What are Core Values and Which are yours?

Which of these are core values and which are levels/scales/measures of a single core value?
--- List 1
Perfection - The highest attainable standard
Superiority - The quality or condition of being superior to something or someone
Independence - Being free from the influence, guidance or control of others
Balance - Balancing time and effort between money, family, friends, health, faith
Responsibility - Being accountable for results, conscientious, reliable, trustworthy
Celebrity - Being famous, known, recognizable
Public exposure - Dealing with the public, day-to-day contact, in the public spotlight
Significance - Holding a position of importance, high standing or prestige
Status - The position, prestige or ranking of an individual in relation to another or others
Recognition - Giving and receiving acknowledgement for achievements
Results - To be concerned with outcomes of efforts or focus
Achievement - Sense of accomplishment, attainment
Power - Authority, control, command, clout
Influence - Being a compelling force on actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others
Control - To exercise restraint or limitation on others or situations
Stability - Predictable routines, schedules, providing security, constancy, regularity
Structure - Formality, processes, systems
Urgency - Fast-paced, swift, action-oriented
Toughness - Strong and durable, not easily broken or overcome
Self-control - Control or restraint of oneself or one's actions, feelings, etc.
Advancement - Moving forward through clear defined goals, or flexibly altered goals
Wisdom - Having deep understanding, insight, knowledge, ability to make good judgments
Integrity - Beliefs and actions are congruent, being true to who you are, doing what you say
Correlation - Discovering relationships between two or more things
Knowledge - Subject matter expert, education via experience or study
Precision - Accuracy, exactness, meticulousness, correctness
Excellence - Standard of being outstandingly good and having exceptional merit
Thoroughness - Attention to detail and accuracy, being complete and without omission
Mastery - Proficiency, excellence in a given field or area
Growth - Investing in lifelong learning, personal development, self-education
Effectiveness - The ability to produce a desired effect or outcome
Efficiency - Creating results in a timely manner with minimal waste, expense, or unnecessary effort
Competence - Possessing the skill, knowledge and ability to effectively perform
Professionalism - Setting and maintaining boundaries to be effective, produce strong results
Consistency - Precision with little tolerance for errors or unpredictability
Teamwork - Cooperative, collective effort by a group or team
Collaboration - Working with others for common goals
Contribution - Service, giving to or supporting charity or cause
Competitiveness - Working against others where there are clear win/lose outcomes
--- List 2
Courage - Willingness to take calculated risks, operating outside one's comfort zone
Victory - A success or triumph over a challenge or enemy in battle or war
Adventure - New heights, new challenges, adrenalin rush, taking risks, thrills
Creativity - Being imaginative, innovative, inventive, original, out-of-the-box
Decisiveness - Access and eliminate all alternatives
Education - To act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge
Self-Identity - Having self-respect, pride, dignity, confidence
Empowerment - Gaining power, authority or ability to accomplish
Environment - Commitment and dedication to the earth and the physical world in which we live
Faith - Belief in a higher power
Spirituality - Beliefs, meaning of life/existence, faith, existentialism
Virtue - Moral excellence, goodness, righteousness
Forgiveness - Letting go of feelings of resentment, pardoning actions or situations
Trust - Firm reliance on the integrity, ability or character of a person or thing
Truth - A verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like
Family - Being with family - both quality and quantity of time
Health - Physical and psychological well-being, vigor, strength
Fitness - Being physically fit, regular physical activity, optimal well-being
Freedom - Able to move about without bounds or restraints, liberty
--- List 3
Harmony - Agreement, accord, harmonious relations
Tranquility - Calmness, peacefulness, quiet, serenity
Happiness - Good fortune, pleasure, contentment, joy
Honor - Honesty, fairness, or integrity in one's beliefs and actions
Fairness - Treating people and being treated equally, equitable, moral rightness
Honesty - Being truthful, sincere
Belonging - To feel part of a group or association of others
Camaraderie - Importance of personal relationships and warm working relationships
Commitment - Being bound emotionally or intellectually to a course of action, dedication
Variety - Diversity of cultures/lifestyles/experiences
Consensus - General agreement or accord, harmony with others
Compassion - Caring about others, watch out for pity which is the near enemy of compassion
Hope - Maintaining and optimistic or enthusiastic outlook
Humility - The quality or condition of being humble, having a modest opinion of self
Accountability - Take responsibility for both actions and outcomes
Authenticity - The quality of being true, genuineness
Directness - To speak honestly and without avoiding important or unpleasant points
--- List 4
Leadership - Ability to influence and direct others, guidance
Loyalty - Devoted or faithful to a person, an idea, a custom, a cause or a duty
Obedience - The act or practice of obeying, dutiful or submissive compliance
--- List 5
Openness - Accessible, as to appeals, ideas, or offers
Organized - Importance of order, structure, neatness, systems, tidiness
Simplicity - Lack of complexity/complication
--- List 6
Intimacy - Close, familiar, and often affectionate or loving personal relationship
Security - Protection or precautions taken against escape, loss, custody
Unity - Absence of diversity, unvaried or uniform character
Kindness - Friendly, caring, liking
Pleasure - Enjoyment, delight, gratification
Passion - Intense emotional excitement, boundless enthusiasm
Perseverance - Resilience, never giving up regardless of challenges or problems
Tolerance - A fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward others

