Herd

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

I stood there halfway up the hill, hands outstretched and straight as a board. I locked my back up as straight as I could, chest puffed out. I acted like a pole, just like Don Lowenstein, my boss at the time, told me to. I didn’t move. I held my ground. Somehow, I didn’t die.

I started working for Don the summer after my junior year of high school. He ran a computer software business in town. Being a computer nerd, I thought it was a match made in Heaven. Don’s business was small. He had a business partner, Perry, and an administrative assistant. (I forgot her name) I was summer help, primarily focused on filing and doing clerical work. I also herded cattle.

“Block him, Gary!” Don called out. I allowed my locked-up knees to bend as I shuffled to the right, blocking the path of an 800 lb. bull wandering away from the herd.

Don’s second business was a cattle farm. He lived out in the country with his wife and children. He had dozens of head of cattle, and most people in town knew that when Don slaughtered one it was worth having his phone number. There’s nothing like a fresh steak or hamburger.

Cattle graze in a pasture right down to the dirt. They’ll lick up every blade of grass. Even if they miss, their hoofs will trample anything left away. You have to move cattle from one pasture to the next for this reason. At some point you have to give the pasture time to grow back or the cattle will starve.

The bull backed off. He just slowly turned around and rejoined the rest of the herd as they moved on to the second pasture. A gravel road separated the two pastures. The road was at the bottom of a hill, much like running through a small valley. The people from the office, and I think a couple of Don’s kids, all stood half-way up the hill and held our cruciform positions acting as nothing more than a guide to shoe the bovine off to their next location.

Cows are stupid. They look at the cow in front of them and follow it. They don’t break form. If one does, all it takes is a goofy-looking brat weighing nothing more than a buck forty-five and standing no taller than 5’8” to wave his pasty-white arms towards the rebel and, sure enough, he or she will find another cow to follow again. They don’t try to break through obstacles.

Imagine the ridiculousness of that conclusion. 800 lb. bull. 145 lb. human. His nuts were as big as softballs, there is more muscle in his neck than there is in my whole body and, oh, by the way, there were little horns poking out of his skull. He could have lowered his head and walked straight through me. It wouldn’t have been hard and I definitely would have seen an emergency room that day. Maybe a morgue.

People are stupid, too.

We wander down the same gravel road, one foot in front of the other, watching the ass of the person in front of us all just following the same path. If somebody gets the notion that we somehow were made for more than simply following the herd until the end of our life, we get scared and run back. What scares us? The vast majority of the time it’s something we irrationally fear. Doesn’t matter that we are bigger than it is. Doesn’t matter that we could run away with nothing to stop us. Nobody REALLY wants to attempt to stir up the herd, after all. Nobody really wants to challenge the status quo or discover their true self-worth or acknowledge the fact that maybe – just maybe – they have a purpose in life that extends well-beyond taking one more step towards death. Nobody considers that they have the power to change the world. They see an obstacle, stop, turn around and march on.

Did that bull think he could charge through an obstacle less than a quarter of his size? No. Why? He had no idea how much power he had.

Do you?

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!

Cusp

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“So I told them that looking in from the outside, every team hated to play them. Everyone saw the talent they had. This was their opportunity. They were on the cusp of greatness. I just thought they needed a belief.”

-Raul Ibañez

Much of my ongoing therapy focuses on self-perception. I believe that I am a failure or otherwise incapable of doing something, so I perceive myself as that failure or inability. I really didn’t understand quite how toxic such thinking would become, especially considering that it had gone unchecked for the years that it had.

I always feel rushed so I must be slow. I always get critiqued so I must be stupid. I’ve never been trim so I must be fat. Some of them were just flat out stupid.

One of the things that I had to learn was that people didn’t view me that way from the outside. In fact, there were many people who were jealous of me, the job I had, the house I had, the friends I had or the family I had. (Sadly, I’m unaware of people who are that jealous of the car…) If others viewed me as competent in my field, as a leader in the things I do and someone who has respectable and well-thought opinions, then why don’t I feel that myself?

Was I on the cusp of greatness? There’s no way. No way I could actually be that close.

Dad and I watched Game 7 of the World Series on Wednesday. Both of us witnessed Alex Gordon on 3^rd base, leading off, waiting for a hit to run home. It wouldn’t happen. Instead, Salvador Perez would pop-up a foul ball that would eventually end up in the glove of Pablo Sandoval. The Royals lost, 3-2, in Game 7 of the World Series. It’s the slimmest of margins in baseball. Game 7, one run, and a runner on 3^rd. Anything closer is a World Championship.

