Tag: Strength

There is No Strength Greater Than Compassion

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a great start.

It’s good to be back with you. Yes, I took a week off. This would not be the time to say, “You were gone?” Writers have fragile feelings. We like to think people are hanging on every word and can’t wait to read more from us. Okay, stand-up comedy made my feelings a little less fragile. It all changed the night some guy in the back of a sold-out crowd yelled, “You suck!”

I think I’ve told that story before, so I won’t go into it now. The point is, I lived through it. And after that night, I was never again afraid of somebody sharing their own thoughts so vocally. In fact, I almost looked forward to it. That’s what happens when you have a six-hour drive home to lick your wounds and come up with all kinds of vile expressions to put somebody in their place.

Thankfully, I never had to use any of them, because it never happened again. It’s hard to believe that, in fifteen years of comedy across most of the nation, nobody else felt the need to humiliate me in front of a crowd. I guess when you’re ready for them, you have this look on your face that says, “Go for it!” Kids always do behave better when mom has a wooden spoon.

Having a thick skin is one of those things that can be good or bad, depending on the situation. When your grandchild is crying because of a popped balloon, that’s a time for compassion. When they’re crying because you took away their steak knife, sympathy is a little harder to find. And then they say, “I don’t like you!” and you start crying. Oh well.

We’re living in a time when we all need that perfect balance of compassion and a thick skin. People around us are hurting. They’re sick. They’re afraid. They need comfort, not some jackass telling them to “suck it up, buttercup!” Yes, life can be tough. They know that. They don’t need a reminder. What they need is somebody to say, “I’m here. How can I help?”

That doesn’t mean we take the world’s problems as our own, but to the extent that one of us is hurting, we’re all hurting. When a player gets hurt on the field, the team circles in to protect them, because even the most uncelebrated lineman is just as important as the quarterback. Try playing without a few of those linemen and you’ll see what I mean.

To be sure, there are times when the best thing we can do for somebody is to make them stand on their own. Even the Bible tells us, give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day – teach a man to fish and he’ll buy a boat and you’ll never see him again. Well, something like that. Which explains why my wife gave me a copy of “Fishing for Dummies.” Point taken.

Your first day on the job, you needed somebody to show you the ropes. Hopefully somebody was willing to help. And there’s little doubt some hotshot was standing off to the side, making snide remarks and waiting for you to fail. Every company has at least one. So, here’s the question – which one of those people made the biggest difference, for you and for the team?

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And sure, it may be easier to just cut that link out and cast it aside, but what you end up with is a shorter chain. It makes more sense to beef up that weak link and make it as strong as the rest. In fact, if you could do the same with all those weak links somebody else tossed aside, you’d have the biggest and strongest chain around.

We can’t solve the world’s problems on our own, but looking the other way won’t make them magically disappear. Like anything else, if we each take a small bite out of the problem, it becomes that much more manageable. Help those who can’t help themselves and encourage those who can.

The best pitcher can’t win a game without an equally strong catcher. And even the guy in right field (you know, where the dandelions grow) is just as critical to the team’s success. There are no unnecessary players – in sports, or in life. Winning teams aren’t built by exclusion – they’re the natural result of each person helping every other person become the very best they can be.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2020 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

You’ve Earned a Break … But Don’t Overdo It

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a nice start.

I had a really productive weekend. I trimmed shrubs, sawed up branches, set two nine-foot posts for a new gate, and gave the RV a bath. That’s a lot for an old guy like me. I can’t say I did quite as much as my grandson, but I paid him for helping so that counts. Right?

Something I learned a long time ago about home ownership. Things break. Things need adjustment, lights need to be replaced, and there’s always something to clean. And for anything that escapes those troubles, get a bucket of paint. I have twelve almost-empty cans of paint in the garage. I don’t care about saving the paint – I just want the color numbers.

See, that’s something else I learned. It’s good to save the color numbers in case the grandkids do what grandkids are known to do, and you have to paint again. But the empty can is just taking up space. I could just as easily save the numbers in my computer. Besides, by the time it needs to be painted again, my wife will want a different color anyway.

Her motto has always been, “It’s only paint – if you don’t like the color, you can always paint over it.” Loosely translated, that means “If I don’t like the color, you can always paint over it.” Our living room wall started off clinical white. Then it was red, and now it’s blue and tan. I may be missing one or two. After 18 years and all those paint fumes, my memory is a little hazy.

But that’s the way it is. There’s always something to be done. Same with the RV – it’s just a smaller house. I did a couple of repairs on it yesterday as well. Yes, it’s only three months old. Most houses hold up better. But most houses don’t bounce down the road, either. On our last trip, some hardware fell on my wife’s head. Twice. I couldn’t have planned it better if I tried.

On the home front, I’m in the process of building a new gate. The old one is falling apart, and I can’t get into the back yard without a territorial challenge from the dogs next-door. All six of them. And one is a St. Bernard that’s about to topple the fence. So, I need a new gate that’ll open in the middle and keep us a little further away. That’ll work until the fence falls down.

Granted, the gate I’m building costs a little more than buying one at the store, but it’ll look a lot nicer. Besides, setting those two posts in concrete yesterday taught me a couple of valuable lessons. First, posthole diggers suck. That’s a lot of work, especially when you hit concrete from the old fence posts. And second, privacy fences need a LOT of posts. Not going there.

