Unique, Just Like Everyone Else…

  Are you old enough to remember the hippies of the 60's?  Remember how they all wanted to be unique?  Almost sad how they invariably looked just like all the other hippies!

  In our souls we all yearn to be unique, but most of us yield to the illusion of safety offered by the crowd.  We too often allow the spokesmen of our society to form our thoughts and attitudes, yet we increasingly suffer from laziness, particularly mental. 

  I would like for network news to cease the endless editorializing.  What's so hard in just reporting the news and letting us make up our own minds?  It's a control issue, and inwardly a secret part of you already knows this.  Don't you sometimes find yourself angry at being just another government cow?  What will they do with you when you run out of milk?  I think you know the answer to that one, too.

  My brother the social militant, seems to voice the opinion that citizens with guns will keep America strong.  I used to espouse that line, but now I think we don't have enough collective guts in this country to be a viable threat to any kind of tyrany.  First, we would have to do enough independent thinking to identify it. 

  Sometimes and sadly, I see us as a long line of lemmings being systematically moved to the edge of the cliff.  Along the way we are robbed and enslaved, and by the time we reach the cliff we have totally lost the ability or desire to indeed be unique, and have become like the hippies, just like all the others. 

  Look at nature.  How much "sameness" do you see?  Other than enough similarities to see the groups, nothing is the same in nature.  Absolutely nothing is identical.  Think of it – our very own planet screams that we are unique, even while we struggle to maintain the comfortable "sameness" pushed on us by our society.  

  With this in mind consider the Battle of the Sexes.  We never really got very far from our playground days (show me yours and I'll show you mine…).  Oops, I think I just distilled most Hollywood plots!!

  Guess what?  Men and women are indeed different, and no amount of understanding or sensitivity is going to make it any less diametric.  We are different.  Period.  Sometimes very different.  Why do we think this needs fixing?  Here's another news flash for you:  we were always supposed to be different – and it was supposed to be a Good Thing.  Some wise person once said that although he didn't understand electricity, it didn't keep him from enjoying it. 

  Well, I don't understand a woman's viewpoint sometimes; at all, but just maybe the fact that they are different I should consider a blessing, rather than a curse.

   So here's where this gets me:  within the limits of safety and agreed upon moral standards (yes, we really do need them), why can't we try to enjoy the differences rather than fight the battle to control them?  If you believe in Creation I think you must end up here.  And if you don't believe in Creation, ask yourself this:  how come with all our advancements, our human natures have remained unchanged over the centuries?

Value of the Commonplace

  As I drove to work today I let my mind loose.  It wandered around and finally came back with an idea, namely, the value of the commonplace. 

  As my boss often says, everybody wants to feel "special".  Of course, his focus is on sales, and the importance of making customers feel that way.  He's right.  We do want to feel special.  To satisfy this need we strive every day to achieve some sense of importance.  Where do you feel important?  Some feel important around the house or at work.  We usually feel important within our various comfort zones, i.e., areas of competence.  That's why we label them "comfort zones".  It is comfortable to feel important.  We like to matter.

  But what do we do when for no discernable reason we have a day that seems to focus our attention on the unimportant?  What about those days when we are convinced we don't matter?  I'm sure you've had those days; we all have.  You know how it goes, "I could have just stayed in bed today, for all it mattered", or "I feel like I'm not doing anything that really has significance; my life is being wasted". 

  Perhaps the real problem is our inability to realize our true value, rather than the false value we create for ourselves.  Let me illustrate this by mentioning my dog.  Now I know Max is only a regular dog to most of the planet.  He's probably not too exceptional in any way – just a dog.  Like your dog.  Nothing special there.  But you see, I love Max (most of the time), and because I do love him, he gains derived value.  Now Max probably doesn't understand that, and I'm sure he has days feeling left out (literally) and unimportant, but that simply is not the truth.  The truth is: he is loved, and because he is loved, that love gives him immeasurable value.  See where I'm going with this?

  We too are loved and valued, but like Max we get caught up in trying to create our own worth.  And on days, when we sense how meaningless the struggle, we suffer from feelings of decreased worth.  Ambushed by our nature, we fail to recognize the immense worth we already have.  We fail to recognize it because we don't understand it. 

  Here are the facts of the case: we have incredible worth and value because we are incredibly loved.  Concurrent with this is the fact that we will never understand it.

  Maybe we just need to accept the facts and decide to be grateful for the gift, for a gift it is – we know deep down we never earned it.

Dry Heat – vs – Wet Heat

  I think the summer has begun in Estes Park.  It's about 90 degrees today and sunny.  According to the weather channel, the humidity is 13%.  Pretty hot.  With this in mind, I think back to my Missouri and Kansas days, where the humidity was usually as high as the temperature during the summer.  In several short years I've become so spoiled! 

  Just yesterday I went down to "the valley" (Loveland/Ft. Collins) to gas up and do lunch.  Nobody but the desperate would ever buy gas in Estes.  The humidity in Loveland could be felt!  Outrageous!  Mind you, it was still dry, just hot.  In Kansas it would be a wet, sweaty and debilitating heat.  I should probably quit my complaining.  It took me a whole two years to get Kansas out of my system enough to even know when it was humid!  

  It was so hot in the valley that my wife asked if my truck came with air conditioning.  She didn't want to use it, just checking.

  We also went on a short, non-strenuous hike in Rocky Mountain Park.  Several of the photos I took there I added to my photo page on my website.   It's so pretty there that most of the scenery photos look like a phoney, Sears backdrop.