The cusp of greatness.

There is only one reason in the world why I think any person should believe anything: Because it is true. Truth trumps everything. If you believe something that isn’t true, than no matter how tightly held that belief is, it is still false and you are still wrong. That, to me, is what dictates holding a belief.

I never questioned my beliefs, nor did I question that I could possibly be wrong about who I thought I was or what I was capable of doing. Like the Royals, part of me simply didn’t think I could do it, and I was genuinely shocked when others thought I could and then told me as much. When somebody finally confronted my beliefs and challenged them, I learned that I was wrong. I had to change. I couldn’t keep having these thoughts about myself if they weren’t true.

No, the Royals didn’t win the World Series, but they were dominant during the post-season. They now hold the exclusive record of number of consecutive wins in the post-season. What caused that? What could have been so different about a team that was really struggling at the All-Star Break to clinch a record that has never before been seen in the century-long history of major league baseball? What lead a team that had 17-1 Vegas odds of winning the World Series entering the post-season to be 90 feet away from it at the end? Did they suddenly get good, or did they finally accept the fact that they were good and just play like it?

Will you accept that fact that you are good, too?

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!

Getting Back Up

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“The view from rock bottom is often the reason, the inspiration, for getting back up.”

-Unknown

This city is going nuts. No, berserk. They’re simply mad. Most people are euphoric and there is an element of joy in the air that hasn’t been around for a long, long time, if ever.

The Kansas City Royals have won the Wild Card. No, check that… They are the ALDS champions. Wait… not enough? Let’s try on 2-0 over the Baltimore Orioles right now in the ALCS, with the next three games to be played at home in Kauffman Stadium. Did I mention they swept the best team in baseball? The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim went down 3-0. To-date, we’ve seen three champaign-spraying parties. We’ve seen 4 extra-innings games and we’ve seen come-from behind victories. We’ve seen a team step up and play a style of baseball that has manufactured runs and relied upon stellar pitching and defense (and the best bullpen in the majors) as opposed to the “modern” homerun-hitting teams with studs like Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera.

It’s difficult to describe the atmosphere of the ballpark. I was there for the Wild Card Game. I had the most incredible sports experience of my entire life. It was something Denny Matthews, the legendary Kansas City Royals Hall-of-Famer and radio personality said he had never seen before in his entire life. I, personally, don’t remember being this happy about sports ever. The boyhood team I rooted for, that my parents would take me to growing up, that I watched win the 1985 World Series on VHS tape (because Dad recorded it so that he could show his son one day) is a legitimate contender in the post season. No person on the planet saw it coming.

This team sucked. It has been called every negative adjective in the dictionary. There were 100+ losses in some seasons. Players that got drafted on this team couldn’t wait until free agency to go somewhere else. We have been voted as Worst Sports Franchise by Sports Illustrated sometime in the late 90s. There were legitimate concerns the team would be sold or moved to an altogether different city. There were dark years.

I’ve heard grown men cry on sports radio. I’ve heard stories of 90+ year olds coming to the ballpark because they’ve never had an opportunity to take their grandchildren to a playoff game. I’ve tried to buy a T-Shirt commemorating the events, only to find out the stores have all sold out within 2 hours of opening, on a weekday… I guess not having a playoff appearance since 1985 will do that to you.

Why is this baseball team being rooted for by an entire country now? Why is every Kansas Citian, regardless of whether or not they are a baseball fan, suddenly jumping on this bandwagon? Why are all the City’s iconic fountains dyed blue? Is it because we are a Cinderella Story? Is it because we are the underdogs and everybody wants to cheer for an underdog? No.

Why does an entire country want to cheer on my boyhood team now? It’s because all of us can relate to being defeated for so long you think it’s all you will ever know. It’s because we all wonder if we will ever make it; if we will ever win. We wonder if the blood, sweat and tears that we have all felt through our brokenness and shame will ever give way to feeling the pride associated with making something great. We all self-doubt, second-guess, and insecurely wonder if there will ever come a day when we WON’T be behind. Will we realize our dreams? Will we find success? We have failed so many times… Can we make it? Can we reinvent ourselves? Can we move past our past mistakes? Can we find the strength to move on?

