When you are watching sports on TV

FROM THE DESK OF DOCTOR B. D. SEPTIVE: The Most Self-Helpiest of all Self-Help Gurus 

            This is the perfect time to ask yourself “Why am I here?”  Wouldn’t you rather be doing things instead of watching other people do things?  So what if you can’t dunk a basketball or hit a homerun?  You could try.  In fact, that’s what’s fundamentally wrong with you.  You don’t try.  You believe if you never try you can’t fail.  But you are oh so wrong.  If you never try you fail to live.  To live is to fail, to try again, and fail again.  To love is to have your heart broken, recover, then have your heart stomped to death by the high heels of a meter maid named Beatrice.               

            But nobody fails all the time.  And nobody succeeds without trying.  Trying is the only way you will ever get from here to there.  Even if you don’t know where “there” is, you will always strive to reach it.  “There” is where you are not now.  “There” is where you aspire to be.            

            So if your kids are asking, “Are we there yet?” you must answer, “We’ll get there when we get there.”  That’s just confusing enough to make them think a little and it avoids you having to tell them they will never get “there” no matter how hard they try.   Why?  Because as soon as they reach a goal, there will be another “there” that looks mighty inviting.  So, they will set out for that one.  And so on and so forth. This will continue until the day they die.  Long story short, I don’t recommend you tell your kids they’ll still be trying to get “there” when they die.  They might burst into tears or set a national park on fire.