First Step

Just the other day a professor asked our, mostly asleep, class what our greatest fear in life happens to be. The onslaught of answers were typical, robotic, and guarded, "Dying", "Public speaking", "small spaces", "midgets", etc. I sat there, and like the other drones, I gave my simplistic, brain-stew answer - which, I don't even recall what it was.

However, the question that our astute professor conjured went from sitting in the back of my head to slam-dancing throughout my entire being. "What is your greatest fear?" I chewed on it, and fought with it all that evening to the point where sleep was not an option. It was not, I realized, that the answers my fellow classmates had given bothered me as much as what struck me at 3:00 a.m. that kept me tossing in my ocean of sheets. The realization was as simple as it was complex, death, public speaking, flying, drowning, are all legitimate fears but these are subtitles for the main feature.

The biggest fear, I believe, for most of us is not how it all ends but rather how we spend our time from start to finish. My biggest fear is NOT living, not pursuing, not dreaming and chasing that dream. For so many of us, we have already given up on whatever it was that we had aspired to be at one point in time. A wise man, that is borderline insane to put it nicely, once told me, "A man that does not utilize all of his resources is a fool." The resignation of this statement pounds deep inside of me like a drum. "ALL of his resources...." This has to me, all of his talents, all of his might, all of his heart. All of that summed up so brilliantly, so simple.

So how do we do this? How does one live to the fullest? To be honest, I have no idea - I'm just writing a blog about it. But, with the little amount of time I've really dealt with this topic this is what I've come to understand. Live like all the cliché posters that annoy the hello-kitty out of you tell you to live; Like there's no tomorrow, with no fear, with all of your heart, with no regard. I believe to really live would be bordering, taunting the edge of insanity with a welcoming smile. What is this but one chance, one opportunity to impact as many 'travelers' as possible? Are we that afraid to truly touch happiness? Are we truly that terrified of going against the grain? I would submit that we are and so foolishly so.

I went to class the following week and thanked the professor for asking the question. I told him how substantial it had become and how it had opened my eyes. He, of course, was thankful and happy to hear that he had made an impact. But he said it doesn't stop there, the realization isn't going to change anything externally. Taking the first step, he said, is the most significant change one must make. But within that step, we can begin to recognize a life that we had only invisioned in the most blurred portions of our imaginations.

With that, I ask all of you, all THREE of you - What is your biggest fear?



If I dont post again till after the holidays - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!


J.L. Copeland

Twitter-nation

It is an undeniable, unstoppable, freak-force of technological nature. It’s a creeping north wind that nips at the nape of your neck and makes your hairs stand up, it is the quick of your nails sheered from an over-zealous snip of the clippers. It is Twitter-nation.

With the advancement of, first; MySpace then on to the bastard child that becomes the super star in Facebook, to the even uglier red-headed stepchild that supersedes the previous comes Twitter. We have all become hooked like Plano, TX heroin junkies, and over-binged, over-worked, under-paid Lincoln street hookers to the celebrity driven FAD that is this BEAST.

The idea that we are all interested in what cereal Bon Jovi had for breakfast is terribly insulting, RIGHT? Why do I care about the level of joy Daughtry had over his morning BM? But here we are, stuck right in the middle of a trend that is only picking up steam. When AOL messaging came out you could just get on and if you're friends were online, you could just tell them, "Dude, I just saw this chick..OH MY God!" But now, as if everyone in your social network really cares, you can tell ALL of them about the hot blonde with the buns.

Now I don't want to be completely disparaging, I am a status 'whore' myself, yes I'm marked with CATCH 22 across my forehead. There are some updates that are downright hill-hairy-ass! Then there are some that the poster has put some thought into that he/she is wanting to express, and it becomes thought-provoking. Oh, but these are few and far between, they are so scarce it's almost hard to catch the dignified posters through all the riff-raff.

"My nephew's birthday party is tonight!! I'm so excited I just sharted myself!!"

Really?

"it's cold outside."

Smashing!

Riff-raff, riff-raff, riff-raff.

You might be wondering what the point is to all this, I'm not going to lie to you, I don't have one. This entire piece was based off of one status update a friend posted today, it was the metaphorical straw that broke the camel’s back - me being the camel, her post being the straw. God bless her she's a great gal, but day in and day out its 17 new posts about what she's doing every 30 mins. I feel that Tom, and the creators of Facebook should put a status posting limit per week. I also think that the creators of Twitter need to be dug up, pulled out into the street, and this would be the tweet, "Hey buddy, you're about to get kicked in the sweet spot..."

