Five Days Into This—March 2025
I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage, “To make an omelet you have to break some eggs.”
What part of that statement stands out to you? Is it the the fact that you’re getting an omelet (with good cheese, not the cheap stuff) or does your mind drift to the broken eggs?
I bet these days, you may even be overcome with the anxiety that those eggs were expensive and whoever made those eggs better not have messed up, costing the need for another egg in a two egg omelet. Now that’s three!
Maybe you’ve placed the omelet making responsibilities in the hands of the professionals at Waffle House and Lord knows they can make a mean omelet. But then there’s that up-charge per egg they’re putting on everything with eggs, passing the cost on to the consumer, relieving the cost burdens from the restauranteur.
Maybe you can’t help but fixate on that dadgum H5N1 Bird Flu. What if you end up with it? What if your dog somehow happens upon a wild bird that happens to have that dadgum H5N1 Bird Flu and now you’re out a few hundred dollars (ok, thousand) getting Fido healed from something you thought he couldn’t even get! (He can).
Maybe you didn’t have that anxiety but now since you’ve read something on the internet and believed it, the anxiety has taken root and here we go.
It’s so easy to go down those rabbit trails, finding any and all anxieties to dwell upon. We could literally “WHAT IF!” ourselves to the grave. If we “WHAT IF!” ourselves too much, we then jump on the “WHY EVEN!” train. WHAT IF we get hurt and embarrassed or lose our jobs or have someone say something snarky? WHY EVEN try if all we’re going to faced with is failure and humiliation?
One of my favorite golfers is not one of the winningest golfers, but he’s been through the WHAT IFs and WHY EVENs for so long that he’s come out on the other side with a completely different view on both of those. Max Homa has answers to those idiotic questions—legit answers.
Max is good, like really good. But he went through a stretch where he was really not good. You could almost say he was bad. He’d probably kick you in the tail to get you across the “not good—bad” threshold.
Max saw his name shoot to the tops of the PGA ranks only to see his name fall just as fast. He lost his PGA Tour card and trickled down to the Korn Ferry only to lose that card as well. He was so hard on himself that his mind started to run with all the things that could go wrong, never allowing him to relax enough to do something right.
During the 2024 Master’s Tournament at the beautiful Augusta National in Augusta, Georgia, he was on a hot streak. He was playing like he was happy. And who wouldn’t be! His shots were going straight. His putts were dropping. The weather was perfect. But he wasn’t thinking about how right things were going. He was in his moment! And during an interview, he said a quote that stuck to my bones.
“If I catch myself thinking about what could go wrong, I let myself dream of what could go right.”
He spent too many days focusing on the broken eggs. They were expensive eggs that he probably couldn’t afford to have a spare used up. He spent too many hours wrestling with all that could go wrong, which happened to be all the things he couldn’t control (man this sounds familiar).
I’m halfway through my 40th year on this earth. I’m 22 years into being an “adult.” I’m almost 18 years into my marriage. I’m 16 years into my bill-paying profession. I’m close to 14 years into fatherhood. I’m 5 years into my current position and 3 years into my “political” career (emphasis on the quotation marks).
There are so many things that could go wrong. Most of the “wrongs” are 100% my fault. Sometimes I remind myself how beneficial it’d be “I” just got out of the way. So many things that could go wrong.
But how often do we allow ourselves to dream about what could go right? Not often enough, I’m willing to wager. This kind of mentality takes effort and time to achieve. It requires forgiveness, patience, confidence, naivety, support systems and sometimes pure dumb luck.
I love the New Yorker cartoon at the top of this entry. So many times we have a masterpiece painted on our ceiling, one that’s world-renowned, and instead of being mesmerized and humbled by the opportunity to see or even “own” such a masterpiece, we’re more concerned with the paint on the floor—paint on the floor that we could clean up ourselves. I bet that effort would take less energy than blaming others and playing the victim. I bet that effort could even reveal the priceless marble floor we walk on everyday.
We should dare to enjoy the omelet and not care so much about the broken eggs, no matter how expensive they may be (or if your 10-year-old surprised you with that extra special crunch stemming from a few rogue egg shells that made their way into the final product).
John Milton said it best in his poem “Paradise Lost.” He said, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven out of hell, a hell of heaven.”
We have the choice, and if we choose to be a victim, then there we are. But if we choose to make the best of any situation, we can dream of what could go right.
I dare you to try it. You might think you’re not able to, but WHAT IF!
Titled Things: Our English 2 students are reading a book that wasn’t out when I was an English teacher, and I like having read all that the students are to read so I can try to carry on a conversation with them about it (or give them hints as to what may be on their test). They’re reading Born a Crime by Trevor Noah who is the son of an interracial couple from South Africa. It just so happened that he was born during the South African Apartheid. I previously read The Promise by Damon Galgut that took place in the same setting.
Since Noah is a humorist, I’m expecting some humorous stories as well as some painful memories. Galgut’s novel is fiction and is pretty heavy most of the time, so comparing these two stories and how they handle similar themes is something I’m looking forward to (Nerdy. I know).
Up for the Challenge: Primary season is coming to a completing this month. Citywide primaries are scheduled for April 1 (ironic date), and then we gear up for the general elections.
I have no opponent in the primaries, but I do have an opponent in the general election. I’m hoping my efforts over these past few years warrants others to vote for me. I’m a wide open book and an easy listener. I fight for the rights of homeowners and work with developers to make Clinton a great place to live while also remembering the people who make up this great town.
I had a constituent tell a friend of mine that I didn’t listen or fight for the residents of a certain neighborhood during a situation when in fact I teamed up with a few other aldermen and we collectively did just that. It may have not been showy or flamboyant, but I fought. I’ll continue to fight for that citizen and their neighbors. It’s just the right thing to do!
Decisions are made by those who show up, so put it on your calendar. June 3, 2025!
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