Sipping the Haterade

The following is a piece that was inspired by brainstorming my response to LeBron returning to the Cavs.  I am in the process of crafting a LeBron-specific piece (which will follow shortly), but unexpectedly, what started as a preface to LeBron turned into a whole separate piece about an essential aspect of sports fanaticism; hating...

Life is full of four-letter words.  Some are pleasant; others, not so much.  What I can say about four-letter words, or words with any number of letters for that matter, is that they have to be read or heard in context.  There may be universal perceptions of words, but most words usually carry more depth than their face value lets on.

Hate.  "Hate is a strong word," is a common response to the word's use.  "You're such a hater," is also a common response used to call someone out for being openly critical.  Hate is a four-letter word that carries a lot of weight, but also a lot of complexity.  Not unlike "love," hate communicates an extreme end of the emotional spectrum.  That said, it also communicates the next level of the word "dislike."  Think about it - you can love your spouse, pizza, USA Soccer, and your co-workers, but all in different capacities.  Well, shouldn't "hate" have the same elastic clause available to its use?

Hating can be evil, malicious, dark, and poisonous; but it can also be entertaining, communicative, and fun.  In fact, my message is about just how valuable hating can be in creating healthy and interesting competition.  I hate LeBron James, New York hates Boston, I hate VCU basketball, Madison Square Garden hates Reggie Miller, I hate Derek Jeter, and Bears fans hate Packers fans.  None of the above indicates a hope, wish, or desire for neither injury nor physical harm; rather, it describes the fanatical desire for competitive failure or struggle.

The sad thing is that in our current culture of "spreading the wealth around," over-sensitivity, pampering, and argumentative twenty-somethings with active social media accounts; healthy hating has become a crime.  This crime is usually portrayed through an accusation of "drinking the haterade."  A crime I'm happy to say I've committed plenty of times (as admitted above).  As an avid sports fan, my advocacy is for all of us to be able to hate in peace.  All's fair in love and war right?  So let the Sox hate the Yankees and the other Sox hate the Cubbies, let me hate Derek Jeter because he got drafted in the right place at the right time and owes the Yankees more than they owe him.  Let the Garden hate Reggie for all those clutch 3-pointers, and let Maryland fans hate JJ Redick for how money he was with that jumper (ok, it was a little harsh, but even he was smirking during those foul shots).  Let the Tide roll with hatred when they line up against Auburn in the Iron Bowl, and let Navy hate Army every December.  Let Duke fans hate Tyler Hansbrough's childish and whiny face, and certainly let Cleveland Cavs fans hate LeBron for the selfish, attention-seeking stunt he pulled in July 2010.

Hating is what makes fans (short for fanatics!) that much more passionate about purpose, rivalry, and high-stakes encounters.  But I beg you to hate realistically, because there is absolutely a threshold of moderation.  Please, please, please, never hate the way that Dodgers fans did to Bryan Stow in the parking lot, and never ever hate the way that Harvey Updyke did to those oak trees in Auburn.  The people who abuse the moderated zone of hatred, turn it into the evil word that we know it to be, and shouldn't be imitated or excused.  The abusers of hate however, as with most things, are in a minority and are not representative of everyone else.

That's not to say that there is no space for disapproval in sports either though.  In fact, for me, below the people who I "hate on" for fun, are the people that I "can't stand" for legitimate reasons.  The two that jump to mind involve the last two Super Bowl champions.  I couldn't stand watching Ray Lewis be glorified by the media and then hired by a Disney company, after being an accomplice to murder a decade earlier (innocent until proven guilty at its best).  And I also couldn't stand Pete Carroll being glorified as a "great man" for leading the Seahawks to a championship, but it being taboo to mention how he left the USC Trojans in shambles, particularly the student athletes who paid the price for his wrongdoing.  I may be criticized for my opinions on the things that I can't stand, and that's fine, but that's not haterade, that's trying to bring awareness to sad realities...and if you think it's just a case of me "hating" the Ravens or the Seahawks winning, you are sadly mistaken.  I loved seeing O.J. Brigance win that trophy, and seeing Russell Wilson perform at the highest level.