Unto one of the least of these

The inhabitable part of my brick tent has a kitchen, two bedrooms with full size beds, and a living room with a desk, TV, DVD player (no cable) and a small twin size bed. The current occupancy is me, roommate #5 "M", age 42 and roommate #7 "O", age 39.  "M" has been here for almost a year and is now church going, has a bubbly fun personality, an incessant neat-nick, and down to once a month or less on the street.  "O" is a well known veteran third avenue north street walking prostitute, has a commanding soldier like personality, and has in recent weeks slowed down to being on the street only a couple of nights a week.

Then last Friday roommate #6 "A", age 23, called and asked to come back; I said no, I’m sorry, there's not enough room.  She asked to borrow $80 to get home; I replied "A, if it were possible I would gladly do it, but it's not right now".  "A" is one of the least of these.  She has no home, no id.  She doesn't remember her birth date and doesn't know how old she is.  She has had her mind somehow damaged during the years she has lived on the street and spends a lot of time in a non-cognitive awake state; during her first stay (three months), I found that one of her personalities is a college graduate, has a house and two cars (imaginary) and is interested in finding a job (not likely); another personality is a child - age 4 maybe, and the other state is the non-cognitive awake - kind of like what it would be like to wake up and not know anything about yourself, wondering where you are; a sense of fear because you obviously weren't born today but you can't remember anything previous to today.  A few days after being off the street, she starts hallucinating and is unable to tell what’s real and what’s imaginary.

I went to bed last Friday night (in the front room, on the small bed) and about 3:00 AM "A" knocks on the door.  I opened it - "A", are you OK? - No response.  She's non-cognitive and has a bewildered, lost look on her face.  She walked in and jumped under the covers; I slept the rest of the night on the reclining chair.  In the morning I made sure she had a good meal and she slept for the next couple of days.

Sleeping on the recliner isn't good sleep for me; I wake up with a pain in my neck and tired.  "M" looks at "A" with an attitude of disgust - asking me why I let her stay.  "O" is younger but wiser and cooks extra so everyone has enough to eat.  Monday I was ready for bed and "A" saw me headed for the recliner, rolled over to the far side of the twin bed and said "You can sleep here."  That touched me; an act of kindness from someone who has nothing.  (Note: I sleep fully clothed so no one will steal my keys or wallet - it's happened more than once.) It was a little bit of an improvement but the bed is so small that whenever one of us needed to shift positions, then the other had to shift in the opposite way.  So the next night I went back to the recliner.

It creates cognitive discord for "O" and "M" - this is my house, I pay all the bills, and although "M" cleans and "O" cooks; their contribution is nowhere near the bar of "free ride".  I was hoping that one of them would suggest that "A" and I would be able to sleep better on a bigger bed and offer to trade; note: I don't need anyone's permission to do this if I so choose.

