No one ever got fired for being five minutes late

I am a blue collar philosopher and believe that one does not get fired for being five minutes late.

My philosophies don’t hail from the school of Rousseau, Socrates or Emerson. I do not come up with things while sitting around in a darkened room, with lots of cushions, a few lit candles, mood music, Abisnthe and herbs. Coffee houses do not attract me either. I really don’t think I can solve issues that men exponentially smarter than I, over the ages, never did.

I commute, I work at a job where I travel a lot, I always talk on the phone to customers and partners, I attend meetings, and type on a computer or my Blackberry most of the day. At home, I try to watch TV, exercise, read and write. I go out with my family and friends, on occasion I drink and smoke, and I eat lots of pizza. I philosophize in between.

The other day I did something as common as a cold and frequent as a Executive flier. It happened in my adopted hometown of Miami. Although technically a city, it really isn’t. It’s a community made up of 2 million islands. This is not the kind of trait that you would want to announce to the world as a top ten reason to live in Miami. It’s not a very big city, but funny enough in a Napoleonic way it tries to demonstrate itself as such. There’s one ruling family with more than a million members, and they have all been fleeing their island over the past fifty years, some even in rafts.

So, on this very regular day, in a very irregular city, I drove to work and parked my leased car. It’s a nice car, not very expensive, silver and a six speed standard. I leased it because I didn’t have any money with which to buy a car. The way things are in our country, it is cheaper, easier and quicker to get something new than old.

When I came to a complete stop in between the parallel yellow lines and the bottom scratching piece of concrete slab, I did not immediately shut off the engine. I wanted to finish listening to the song. It was Born to Run. Meanwhile, a polling agency asked me what musician would most likely make me stay in the car to finish off a song before heading into a meeting. Of course, The Boss was first. Maybe, Billy Joel, but his earlier music. Bruce Springsteen just continues to move and inspire through the ages. Why I pretended that some agency would find me important enough and more, would find this an important topic, is ridiculous. But ridiculous is what makes my world go round.

On most days, I’d usually just shut the engine off and hustle in like all those cattle around me, off to slaughter. There’s no rule that governed my particular behavior that morning. Sometimes, weird things happen, sometimes they don’t. My mood and Born to Run intersected in my car. Anyway, I hurried from the parking lot to the building because I was going to be five minutes late, but still on time. Yes, I do believe that. If asked why I didn’t leave five minutes earlier, I’ll respond that I did, but there was an extra ten minutes of traffic. So, showing up on time while being five minutes late, I'd get a bonus of slapping some controlling and unknown authority just a bit.

The building had two sets of doors. This is the same set up the space station has for astronauts coming back in from their space walk. I am sure of this as I have seen it on television. Since I am not in England, I always approach the door on the right. The outside set of doors to the building said pull. And that’s fine as the door could also have been pushed and someone could get hurt physically or emotionally if they pushed instead of pulled. But, there was no sign to tell you to walk through it after pulling, I guess because it is accepted as common behavior.

The closing of the first door is timed perfectly so that as you get to the second set of doors, the first one shuts completely. This is called insulation. It keeps the cold air on one side, warm on the other. This works kind of on the same principle as a McDLT. The building that housed this meeting apparently likes saving energy and precious resources. Who knows if they are coal, oil or nuclear. I guess turning the air conditioner up a few degrees has not materialized as an option in the mind of whoever it is that makes that decision. I can never keep it straight, by turning the air up does the temperature go down?

As I thought that to myself I noticed that the next door had a sign to pull also. But, there were other instructions. The door, I guessed, was broken. So, all of us cattle had to follow the instructions and use the other door. Again, the instructions were well laid out. Two hand written pieces of paper were on the door. The first one was at eye level more or less. In capital box style letters, it said “Use Other Door.” Right beneath it on the other paper there was an arrow. It pointed at the location of the other door. My guess is that both were written and hung by the same person as the paper, scotch tape and black magic marker seemed identical.

If the pull sign on the door is there to help people or prevent them from feeling like an idiot in the sixth grade again, then would the arrow serve the same purpose? There were only two doors. One door was broken but thank God for the explicit instructions and the arrow.

