Countdown to inevitably, and inexplicably, pissing someone off – 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 … Go: So, do you remember the one about glass houses and stones? Let’s all just put down our rocks and talk this one through. Then we can decide whether throwing rocks is a good idea, after I’ve (metaphorically writing) said my peace. Deal? Good.
So, emails were discovered by the house judiciary committee earlier this week which confirmed that Department of Justice (DOJ) officials (read: lawyers) from the Obama administration were picking and choosing which organizations received legal settlements in the wake of lawsuits brought by DOJ – which is a fancy title for the group of lawyers that represent the federal government. The high ranking DOJ lawyers that got to make such decisions were, not surprisingly, choosing liberal organizations to be the recipients of the settlement funds.
Oh… I felt it. The first wringing of hands. What do you mean – not surprisingly?! OF COURSE IT IS SURPRISING! Shocking, I TELL YOU!! OOOOUTRAGEOUS! By the way – when reading that last bit, it helps if you imagine the person saying it to have a British accent (not cockney, either), be a rather large, blustery man… and have a big walrus mustache… Anyway, no, it’s not surprising – what did you think they were going to do? They are the lawyers that are picked by the person that is picked by the president to head the DOJ. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but, presidents – all of them – ever – even the very first one … they all have a political leaning. They tend to surround themselves with the people that will make the decisions closest to how they would make decisions. Furthermore, it wasn’t illegal at the time. So, yeah… it kinda makes sense.
Now, before my liberal friends go spiking the ball or having a celebratory make out sesh with the nearest tree, can we all agree that it is still unsettling? Can we agree that we don’t actually want the government to be picking and choosing sides… that we want it to basically be the referee and not rigging the game in either direction? If the shoe was on the other foot, most of my liberal friends would be howling with indignation at the idea that, oh, I don’t know, say – President Trump’s DOJ had done the same and directed the funds to conservatives. What’s worse is that my lieberal friends reading this are probably having a hard time admitting that they’d be super pissed. Even worse still – I’m sure that a couple years from now we will learn that Trump’s DOJ diddo the same thing and my liberal friends will be outraged when they find out. They’ll demand an inquiry! Meanwhile, my conservative friends will jump to Trump’s defense, saying that Obama did it first (as if that makes something ok) and a list of other nonsensical arguments that you’d find being made by the other side, presently.
I’m not saying this is ok – but I am questioning the motives of those talking about a former President’s-DOJ-attorney’s decisions and then trying to link those decisions with that President himself when those decisions were neither illegal, nor were they made by that President. To what end are we doing this? To score political points? To win hearts and minds? I don’t think you’re doing the latter and I’m pretty sure that the former isn’t worth it. But, given all the rocks being thrown and the glass houses in which both political parties reside, I am sure of one thing: this is why we can’t have nice things.
I hate writing back to back posts. I really do. It just about ensures that some portion of the work that I put into one of the two posts will be flooded out by the other post. However, I feel the need to be sure to say my piece early, on this subject.
Ever hear the saying, “two wrongs don’t make a right?” In Washington, D.C., they go by a slight variation: “two lefts don’t make a right, but three do.” It suits the politician well for two reasons: 1) they love to go in circles; and 2) while happy to point out their opponents wrongs, they are loathe to draw attention to their own political or moral transgressions. Speaking of transgressions: Donald Trump and Obamacare! Let’s put the rights and wrongs of this thing to bed quickly, shall we?
