Two GUARANTEED ways to NEVER be bored again

Get a smartphone

No matter where you are or what you’re doing you will always be able to occupy yourself in a wonderful variety of ways.

You got your phone, email, song library, camera, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pandora, podcasts, Angry Birds, weather radar, TED videos, sports blogs, news, plus anything that pops into your head you can immediately research to discover that the movie with the circus horse that jumped off the tower into the water was called “Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken.”

In line at the DMV, the Walgreens, the stop light (honk!)? Waiting at the doctors office or in the car while hubby runs into Home Depot? You’ll never complain about any long wait again.

AND, best of all, you’ve got a built in distraction to keep you from #2.

#2.

Embrace the reason you were put on this earth.

Not sure what that reason is? #1 can keep you distracted from discovering that, too.

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Your very own art gallery

After Clarence died, I watched a bunch of Bruce Springsteen videos, reliving my appreciation for the band and their music. Problem was, for several days I could not get the songs out of my head. I got really sick of it. It’s not that the message of Badlands, Born to Run, and Thunder Road are bad, it’s just that once the videos are over, I’d like to think of something else.

It doesn’t work that way.

The inside of my head is an art gallery, and what I expose myself to gets hung on my mind’s wall. The longer I expose myself to it and dwell on it, the longer it hangs in the gallery. I really got tired of those paintings and wanted to take them down, but couldn’t.

The gallery is always open and something is always on those walls. All you can do is expose yourself to something new and dwell on that, so the old art is replaced with the new.

This can end up really working to your advantage – just dwell on the thing you want to be influenced by most, and the gallery will take care of the rest.

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The scariest words in the world

It’s so easy to go crazy. To lose your steadiness, your discipline.

I bought a bag of Utz Salt & Pepper potato chips. For two days I gobbled them. We had friends over, but I didn’t want to put those chips out to share. Wanted them for myself.

It wasn’t just the chips, it was how I felt about them. I desired them, had to have them. Now, not later. That’s lust, right?

Then, out of my mouth came the words that have preceded the downfall of men and women since the beginning of men and women. These words have opened the door to trouble and heartache and regret for so many people in so many ways.

“I’ll be good later.”

That’s when you know you’re over the edge.

Later never comes, or, when it does, it’s too late. And just in case later IS coming early, you hurry up and eat the chips before you have time to think about it. Before your conscience can work up any momentum. “Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame.”

That’s the beginning. The end is at the mercy of God. And God’s mercy can be a train wreck, if the only way to stop the train you’re on is to wreck it.

It’s way easier to stay steady than to get back to steady.

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Ask while you can

Tommy was my brother-in-law. He died about 25 years ago. He was a gentle, generous man to my wife, the little sister of his wife.

Tommy was a car salesman all the years I knew him. I had heard he was a boxer in a previous life, but I never asked him about it. I guess it wasn’t interesting to me at the time. I had my own stuff going on, with kids, being unemployed, and all that beer I had to drink.

Recently, we had a big family get-together for a few hours and Tommy’s wife and daughters were there. As we were leaving they brought out a scrapbook the girls created for their mom.

It was filled with clippings and stories and photos of Tommy’s boxing career. Photos with Jack Dempsey. Tommy was a little guy, a Golden Gloves amateur. He lost only 4 of his first 36 fights. He won the California State Featherweight title. He fought in Madison Square Garden, Boston Garden, and the Cotton Bowl.

His family has a gold badge giving them lifetime admission to any Golden Gloves event.

I never knew

I’d love to ask Tommy about that fight with Ricardo Moreno. It was Moreno’s first fight in America, and 6,000 of his fans from Mexico filled the stadium. Another 2,000 were turned away.

What was that like, to have everyone booing you and rooting against you, screaming for another guy to clobber you? What was it like in the dressing room after you lost?

And when you were knocked out in the first round of your last fight, did you know at the time it was your last? Why’d you retire? You were only 24.

I’ll never know

* * *

You don’t have forever to ask questions, to be curious, to care. Things change fast, and when they do it’s permanent. Your chance to make a first-hand connection with someone’s heart, life, and story, evaporates. Instead of a flesh-and-blood, eyeball-to-eyeball encounter with a scene from your family movie, you get to stare at flat yellow clippings in a scrapbook. If there is a scrapbook. Your loss.

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