The House Bird

On sunday I caught my FIRST BIRD ever. Yup, I have never caught a wild bird before, and it was quite fun.

My brother accidentally let a bird in the house (apparently it has made a nest in a wreath on my mom's front door), and when Jeff opened the door (it opens inward) the bird fell off the nest and began to fly....and it ended up in the house.

I decided to be the man and whack it with a stick but everyone protested (i'm kidding of course), I decided to use a stick to round up the little animal and direct it toward the door. She was having a hard time because birds soar, they do not hover as is required in the house, and you could see the thing was becoming exhausted in a hurry. Soon, she couldn't perch on anything, but would rather hit things unceremoniously and rather clumsily.

This ended up working for my advantage because as i was going about herding her (aka Poking her with the long stick) she ended up landing on the stick, and after an initial failure (she flew off after I wasn't able to round a corner), she was more interested in landing on the stick a second time. Then i had her.

I had learned my lessons from the prior situations, and managed to ferry the feathery creature outside as she panted on the wooden dowel that had been her former tormentor. I stuck the stick outside, and closed the door on the stick, and slowly pulled it back in, being sure to "wipe off" the bird if it was infact still on the stick.

It was really cool because you could see the emotions on the bird. First of confusion and terror, then of desperation, then of pure exhaustion, then of resolution.

And I got my first bird!

Mini Rant

I'm sure most of my audience has read Leadership and Self-Deception, seeing as my audience is me and Brent. :) I've been musing on some of the concepts in that book, which is all about how we perceive and treat people. This book maintains that we are either "in the box," or "out of the box," when we interact with people. Being in the box is more self-focused; being out of the box is focused more on seeing how our interactions affect another person. My lame example is how you treat other people when you are driving down the road. If they are objects to get around, you are not seeing them as people with lives and jobs and errands to run. A lot of times we further objectify people by thinking, "That stupid Honda just cut me off!" Obviously, someone in the Honda cut you off, but by allowing ourselves to distance ourselves from the concept of humans, it is easier to blame and be angry. When you are "out of the box," you are more aware of your environs and how you can affect other people. Your whole perspective changes for the better, in my opinion. From a gospel perspective, I believe that if you strive to be "out of the box," you will strive to see people as the Savior sees us. That doesn't mean that you are blind to faults, of course, but that you see their worth. This is a wonderful book and one that will change your life. If you want a deeper perspective on your relationships with others, I highly recommend Bonds that Make Us Free, also by the Arbinger Institution (BYU).

A relative of mine (female) has recently hurt another relative (male) deeply. It was an action that she knew would hurt, and so she tried to soften the blow. It wasn't her idea, it was another relative's idea (true). If she had her way, she wouldn't do this, but she felt like she was forced into this course of action (truly her belief). She was counting on the male relative to be the bigger person and just accept the hurt and say nothing about it.

I happen to strongly disagree with her choices in this matter, but I respect the fact that these are her choices to make, disappointing as they are to me. The matter bothers me, however. I think the reason why I am bothered the most is that she is treating the male relative as an object and not a person. She is not stopping to see how this would affect this person. She might THINK that she thought things through, but to me this smacks of objectification. She put the person in a box and labeled him according to what she saw fit. She probably justified her actions by the labels that she put on, which is another concept that Leadership and Self-Deception discusses.

I strive not to label people, although I am not always the best at this. I strive to see people as they are. I dislike it when people cannot let go of the past to the point that they will always see another person as they were in the past. I'm not the same person that I was yesterday, so I think it's unfair to be labeled as the person I was 10 years ago. A mission companion lamented a similar concept to me. We were both at the end of our missions and she had gone back to an apartment where there were three sisters that she had trained. The sisters were laughing about all the mistakes my companion had made. She acknowledged to me that she had, in fact, made those mistakes. The frustrating part to her was that she felt like she had learned from those mistakes and grown. She felt that her companions did not recognize the growth she had achieved.

We are in this life to learn and progress. Why do people choose not to acknowledge the growth of others? Shouldn't we be cheering people on? Why do we intentionally cause hurt? I don't understand how that is justified.

Taxes-Half Americans don't pay a dime!!!

Taxes! This is the weekend i'm bust'n out the pen and the checkbook. I just read an interesting article. Apparently only 53% of Americans pay taxes! That means that only 53% of us pay for things such as National Defense, the FBI, all Federal buildings, FDA, USDA, ATF, boarder security, NASA, grants, foreign aid, federal research...the list is endless...but the amount of Americans who pay for it certainly is not. What this means is, 53% of us pay for all the freedoms and social programs that the entire nation enjoys-even those who do not pay taxes. Does this seem fair to anyone? Anyone?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0