I put my metaphorical money on no other single article or post taking the same perspective that I’m taking. That’s because, I’ll gamble with fake money. Oh, also, it’s because I’m not picking sides here. I don’t have a political dog in this fight. I’m just trying to take care of my family and keep them safe while the political dog fight whirls and winds its way through all of our lives. So, without further adieu:
Everything about this is wrong from inception to repeal. It’s a law that was passed through a process called “reconciliation,” which is not meant to apply to the creation of new law. That’s why the process onlyrequires more than 50%, as opposed to the 2/3’s support that would otherwise have been required to enact the law. It is arguably unconstitutional on other levels, as well… however, what is or isn’t technically considered constitutional is determined by 5 Supreme Court justices. It isn’t exactly a perfect system. Now, Trump is pulling a page from Obama’s play book and using an executive order to roll back the law – working with libertarian minded Rand Paul to get it done, no less. Well, as Rand could have told a year ago, any President’s use of executive order to make or change law is unconstitutional, as well. Now, you need to find a democrat to tell you that – though they swore off such arguments are partisan politics not so long ago.
But, at the end of the day, this is what matters most to me. If these executive orders are upheld, President Trump will have finally done something that actually helped ease a burden on my family. Obamacare has been a crushing weight around the necks of small business owners, nationwide. I know, because I’m one of them. It has never once benefitted my family and has, on a monthly basis, been a source of stress and frustration. The alternative of a catastrophic coverage plan is like a dream that I thought would never become a reality. However, if you’re a Trump acolyte, and you were griping about Obama’s use of executive orders, you’d do well to remember the position that you took not so long ago. If you aren’t sure what an executive order is, you might want to sit this one out until you’ve familiarized yourself with what’s going on and how the government works and all. If you backed all of Obama’s executive orders, then you should be fine with this, as I trust you aren’t just a hypocrite. Also, do try to remember that it’s just as important to make sure that the person that actually earned the money is able to survive as it is to try to save those that didn’t earn the money from ruin on the backs of the former. Don’t forget, the tax code only takes into account what one earns, generally speaking – and some of us have student loan debt that rivals the federal government’s debt, when taken down to scale.
Ultimately, this is the point: whatever the aim of the Afordable Care Act was, it did not decrease the burden on middle class families and tales of how this executive order is going to hurt the middle class are laughable. You give us the freedom to have insurance that actually helps us (like high deductible catastrophic insurance) as opposed to asking us to carry the burden of paying for the sick and elderly and lying to our faces, saying that this is helping us, and we’ll be just fine… but, please, don’t try to preach to me about how your political party is right and the other is wrong. Anybody who buys that nonsense, at this point, doubtless, doesn’t have a blessed clue.
Larry House teasingly lecturing me on my wedding day, while Lance Hirschfeld, one of my two best-men, adjusts my tie.
One of the greatest figures in my life was also one of the men that could ruffle my feathers more than almost anyone else that I have ever met. His name was Larry House and the things I learned from him number so many, that they can’t be counted and I still learn new things from Larry’s words, even in his absence, as those words echo from somewhere in the recesses of my mind, as far back as the distant past in which he spoke some of them to me. But, I refuse to remember him through the white-washed filter that acts as a near constant barrier between the living and those that we wish were still living – that wasn’t his style and it surely isn’t mine. Yesterday I overheard a conversation (the details of which are not important) that brought my mind careening back in time, a little over two decades ago – to a very specific conversation that took place in the House family’s living room; a living room that was like my second home throughout my teens.
Since Larry was like a second father to me, his words meant more than I can convey. When they were encouraging, I felt like a world-changer, when they were critical – even constructively critical, they stung like hell. So, it was with great displeasure, and even disdain, that his words struck me on the occasion in question. My mom and I stood in his living room, arguing over some stupid thing that seemed far more important than it was, when Larry interjected, in a superior voice: “in my house, we have a dictatorship, not a democracy,” which was meant to convey the fact that I should just shut up and do as my mother told me -and then he shot me a look with a stern grin, that I knew was reserved for moments that were meant to be teachable. I was floored. I was angry. I was… totally missing the point of his words – as was often the case between the two of us for nearly a decade (in my defense, this went both ways). But, what I heard was just as important as what he was actually saying. Technically speaking, he was right. Parents have the final say. The kids, no matter how many of them there are, no matter how mutinous or how great they are at implementing advanced guerrilla warfare tactics learned from some evil video game combination of Plants vs Zombies, Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto, and Halo, the kids still lack the authority, or the capacity, to transform the rule of law in the home from a dictatorship into a democracy. While their input may be taken into consideration, the system is a dictatorship.