So last night, I abandoned the recliner and slept on the floor; this morning I was shocked - "A" abandoned the bed and slept on the floor also, a few feet away. This is so interesting to me - it was an action of thankfulness from a person who is barely functional, while surrounded by others blessed beyond belief by comparison who hoard their supplies look down on the less fortunate.

It will be an interesting rest of the week - one of my personal rules is that I refuse to be more comfortable or less hungry (when there's not enough food) than any guest in my house.

The search for self

Early in my life I was a fighter pilot - in the moment, throttle on, wing mounted missiles armed, on a mission.  Sometimes I was in a squadron, mostly I flew solo.  I practiced harder than all my peers; my work day started two hours earlier and lasted four hours longer; weekends were the welcome 20+ hours of "focus time".  Over time, I became unstoppable, highly visible, feared, appreciated, lonely, prideful, arrogant, and complacent.  That was three decades ago.  Little did I realize the world changes?  Being a highly visible ruler of your own empire is a sure precursor to an attack.  Being an arrogant ruler without mercy or allies is a sure precursor to an invasion; of course, you can prevail against one army, any one attack, win any battle – but what happens when you run low on jet fuel and ammo?  Everyone attacks, all looking for a piece of your previous castle.  I bailed out, watched my plane go down in smoke, and found myself hanging from a tree in a foreign hostile jungle.  No water, no food, no shelter - it took seven days and seven nights to make it to the shore of the ocean.  I found I was on a big island far from home.  Then I realized, wait, I have no home, and, no one misses me.  All of the previous years of hard work and now, there is nothing to show for it.  I pondered this life lesson long and hard.

Next in life I decided to be the commander of a ship of my own design.  It was a big submarine.  The conning tower looks like a simple small wooden fishing boat; I rarely surfaced above the apparent hull.  It had a big belly, plenty of room for guests or crew, but fully automated; usually I was the only resident.  Right above the primary command and control console is the logo "In God We Trust, All others we track".  I spent my days fishing and relaxing topside, not appearing to be a threat, but looking for opportunistic targets - opportunities to right wrongs, produce unexpected results, promote those who helped me, and defend my allies from attack.  Over time, I learned to enjoy submarine warfare.  It was a different kind of empire.  I was sometimes attacked, usually defended by my allies, but able (if necessary) to sink the opposition without any visibility.  No one suspected the aging man fishing in the little boat was directing and controlling all the surrounding empires.  I used a low profile to know the people's real struggles and help them.  I used tubes one through six to sink their oppressors.  While fishing top-side, I watched the privates, captains, pilots, generals, and commanders.  Some are successful and some are not.  Some are happy and some are not.  These two groups are not related. I pondered this life lesson long and hard.

Epilogue

Now in life, I watch and learn - looking for things to do that make a long term difference.  My disciples are the ones fishing from the conning towers and my grand-disciples rule all the known empires with the Wisdom of Solomon.  Love, joy, peace, kindness, long suffering, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are my new weapons of choice.  God is good.

Technically, I have a dream!

Below is a representation of an email I sent to my coworkers five years ago; I am the chief architect of ProductXYZ.

Two score years ago, a great American (Grace Hopper), in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, penned the COBOL language specification.  This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of programmers who had been seared in the flames of multiple and inconsistent time representations. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their confusion.

But thirty five years later, ProductXYZ still is not free. Thirty five years later, the life of the XYZ programmer is still sadly crippled by the manacles of multiple time representations and the chains of incompatibility. Thirty five years later, the programmer lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of sound practices. Thirty five years later, the programmer is still languished in the corners of inconsistent implementation and finds himself an exile in his own code. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our compilers wrote the magnificent words of consistent data representations and the Declaration of the DateTime class, they were signing a promissory note to which every programmer was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all programmers, yes, C++ as well as C# and Java, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Now, Tomorrow, arbitrary conversion, and seamless database integration." It is obvious today that ProductXYZ has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her functionality involving time are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, ProductXYZ has given the programmers a bad check, a check which has come back marked "multiple, inconsistent DateTime functionality."

