Insidious Adaptation

The sun creeps in and out of the clouds, shining down through the breaks in an otherwise dismal appearance. The ground's saturation, remnants of last night's rainfall. The promise and confirmation off what those dark, lingering clouds mean for the day. All mere backdrops of a billboard to a new sports store opening up in town.  The billboard is nothing spectacular, actually interesting. A few Nebraska Cornhusker fans, oh, and did I mention today is the funeral of Senator and War Hero John McCain start of college football. More specifically, the Nebraska Cornhuskers and their famed return of the prodigal son, Scott Frost. A reminder of leadership as opposed to pompous presentation. A reminder that athletes, no matter how prominent, no matter how talented, follow true leadership. Ask Michael Jordan what he has to say about Phil Jackson.  Leaders, lead.  This isn't about that though, as much as I thew that in for relevancy. For context to the billboard. The young ...

People like the idea of numbers. We like that we can measure and determine if something is enough or not, if something has been accomplished or failed. When we simply say something is, "better," this isn't anything other than a cloud of unknown. We can use, "better" to justify based on our assumption, or we can use, "better" as a deterrent, as though if that's as good as it gets, then forget it. As an adolescent, specifically here, my Sophomore and Junior year in high school, I suffered from what I would reflect on as an eating disorder, anorexia. Now, I know what you're thinking right here, and this isn't the lifetime version of a boy gone wrong. This started out so innocent, as a subtle way to lose weight. I was unable to see at the time that I had an unbalanced approach with how I dealt with things. Instead of having a natural shut off, I latched on to things and went after them until they were mine. Weight-loss became no different. ...

Seeing and feeling the hurt in one's eyes is a gift some say, an empath is what I have read, the ability to connect and feel what another person feels at a heightened level. This, something I have done since childhood, without awareness that other people don't naturally do this, or understand other people in that way. I can look back over the foundation of my own perspective in life and see that I was always adapting to what I perceived other people felt or wanted and therefore led me to being "liked" in many ways. The problem was and still is, is that people only like what is presented without actually liking me. The hardest thing one can do is to understand that other people think and perceive differently than they do. I was always influenced by why certain people did things, why they were able just to be, "cool," and it wasn't something I could just mimic. In high school, I had a friend named Eric, he was popular, and good at sports, and well, ju...