10 Things To Make Peace With

caught between my sixth straight back-to-back sportscenter, food network and a little man vs food, i found myself in one of those nights. those nights when sleeping is a foreign thought, no matter what i watch, read, eat or drink, outside of a heavy smash to my head with a blunt object, these eyes are not closing for the night. wasn't really sure why, it was a nice night, not hot, i had a good day, i even was able to get a shower in before bed - so it was a winning situation i was in. almost zen-like actually. but no sugar plums dancing in my head to lull me to sleep. not enough sheep to count. not even michael bolton on repeat could repulse me enough to drift away.

ironically, this happens to me often, but there usually is a cause or reason behind it. whether it be work, personal or just anxiety over something, but on this night...nothing.

tick tick tick, with each random thought another minute into the night passed by, 2:15 am, now 3:10 am, oh wait its an episode of no reservations i haven't seen...

3:59 am, that was a good episode, i wonder if jon & kate is on? now i approach the infomercial portion of television, magic bullets, set it and forget it, oxy clean, the awesome auger. then my mind drifted a bit...i wonder what happened to billy blanks and his tae bo videos or suzanne somers and her thigh master, something about chrissy in leotards and a one piece bathing suit sweating while opening and closing her legs was visceral and disturbing, wow how the mighty have fallen. this is getting bad, now its past 4 am and i'm in the suzanne somers fantasy portion of my insomnia...must find a way to sleep before it really gets ugly.

then it hit me, why not use this time to make peace with some things in my life. figuring that i just lost hours of my brain functionality on mindless tv, might as well pontificate a bit. hopefully i can bore myself to sleep. and with most self-help rituals, it'll probably all sound like great ideas at first which i would totally commit myself to achieving and completely forget the next day, but the goal really isn't to better myself here, its to fall asleep and if along the way i can figure out how to date less disaster stories, then its a win win in my book. so consider this my gift to society, not only for me but for all to enjoy, employ into their lives and bask in its infinite wisdom or pure silliness.

first thing to make peace with...
take things less seriously. i play basketball once a week in a refurbished school auditorium where the ceiling is lower on one side than the other, some of the people that show up to play, play in jeans and penny loafers, we light one half of the gym with a flood light, winning those games isn't going to get me drafted. the fantasy that a nba scout happens to walk into this gym looking for directions and happens to notice me isn't gonna happen. we are all competitive in nature, but we often forget that our al bundy polk high days are over and sometimes we just take certain things a bit too seriously.

second thing to make peace with...
be realistic. someone once said that we are all great american novelist, just that not all of us actually get anything written. i've probably started or conceptualized 20 or more ideas for novels, screenplays, plays or musicals and actually put fingers to keyboard on no more than three of the ideas. when my computer crashed and i lost those ideas, i chalked it up to "wasn't meant to be i guess". there's a fine line in what's a passion and what's a talent. be realistic in what you want to do and what you're good at doing. you ever notice the cliche about "having a dream and pursuing it"? why is it that only the people that have succeeded say that? you never hear a homeless man say "i put everything i had into this company and failed, but you should keep dreaming and work hard for it" or a recently laid off executive say "i worked so hard for them that i was the youngest executive ever in the organization, i took them global and if it wasn't for the economy i would've been in line for CEO, but it shows that hard work will always overcome"?

third thing to make peace with...
laugh at yourself more. a forgotten medicine for the mind and soul is the ability to laugh at oneself. we all have had our night at the apollo, but in our case the apollo theatre has been in the shower or the car, we've all tried the running man or cabbage patch dance and even farted in a crowded room or on a date. we chastise these moments as shame and embarrassment. think about it, if we were good at singing and dancing, would we be doing it on a whim to make us smile? no. singers and dancers don't sing and dance spontaneously, they do it for a living, but i'm sure they do other things outside of their comfort zone to make them happy and laugh. i don't sing and dance for a living, so i do it to make myself laugh. i know i sound more like billy the goat than billy joel when i sing, but it makes me laugh. and isn't laughter a natural mood enhancer? we are all so concerned over what people think about us that we forget about how we think about ourselves.

fourth thing to make peace with...
life in general is like a step dad, it often beats you and you sometimes you hate it, so move on. (apologies to all step dads out there, but i saw that line and had to use it, you have to admit it is a bit funny, not that i'm condoning step dad beating kids...)

fifth thing to make peace with...
letting go. we all have stalking tendacies, some more than others. you don't wear your shirt from when you were seven years old, so why should you hold onto other things in your life that you should let go. we are all nostalgic to an extent, but sometimes we find it hard to let go no matter what the situation. facebook has opened up new outlets for us. we use it to highlight how great or bad the weather is, we measure our popularity on how many birthday wishes we get posted on our wall, we idle away our dead time by telling the world we are idling away our dead time and we work harder on our old relationships than we did when we were in those relationships. i'm sure many of you subscribe to the 8 steps you're a stalker list below, if you are familiar and engage in this, consider this an intervention...

1) log on and check our wall, inbox and other messages
2) look at the news feed to see what others are doing
3) go to the page of one or multiple ex's (if there is a message or photo of said ex with someone of an opposite sex, go directly to step number 5)
4) go to the page of the people we are interested in or find hot, try to figure out if by not listing their relationship status if they are single or trying to hide something
5) go to the pages of the people our ex's have in their photos or wall comments, without any knowledge of the situation, get all riled up, start calling said ex all types of names which may or may not include slut, asshole, bitch, jerk, skank, d*&*head. if the ex is with a person we know, continue to call that person the same names listed above. Friendly reminder, they're an ex, i'm just saying...
6) go back to our page, look through the photos of ourselves, consider changing our profile photo, wish someone happy bday, accept a few friend requests and make a comment on someone else's wall
7) log out until a) one of your friends tells you about the photo they saw with your ex with so and so b) someone replies back to what you wrote on their wall or c) someone comments on your new profile photo
8) repeat daily

now its closer to 5 am and my eyes are closing, the birds are chirping and i think i might squeeze in a few hours of rest before i have to wake up. no time to think of the last five things, that will have to wait til tonight's insomnia bout, but after i watch the extenze or perfect pancake infomercial, its amazing how they get a perfect pancake every single time...

and if by chance i can't fully fall asleep, i can always go facebook stalking...