The Corrigan Encore

What we all deserve

February 28, 2022 John Corrigan

I am a little bit of a sports fan. I like watching competition and participating in it. That’s why in 2015 there was a story that caught my attention on ESPN. Here is a link to the story.

In short a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers took his sons trophies away from them because they were “participation” trophies and in his on words unearned. In fairness to the linebacker I want to mention that he gave the trophies back and by almost everyone who knows him is a really fun and great dad.

The idea of earning or deserving has always bugged me, like a lot! I truly do not think any one has earned anything. The more I consider what it means to earn. One definition of Earn is “gain deservedly in return for one’s behavior or achievements”.

The biggest thing that bugs me about the concept of earn or deserve is that it implies that someone did something in a vacuum and no one has ever done anything in a vacuum. The myth of self made is toxic and a poison that has been and is being feed to us and our children. Bottom line is that no one ever gets what they deserve and everyone is being helped by someone somewhere at all times.

Take the trophies be kind, grateful, compassionate, loving and competitive beings who understands that no one is better than or worse than anyone else.

Who are you mad at?

February 25, 2022 John Corrigan

Last year my niece told me that her favorite song was “I’m mad at Disney” by Salem Ilese. We were at the pool and I almost fell out of the chair. This is a seven year old who owns all the princess dresses. Then I listened to the song and me the tow of us did a Tik Tok Video with her dancing to the song.

The song “I’m mad at Disney” is very catchy and the singer has a beautiful voice. The lyrics are not profound but they touch on a topic that I call growing up. When I was seven, eight, nine, ten all the way to basically high school, I was being raised on a diet of pop culture that included John Hughes movies, Comic books, GI Joe and Double Dare.

In the song “I’m Mad at Disney” the singer mentions how life is not really a fairy tale and life and love is messy. Salem and my niece are right kind of. Life and love are messy and most fairy tales are clean but, life and love are hopeful and fun and can be full of joy just like a fairy tale.

I like watching plays with little kids in them. Sometimes the kids come out know all their lines and crush it and sometimes the kids come out know none of their lines fall all over the set and still crush it. How can this be? How can the kid get up there forget their lines and stumble around and still crush it? Because, love. With an audience full of loving and supportive family and friends no one ever fails. Life is kind of the same way. If you are loving and surround yourself with loving people than you haven’t ever really failed and your life is like a fairy tale just a messy more real one.

Even when I don’t want to

February 24, 2022 John Corrigan

This morning Alexa yelled at me and I yelled back requesting just ten more minutes. I was tired and didn’t want to get out of bed and start the day. I wanted to sleep for another hour then start the day, but I rolled out of bed and headed to the gym for my 30 minutes of row.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

Got to say those thirty minutes took forever but when I finished I felt great! I always feel great after I accomplish something and I think maybe I feel a little greater when it is something I really didn’t want to do in the first place.

Here is a great article about Suze Orman and her tenacity and understanding that, we have to do things we do not want to do to get what we want. When I was in the army I hated shinning my boots and pressing my uniforms I never understood why we had to do this every day, and a sergeant, who acted as a mentor explained it to me like this, “it’s like brushing your teeth no one wants to do it but it has to get done.” I did it every morning while in the army and now I wake up and head out no matter how early it is because it has to get done.

Today your day may be filled with what seems like menial tasks and chance are high that you do not want to do them but, they have to be done and when you finish you should reward yourself with at least a pat on the back.

Squeeze it

February 23, 2022February 23, 2022 John Corrigan

No one dies from old age. There is a pretty interesting take on this idea that no one dies from old age in this article. The Live Science article is an interesting and short read and basically lets us know that everyone dies from injury or disease not old age. There is no expiration date or guarantee to a persons mortality.

Thinking about how no one really dies from old age got me to thinking about an older news story about Google and the company Calico. Gizmodo broke the story in 2013 introducing the world to Calico. Calico is a company founded by Google with the mission to understand aging and life span. That’s a pretty big swing! Based on some of the drugs and publications from Calico it looks as if they are cracking this age thing.

Calico has money, scientists, doctors, mathematicians all working on longevity. Me and probably everyone reading this do not share these resources so, what can we do if anything about aging and the injuries’ or diseases that come with it?

Obviously we can and should use the resources we have to reasonably protect ourselves and loved ones and then we should live the best life we can while we are on earth!

