You can also listen to this article on The PonkaBlog Podcast!
The Greatest Generation is a term used to describe Americans who grew up during the Great Depression World War II. These people are our parents and grandparents.
There’s no doubt that they were the Greatest Generation. They battled through adversity and became better people because of it. That was our peak. It’s gone downhill from there.
My parents grew up with no electricity or running water in their homes. They actually did walk to school every day including days with snowstorms. Planting the crops and harvesting them was done using horses and the occasional tractor. They grew most of their own food and were entertained by listening to the radio, when they could get a signal.
They faced adversity nearly every day and worked their asses off to overcome it. Look how far we’ve fallen.
Each generation has it just a little better than the prior generation. Parents want their children to have a better chance for success and happiness than they themselves had. So, with each generation, life gets just a little bit easier, and each generation faces just a little but less adversity.
But adversity is important. Because it makes us stronger.
When I grew up, the rule to live by was the old sticks and stones saying. I was raised to understand that while words might sting a little, they won’t draw blood. Words cause no physical damage. Someone else’s words only caused as much emotional pain as I allowed them to cause. It was at that point that I began to learn to just let the words bounce off of me and not care what other people said. You know, the whole I’m-rubber-you’re-glue thing.
A few years later, I met one of my sister’s boyfriends. I think his name was Steve. I was in my mid-teens and Steve was in his 20’s and he had a motorcycle, so I thought he was really cool. Steve had two rules. Rule number one: Don’t sweat the small stuff. And rule number two: It’s all small stuff.
Applying those two rules, I learned not to get too worked up about…well…anything really.
It wasn’t until I was in my 20’s when I came across the saying that has defined much of my adult life: “That which does not destroy me, strengthens me.” The very instant that I heard that quote, adversity became my friend. It has been the adversity I’ve faced, and the strength acquired from facing it, that has made me the man I am today.
Had I been sheltered from adversity I would have developed none of the skills required to deal with it when it comes my way. Because one thing is for certain, if you live long enough, it will come your way.
These days, children don’t learn about sticks and stones, teenagers don’t learn not to sweat the small stuff (and that it’s all small stuff) and a twenty-something man doesn’t learn that being able to overcome challenges is what makes him a man. And look where it’s gotten us.
This season, the NFL has decided to crack down on “taunting”. That’s right, the NFL has decided that they need to protect the feelings of these twenty-something, 300-pound millionaires who play a game for a living. This includes using abusive or insulting language or gestures. Two taunting penalties in a game will earn you an automatic ejection.
I don’t watch football. I didn’t before and I certainly don’t now that they’ve bought into the Black Lives Matter bullshit and are playing the “Black National Anthem” before games. Whatever the hell that is. I do, however, appreciate watching a great play. So, occasionally, I’ll watch a game highlight reel. I watched one yesterday and saw a defensive player push a runner out of bounds. It wasn’t a spectacular play. Nobody even fell down.
After the play, the pusher looked toward the pushee and did sort of a “Hulk smash” pose and growled. A flag was thrown and a penalty called for taunting.
Really?
Have we really reached a point where grown-ass men who get paid for playing aggressively get penalized for acting aggressively? When did intimidating your opponent become a bad thing? I’ll tell you exactly when. It was when the kids who grew up not learning to not sweat the small stuff turned into adults without the skills to deal with even the smallest of stuff. It’s either that or that NFL players are so jacked up on steroids that even the smallest of disrespectful gestures can trigger a homicidal rage.
Yogi Berra said once, “Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical”. While Yogi was talking about baseball, it applies to other sports as well. It used to be that elite players realized the importance of mental toughness and learned how to tune out distractions and focus solely on their objective. They also realized that a way to gain an advantage was to get in your opponent’s head. So, they’d gesture and make snide comments just to see if they could get their opponent off their game.
We used to have a name for this. It was simply called “talking smack”. Which, if you’re doing it right, includs abusive language and gestures. It took a strong will to ignore someone purposely trying to push your buttons and to just focus on the game. And that’s what elite athletes did. The better equipped they were to not sweat the small stuff, the more likely they were to win.
But, apparently, talking smack is no longer allowed. Now we have what I call “sugar smacks”. Not the Sugar Smacks cereal. They stopped making that in the 1980’s. I’m talking about watered-down, politically-correct, remove all aggressiveness from men smack talk. That kind of sugar smacks. You know, where you somehow get into your opponent’s head by aggressively complementing his wardrobe selection.
Insulting and intimidating your opponent is no longer allowed. Because it might hurt someone’s feelings. And we can’t have that. What’s next? Maybe they should stop keeping score and just reward everyone for a good effort with orange slices and juice boxes. That ought to drive the ratings up. Instead of a Super Bowl, they could just hand out “participation rings” to every player in the league.
When I heard of this taunting nonsense, I couldn’t believe it was true. When I discovered it is true, I was immediately reminded of a scene from Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail that goes something like: “I fart in your general direction. Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time.”
Hey there! Not so fast. You taunt someone a second time on a Sunday afternoon, and you’ll get kicked off the field.
You can listen to The PonkaBlog Podcast for free at PonkaBlog.com and on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music, Rumble and Stitcher. Just search for PonkaBlog wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe today!
Did you know I publish a new article several times a week? I’ve started getting noticed by social media. Which, as you know, for a Conservative is never a good thing. I highly recommend you sign up for my free newsletter. That way you won’t miss anything the next time social media censors what I write.