Now, I honestly can’t tell you what Larry said next – could’ve been something about a “benevolent dictatorship;” who knows? And, we can all laugh about it now, right? Because, I’m not thirteen anymore – so it’s funny. But, I hung on the man’s words – sometimes adoringly and sometimes because I was pissed off at him and I was looking for a way to pick those words apart and prove my own point. So, you might wonder why such a memorable conversation ends so abruptly in my mind. Why don’t I remember what he said next? It certainly isn’t because he stopped there – Larry could talk and write in much the same way that I can talk and write – which is to say: with many, many, words. The reason it falls off there, is because he lost me. For that moment, at least, he had scored a direct hit on my ego and thirteen year old me was reeling. “How could he say that? What, Am I worth less than him? My thoughts, feelings, ideas, opinions – all less valuable than his? No, I don’t think so. I don’t think I want to hear what he has to say right now.” And, just like that, *click* … I shut him off.
So, he was “right” in saying that I, as a child, wasn’t entitled to a democratic vote in my home – it was safe to put away all the campaign pins. But, the significance of all of this is wrapped up in the answer to this question: what was the point of everything that Larry ever said to me or taught me? That’s the easiest question in the entire world to answer: “every single thing that Larry ever poured in to my life was with the singular goal of helping me to learn and grow and become the best version of myself that I could be.” As far as what I had to offer back… well, you’re reading the best that I’ve ever had to offer him back – that I still learn from him; that his words weren’t wasted on me and that even the things that once drove us apart are now being learned from, and, that he’s not ever been forgotten; on the contrary, he is constantly remembered and thought of. I digress.
If our goal is to be a positive impact on our kids, and the kids that we teach or coach, then we need to think about the ways in which we prefer to have a message communicated to us. This starts with, and implicitly requires, humility. I don’t know about you but, when someone yells at me, I want to yell back. Being less than perfect, I sometimes do, in fact, yell back. Because, “who do they think they are talking to me like that?!” This is a great example of not humility. But the yelling back and forth always solves everything and we all learn great deal from each other during the yelling, said no one ever. So, why do we think yelling at our kids is going to work out well? And please, dear God, don’t say “they were yelling at me.” So what? Were your wittle feelings hurt or did you just lack a greater amount of self control than your pre-teen? I’m sure it’s not that you’ve suddenly decided that yelling does solve things (eureka!). Or maybe, it is the case that we have been ingrained with the idea that yelling at our kids is acceptable? Or maybe we are afraid of what others will think of us if they see our children speaking to us this way, and so we elevate our fear of what others think of us to a level that is above our concern for our kids. We’ve forgotten, in that moment, that we’d have to be on some crazy cocktail of steroids, testosterone, estrogen, anti-depressants, cocaine, and alcohol, just to match the wild hormonal swings that kids go through from their pre-teen years until the end of adolescence. It’s interesting that we somehow think kids should be able to shut down their bad moods when we, with an extra 20+ years of life experience haven’t figured out how to do the same.
So what do we do then? Do we let them lash out with childhood based diplomatic immunity, free from any consequences for their actions? Sit cowering in the corner until they grow up? Certainly not! The whole point is that we want to do everything that we can to help them become the best versions of themselves that they can be. I don’t like to be talked at, yelled at or talked down to, so, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that my kids don’t appreciate it, either, therefore, it is a less than ideal way to communicate any message to them. You may say, “well, I’m sure they don’t appreciate being grounded. So what? Does that mean that you aren’t going to ground them?” There’s a huge difference between the two things. There is nothing productive about screaming (or yelling – if that’s what we call it to make ourselves feel better about our interactions), name calling or talking down to anyone. It’s just that simple. It is not productive. Ever. Appropriate consequences, such as punishment are sometimes necessary. In such cases, punishment – although, by definition, not a “super-happy-fun-time,” is productive.