“Make the most of yourself–for that is all there is of you.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
— Maya Angelou

“How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the whole day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day.”
— Anne Frank

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I am a huge sports fan and I truly enjoy watching basketball. In basketball there is a clock, the clock is counting down and when it reaches zero than the game is over. I see elite athletes and they understand that the real competition is not them versus the other competitor but them versus the clock. The elite athletes push themselves and their team to score as many points as they can in the time that they have. I think this is a great way to live life.

Life as well as you can as much as you can while you can.

From this to That with a lot of fun

February 22, 2022 John Corrigan

I helped my son Johnathan build a city with Legos. The city was a street, bridge, sky scrapers, a few cars, and some pedestrians. I am not sure how long it took but when we were finished I asked Johnathan if he wanted to destroy it and he replied yes. His brother Kyle would hear nothing of it and the city remained safe for another day.

I have a Lego bust of Boba Fett and it is awesome so far it has been built destroyed and rebuilt. That is what I love about Legos and life really. We call life a progression and we try to build on and learn from yesterday however everyday is really starting over and that makes it kind of exciting and fun .

Learning is certainly a progression however what we believe we are storing or keeping if it is not knowledge or experience is very replaceable.

When you put together Legos they can feel pretty permanent however they are not. It may take some coaxing but they will come apart and you can build over and over and over again.

Life can be tough and will get tougher but no matter what has happened I cant help but believe that you can build over and over and over again.

Friday Grinding and the Pareto Principle

February 18, 2022 John Corrigan

Today is Friday and for many employees it is the end of the standard work week. No more grinding away for our bosses. It is time to get out there and wake up when nature tells us to and spend our time on our own desires!

Yesterday while listening to a podcast I heard a term I know used in a different topic. The term was grinding. I heard the term grinding used to describe repetitive work but, in the podcast the term was used to describe repetitive game play. Grinding in games (video games) is the act of engaging in repetitive tasks to gain some type of performance outcome. According to many game developers grinding is necessary to give all players an advantage. In the wikipedia article , the defense of grinding in video games has to do with the pareto principle.

The pareto principle is another term I have heard a lot at work. Essentially the Pareto Principle (named after the man who wrote it down the first time Vilfred Pareto), says that 80 % of your consequences (winning in a game or building widgets at work) will come from 20% of your actions (20 percent of the players in a game are high performers, 20 percent of the workforce get that widget in the truck out the door and or in the hands of the customer). Grinding was set up in games to off set the pareto principle now see the problem with that is, the pareto principle most likely will now apply to the grinders instead of the players.

I think if someone does not enjoy grinding in a game they should not grind in that game.

My grandfather always encouraged me to become a weather man (I know they are called meteorologist). “Look they, do not need to be right, they only work twice a day and they get to go to work clean and come home clean.” I didn’t become a meteorologist it wasn’t really my passion. I find everything interesting don’t get me wrong but weather didn’t get me out of the bed.

I am fortunate in that, I work with a field that I am passionate about and engages me. I enjoy the weekend and I joke about working for the weekend but, I don’t mind it when I have to work (a little) late.

I hope that whatever you are grinding at you truly enjoy or at least find interesting if not I encourage you to find something that sparks joy

Make it so

February 17, 2022 John Corrigan

When I was younger I struggled with math. My mom used money and making change to help me with math and more specifically fractions. Ever since those lessons about making change I have been quite interested in money and making change.

Change is defined as altering the state of something or making something different. Did you know that things you do every day change the DNA in your body? Here is a pretty interesting article about the type of DNA and how often it changes. Of course most of the changes we make to our DNA are small and our bodies DNA is still so unique that it can be used as an identifier but, the fact still remains that we are constantly changing.

Change can be exciting and scary. I think most of us love routines and schedules and change to these things can “throw off” our grooves. I have had friends in retirement age take custody of grandkids, this is a big change for them and I am sure they were a little bit frightened. My friends are adjusting and now a change would be not raising their grandchild.

That word adjusting is a little misleading isn’t it? There is a lot to change. Here is another blog post dealing with change. One take away from the article from the last link for me was the concept of using change to create positive outcomes. Is this possible? I have to say yes. I have seen people change from victims to survivors and even champions just by changing their mindset. These people understand how to use their input to make all change positive.

When I was a kid I liked change more than dollars. You only had one dollar for every 100 pennies! I would much rather carry around pennies. As an adult I look at pennies as a hassle.. The penny did not loose its value I changed my mindset.

