1 Thing You Can Do That Will Always Blow Your Mind … September 7th, 2020

Jonathots Daily Blog

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The $200 Attack

First of all, there’s no magic in making it two hundred dollars. Any number works.

Just take some cash you’ve laid back, reserved, saved or collected and go to a nearby town (it can be your hometown, but it’s more fun if you’re not recognized.)

Start giving away kindness and money to people at a rapid pace so that before they know it, you are in and out of their community and on your way.

You can divide it up any way you wish.

• How about $75 in five-dollar bills?
• $20 in change to put into the washing machines at the local laundromat?
• Pay for four meals at fast food restaurants.
• How about some single one-dollar bills to hand out to kids?
• Or surprise somebody by paying for their gasoline.

Take along your own children.

Give them the experience–and if you want to increase your cash, invite a couple of friends, who bring their stash.

In my opinion, it’s just better if you do it in a town near you—and do it as quickly as possible, leaving behind a community of at least forty or fifty people who are scratching their heads, talking about it for some time to come.

It’s $200 you will never wish you had spent another way.

And it will blow your mind.

The B. S. M. G. Report

Jonathots Daily Blog

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The meek will inherit

Because they’re willing to share it

BAD

We are in the midst of severely ignoring the currency of the Christmas season.

We have begun to believe that December can be filled with our foolishness and chicanery, when during that thirty days, the Earth always takes a collective gasp for air, so that we can survive the rest of our yearly journey.

But now, we have instead decided to go politically crazy, emotionally distraught and spiritually bankrupt.

How about a simple example?

A seventeen-year-old boy decides to take the family car to a party and does some illegal drinking. Coming out, he gets behind the wheel and drives the car home, where he finds his mother and father waiting for him at the door, unable to deny his intoxication.

But let’s say that same young man went to the party, got just as drunk and drove home, but on the way to his house, crashed his car into a tree. A half-hour later, his parents arrive at the police station to retrieve him.

Just for the sake of discussion, back to that same young man, same party, same drunkenness—but this time, on the drive home he hits a young boy on a bicycle and kills him.

I present these three scenarios to you because we need to discuss some differences among the words errant, mistake and crime.

To the legalist or someone who is toeing the letter of the law, I suppose the boy who arrives home in his car intoxicated is committing a crime. But dare I say, there probably is not a mother or father in America who would view it that way.

They would recognize the behavior as “errant.” It would need to be corrected in-house.

Yet these same parents would probably not consider crashing into a tree to merely be errant. They wouldn’t call it a crime—they would say it was a mistake. Once again, punishment would be in order.

But the parents would have no say whatsoever in the matter if their son killed somebody while drunk. That would be considered by one and all to be a crime.

We have made a severe mistake by impeaching President Donald Trump.

Whether you consider what he did with Ukraine to be errant behavior, a mistake or a crime, the populace will need to sustain that opinion.

Yet what is missing is acknowledgment.

No one has admitted errant behavior or a mistake, so it begins to feel like a crime.

Here’s the question:

Did Donald Trump do something errant, make a mistake, or was it a crime?

We will probably never know—because he refuses to admit his part in the problem.

SAD

It makes me downright sad.

If you put Republicans and Democrats together, you kind of have a great world.

Republicans are all about “hometown.”

• Their lovely burgs.
• Their families.
• Their dogs.
• God’s country.

Democrats, on the other hand, are about the Earth.

• Climate change.
• Global poverty.
• Gender equality across the planet.

Doggone it, I like them all.

I’d like to take the better parts of  my hometown and spread them across the globe.

I want to treat the Earth well. So why don’t I come back to my hometown and get started?

It’s sad that we have two great forces that fight against one another instead of turning the Earth into a marvelous hometown.

MAD

But it is maddening that none of this can happen because the ability to confess our faults has diminished until it seems to have finally disappeared.

One of my favorite phrases from the Good Book is, “Confess your faults to one another so you can be healed.”

I don’t want to live in a world that is constantly misshapen, out of step, angry and frustrated simply because we think it’s weak to admit our missteps.

What a great time to come along and stand in front of your friends and proclaim your foibles without fear.

GLAD

Because you know what makes me glad?

Not even an impeachment, violence, partisan politics and hours of boring hearings on television can dim the power and spirit of Christmas.

It is in our DNA to try to give a damn in the month of December.

It’s a glorious time. And it doesn’t go away unless we chase it away.

It is bad that we cannot decide what has happened with our President.

It makes me sad that our Republicans and Democrats don’t know how perfect they would be together.

And I’m mad that we don’t confess our faults to be healed.

But I’m glad it’s December:

We’re birthing great ideas to create a “stable world.”

Confessing … October 3rd, 2015

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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XXII.

I confess so I can heal.

If I deny, I remain sick.

One of the dangers of doing noble deeds is the human tendency to desire to be treated with some nobility for doing so.

Of course, it doesn’t work that way.

During my years of living in Tennessee, I was party to beginning an orchestra in our hometown. It went well. Matter of fact, doors were opened so that we could offer an entertaining and enlightening musical program to the local elementary schools using a small ensemble from the larger body.

This project was so successful that we were invited to present these programs at ten elementary schools in the Roanoke, Virginia, school district.

We were thrilled.

The first day we did four schools and everything went well. At the end of the second day, we were finishing up our program when a teacher in the back of the auditorium began to gather up her children like little chickadees in preparation to take them out to the bus for departure.

We were at the height of the most important part of our communication with the students, and in my pridefulness, I became incensed at her insensitivity. So as soon as we finished our last note and took our bows, I immediately stomped over to the young woman and confronted her over what I considered to be an egregious error on her part–ignoring our work merely to prepare her children.

I was not foul or mean, but very confrontational–and I did it in front of the students.

She was shocked, offended, and immediately went to her principal to “tell on me.”

So by the end of the day, the principal of the school had contacted our sponsor and informed him of my breach,. Meanwhile, I was being reinforced by my own team, who told me I was being “honest and brave, sticking up for myself,” in dealing with this lady.

So long story short, the sponsor of our event was so thrilled with what was going on that he forgave my indiscretion and we continued the school concerts without any further furor.

Matter of fact, to this day those closest to me would consider me to be justified. That young teacher probably marks it as the day she was accosted by an asshole.

What is the truth?

The truth of the matter is, true beauty does not need praise.

Excellence can continue to thrive minus applause.

And the message will get through without us over-promoting it.

I was wrong.

I was wrong to accost a young woman, no matter what her motivations were. My job is to work on my own motivations.

I was wrong to do it in front of her students, and I was wrong to take a pass simply because I have enough talent that people are afraid to confront me.

Have I ever been so overwhelmingly egotistical and defensive again?

I suppose I have.

But I have taken the time to put a hole in that tank of ego and let it gradually drain out onto the ground–where it belongs.

 

 

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