To be honest, I can truly say I am thankful for the players who have allowed me to hate for fun.  Thank you LeBron, for not being Ray Lewis, and just being someone I could root against on the court and laugh at your childish TV special.  Thank you Rex Ryan for not being Pete Carroll, and just being an over-confident, foot-loving coach who I could make fun of because you were in my division.  You see, any true sports fan knows that haterade is part of the game, and it makes it fun.  And the best case scenario is that you never have actual reasons to hate somebody, rather, just an annoying player that you can hate like you hate Mondays.

Just because some people taint the use of alcohol, do you stay sober?  Just because some people drive recklessly, do you always hold the needle on the speed limit?  And just because some people hate with evil, does it mean that you can't pour passion into your fanhood?  I certainly hope not.  So don't go around chugging haterade beyond reason, but I'd hate to see all the fun you'd miss out on if you didn't at least take a moderated sip.

Zoom Out

This isn’t one of those pieces about “appreciate your finances, because there are poor people in the world.”  While that’s very true and you should count your blessings, that message is repeated quite often, so I’ve got something else for you to appreciate.

I don’t know if I’m ever going to catch it.  You know, that feeling we all chase as if we can finally be “caught up” in life.  To-do lists - we all have several of them.  Sure there’s the “work” to-do list, but what about the “you” to-do list…yea, that’s the one that we really never catch.

Breaking The Mold

So it's almost been a quarter of a century that I've been kickin' it on this planet and I've learned two solid facts.  Life is a funny thing and the world is a funny place.  I currently find myself at one of those proverbial forks in the road, and it has recently led me to take a step back and just stare for a little bit.

Life is funny because it is totally unpredictable.  Like the weatherman predicting rain for this entire week only to have the sun beam beautifully every day, you can have expectations or even "sure things" planned in your life, but it really only takes one second to change it all.  Even right now, before I finish this post, my phone could ring with great news about x, y, or z and I would be on top of the world; or it could ring with bad news about the health of a family member and I would be devastated beyond reason.  Between the moment the phone rings, and the moment that I actually hear the news, my entire life could be changed.  And that is why life is funny - because the only way to figure it out is to live it.

The world is funny because the world doesn't know what it wants.  If the world was a man, I would describe him as hypocritical, indecisive, or dramatic.  I think of two phrases here, "less is more" and "silence is golden."  In recent years these phrases have helped me to bite my tongue more often than not, and I'm glad for that.  I have realized that you add more value to what you say, based on the infrequency with which you say it.  Like paper flyers used as advertisements, anything that is too frequent becomes routinely tuned out.  I've also come to believe that you should not proclaim things that have not yet come to you.  Again, less is more and silence is golden.  Not to go biblical on you guys, but there is a gospel passage where Jesus tells us that when arriving to a table with two seats open, leave the one to His right side open, and sit in the seat at the far end of the table.  Better to sit at the far end and be called to the Lord's right side, than to sit near the head of the table and be told that you are in the wrong chair.  Ok, I'm done with analogies, I think you get the concept by now.  My point is that I don't think the world plays by these rules.  The world thinks that any time he has something on his mind he can say it, without reservation.  The world is a flake.  He sets these standards and expectations, he tells us to abide by a cultural code and how there is a common path we all need to travel.  But then he also encourages us to walk off the beaten path, and define our own destiny.  The world has no concrete values, he changes them based on each and every situation, to the extent that if we as people rely on the world, we are stashing money in a bottomless pocket.  And that is why the world is funny - because he is the first to talk, but the last to act.

Another thing that is funny to me is how as I've gotten older, I've started to place more value in the meaning of Disney movies.  For instance, I'm pretty confident that as we age, we all can understand pretty well why Peter Pan doesn't want to leave Neverland.  Who would want to leave Neverland?  Simply put, Neverland is the shit.  To leave is to become part of the world, part of a system, part of the man that always talks but never acts.  My intent here is not to exaggerate, because I know that there are countless men and women who are more than happy with their lives, who are successful, and who have great families.  That being said though, there's nothing quite like Neverland - there's really no rules, no stress, and no settling for less.

