You can't always get what you want

Have truer words ever been spoken? If you try, as the Rolling Stones were clever enough to add, chances go up exponentially. Oh wait, that doesn't sound right.

No matter. My point remains the same. You can't walk around expecting the world to give you what you want. In life, you have to try to get things, and to get places too. You don't just stand outside your house expecting to get to the movies, unless of course you are obscenely rich and have a limo driver named Bob with a suit. If you are obscenely rich, go ahead and ignore this blog post. If not, and you are like normal people who have to make an effort, please, keep reading.

If we don't expect to get places without effort, it seems common sense to expect that effort would also be needed to get things. Whether it's something you can buy, like a book, or something someone gives you, like help, if you don't at least ask, there's as likely a chance of a snowball surviving in hell as you actually getting it. I've learned that this rule applies to both the material and the intangible. Today I'd like to talk about the intangible more.

If you're like me, but I hope for your own sake that you aren't, asking can be the hardest part sometimes. I have far too much pride for my own good, and far too much of the family stubbornness. Often asking for help repulses me to the point that it's easier to do whatever it is I need help with on my own. I've learned, however, that asking for help usually makes more sense, and I've been making an effort to do it more often. Sometimes, I've had to concede, there are things you can't do by yourself. It's not just asking for help that's tough though. Sometimes I find that I get so worried about being rejected that I merely won't ask. This seems like a good idea, right? If you don't ask you don't have a chance of being rejected. However, the never-ending questioning that comes after that, and the glimpse of a future full of "what if"s and "if only"s is even worse.

The point is though, that you have to ask. Even if you think it'll hurt. Because of my family situation, my grandfather never came out to visit us. He would even make sure that he and my grandmother were away whenever my step-mom would come with us to the beach house where we vacation. However, last summer I worked up the courage to ask him something. I asked him to come out for my graduation. He agreed. It was all heightened by the fact that he was undergoing surgery for stomach cancer soon, so I basically made him promise on what could have been his death bed. Luckily it wasn't, and this year when I graduated, he was there to capture every minute of it on film.

If I hadn't asked him to come, he wouldn't have. He didn't come for my sister's graduation, and I truly believe he regrets that now.

I've had a few opportunities in the recent past that have taught me that maybe it's okay to ask more often. I guess that while I've had the whole "you have to sing for your supper" thing down for the tangible things, it's been a little harder for me with the immaterial things. Those are the more important ones. And they often require the most effort. But they also offer the most reward.

When I started this post I actually had a good idea of where it was going, but I ended up here. As I warned in my first post ever on this site, I'm kind of a verbal thinker, so I think as I write.

I think I said what I wanted to say though. For the most part.

Cheers,

-T.A.D.