-- err, maybe I'm getting a little carried away...  Anyway, in XYZ we're still coding forward the concept of storing a minutes-since-midnight value, an x_hr (msm/60) and a x_min (msm%60), and (in some cases) an x_sec value - dating back to the 8088/xt days when it was expensive to do division and mod operations when rendering the text screen.  In relative terms, I believe the time we spend coding and debugging the 3 values is now a waste of time for the small payback it represents on modern machines.  For the immediate term, let's quit calculating and storing the x_hr, x_min, and x_sec on new features.

etc. etc.

Epiloge
If you've ever worked in corporate, I don't recommend being me.  You get punished if you do and punished if you don't.  However, all companies are systems.  All systems can be manipulated - for good or bad.  God rewards the good and punishes the bad.  Companies reward profits and punish losses.  Success is simple, but very hard: create the profits.

The company I keep - roommate #2

One day many years ago I was sitting at my favorite spot in the "High-note".  It was a bar owned by an older Italian man, Sam, having "Interesting Character" (both the man and the bar).  In the back of the bar was another big concert room called the "Rocking Horse" and run by one of Sam's sons. 

On this particular night, Sam had a couple of free passes to the event in the back and chose to give one to me.  When I entered the room, it became obvious that this was an all black event.  Not only was I the only white face in the room, there was the familiar smell of freshly smoked bud (marijuana) in the air. This was a battle of the bands event where the bands (mostly rap) competed to win a prize.  In one of the bands, "H" was the lead wrapper.  When I first laid eyes on her, it was a magical moment; before me on stage was the most beautiful young woman I had ever seen before.  How could I even meet, much less speak with this individual?  I made a plan.  I am well versed in systems theory and this was an opportunity to exercise influence in a realm far outside my capabilities at the time.  During the concert, I asked around to find out who organized the event and when the next one would be.  At the end of the night, I walked up to "H" smiling, said "I enjoyed your performance", and handed her a $20 bill and went home.   Every time she performed for the next year, I did the same thing.  After that, I changed the routine slightly.  This time, I added "and this is my business card and my cell phone number on the back.  I'd really appreciate it if you could send me an email or phone call so I'll know when and where you're performing".  Then I started skipping concerts; first every other one, then most of them.  It didn't take long for the cognitive discord to set in.  She started calling me when she would perform.  She soon realized that I was more reliable, consistent, honest, and dependable than anyone else she knew so at some point I became her personal driver.  In the first few months, there were always three or four people who jumped in the car with her.  She enjoyed the prestige of being able to get a ride from point A to B whenever she needed, and having someone available who was cheerful, on time, and asking for nothing in return.  Growing up in the hood and meeting someone like me is simply outside the life experience of everyone.

I met all her family and interestingly, there is no shortage of freeloaders there.  The patriarchs hold down rent, power, and water bills either through a disability check or clerical work.  The children don't work and provide food for the household through food stamps.  The grand children grow up in a home where they and their parents are not wanted or appreciated, and there are complex networks of codependency, addiction, prostitution, and distrust.

"H" signed with a major record label and moved to Atlanta to "make it big".  Around this time, I moved to Ensley and started my journey in the hood.  "H" and I spent long hours on the road over the next six months and became close friends.  Her family hated that she appeared to have a chance to be successful and did everything they could to emotionally sabotage her.

I noticed a pattern in her family - "H"'s momma actively spread rumors about her, brought up bad things from the past to discourage her at every opportunity - in fact, "H"'s momma actively spread rumors about me; imagine my surprise to hear through the grape vine that I'm a drug dealer.  That's funny.  Sauce for the goose actually - at that point I was on the inside; totally trusted and able to enable positive change in her life.  I made a strategic move; I started talking about how overwhelmed I was with the castle/brick-tent.  This naturally gave her the idea that she could move in and help with process of adding attributes of modern civilization.  After a particularly cruel episode at her grandmother’s house, she called for a pickup, loaded the back seat with a bunch of cloths, and moved in.  It was an awesome day.

I was ready.  In systems theory, the Tao of power is to place subtle elements into the system which modify the system in small ways.  Create elements that subtly reward what you want and elements that ever so slightly hinder what you don't want.  Over time, good change happens without effort and automatically because of the small parts of the system changed by your presence.  People who don't study systems theory call this powerful idea "unintended consequences".  I love the idea of "intended consequences".  Another major aspect of systems theory is perspective; the way you frame things in your mind or the way they are perceived by others has a major influence on the control that they exercise.

