Latest / Wanzology / Life Is Short...Have The Ice Cream!!!
Transcript
- Life Is Short, Have The Ice Cream First Yadam, yadam, yadam!! Hi, how you doing? Welcome to another episode of WANZ0LOGY!! I'm your host, The Wanz!! It's summertime, the living really ain't that easy. Fish might be jumping, but thank goodness they don't grow cotton up here in the great Northwest. But how are you? How are you doing? You good? Really? Are you just lying? I hope you're doing well. I, uh, have challenged myself in the last forty-eight hours to come up with something interesting to talk about, and I really was having a lot of problems. I couldn't think of anything very interesting , which is unusual. Usually, my brain's working overtime to find the weirdest, goofiest topic that is curling my noodle in between my ears, but not today. So on my way home from a meeting, I was thinking about what I was gonna have for dinner. Did I take anything out of the freezer to thaw? No, I did not. Well, what could I make that I don't have to thaw? What could I make that I don't have to thaw? Hmm. That limits the choices greatly. Well, I could always have microwave popcorn. Microwave popcorn is always the ‘go-to’ when you're not sure what you wanna eat. But I kinda wanted ice cream, but I didn't think that I had earned it. When I say earned it, I mean, I didn't think that I had accomplished enough during the course of my day that I deserved to finish the day off with caramel praline ice cream that I love so much So this was kicking around my head for a while, and I got home and decided I would not have microwave popcorn, I would have nachos. And I do that a very interesting way. In a pie tin, I put down a layer of chips, and then I open up a can of Nalliey's hot chili, stir it around a bit, and get a fork and drizzle some of the chili on top of the chips. And then I get the cheese. That's a combination of Monterey Jack, cheddar, and one other cheese that I won't go into. Then I spread that over the top, and then I salt it and then put it in the oven on the lower rack on broil, and I close the door. Now, you only have like four minutes from closing the door or else you'll burn the chips. I thought I'd water my plants. I thought I'd remember to water the big plant and then turn the oven off, and when I refilled the water jug, everything would be done. I didn't do that. No, no, no, no, no. What I did was I have a little dish specifically for my accoutrements that go with nachos. Big tablespoon of guacamole and about five tablespoons of medium pico de gallo salsa from the good old Fred Meyer. And then I stir it together, I set it down, I go back, and I get the nachos, and they are, of course, done perfectly. Set it down and commence to munching. But all the while I was eating them, I thought, "Dude, you should have the ice cream." And I thought, "No, man, I, I haven't earned it. What did I do today that was really good? Help any old ladies across the street? Nah. Give somebody a ride that run out of gas? Nah. What did I do that would deserve the reward of ice cream? I didn't yell at anybody today. Did not lose my temper. Did not come off and light somebody else on fire verbally. Didn't have to go off on anybody. But it's late, and I haven't recorded this week's episode.” So once again, I've determined I haven't earned ice cream. So here I sit. It does give me a great topic. Life is short.. Have the ice cream first. Life is short, so always have the ice cream first!! Now, to some people that means absolutely nothing, but to some, you're probably nodding your head up and down going, "Oh yeah, you bet. That's exactly what I'm gonna do! That's exactly what I'm gonna do!!" I get it. You ever had breakfast for dinner? Seven PM, and you've just got a hankering for bacon and eggs, maybe some grits or just a, a bagel or breakfast food. Oatmeal, seven thirty PM on a summer day sounds great, doesn't it? No, I didn't think so. I was pretty much waiting on the ice cream 'cause it, it was a hot day today up in these parts. I couldn't spend all of my time in my nicely air-conditioned car, and I couldn't spend all of my time in front of my small but useful air conditioning unit in my abode. So how did I earn it, really? Seriously, how did I earn the treat of ice cream? It occurred to me I made it through another day! Life can be very, very complicated. To recognize some of the smaller, less noticed incidents in life, y-you kinda have to not judge yourself. You also have to look in the place that you normally don't look. Usually, you get done with your day, and you start from the beginning, and you go all the way through, and you coulda done better at thiiis, but you did great at thaaat. You got this done, and you didn't get that done, and by the end of the day, you're like, "Okay, which column is longer? Eh? Pros, cons, good, bad. Which column is longer?”, if the good column is longer, ICE