The past year of living in Los Angeles has been weird. I've grown a lot as a person. I've had to learn to ask, persevere, promote, and deliver comedy in weirder situations than I've ever been in. That includes the time I did comedy in a cut-out of a wall over a bar, standing on a 12-inch ledge. And everything I've done in Tukwila.
I read a book earlier this year called "The Go Giver." My friend & helper-angel Ann turned me on to it. The premise of the story is that when you can, Help. It greatly changed the way I look at helping, being helped, and the entire WHAT Helping Is. A subtext that I picked up on is that there's a BIG BIG BIG OPRAH EGO-HUGE difference between Helping, and Imposing Your Will With Best Intentions.
Somebody offering to swing a hammer to erect your weekend bone-shed, that's a Helper. They are there to help you get Your thing done.
Somebody bringing a set of blue-prints and one shovel and asking you "Why are you doing it that way? Shouldn't the drain be in the middle of the floor? Are these walls sound-proof? What grade are the leather restraints?" That's a NiceHole. They are coming to help you get things done the way they would like them to be done.
And if you question their intention, up their own ass they go, pursing their lips and saying "Well...
I WAS ONLY TRYING TO HELP."
Would you let somebody pay for your groceries for a month?
If it meant they got to do all the shopping, also?
Would you let somebody buy you a car?
If it meant they chose it, but you had to gas and insure it?
Would you let somebody get you a job that paid pretty well?
If it meant you didn't know what the job entailed?
I believe deeply in helping somebody when you can, simply because you can. It just MIGHT put you out, but you can handle it. Not talkin' kidney-donation, or even any kind of organ trade.
But never, ever helping somebody "on your terms." There is help, then there is Politicking.
Nobody elected you to be a Friend.
Give. Or Get. Graciously.
Take Me Home
My Blog About My Dad
Geoff Lott: Comedian, Writer, Philosoteur. I am here to amuse you, not entertain you. If not now, later. If not you, somebody else. If you can't laugh at yourself, that's just fine, too. I will do it for you.
Showing posts with label Favors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Favors. Show all posts
Monday, October 05, 2009
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Love Reason #187: Right Is Right, And You'll Hear About It
Soooo...
we get to Trader Joe's, the Whole Foods of mini-marts, and we're pulling into the parking lot to park the car in the lot as the Lotts and go into the store. As we do, we see a woman on her cell phone on our right, close the trunk of her car, grab her cart, and make a 180-degree turn to take her cart back to the sidewalk corral. But something hit me... something said, "no, this chick looks lazy. That cart's gonna go in the shrub-bed in front of her car."
But it DID NOT go there.
It went in the shrub-bed two spots down where we were trying to park. This didn't stop me.
"Are you serious? Are you that lazy? You just screwed up somebody else's parking spot, being that lazy!" Words flying out the car window at this woman, now bug-eyed and still on her phone. This woman looked, roughly, like Danny DeVito with ponytail. Disbelief came from her agape-mawed mug as she heard these words. I have no idea if she understood them (the area we shop at has many hard-working, documented immigrants, or "Computer Programmers"), but she surely could not miss the tone of my wife's voice.
Yes.
Those words were from the voice-pipes of my wife-of-nearly-one-year. We were both shocked to see this kind of laziness in action, as though it were perfectly fine to just get the cart out of traffic. Well it wasn't, and it isn't, and I don't care if you're from America or California or India or Indiana...
YOUR LAZINESS SHOULDN'T BURDEN ANYBODY EXCEPT YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.
That kind of behavior -the laziness, not the reprimand - propagates because Lazy people aren't called on their crappy behavior. First it was not picking up their cigarette butts. Then it's dropping their bottles of Old Granddad under the Big Toy. Next thing you know, the only thing they toss in a dumpster is kid #2. BECAUSE NOBODY SAYS NOTHIN' ABOUT SOMETHIN'.
She's like a Swiss Army Wife. Just when I think I've seen it all, BLAMMO, magnifying glass comes out, and looks at the fibers of your behavior!
I love my wife. So friggin' much. She is NOT a rage-aholic, by any means. Strife and external idiocy are usually shrugged off with a "Karma's gonna bite 'em." But this time, nope. I would, of course, had never let any harm come to her. She is a calm, loving, and lovely woman who believes in what's Right and Fair. And that I shouldn't eat jalapeno-poppers and beers and sleep in the same room BUT I DIGRESSETH...
She stood up for what she believes in.
She let her voice be heard.
And she returned the cart to the corral... LIKE AN AMER'CAN WOMAN DOES.
Happy Valentine's Day, my sweet.
I love it when you spread that firepower around.
=0=0=0=
Take Me Home
My Blog About My Dad
we get to Trader Joe's, the Whole Foods of mini-marts, and we're pulling into the parking lot to park the car in the lot as the Lotts and go into the store. As we do, we see a woman on her cell phone on our right, close the trunk of her car, grab her cart, and make a 180-degree turn to take her cart back to the sidewalk corral. But something hit me... something said, "no, this chick looks lazy. That cart's gonna go in the shrub-bed in front of her car."
But it DID NOT go there.
It went in the shrub-bed two spots down where we were trying to park. This didn't stop me.
"Are you serious? Are you that lazy? You just screwed up somebody else's parking spot, being that lazy!" Words flying out the car window at this woman, now bug-eyed and still on her phone. This woman looked, roughly, like Danny DeVito with ponytail. Disbelief came from her agape-mawed mug as she heard these words. I have no idea if she understood them (the area we shop at has many hard-working, documented immigrants, or "Computer Programmers"), but she surely could not miss the tone of my wife's voice.
Yes.
Those words were from the voice-pipes of my wife-of-nearly-one-year. We were both shocked to see this kind of laziness in action, as though it were perfectly fine to just get the cart out of traffic. Well it wasn't, and it isn't, and I don't care if you're from America or California or India or Indiana...
YOUR LAZINESS SHOULDN'T BURDEN ANYBODY EXCEPT YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.
That kind of behavior -the laziness, not the reprimand - propagates because Lazy people aren't called on their crappy behavior. First it was not picking up their cigarette butts. Then it's dropping their bottles of Old Granddad under the Big Toy. Next thing you know, the only thing they toss in a dumpster is kid #2. BECAUSE NOBODY SAYS NOTHIN' ABOUT SOMETHIN'.
She's like a Swiss Army Wife. Just when I think I've seen it all, BLAMMO, magnifying glass comes out, and looks at the fibers of your behavior!
I love my wife. So friggin' much. She is NOT a rage-aholic, by any means. Strife and external idiocy are usually shrugged off with a "Karma's gonna bite 'em." But this time, nope. I would, of course, had never let any harm come to her. She is a calm, loving, and lovely woman who believes in what's Right and Fair. And that I shouldn't eat jalapeno-poppers and beers and sleep in the same room BUT I DIGRESSETH...
She stood up for what she believes in.
She let her voice be heard.
And she returned the cart to the corral... LIKE AN AMER'CAN WOMAN DOES.
Happy Valentine's Day, my sweet.
I love it when you spread that firepower around.
=0=0=0=
Take Me Home
My Blog About My Dad
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