After a couple of months, "H" had the inside of the house looking awesome.  Her room was fully setup, looked really nice, and she (it turns out) is an awesome cook.   We had a daily routine where I would get up, bring her breakfast in bed from McDonalds, and then go to work then she would get up and jog around the neighborhood, then get cleaned up and do some daily house cleaning, then cook something for us in the evening.   Depending on what was going on, she might ride out with friends or have them over.  I enjoyed inquiring about the "wreck count" each day; it was often greater than zero - part of her jogging route was up Bush Blvd and many times guys would be so mesmerized they crashed into the curb.

Maybe a month later, one Thursday I came home from work and "H" announced "James, we're going to Church on Sunday."  That's fantastic, I said, which one?  "It's the Church I went to when I was in grade school.  I can't jog past it again without going in."  Life is interesting; I have a friend, closer than a sister, who is a New York trained amazing African dancer; beautiful from head to toe.  Over the years she shared her life with me, I remember that maybe half the black churches she performed at resulted in either the head pastor or an associate pastor approaching her and asking if she would like to have a "secret relationship".  I didn't share this with "H", but when we stepped through the Church doors on Sunday, not only was I wearing the "Full Armor of God", I was prepared to speak up if needed.  In this case, those fears were unwarranted.  It was funny when we sat down, two or three of the nearby children saw me and tugged on their momma's sleeves; "Momma - there's a white man!" pointing at me.

The service was amazing; at one point I thought to myself - "I can't believe I'm actually IN a Tyler Perry play."  "H" walked down front and had a spiritually saving experience.   Interestingly, one of the senior staff with the gift of discernment laid hands on me and gave me a spiritual interrogation the likes of which I did not know was possible.  I received a lot of attention those first few months in the Church - fodder for future blog posts; once there was an exorcism during the service - I was the possessed one; it failed.  I'm not sure if that was because whatever possessed me was more powerful than Pastor, or because the daemon presence was a false positive - hopefully the latter.

Over the next six months, I witnessed "H"'s life be absolutely transformed by the new spiritual dimension and the spiritual milk from the Church.  Fully six of the Church moms adopted "H".  She joined the Choir; I remember how fun it was to sit and listen while they practiced.  I remember the first Sunday she would be up front; she was awake and practicing at 5:30 am (Church starts at 11:00).

About six months later, she met the man of her dreams and moved out to live with him.  She got a hard low-end job, but worked hard at it and showed up reliably and consistently, so she got promoted after a year.  She married her man.  Then about six months later, she got a new job doing exactly what she loves to do.  This is career material.  "H" watched my ways; she used these concepts to create an environment where her husband cannot help but be a good one.  This is healthy whole family material.  God is good.

Epilogue
It is impossible to verbalize the joy I have experienced knowing "H".  Whether it came from the many times my heart was happy in her presence or being blessed with a front row seat watching the Lord transform a life, I'm not sure. 

My birthday is always very near Mother's day, so when I visited momma last Saturday for Mother's day, she sent me home with one of her pecan pies.  On Sunday, I had the privilege of giving it to "H"'s husband saying "Here's a little something from my mom on Mother's day - from my family to yours; it'll make you smile, and give "H" an even bigger smile."  Momma's pecan pies with "H" bring back good memories from years past.

This is not the playground, and it's not 3:00

I like the word 'Epilogue', it means that something happened long enough ago that there has been time to completely and properly analyze what really happened.  Things happen for a reason; life is a great teacher, and perspective is everything.

Last week I witnessed a horrific event - business as usual for a native - but I'm a traveler from a foreign land, so yes, it was horrific.  Why did this happen?  Who is at fault?  What is the life lesson?  I replayed the incident in my head all week long, looking at every angle; I discussed the event with dozens of people, executives at work, business owners, homeless street walkers, future thugs, real thugs, prostitutes, drug addicts, and drug dealers.  (side note: I don't know any pimps; not sure why.) - Although everyone had something to say, i.e. a different perspective, none of the opinions resonated in my persona.

