I am working on my humility and giving up my worldly possessions one possession at a time by, regretably, displaying my "inner piece."

I've heard it said that the key (or just a key) to inner peace is to be humbled and give up worldly possessions.  Which is why I always see bald Asians who own nothing but a robe smiling in every picture and, of course, practicing Kung-Fu or some sort of marshal art.

I guess, it is fair for me to say that I have not researched this much, if at all, and perhaps I only learned about finding inner peace through these measures by watching the TV show where a white guy who has not achieved inner peace played an Asian guy who had and went about beating up anybody who challenged the innerness of his peace and the peace of those around him; a.k.a. Kung Fu (the TV show).

But even those guys who never did learn karate and typically owned nothing and lived a life in humility seemed to be happy and on the verge of inner peace.  Yes, I am talking about monks, hippies, a select few homeless people, etc...  The list goes on.

Even John Lennon was wise enough to know that by giving up everything you believed in and everything you owned, you could be so much happier.  Granted, he wrote the song Imagine behind a very expensive piano in his Manhattan apartment, but he was getting there.

As am I!

In the last few years I've lost a lot: people who were once close to me, friends, family, half my stuff, time with my kid, pets, money, socks (just 1 per pair), etc.... yet another list that can simply go on.

At times it has been painful.
Mostly it has been humbling.
But, for the most part, I'm okay with a lot of it.

Over time, every loss and humbling experience combined really did get me thinking about how, as I've gotten older and acquired more stuff and more people have come into my life, I've also acquired more stress.  However, after the initial pain of losing someone, or something, has passed, I've actually come to gain some sense of relief.

I don't mean to sound callous, but that feeling of relief is a similar sensation to "well, one less thing to worry about."   Seriously, it's not that simple, but if I were to put it into words, I would have to type out a lot of them.  I think I'm typing enough words as it is.  You know I can do it!

However, what I know about myself is that, at this point in my life, I am not really willing to give up most of what I have.  Who really is?  It's not that I have anything lavish to maintain, but there is a way I need to live at this point in my life.  So, I have a job, to maintain a house, to provide shelter and supply food and use power and water... and I have stuff in my house for comfort, and for memories, and to fill space... and I have a car... etc... etc... etc... more lists...

Essentially, I GOT BILLS!!!!

So I have to wait for life to choose when I need to be humbled or when I need to give up a worldly possession.

A few Saturdays ago, life opted to kill two birds with one stone!

I was about an hour away from finishing up working a long day of televising football.  Yes, football fans are so desperate for football that sports networks now televise spring scrimmage games where the team plays itself in a game.  I was pulling for the team we were televising on this particular day and fortunately, they won!  I had doubts...

There is a great camaraderie among people on television crews.  We are an effective unit of professionals.  Sure video guys give audio guys grief and graphics guys get irritated and tape guys don't use tape... but we're there as a professional team to complete a job in a professional manner, right up until someone rips the crotch out of their shorts that is.  Then all hell breaks loose!

Well, that would be what happened to me!

Gaffers tape, much like duct tape,  is God's gift to those of us who cannot sew.

As we were striking our gear for the day, I managed to snag some part of my fly on a counter in my lonely audio booth.  When I squatted down to see what had happened, my shorts ripped from  mid fly to about a foot down my right thigh.  Luckily for me I had opted to wear neither my Burger King "HOME OF THE WHOPPER" nor my Optimus Prime underwear.  Unlucky for me, the light blue striped boxer briefs I had on were still remarkably exposed and did nothing to keep out the chill in the air.

At this point, I tried untucking my shirt.  Of course, it did not cover much of the tear and it simply showed off more of what is commonly called my "you look like a school bus in that shirt" shirt.

So, then I tried taping up the hole.  What you see pictured above was my first attempt.  I was unable to photograph the later attempts.  After what I thought was a successful tape up, I was finally confident enough to step out of my room and approach the Operations Manager to see if I could simply leave and avoid the strike.

Of course, before I could get the Ops Manager to be a part of this conversation, I had to walk through a crowd of crew members whom I kept steady eye contact with.  Upon reaching said Ops. Manager, I had to make her first promise to not feel sexually harassed by anything I needed to discuss.  That's right, she was a HER!

I brought her attention to my problem at which point the tape gave way.  She was not harassed in the least and had a great time laughing.  DID I MENTION THAT THERE WAS A CHILL IN THE AIR?!?!?!?!  I do not make a habit of flashing women, but if I did, I would not do it on cold days!

Needless to say, I taped up a lot more, so much in fact that it looked like I had shorts on that were half black and half khaki.  I ended up staying on and finishing the day and was "the hit of the party" in that everyone (but me) had a good laugh.

Yes, it turned out that life had opted to get rid of a worldly possession of mine (my favorite shorts) and humble me at the same time.

I'm sharing this with you today, because, well, it's a good story and, I could use a good refreshing case of humbling today.

Enjoy!