Where do you get your advice?

  OK so how do you get your advice? It is ironic that I even address this when I am posting this on a blog. I can tell you that such and such said this, and how do you know I did not just pull something out of thin air to back up my advice? Truth is that it is very difficult to trust what you find on the internet. So why do you even bother with sites like Wikipedia? Take this advice from Michael Scott for instance… 

  Now days there are television shows with popular doctor’s who claim to be experts, but at times their advice can be insincere and turn into shallow advice. Maybe this is because it can be difficult to always find topics that an audience will choose to watch over what is on another channel. The same goes for popular blogs and websites that need your visits.

  So who can you trust? The answer is your self. Yes there are plenty of websites, books, doctors, family members, friends, and television shows that can help you get a general idea. However it is important that you learn from your own experiences, and to explore new ideas when seeking out answers.

  For example, do you remember the whole carbohydrates are your enemy diet trend? Just after I turned 21 while I was on a church mission I had found that I really needed to lose some weight. With the popular all meat diet around, I could not refuse to try it out. So I ate only meat and whatever else that had no carbohydrates. The first 2 days I loved it. The 3^rd day I started to feel ill. I just chalked it up to my nervousness of going back to my home town in a couple months as an overweight chipmunk. Day 6 I noticed that I had no energy, I still felt ill, and my missionary buddy had started to tell me that I smelled funny. I had also noticed that after day 2 that I haven’t gone just that…..number 2. A member of the local congregation, who was a family doctor, was willing to help me out. When I told him about my problems he said that I was number 10 on his list of people with these same symptoms and all had been on this diet. He recommended that I stop the diet and to go home and to drink a lot of water, and to use some milk of magnesia to help clear up my problems.To this day I am grateful for that honest help, and advice.

  The moral of the story is, be careful. While it is good to try new things, I like to think of the old saying “if it is not broke, don’t try and fix it”. One should be honest though when they are in need of help. Denial can be equally as bad as any bad advice out there. So I do not want you to think that you are an exception to not having to exercise!

THE ANGRY CAVEMAN

    It was hard enough to get myself out the door on this cold winters day. I had to keep reminding myself that I would feel better when I got going. I had planned to go 8 miles out and back on a usual route in my neighborhood. This consists of jogging along the “boulevard” for a long stretch of my run. As I finished up the first mile, snow started to fall. I was not going to let that bother me at all because by now I had already started my run, and nothing was going to stop me.

As I started to get near mile 3, I noticed that the traffic had increased because of the local high school just letting out. As usual, most of these teen drivers
zipped past me going 20 mph over the speed limit. Many of them taking the turns as fast as they can so that they can get the tires to squeal, and occasionally I swear I am only inches away from them as they fly by. I am sure that most of us in those days did these things and didn’t really care about the runners or bikers in the road.

However on this run at mile 5 while on my way back home, a ford explorer packed full with high schooler’s decided to start screaming at me. At first I did my best to just keep going. Much to my dismay they had turned around and decided to sneak up on me and try and scare me again. They were successful at this, and I am sure they saw quiet a site as I leaped away from them and almost slipped in the snow. As they drove off I raised my hands at them and had some choice words to say as well. I was pretty frustrated and let this get to me in a way that my run was now not giving me my good mental results!

As the next half mile passed I cooled off, and thought to myself that I shouldn’t over react at them. After all here I am the adult here. I used to work with troubled teens at a drug rehab and learned that teens just do some mindless things. I knew better than to react that way.

As I was just at the point of forgetting about it, the same group of kids were back on my tail. This time I was waiting to cross the street and they took a sharp turn right in front of me. As they were turning one of them threw a plastic cup at me. That was it!!! I then tried to step in front of their car (but tried to remember that yes a car can still run you over), and yelled in their open window to get out and join me. I asked them if they were so tough, let’s see how easy it is for you to be out here. Everyone in the car just stared at me and I could see that they were afraid I was about to jump in to their car. One of them said sorry, the rest just sat there with empty looks on their faces as the driver spun out to drive away.

They went their way and I went mine, and of course about thirty seconds later I was thinking to myself how big of an idiot I was for my reaction. I was embarrassed. I than thought about how lame I must have looked the rest of the way home. I no longer was upset, just ashamed of how stupid I must have looked. I couldn’t help but laugh at how funny I must have looked. At this time I was dripping with sweat, and had a full beard. I probably looked just like an angry caveman to them. Not only was I embarrassed about how I acted, but also for the example I set. Kids now days need stable adults more than ever. Unfortunately I was not there to be the better man. Even to this day I have never seen them again, but still carry the guilt of this act every time I jog down that same street. 

In case you were wondering how bushy my beard got, here it is.