6:07 P.M.
So, I was talking to Kitty the other day.
He says that he wants his buddy to go out and achieve something �Worthy� of his own time so that he can move on with his life.
I guess Kitty doesn�t like the situation that a close friend has put himself in. But c�mon, we all do this at some time or another. We watch our friends get into something that seems so miniscule or foolish to us because we are not involved in the particular situation.
So Kitty thinks that Ray, A.K.A.-"Rayn Man", A.K.A-"THE FISH GUY", has more potential.
�He should go back to school. He�s not stupids! I know that he could do something a hell of a lot better than painting houses.�
Well maybe that�s just it.
Maybe this guy Ray actually enjoys painting houses? Considering his current health condition; I think, NOT!
**** FLASH BACK ****
I think back to 2 years ago when my paths crossed with Kitty.
He told me that his life was great and he �owned� his own successful business.
Even when I realized he didn't have a "successful" business in my eyes, he still had potential....
Then again, I guess �successful� means something different to everyone.
Am I knocking the business itself by saying it�s not a successful business? Who knows? Maybe someday the connections he�s made will lead to bigger better deals down the line, but hell, I�d like to know that the paycheck I get on Friday, won�t bounce when I try to cash it on Monday.
When I first met him he bitched about business transactions that fell through the cracks, but he didn�t seem to have so much control over the situation in the first place.
If it were my choice, I�d work for someone who can pay me in cash, not ummmm �Meatballs.�
Ok, so the bad checks didn�t even amount to meatballs! But hell, he learned that there was more to life than owning and running your own business.
I remember a conversation we had the first night on the phone.
I asked him, �So what do you do?�
He replied, �I�m a web designer.�
I said, �No, I said what do you do. Not what ARE you?�
(He�s never been so good at listening)
As we shared conversations, I noticed that he had fallen so deep into this image of being a web designer that everything else in his life had taken a back seat.
Later when I met up with Jeff again, he agreed that Kitty was so wrapped up in his image that he wasn�t exactly doing �anything at all.�
Sometimes we become TOO focused on what others may see�.
Kitty and I had a conversation about bills and he assumed that his debt had fallen out of his hands. It had taken it�s own coarse spiraling out of control.
His business wasn�t exactly paying the bills so he got a 2nd job as a server. He made alright money, but felt that he wasn�t working to his full potential.
After waiting on tables for a while he decided to go back to school for computer stuff.
Sure, he�s 31, but not too old to prove that he�s not dead yet.
He�s out there, working his full time job, going to school full time, and still running a small time business on the side.
He once told me that the �business� kept him busy. Now with the motivation he found from working a job that �paid the bills, but didn�t make him happy�, he was able to achieve something SO MUCH MORE.
He woke up and realized that he had enough hours in the day to do everything, and then a little homework too.
I�m happy for him. I think he�s totally changed his way of thinking in some ways since we�ve crossed paths.
He wants his motivation to rub off on others and become infectious, but one thing I�ve learned is you can change your mind, but you can�t change the mind of your friends.
Which leads me to a quote my father once told me.
�You can pick your friends. You can pick your nose. But don�t pick your friends� nose!�
To sum it all up, I am very proud of my friends, no matter what road they've taken in the end. It's hard to see them do things that I don't agree with sometimes..... But I'm comfident that we'll all show up at the same destination in the end....
It's always difficult to see a friend put themself in a bad situation when we saw the faults in their plan from the begining.
There comes a time when we all need a cheerleader, sometimes we could use an ENTIRE CHEER SQUAD! But keep cheering for your friends. Eventually they will hear you, even if they don't want to listen....