But mostly, I’m doing this myself because I need the exercise. Sure, I could pay somebody to do it for me, but that gets expensive. And meanwhile, I’m getting weak. Not really frail, but those packs of bottled water are getting really heavy. And we won’t even talk about the bags of water softener salt. I don’t carry them down the stairs. I drag them.

It’s all part of the aging process, but it’s a part in which I choose not to participate. There are things I want to do with my life and sitting around in a wheelchair isn’t part of the dream. But, as we age, we have two choices. We can either stay fairly active and maintain adequate strength, or pick out a nursing home before the kids do it for us.

And most of the time, we can get the exercise we need by just taking care of things around the house. If nothing needs to be done, look again. And if you still can’t find anything to do, take a walk. Take the kids to a park. Go swimming. Play a round of golf. If you play like I do, you’ll get a LOT of extra steps in, plus a little cross-country hiking as well. Maybe even a swim.

Gyms are great, if that’s your thing, but all it really takes is a little movement. Just doing the routine things that need to be done – shopping, cleaning, mowing, sweeping, and occasionally building a new gate. Throw in a little recreational exercise, and you’re good to go. Sure, you’ll still get old, and you’ll still feel it. But you won’t feel it as soon, and maybe not quite as much.

Like most things in life, it’s all about small steps repeated over time. Whether your goal is to build strength, improve your health, build a business, or build a house, it all starts with a commitment to get started and keep moving. It may take time – maybe even the rest of your life. But isn’t that really the idea?

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2020 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Adversity Makes Us Stronger – If We’re Smart Enough Not To Forget

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Friday! I hope your day is off to a great start.

I’ll never forget my first real fight in middle school. That was back in the days when they called it junior high. I’m showing my age. Ricky Brace, the bully of our bus stop, decided I was next on the list of boys to fall victim to his ego-driven need to prove he could beat up people half his size. I hadn’t done anything in particular. He just needed a fix, and I was there.

Somehow, I dodged the inevitable beating the first day, but I knew I wouldn’t get so lucky again. My mom gave me some pointers that involved things like biting, throwing sand, and kicking him someplace where bullies really don’t like to be kicked. Yes, Mom was a country girl through and through. There was no such thing as a fair fight. It was all-out war until only one person was left standing.

That person wasn’t me. I’d like to tell you I put up a valiant fight, but that’s not quite the way it went down. I did get in a couple of good punches, but at the end of round one, he was clearly in the lead and the spectators decided I’d had enough. All told, I took about a dozen good punches to the right side of my face with him sitting on my chest. I almost threw dirt in his face. Okay, I missed.

By that evening my face was turning purple. I’d seen him pound some other people (it was a habitual thing), but none as bad as me. Why? Because instead of laying down after the first punch, I tried to fight back. Mom said, “Well, at least you proved a point!” I was like, “What? That I can take a beating?” That bruising intrigued every school bully for the next two weeks.

But you know, after that day I wasn’t so scared anymore. I didn’t go looking for trouble, but two things happened as a result of that pounding. First, I learned that it wasn’t the end of the world. It sucked, to be sure. But I lived to tell about it. And also, the guys who like to throw punches without taking any in return decided to look for somebody a little less likely to fight back.

Right now, we’re all taking a pounding from a bully that singled us out just because we were there. None of us did anything to deserve this pandemic and the devastation being left in its wake. Okay, some folks ignored warnings, but who among us hasn’t taken a few risks? Yes, we need to take some extraordinary precautions. But that doesn’t mean we can stop living.

And when this is over, we’ll come back even stronger. I know that’s hard to imagine right now, especially as we watch family and friends fall victim to something for which there is no known cure, our economy is in tatters, and more people are losing their primary source of income every day. And still, toilet paper is nowhere to be found.

But I remember something my dad told me after my wife had an especially bad miscarriage that left her hospitalized for a week. He said these are the things that make us stronger in the end. That, by finding a way through crisis we discover a part of ourselves that may have been hiding until then, simply because it wasn’t needed. But it’s there, just waiting until we need it most.


Well, we need it now. And, from what I’ve seen, most people have found strength they didn’t know they had. Not only in terms of staring this thing down with a defiant determination to come out on top, but in our ability to adapt and transform with no prior planning – just the need to survive. And along the way, we’re finding more ways to help those around us.

Hopefully, these are things we’ll remember and carry with us once this crisis is over. If you think back to the overwhelming sense of national pride and unity that followed the 9/11 attacks, it’s hard to imagine that we could have become so bitterly divided in such a short time. Maybe this virus is a reminder that we still need one another, now more than ever.

It’s likely that, before all is said and done, every one of us will feel the pain of losing someone we love, and many more will have to fight the daily battle to beat this thing. But we’ll make it. And the things we’ve learned along the way won’t suddenly become irrelevant. And as long as we don’t let those things slip into the background, we can continue to learn from them.

The greatest lesson of all is that of inner strength. Everybody takes a beating now and then. The important part is that we come through with a sense of dignity, taller and stronger than ever. We’ve done it before. And we’ll do it again, because that’s who we are.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2020 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved