat to get these kids going on what they want to be, I think it’s important for us to remember those days ourselves. I think that’s the point of the exercise these seniors were doing and it’s also why I asked the question via our Facebook page.

We may all be able to look at the seniors and say that we get why Cheryl (The RLF English teacher in charge of this project) would have them do it; because they are moving onto one of the most important times in their lives. The following four years (or seven for some of us) will be the time that they not only determine what they want to do, but they will get the schooling needed to do the job and will begin work in their chosen career path, whatever that may be. So having the perspective of what these kindergarteners as well as themselves as kindergarteners want and wanted to be can show them a couple of things:

1.       How unrealistic your expectations are when you are a kid, or

2.       At what point did we forget that we can do anything?

“Somewhere along the line we stopped believing we could do anything. And if we don’t have our dreams, we have nothing.” – Charlie Farmer

While searching for supplemental material for this post, I happened upon this neat little “How To” guide on choosing what to do when you grow up: http://m.wikihow.com/Choose-What-You-Want-to-Be-when-You-Grow-Up

It’s a pretty good example of how to choose your career if money is the only thing that matters, or at least the driving force for you to do anything with your life.

My mom was always very supportive of us doing whatever we chose and helped us to keep that sense that we could do anything. She was also very proud of all of her children and kept just about anything that we did or was printed about us…which allowed me to find this gem in the archives she left behind for us:

So I inferred a few things from this, the most important was that even as a kid I had great hair…and fashion sense. Secondly, I was inspired by a person (Mr. Dressup) that literally could become and do anything. And finally, I think I’m beginning to think I was raised in Canada…check out the Wikipedia Page for Mr. Dressup. (The first concert I ever went to was also Fred Penner).

The reason for the exercise the seniors at Lafayette did is the same reasons I asked the question through our Facebook page. Not because I wanted my friends to look back and be disappointed with what may have been, but so that they would look back at the time when they thought that they could do anything, and hopefully remember that they still can. Too often we settle, we tell ourselves that I wish I could have done this or that, and we forget that most things are still within our reach. That if something makes us happy, that it’s worth pursuing.

You may read this and say, this guy doesn’t have the things that I have in my life. He may still be able to drop everything and do something different, or take those chances, but I have other people that depend on me to continue to do what I’m doing.

Here’s a little something for you to consider…when I first went to college I had several much older people in my classes. I thought it was a little weird that such old people were taking freshman English with me, but they had a goal in mind, something they felt passionate about, something that they thought would make them happy. These people had wives and husbands, as well as kids but they didn’t take that as a detriment to their goal but a reason for accomplishing it. They wanted to not only prove to themselves, but also to their loved ones, that it’s never too late to do the things you always wanted to do, in short…they were trying to prove to themselves as well as others, that you’re never too old to do anything.

The funny thing is I think we all see the stories of the businessman who quit his job to become a teacher, or the accountant who got his shot in the NFL, or even the person who just took a year off of their job to write that novel they’ve always wanted to. We hear these stories and we think to ourselves, “How great would that be if I could do something like that?” Well here’s the story, you can.

I think it’s important for us to hang onto those dreams of “What do you want to be when you grow up?” One thing is for certain, not one of us can ever tell for sure what tomorrow will bring, but we can look back at our life and all those crazy dreams we had when we were kids and wonder what if?

The point of this post is to remind you that you can do anything. The point of the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up,” is that at one point you believed that and I think it’s time we all start believing it again. Life happens pretty fast, and you may say to yourself that your time has past…but as long as you’re still here…you still have the time and the resources to do what makes you happy. Let’s show the little kids in us and the little ones around us that it’s never too late to do what makes you happy, whatever that may be.

When the seniors who did the interviews with the kindergartners this year get to look at their videos from when they were in the little ones shoes, I’m willing to bet at least a few of them will say to their friends, “I can’t believe that I wanted to be a marine biologist!” and laugh it off, but somewhere deep down inside of them, I bet they wish they could go back to that time when they believed they could do that, or anything else. When I asked the question, I hope those of you who responded got that same feeling and the ones that didn’t as well. I hope that you remembered, however briefly, that you once knew you could do anything…and maybe someday here, you’ll believe in you again.

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.” – Soren Kierkegaard

A few links you may want to check out:

A great Huffington Post article about “What to do when yougrow up.”

A couple quizzes ( TestQ & Buzzfeed) designed to help you find out what to do, but if you just google this you’ll find tons of these!

And finally, the Top 15 jobs kids want to do when they grow up!

Thanks for reading, now go and do what makes you happy, the thing you’d do if money didn’t matter, because in the end, time is the only currency that matters. Spend yours wisely!