Sorry not sorry, but this is going to be an odd combination of thoughts that have kept me pre-occupied while driving the last couple weeks. The drama that people have created around Olympic opening ceremonies, the turmoil around the disaster of a political season this is, the continued post-pandemic chaos where people are still ridiculed for wearing masks in public… why are we constantly trying to be at odds with one another?

Are these issues well-founded… or is everyone just looking for a reason to be upset with each other? For crying out loud, the Olympic ceremonies haven’t been “normal” in decades. An artistic expression that some may find interesting, some may find beautiful, and some won’t understand – wander into any art gallery these days, and that’s exactly what you’ll find. Does it detract from the goal of celebrating these athletes and what they have worked so hard for? Certainly. However, none of us volunteered to serve on the Paris 2024 Planning Committee – so it really isn’t our place to make this kind of judgment… especially when our children are at risk of losing funding for the programs at school that could help them achieve similar extracurricular goals if they so chose to pursue them. Why don’t you direct your focus there instead?

The subject line implies my thought process over the last few days… why would anyone run for political office at this critical point of our society? Some journalist is going to pull up a story from college about how the candidate did a keg stand freshman year of college, and someone will read their spin on the story and decide something about it was offensive. Instead of focusing on the issues at hand and getting their message out to potentially undecided voters, the campaign has to focus the majority of their time on damage control with something that hasn’t impacted anyone’s lives (and won’t impact anyone) – ever.

We seem to have our minds made up that it is the responsibility of athletes, celebrities, political figures, and the like… to achieve perfection in whatever it is they do. Newsflash – we are human. It is in our nature to make mistakes (just ask Adam and Eve), and it is part of our DNA no matter how much you try to ignore that. We wonder why the pool of options of who to vote for is so abysmal, but we also TERRORIZE whoever steps up and volunteers. Look at how badly past Presidents and high-ranking officials have aged in the past 20 years – we as a society put them through hell and still expect smiling faces, perfect pronunciation, and immaculate decision-making whenever they are in public. It simply can’t happen, but we lean into major media outlets to tell us how we should feel about those mistakes and weird looks, and it creates more of a hellscape in social media AND our actual, very real daily lives when it doesn’t have to.

Children used to dream of becoming professional athletes, and often still do – but now have to decide if paparazzi following their every move is worth the contract they are in pursuit of. We see these insane numbers in the NBA / NFL / MLB, only to then calculate they get about 50% of the number after taxes and fees, have to pay an absurd amount for security to keep themselves and their families safe from the scrutiny (and to those of you sending death threats to people’s homes after they miss a field goal… please get yourself some help)… it makes no sense. Why would anyone volunteer to be the face of any major organization when the backlash has become this fierce? Self-harm and the taking of own lives continues to be a major issue in our society, but we get mocked by others when we try to suggest that pursuing mental health should be a priority for everyone (and that those resources need to be more readily available) – especially for those in precarious positions.

If you got this far in my rambling, I appreciate you. I know you tend to scroll past when I suggest that you vote anything other than Republican or Democrat… but if you continue to believe that one side is better than the other, we are going to be doing this same song and dance in four years – unless a civil war breaks out before then. There are SO MANY OTHER THINGS that deserve our time and attention: the fact that several people can’t get jobs right now because corporations have made the process inaccessible, the fact that there are neighbors of yours who will have to choose tonight between paying a past due bill or feeding their family, the fact that technological advances are crippling our ability to remain decent human beings with purpose… I can go on and on. Come grab a drink and smoke with me sometime on the porch and talk about it if you’d like – but please, stop wasting time spewing nonsense on platforms (keep in mind, this is also a reminder to myself) when we have so many other good things to be doing with our time and talents.