Convictions.
I guess that I take them seriously but not with real intent and not with any
huge expected outcome. This topic struck
my yesterday when I came into a shopping center from the back and made a wrong
turn in attempting to reach a desired destination. Arby’s. Yeah, I know it is
crap but one roast beef slider shared between girl and dog won’t kill me or the
dog and God they are good. I went left when I should have gone right. Easy fix.
I turned around and crossed the access road to enter the parking lot I was
looking for. While I was turning around
I saw a store, “Tuesday Morning” in that “wrong” parking lot.
I had an experience in a Tuesday Morning store in Colorado Springs in 1999. I don’t even recall what the base issue was but I do recall the store manager being a witless twit and handling the situation very badly. The only reason I know the year is because I know I was there to help stock and decorate our new house in Colorado for as little money as possible and we moved to Colorado in 1999. I also know that it was bad enough that I wrote a letter, yes real snail-mail letter, to corporate. I got nothing in return and life went on.
Following
that whole experience I made a decision to never enter another Tuesday Morning store again and I haven’t and I won’t. Does
that hurt Tuesday Morning? Heck no. Does
that help me? Most definitely. See my
convictions are not boycotts of them but taking little stands for me. They don’t
draw attention to an “issue” but rather add mortar to and shore up my foundation.
They help fill cracks.
Over
the years I have collected a few more like this but not many. No one but me knows what they might be. Tom Cruise, never
another movie on the big screen or TV; not one thin dime. I don’t miss what I have had to let go of to
support my convictions and they don’t miss me. I don’t have a “list” but I know
them when I see them like when I saw the store yesterday.
My convictions
too aren’t always about opposing something but supporting and defending it with
everything cell in my body. Those convictions
for me are so deeply embedded that I don’t even have to think sometimes before
I act.
I recall one night in 1998 in Davis California. Again, I recall the date only because of the context surrounding it. I was attending UC Davis and the next day I was to do a long, LONG bicycle ride, the Markleeville Death Ride. I was loading my bike and gear into my little Toyota pickup. It was dusk and a young lady was walking her young puppy on the sidewalk across the street. I really only noticed when I heard her begin to yell at this 10-12 week old dog. He had decided he had walked enough and put on the brakes. She began to drag him with the leash, skidding on his little paws while he resisted. Now a gentle tug or two is okay to shift the puppy’s mental and physical gears. But this went beyond that. As I watched she lifted the puppy off the ground by the leash and began whipping him back and forth in the air. I FLEW over there without even thinking and yanked the leash out of her hand, pushed her back and scooped up the puppy to hold him away from her. The puppy was terrified but unhurt.
I had
descended on her so quickly and with such fury that within 90 seconds of my
verbal bombardment of her I knew her name, her address, the dog’s name and
where she worked. Get this, PetSmart. It was "Kyle Shock and Awe." I
told her calmly and with great intimidation that I would be watching her. I
would be there, always there. She may not know it but I would be there. I
shopped PetSmart and always checked out with her. I took my time at her register and looked her in the eye until she looked away; I wanted her uncomfortable. I would linger a few more seconds after check-out no matter how long the line behind me was. I wanted her to know that I would blow her
world up if I ever saw or even heard rumor of anything bad with that pup. Over
the next year I saw them walk our neighborhood, the pup healthy and happy.
Animals
and children. To. My. Core.
So, for me
there is something about keeping a conviction that is honest. In speaking to myself: I meant what I said and I said what I meant.
I don’t harbor resentments around them. They don’t cloud my world in
anyway. A conviction for me is just that,
for me. I do take larger stands from time
to time and there have been a handful of times when I wished the whole world
would boycott a business or product but most of that is beyond my control. But I
try to concentrate what is within my control to better and change. That pretty much comes down to me and maybe
my dog. There is great change that I wish for the world, my state, my
community. But if I am ever to be a remote, tiny part of any “great change” I
had better start with a solid, stable me and that is an ever present project.
And a boycott is about trying
to change the world. A conviction is about
changing me.