Yes. Yes we can.

How do we know that? Simple. Because we’ve seen a group of 25 men prove it.

All of us want to believe that we can win someday. All of us want to believe that we can move beyond our histories. All of us want to believe we can one day be something great. This country, this city, has witnessed first-hand that, yes, yes indeed, you can. Not only can you survive whatever it is that has you down, you can persevere…

…and prevail.

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!

Measuring Up

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“Comparison is the death of joy.”

-Mark Twain

Guys are absolutely infatuated with their penises.

From the time they are small children, small boys, in their innocence, willingly drop their pants in front of each other to see how they compare to their friends. (And to verify that their male friends have one, too.) Even though they have no idea what it is used for beyond peeing, it is always the subject of attention, curiosity and occasionally, competition. From even the youngest age, boys are comparing themselves to each other.

Actually, this really doesn’t change when we get older.

Males, regardless of age, want to know how they “measure up” to their fellow males. Locker rooms are replete with guys who are checking out the other guys. Some guys will flaunt by intentionally walking around naked. Other guys don’t go beyond changing shirts because they’re scared somebody will make fun of them. There is always a little peak here, a little shameless glance there and everybody pretends it doesn’t happen. Penis measurements occur with pubescent boys almost as often as height is measured by mothers on the home door post.

“Penis envy,” the term coined by psychologists to describe the jealousy between males over their penis sizes, heights, physiques and other “indicators” of success, is a very real, very powerful force that runs from boys through men. The comparisons are real and the competition is fierce. So are the feelings of inferiority.

Usually the subject of body image is discussed as a woman’s issue. This is simply not the case whatsoever. As boys grow up, it becomes not just penis size or physical development, but also athleticism, girlfriends, peer group, the car you drive, the college you got in to, the house you live in and how much money you make, among many, many others. The comparison game doesn’t end, it only evolves and it gets worse as you get older. A 14-year-old thinks his life is over because the guys in his gym class have a bigger penis than he does. An adult thinks his life is over when he can’t hold a job, hasn’t found a wife or otherwise can’t provide for his family in the way that he thinks he should, especially compared to his other male peers.

As awkward or shameful as it may be to throw a subject like penises in to the public forum, comparison of one’s genitalia is juvenile and of minor concern compared to the even-bigger issues of feeling like everybody else has it together and you don’t. Competition between one another isn’t necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. Indeed, it’s what drives humanity forward. We are always trying to out-smart, out-do or out-perform our fellow man, and such drive makes us reach higher and higher and progress as a species.

You can overdo it, too, though, and then the opposite happens. When you perceive failure in your competitions, self-worth suffers. If self-worth suffers long enough, no matter how good you are, smart you are, strong you are or fast you are, you’re never good enough. Such thinking, if left unchecked, results in believing it. Believing it robs you of joy. Indeed, it robs you of life.

I would ask you to take an honest, thoughtful and objective look at your life. You are not a failure. You have made mistakes, and that means nothing. Why? Because everybody else has, too. You may be jealous of something somebody else has, but have you ever considered that there is somebody right now who is jealous of you? Just like you probably haven’t shared your insecurities with others, others haven’t shared his or hers with you. You may privately feel like you will never amount to anything, but what you may be surprised to learn is that everybody else worries about that same thing, too. Like guys in the locker room, nobody will ever admit to checking another guy out, but everybody does it and nobody wants to get caught.

So quit comparing. There are people in this world who love you, need you and want you. Take refuge in the fact that your life is valuable in its own unique way and you will never measure up to everybody else in the same way that they will never measure up to you.

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!

Feelings

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

-Maya Angelou

Last week I attended the 75th session of the American Legion Missouri Boys State as a staff member. It has become an annual tradition for me, this one being marked by the significance of a major anniversary milestone and the absence of Justin W. Stephen, a long-time friend, confidant and super-star of the program he so sincerely and passionately loved.

Boys State, for me, is always marked with emotion and this year makes this fact an understatement. There is always the joy that comes with knowing over 900 young men from Missouri have been given an extra set of tools to help them lead the world. There is the satisfaction of seeing our future leadership grow and learn and be moved to commit extra effort to our world which so badly needs someone to take the baton and move us past the challenges which face our world today. We need good leaders… we need good men… to move forward. Of course, Justin’s absence was difficult.

