Fantasy is never the same as reality.
Sometimes we confuse reality of what we have and deserve with the fantasy of what we want.
How many times have you heard yourself or others say “I wish I had a better job”, or “I wish I had a better car”.
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard these phrases and many more just like them in the past 30 years or so.
I have probably been guilty of saying it as well, especially when I was much younger.
My father was a stern disciplined kind of guy. Mr. No-Nonsense . Usually he meant exactly what he said. If Dad said be home at 10:00 p.m. and you came home at 10:01 p.m., you were still late. No excuses, you were going to catch hell for breaking the rules. He was a hard core teacher in the college of hard knocks. He was serious about most things in life, but all in all I'd say he was a great Dad for a guy like me to have . I liked to break rules and stretch limits and drive my parents absolutely nuts when I was a teenager, but hey Don’t get me wrong, he had his moments where he was over the top, gregarious and a non stop jokester and made up his own ridiculous curse words (because my mother objected to cursing), but for the most part, he believed what he believed and he was a pretty good Dad. He would endlessly repeat the same phrases over and over again until I could (and my 4 brothers could) recite them in our sleep. He loved his family and was married to my mother for about 150 years or so. He wasn't mean or vicious or overbearing , but he had a manner about him which made you listen and bicep muscles that could crack walnuts. He could do almost anything he put his mind to. I once saw him play the trombone ( When the saints come marching in no less) with no training after one of my brothers was griping about how hard it was , and I know for a fact he never had a lesson. He just said what's so hard about putting your lips a certain way and moving this tube back and forth?
He used to say things like “Crap in one hand and wish in the other and see which one fills up first” and “People with their heads in the clouds get hit by trucks”. He’d say that no matter what you were going to for a living , for example say if you were …”Going to be a ditch digger, be the best damn ditch digger there ever was”. He had a phrase or a turn of the word for just about everything. the only thing he would not talk about and give advice on was his service in WWII. I understand why now, although at the time I didn't have a clue.
This rough hewn simple advice had a morality to it that was pretty rock solid simple. He simply didn’t think that wishing something to be better would ever make it to be better. He always thought positive results were attained through hard work. He didn’t believe in luck or coincidence. He thought the only way to get a pay raise was to work harder for it and demonstrate that you deserved it. Its pretty simple once you strip away the fluff and the chatter and the emotion. You want a better job or better car or a better marriage? Plan for it and work for it and then go after it. Ask yourself “What is it going to take for me to be able to buy a new car?”, find out and then take steps to make it happen.
Pretty much the same thing with everything else in life. You know what to do. Your own parents probably told you over and over again. Now you just have to go do it.
Nike ( The athletics company) pretty much has it right in this regard "Just do it". That's all it takes.
I know at least one of my brothers is going to be shocked to read this rant, because I’m sure he thought I was never paying attention (especially during the 1970's).
All I have to say to that is “Semper Fi”.
Next :You can’t ever take it back
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