Its Back to School!

It’s back to school week 2018. We just completed buying a whole load of back to school items, for the third grade. If you saw my wife and I, you would think the materials were for a PhD research lab in our garage. We also bought some kleenex also, two boxes to be precise, which was on the school district pre-approved list.  Surprisingly no wipes this time round. When we checked in the store other parents and guardians were hovering around one place with paper trail of lists and rudderless GPS cart loads of where the items were. Occasionally we bumped in to each other and forced a smile instead of tear from our watery eyes. 

I kept wondering why the young man had a school bag bigger than his head. What will happen when he is in college? We might just have to rent a semi-truck to haul our inventory at that time. I have realized, the list seems to deliberately get longer instead of shorter as they progress every year. The cost was monumental too. I tried to paint a picture for our son, of a time when I attended the third grade back. 

I reported in the third grade with one pencil, and half ruled exercise book that had to accommodate all subjects plus homework, with an un-matching borrowed uniform and on bare foot. 

I am confidant in my assertion, we were better prepared for the world than today’s kids gloves generation. I forgot to mention we bought folders and files too. To file what and this is a digital generation? I asked in my spinning environmental conscience head. Our son grinned with astonishment when told him my large pink eraser I cut it from my old flip-flop and it worked just fine.     

It occurred to me then as we did the shopping, we seem to be more worried about raising happy children than competent or autonomous ones. Our school system is to the most part according to me raising no warriors but somehow timid empty souls and scared to the bone. The education system instead prepares children for ‘successes’ but nothing on how to handle failures and disappointments which is plenty and to more than equal measure. 

By SamCicero-814180346.                                                                 Photo Credit: Uhuru Park Studio circa1992

“The Power of Positive Thinking”

You do not have to change a thing but you will definitely have to change.  You’ve got to stand and walk your talk. I have heard many people and in in big hyped commercial seminars talk about the power of positive thinking. The Phenomenon of Positive thinking get dished out, prescribed and peddled like the Gospel truth that will voila set you free. The posting in social media, suddenly everybody has become an expert splashing their walls with mantras of “How to become a millionaire overnight”. “How a single mom makes six figure salary online”. Nobody dares tell you “7 reasons you will die poor” of course majority will. 

I tell you for free, no amount of positive thinking will help you, otherwise by now I would all be self-made millionaire selling “bottled positive thinking”. Don’t get me wrong. It’s ok to be sad, mourn or rejoice after all that’s life and in the era of social media explosion people are even more depressed and lonely.  This deceptive and disingenuous nonsense is rampant in the marketing materials aimed at gullible and desperate poor consumers. 

The amount of positive thinking and the right attitude I try to captivate is of great deal. Now you think I am laying. That is not positive thinking I would say. Allow me to illustrate this point further by blowing my own trumpet and brag just a little bit. This is because my neighbors will not do it for me and my brothers and sisters who are always ‘high’ think I am eternally in competition with them. 

You see, I am not your average local ordinary blogger. I am extraordinary special type of a being. Now that is positive thinking, isn’t it? That does not make me better than you, it does not make me seem better either than a veteran homeless guy living under the bridge. It could be that gods have conspired to make me look more positive in life than all negative empty souls panicking now, right? Perhaps karma has followed me positively throughout my life.  May be I woke up on the right side of my bed or could be my mother baptized me with a hot porridge instead of fire.  After all said and done and on serious note I am a firm believer that it’s not me. Neither the amount of power of positive thinking but the doing of God Exodus thus, this far. If you are looking for easy and quick fix prescription here, I will disappoint you. Drop what you are doing and go confess your sins.   

Back to our original topic. The gesture of positive thinking that has been marketed for hundreds of years at least according to me is a fumbled lie and a feel good well packaged journey in futility. Most of self-help books paint an overly rated recycled different picture far away from reality.  So at this rate stop putting a brave face like you are made of turf special skin. You must go out there and get your hands dirty positively. Nobody became a millionaire by the power of positive thinking mindset. 

SamCicero- 112116-0321

The song Gizani was composed in 2013. The background of the song is informed and inspired by the negative things happening around us and around the world. We seem to be fighting the powers of darkness in every turn and overreliance in our own human intelligence appears to be inadequate. The family fabric has been broken, we have become more egocentric with narcissistic attitudes.  

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours.” 
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged