My Exploding Mind!!!!!

**** DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER**** ( This entry is not directed to ANYONE in particular, AND furthermore, the writer is making no claims of perfection or free from guile with regards to the statements made within this subject blog )    

  Many people will come and go into our lives. A few, however, will remain. Those that remain are our choice primarily, and their choice secondly. This is a 2 part equation.  A give and take.  Reason A: Because we CHOOSE to keep these individuals in our lives at a level higher than just a mere acquaintance. Reason B: Something about us has caused these individuals to want to keep us in their lives.
           The rest of the people, come and go like a passerby in the grocery store, or at the hair salon, or at your local restaurant.  We may notice them for awhile, then POOF, they are out of our sights, and thus, eventually, out of our minds.
           However, those that we keep in our lives; those that are more to us than a mere stranger passing us by, will all have their unique intricacies. We choose to keep them in our lives, amist any or ALL of their problems. This is the basis of this post. And so, I will keep this latter statement as a focal point of the rest of this entry.
                So then, why is it, people will become our friends, close or not, and then get upset or change the level of friendship because they don't like the way you truly are? I think a lot of people use the term " friend " loosely because either A) they are not comfortable with calling someone an acquaintance, or B) they don't want to seem or appear demeaning by only calling someone an acquaintance. Would this occur if being a friend is to accept a person for who they truly are? To me it is.
            To me, a friend is someone you can tell your biggest problems to, and they will not judge you. They will listen to you when you need it the most, and they will help you out at a moments notice. Also, they know that you will reciprocate the same towards them when they call upon you, and that you will do so lovingly and without question of what you will gain from helping them out.
            When we choose to keep certain individuals in our lives, it could be for several reasons. We like the way they dress, the way they make us feel, they way the interact with us, they are funny, they are smart, they are, as we used to say in the late 80's-early 90's, " cool " ( haha, who remembers using that word as a term of endearment to people we hung out with? ), they may have the same religious, economic, or political affirmations that we have; and so on and so on. The list truly can be endless.
             Lets take the religious reason as an example of thought, but not the only reason of explanation.  Lets presume you enjoy the company of Suzy Homemaker because she goes to the same church you go to faithfully, every week. Now, all of the sudden, for whatever reason Suzy decides to stop going to church. Does your friendship with Suzy change now because she no longer goes to church faithfully, or do you look past that aspect and continue to visit with her and her family, or have them over for supper/games/etc etc because your friendship is based deeper than a once a week meeting?
            What is bothering me, and is the general idea of this blog is that people now-a-days are getting to the point that they would have stopped being a friend to Suzy because she stopped going to church. Why? Because she no longer shares in the same ideas that you possess? So, then, was she truly ever a FRIEND, or was she just an acquaintance?
             We have all had a person in our live that we called a friend. Then for whatever reason, we have had to regrettably stop the consistency of that friendship ( ie jobs require people to move, marriages, high school is over, college is over, etc etc ). Yet, we truly find out how deeply these people are our friends when you can get back together after 6 months, 1 year, 10 years of separation from a particular person and pick everything back up as if they were only gone away from your life for only 2 days. To me, that is true definition of a friend.
              I know I am not perfect. I try to be, and I have my weaknesses, and I am publicly admitting that. However, I try my hardest to be the friend to those that I choose to keep in my life that I have spoken about in the previous paragraphs. I'm not seeking out for an applause, I'm trying to explain where I am coming from as well. So that, you the reader can call me out on it if I am failing.
              A true friend can do that. They can call you out when you are making mistakes and you, as a good friend to them, should have the moral fortitude to be able to look back and see if what they are saying is true or not.  Yet, would it be " calling out " as we all understand that phrase to be, or would be a checking in on someone to see if everything is alright with them? Perhaps they are going through a rough patch in their life, and so the situation is causing them to be unhappy/rude/ignorant/etc etc.        
            A true friend will not lie to you to make themselves feel better about themselves. However, isn't it the point of having a true friend to have a person in your life that will except you for who you are? What further annoys me is when you have someone who claims to be your friend, they take you for all your good and all your bad, and then change the friendship because they don't like your bad later on down the road.
             I know I have a lot of acquaintances in my life, and I have very few friends. The friends that I do  have in my life have been called that and held to that level of respect by my own doing. If they choose to not reciprocate that level of respect towards me, then I personally down grade their status to acquaintance, as it were.
              Why is it people will hold to a higher standard when it comes to being their friend, or to even have us in their life, and we meet their " criteria " to be considered a friend, but yet they don't hold themselves to the exact same standards towards us, that they expect us to be towards them? To me, that is hypocritical.
                As I sat and pondered the points that I wanted to make in this post, and trying to get my feelings out on this subject ( to which, I apologize to you reader if it seems as though I have whooped a dead horse repeatedly by now ); I was trying to think of an analogy that could be used to kind of bring it all into light and perspective. Perhaps people don't see how they treat others, because, lets be honest, it's hard to see the forest through the trees. One example that I came up with in my head was the following:
               Lets pretend for argument's sake that you met an individual that was upright, walked, always wore pants, even in the hottest of hot days in the summer, always wore tennis shoes, and seemed like an upstanding individual. You get to know this individual after months and months and a bond is forged. A friendship is formed. Months go by, this individual and yourself have gotten the families together for a BBQ, or gone out to eat, whatever the case may be. Then after almost a year of building a friendship and bond, this individual comes over and is wearing shorts, and you notice that they have prosthetic legs or them new metal ones that are being used by current war veterans.
                It is safe to presume that there will be a feeling of betrayal and mistrust now because this individual has never once spoken of their prosthetic legs until now. So now what happens? On one side of the coin, it could be presumed that their will now be judgments made toward this person, not wanting to hang out around them because you may be weird-ed out by this new discovery of information, so on and so on. But lets look at it from the individuals side as well. Why didn't they tell you before hand? Perhaps its because they didn't want to be treated like a cripple, or judged incorrectly, or even have had an issue be made because they have prosthetic legs. Now, what they have been trying for so long to avoid happens. Does the friendship and bond change? It very well could. Should it based on this new discovery of the individual? ABSOLUTELY NOT! You didn't learn to love and appreciate this individual because of their legs, or lack there of; but you learned to love them because of who they are. This is what I'm talking about folks. There was obviously a relationship built on the basis of who the person is, not what the person has or doesn't have extremity wise.
            In closing out this blog segment, I wish to add in as a reminder, that I am in no way claiming to be perfect. I have my faults, just as everyone else does. As a friend, I do honestly attempt and try my best to be the friend towards others as I would want to have in my life. The golden rule if you will. I wish to publicly thank my wife, without whom I would never understand truly what it means to have a best friend or good friend. She has tried tirelessly to keep me in line, but I like to color outside the lines from time to time. She seems to somehow keep being able to erase my coloring outside the line mistakes and rears me back in. She truly is a wonderful woman and I love her very much.
            To all my friends, I truly do love each and everyone of you, and I have made the mental choice to have you as a part of my life for each intricacy that makes you YOU. Please be good to each other, and respect one another.
                 

