March 12, 2009
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The Daily News
1 I took last night off.
2 Ever do that?
3 You just tell the rest of the world, "Hey, need time for meself. Sorry!"
4 That was me yesterdee.
5 Once in a while the stress gets to you and you have to tell the rest of the world, "Sorry."
6 Amazingly, the world has lots of goodly sorts who will understand instantly when those times approach.
7 There's something fundamentally wrong with the world nowadays, almost as though someone had decided that they own you.
8 They don't.
9 But in the past five years I've noticed a trend that has everybody I know jumping through multitudinous hoops and feeling that somehow they must give their lives over to something other than their friends and families.
10 That's a buncha boushit.
11 For the past three years I've had outside forces trying to dominate my personal life, and I've allowed it.
12 Last night I decided that enough was enough.
13 I sorta broke down.
14 Not in a psycotic fashion or anything, just in a "I've had enough!" fashion.
15 We've all been there.
16 it didn't matter where I turned, somehow everyone else's agenda somehow bullied its way into being my own top priority.
17 Meanwhile, my Mom and Dad had to take a back seat to the rest of the world. I found myself telling them that I would get to them as soon as I could, even though my Mom is paralyzed, going through her third straight year of health concerns, and my Dad has cancer and other health concerns, besides taking care of her whenever he can.
18 But somehow, my daily life has been to do everything I can for the next guy who comes down the pike.
19 I'm not talking about good friends, family, or alumni. I'm talking specifically about people related to my job, which is really just the means of providing for everyone I love.
20 At what point in life did our jobs become more important than our personal lives?
21 Several years ago I formed a club called The Goof-Off Club. It consisted predominantly of my nearest and dearest family and friends.
22 We all decided to protest our work lives and goof off during the day. I would throw out a topic and ten to twelve people would come back with ten responses. For example, one of the first topics was this:
"Who got issues?"
23 For almost three years the GOC spent every single day coming up with ten funny replies, and most of our work days centered around NOT letting the bastards in charge of our lives run things all the time.
24 The basic premise was that we would get work done, and do our jobs, but that we would also devote most of our daily lives to one another instead of to some company, or to some school or outfit that the second times would get rough, would just as soon dismiss us without blinking.
25 I'm quite tempted to do that again. It was a hoot! I'm guessing everybody who reads the DN could spend their entire day coming up with ten people who got issues.
26 With twelve people, we would do our jobs, and every half hour check in to our e-mails and someone would have a new list, which would be hilarious and unique. There would be feedback, which would pretty much get us through the day, every day, for almost three years.
27 The Bush got elected.
28 I love to blame everything on that little bastard.
29 Somehow, the company store took over, and the GOC slowly faded. We still maintain contact, of course, but for a few years we decided that WE were more important than that customer, or parent, or boss who wanted to come in and dominate our lives.
30 We all STILL feel the same way.
31 So I'm revving up to start that all over again.
32 I'm encouraging you to start it as well.
33 Tough times require goof-offs and humor. It's a brave move towards giving sanity back to the world.
34 Start goofing off.
35 The Revolution is here.
36 I don't know about you, but I've had it with these bastids.
37 Start goofin', you'll live a whole helluva lot longer.
38 Peace.
~H~
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