In the end, it all really comes down to our goals. Do we want our kids to stop being so annoying and just go away? Well, if that’s the case, by all means: yell, scream, talk down, and talk at… they will, eventually, go away. If, on the other hand, we hope to make the most worthwhile and immediate contribution to their life, we need to think about how we are communicating with them. When it comes to our kids, it is in their best interest that we speak to them with the same respect with which we would hope to be spoken because we want them to get the point and to get itfast. It is of obvious importance when it comes to the big things (sex, drugs, and rock and roll), however, this applies to the small stuff, too. The need for this to be second nature is at least partially due to the fact that not lashing out at kids, who all seem like the equivalent to little drunk adults most of the time, is hard. Seriously hard. It’s a workout and you need to build some mental muscle for this. If it isn’t second nature it isn’t going to be something that you can just “turn on” when some big situation arises. We want them to understand the meaning of our words and the impact that their decisions will have on them – this should be of a higher priority than any desire to put them in their place for acting the fool. It should be important enough to supersede any lack of personal self-control that we might otherwise be inclined to give in to. We want them to hear our words with the most open mind possible – as opposed to the defiance that even adults feel when someone is speaking to us in a disrespectful manner. So, maybe you don’t owe your kids the same amount of respect that they owe you, but, if their best interest is your highest priority, I respectfully suggest, you should give it to them, even if it isn’t owed to them.
Ed. Note: Let me preface this post, by saying that the kids I am fortunate enough to coach, as one of the team’s assistant coaches, are amazing kids. It just happens to be the case that none of us are perfect and all can learn from each other. Part of coaching is X’s and O’s… and part of coaching youth sports is about teaching them how to handle life in a safe, structured environment. To teach them, requires the ability to see where they are emotionally going “off the rails,” and giving them some guidance on how to fix that. The reality is, in my opinion, that no matter how old or young we are, we suffer from the same imperfections and we all stand to benefit from personal reflection.
– Jeffrey Hoffmann
The team was heading into game 5 of a holiday weekend tournament and the 6th game that the players had played, in total, over a 72 hour period. Their record during that time? They had won all 4 of the games in the tournament in resounding fashion 7-2, 7-0, 5-0 and 4-1. The only loss of the weekend came in a non-tournament game, where they lost 6-5 in a game that they, at one point, led 4-0. The had that game in the bag. Very little would have been required of them to seal the deal. They were the better team, by far. But, they lost 6-5. We would find ourselves in the championship game, in the same situation and reacting the same way: 4-0 lead, only to watch the score narrow to 4-3 by the middle of the third period. So, what was happening? And why am I writing about the one loss, and the few goals that they gave up, after a weekend where my boys’ team took first place in a AA hockey tournament and outscored the opposition 34-12? Well, that’s the easiest question to answer, ever: We learn more from our failures than we do from our successes. This lesson was all about the high cost of entitlement, and, what I learned from the loss and from the little bit of adversity that the team faced.