           

Week Ending 24 Apr 2011

                Well, to end this week, I’d like to start off by saying Happy Easter to each and everyone of you. As my wife and I were out and about the other day, I was absolutely amazed at the commercialization of this holiday now, and I’d dare say that it is right up there along with Christmas and Thanksgiving. For those of us that claim any form of Christianized belief, it is to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, the holiday has turned into a day of spending it with family looking for that mysterious rabbit who poops out eggs all over the lawn filled with sweets and coin to make the children happy.

                I have nothing against the celebration of Easter, but what I have an issue with is how commercialized it has become. We voluntarily decide to force feed a visit to the dentist eventually to our children, thus dipping into our back pockets even more, and making our children dislike us for making them go  to the dentist to take care of that cavity or two that we helped them acquire.

                Now, onto my thoughts of the week. With all that has been going on in the world lately, there has been 2 constants that I have found to be tested, tried, and still true. They are the love and support of my immediate family and friends  for my daily journeys in my new life, and Nutrex Research.  I will attend to the second subject in just a moment.  My endearing wife has been tortured on a daily basis by standing by and watching me climb on the scale to see if I have gained or lost any significant amounts of weight.  I think that is just about the only thing I’ve become OCD about since my surgery. Well, that and getting my ass into the gym. The poor lady has had to conform her previous life into my new one so as to not have to tax herself with the task of having to make multiple meals. Instead, she just incorporates what I can have into things that she will eat. For instance, she used to shirk at the thought of ground turkey over ground beef. Now, she loves the ground turkey much more than the ground beef.

                My friends have been supportive in that they see the changes that I don’t and compliment them quite frequently. Now, they could just be blowing smoke up my ass and trying to make me feel better, but quite honestly, I don’t keep friends like that. I try and surround myself around people who would be brutally honest with me than to keep those around who would lie to me just to prevent me from getting discouraged.  Having friends like that help me want to do better each week so that they can see for themselves that I am not wasting their compliments and so that they can know that their personal reinforcements are doing me well.

                Now, as for Nutrex Research. A few members of this worldwide organization stick out to me more than the rest. Not to say that they are more important, but their influence(s) are just on a grander scale to me, and me alone. Zack “ King “ Khan, Dave, and Nathalia Melo are the main ones. These three individuals are like a pack of wolves on a weak and dying 3 legged cat. The legged cat is all the obesity and out of shape's in the world. Zack has been such a powerful influence to his followers and fans this past year, that you can definitely tell that he is not working towards a full recovery for himself only, but also for his entire fan base. I think that if I lived in England, I would save up my weight loss in pounds ( not only what I lost, but the pound is the monetary system in England ) just to have the blessed opportunity to get some personal training with him. I think that having a 30 min training session with him would be absolute and priceless. All the suggestions and help that any one person could take away from that would reap that individual with a lifelong  of encouragement. So do you Zack, I say thank you to you for your efforts, and I pray that God may bless you with a healthy recovery mate.

                Dave @ Nutrex is the leader and admin individual for Nutrex’s fan page on Facebook.  He is on that thing Mon-Fri trying to give away free promotional items to its fan base just to give them encouragement to get their asses into the gym and do better for themselves. Yes folks, I said free and give away. If I could have multiple personalities, I would try and get everything I could from him for free. But then again, it does no good if it just sits on the shelf. The products actually have to be used to what their purpose is for. He is the leader of over  15,000 fans and he gives them, or at the least, the devout followers, inspiration and guidance.  He is an extremely supportive individual, and I’ve never seen him boast or brag about himself and his accomplishments. Perhaps, we the followers are his accomplishments. But from what I’ve gathered about him from various things he has said, he is a gym rat too. To Dave I say: You sir put the man in Gentleman amongst your peers and followers. I know that you have blessed so many lives, to include mine, with your generosity and I pray that you will be blessed for your efforts and never ending work.

                Nathalia is an IFBB Pro Bikini competitor and Fitness Model, and let me tell ya, she has the figure for it. She is inspiring to her fans and to the public. She is constantly doing meet n greets on behalf of Nutrex and handling out samples of their products so that others too may get on the healthy band wagon. She is also a competitor. She was ranked #5 in the top 10 most beautiful women for 2011 by FLEX magazine. I, myself, think that she was robbed by that ranking, but that is just my personal opinion. However, I don’t think I’m alone in this opinion, but obviously my opinion didn’t count in this decision. Such a sad day.

                These three individuals, along with a whole team of others, are out there determined to kill the beast of obesity to those that want to kill it. They are the arrowhead that adorns the arrow of health and fitness, and let me tell you folks,  that arrow is flying straight and true.

                In closing, I want to add that though we all have our issues to face on a daily fight, we each still have something that makes us want to get out of bed daily as well. Whatever  that  may be, find it, harness it, and use it against the rest of the people who want to beat you down and keep you down in the pits of misery along with them. That is a place losers live, and none of you are losers in my book. If you think you are, come talk to me, and I’ll help get that mentality out of you. Rise and shine above the rest and be recognized amoungst your friends and peers.