Jeter and his own personal Professor X

I recently went to the movies to see one of this summer's blockbuster films, X Men:First Class (excellent movie, by the way). This film is more than just a reboot of the last generation of X Men films, it shows us the origins of Professor X, Magneto, etc. I do not claim to be an X Men fan, yet the story lines were all done extremely well. I finally know what averted the Bay of Pigs disaster!!! There are two central themes to the X Men films that I want to highlight (and which I feel make the X Men comics so interesting. The first being the notion that it is ok to be different. The second (and what I will focus on in this blog is the battle between people being innately good or evil.

For those that know the X Men stories, Professor X (leader of the good) believes that all men are innately good and that we should do good just because. We should "be the better man" at times even when someone wrongs us. This is contrasted by Magneto (leader of the bad) who believes that man kind is evil and must be destroyed. Now he doesn't come out of left field with this notion. He was fairly wronged as a child. He sees how men look at him and his fellow mutants (or people that are different) and does not approve. He thinks men should be punished for how they treat others that are mutants (different).

As soon as I got out of my car and turned on the radio following the movie I turned on WFAN (NYC sports talk radio) to hear a debate concerning Derek Jeter. For those of you who don't know, Jeter just collected his 3,000 hit. To make this storybook moment even more "perfect", it happened to be a home run. So how does this relate to X Men you ask? How could a Yankee ever be spoken in the same sentence as a good guy? hmm...

Today's Jeter controversy stems from the young man who caught the historic ball. This young man, a 23 year old kid, (with tons of student loans) caught the ball and was quickly ushered away by Yankee Stadium security. Supposedly the Yankees offered him memorabilia, great Yankee tickets for the rest of the year, etc. All in an attempt to get their hands on the ball - a ball on its way to Cooperstown. Now, this ball sounds like it would be welcome a starting bid of $250,000 on the market. That is a nice lil sum to help pay off those student loans! So what did the young man choose to do???

Young Mr. Christian Lopez asked for nothing, and took nothing. All he wanted was for Derek Jeter, whom he said worked for that ball, to have the ball back. Now this response has resulted in some fans calling WFAN stating that the Mr. Lopez should have held out and either sold the ball, or demanded money from the Yankees. why not, in a day where teams and athletes make millions and billions of dollars, giving some scraps to Lopez wouldn't break the bank. Why shouldn't a cellphone salesman get paid when MLB and its teams certainly get paid handsomely. Other callers on the other hand said that he did the right thing. Even if not all people do good in the world, we should all DO GOOD, and they applauded this unselfish deed.

Professor X felt the good in people, and always wanted his actions, and the actions of his team to represent that. Christian Lopez believes in the good in baseball, the team and players that he grew up following. While there is much evil in the world, and we are wronged in many ways, it is refreshing to find people who believe in the good and want to do the right thing...just because.

Changing Priorities

Recently a co-worker warned me that when I have kids, nothing else was going to matter. Now this might be a strange thing for your boss to say to you when referring to your job, but it definitely got me thinking. Not only have my priorities changed through the years, since I work with teenagers/young adults I see how priorities of some can be so different than the priorities of others.

As a teenager growing up I had one priority. Unfortunately (while being important to me) it was not my grades in school. Like most in High School, my priority was girls and finding a girlfriend. The amount of effort, emotion and time that I spent on the phone, thinking, wishing and hoping that she would be mine was enormous. I would spend the whole afternoon on the phone sitting there not saying anything, but just knowing she was on the other end - and that was a better option than doing just about anything else.

Now this didn't mean that I didn't think about or do anything else. My grades were always pretty good, and I always got my work done. I enjoyed hanging out with friends, playing basketball, listening to music, swimming in our pool, but if a girl wanted something - things normally got pushed to second.

How many times have we heard..."if you spent that much time on your homework as you do on those video games (or memorizing those lyrics) then you would have straight A's". We see that right now in the school that I work in. Many students who might not test well, or might not get good grades can excel in other things because....they care enough to put in the work to be good at it. It is always very difficult (as an adult now) to figure out why a student can be out all night with his girl, which then effects him in school the next day. If they just made the right choices, they would not be in the situation that they are in now. If we could only look at each other through THEIR eyes, and not our own....

What effects someone's priorities, and how does someone change their priorities? I guess if there were easy answers to those questions life would be a lot easier. Too many times we know what we need to be doing, but we tend to do just about anything else. While we call it procrastination, I tend to believe that it means that our priorities are just not aligned with what we think or other think they need to be. I feel that we devote enough energy to succeed if it is that important to us - unless internal factors such as low self-esteem hinders us.

It is easy to find people in my field of work getting burned out because of all of the emotion and energy that they devote to their profession. Since those working with kids normally do not make too much money, to stay in the field one must be passionate about what they do - making it easy to prioritize their work over other aspects of their life which could help balance them out.

As I have gotten older my priorities, and motivations have changed, and I look forward to them changing again and again as I grow older. When I was single finding love was a priority. When I down, finding something to focus on and "accomplish" was a priority, and yes, when I have children, he/they will be my priority. So what happens during the "in between times"? The times that we need to focus on something, but we want to do anything but - and we procrastinate? How do we change our priorities?

I believe that if we are struggling at accomplishing tasks or goals, we need to evaluate our goals (as well as our needs and wants). It is very easy to decide that we are going to start a new project, but how do we actually make that happen? Without proper goals and objectives we won't get too far. So as I try to figure out how to get past the idea phase..lets remember that we should not judge someone's priorities through our own eyes, because we do not know all of the motivation behind them reaching their goals.

A New Day: The Genesis Part 2

1/4/09 was my first blog post on this page - titled the same. New Years seems to bring that out in us. The need, want to start anew - to accomplish our old/new goals, to make promises to ourselves and our loved ones, and to just be better. I started this blog as a New Year resolution two years ago, to write and create more. Just like most resolutions, I have not blogged once a week just as I wanted to, but it has given me the opportunity to create and achieve - two things that mean a lot to me. While another day, another year passes, and the world changes constantly, my desire for creation and achievement still stand tall.

The Bible teaches us that the Genesis is the beginning, yet it can also mean starting new (just ask Sega and its 16-bit video game monster). Starting new doesn't have to mean a self'awakening, but just the realization that we are on a grand journey, and every day, every year allows us to start new with new choices, and experiences to enjoy. My path has taken me on a journey that I am proud of. I have been loved, and have loved. I have achieved, and strived for more. I have had fun, yet kept my feet on the ground. While my experiences have taken me to various wonderful places, I continue to have new beginnings.

On this January 1st, 2010, I continue to want to create and achieve. I am excited to be married and prepared to be starting our family. I am excited for where my career choices will take me. I am excited for all of the new games I will complete this year. I am excited for the new experiences, new laughes, and most importantly, new time I will spend with my family and friends. While I know that not all of the resolutions that I create will stand the test of time, I also know that each day that I make it to will bring me a new chance to start anew.