George Bailey

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“Well, not just one wish. A whole hatful. Mary, I know what I’m gonna do tomorrow and the next day and the next year and the year after that. I’m shaking the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I’m gonna see the world.” James Stewart as George Bailey — It’s a Wonderful Life

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George Bailey was the model person that everyone strived to be. He knew from the moment he was born what he thought his purpose in life was. If you were to ask him what he was going to do with this life, without batting an eye, he would tell you that he was going to be an engineer and a world traveler. Certainly not married or fathering any children. At first chance he was going to leave Bedford Falls and never look back. Not only that, but you could depend on George in a pinch to help you out — no matter what the problem was. He was mister go-to and reliable.

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Life, however, had an entirely different path for Mr. Bailey. His father’s business, the Building and Loan, he would inherit. His travels around the world, as fas as we’re aware, never happened. In fact, it appears that he never even leaves Bedford Falls. He not only gets married to someone he never thought he would marry, but has four kids and lives in a house he shunned growing up. In summary, it’s a complete 180 of everything he planned his life to be. And he doesn’t take the change in path lightly.

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Two of the things that makes It’s a Wonderful Life far ahead of it’s time is that it brings suicide and depression to the discussion table and it’s done in a non-patronizing manor. George Bailey, who suffers from severe depression throughout most of the movie, is not considered weak for feeling this way. In fact, most of the town regards him as one of the bravest people who has ever lived there. When he reaches the point of wanting to end his life, the whole town rallies together to come to his aid. Nobody tells him to “lighten up” or “stop being sad”. When he’s on the bridge, nobody drives by him yelling the word “jump”. Nobody calls him a failure; even though he feels like one.

The other big thing is that it shows the impact one person’s life has on others. One of the most crucial lines in the movie is given by his guardian angel, Clarence: “Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?” George Bailey witnesses, in full detail, what would happen if he had never been born in the first place. He sees just how much of a negative ripple effect he would leave if he took his own life. He finally has a chance to observe what an impact he has made. As Clarence put it: “You see, George, you’ve really had a wonderful life. Don’t you see what a mistake it would be to throw it away?”

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If ever this timeless holiday classic was most pertinent, it’s now. “Hope” seems to be an increasingly rare commodity. We have elected a “warped, frustrated old man” who may very well turn America into a giant Pottersville. Multiple studies have shown a dramatic increase in depression in most age groups within the past decade. We are, for lack of a better term, suffering. This film, which just so happens to be celebrating it’s 70th anniversary this year, is just as poignant and reverent as the year it was released. 

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So, go watch It’s a Wonderful Life. If nothing else than to be reminded “Remember, George: no man is a failure who has friends.”

Trust.

Being lied to sucks. Being lied to to your face sucks even more. Being lied to your face, and finding out the actual truth perhaps an hour, at most, is infuriating. Which is a simple example of the pure truth of how fragile trust truly is. And why we cannot believe our own species.

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Humans are flawed. I am a perfect example of this. But, as defective as our species is, we create our own disasters. There is always a storm on the horizon; but, ten to one, it is of our own making. Humans create hurricanes and dwell within them. Not intentionally, mind you, but that doesn’t varnish the harsh truth of why we can never full live with our own race. What we seek out, we wish to destroy. Not immediately, but in the long run. History is a blatant illustration of this. Why? Because, in the long run, it is the perpetuant of change. Change being the constant formula for the perpetuant of our species.

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Yet, there is no excuse for the destuction of the fragility of assurance. When you lie, you break an expantant contract of honesty and bond with your fellow man. Plain and simple. When you deny someone the honest truth, you make them doubt, not only themselves, but what they know to be true. A white lie can lead to a pebble’s throw against the mirror of someone’s mirror of reality. A blatant stone of deception will cause someone to alter their perception of, not only who you are, but who they are. You break what they know to be true. A disrepair that may take years, if ever, to repair.

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So, as Shakespeare once said, “No legacy is so rich as honesty.” Truth hurts. But not nearly as much as a lie. So why deny someone something so important as sincerity. When you lie, you damage two people: yourself and who you are lying to.

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In the end, when you lie to someone, you lie to y0urself, as well.

Bent Tines and Unexpected Roads.

At many times in your life, you will reach a fork in the road. Some times it’s expected. Some times it’s not. Although, even if it doesn’t feel like it, it will alway be a necessity. Forks only happen when a change needs to be made. When the option to continue on your path is no longer an option.

