Transcript

Tis The SEEson... · Wanzology

Tis The SEEson ”Mona, Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have named you...”. Hi!! What's happening, Yo!!! How are you today? Welcome to another episode of WANZOLOGY. I am your host, The Wanz, sounding a bit under the weather. I have a tired voice. I did a lot of things with my voice last week that I probably shouldn't have done, and I'm paying for it now, but here we are. This week puts us just a little bit closer to that ever present and ever stressful Christmas holiday. Christmas holiday is built with all kinds of pitfalls of expectations. Expectations of, “What am I gonna get so-and-so?”, “Who am I gonna get stuff for?”, “When am I gonna send these damn cards out?” I'm telling you, it is just fraught with peril. But I am here to assure you that you will survive this Christmas. How do I know? “Wanz, how do you know?” I know because you've done it before. This is not gonna be your first Christmas. It may be the Christmas that you go through feeling the way that you do right now, but it's not your first Christmas. “Tis the season to be jolly!”, that's how the words go, but it's not always jolly now, is it? It's not always that there is enough, and these days there is a lot of ‘not enough’ going around. You may not have the money to purchase all the gifts that you want. You may not have time to go out and get all the gifts that you want to purchase. You may not be able to get gifts for everyone and worse, you may not be able to get gifts for people who no longer are here, even if you want to. None of these things is a deal breaker. All of those things are a circumstance by which you are guided to do what you can. It is more important to do what you can rather than be all twisted around the axle about what you can't do. I don't know about you, but I'm a human being. I could not jump off the balcony of my fourth-floor condominium and fly down to the beach. I will drop like a stone. I will injure myself, possibly die, so I don't do that. I've got a car that can go 160 miles an hour. But I'm not gonna go 160 miles an hour on the interstate during rush hour. It won't work. I know what my limitations are, whether they be financial, intellectual, or just plain simple. I have simple limitations and those are defined. I've lived long enough to understand the things that I can and cannot do. Now I may get delusions of grandeur and think, “Maybe this time will be different if I just change one little step in the process. Maybe, maybe”, dot, dot, dot. Well, I don't like maybe. Not in that context. I don't mind maybe when it's in process, when I'm in process like making toast. You put the bread in the toaster and you put it down and you look at the dial and it shows a certain level of darkness. Well, maybe if I turn that down a little bit, it won't be as cooked as it was the last time. Okay, great. So it comes out and it's way lighter, not really even toasted. So you put the paddle down again, you start cooking and you just stand there. Oh, something goes off over there and you go over to see what that thing is, and you come back and the toast is way overdone, because you thought maybe you could walk away, go see whatever that thing was, and then come back in time to not overcook your toast. But alas, it is a dark, dark, dark brown, almost black. It's a simple, simple, simple scenario, but it is so indicative of how most humans live their life. Most humans think that they can accomplish so much in so little time without doing very much. And boy, are they in for a surprise, because usually that leads to incomplete things, unfinished business. You have to go back and redo things. I dunno about you, but my time is more valuable than that. I don't want to go back and have to redo something. I named this episode “Tis The SEEson”, meaning this is the time when you really have to be on your game looking around, noticing things, seeing the things that you normally miss. Paying attention to things you usually don't really pay close attention to. That's how mistakes get made. When you're not paying attention to whatever is right in front of you, the odds of you making a mistake are greater than if you were paying attention to what is right in front of you. Simple, yes? What do you see? What do you see when you go out gift shopping? Do you go to Nordstrom's? Do you go to Macy's? Maybe you just go to Goodwill. Maybe you order from Temu. Everybody does it different, and it's not necessarily based on income as much as it's based on, I don't know what this person might like.And if you do know what that person might like, dude, you are so far ahead of the game because some people are really hard to buy for. Or if you're like me, there are people that you've been buying for for years, so you're not really sure if you've gotten them this thing or not. You're not sure what to buy. ‘Maybe’ comes into play. ‘Maybe’ this, ‘maybe’ that. ‘Maybe’ the other thing. You weigh the options, you make a choice, and then you stick by that choice. You purchase, whatever that thing is, and then you wait. And then on Christmas day, when they open it, you see