EVERYDAY EVERYMAN FOR THE WIN ON VETERANS DAY

An everyday everyman is the goal to strive for.

Not average, not ordinary, not basic.

Everyman isn’t richer, stronger, or taller, either.

Even if they were, you’d never know.

Why?

Because they don’t take part in the hype.

Everyman understands how important it is for people to feel good about themselves.

Who doesn’t like being well thought of by others?

Part of that, a big part, is knowing when to back the fuck off.

You can’t be a ‘fly on the wall’ if you’re buzzing in peoples’ face. Which means taking time to listen to others.

However if you can make the jump to talking and listening at the same time, don’t.

All anyone remembers is the buzzing sound.

An everyday everyman follows this rule: Don’t suck the air out of every room you enter.

Even if you could, don’t do it.

 

An Everyday Everyman Recipe

Who in your circle of friends and acquaintances lives a big live and lets everyone know?

No one?

Isn’t there someone they know who grabs life by the balls and swings it?

Over here in America we may not know someone living big, but we have celebrity crushes on those we live through vicariously.

Some movie star, sports star, some media figure, stands in for people we don’t know.

And we copy them.

We like their car, where they live. Our husbands and wives aren’t aware of our attempt to make them more like their celebrity crush’s partner.

When our kids screw up we secretly wish they’d be more like our crush’s kids.

Raise your hand if this is you.

 

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One time when my kids were in grade school I asked them the wrong question:

 

“If you could have another dad besides me, who would it be?”

 

I don’t know why I asked, except for being a dad, their dad.

Did I wait for my sweet little boys to say, “Oh, father, who could ask for anyone but you, anyone better, smarter, more handsome, and a better husband to mom. We wouldn’t want it any different.”

I waited about five seconds, then got their real answer:

 

“We’d want Michael Jordan to be our dad.”

 

Not a lot of hesitation from either of my little punks.

Michael Jordan?

They were in such agreement it felt like they’d talked about it before.

But Michael Jordan made sense.

If you couldn’t ‘Be Like Mike’ you could be like one of his kids.

It turns out Mike and I do have some things in common:

The core lesson that can be taken away from Michael’s dynamic with his children is that you don’t have to follow your parents’ path to show your love for them. You can be your own person and still deserve their love.

You can follow your own dreams and still respect their achievements and lessons. This life belongs to you, and your parents are only along for the ride. 

 

Living The Dream

I got a feel for living the everyday everyman life when I joined the Army.

The goal in there was making the little guys bigger and the bigger guys smaller.

I was 6’3″, 210 lbs. of prime NW nineteen year old ready for processing the Army way.

And that’s what happened.

I saw guys flex up and get popped.

Guys who knew they were more than they were given credit for fucked around and found out.

What did I learn? Everyone had an inflated opinion of themselves and every Drill Sergeant knew all about it.

Years later I’ve spoken to successful people who reminenced about missing their chance to serve.

I was a Private First Class, a Pfc.

Guys in their middle-aged years don’t see themselves as a Pfc. Why would they?

Instead, they see themselves as officers and gentlemen.

For most of them it isn’t a big stretch. I know officers and gentlemen myself, and they’re not much different than anyone else.

Until they need to be. That’s the big difference. Service people know how to adapt to changing circumstances.

Take Veteran’s Day for example.

Do I remind anyone from the family I grew up in that I’m the only one of them with the vaguest notion of veteran’s status?

They know. It didn’t matter to them from the get-go. We never made anything of it for my dad who logged five years in the Marines during the Korean War.

I don’t think it mattered to him any more than it does me.

What does matter is knowing that my brothers and sisters and sons and daughters could have cut the mustard in the military of their choice.

How do I know? Because I’m a veteran of the era.

Happy Veteran’s Day. May your memories be a blessing.