Tag Archives: chips fall where they may

Agency

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Agency: (n) a business or organization established to provide transactions between two or more parties

Every time I hear the word I break out into a small surface sweat.

Maybe someone just tells me I will have to go to an agency to fill out an application or form to gain approval to acquire something I feel I should already have.

Let’s look at the source of my fear. What is the origin of an agency?

1. It was formed because someone was afraid to say yes or no.

There’s a problem right there. We all know the power in life is being able to come up with a positive or negative answer, and let the chips fall where they may. When you decide you don’t want that responsibility, and you spread it over a breadth of people so as to remove guilt from yourself, you create the kind of nasty red tape that makes people suicidal instead of overjoyed.

2. Someone likes to “play office.”

He or she is the kind of person who stacks pencils, puts the stapler in the upper right-hand corner of the desk planner and has a can of air freshener nearby which also acts as a disinfectant for the phone receiver when there is “foreign” use. This is the same person who always volunteered to help the teacher pound the erasers to remove the chalk dust and the kid who wanted to be the hall monitor, to tell on everyone for their bad deeds on the way to the cafeteria.

We didn’t like ’em then; we don’t like ’em now.

3. Lacking power, we imitate power.

Because we don’t think our decisions have much weight, we like to have an acronym behind our points to make them more pointed. It also gives us somebody to blame if there are objections.

4. And finally, it gives us a way to be mean and disappoint others while hiding behind a desk or a series of rules.

After all, we’re not allowed to punch somebody in the nose without suffering the consequences. But sending a form letter of rejection or explaining in boring detail why something cannot work out is the method that an agency promotes, turning its employees into street thugs.

Now, you may think that I’m too critical, but that’s probably because you work for an agency and would like to keep your paycheck.

So the next time someone tells me I have to go to an agency to seek approval or acquire information, I will stop to realize that the BEST I can hope for is a diluted possibility.

Because the only thing an agency can ever muster … is to water down the liquor of life.

Actual

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

 

Actual: (adj.) existing in fact, typically contrasted with what was expected: e.g. the estimate was much less than the actual cost.

 We were unmerciful.

A friend and I were listening to my wife talk on the phone as she was explaining her intentions. We began to count on our fingers the number of times she said, “actually.”

It was a giggle fest.

I think we ticked her off a bit. As we all know, it’s difficult enough to communicate your ideas without having to contend with receiving a grade card.

I sensed her frustration. She was desperately trying to explain to the person on the other end of the phone that her words were factual. In a day and age when lying is the national pastime and a series of reality shows are some of the most unrealistic situations available, we find ourselves feeling the need to corral the truth into an area where we can “pony up” our ideas, punctuating them by pledging their accuracy.

I do it sometimes by inserting the word “honestly.” I so want people to understand that I’m sincere that I feel the need to have my words notarized by some stamp of authenticity.

Maybe that’s the whole point of our journey. Perhaps we’re trying to get to the juncture that what is “actual” doesn’t frighten us anymore, we don’t need to embellish on it, and therefore don’t need to keep insisting it’s true.

Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Wouldn’t it be terrific if we took seven days of our lives—oh, forget that. Let’s try for one.

Yes, a single twenty-four-hour period where we attempt to present the actual. Let the chips fall where they may. Let the criticism come in if it’s needful. And let the praise for truthfulness be our reward.

Maybe I should practice. Here I go. What is my actual today?

  • I feel ok, but I’m not walking very well.
  • I am a blessed man in the fact that I get to write to you every day via this medium.
  • But who knows how many people read it? So keep a lid on my vanity.
  • As far as being a father, I have successfully raised a nice little peck of children, providing a bushel of love, but the harvest will be up to them.
  • I wouldn’t call myself a great husband. Maybe it’s because no one ever explained the job very well. Matter of fact, we spend our entire adolescence around people of the same sex, when the rest of our lives will be primarily spent with someone of the opposite.
  • I still have prejudice, I’ve just decided to stop being fussy about it or follow through on its insistence.
  • I like to laugh much more than cry, but in the process of laughing I do discover things that are worthy of my tears.
  • I find that the more I deal with my actual feelings, the purer my heart becomes and the more optimistic I become about life.

So even though we had a little bit of a cruel streak when we laughed at my wife about her overuse of the word “actually,” all of us could benefit from just ceasing to be afraid of what truly is and realize that the only way to change it is to start out … with the truth.