CAUTION: Society at Work

I was really annoyed yesterday. I was at work, went into the school office and while i was there the new therapist came in. The new therapist noticed this sign on the office managers desk. Of course the office manager was very proud of her sign and showed it off. I wasn't so impressed. I had seen it before and of course it had bugged me. I wanted to say "That's funny because if men defined work like women do we'd still be stuck in the dark ages" or something of that effect, but i just mumbled something incomprehensible about women's definition of work and went on because ultimately if i had made a comment i would likely have gotten into trouble.

Isn't it funny... not so much... that if a woman says something insulting about men it's called a joke and tends to get comments like "That's so true". However, if a man insults women he's called rude, sexist, and/or inappropriate. If i had posted a sing like that only the other way around at my desk it could get me either severely reprimanded or fired. Why is that? Why is it that in our society it's all right for women to treat or speak like men are crap, but no man is allowed to do the same? Needless to say, i have more than a few ideas.

But what bothers me more than that these kinds of social acceptabilities exist is what kind of effect this has on our growing young men. What does it tell them? "It's all right for women to put down and insult men, but not for men to say anything negative about women." Why is that? Because masculine tendencies and behavior are wrong? Because men are somehow less and deserving of insult? Every single boy and young man that goes into that office is there because how they are expressing themself, as a guy, is considered by society to be inappropriate and unhealthy. How do things like that sign help them to improve themselves?

Development or Acheivement

The other day i was talking to someone who had a printed t-shirt. You know the kind... with spiffy slogans that are supposed to be cool/cool looking. Well, it took me a minute to understand what it was saying because it was using those funky < signs that you used in math and could never remember whether they meant "greater than" or "less than". So after a minute or two i figured out that this t-shirt was saying "action is less than development is less than acheivement" or as origionally printed

action < development < acheivement.

(At least i think the first word was action) It took me all of about 10 seconds to realize how messed up that was. Sure i agree for the most part that action is less than development and acheivement, but the idea that development is somehow less than acheivement seemed somewhat misleading.

To put this into perspective let me give you a couple of examples.
Attempting to memorize and learn more scripture < (is less than) successfully reciting John 3:16 100 times.
Practicing, learning, and then losing a game of soccer against a team of pro's < beating a group of 6 year olds at kickball (assuming of course that you're over the age of 9).
Attempting to lose 10 pounds and only losing 8 when you're 20 lbs overweight < sucessfully eating a whole chocolate cake.
Putting all of your effort into a game then losing is less than putting some effort into it, cheating, and acheiving victorious

These examples are obviously less than perfect and arguments could be made the other way, but you get the drift.

The point of all of this (well, one of them anyways) is that quite often we have slogans for ourselves, whether we wear them on our shirts or make them our life mottos, that we don't really think through. They sound good and seem good in concept but in reality they cause problems at the expense of ourselves and those around us. And the funny thing is that our society oftentimes teaches us these unhealthy mottos/themes/slogans without thinking about the consequences. Take the t-shirt manufacturer. The idea that development is less than acheivement sounds cool on a t-shirt, but what is it really saying?

Got eBay? Take 2!

Well, while Lori was bummed about her little project not working the way that she had planned she she came up with a great new idea. She spent all last night taking all 10 of her solid color jars, dividing the flowers up, and created sample jars of 120 flowers each covering the entire Prima "Got Flowers?" spectrum. She figured that many people would rather buy one sample jar with all of the colors than dole out $6 or more for 120+ of just one color (with 3 shades).

No one on e-bay had done this and she knew that it was a great idea and that many people would want them. So she got it all ready and was only waiting to figure out what postage would be before posting them. She planned on posting them after church this afternoon. Well, she got on right after lunch and, low and behold, someone had already taken her idea. Boy was she bummed. So now both of her great ideas were either undoable or taken.

Well, she still posted them, and within about a half-hour she had an initial bid on them. So time will only tell whether this will work out for her or not.

By the way, she has two auctions going now for these sample jars. The first is a five day auction, and the second is a seven day auction.

Got eBay?

Well, my wife was really excited recently. She really enjoys scrapbooking and has gotten some of these Prima "Got Flowers?" in a jar. Well, most places are sold out of them due to high demand, so she was looking at them on eBay. She realized that she could actually make a little bit of a profit if she bought a case and sold them "buy it now" style. (She wanted to do it listed as "buy it now" because when these flowers go for the normal auction they tend to go for a good deal less.) So we talked about it for awhile and decided that even if it didn't work out and she did lose money on it, it wasn't going to break the bank or anything.

So she ordered these flowers and was really excited about them coming and venturing into the world of eBaying for profit. She took the pictures of the flowers and planned what she was going to write. She was all set to go and started posting when she found out... she couldn't do "buy it now". Our eBay rating had not yet reached the required minimum. She was devestated. So now she has to sell them auction style, thus at this rate she may or may not cover her initial expense. She posted an auction for 35 large Mixed Brights and 35 large Mixed Vintage (pictured above).

However, she has decided to be a little creative and try something that hasn't been done yet that is almost guaranteed to succeed... in theory. So we will see.

Time & Priorities

There's quite a bit on my mind, as usual, but i'm having a hard time accessing it, as usual again. Do you ever have that problem? It's all there, ready to get to, ready to access, and yet you just can't reach it. I feel like a hard drive with a bad sector. The information is there, but i just can't get to it. Fun, ain't it!

One of the things i have been thinking about lately is how we live our lives in our time and priorities. It's easy to get going in life, get into the groove of things, and get upset that we don't have time to do one thing or another. Whether it be posting in our blog, reading a book that we started but haven't finished, getting work done, taking care of things around the house, or any number of a hundred other things that we would like to do but don't quite get around to. We only have a certain amount of time to get everything done. Yet every person has the same amount of time in a day, the same number of days in a week, and the same weeks in a year.

What separates the average Joe apart from the C.S.Lewis's, George Bush's, and Billy Graham's is (among many other things) how they spend their time. A great writer spends their time learning about and processing the subject that they want to write about, and writing. Oftentimes this comes at the expense of other things such as family, friends, and entertainment. Anyone can write a book. Anyone can become a politician. Anyone can become a preacher. Anyone can do any of these things if they are willing to take the time.

But how many great people have given up on becoming a great social figure in order to become a great person in their home? How many possibly great world leaders have given that up to instead be great parents and spouses, serving in their homes? And how many great parents and spouses have given that up to be great television watchers, videogamers, internet junkies, and gossipers? It's all about time & priorities...

...Just something to think about.