Perspective, that’s a great separator of humanity.  We all see or experience pretty much the same things.  It is that journey through life that molds our perspective.  Everyone’s look at the same world is a little bit different.  As an Old Guy who has been there, done that… even has the T-shirt…… I have seen all sorts of things, crazy things, things that can keep you up and night as they continue cycling through your mind out of control.  And as an educator, for nearly 4 decades, my perspective is shaped by that very field one that is quilted into our society…. Teachers and coaches are in the middle of things and really have their fingers on the pulse of our world.  We see things in a way that others might not see.
What’s on The Old Man’s Mind 
What we do in our daily lives really isn’t that much different from everyone else living anywhere else.  We work, we play, we raise our family and live our life.  The way we do those things is the difference between people, if they are across the globe or across town, either way.
In this episode I’m going to be pointing out some observations of mine that will illuminate what I believe are some of society's ills… I would like to submit, for your consideration, my thoughts and concerns on some important topics.
So I saw something at my own home last week that was remarkable to me as well as somewhat disturbing. I noticed a young man walking up to my house. I was pretty sure I knew who he was, we had scheduled a service to detail the car. I wasn't expecting anyone at this particular time and thought well maybe he is just early. 
Now at some point I'm going to have to clue you in on something, so let me do that right now. He was a young black man. Which could have meant he was walking up to my house because he had the wrong address. We have a family next door to us from Kenya and the African American couple across the street who recently moved in having retired and came back to St Louis from a long career in Hawaii. So the chance that this young man was at the wrong house was very real. Neither of those families have lived in their homes more than a few months and the visitor could easily have been a relative coming to visit. 

I remember when, and not all that fondly, that dealing with bullies seemed like it was a part of growing up.  In grade school, my dad had to actually pay an older kid to walk to school so I’d arrive safely. He got me into wrestling hoping to give me some hope of being able to fight back.
All that said, I do worry a bit about these kids these days, and this is going to sound crazy, it’s because they are not being bullied. Now I'm not saying bullying is a good thing. It has never been a good thing, but it has always been a thing. Bullying never goes away…. Mostly because bullies don’t think they’re bullies.  They feel like they are strong, they are assertive, just me being me is what they’d say.
We go to great lengths to keep school age children safe, to keep them free from being bullied, and that's kind of what I'm saying is the problem. The fact that bullying never goes away cannot be ignored. When I was a school administrator I spent more time dealing with kids being bullied or being bullies than I did with any other topic. I am not saying dealing with bullying was a waste of my time, it was not and it was real and many kids struggled through adolesence because of it. 
Maybe because it was frequently dealt with topic, it seemed to be something that kids would go to right away. They weren't getting their way, they didn't get something that they wanted, they wanted to control someone or some situation, all they had to do was utter that word bully and everything stopped to address the issue. 

“Mindset For Happiness”

Do it the right way


“Uncorrected errors will multiply.  Someone once asked me if there wasn’t benefit in overlooking just one small flaw.  “What is a small flaw”? I asked him.
Don Shula

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