Yesterday was Sunday, and for the last couple of years, I've been a member of "Love Temple Full Gospel Church", on Pike road, near Bush Blvd - it's "The real deal", my first exposure to such.  I've watched my roommates #2 and #5 have positively transformed lives there; the bishop, pastor, staff, and members minister with power.  Services sometimes last a long time, so I always take a "smoking ministry" break in the parking lot next door between Sunday school and the main church service.  Sunday school is split into a male class and a women's class - not sure what the women talk about, but the male class is a place I call "Godly men being real."  Something Pastor B said during Sunday school gave me the understanding I was looking for - like a brick from above, everything fell into place.

My presence is a ministry opportunity – When I smoke (cigarettes) and drink beer on the porch at night, I preach about God's justice and faithfulness to my roommates and the groups of teenagers that wander the streets, backing it up with actual experiences from my youth and life.  SOMEBODY needs to tell them; they don't have parents.

Saturday night's sermon was about the spiritual law of "work".  There's a spiritual principle that says that if you give value (to anyone) through the work that you do for them, then in the fullness of time, God will not allow you to be overpaid or underpaid; He is just.  Roommate #5 had the opportunity to do some part time work and didn't get paid "as much as the other workers".  She got mad about it and quit.  I recounted a time in my career when I was in the same situation, but instead of complaining about it, I worked to make myself more valuable.  I did the jobs nobody wanted to do, and got good at it.  A year or two latter, a new management team rolled in and changed everything, fired a bunch of people, and doubled my salary.  Is that because I was that much better than my peers?  I don't think so.  I think it was the Lord executing His justice, grace, and mercy - in His timing.

Then Sunday morning, I realized that in a very real way - my presence and the way I present myself can and does change what happens around me.  God showed me what can go wrong when good men do nothing; Lord please forgive me.  I could have honked my horn, [humor, Madea voice] yelled out the window "HEY! Y'ALL ARE MEN, THIS IS NOT THE PLAYGROUND, AND IT"S NOT 3:00".  Something, anything.  They wouldn't have liked it (as I sped away in my car); but it might have saved one cousin's life and the other cousin's jail time.

Epilogue

Sunday night, 9:30 – I hear the rustling of leaves of feet approaching the porch - two of my congregation approaches. "James, you got an extra square?" - Yeah, I got plenty; did you guys hear about the two cousins down the street where one shot the other, cold blooded, in the middle of the street?  "Yes, that was terrible".  I saw the whole thing and it bothered me all week till God spoke to me on it like a brick from the sky at Church this morning.  "What did he say?"  Pastor was preaching about wisdom and the fear of the Lord, and I was thinking to myself "Why should I fear God?” I mean, "I'm grown." - Suddenly, WHACK on the side of the head, the lady behind me was praising the Lord too much and accidentally hit me with her purse.  etc., etc.

It will be interesting to see what things sprout from these seeds and what fruit it brings over time.

Target of legal organized crime

If you've ever been in the spot where you have 1) children's needs, 2) a mortgage, and 3) credit card bills - where you only have enough income to pay two of the three, what are you going to do?  Most people choose #1 and #2.  Unfortunately, that means #3 will raise the interest rate to 35 percent, add a $40 late charge every month, write off the account after 6 months and sell it to a collections company for pennies on the dollar.  For the next 2 years, you'll get harassing calls from dozens different types of people from friendly to extremely obnoxious to unintelligibly non-English speaking.  Then, FINALLY, the harassment ends and you get a letter from a lawyer saying you owe him three times the original card balance plus $1500 in collection fees AND the 35% compound interest is still ticking.

Meanwhile, you're still trying to sell the house you can't afford and have a mortgage balance higher than the (new, lower) appraised value and your children are getting older and you find out that being in "band" costs $2000+/year per child and "school supplies" cost $400/child/year - and I though public school was free?  Who knew pens and paper had become so expensive? Who would have known being in band costs so much?  I guess that's why I wasn't in band when I was their age.

