PerfectlyTurbulent

There are some sayings that drive me a little crazy. Some sayings I am so sick of that each time I hear themd I come one step closer to snapping and letting lose on whomever opened their mouth to utter the sentence.

One of those sayings is “Wow, its a small world isn’t it?”

For me its always, always, always the same thing. A friend of mine was in Toronto (a city 35 minutes away by car) or Hamiton (the city in which I live) and they happen to run into some stranger through some extremely predictable series of events and at one point or another it is revealed that they have me in common as a friend. Yippee.

This is all fine and dandy but when this story is ever retold it always ends with, “Wow, its a small world isn’t it?”

Its typically at this point that I am ready to scream.

No! NO ITS NOT A SMALL WORLD!

Its a big world.

A huge world actually, with over six billion people.

You met this person within a thirty minute drive from where I sleep in the same city I was born.

Its a coincidence that happens everyday within every city all over the world. People meet each other. Those people have already met other people, and will likely continue meeting more people.

Chances are, at one point or another you will meet someone who has at one point or another met someone else you have also met.  And the longer you live somewhere the more likely it becomes you will have met a lot of people from that area, who will likely know people you have met from the same area. This process is called “not living in your basement.”

Aaaaaannd breathe.

However,  I may think different in some scenarios:

For example, if you happen to be traveling through the desert in Morocco one day and a sandstorm destroys your means of transportation. You are forced to then walk into the horizon alone surviving for days with only a bottle of water and a snickers bar before you pass out in the sand not sure if you will ever wake up.

Thankfully, you awake in a small cave to the man who has apparently saved your life.  He sees your Molson Canadian t-shirt and volunteers the information that he only saved your life because the one Canadian he met during his only trip into a small Moroccan town was very kind to him and so he wanted to return the favour.  He asked you if you might know this Canadian, and you almost laugh at the request but wish to humour this man’s request.

If this man then tells you, “his name was Michael Cecchin”, I will be the one to say;

“Holy shit, wow, it truly is a small world isn’t it?”

Otherwise, its just a funny little story..

In case you haven’t heard, Michael Jackson died. Yes, it sucks, and I am actually having moments of sadness lately in knowing that Michael will never recover from the scandal that plagued the majority of his career.  But alas, life moves on.

Last night I had myself a date, or more of an outing with a friend from the past.  This is a girl I met over a year ago, and we hadn’t seen one another for a while so we arranged to get together to hang out a bit. Nothing dastardly, go watch a movie, have some drinks, and basically just kill some time together.

Where the plot thickens my friends is that this girl is a serious Christian.  For those of you that know me well, or have been following this blog I know you’re already laughing and looking forward to the rest of this story. God bless you.

Michael Jackson and Pope John Paul

For those in the cheap seats, this is funny because I am a very secular guy. I don’t say there isn’t a God, I basically don’t discuss it. I  just find its a moot point. As for religion, I’m not a fan.  So the fact that this girl and I are friends at all is rather remarkable in its own right, especially since its like she comes to hang out with me just to argue and make snide christ-y comments as if at any moment I’ll break down into tears about how she’s saved me and I’ve seen the light.  I find it kind of funny.  Like when it comes up that I am not drinking for 30 days, she says (all quotes in this article are as accurate as possible yet not verbatim of course), “Is it because you’ve never given up anything for lent so you feel the need to make up for it now?”

This is where I quite correctly respond, “Or maybe I’m just able to make my own decisions instead of taking orders from the church. Besides, I do give up something for lent every year: church.”

Its this back and forth that is quite possibly why I also enjoy hanging out with her. For the sake of this post, and because at one point last night I called her Sister Mary Agnes, let’s call my friend “Mary”.

Mary and I had some time to kill before the movie so we jumped into a restaurant to have a few drinks.  Her with a vodka something and myself with a huge barrel sized mug of soda water and lime.  I guess at restaurants if you don’t drink they want to make it known to everyone around you. Thanks Kelseys.

We start our conversation on the benign and it leads into Michael Jackson, not sure how. It might be because it was on the news, or someone was talking about it, or more possibly, because its all I have spoken about since I heard he died. So as we begin, I mention a few of the songs that I like and how I think Michael Jackson is the last great musical icon I believe we’ll ever see in our lifetime. I continue to stating its too bad in the past ten years he’s been dragged through the mud by the media.

At this point, I’m not even sure I was even speaking to her or just speaking out loud to affirm my love of Michael to the world(this must be my grieving process).  Then its at this point that the conversation takes a turn for the worst.

“I don’t know how anyone could ever possibly idolize a person like Michael Jackson after what he did to those children” and she said a person as if we had just been discussing Ted Bundy or Osama Bin Laden.

At this point I thankfully thought, WWMJD, and decided against pouring my drink on her and I would instead listen to her point on the matter.
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Life can be pretty boring without a purpose.  Typically, we all get up in the morning and give a similar performance to the scenes we played out the day before.

We get up and brush our teeth, wash away our less than pleasant aromas, go to work, deal with it on a reactive level, come home,  maybe make a little dinner, watch a little TV, and get ready to shut ‘er down and start it all over again the following day.

Personally, fitness is just one weapon I use in my arsenal to break up this boring cycle.   Three or four times a week I’ll step into a gym, or onto a running trail and tell myself, “Self, you are going to be better than you were the last time we were here.”  Then I don’t just “work out”, I train.

To be stronger. To be faster.  To be better than I current am.

I admit that I am learning to train harder and push myself a little harder but like everything worthwhile, it’s a process.

Sometimes I fail, sometimes I succeed, but after each challenge I put myself through I learn a little more about whom I am what I am capable of.  This way, I am forced to face the results and myself, for better or for worse.

My findings have been the more I challenge myself, the better the person I become.  Or at least I have a better understanding of my weakness so not to play to them in the future.

In the past I’ve challenged myself to things like a 24hr fast,  with very successful results. I’ve also set goals of strength for my bench press (2- 45lb plates), the Squat (300 lbs), and the Deadlift (300 lbs).  So far I’ve hit 1 of 3 targets, but again, it’s a process.

My fasting challenge alone has shifted my weight lifting and nutritional paradigms away from the traditional bodybuilder mindset into a new and more informed view of eating and training.

I have also given myself will power exercises to improve my personal productivity. I’ve boycotted Facebook and MSN messenger for extended periods of time, usually 30 days (some failures, but mostly successes),  simply to see if it increased both my productivity and quality of life.

But last week I set up another gauntlet…

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