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It’s an easy argument to make that most humans fear change. Whether it’s latent or on the surface, the desire to keep on the known path from crib to coffin is almost universal. Even if it means staying in a bad situation — because even good change is unknown change. Yet, throughout the course of our lives, we see change as really the one true constant. Each, action, each decision, each move we take, creates a ripple in what was once a still pond. Well, the illusion of stillness, anyway.

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One side of the coin is that things don’t always go in our favor. We fail a test. We get dumped. We get fired. We stay at jobs we hate. Fires. Car accidents. Losing a pet. Losing a loved one. Each of these bent tines in the forks of our lives are a conduit for change. Is it painful to endure these things? Yes, of course. One could even argue that pain is but one of the compulsory experiences you will endure innumerable times in your life. Pain is real. Suffering is real. Tragedy is real. To deny them is to deny reality. But, just as in good times, bad times are not the be-all, end-all you will have in your life. The shadows prove the sunshine just as much as the sunshine creates the shadows.

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On the flip side is the unexpected roads. The serendipitous journeys we find ourselves on — at times on the spur of the moment. Opportunity lives here. Success lives here. Contentment lives here. These are the moments we cherish and share with others. You could say that there are many times when the unexpected roads we find ourselves on were really our purpose in life in disguise the entire time. The road you were meant to travel on was the one you stumbled upon and kept going.

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Whatever phase you are in in your life at this particular moment, it took a lot of change to get there. A lot of growth; and with that growing pains. A seemingly arbitrary avenue can transform into an advantageous passage if you embrace it. Plans change. Life changes. Everyone you know is not the person they once were. So, with each revision, learn and grow from it.

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And, as the great Yogi Berra once proclaimed, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

A House Divided...

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permantely, half slave and half free, I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.”

That speech was made by Abraham Lincoln on June 16th, 1858 when he accepted the Illinois Republican Party nomination for senator. Three years later, he would be elected President of the United States and the nation would, indeed, divide into the beginnings of the Civil War.

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We are, at present, a nation divided. Regardless of which of the top two candidates won the election, we would be a nation divided. We have once again reached a point in our history where the politics of both parties is so polarized that we cannot stand as one. Both Republicans and Democrats have reached a point where they will not, by their own moral standings, desire and pursue the ability to reach across the aisle and attempt to reunite the fractured elements of our vastly divided voters. We are, perhaps not physically, but idiologically at war with one another — and with ourselves.

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Yet, we have also reached a point in our history where extending the proverbial olive branch is of the utmost necessity. Pride, as they say, goes before the fall. Am I saying we blindly goose step behind our new commander-in-chief? No. But, then again, I would make that same argument, regardless of who gained office. Our Founding Fathers fought for our chance and choice to question those in power. The First Amendment covers everything from Freedom of Religion and Speech to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Freedom of Press. You don’t have to agree with what you find morally wrong — in fact, now is completely pertanent that we do stand by our moral compasses; but reducing each other to infantile name calling and denying each other their just opinions is how we lose. Brother need not turn against brother. Even in our deepest division since the Civil War, we can stand together. For change. For the future. Just because we disagree with one another gives us no right to shed the blood of one another.

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Hate begets hate. Regardless of which side of the political aisle you sit on, hate begets hate. You can be angry with the outcome of the election and still hold respect for those who voted differently than you. We are all human. We all have our own opinions. And belittling someone for being different from you is a slap in the face to figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. — who once said “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” You can agree to disagree without invalidating someone. You can say that someone is morally corrupt to the core — but if you destroy them with your words and treat them as less than human, you are no different than them.

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In closing, whether we like it or not, we are in the same boat together. The next four years will be telling, not how we are as a nation, but how we are as a human race. And only you get to decide what kind of human you really are.

13 Years.

Today, for all intents and purposes, was a normal day. Except that it wasn’t. Today marks the thirteenth anniversary of when my life changed completely. Today marks the thirteenth anniversary of when I lost my dad. Today marks the anniversary of when I watched him die.

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My dad, even though he was a former mountain climber, avid hiker, and developed a love of mountain biking in the final year of his life; had eleven different lung diseases. It was a brutal combination of genetics, working with asbestos and other toxins without a mask, and the fact that he smoked for 33 years. He had multiple inhalers that he used on a daily basis. One of them was an emergency inhaler. It was that particular inhaler he was going for when he had his fatal asthma attack. He was feet from the medicine that could have saved his life and he didn’t make it.