CREAM!!!! But if the bad column is longer, ICE CREAM!!! Call it inspiration!! But I didn't have ice cream. I really didn't. I didn't have ice cream for this very reason, I hadn't recorded an episode of this podcast yet. So out of all the things that I did do this day, I didn't do the one thing that I really needed to do, and therefore, I had not earned my dessert. So here I sit contemplating, “What am I gonna say about you?”, well, what I'm gonna say is this: “You are the only one who has any control over evaluating how your day has gone.” You can give yourself a break and say, "Yep, I did the best I could. May not have succeeded at everything, but I, I got to the end of the day and I didn't hurt nobody." You could say, "I don't really care. I made it through the day, and I'm all in one piece." Or somewhere in between, but me, I like to look at what I've done in the course of a day, even if I haven't done anything. You know the one thing I did? I made it to the end of a day, which is more than some people get to do. I give myself a little bit of a ‘pat on the back’ because I made it through a day, and some people just didn't. I've often said time is the most valuable thing that any of us have for two reasons, one, you can't replace it. You can't go backwards in time. Two, nobody knows how much they've got. The next second could be your last. Every time you take a step, you might trip, fall, hit your head, boom, lights out, you're done. You're out in the world in a vehicle, somebody could just crash right into you and take you out. You don't know. No one knows. So I suggest wherever you are in your day, you remind yourself, "I made it this far. I deserve the ice cream." I mean, if you're an adult, who the heck's gonna stop you? Who's the one making the call in the first place? You made it through this much of the day! Day's not over, is it? Or are you talking about yesterday? Did you get a reward for yesterday? What did you do yesterday? Here's the cool thing, you get to decide. I'm not the one who's gonna get to decide, you're gonna get to decide, your penance or your punishment. But if you have the opportunity, find all the things that, one, you got done, and two, all the things that you learned in the course of a day. And it doesn't matter if you didn't learn twenty things, you could have learned one thing, like waiting for the crossing light to go in your favor before stepping into traffic. Or maybe you thought it was a really good idea not to wear long pants on a day that it was eighty-five plus degrees outside. Or, insert whatever you'd like. My point is, you're the one who gets to evaluate your performance during the course of a day! Making it through a day is enough, that's a lot for some people. For you, thrill-seeker that you are, adventurer that you are, it may have just been a mediocre day. Your results are up to you. I say all the time, “If I don't see me or someone I know the first twelve minutes of a news broadcast, it's been a good day. Nobody got arrested. Nobody made the news. That's good!!”. My bar is extremely low. But what about you? Is your bar low? Do you hold yourself to a high standard? Do you have high expectations of yourself? I don't know about you, I can't take that risk. I can't ‘expect’ that things are gonna go one way or the other because I used to do that, and when I did and was disappointed, it bummed me out, and I got depressed. After a few days in a row of that happening, then it was full-on depression. I was really wondering what the heck I was even doing on this planet, taking up the air, and I had to go back and reevaluate my performance along with reevaluating my scale of measurement. What was good? What was bad? What was mediocre? What the hell is bad about mediocre in the first place? Not too high, not too low. Not the best, not the worst. Mediocre is kind of in the middle, right? Safest place in a canoe is in the middle. Safest place in the herd is in the middle. So which is it, did you do okay? Did you do almost okay? Tell you what, maybe think about it while you're having some ice cream!! While you're having the ice cream and contemplating this, you're evaluating your performance. Since you already have the ice cream, you've got the reward for whatever came before it. You had to go through whatever is behind you to get to whatever is right here, now. And you're going through here and now to get to whatever's ahead of you, whichever way you go. Go with courage! Go with conviction! Go with confidence! For God's sakes, have the ice cream now, because later you're probably gonna wanna be doing something else! Sounds good to me. Hope it sounds good to you! I hope that you take care of yourself. I hope that you find somebody else that you can kinda do something good for so they feel good. And most of all, I hope you come back to listen to another episode of WANZ-OLO-GY!!! I am out!! Peace.!!!