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

Browsing Category General

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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Holiday Store Openings: The Hustle and Flow of Corporate Greed

by on ·General, Holidays

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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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So You Want to be a Writer

by on ·General, Opinion, The Way I See It

Publishing-Contract-30036044If you are looking for advice from an expert who has spent years studying and teaching writing you’re on the wrong blog. I am no expert. I am a freelance writer. In the ocean of prominent authors, I am a minnow. But while the big fish swim circles around me, I don’t cringe.

Writing is my passion and words are my pearls. Apparently, I string them together adequately — most of the time, because over the years I have been fortunate enough to have had articles printed in various publications including The Washington Post. In addition to my essays, I’ve had enough Letters to the Editor and opinion pieces in print to paper at least one wall in my den. Rejection slips from my perceived prize winning compositions could cover the opposite wall. Aside from college English and writing courses, I’ve had no formal training, but I’ve had excellent mentors including my friends Walter Kiplinger and Alex Lajoux. For the past four years, I’ve been happily blogging on my own websites. Hopefully, I have eliminated any pretentiousness, and I will now tell you what I know about writing and how I do it.

Writing well requires practice. Decide for yourself whether you want to write news articles, fiction, poetry, speeches, or whatever. The field is wide open. Just write. Write. Write. And write often. That practice makes perfect is no lie. I write on a variety of subjects and get ideas at any time or place; so much so that I keep a small notebook and pen handy to jot down things to write about as they occur to me.

As you write, keep in mind that your composition may require that you validate details. When I write, I fact check like a research junkie.  I also take pains to ensure the accuracy of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. After I’ve finished my final draft, I proofread it multiple times, and when necessary I cut wordiness like a pathologist dissecting a multilated corpse. Okay, perhaps that description was a bit melodramatic, but I enjoy spicing my writing with a bit of color and humor.

After you write your manuscript and submit it for publication, you can bet your binky that it will be critiqued with an eagle eye. Any piece that is fraught with grammatical errors, misspelled words and obvious impractical facts will go directly into the recycle bin. But if it is acceptable, someone from the editorial staff will likely contact you and ask you to swear on a stack of emails that what you wrote is your own creation and was not plagiarized nor published elsewhere at any time. If you truthfully answer yes, then voila!

The subject of writing well requires many more words than I can squeeze into a single post. So look for me to expand on this subject in the future. My bottom line, humble advice, is this:  make sure that what you write is original, error free, and accurate – your integrity is on the line.

Oh, one last tip – if you want to learn to write well, it helps to be an avid reader.

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They Don’t All Get Away

by on ·General, Opinion

Pistol on flagThe jury’s decision, on the Trayvon Martin case this past weekend is having a prolonged effect on me. The popping sounds of gunshots often reverberate in my dreams, turning them into nightmares. Pop! I see the smiling face of my best friend’s son; shot dead in August 1992. Pop! I am sitting in church attending the funeral of my cousin’s son; shot dead in January 2006. Pop! Thanks to pictures published by the media, I am haunted by numerous photos of the unsuspecting face of Trayvon Martin; shot dead in February 2012.  All young black men all senselessly murdered by other men; callous men, who disregarded the God-given lives of Kenneth, Ray, and Trayvon, in order to pursue their own personal agenda and murder their victims.

George Zimmerman, killer of Trayvon Martin even had the nerve to say on the Hannity talk show that “it was all God’s plan” for him to kill Trayvon.  HOW DARE HE! It is the peak of pomposity and arrogance for Zimmerman to say that God sent him to murder that teen.  No one should blame God for their own irresponsible actions.

Having now publicly vented my anger, perhaps I will be able to sleep through the night without hearing phantom gunshots, envisioning young black men being senselessly murdered, and waking up with tears in my eyes.

This post is purposely shorter than those I normally write; short like the lives of the three previously mentioned young black men who now sleep eternally.

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