that you are the fourth person who got them exactly the same thing. How you feel? Feel really good, right? Or not. But that's okay. They say it's the thought that counts. I kind of disagree. It's not the thought as much as what you see that helps you form the thought. Do you have a person in your life that you see struggles with being organized or being honest with themselves or are afraid of things that might be silly to you? Maybe they always seem to have the challenge of having money. Maybe they always seem to feel like they don't have enough time. So do you buy 'em an organizer? Do you buy them an audible book on time management? Self-perception, maybe? I don't know. You know that person, I don't. But I do know that when you're trying to come up with these things, it is what you see in them. What you see them do, hear them say those are the clues, right? And usually there's some kind of complaint going on, right? There's someplace in their life, something in their existence that they're not happy with and that maybe if you gave them a certain gift, it would improve that situation. Maybe. I don't know. But I do know that if you're not paying attention. If you don't try to see what it is that they could use or might want, the odds of you getting the present thing incorrect is much, much larger than getting it correct. What do you see? What do you see in that child of yours that can't seem to carry everything at the same time or whose car is always dirty, nnever seem to have enough money to get maintenance done on it. What about the rice cooker that you bought them 10 years ago needs to be replaced? What about food that they get at the grocery store? There are many ways to peel this grape. How do I decide? What do I get for someone? Well, what do you see? What do you see them missing in their life? What do you see them just breezing right on past? Is it an action? Is it identifying an emotion? Is it something less tangible? Maybe they would like stories about people like them. Maybe they would like a puzzle to keep their brain active and occupy their time away from a screen. Maybe, maybe they're a big movie person. They would really enjoy going to the movies with someone because Lord knows most people that we know, they have enough t-shirts, they have enough sweaters, they don't need another pair of shoes. What experiences do you see someone not having? Some of my grandkids are at a certain age where getting a gift certificate to the science center or to a museum would be useful because they will experience something that they don't get to every day. Or what about helping the parents of those kids by getting them some kind of membership that when there's nothing to do, we're gonna go hang out somewhere, or we're gonna go to the movies, or we're gonna go stay somewhere leading to an experience that they normally might not have. I think the best gift that any of us can give was laid out in a song that I wrote in 2007. 2007, I didn't have any money. I didn't know what to get anybody, so I wrote a song and the song is called “The Greatest Gift”. That song goes: “The greatest gift one can give, doesn't have a tag with a price Isn't found in any store, doesn't have a certain size. The greatest gift one can give isn't found on any shelf. The greatest gift you can give is when you give yourself.” Meaning that when you spend time with people doing something with them, your time is the greatest, most precious thing that you own! To share it with someone says a lot about that someone! I love the song because when I wrote it, I was curious. The first verse goes like this: “In a time when it seems all that matters Is how much to spend on who at any given time. How to wrap it, when to send it, will they like it, will it fit? And how long do I have to stand in line? Take a good look at yourself, take a look at anyone else. Are they trying just like you, trying hard to make it through. If we all did the best we could to help somebody else we would. So give the best of your time.” Think about it. When you're helping someone else, does it make you happy or sad? Does it make them happy or sad? I don't know, depends, doesn't it? “Could a gift so plain, so simple, be of any kind of value We’re conditioned to consume, to shop, to pay. Mama always said a gift from the heart, be it big or small, Is always a thing anyone could appreciate.” So don't forget: “The greatest gift one can give, doesn't have a tag with a price Isn't found in any store, doesn't have a certain size. The greatest gift one can give isn't found on any shelf. The greatest gift you can give is when you give yourself” (one word). So with that, being that we're almost a week out from the Christmas Day business, look at what you see. Think about what you see. What you see has all the clues about what you can do, not what you should do, but what you can do. And I think that information at this time of the year is quite useful. Tis The SEEson. Pay attention. Choose carefully and no matter what, it is the thought that counts. Take care of yourself. I'm gonna try to take care of my voice and stop talking now! Thank you!!! Take care.