Day: August 30, 2024

Harrison drove slowly down the US60 highway. He paid little mind to the cars honking and whizzing around him at this early hour. It wasn’t quite 6AM. The sun barely touched the edge of the horizon, yet somehow his driving the posted speed limit of 65 mile per hour was, to everyone he shared the road with, some manner of sin. A blue Altima slid up alongside him, the driver pausing to stare at him in curiosity before flooring the accelerator and disappearing off ahead. It was like this every morning, and every morning he would hear about a major accident, often a fatality. He asked himself why people put themselves at risk in this way. It wasn’t like they wanted to be at work. Harrison Lee did not know a single person who wanted to be at work.

He wanted to be at work. He enjoyed the process of getting there, in spite of those who attempted to sully that process. He enjoyed making it in to the office at precisely 7:09 and setting up the machine for his first cup of coffee. He relished at settling behind his desk, pausing to take a deep breath, and then writing out the list of activities he would see to accomplish that day. His co-workers found his habit positively frustrating. “You don’t even start till 8. Why get here so early?”

Harrison would laugh and say, “I’m not much for rushing around. I take the time to enjoy where I am going and where I am at.”

That was often enough to end the conversation.

I spent the week waiting to see my kid finally suit up as a college player. I expected it to be a moment where everyone in the family was excited about it and proud. Not actually what went down. I think it simply reaffirms my understanding of how people react to ambition. For some of us it make us feel part of others success. Some of us see that success as separate from us and, often, foreign in a way that reinforces their downplaying of success. In other words, people will always find something wrong with your success, so you need to decide what kind of people you allow to impact your belief in yourself and in those you believe in.

I watched that translate to the Deion show last night. immediately after the game the haters came out hard about how they suck and winning against a nobody FCS team like the Bison by such a small margin was basically them proving they suck. There is nuance that haters are never willing to accept. People like that–haters–are basically only fulfilled by being negative about everything but the small margin of things that make them happy. Generating negativity itself is what sustains them, while it drowns and disturbs everyone else. Don’t let it rent space in your head.