Thanksgiving Reflections

Time for some Reflections, the post-Thanksgiving edition.

Music to Listen to: Aenema by Tool

I usually like to post my favorite song from the radio on my road trips on my first Blog entry after a holiday but I’m going to place an oldie on here. I decided to reconnect with Tool on this trip and I must have played this particular song about five times.

Other artists that were considered were The Offspring, The Dobbie Brothers, Lady Gaga (seriously) and Pearl Jam.

So Etienne Marcel, how was Thanksgiving? It was an excellent time for me and I have some Reflections on it:

-I have to work on my “swagger.” One of the biggest issues that I have personally is a lack of self-confidence. I like myself and all of that but when it comes to expressing my worth personally and even professionally, I struggle with this. My philosophy is that you should work on yourself and show humility and you will be fine. However, this isn’t always true, you have to make your presence felt.

That’s where my oldest nephew comes into play.

He’s a star high school football player, 17 years old, good looking, has the attention of the ladies and has a self-confidence that I must admit that I’m envious of. Of course, adulthood hasn’t completely hit him yet but that shouldn’t matter. When he enters a room, he feels that he is the most important person there and not in a bad way.

We were driving around North Georgia and he tells me that I need to improve my “swagger.” I don’t exactly know how you do this but my assumption that this means that I should have a belief that I’m valuable and bring some tremendous assets to any situation that I’m in. This has to be presented from the tone of my voice, wardrobe, eye-contact, body language, etc.

-This “Twilight” thing isn’t going away. My niece and cousins are very into this phenomenon. When you see people on TV or hear some other people talking about something like Twilight, you shake it off as nothing big. But when family members are bringing it to you, an acknowledgement must be made. Of course this comes with me mocking said family members for their bad taste in movies and mocking the guys in the movies, but that’s standard.

I really don’t care about the movies, even though I think Ashley Green is very, very attractive, but whatever floats your boat. I don’t need to see shirtless dudes running in the woods.

-You can learn a lot from your family members. I mentioned what I learned from my oldest nephew but it goes deeper than that. They continually support me in everything that I do and its humbling to have their backing of me.

My transition to my new job has gone well but like any employment situation, there are some ups and downs. We all get held up on minor details and forget the overall picture.

I work in professional wrestling.

When I was a kid, all I watched was professional wrestling along with some other sports. I’m the same kid that debated the Mega Powers and whether Macho Man or Hulk Hogan were the reason for the breakup (it was Hogan in my opinion). I had a Junk Yard Dog doll that I played with in the tub. I would stay up till 2 a.m. on Saturday nights to watch ECW on MSG. I treated the Tommy Dreamer and Raven feud like it was real life. If I ever have a kid, I’m seriously considering having the names Flair and Arn somewhere in it.

I get to write about Sting and Kurt Angle. I get to learn about guys like AJ Styles and Samoa Joe. I have meetings with co-workers about things like international licensing and domestic promotions that expands beyond any scope of work I’ve done before. I’ve met Tazz (yes, two z’s) and Mick Foley this week.

If you told me I would be in this position now at 28 when I was 14, I wouldn’t have believed you.

Being able to finally tell my family members without internal resentment that I work in an industry that I enjoy was refreshing. I told them about my role in marketing and licensing and they were excited for me.

Sometimes it takes telling someone else about something in your life before you appreciate it on your own.

-I’ve become an influence on the youth. I’m the youngest child of my mother and the middle child of my father, so I’ve had the role of the baby of the family for a few years. However, I’ve reached an age where there are nieces, nephews and cousins who are ages 10-18 and they look to me for wisdom.

I have two methods. I keep it honest with them and I live a life influenced by positive virtues.

For the first method, they know that I like to go out and participate in adult activities but I do it in a responsible way. I’ve told them this since they were little kids. I’ve never believed in talking down to kids, especially your family. I would have full conversations with my niece when she was about a year old. Granted, I was doing all of the talking but she would sit up and stare right at me. We would talk about politics, sports, religion, dating, etc. That established a relationship of respect.

The second one works for itself. I’m not going to tell them to not do drugs when I’m doing it myself. That’s not right so I don’t partake in substances. I’m not going to tell them to study and focus on academics when I’m slacking in my own efforts towards education. I’m done with graduate school but I’m educating myself everyday in some form. You get the idea.

I try to educate them on these adult situations and I think that they have taken this advise in a good way.

-Dwight Howard is a good looking man. Went to the Hawks and Magic game on Thanksgiving night and had close seats. A guy isn’t supposed to be that tall and have that body tone.

-Lil Wayne isn’t as bad as I thought. One of my bonding experiences with my oldest nephew, the one with the “swagger,” is that he plays some current music for me so that I can be “down.”

I need it because while writing this post, I’ve played some Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Mars Volta, Allman Brothers, Rolling Stones and Zeppelin, not exactly Gucci Mane and Drake.

So he plays some Lil Wayne songs for me because I’ve written in the past that I liked some of Wayne’s early stuff but don’t get the appeal he has over anyone under 21 so seem to consider him not only the best rapper alive, but maybe of our generation and ever.

I hear some of his songs from his mixtapes and its sounds more like the Wayne I’m used to liking. I can’t tell you the names of the songs but they were pretty good. I don’t understand why he doesn’t do that stuff for his albums, which have been lacking lately in my opinion.

I’ve written here often about how popular music in 2009 is not good and I still believe that but I’ve softened my stance. It really is the industry that has done it to them.

OK, its time for sleep but hope you enjoyed my Reflections. Good fight and good night.