I can only imagine walking in the building on another occasion, with the broken door, and finding someone standing there and looking around because there was no arrow pointing to the correct door to use. Likely, this person would be a philosopher wondering about how many other possible doors there could be to get into the whole building, and which one was meant for him to take. Kind of like two doors diverged in a yellow building. By that logic he would never get in the building because he would never know which door to go through.

Since I am on time for being five minutes late, I happily followed the swarm, thanked God for the arrow and went through the door on the left. I arrived at my meeting five minutes late and excused myself due to the traffic.

A philosphical attempt at improving our lot

Americans, whether Democrat, Republican or other, seek the same goals. No one likes stress, discrimination or crime. We all want to improve our economy and ensure our defense. It's amazing a criminal said it best, "Can't we all just get along?" As we hope for these ideals year in and out, we seem to get further away from them. We just don’t seem to advance much; what we seek we left behind years ago.

There was a one year time stamp, in each of our lives, when there was no wrong and we lived ideally. These 365 days now belong to the ages. Most of us cannot remember being three years old, although our parents can tell stories and show pictures. So, observe, when you get a chance, those who are three. You will see an accurate portrayal of what it is we seek as adults.

At three years old the world and all in it is right. There is no peer pressure. It does not matter that your feet lack the essential Nike's. You are not laughed at if you are have to ride the bus, have braces, glasses or are fat. Other three year olds play with you regardless if you are black, purple, brown or Martian. There is no finger pointing. No one cares if you rent or own; if you have a Caddy or a Kia.

At three years old you are oblivious to the constant bombardment by the American media on cholesterol, global warming, low approval ratings, car-jackings, corruption, homicides, plane crashes, incompetent politicians, teenage pregnancies, or a down stock market. You don’t care whether Lindsay or Brittney has divorced, checked themselves into a clinic, or became lesbians.

In this live quick, die quick society, anyone over three has become overly stressed. Is it the media's fault? Well, they only expose what happens outside our windows. But, at three all you could see through the glass was fun and wonder. As you got older, wonder was replaced slowly with reality. At a certain stage in aging, somehow, physical and material appearances begin to be used as criteria for determining how important you are in the pecking order and eventual ostracism. If, as a youngster, you are sentenced to the outside to look in, the reality of an unfair and cruel world set in early.

It is a tough and unforgiving place out there. Naturally, we all want it better and we feel like we fight for the ideals of when we were three. As things get worse and time trudges along, it is apparent that Americans become more exasperated and focus on the dangers around us. Our economy is in a crisis and we want change, fight crime, give me healthcare or give me death.

Is it inherent in human nature to find the easiest solution? We do seem to be like water, always seeking out the path with least resistance. Problems are not being resolved, vote them out! Like the oft seen showdowns of the devil vs. angel on cartoon characters' shoulders, life tempts us to go in appealing, easy but usually misguided directions. Underneath, is that desire which plagues Americans on the whole. Do we want the seemingly easy way or the tough path? We have made avoidance and blame habitual hobbies.

The source of greatest frustration is knowing that all Americans agree on what is a problem. But, we do not circle the wagons and win any of these battles because so many of them are internal. As a people we find it easier to fight the symptoms than the causes. We’ll yell and scream at each other while the house burns. Cancer patients choose to go through excruciating radiation treatments because they know awaiting them, after the pain, is health. If America were that patient, it would be taking pain killers for the cancer and avoiding the chemotherapy.

We used the power of the vote to kick Democrats out of town and replaced those seats with Republicans. Now, it looks as if we are going to boot out the Republicans and replace them with Democrats. The ferris wheel goes round and round.

Democrats and Republicans have different ideas on how to solve America's problems yet sometimes they don’t even agree on what is a problem. The economy; we all know we are in a crisis. If Obama wins and somehow, magically, he parts the waters and rights the economy, he’ll bask in the glory. If he can’t, then he’ll shrug and say, “What did you expect with the mess that was left to me?” Fingers point everywhere but at the self.

We were three once and all was right with the world. Today, we are not inside looking out in wonder. You and I live in a harsh world where the road to solving problems does not lie in Democrat vs. Republican, but within each one of us to get us back to when we were three.