Myopic Mindset

As I looked around the pizza restaurant I found it difficult to believe we are in a recession. The restaurant was packed with families celebrating the end of their respective sport seasons. This particular establishment caterers to the families and is very “kid friendly” complete with the arcade. I doubt very much that they get the walk-in couple out on a date or the husband and wife going out for “date night”. I certainly wouldn’t frequent this place if I didn’t have a family or if I wasn’t celebrating some type of team function yet for Wednesday evening the place was jumping and judging by the prices I would have to say they are weathering the recessionary storm.

Along these same lines there are many restaurants going out of business in the area and I was told by a very reliable source that a person can basically name their price to take over any of these failing businesses. I do believe we are in a time where the “strong shall survive” and the weak will perish. That may sound very Darwinian but it seems to be the nature of the times will live in. I often think that my “fall from grace” did happen a fortuitous time if that even makes any sense. My former workplace had a massive layoff and there were people I had worked with that were let go in spite of their long years of service. The adage of “you never know what tomorrow will bring” rings so try in my opinion which is why living in recovery continues to save my life.

I can’t seem to stick with the training schedule which requires me to run on four consecutive days. I am very good on the three consecutive days but when it comes to days like today my body and mostly my mind are craving a day off from running. I was all set to run this morning having my clothes all lay out but my mind just said, “Not today,” and I listened. This is a very aggressive training session and I am keeping pace but I do need that day off after the third day of running as opposed to the fourth day of running. This is just as well because all I do is trade the off day today and go back to the gym tomorrow.

Taking the morning off allowed me to take the children to school which has now turned into me riding my bicycle with them as they ride their bicycles as well. Basically, I am a bicycle escort and help them lock up their bikes and wish them a fantastic day at school. We live a very quick 3 minute bike ride from the school grounds and if there were a “secret passage” cut behind our house the school is basically across the street but there is no “secret passage” and we have to go all the way around the block which really isn’t that far at all. I am back home in no time and the children are safely off to school. It is strange because we allow our children to ride their bicycles home from school without a parent present yet we seem to have to escort them to school in the morning. It isn’t as if our children would “ditch” school because they are not the type (that is as of now!!) but I guess this is a safety precaution. Anyhow I had the pleasure to escort them to school this morning.

I had an appointment which didn’t require me to depart until after the traffic had subsided since the appointment was about 60 miles away. I do schedule my appointments around the traffic patterns because I would rather drive an hour than sit in traffic for two hours. I spent some quality time with my wife before I departed and oh yes; my wife is still waiting for the “call” about her possible job. This is starting to frustrate me more than my wife because I know the people she would be working for and lately I can’t seem to get a straight answer. I thought everything was a go two weeks ago but ever since I have no idea what is happening. I will chalk it up to those “things I CANNOT control” and will accept whatever happens. If it is meant to be it will be and if not so be it.

I made my way to a very interesting appointment at a fellow recovery center. This particular recovery center was celebrating 23 years in existence and had a very nice reception. The key note speaker was a person who has been in recovery for a number of years and had a long list of accomplishments. This person had their MBA, MD and whole lot of other initials thrown in. The focus was certainly on recovery and the point of incarceration versus recovery was brought into the fold. It was very much on the side of recovery but the general population views this as “soft on crime.” Having been inside the “system” I can say firsthand that the incarceration effect doesn’t seem to work and if there were more programs available the incarceration rate will fall but I also know the money that is made on the side of incarceration which is why the treatment initiatives continue to fail. It isn’t in the best interest of those who have all the money to treat people when more money can be made to lock them away. This is sad and hopefully people such as this speaker will change this myopic mindset.

I met some very good people today and even though I am new to this industry I do feel very comfortable because I understand the language. I may not understand the specific treatment methods as today someone was explaining a few of them and I wondered if the person was actually speaking Greek! I am very good at saying, “Oh, and yes” often when I don’t know the specifics of the words I am hearing. I did my best and hopefully made some very good contacts today because after all that is my job to make personal contacts which will help grow the business. I had a very good day listening and embracing all the blessings in my life.