At the beginning of the session, the staff comes in and has a full day of training prior to the citizens’ arrival. During one of these training sessions the Dean of Counselors, Dale Wright, shared the above quote from the late Maya Angelou who died recently.

Boys State has inspired young men to take on the challenges of the world they are about to enter. It has made many young men feel powerful and perhaps less anxious about taking on a needed role in his community. While Boys State has taught civic engagement and political processes for seven and a half decades, this inspiration is probably the most likely reason why the program has produced so many of the local and even national leaders that it has. We make good men feel more powerful in a world of plenty of bad men. The education helps, too, but the reason the program excels is because it has helped young men believe they can excel, too.

Maya got it right. Good teachers aren’t revered for shoving more knowledge in to kids’ heads than “bad” teachers. They are good teachers because they have inspired a group of students in a way that “bad” teachers haven’t. Good pastors don’t just give good sermons. They genuinely love their congregation. What makes good parents? I’m sure you don’t have your opinion of your mom or dad because of something they did, but because of some childhood memory of how they made you feel, good or bad.

It’s actually psychological.

When there is a positive emotional response to a stimuli, the brain releases a set of hormones which helps seal that emotional response in to memory. (The same can be said of negative emotion) This emotional response helps the person to remember what it was that caused the emotional response. It used to be part of human survival. If you found a strawberry patch as a caveman, the joy and jubilation of finding food would be used to help the caveman remember where the strawberry patch was in the first place. Likewise, nearly getting killed by a vicious animal would seal a memory in the brain that would facilitate better recognition and an increased sense of urgency to abandon a location where that animal was then found again. (Or remember not to go to that place in the first place.)

In a world of fast-paced, intense, profit- and grade-driven success, it is very difficult to forget that our products, our tests, our homework and our reports will quickly fall by the wayside. I will never get thanked for doing for my clients what I said I was going to do. I have literally had experiences where somebody paid me tens of thousands of dollars for doing a service for them and they forgot about the fact that we had even met only a few months later. I don’t remember my grades in high school, can’t recall my GPA in college and am fairly certain I’ve already forgotten the details of half the projects I have completed after college. However, I can tell you when my boss gave me a pat on the back or put me in tears, I can recall a football coach inspiring me and encouraging me and I do remember the names of the men who have made me the man I am today by doing the same.

You will leave an impact on a person by virtue of how you make them feel. You can make them feel big or you can make them feel small. You can enhance their life or you can deflate it. Consider well what you do. We are all fighting a fight and trying to make the best out of this thing called life.

You will be remembered by somebody by how you made them feel. What do you want that to be?

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!

Instructions

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“If you learn from defeat, you haven't really lost.”

-Zig Zigler

As a man, I am inclined to follow instructions.

No, you didn’t read that incorrectly.

Guys get a bad rap. The stereotype that we don’t follow directions is simply misunderstood. Guys follow directions all the time. If we buy something that needs assembly, most people think we toss the directions aside out of arrogance or pride. That simply isn’t the case most of the time. Most of the time, it’s simply not our first rodeo. If we know what we are doing, we do it. If we don’t, we consult.

Following directions, for a guy, often means simply consulting another guy who knows better. Why try to find English out of the dozens of different languages the manual is written in if we know a buddy who has done the exact same thing before? When it comes time to redo my deck, I’m going to call the friend who has done his already. When it comes time to re-tile my shower, I’m calling my tile friend. Could I follow the instructions? Sure. I would rather follow the instructions from the guy who has experience doing it, though. Results will be better and time and frustration (not to mention money) will be saved.

As a man, I don’t like taking a shot to my pride. I’m proud of my work and what I produce, so I want it right. Thinking that I somehow will “just figure it out” is stupid at best. It sets me up for embarrassment in front of whomever it is will receive the final product. Either that or I will waste my money by having to redo things. I don’t want that. If I’m going to put time and effort in to something, I want that time and effort to pay off. That’s why I follow directions.

That’s also why, when the time and effort doesn’t pay off, it sucks so badly.

No matter what you do, sometimes things just don’t turn out right. You followed the directions. You consulted the professional. You enlisted the help of a personal trainer. Sometimes, no matter how much you paid attention or how vigilantly you worked, the product simply didn’t come out. Sometimes, even after follow the directions, whatever it is you were doing just doesn’t work.

Sometimes, you just sit there after you spent all of that time, energy and work to do something and you are just left to wonder, “What happened?” with no answer at all.

