Signal Your Intentions

I am an excellent driver. If I weren’t, the State of Illinois would not have given me a driver’s license and renewed it twice over the past nine years.  I really take offense when passengers in my car keep their heads down while I’m driving. I’m not driving too close. Trust me; I have excellent sense of my cars dimensions and what it is capable of. The only problem that I have with driving is EVERYONE ELSE. As a teenager driving in the car with my mom, she used to tense up and all but scream whenever I pressed on the brakes. If my foot is already transitioning to brake and you yell, “Hit the brakes!” obviously my first reaction will be to hit the gas. She’s lucky my stepdad drove a Cadillac- those are some sturdy cars-and that it was his car that I hit and not someone else.

And I really don’t understand traffic. If everyone is trying to get somewhere, what is the hold up?! Just go! Everyone is in such a hurry to get there, and where they have to be is so much more important that where everyone else has to go.

I don’t know if you are familiar with the junction from the Dan Ryan to the Eisenhower Expressway, but this is where you can distinguish the Democrats from the Republicans. There are two lanes. One lane leads to the Eisenhower. Merging from the other lane slows down the main lane. Just get in the main lane, people. If everyone just got in the main lane then we would all be going about our merry way in a single file line. Those who bypass the line only to merge at the junction, thus slowing down traffic should be publically humiliated somehow for this very un-democratic behavior.

One of the biggest problems that I have with other drivers is their refusal to use the turn signal. In every other avenue of life, it is customary to signal your intentions. You don’t cut in front of someone without saying excuse me.  The turn signal is the driver’s way of saying “Excuse me”. I can’t tell you how many times I have been driving on the expressway and the car the next lane over is swerving back and forth in frustration trying to get over. Little do they know, if they just hit that little switch to signal their intentions I would gladly let them get in front of me; they aren’t slowing me down any. And for those people who like to speed up when I turn on my signal to get over, I have some choice words for you! I said “Excuse me”! Who doesn’t get out of the way when someone says excuse me?! Look at the speedometer when I get in front of you. Notice that I didn’t slow you down.

Well, I’m done with my rant for now. And if you take anything away from this post I hope it’s that courtesy in driving makes driving less stressful for us all.  

Blogger's Disclaimer

So I feel like I should make a disclaimer. As an amateur blogger and writer, I am not aware of any rules that I should follow pertaining to what I should and shouldn’t share and how I should share it. I just say what I feel and what I believe. I do, however, have a strong tendency to be extremely open-minded. I may even appear to be what some call a flake or a “waffle”, but rest assured, I’m not. I have the rare ability to be able to consider things from multiple perspectives. Sometimes I understand things that you may not agree with, hell, I may not agree with it either, but I can understand it.

You may say that this isn’t a good way to be. If I stand for nothing then I’d fall for anything. And to that I say, “Imagine there’s no countries, it’s not hard to do. Nothing to live or die for. And no religion, too.” (John Lennon)

Just saying

Shannon

Parental Guidance Suggested

                                                                               ©2011-2012 ~Lucid14Havoc

Some people are meant to be parents and I am not one of those people. They seem to be in this zen state of being and in harmony with their children while the rest of us are pulling out hair out and stocking up on Barefoot Merlot.  Don’t get me wrong, if I really focus and apply myself- as with anything else- I am a decent parent, but if someone was offering quarterly training on raising children, SIGN ME UP! There is no shame in my game.  

We spend thousands of dollars to go to school to get better careers. We go through numerous hours of training at work to be better at our jobs. But, let someone comment or make a suggestion about how we deal with our children and all hell breaks loose. We know what’s best for our children and no one else. I remember being 18-years-old, in my infinite wisdom, snapping at my son’s grandma for making a suggestion about something or the other about what I should do with my son. Mind you she’s raised four children of her own.

Now when I suggest that there be a parenting class I don’t mean diaper changing, bathing, and first aid. I mean, like, how to tell a kid about God when you aren’t too sure about religion yourself? What’s a nice way tell a 6-year-old to “stop asking so many damn questions, it doesn’t really matter how many leaves are on that tree”?

Luckily, I think, my son has developed a pretty thick skin and I can tell him, “Please shut up” without him crying or thinking his mother doesn’t love him. But then again, I think, “Is this how he’s going to allow women to treat him in the future?”  With all of my parental shortcomings, I think how this is affecting the type of person that my son will be as he gets older. Which brings me back to my case for quarterly parental training.

You need a license or permit to drive a car, get married, and even to build a new porch on your house. Anyone, however, without any government regulation or involvement can reproduce and raise other human beings. Even children can do it! I know… I did. But while I don’t have the answer to the world’s problem of overpopulation, I can offer my commentary on the need for reproductive regulation and strict parental guidance.

 Am I the only one who feels this way?

Shannon

You are NOT Entitled

Hope you can see this okay. This article was written in 1959 and sort of addresses the sense of entitlement that so many people these days have. Apparently, I am not alone in my thinking about people who think a better position in life is going to jump up and bite them or fall in their laps.

Spending a good chunk of the last decade in college, I see that John Tapene's advice fell on deaf ears. Can you believe there are students out there who actually expect the professors to write the notes for them? If one more twenty-something with sparkly nail polish asks the teacher "Can you put an outline on Blackboard?"...Then there's "What exactly is going to be on the test?" and "Is there extra credit?" I say, take your own notes! Get a good understanding of the material so it won't matter what the teacher puts on the test! And do what's required, extra credit is only extra when you did the assignments!

So, I see that I am going off on a tangent, so I'm going to end on that note.

By the way, this article was suggested by Bruce Angel in response to my last blog.

Shannon

We must not consider ourselves failures, but those who excel at mediocrity

Hey, do you hate your job? Do you feel like you don't make enough money? Not living in that dream house or driving that dream car yet? Well guess what?....Most of the people around you aren't either. But don't consider yourself a failure yet, you are the epitome of mediocrity!

Mediocrity is so underrated in today's society. Where I work, most people hate their job. Could it be because we work with the public? Could it be that we are understaffed and overworked? I think maybe because we are programmed as Americans to dislike our occupations. Words like 'underpayed', 'underemployed', 'overworked', and the idea of the dreadful Monday are way to prevalent among the workers of America.

The underlying reason, that I deduce, why people really hate their jobs is the the hope and prospect of something better. My question to these sympathizers is: What have you done to deserve better? No really, what have you done? Learned a skill? Improved on your leadership experience? Because a "better" job is not gonna seek you out, nor fall into your lap. Besides, what is so bad about where you are now?  I guarantee that you are exactly where you are supposed to be, and if you weren't you wouldn't be there. Whether you are intended to stay where you are or someday move on to something else, today...right now...you are where you are supposed to be. So my advice to you is to suck it up, get some comfortable shoes, and settle in.  The fact is, workers make the world go round. Everyone can't be in upper management. And as much as people like to believe that their bosses are out of touch or incompetent, they probably couldn't do their job and if they had the job they probably wouldn't like it.

Let's face it, the world needs security guards, bank tellers, janitors, cashiers, and people to make the food. Most importantly the world needs people who do these things well.

So, for as much as my coworkers complain about their jobs and where they should be in life, we continue to get a paycheck every two weeks, we have health benefits, we get paid vacations and sick time. Basically we are in a position where millions of Americans WISH they could be in right now. We look to those who have more, we long to have what they have, and we snarl at the mediocrity that we call life. But as a wise fellow Facebook-er said all too well "Don't worry about what someone else has because you don't know or may not be willing to endure the same obstacles to get where they are in life." (Akasia Jerrett)

And on that note, I'm out. Peace.

Shannon