Once you realize you have this power and start exercising it I would be shocked if you were not rewarded with some incredible results. Be positive today, change will happen and that positivity is your tool to make that change good.

Home is…..

February 16, 2022 John Corrigan

Yesterday I put up a canvas picture in my office. The picture was a painting of a triangle demonstrating Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. If you read previous posts you know that I am a big fan of this hierarchy. It seems that when the needs are meet this truly does make people happy and content.

I like public parks always have I think they are an idea third space. The parks are a third space for me however for some of the less fortunate than myself public parks have become their home. The parks serve as homes unless you are in the city I live in. The city I live in enforces the very unconstitutional no loitering law. I guess the constitutionality of a no loitering law maybe debatable however it is definitely an immoral and unjust law. Here is a pretty good review on why the no loitering law is unconstitutional.

The pillar of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is water, sleep, shelter, clothes and air. The people who have made the park their home and are being kicked out are not even getting the pillar of their needs meet!

In the United States we use capitalism to judge peoples worth and place in society and right to live. If you have enough capital you can live wherever you want and do whatever you want basically (even if you have broken laws you can pay lawyers and judges to make the consequences less sever for you or even go away).

The amount of capital that someone has is a bad way to divide up resources as basic water, sleep, shelter, clothes and air. Just because you have more access to money does not mean you deserve more of anything than anyone else. Honestly if everyone got what they truly deserved we would all be in a big world of trouble.

A society that forces a person to earn their needs through work that has nothing to do with those needs is broken and misguided. Today lets challenge ourselves and see a future that does not measure a persons worth with dollars.

We have that too

February 15, 2022 John Corrigan

Rob Bell wrote a few books, One book in particular received some mixed reviews. Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, that is the books name. Let me see the book addresses the question ” would a loving God send people to eternal torment forever?” It’s a great read and is one of those books I like to buy and give away.

There is a line in the book where Rob Bell mentions how young believers in the Christian religion will move to a foreign country in a missionary capacity and introduce the religion of Christianity to people only to be greeted with “Oh we have that here too, only we call it___”. Many religions throughout the world and time share the same stories.

My wife is right at the end of a history course she is taking for her degree, and I have been helping her with some of her assignments. She really doesn’t need my help I think she asks for it so I will not feel so useless. Reading history I cannot help but see how religious disagreements on many (shared) stories, has generated violence even war and genocide.

It seems that many religions have common ground as do most people and that meeting on this common ground can be a beautiful thing however we do not need to look far if we want to find divisive elements either. Dr. Seuss wrote a book called the Butter Battle . The book outlines how two sets of people differed on what side to butter their bread and the difference created divisions and military build ups.

I plan on challenging myself today to look for common ground with everyone I meet, I know that I will find it and I challenge you to do the same.

We all do it

February 14, 2022 John Corrigan

This morning I wasn’t sure what to blog about. I was stumped (for a microsecond), then I thought about what I was actually getting ready to do. I was about to blog or tell a story.

Ahh story telling, it is what separates humans from the animals. Here is a wonderful right up on the difference in humans and animals. My wife and I went to a Trace Adkins concert and he told us that he is a story teller. That night I thought it was odd that he called himself a story teller and not a singer but on the ride home as I was getting my hearing back I realized that he was right.

Musicians, teachers, parents, siblings every human on earth who interacts with another human on earth is a story teller. Even the hermits tell stories to themselves.

I think about money and how money is intrinsic to the story that comes with it. There is a book that has been on my to read list forever and one day will move to the read one. It is titled “Money: The True Story Of A Made-Up Thing” and written by Jacob Goldstein. If you think about without story telling money would not work. It is the story and belief in the story that gives the currency its widely accepted value.

How and why we tell stories matter. Stories should be told to build people up and help not hurt. There is a wonderful Disney movie called “Encanto”. The story behind the movie involves a multigeneration family in Columbia and one attractive feature of the story is the lack of a central antagonist or bad guy. Even without the bad guy the story is compelling and the plot moves quickly (its a great movie).

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Bad guys and villains’ in stories can be dangerous. Stories are great at creating empathy but they are also good at creating hate. Who doesn’t love to see a bad guy get his comeuppance? This is dangerous because life is not black and white. Life is messy and very gray.

“The color of truth is gray.” –Andre Gide

When you tell your stories today and you will, be sure to act kindly compassionately and humanely.