It’s in that shame and reality that whatever it is you were doing isn’t going to materialize that you have to suck it up and choose to move on. Failure may not be an option, but it is a reality. It is a possible outcome. How we deal with that reality is more important than the product in the first place. Do you give up?

So you read up on how to interview for that job you wanted. You prepared. You pressed your suit. You didn’t get it. What are you going to do?

So your bathroom sink sprayed water everywhere after you put in a new vanity. Time to throw in the towel?

So you got cut from the football team. Are you going to try again next year or will you simply blame the coach?

I did everything I possibly could this week to make my goals and make my deadlines. That didn’t happen. Do I quit?

No. My reputation and my character are more important than that.

Yours are, too.

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!

Risk

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“I’ll take the risk.”

-Curt Anderson

My internship in Tacoma was the best job I ever had. Period.

Oh, where to start? Let’s see… perhaps it was the fact that I was being paid VERY well for being an intern.

Perhaps it was the fact that the vehicle was provided with a gas card in it while I was there.

Perhaps it was the three-story house that I stayed in, with a bedroom on the top floor, with two picture windows overlooking Mount Rainier and ships coming in to port, and the owner owning a 38-foot sailboat that needed to have another crew member in order to sail competitively. Perhaps it was becoming that member.

To this day, I have never fit in so well at a company. They loved me and I loved them. I still cherish my many memories of Tacoma.

Curt Anderson was the president of Air Systems Engineering, Inc. at the time and was the man who hired me originally. In terms of a business leader, he was one of the best. In terms of integrity, caring and emotional support, he was the best in the country. It’s true… in 2006 his company was named “Best Company to Work For” by the ACHR news, the flagship publication for the HVAC contracting industry.

He’s retired now, but still lives in Tacoma. He shot me an E-Mail the other day just to “check in.” Wonderful man.

At one company meeting, he told the story of how he hired a guy who ran the controls group in the company. At the time, the man wasn’t sure if he would like contracting or not, and wasn’t certain that he would stay for very long as he was in a completely different industry at the time. Curt said, “I’ll take the risk.”

That man ended up sticking with the company for 16 years. He ended up developing an entire department dedicated to building automation and controls which earned the company a tremendous reputation in the Seattle/Tacoma area. It would seem the risk paid off.

In order to reach something better, you have to let go of what you are holding on to now. That point before you jump sucks. The scariest part is actually standing on top of the diving board looking down. You may very well have made the decision to give something a shot, but it’s an altogether different story when the time comes to jump. “Is this right?” “Did I really think this through?” Yeah, you might land wrong. It may hurt. Frankly, you may fail.

What then? Well, you try something else.

The biggest risk of all, however, is simply doing nothing. I won’t give you many guarantees on Gun’s Quotes, but I will guarantee that not taking a risk to be happy will result in sadness and regret. Certainly there are risks that are not worth taking, but many are and many should.

Make a decision, commit and jump.

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!

Mawage

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam...”

-The Impressive Clergyman (From The Princess Bride)

This past weekend, my brother, Erik, got married. My other brother, Alan, and I were his Best Men. Below is my Best Man Speech:

Good evening everyone and welcome. On behalf of the Schrader, Schwinn and Garcia families I want to thank you for spending your time today celebrating this very special occasion with Erik, Jo and all of the friends and family present at our family barn, the Schwinn Produce Farm Barn.

My name is Gary Schrader, and I have the misfortune of being Erik's oldest brother and the honor of being his co-Best Man, former landlord and bona-fide pain-in-the-butt.

Now, I want to let you all know immediately that there is more logic in this decision than meets the eye. When Erik asked Alan and me to be his Best Men, he told us that he didn't trust Alan with the speech or me with the Bachelor Party. This infallible logic proves that Erik is wiser than he looks. This logic is further exemplified by the fact that he married Jo, who is the most beautiful woman in the barn right now.

For the longest time, I didn't exactly believe he was the brightest Crayon in the box. Our relationship hasn't been the most stereotypical, brotherly relationship that you hear about where your older brother picks a fight to defend you, lies to your parents to get you out of trouble, teaches you how to throw a ball or ask a girl out. Those of you who know either of us very well at all know that NONE of those things transpired between the two of us, mostly because I knew nothing about them. Further, our childhood is laced with times when the two of us didn't speak. Period.