End of story.


J.L. Copeland

Friends

I wanted to post something positive today in hopes to debunk the negative mood I've put off with some of my recent postings. I think we're in a time of great turmoil, there seems to be a shift and you can almost feel it in every news broadcast, magazine, and newspaper article you read. This bug, this virus has seemed to caught up with me. I find myself pondering what I'm doing with this short bit of time that I've been given. I wonder if I've been a good enough friend, brother, father, and husband -- what will you all say when I'm gone. I think we all consider these things from time to time, some of us just chose to vocalize it in different ways. So I challenge each one of you in the days to come to really think, really take note of what you do everyday of your lives.. take every passing second, minute, and hour and document it.. The point is not to try to reach to be Ghandi, but on some level make an impact in a positive ripple to those around you. Laugh more, smile more, talk more, and be truthful even more.

For those of you that I haven't spoke to much lately, cheers to you! Love you guys and take care of one another.

Marriage..Really?

As I got up this morning to start, the repetitiveness that has become my adult life, something was lingering. It possibly could have been the dreary weather, and the early morning still nipping at my heels. Maybe it was the cool exchange my significant other and I had from the night before, but the nagging question that kept popping up was, Marriage, really? I sense the immediate backlash from any female reader of this post, but try to stay with me for just a little bit - eventually, you'll find, that you'll actually like where I'm going. Either way, my thought, the heightened sense of questioning, had everything to do with this industry of marriage. Why do we do this? What is the unstoppable urge to dive into a union that has a 50% fail rate? If this statistic were applied anywhere else in our lives we wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. It is the most difficult thing, we as individuals, can possibly face in a life time. It presses, stretches, and tests every last nerve to the point of melt down - and sometimes we do. My first thought was that we do this because of the ULTIMATE fear of being alone. But I don't understand this notion, I never have and it's quite possibly the pessimist surging to the surface to put a dark spin on something most see as beautiful. The stance I take is that we all end up alone in the end on some level. We either live longer than the rest of our loved ones or end up waiting out the twilight of our lives with smiling strangers. The other possibility is that we become ill and die with our closest loved ones around us. But that is a journey you ultimately have to take a lone. I do realize that kind of thought is a little morbid but let’s face the facts here. So marriage, really? Why do we do this to ourselves? Women, you end up not finding the knight in shining armor that you've dreamt of sense you were able to walk. Even worse, you'll eventually come to the realization that you will never be able to 'FIX' us and the cool wind of bitterness will start to swirl. Men, come on fellas - what is there really to say about us? We're disgusting, unappreciative, and most of us can't figure out that we, too, cannot 'FIX' women. Even the makeup of the two sides is formulated against the better good! We men want to fix things and then move on. When you're upset ladies, and I'm sure you can attest to this, we don't listen for what the situation made you 'feel' rather hear the resolution to the problem and attempt to solve it. This, clearly, is not what you desire. Women; you are emotional creatures. When things go awry it's not about how to solve the problem as much it is about how it affected you emotionally. Again I ask, marriage, really? As I was going through my morning routine pondering these things.. I started to feel this enormous pressure. I am married, I love my wife and God bless her, she loves me. But how and why did we do this to one another. One would have to imagine that life was so much easier without having to tend to another for the rest of your days. What I found, and many of you probably already knew this, was that all of those negative things I mentioned - they're easily spun into the positive. We chose marriage because we don't want to be alone, sure. But we chose our partner, I chose my wife, because she was the ONE person on this planet that I could stomach all of those negative things with. She too, hopefully, chose to cope with all of the flaws that envelope my character and attempt to 'fix', 'understand', or not worry about those and love me regardless. Many of you that know me probably think she is crazy, I would say this venture alone is more deserving of a Nobel Prize than some others that I'm not going to mention. The fact of the matter is, yes marriage is hard. It can make you want to literally strangle the other or yourself at times. But the other side is the experience. The experience the two share as they walk together through this life. I've found that Lacey and I are stronger together than we are apart. I've found that I feel more, I believe more, and I want more with her than I did alone. So upon these realizations things started to shift in my small mind and become a bit clearer, a bit more positive. The questions started to change into answers and reasons as opposed to doubts and concerns. I find myself lucky, very lucky really, to have someone like Lacey by my side. So as I rode off to work my final thought was... Marriage, really!