Intimidation

Most of us do our best to put up the front that we are not intimidated by anything. As a male and possibly a female it begins around early adolescence. Around this time I realized that the people that I regularly associated with were both friends and enemies. With the bursts of hormones raging through our young hearts the games of one upsmanship began to increase in tenacity and venom. A lot of this revolved around our desires to be perceived as valuable by the fairer sex. As our bodies change we also begin to try to develop a tougher exterior in order to mask our visible weaknesses. Some develop this quicker than others. Some date cheerleaders while other create role playing games by using pen paper and construction paper made characters. Told you I was a nerd.

I can remember one such time when school had broken for the day. Often while waiting for our various means of transportation we would play whatever games children play in front of the school. On this fine occasion a girl I was running in a panic from a “love” interest of mine who was chasing me down with a dandelion in hand. She desperately wanted to blow its parachute like seeds at me. A fellow boy who also took a liking to this girl saw this. While she backed me up through the threat of ….pollination I suppose the other boy had maneuvered his way behind me. I tripped over an outstretched foot having my head soundly snap back on to city sidewalk.

I’ll never forget my first thought. I looked up into the eyes of terror from both girl and boy. Wide eyes mouth agape she continued to clutch her flower while the shadow of guilt began to fall over the face of my antagonist. My first thought was to not cry. I wanted to be strong; I had to show no intimidation. So I stood up. Quickly I felt drops of blood beginning to descend from my head to neck to back. I stood and tried to give those now gathered around me a look of indifference. However the cries of surrounding teachers had now reached my ears. I remember finally grabbing my head as the teachers rushed me to the nurse. Ill never forget my hands covered in my own blood.

I never ratted out the kid that did it to me either. I upheld the guy code. I showed no intimidation.

Now as an adult the stakes are a bit higher. If I am intimidated I am weak and I would let my clients walk all over me. Even when I agree with my clients I still have to argue with them in an attempt to show that we do not simply roll over to their demands. Through the years I have mentally told my self so many times that I now believe it. I am not intimidated.

Well yesterday I discovered something. As I sat on a deck in the sunlight I realized something about myself; I am intimidated by wealth. Often I have wondered internally how I have ended up in these places. As I have said before, growing up people from the suburbs were despised. They were the rich kids who had nicer baseball uniforms. They were elitist, they could never understand. So as I was driving to attend a party it quickly became obvious that this neighborhood lived by the motto, “a hummer in every drive way, and a bmw in every garage.”

So as I am sitting on this monstrous deck over looking an equally monstrous back yard complete with children’s bounce tent, and a horse shoe pit. I wonder to myself. How in the world did I ever get to this point and how can I stay here. I have never seen so many attractive people sipping mimosas and making pithy comments about random occurrences. One woman went into a ten minute spiel concerning using the word “ociffer” instead of officer when drunkenly addressing a public official. I’m not even kidding she was tearing the house down. She didn’t even have a decent story it was more that a friend said the word to her when talking about policemen.

These people just seem to operate on different wave lengths than myself. I have felt the same way about most Christians that I meet. Most of which is to my detriment and completely my fault. However I was intimidated by them. I felt like an outsider, I felt poor.

The obvious answer here is that what’s gone wrong is that my grounding slipped. For a moment I allowed myself to be intimidated by possessions and objects that are ultimately worthless. There is currently no happy ending to this tale. No greater lesson learned. In many ways you already know what intimidates you, it’s just a rarity that you get confronted by it especially now that I am an adult and I can build my own little bubble. I was hoping that by the time I finished writing this scattered little talk about my own little quirks that I would have a good moral or wrap for the entry. But I don’t. Hopefully you got something out of it. Don’t ground your worth on your possessions.

Weight

A new record at this mornings weigh in. With only 28 days to go until my next cholesterol test I will be pushing hard this month. To date I have lost 25 pounds by simply eating regular meals every couple of hours, not eating sweets, no fast food and no red meat. Crazy stuff.

Tommorow

We are going to look at the music that defines you. Most of us have a song that always resounded with us. I’m going to take a look at the music that made me. Join me tomorrow for a sentimental trip through my Ipod.