As coaches, we try to triage crises during games and talk our players through both game strategy and mental issues in real time. While we did that this weekend, It was’t clear to me what the real issue was, until the third period of the championship game. We were up 4-1, after a late 2nd period goal cut our lead down to three and we had dominated most of the game. The 3rd period started and the other team, building on a strong finish to the second period, came out flying and we… well, I’m not even sure that our players knew that the game had resumed. We didn’t match their intensity, at all. We played like… like we had already won. Then, the other team scored a goal and a terrible (and now familiar) thing happened: all of our players started to hang their heads. On the face of things, this makes zero sense. In the vacuum of, “we are leading 4-1, in the championship game, with more than two third’s of the game having been played – less than ten minutes to victory,” it is insane to imagine feeling defeated after giving up ONE GOAL. However insane it may be, none of the coaching staff were surprised. After all, we watched as they did the same thing in that game that they lost 6-5. We watched as they reacted the same way after going down 1-0, earlier in the day, only to come back and win 4-1. Why was a team that outscored their opponents 28-9 that weekend, hanging their heads in the championship game, while sporting a 4-1 lead? Then it dawned on me: They feel entitled. Not in a way in which they are even aware of, but on a subconscious level, they feel that they have already earned the win, by virtue of the efforts that had put in so far. They did the hard work for, like, half the game or more. Why doesn’t the other team just go away?! Like, don’t they know that they should just give up and let us win by now??? And whyyyyy are they making this soooooooo hard for us?!? It sounds funny when you think of it that way, doesn’t it? It was pretty funny to me, as I, and the other two coaches, tried to express to them the reality: the other team isn’t here so that you can beat them and feel good about yourself. they want to win, too!
It wasn’t so funny this morning, when I realized that I do the same thing; In life and in business. I’ve often felt like, I should get to take a victory lap. I’ve worked really hard and I’ve accomplished something; built something. Then, when I have worked until I feel like I have nothing left, I have this painful moment of realization: I have to do it all over again next month. There’s no time for a victory lap and there’s no permanent relief, just because you did it before. I don’t get to get mad at life because things didn’t go the way I wanted or planned. My previous success does not prevent my future failure, nor does it entitle me to coast on to the next victory. I am not immune from life’s adversity, self-inflicted or otherwise, by virtue of the fact that I, at one point (whether it was years ago, yesterday, or today), accomplished some goal or measure of success.
If we fail to understand this truth, we (along with our friends and family) are in for a rough ride. If you feel like you’re entitled to coast, entitled to the proverbial win, and you don’t get it, then it has to be someone else’s fault, right? because, you were entitled to it; someone had to wrongfully take it away from you, otherwise, you’d have received the benefit of “it.” So, once you get over the intense feeling of self pity, over the fact that someone has taken that to which you were entitled, you start to look around to see who it was that took it from you; to see whom you ought to blame. For our players, it goes back and forth between the officials (blown calls and goals that shouldn’t have counted and goals should have been awarded to us that were waived off… and on and on) and their teammates (why can’t he skate faster? Stop missing passes!!! What’s wrong with you?!? ARE YOU EVEN TRYING?!?). This is destructive for obvious reasons… all but one of which will have to be the focus of a different post. The one that matters, for the purposes of this post, is that these actions remove all personal responsibility from the individual player. There’s no, “what did I do, that I need to change,” in this thought process, because, in the player’s mind, the player was entitled to the win, based on what they had done up to this point. In life, the stakes are much higher, obviously. Is it the government’s fault? My friends? My spouse? My parents? The neighbors? The rich people? The poor people? You get the point. And, the reality is, any and all of those aforementioned people groups may have had a role in whatever difficult position in which you find yourself. However, there is little to which any of us are entitled. Furthermore, you can’t control the actions or the decision making of any of those people groups, but you can control yourself. You can change the thinking and the actions that contributed to whatever is weighing on your mind – making you wish desperately that there is someone to blame and that you don’t have to do the painful and difficult work of analyzing your own role, identifying the places that you went off the rails, and committing to make the changes required.
There are thoughts that we are aware we are thinking and there are thoughts, and even deeply held beliefs, that we possess and, of which, we are completely unaware. Unfortunately, the dangerous ones often seem to be the latter, as they fester and give rise to bitterness, resentment and discontentment, amongst other things – all of which we’d be better served by not having in our lives. The good news is that if we put in the effort, we will be able to identify those thoughts that lurk in the back of our minds and get some control over them so that we can stop wasting time feeling sorry for the predicament in which we find ourselves and focus on finding solutions within our control, instead of trying to find someone to blame.
thereluctantcommentator 