I am rabid Chicago Bears FAN. No, you won’t see me in the end-zone with my face painted Bears blue and orange with my shirt off on a subzero game day. I can’t afford the seats even in the nose-bleed section. I am too old to be taking off my shirt not due to age-related eroded pecs (think Jack LaLane not Mark Wahlberg here), but the cold gets to me. I am wearing a parka as I write. I am indoors. It’s not an igloo.(1)
The evolution of my passionate, contemptuous love affair with the Chicago Bears began many years ago, but was solidified in my early adult years with a phrase that I can’t get through one game day without having it uttered to me – even if it’s me saying it.
The phrase is simply, “I care.” These mere two words still inspire hearty sustained laughs from my family – and again – me.
In a land far away (that would be Chicago) many years ago, I am driving with my sisters to my aunt’s house for a holiday or somethin’. As I am gathered at the holy altar (car radio) listening intently to mass, my sisters are jabbering away about what else . . . NOTHING. There they are sacrilegiously talking during mass, I mean during the Bears game on the radio. How dare they! So you’re with me, right?
I finally explode telling the parishioners in the front row, “I’m listening to the game. Be quiet!” At first they are in shock, thinking it’s a joke. And one has the audacity to scoff, “Who cares. It’s just a game.”
Just a game – how dare they! I’ll tell you who cares. “I care,” I viciously snarl at the wayward parishioners. In hindsight, I wish I didn’t say it – not because it was too mean – but because I have never heard the end of it. Really, I once came home to a poster of Mike Ditka with a caption, “I care too, Tom.”
Fast forward to today -- I’m still hooked, but watching this team is like watching the cast of “The Office” in different uniforms. Truly, it’s like watching mediocre corporate America playing football. If I wanted to see ineptitude in action, I would have kept my corporate job and attended a bunch of meetings. I can’t “bear” (pathetic, I agree) to watch lately.
Really, I don’t watch. I follow the game on the Internet while I watch the New England Patriots on TV. Using the corporate metaphor, the Patriots are to Google what the Chicago Bears are to Microsoft. Both the Bears and Microsoft are yearning for their glory days circa 1985 – and resting on their laurels ever since. Is there a bigger corporate blowhard than Steve Ballmer of Microsoft?
Hey, PC software is dying just like Buddy Ryan’s Chicago Bears 46 defense. Let’s just copy what Google does and do it poorly. Good vision, Steve.(2) I guess there was a place for me in corporate America after all. Steve and I could walk around the office all day encouraging our work teams to think outside the box to get some new ideas on our radar that are more consistent with our workplace mission that complements our dynamic paradigm shift that’s just around the corner.
The Bears personify what’s wrong with corporate America. And in the next blog entry they will be a metaphor for global warming, hunger in the Third World countries, the water shortage out West and your toothache...whatever.
And because the Bears are so dismal and eerily remind me of why I sacked my 9 to 5 job, I can only get so close. For now, only the Internet – no televised games. It’s all I can take. It’s tough to get off the stuff. It’s like taking Internet methadone to get off the TV heroin. And equally ineffective.
As the sage Lance Briggs said in a weak moment of candor, so rarely seen nowadays in sports, corporate America or even in our family (unless of course you’re yelling, “I care” at your sisters), “I love the Bear’s, but hate the Bears’ organization”.
Briggs has long since been muzzled by the “NFL man,” but his quote lingers in my mind summing up my current Bears’ sentiment. In the next blog entry, I will continue to wander aimlessly spewing Bears related toxin everywhere never getting to the point. But after that the pent-up poisons should be sufficiently purged.
Then God willing, in the form of Papa Bear Halas and Brian Piccolo whispering in my ear from Bears’ heaven, I will address Brian Urlacher’s back pain from a Chinese Medicine perspective. It’s caused by trauma from football injury (duh) and working for the “Bear’s/NFL/Corporate Sponsored Sports Man”.
I promise to reconvene church, God willing, if I too don’t get muzzled before then. “The Man’s” tentacles have a surprisingly far reach. Just ask Lance Briggs whose preferred catchphrase is now “No comment.”(3)
The above information is intended to be both educational and entertaining. It is not intended to provide diagnosis or treatment options for medical conditions. Seek individual advice from your health care professional.
Footnotes:
(1) In Chinese Medicine, the qi (pronounced chee) has many subtle concepts associated with it – but even for me, who has studied – ok, obsessed about -- Chinese Medicine, for 15 years – it’s easiest to think of qi simply as energy. In fact, I get confused when I think of qi as anything other than energy. So from here on out, I will interchangeably refer to qi as energy -- and vice versa.
While qi has a number of uses in the body, one important purpose is to keep the body warm. Kidney qi is the warehouse of energy intended to last one’s lifetime. The rate at which someone uses up his/her energy depends a lot on lifestyle. This energy also declines naturally as one ages. As this energy is reduced, less of it is available to warm the body. Why do you think all the old people flock to Florida in their twilight years – it’s not just for the Early Bird Specials at Bakers Square. While I wasn’t wearing a parka when I was writing this, I certainly was wearing more clothes inside in late autumn than I would have 10 years ago. And unfortunately I’ll be even wearing more clothes on a comparable day 10 years from now.
(2) I am absolutely fascinated by the connection of Chinese Medicine to the all aspects of the body including the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual dimensions. I think some connections – like the physical – are more fully evolved than others in Chinese Medicine. There are some interesting authors on both sides of the East/West fence attempting to connect the two. I know there is a strong connection to all the body’s dimensions – and I can assure you I am working in earnest to figure them all out. Because of this personal quest, I bagged my job in the corporate world, but given how uninspired my existence was – quitting my job wasn’t such a hard sell.
I designed computer systems for 10 years – five of those at Andersen Consulting before they were renamed Accenture. I have reflected on the reasons I didn’t live up to my potential there. Certainly a lot of the fault lies with me, probably mostly for not leaving sooner. Some places you just don’t belong. Certain corporate environments are conducive towards health, creativity, innovation and fun. It sure wasn’t any of those at Andersen Consulting for most of us. As an outside observer, Google appears to create a work environment that supports the individual. Other companies had it and lost it. I feel that is Microsoft. In time, I’ll write more about how the corporate environment plays a big part in bringing out the best or worst in the employees from a Chinese Medicine perspective.
(3) Chinese Medicine is about being your natural self, which is not an easy thing to achieve. That means saying and doing the “right” things at the “right” moment – and not in an Emily Post way. Achieving your natural self can be further hampered when you submit yourself to another person or thing (social construct, corporation, community standards, etc.).
By suppressing your natural self, you are less inclined to find your genuine voice. When you consistently hold in things that you feel need saying, this can cause congestion in the throat. In extreme cases, people you habitually hold things in often feel there is something chronically stuck in their throat holding in what they say. Constantly clearing the throat and x-rays don’t reveal the obstruction and this is very unsettling to the person with it. Fortunately, there is an Chinese Medicine herbal formula to treat this condition.
If a football player like Lance Briggs feels inhibited to speak freely, he also would likely feel inhibited physically, negatively affecting his performance on the field. Who hasn’t felt stifled by a boss whose “vision” is the only way? You, as an employee, feel stifled, uncreative and on autopilot just to get the paycheck. As the worker’s natural talent is suppressed, the urge to find an outlet for the pent-up energy increases (Can you say drunk at the office Christmas party? – I mean Holiday Party that just happens to be held right before Christmas.).
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