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!