There was the time that he scribbled, with a permanent ink pen, all over a 4th grade art project I created and was hanging in the stairwell of the house. There was the time I hit him over the head with a plastic shovel. There was the time he took a pocket knife to my prized bike. There was the time I decided to wreck his bedroom. Twice. The only men I have ever punched, kicked, bit and choked were my brothers and Erik got most of my wrath. To be honest, there were several points in our childhood when our relationship was violent and vindictive. Like I said, not stereotypical.

Or maybe it is. I don't know.

In any case, I think that changed after high school when both of us grew in maturity and understood the frailty of life. There was the time I was in Tacoma on internship and he decided to go to the hospital ICU with a life-threatening mononucleosis scare. There was the time that I was in Michigan and suffered from a severe case of Depression which required the intervention of a counselor and several of my friends. Alan was in the midst of some difficult times in life as well and the three of us, for the first time ever, had to turn to each other for support. You learn a lot about people when you lean on them, even when you lived with them for nearly 20 years.

Erik and I lived together longer than that. He needed a place to stay in the City while finishing up college. He needed a job and had no money, so he lived with me and I didn't charge him rent. Like, for a long time. Eventually, I convinced him to join Lifeteen, the youth ministry program that I volunteered for and continue to do so today. He wasn't sure about talking with teenagers or talking about God and was pretty sure he couldn't do both at the same time, but I knew his goofy, funny yet convicted personality and huge heart would fit right in. It did.

It was there he met Jo. Jo was a former teen in the youth group and came back to volunteer as well. Jo and Erik hit it off immediately, their youthful playfulness egging each other on to the point of me getting annoyed. At one point in time I asked Erik if Jo HAD to be over at the house every night of the week. He responded by moving out. I guess we are still brothers after all.

To be honest, I miss the both of them annoying me. Sometimes. While their watching Spongeball Squarepants daily put my nerves to the test, I was always invited to eat when Jo made some delicious meal in the kitchen. As much as I never understood why they did what they did together, I understood that Christ was the center of it. They prayed together. Daily. I don't mean a Hail Mary or an Our Father... I mean that they prayed together daily that God would reveal to them His plan for their lives. They would pray for their intentions. I caught them more than once praying for me. Their prayer would continue like this for an hour or more. Every day. Trust me, I was there. I was lying in bed when Erik and Jo were in Erik's bedroom as they would process through their litanies. (Full disclosure: The walls are pretty thin in my house.) This was a relationship that was based not on childish TV shows, goofy jokes or inappropriate physical intimacy. No, this is a relationship that is built on Christ, His Church and His plan for their lives. They simply chose to humbly follow that plan, which lead all of us here today.

Advice, toasts and decrees of good luck don't seem to suffice for this man. He knows more about a good relationship than I do, and he doesn't need luck. Therefore, I shall conclude with prayer, because prayer is how he came to the conclusion that he should get down on one knee and ask his best friend to join him for life. Please raise your glass and join me in prayer:

May the Lord protect and keep you,
in sickness and in health
in prosperity and in adversity
all the days of your life

in your new household
until He calls you home.

AMEN.

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!

Small

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”

-Helen Keller

A lot of people say that God has big plans for you. Some employer tells you that you are going to work your way up to the top. Your parents tell you that you are going to have a beautiful family. There are a lot of big promises in the world and much is made of how big our legacies could be.

It’s as if you’re a failure if you don’t reach the seemingly boundless potential that all of your friends and neighbors make up for you. Perhaps, to an extent, there is truth in that. However, I have also discovered that life gives second chances, even if you screw something up along the way.

Allow me to offer you a different theory. Allow me to offer you that big plans are actually smaller than big pictures.

Nobody will get credit for simply doing their job. Think about the teacher who spends a lifetime educating literally thousands of people. Think about the construction worker who builds hundreds of homes for families to live. There’s the mom and the dad who rear their children, teaching them and loving them, so that they, too, have an opportunity to do the same to their children. The pastor who consoles a grieving family, the doctor who provides a healing touch, the business man who keeps dozens employed.

No, these are not the same people as professional athletes, actors and big-shot CEOs. Their faces aren’t on TV very often and they rarely, if ever, get mention in a newspaper or magazine. Yet, these are the people we love, who love us and who contribute to their society without much fanfare. To be flagrantly cliché, they make the world go ‘round.