  So here's my challenge – why don't you escape the midwest, at least for a week or so, and come see what I have to put up with every day?   In fact, why don't you just make a decision and move here full or part time?

  Someone's going to live here – why not you?

Gray is Good

  Yesterday was a real "Gray day" for me.  Ever have one of those?  Bet you have..  It was one of those days when everything that could go wrong either did, or tried to.   So I'm sitting on the couch yesterday evening and it occurred to me that my life would be better if my wife would only adjust her attitude!  Now I'm not known as a cranial giant most days, but I never should have tried this approach on a gray day.  Can't begin to tell you how dumb that was!  Actually, if you are anything like me, you know already, don't you?

  Well, this morning was saved by my wife being a saint at Forgiveness.  Since she married me she's become a real practitioner!  And I got to thinking of the Gary Smalley book on marriage we've been reading during our long commute to work in Estes Park.  We commute from Storm Mountain in Drake, to Estes Park via Big Thompson Canyon.  The redeeming part of having this commute every day is the time we get to spend together.  If we had to endure the convenience of living in Estes Park, we wouldn't share near so much.

  Gary Smalley is a marriage counselor and an author.  (You can read him for free at any good library).  He says that when we get into arguments with our spouses we should look for the "Pearls" hidden within. 

  So this morning, while trying to choke down some mainline Folger's, the sky parted and the pearl from last night hit me head on: to-wit, "Anyone can party – our character is formed on the Gray Days".  Now I acknowledge I never would have arrived at this by myself and that's why I'm convinced it's true.  After all, the only thing my logic got me into was trouble.

  I can't take my money (if I ever get any) with me, and my earthly things that I value I can't cause someone else to value – dreams included, but I know this for sure: I will take my character with me, for that's who I am.  And if I'm really fortunate, when I go, the character I take with me will be the one I always should have had.

  How about you?

Starting Over

  I’ve never blogged before, so thank you for your patience in advance.  I am a real estate agent working for Prudential in Estes Park, Colorado.  If you have any questions concerning real estate in this area, or specific listing questions, please ask or email me at jamiltenberger@pruteam.com.

  I’ve entitled this Starting Over because so many people I know have started over in Colorado that I call it the “start over state”.  I started over from Kansas City.  Almost everyone in Estes Park, Colorado, has started over from some other life (-style), or come here as a realization of a lifelong dream, or both.  This is a good place to begin again, and since nearly everyone works hard, all the time, just to remain here, we’re all too busy to feel sorry for ourselves or stew in the past.  This is the most forward-looking community I’ve ever experienced!

  Ever since my arrival and subsequent career change, I’ve been collecting information and local resources.  I’m intimately acquainted with how it feels to arrive in a strange town and know absolutely nothing.  In my real estate capacity, I feel it’s my responsibility to provide my customers and potential customers any pertinent information I have, so when they come here they won’t feel as lost as I did.

  If you have an interest in living in the mountains, rather than just looking at them from the hot flatlands, please give me a call and talk about it.  Keep in mind – you’ll run out of time before you run out of money.  Please call me: (800) 607-3838, x-4053.

Reg: “Forward for a blessing” emails

Email:

            Please keep it going, don’t break the chain…

            Send to all your friends and you will be amazed…

            Send to 10 of your friends and you will be blessed…

            Etc.

If you are like most folks these days, you have email and you read it often.  Isn’t it amazing how the proliferation of email has changed the social structure of our country?  I read my email often every day, and one of the most disturbing trends seems to be the multiplication of messages that have one of the above, or similar postscripts.  I believe we should examine this trend a little more closely.

In spite of the information explosion and all of it’s positive benefits, there is a concurrent explosion of unfocused thinking.  In America we boast of our freedoms, and many of our holidays are rife with patriotic nostalgia, yet we allow their erosion without a struggle.  Is there yet a citizen who hasn’t realized that gas prices are high because of greed?  To some degree, any form of our media tells us what to think, while our movies define for us what we are and should become, according to moviemakers.  We are now a nation of sheep, and very few recognize that the shepherds have their own agenda.  The personal courage to be sacrificed for an ideal has been stripped away from us, and we have instead sacrificed our ideals, both as Americans and as humans. 

And now along comes email, where Americans and other “Citizens of the World” can communicate ideas freely.  Almost everyday I receive something in my email that tells me to “keep it going” and I will be blessed. 

Let’s ask some logical questions:

            In what way are blessings conceived?

            Blessed by whom?

            Blessed how?

            And…How do it know? (grammatical mistake intended)

            If I want meat and you want vegetables, wouldn’t my blessing be your curse?

The last people I would expect to get involved in this trend of thoughtlessness would be those calling themselves Christians.  One would think that the word “Blessing” would somehow not involve that group of people, but no, I get many such messages from so-called “Christians”  too.  OK, here’s a question for the Christians:  do you really believe your God will bless you for forwarding an email message?  If so, it goes a long way towards explaining under- attendance in our churches.  Really now, as a group, isn’t it your calling to be a blessing to others rather than get them by emailing someone?

In the trendy language of our times, what’s the “bottom line?”  If you are an American, Christian or not, why not kill every email containing a forwarding request?  If everyone did this, every time, how long would it take this silliness to end?  If enough folks could agree to act cohesively about just this, what could stop them from taking over the course of history? 

This is just my opinion.  There is no blessing (or curse) attached to this editorial.

John