Pain In The Attitude!

The man who slanders his fellowman unwittingly uncovers the real nature of his inner self. -Napoleon Hill (1883-1970) author and one of the earliest producers of personal-success literature.

Pounding Waves

If you’ve ever been to the beach before on a windy day, you probably marveled over the power of those waves crashing down on the shore. The amazing power as tons of water smashed the sand and rock relentlessly. Maybe you’ve even gone for a swim on a day like that when you were a kid. I bet you couldn’t wait to jump right in as the water knocked you around like a rag doll. Just as fast as you went head over heels, back up again you rose to take more punishment with a big grin on your face. That night, you probably crawled into bed and fell asleep like a baby.

Sounds like fun right? Then why doesn’t that feeling last in other areas of our lives, especially as we grow older. Why can’t we see a pounding economy as nothing more than some play time. Why does work really feel so overwhelming? How does stress even creep into our fabric and begin to tear us apart from the inside out? The relentless beating of life seems endless, exhausting and exasperating; a far cry from those wonderful days at the beach.

Hungry Animals

There has to be something at play here that is simple. After all, if we consider that all we really need are the basics; air, water, food and shelter, then how could life be so complicated? Maybe it’s just a matter of perspective. Maybe if we looked at life from a simplistic angle, we would see a much different struggle. Let’s consider our more animalistic path. A time when we simply strove to exist and fought for the species to survive. Everyday we woke up, it was about making it through the day with the basics. We simply had to make sure we didn’t get eaten by something bigger than us and find something to eat ourselves.

Yet then even amongst our own, we became cannablistic. Maybe not quite literally, but more so with respect to who had what and how much. Who had the better cave, the better food supply, the better community of people? If it wasn’t us, then perhaps we should go take it away from somebody else. Or worse, what if by some stroke of luck we catapulted to the top of the cherry tree, what then? Did we show others the path, or did we button up the hatches in the Ivory Tower and hide?

Socialistic or Selfish

Now you might be wondering what happened to my competitive edge or if I’ve gone off of the socialistic deep end; but stay with me here and focus on balance. Anything to an extreme can certainly be dangerous, so somewhere in the middle is where the answer may be. Let’s first consider how difficult it is to simply survive even in this modern age. We’re surrounded by poverty all over the world…yes even in your own backyard if you look closely. The majority of people live on the very edge of existence. Many are only a paycheck away from losing everything, even when everything is barely anything.

So let’s at least recognize that. Certainly we all agree that forcefully or even covertly redistributing wealth is wrong, but why does that have to be the only way to help others. Perhaps the only reason for the discussion to force help is that we have stopped doing it without being asked to do so. These days it seems to take a natural disaster to remind us of our humanity. So why don’t we jump on planes more often to go help somebody out, cover a shift, do a days work on someones behalf and ask nothing in return?

Nasty Army

Perhaps it’s even gotten worse than that. When someone is down, we really seem to be piling on even more. We just can’t wait to kick somebody in the teeth as soon as they trip and fall to the pavement. We’re so quick to blame the media for covering the worst of all of us, yet we all know that they wouldn’t do it unless there was a demand…supply and demand…Economics 101!

So put yourselves in the shoes of the attacked. How does it feel as your conjure up those feelings? Here you are just trying to get through life. You make a mistake and here they come; an army of the self-righteous, the insidious, the agenda driven scoundrels! They swoop down upon you like a pack of vultures looking to rip you to shreds so that they can stand taller upon your corpse. To what end though? Have they really gained? Isn’t there a part of all humanity that feels a nasty twinge in the gut saying…wow that could have been me. I wish they would stop.

So here we are, just a huddled mass of humanity trying to get by; fighting through the same battle every day. Throw in a bad economy, a natural disaster or two and then some infighting! Are you kidding me? No wonder why so many of us are turning to something to dull the pain. Drooling like zombies in front of the TV or computer just to get a tiny moment of relief from the fight!

Pleasure or Pain

So what can you do about this; recognize it! Understand that whether you are at the top of the heap or the bottom of the totem pole you can take action. You can stop pounding on somebody else. You can call upon every ounce of humility that you can muster to help you realize that we’re all in some sort of struggle; some type of war. We’re all a bunch of boxers bobbing and weaving and ducking the punches just to survive. So let’s stop sucker punching each other and instead cheer each other on like a team of enthusiastic kids trying to win the game as a team! Otherwise we’ll just go down as a bunch of Pain In The Attitudes!!