I firmly believe that the world has norms because he is insecure.  We create standards as a society because we are too afraid to make our own decisions.  Then, we get so accustomed to those norms that life carries on as plainly and complacently as Pleasantville.  It is at that point when the world changes his mind, and he tells us to be different.  He tells us to fill ourselves with color among this world of black and white.  He tells us that we should be breaking the mold.

The truth is, I agree with the world on this point.  We should be breaking the mold, because that is truly how evolution is implemented.  One generation uses the norms of the previous generation as a foundation to building their own brand new norms.  That is how animals and bacteria evolve, so why not us?  Well there is a significant problem with the evolution of humans - the ego.  Animals and bacteria can evolve easily because it seems to be a purely natural process rooted in biology.  Our evolution as a species is rooted more in our intellect than anything else, so our emotions naturally become involved.  The most keen observation I've made in my life is that more often than not, the people who walked the road before us don't like it when we try to walk further than them, because if they couldn't do it, why should we be able to?  And so that brings us back to Pleasantville, where everything is black and white, and life is the way it's always been.

The core issue here is that most of us have lost the ability or awareness to break the mold.  I think for that to change, we need to learn how to break our own personal molds before we worry about the societal ones.  That brings me back to my fork in the road - a fork that I'm sure people graduating from any level of education (or life for that matter) face more often than not.  The fork of "where do I go from here?"  There could be two paths in front of you, or there could be 20; so how do you choose?  We receive all types of influence while staring down the fork in the road - influence from friends, family, mentors, and the world himself.  The world tells us to dream, but not too big; to challenge ourselves, but not beyond reason; to avoid paths that are too safe, but also ones that are too risky; and to do something we love, but only if we get paid well for it.

I'm starting to believe that the world wants us to be "different" then the norm, but only the type of "different" that exists within the norm.  And if we want to be more than permissibly different, the world tells us that it can't be done because it hasn't been done that way before.  What it comes down to is that I think we have lost track of what it truly means to be a pioneer.  The people who created the acceptable form of today's "different" were making it up as they went, probably to the tune of many nay-sayers.  So what is the bigger challenge for today's emerging adults?  Is the true test the one that has you travel a direction that you've never walked before?  Or is it the one that has you find out if you have what it takes to master one path before jumping to another?

Maybe, just maybe, the boldest step to be taken by anyone at a fork in the road is to walk down the path that you can hear calling your name.  And to others, this path may be too safe, too dangerous, too plain, or too complicated; but that's why they get to choose their own paths as well.  The people who we look to for guidance and wisdom got to where they are because they followed the wind down the path that they knew was for them.  So perhaps it's helpful to gauge what our mentors might see; but at the end of the day the best way to truly break the mold society has placed us in, is to face our paths on our own, listen for the wind, and simply start walking.

Pay It Forward

May I please have a McChicken sandwich, a chipotle BBQ chicken wrap, and a medium vanilla milkshake?  That right there, ladies and gentlemen, is my go-to order when I pull up to a McDonald's drive-thru window.  And as we approach this first Monday of April, I am more excited about it then I have ever been.

Now, given that I've got a half-marathon coming up on May 2nd, I have no intention of eating McDonald's until I wake up from my post-race collapse.  That being said, why then would I  be excited about my McDonald's order on Monday, April 5th?  The answer is - I am excited about my order because of what I will be doing with it.

This Monday, many of Major League Baseball's teams will kick off their home schedules with Opening Day festivities.  Opening Day is one of the most popular days on the sports calendar because it is a fresh start, a clean slate for all teams.  It is the sign that Spring has sprung, and every team, even the Washington Nationals, are mathematically tied for first place on Opening Day.  I am excited to say that I will be attending my first Opening Day game ever, at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, where the Pittsburgh Pirates will host the Los Angeles Dodgers.  I am excited for the atmosphere, the excitement, the energy, the weather, and everything in between.  Again though, I remain equally as excited about my McDonald's order.