Life goes on.  Eventually your house sells and you find one that's less expensive, although you have to pay a lot more interest because your credit score is in single digits. A relative dies and leaves you some money and you pay back the family and friends that helped you make it.  Then, thankful that the clouds are dissipating - you get a small raise at work and see that your income is a little bit more than your expenses.  You save a little and settle one of the smaller #3's from above.  You're starting to get back on your feet again.  It's been a rough decade of hard work and nothing to show for it, but God is good and you're going to be o.k. 

Then "BAM #1" - The IRS informs you that you're in a new tax bracket now and you owe $4000 in additional taxes for last year and although your raise gave you fifty more dollars per pay check, you need to adjust your withholding so you get $200 less per check so you won't owe another additional $4000 next year. And, by the way, you're not allowed to make payments on the $4000 because you can't prove you can't pay (after all, both your kids are in band, right?) and (the big bad IRS voice) "We want our money now."  -- "The rich don't pay their fair share of taxes - Adolph Hitler is the only leader in history who told bigger lies. #holocaust"

And "BAM #2" - Your bank of 20 years sends you an email saying your account is overdrawn.  Huh?  Wait, my gas money for the next week is in that account.   You go online and see that you were charged $40 because the loaf of bread you bought on your debit card yesterday bounced. - That’s a very expensive loaf of bread!  Scrolling down, car payment cleared - thank you Jesus! next entry, "LEGAL ISSUE FEES $81.00", next entry "WAGE GARNISHMENT CASE #aosdifja" X hundred forty four dollars and 10 cents. - Wait, how can that be a wage garnishment?  I didn't get paid this week?  You jump on Google and find that the bank sells collections companies a monitoring service so that whenever your balance is high they can steal it. (I use the word steal because they don't care if it's your money or not).  Wait a minute - I thought somebody had to tell you when they take you to court; apparently not.  And the bank charged me $81 to drain the account for the lawyer. Ouch.

And "BAM #3" - Your car finance company calls and wants your car because you didn't pay this month.  Wait a minute, that money clearly showed "cleared" before I closed the account.  I guess it wasn't out of the building yet and the bank grabbed it also.  That's pretty good customer service - wish I was the customer.

Rough week/month/year/decade?  - Nope.  Nobody and nothing can take away my joy without my permission, and all I have to say at the moment is "Request denied."

It turns out that there are lawyers listed by NACA.COM (I'm a big fan) who can fight this type of criminal behavior.  I think I'll hire one if I ever get out of the hole again.  Looks like gas will cost a little more this week, headed for "Expensive Money' now. - No I meant "Easy Money' - 800% API.

The big lie my parents told me

Starting at age four, my father and mother consistently told me a big lie over my whole childhood.  It was such a big lie and repeated so often even though I know it to be false now, it still feels true and I still act like it is.

Mom was a school teacher before I was born and a full time mom my entire youth.  Dad was a relatively smart man.  I could tell because he had two graduate degrees, a PhD and DVM. - Well, no, actually I didn't know what those letters meant at the time.  I could tell he was smart for a couple of reasons - 1) my grandparents and all my aunts and uncles asked daddy for advice whenever they encountered something unusual.  2) When I saw my dad interact with his peers, they used  a lot of really big words and daddy was the one doing the explaining most of the time.  I knew they were speaking English, but I had no idea what they were saying.

Many times in childhood, I messed up.  In school or at home - not having a straight "A" report card or the equivalent upset my parents.  I received “the speech” many times; mostly from my dad:  "Son, genetics is the study of traits passed from parents to children.  Intelligence is one of those traits.  This (disappointment of the moment) angers me greatly because I know you can do better.  The reason you can do better is that when you were born, you inherited all of the intelligence of your mother PLUS all of my intelligence.  You are twice as smart as your mother or me.  That's why humans don't live in caves any more.  Intelligence doubles every generation.  To whom more is given, more is required - you're going to have to work a lot harder than this. etc. etc. (for what seemed like an eternity)"

Epilogue

May you never steal, lie, or cheat.  But,

If you must steal, steal away your children's limitations, and

If you must lie, lie to your children about their potential, and

If you must cheat, cheat the world of the ability to hold your children down.