That all being said, just take a look at ourselves. We are infatuated with fame, fortune, celebrity status, professional athletes, top political figures and business executives. Seriously, why is Donald Trump a household name?

I’m all for reaching your potential, setting high goals and challenging yourself to reach further day after day, but not if that means you can never be happy with who you are now.

I had a coach in high school that preached to us about “the little things.” These are the things that you wouldn’t think would matter on football field but would end up being the difference between victory and defeat. The little things like the stance you would take on the field, keeping your head up when you tackle and following through with a full arm motion when throwing the ball. These little things were tweaks that could be the difference between making a block, making the tackle and hitting your receiver, respectively.

The little things in life are just as important now. Before you can win the game, you must first make the play. There are a bunch of little plays in the game, and each one matters when the clock reads 0:00.

Be OK with being small. You’re little contributions are bigger than you think.

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!

Suffering in Silence

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable than risk being happy.”

-Robert Anthony

I haven’t written for a long time and this time it’s because I have written an entire Gun’s Quote, then deleted it. I’ve done this for a month. I didn’t like how they read at all.

My purpose in writing this quote has been, and continues to be, to help others who are in the same boat reach out and ask for help. It was never to throw a pity party, seek consolation or to receive any self-serving comments of affirmation. I just wanted people to know they were not alone and that it doesn’t have to be this way. I’m just not sure I can write that way considering the story I am about to tell. So here it goes; an imperfect telling of an imperfect story.

About two years ago, I was diagnosed with clinical depression and generalized anxiety disorder. Blood work was done and confirmed suspicions that I and my physicians shared; my hormone levels were completely shot. (As a point of reference, I had testosterone levels equivalent to that of an 80-year-old man.) Something inside my head was going wrong and before I knew it, I had specialists drawing blood, giving me specialized cognitive exams, taking computer tests and answering weird questions about how I feel when I’m in a dark room. It was a little unnerving.

After we cleared the “major” diagnoses out of the way, (no cancer, no early-onset dementia, no endocrine system failure, no hypothyroidism) it was time to look at how my brain was processing a special chemical called serotonin. Therein lied the culprit.

It was in January that I started my regimen of medication to balance out my serotonin levels.

I can tell you now that I genuinely feel better now than I have in probably a decade.

I’m not sure if anybody can relate: Getting out of bed in the morning and having only two or three goals for the day and yet going to sleep that night not having accomplished any of them. Wandering about your day literally thinking that every person you met was inconvenienced by your presence. Thinking that you were always the low man on the totem pole, the weakest link, the whipping boy. None of these things were true, but what was true is that I would never stand up for myself because I genuinely thought it was true.

I’m not sure if anybody reading this knows what it means when I say that you know you are loved but don’t feel loved. Know you’ve had a full-night’s sleep but feel like you’ve been up all night. Know you know what you are doing but doubt everything you say, do, touch and write. This has been my life for years and years and years.

Again, I’m writing this Gun’s Quote not asking for a pity party or even an “It’s OK.” I don’t want “I’m sorry” or even “I love you” posted on my wall simply for having penned this together. My goal here is to tell the people that need to hear it the following:

It doesn’t have to be this way.

I let pride get in the way. You will note that I said the diagnosis was made about 2 years ago and that I started treatment in January. Why the lapse? Because of stigma.

I didn’t want to be the guy that was on antidepressants. It’s not very manly. Even if I chose not to share that fact with other people, the idea that I would be dependent on a drug for the rest of my life was so repulsive, so impossible that I tried everything else in the world to avoid it. I tried working out harder. I tried sleeping more. I tried reading a book about personal organization and productivity to reduce stress. I enlisted the help of a personal mentor at work. Nothing worked.

At some point in time you have to ask yourself the honest question: “What are you willing to suffer?” Was I willing to suffer these symptoms any longer? Was I willing to be on medication? Was I willing to be attached to a stigma?

There was no one singular event that caused the answers to those questions to finally change. I made the decision that 2014 was simply going to be the year when this would finally stop. I simply decided that the answer to the first question was, “No.”

Now being diagnosed and officially being treated for one, I am only too aware of the social stigmas and queasiness associated with mental illness. There is the fear that the mentally ill will walk in to a movie theater and shoot a bunch of people. Perhaps hijack an airplane. Maybe end up in an asylum somewhere with padded cells. That’s crap and such thinking needs to stop right now.

