My two-cents worth and then some. An online journal by LP Brown.

Posts Written By L Parker Brown

Putting a Lighthearted Spin on One-upmanship

by on ·General, Lifestyle and Culture, Opinion

bigstock-funny-cartoon-zombie-42450889Do you hate people who are always trying to one-up you? If you are like me, you know a one-upper when you see one. The Merriam-Webster dictionary describes one-upmanship as “the art or practice of outdoing or keeping one jump ahead of a friend or competitor.” The way I see it, one-upping is simply a form of gamesmanship, although it is sometimes viewed by people who dislike it as creative intimidation.

Most of us know at least one one-upper; that outspoken relative or friend who, no matter what the subject, they know more about it than anyone else. I think many people, including you and I engage in one-upping at one time or another. Wink. Wink.

One-upping is probably as close to a verbal knock-out game as you can get. Here’s how it’s played. Let’s say that you tell a friend, “I had a terrible day.” She immediately chimes in with “No, my day was waaay worse than yours,” and then she rambles on and on about why she had the day from hell. By the time her rant is over, you forget why your day was so bad.

Here’s another example. Imagine that you are overhearing a conversation between two men. One guy tells the other, “I recently visited Mt. Kilimanjaro.” Before he can finish his sentence, the other guy one-ups him by saying, “Man, I not only visited Mt. Kilimanjaro, I climbed it — in bare feet.” Yes, some one-uppers, determined not to be outdone, sometimes embellish their tale ridiculously.

Some one-uppers like an audience. And speaking of ridiculous, let me tell you an unbelievable, but true story. Many years ago, some friends and I attended a program that featured a fire sword swallower. The performer, after amazing us with his finesse at swallowing a flaming sword, asked a volunteer from the audience to come on stage and duplicate the act. This was years before government safety regulations would have prevented an untrained and naïve audience member from participating in such a dangerous stunt. One of our wacky friends, who thrived on one-upping and trying to be impressive, volunteered. As he walked up on the stage, I felt compelled to cover my eyes with my hands; instead I just crossed my arms, confident that he would come to his senses and return to his seat. Wrong! As he attempted and failed to swallow the fiery sword, he suffered burns which days later became blisters on his lips and inside of his mouth. Fortunately, not every one-upper goes to the extremes as my young and dumb, fried lip friend did.

We live in a competitive world and one-upping is just one more silly game that people play. Self-confident people are not unsettled by one-uppers, nor do they view it as a put-down. Consider this excellent quote on the subject by Nev Sagiba, “Wisdom is not found in words but in the trail a person leaves in life….”

If you feel that someone is one-upping you there are a few things you can do. Immediately, come back with a mine is bigger than yours story; ignore the statement; or bid your time — your turn will come. And while you are waiting for your opportunity, boost your confidence by humming a little tune like this one from the musical Annie Get Your Gun, “Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than you.”

Now one-up that!

 

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Remembering Days of Auld Lang Syne

by on ·Holidays, Nostalgia, The Way I See It

bigstock-Happy-New-Year-2331638You mean it’s New Year’s Eve again?  So soon? Where did the time go? Where did the year go? I must be imagining that only minutes have passed since I switched off the TV at the conclusion of New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 2012, and then mislaid the remote somewhere between the top sheet and the Christmas colored comforter before killing the lamp on the nightstand.

Now 2014 is in my face, and as I often do at year’s end I am reminiscing about New Year’s Eves past – like December 31, 1968.

I can see it now. It is early evening, and my husband and I are squashed among the throng of curb-to-curb people who are huddling in Times Square. Everyone is layered up, wrapped down, and shivering in the frigid, below 30 temperature. I’m guessing that many, like me, are earnestly wishing that the thermometer would rise as we wait for the ball to drop. Occasionally, hubby and I try to wiggle through the crowd, to move around, just to warm our feet. But the closer it gets to the witching hour, the more difficult it is to budge, so we root ourselves in a spot with a good vantage point. To kill time we make small talk with others around us. Everyone is in a festive mood.

And finally it happens. A large crystal ball begins slowly descending the pole from the roof of One Times Square. It illuminates the night sky. And the revelers begin enthusiastically counting down to midnight.

As the clock strikes 12 the celebration begins. People are joyfully shouting and singing. Blow-out horns and other noisemakers reverberate throughout the square and there is plenty of hugging and kissing among lovers — and probably some strangers, too. Rumor has it that kissing someone on the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve will strengthen the bonds of your relationship.  Don’t you believe it.

All things considered, New Years Eve in Times Square is an enchanted evening and the magic lingers on in your memory.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year! 

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To Hug or Not to Hug

by on ·Lifestyle and Culture, Opinion, The Way I See It

schoolgirl--51689332When I was a child, a hug from my teacher was comforting and encouraging. Giving a hug to a favorite teacher showed my appreciation. But today conscientious teachers are afraid to touch or be touched by students. What’s more, a student displaying physical affection toward a teacher or another student could face suspension.

Such was the case on December 3, when Sam McNair, a 17-year-old high school senior in Duluth, Georgia, was suspended for sexual harassment because he hugged his teacher. A week earlier, six year old first grader, Hunter Yelton, was suspended from a Colorado school for kissing his female classmate on the hand. Following a wave of negative publicity, the Colorado school system lifted the suspension. People tend to regard the action of the six year old as innocent and impulsive, but some are less forgiving of the high school senior.

I queried a few teachers on the subject and have summarized their views below. To protect their privacy, I’ve used bullets instead of names to represent each teacher’s remarks. Here is what they had to say.