Opening Day is likely to be the one day in the entire 162-game season where every game will be a sell-out, meaning that there will be a maximum amount of people flocking to baseball stadiums, this Monday. 

Since moving to Pittsburgh this past August, I have developed a running course that often takes me over the Roberto Clemente (6th Street) Bridge, and past PNC Park.  When the weather was good, and a few times when it was bad, I would notice less fortunate, potentially homeless individuals sitting on the bridge asking for some donations.  Some of them entertained with instruments, and others just greeted you with a smile, hoping for some help.  Every time I ran by, I had nothing but my I-Pod, and I always felt bad about having nothing to offer.  And so I decided that this Monday, when I am walking across the bridge to the ballpark, for an experience that is likely to make my day - I will take my favorite meal from McDonald's with me, and give it to the first needy person I see on that bridge...in hopes of making their day.

It's perhaps ironic that I will have the opportunity to "pay it forward" on a bridge that was named after a man who knew how to pay it forward with the best of them.  For those of you who don't know, Roberto Clemente, though famous for his on-field accomplishments, was even more famous for the way he left this world - in a plane crash, while flying to deliver supplies to the needy.  And so in the spirit of Roberto Clemente, and in light of the fact that so many people will be walking across streets and bridges alike to arrive at their Opening Day destination - I ask and encourage all fans reading this, who plan to attend an Opening Day game this Monday, to make it a day of paying it forward.  On your way to the ballpark, stop at McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, KFC, or even your favorite local pizza place, grab your favorite meal, and then when you get close to the stadium, spot the person that needs the food more than you do, and pay it forward.

Still need convincing? Well, there's no better way to save yourself some calories then by making someone's day.  And odds are, in giving up that favorite meal of yours to someone who really needs it, you will probably enjoy that meal more than you ever have.

So please take the time to pay it forward this Monday, and "be the difference." Thank you.

True Heroes

So I waited with great anticipation as the clock hit 11:59 on Tuesday night, June 23rd. It was time for the midnight premiere of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen - the sequel to the summer 2007 blockbuster hit, Transformers.

In light of the fact that we just celebrated our 233rd year of independence as a nation, I find it fitting to point out a theme that I saw in the movie. Over the last few decades, countless movies have used the concept of the military, or war, as a tool for setting or character development. Most recently, movies like Transformers, Iron Man, Wolverine, and the upcoming G.I. Joe, all use military personnel with some of their main characters.

It's funny because I've always had a personal aspiration to join the military for a period of time and serve my county, but somehow I consistently find myself occupied with a different ambition, and wonder if I will ever take the time to walk the walk and sign up. Without a doubt, the military aspiration resurfaces when watching action-packed, military-themed movies, because quite frankly Hollywood makes it look awesome. I'm sure this is the same for many movie-goers, who watch a military-based action flick and come out with adrenaline pumping through their veins and ready to sign on the dotted line.

This brings me to my main idea. These actors, the ones who play the generals, lieutenants, sargeants, and even basic infantry, they get to take all the credit. They get to provide inspiration. They get to be a young man's motivating factor to join the military. And most unfair of all, they get to be the heroes.

Why do I say unfair? Well it is no doubt that most of us consider U.S. Military personnel to be heroes because of their selfless ways, but we will never know them. Instead, the closest demonstration of heroes that we get are the well groomed, perfectly rehearsed, studs; who get to play soldiers on the big screen. They get to have fun doing stunts and taking credit for the 18-year-olds who are out there truly putting their lives on the line.

And so the point here is not to take away the quality of acting or amount of time that goes into making these blockbuster films so breath-taking and inspiring. In fact, I applaud director Michael Bay, who has used films like Transformers, Bad Boys, and The Rock, to highlight the efforts of civil servants, and probably inspired countless movie-goers to actually sign up with a recruiter. However, it's important not to forget; not to forget the true heroes who don't get the big paycheck, or the big screen popularity. In the aftermath of celebrating Independence Day, let us take time to note that without our men and women in uniform, we would not be an independent nation with the ability to have so many freedoms; freedoms such as being able to go see a movie like Transformers without having to worry for our safety on the way there. Freedoms such as being able to choose between being a high-paid, famous actor, and being an unknown soldier who risks his life everyday for the country he loves.

