Giving up negativity continued...

Ok, I want to discuss the excellent comment that was posted to my Mardi Gras entry on my giving up negativity. I’ll agree that removing negativity is difficult but if there is one thing that I don’t want to have happen is suffer from malaise and just be one of those people who sits around going “Life sucks, oh well.” I know that there are people out there going, “But EC, you do that all the time.” Agreed and that is what I am wanting to fix because that is not living, that’s just existing. It’s the easy way out and maybe it is a little less risky but it’s dumb. I’d much rather be angry and upset and doing something than being resigned to my existence.

With that I am very happy with the suggestion of doing volunteer work since I have seriously been thinking about that the past couple of weeks and I consider that to be number three on my list of things I have to do now. I feel like I’m just talking a good game in a number of aspects but I’m not doing anything. There are charities that I support financially, which are ones that are close to my heart, but that is a really simple action. Given that I don’t even balance my checkbook you could probably call it meaningless, which is a horrible thing to say. I really feel a need to start doing something. I’m not sure what but I have to start making an impact on the world again.

The other thing is that when I talk about removing negativity I do not mean becoming a Pollyanna and going around saying “Life is beautiful, isn’t everything perfect?” Those are the people who drive me nuts at concerts and make me wish that Jerry Garcia was never born. This world isn’t perfect. The world is warming at an alarming degree. Polar bears might really be extinct by the end of the century due to the melting of the ice caps. We have a president who doesn’t read, believes in intelligent design, and cannot complete a sentence without stumbling. There are a lot of things that need to be fixed and being positive does not mean ignoring the issues.

What it means is more along the lines of my old “No worries” persona. Those of you who have spent a large amount of time with me at a bar will have inevitably hear me use the phrase “no worries” whenever anyone asks me for anything. It’s a byproduct of having spent a lot of time in bars with Australians and Kiwis in my youth. The thing is, I’ve had people get upset with me for always saying it. They took it as my meaning that life is perfect and go about without a care. I don’t mean it that way. If anything, what I’m trying to do is what my buddy Ivey once asked me to do. I was stressing out about something for school and we ended up having the following conversation

“Chris, if you fail, will you die?”
“No.”
“Will they kick you out of school?”
“No.”
“Is there anything that can happen that you can’t handle?”
“No.”
“Then why are you stressing? Do your best and know that whatever happens you can deal with then.”

That’s the point I want to get to. As tough as a situation might get, as much stress that I can accumulate, to just have the ability to go, “Well, odds are I won’t die so really this isn’t that big of a deal.” Just laugh it off and have the confidence to say that whatever happens in life, I have the ability to handle it.

(Oh, since I listed volunteering as the third thing on my list I bet you’re wondering what the first thing is. That will of course be buying shirts from www.starzantees.com. Yes, be a year ahead of the fashion curve (five years if you live in Kansas) and help out a long time friend of the blog.)

(One last bit since what I just wrote wasn’t what I originally planned to write tonight. Since I know that there are people reading this who do not know my entire life story I figured that I should help explain some of the references that continually make their way into my writing. Consider it my Infrequently Asked Questions list. Feel free to ask anything you like. Here is a start.

Q: What does EC actually mean?
A: EC stands for Engineer Chris. Who originally coined the term I’m not sure but it was given to me in business school and by the end of my time there it was my approved nickname and I’m cool with that. I use it in the blog because I like using a pen name and I have a very unique last name that I really don’t want to have plastered over the interweb. Basically, when I write as EC I can sometimes give myself a little more distance and write something that Christopher would not write because he would worry about the consequences. It’s strange but it really works.)