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The thing most people don’t know about my dad is that he wasn’t my biological father. Yet, he raised both my sister and I as if we were his kids. He was our father, even if it wasn’t by blood. I changed my last name officially in high school — even though I had been using it for most of my schooling years. My parents had celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary twenty days before he was suddenly taken from us. Fifteen life changing years.

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I still miss him. Not every day, like the first few years after he passed. But, randomly, my heart will twinge at a memory. Or a desire for me to share something with him. That desire still hasn’t left me and I know it never will. I still love him, even though I lost the sound of his voice and his laugh.For the first decade, this was the worst day of the year for me. Now there’s a bittersweet acceptance that life can change in an instant — and end even faster.

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Life is far too short. So tell the ones you love that you love them. Forgive someone now, before it’s too late. And never fail to say goodbye. Because you never know when the last time you’ll be able to say it will be.

The Hustle

Well. guess what. As I type this, I am now a full time writer. That's right, the dream has finally come true. And it too a whole lot of shit and work to get to this place.

I have this blog. Thank God that I do. This is where I can be the real me and not sugar coat anything. This is where I open up my heart and mind and let it all hang out. For good, bad, and truly ugly. This is where the honesty happens. So, count this as blog #1.

A few years back, LinkedIn invited me to try out their new service that would allow people to post blog posts. I was one of their inaugural members to take advantage of it. And it's still something that I still do to this day. So, count that as blog #2. Passive, but I still post and keep it active, from time to time.

And, now, less than a week ago, I started blog #3. https://medium.com/@gheamale This particular one is for the start-up (surprise!!! I have a new side gig. Then again, when don't I) http://sphere5.com And this particular one I'm stupid proud of. They (and I mean the founder and CEO) who loved my writing and asked me why I wasn't doing it full time. Why I wasn't doing it professionally. Two and a half months later I've edited one ebook and written another.

That's right. I've written a book. And you know what? I got a huge rush out of it. As I was pounding out words, I knew that it was going to be published and I would officially be an author. It was a high, brand new and I wanted more. I was hooked and couldn't stop. I wrote 90% of the book in two and a half hours - counting the research I was doing for it, as well. I was finally doing what I was put on this Earth to do and it was a rush unlike any other.

So, the new blog, Medium, I'm updating six days a week. With rest on Sunday. But...next month is November. Meaning NaNoWriMo. Which means I'm going to take another stab at being a fiction author. And, you know what, this time around, I think I got it. I have a wizard (non-metaphoical) that I've been cooking up for the better part of six months that I'm finally going to put to life. Give him an adventure.

Which clocks me in at three blogs and a novella by the end of the year. And I couldn't be happier.

Irreplaceable.

In an effort to purge Harvey  (see Purging Harvey 8/19/2016) tonight, I took a hot shower to try and nail down why I was feeling low. I'm certain a good portion of it is that the weather has taken a turn for the dark and dreary. But there's was something else, underlaying that I couldn't figure out until just now.

I have a genuine fear of being replaceable.

Which, in all honesty, I had no idea I had until just now. As far as phobias, go, it's 100% valid. For starters, we all die, and, thus, there will be a time when we just are no longer here. It's a phobia that those who struggle with depression, anxiety, and suicidal tendencies have in greater strength than those who don't suffer from those. It's also, in my opinion, one of the leading causes of addiction. We fear that we're going to be replaced by those we love, so we turn to substances that will never abandon us (using the "royal we" here).  I have also been in many a situation where I actually was replaced. Suddenly and completely. I've been fired, laid off, and had my heart broken quite a few times. There's been other things in my past that also validate this fear; but I'm not going to go into them right now.

Now that I got to the root of what was making me morose, I did something that immediately gave me a 180: I said the words "I'm not replaceable" out loud. It was like a boulder rolling off my shoulders. And it's also 100% valid.

There are plenty of people who are like me, but there's only one me. There's only one person on this Earth who has had all of my experiences. All of my dreams. All of my failures. All of my friends and family. Even all of my things. There has only been one me and there will always be one me. No one can take that from me. I may lose more jobs. I may lose more friends and love interests, but I will never lose me until I pass from this life.

I am irreplaceable. You are irreplaceable. Stop living life like someone can take your place. No one can and no one ever will.