Never forget. Please, never forget.

Playing The Drums

Playing the drums. Something I've always wanted to do, but never really had the time or the patience to learn. I have however, over time, learned some basic concepts of playing the drums incase I were ever to embark on such an endeavor. Recently I've found a new desire to play the drums; except now I hope to master the drums of life instead of the real ones.

I suppose I could qualify as someone who is anal-retentive; I'm a traditional list-maker, I prefer to have a plan more often than not, and the organization of my environment is key to my functionality. The problem with being dependent on organization is that if you become too focused on the idea itself, you lose focus of the things that really matter.

I have narrowed my life tasks down to two categories; things I need to do that are time-sensitive, and things that I want to do that could be time-sensitive, but wind up not being so as an excuse to procrastinate. What kind of way is that to live? It's a terrible way to live. You are letting your tasks define you, and their time-sensitivity dictate your actions...you've essentially become a robot. I look no further than myself to find someone guilty of this crime. I mentioned my two categories that I live by, and I have recently tried to solve my problem of needs-based prioritization. I made one big list, a list with several bullets; one for each commitment in my life (i.e. work, school, club x, club y, club z, etc...). Under each bullet are sub-bullets for specific tasks within that commitment - it is a good way to make sure that nothing gets forgotten. At the bottom of the list is my "other" bullet, which is composed of the things that I want to do. As much as this list is helpful, as much as it keeps me focused, how can I get away from it and stop letting a piece of paper define and predict me?

Enter the drums.

When playing the drums you first need to establish a rhythm. A simple, noticeable, and consistent rhythm. That rhythm is your 'home' for the song, and is always your fallback. In life, your rhythm is your routine; the time you wake up, the place you go on a Tuesday night, the time you eat your meals, the time you go to bed. Now I know that there are those people who hate routines and would curse the idea of them until the end of the world, but I challenge you to bear with me because you see, your routine is just your rhythm, it's not the whole song.

So after you get the rhythm down and you can sit there and jam out with it all day, now what? Now you are free to experiment. You've got your rhythm so set that you can play it with your eyes closed and without even thinking about it; the same way you will feel about your routine once you've made it into habit. Now go ahead and mix it up - hit the cymbals three times, throw in some cowbell, or give the base and extra tap or two. Translate that into your life - rediscover and old hobby, catch up with a long lost friend, try a new activity or distraction that you've always been interested in. Maybe you like that base hit so much that you incorporate it into your rhythm, or maybe you don't so you try something different next time. If you do incorporate it, go back to just playing your rhythm until you've mastered that new part, and then start experimenting again until you've made a whole song. That complete song, the compilation of your rhythm and the experimental hits that allow you to explore the drums and their full capacity...that is your life, and what a life it is.

And so I hope to master my own song, but first I've got to find my rhythm. To do that I am going to do whatever it takes to wipe this to-do list clean. As much as the list dictates and predicts who I am, as long as it exists it remains in control. All I can do is man up, take on the list and finish it. If you don't clean the room, how are you ever going to find your way to the drum set?

Many of us need that rhythm in our lives, but are too busy dwelling in self-pity to clean up the room and get to the drum chair. So clean up that mess, create that rhythm, and then make your song. Once you've done that, then you can start inviting people over and teaching them how to play the drums. Before you know it, you'll be jammin' out like there's no tomorrow. And the fact of the matter is that you'll be so good on those drums that if there really were no tomorrow it wouldn't even matter, because you'll be goin' out playing the song of your life.

So go play your drums and get that rhythm going as soon as you can. Because the truth is that time waits for nobody and it stinks to be owned by a piece of paper; and wouldn't it just be a shame for your time to be up, and the room to still be messy. I can imagine no worse feeling than having to leave the room never knowing how good I might have been on the drums...