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Holiday Store Openings: The Hustle and Flow of Corporate Greed

by on ·General, Holidays

bigstock-Fiery-black-friday-sale-design-51527377

Bargains are the drawing card, and some stores in an effort to get a jump on Black Friday are upping the ante by opening early. Recent newscasts report that this year, for the first time, Macy’s will join other retailers and open its doors on the eve of Black Friday.

Black Friday is that problematic shopping day known for attracting aggressive crowds; reports of assaults, shootings, and throngs of people trampling each other in an attempt to get the best deal on a limited stock item. In 2008, a Walmart employee was trampled to death when overzealous Black Friday shoppers stampeded as he was opening the store’s doors. The rudeness and sheer madness of frenzied customers is just one reason why retail workers want to avoid working on holidays; missing the opportunity to enjoy those days with their family is another.

I am a boomer and I remember when I was growing up most stores were closed on holidays. On Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Day, nearly every store in Washington, DC was locked up tighter than Fort Knox, and downtown merchants were not the only ones who did not open. Neighborhood grocery stores closed too.

If my dad forgot to buy something needed for the Thanksgiving meal when he was grocery shopping earlier in the week, and mother sent me to the corner store, on Thanksgiving Day, for those last minute items, I arrived to find a hand written sign taped to the door reading, “Closed for the Holiday.” That same faded sign was posted there during the Christmas holiday season, as it had been on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day, because “Mom and Pop” felt that it was important for families to be together on holidays. That was an era when many employers cared more about their workers than they cared about chasing profits.

Fast forward through the decades and holiday store closings is just one more thing of a bygone era.

Some people would argue that public servants work on holidays:  police officers, hospital personnel, and emergency responders, to name a few. True. But those people certainly had an expectation that their job would require them to work on holidays. In light of things, retail workers might as well consider themselves essential employees. While some sales helpers will jump at the chance to work on holidays and probably earn a few extra dollars, others are given no choice. The order is that you show up as assigned or — as the Donald would say, “You’re fired.”

Shrewd CEOs claim that by opening on holidays they are simply responding to customer demand — open the doors and they will come; and so they do. And while some customers are genuinely concerned about employees being required to work on those days, others only care that someone is available to service them. If I were a cashier, the last thing I would want to hear from a bargain hunting customer unloading a cart full of items onto the counter in front of me is “It’s a shame that they make you all work today.” The thought behind my cheesy smile would be – Pllleeease!  Tell it to the piper. If people like you would boycott the stores on holidays, then people like me could stay at home and enjoy our families, too.

Gone are the days when CEOs had empathy and compassion for their employees. In the words of Grand Master Flash’s prophetic song, The Message, “It’s all about money and ain’t a damn thing funny” about that.

 

 

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Bidding on the Price of Life

by on ·General, Lifestyle and Culture

Life lines“No money. No cell phone. No technology.” Those were the words that a survivor in the Philippines said to a TV news reporter in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. According to one report 600,000 people lost everything in that storm. The distressed woman’s words bothered me, because  she only mentioned the loss of material things. My first thought was — at least you are alive, which is easy to say when the bad thing is happening to someone else. Then I asked myself this question. “When all you have is life — is it enough?”

Many of us have never lived through the unimaginable horrors of a typhoon, a Tsunami, or a Hurricane Katrina, but we may know someone who did. Perhaps we know a soldier who returned from war after losing one or more limbs, or maybe we have a relative or close friend who suffered an incapacitating stroke, was paralyzed in a car accident, or is enduring terminal cancer. Any of those things can change a person’s perspective on life.

More than a few people have told me that if they ever become physically incapacitated to the point that they are completely reliant upon a caregiver to do everything from feed and bath them to assist with their toileting needs – or if they are hospitalized and on a life support machine — they’d rather be dead. “I want someone to pull the switch. I do not want to live like that,” they say. I’ve even read stories about people who are so determined not to let declining mental or physical health diminish their quality of life that they have their body tattooed with the letters DNR —Do Not Resuscitate.

Life is an indeterminable roller coaster of hills and valleys. Sometimes we cruise peacefully for days, months, or years on an unobstructed theoretical highway, then without warning a sharp curve appears. It is often those blind siding crises that force us to confront our own mortality and realize that while we are here one moment we could suddenly be gone the next.

A Connecticut woman, Madonna Badger, contemplated suicide and was briefly committed to a psychiatric hospital after losing all three of her children and her parents in a Christmas Day fire in 2011. With the help and support of loving friends she managed to pull herself back from the brink of despair.

Janet Adkins, a 54 year old woman who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1989, apparently, feeling that she had nothing left to live for, became the first public suicide of Jack Kevorkian, nicknamed Dr. Death, a pathologist who believed in and practiced physician-assisted suicide.

One woman fought back, another surrendered, and a Philippine typhoon victim threw up her hands in a gesture of hopelessness as if to say, “What’s left to live for?”

Have you ever felt like you are trapped in a financial rut, living pay-check-to-paycheck, and struggling to survive? That is a common problem for many people. If you are an optimist you believe that in time – and with a bit of luck – you will dig yourself out of the rut. But what if one day your life changes drastically – you succumb to a sudden illness and can no longer work. Or your home is destroyed by a fire or a tornado. Could you handle it?

Sometimes we don’t know how much we truly appreciate something until it has been taken away from us. While you are sitting there at your computer in your cozy home or at your workplace, and feeling comfortable in the fact that you can put food on the table, go shopping for new clothes whenever you feel like it, and perhaps you have a wonderful spouse and children, imagine that suddenly it is all gone.  Consider your current age, your income – consider everything that today – at this moment – makes you feel secure. Then imagine that you not only lose all of your worldly possessions, but you lose your entire family too. Be honest with yourself, do you think that you would be strong enough to recover or would you simply decide that there is nothing left to live for? That brings me full circle to the thought provoking question:  When all you have is life, is it enough?”

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