If you or someone you know is struggling with this in any way, then please, please please… Call your doctor. I know that’s a hard thing to do and it’s even harder to acknowledge that you may need help. You are not weak, you are not a freak, and you’re not alone. I didn’t put my self out there on the internet for you to read this and then think to yourself, “Oh, he can’t be talking about me…” and then do nothing about it. I can tell you with a tremendous amount of assurance that it is not worth it to suffer so silently for so long.

So, that’s it. If you think that mental illness is reserved for those in padded cells, guess what, your horizons have been expanded. If you need help, I hope you now have a reason to believe that you should. That’s why I wrote this, (like four times…) and why I’m putting it out there.

Don’t wait as long as I did. It’s not worth it.

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!

A Look Back

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it.”

-Gautama Buddha

[Context: This Gun’s Quote was written on Feb. 2nd, and was delayed to ensure facts were straight and that parties mentioned below approved of its posting.]

So, this week’s Gun’s Quote is being written while sitting on an airplane. I’m flying between Baltimore, Maryland to Kansas City, MO, coming back home from my other home, Michigan. Yes, it’s a pretty round-about way to get to Michigan, but, hey, the fare was $200 cheaper.

I’m also missing the Super Bowl. Southwest has free TV on most of their planes, but not this one. #FirstWorldProblems

Why would a guy fly to Michigan from Kansas, in January/February, through a city on the East Coast, during the largest sporting event of the year? The answer? To continue to fulfill his purpose.

Chris Muer has been putting on Men’s Retreats for six years now. They usually happen in his family’s cabin in Northern Michigan, but moved to Cedar Springs, MI this year so that more people could join up. The retreat is usually characterized by a bunch of guys simply hanging out and being guys. We chopped down a (dead) tree, cut it up in to fire wood, burned it and also played snow football, bladed a driveway once or twice with a lawn tractor and used the snow blower. I got my hands on a chainsaw, swung an axe and got to blade the driveway. We prayed. Life was good, simple, peaceful and relaxing. I had my cell phone off. Really off. I didn’t look at it anyway. If the world would have ended back home I wouldn’t have known about it until I turned my phone back on to check my flight this morning. No TV. No radio. No media. Period.

It also presented a small revelation.

I thought my purpose in life was to become an HVAC engineer. (I already know I’m weird…) That was what inspired me to make my first trek to Michigan anyway. While there I met some of my best friends. Our stories impacted one another in such a way that I continue to visit them and they continue to visit me to this day, despite the expense and time commitment with travel.

One of those people with Chris Muer. When I was a (Super) Senior, he was a Freshman. I bumped in to him at Church. After a while, I didn’t see him around much anymore. I was having a get-together with some of my friends and I called him to invite him over.

“No,” he said.

“Why not?”

“I don’t have a car.”

“That’s OK, I’ll pick you up.”

“No, you don’t have to go out of your way for me.”

“Where do you live?”

“...Brophy-McNerny.”

“I’ll be there in 10 minutes.”

Chris Muer did end up in my apartment hanging out with the rest of us. Our friendship would grow from there and our bond would grow tighter. It would be later that Chris would tell me that he really didn’t want to come out to my place to hang out and that it was only because of my persistence that he caved and let me pick him up.

That group of men was part of the Newman Center for Catholic Students at Ferris State University. It would produce several couples, some converts, a few religious vocations and many lifelong friendships. Chris is currently attending seminary. God willing, he will be a priest in three years.

None of it would have happened if I didn’t answer a prompting from God. Something in me that night said that I couldn’t let this guy slip away. I couldn’t let him say no. I had to make sure he was there. That feeling was supernatural and transcended my own thought at the time. I thought my purpose in college was to get a degree and then get a job. Turns out I was catfished into being a fisher of men.

Chris’ group continues to bring together friends who want to share in fellowship and share their lives. They want the support of other men and they want to tune out the craziness that is the world. None of it would have happened if I didn’t humbly tell God “yes” when he asked me to rope in this young whipper-snapper. At the time, I had no idea.

That’s the thing about purpose. You have it, you just may not know what it is until after the fact. Sometimes, like this past weekend, you find it out. Other times, you don’t. Whether or not you get to see the results really doesn’t matter as long as you do it. Humbly. Simply. Lovingly.

Every day you live matters and impacts other people. Keep that in mind the next time you wonder what it is exactly you think you are supposed to do.

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!