Happy New Year! Welcome to our first issue, 27.01/02, of the new year! Thank you all for your time and work and for playing such a vital role in this one of a kind publication we know and love, The Beat Within. For 25 plus years we have been doing the graet work and this magazine is proof! Thank you all for being a part of this journey and embracing with us this latest chapter, 2022. Without further ado, lets’ pass the keyboard to our dear friend and colleague, OT!
Welcome! It’s OT once again reporting live to you from the tropical Central American Land of Nicaragua.
First off, I want to start off by wishing you all a great new year. My heart goes out to any of y’all that have lost a loved one, during this pandemic for any reason whether it be due to COVID, any other illness or disease, or sadly, violence.
Now to my spiel! This new year, brings new challenges and obstacles. It also brings a new beginning but for many of us, everyday seems to be “just another day.”
I like it, when I hear people, say that because “just another day,” sounds like we’re all playing the role of Bill Murray in the movie, “Groundhog Day.”
If you guys don’t know that movie it’s about a weatherman (Bill Murray) where he is covering the annual emergence of the groundhog from its hole. He gets caught in a blizzard that he didn’t predict and finds himself trapped in a time warp, reliving the same day over and over again until he gets it right.
For those of you who don’t know what Groundhog Day is, it’s a North American Tradition that derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if the groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day (Feb. 2nd), and sees its shadow due to clear weather, it will retreat to its den and winter will persist for six more weeks. If it does not see its shadow because of cloudiness, spring will arrive early.
But who cares if spring arrives early or winter continues, right? That’s the least of our worries when we are fighting cases and for our freedom. Who really cares about that damn groundhog when we’re worried about our family struggling to pay the bills and we want to help, but can’t do anything about it, right?
But if tomorrow is just “another day,” how do you motivate yourself to strive for success? There is always something that we all look forward to, that breaks us from the monotony of the daily routine in our lives. It could be your favorite TV show, rec Ttme, looking forward to finishing another book, a new class, a new college course, a new friendship/date, watching your favorite sports team, the niners beating the Cowboys (oooo, I said it!)
It’s hard to please the human brain. When summer comes, we love it, but it if gets too hot, we complain and ask for cold weather. When the cold weather comes storming in and your teeth are rattling like maracas, then we want the sun to quit playing hide and seek with the clouds, and just come out already.
Let’s admit it folks, we as humans, are creatures that are hard to please. Your barber left your fade too low or too high? The shrimp was too salty and not spicy enough. Your iPhone 14 is outdated so you need the new iPhone 15, which is almost the same exact phone (not released yet).
We complain, and complain, and critique everything from what shoes or shirt a peer (or someone we don’t know) is wearing, (tap Dislike), or like the way the next top model is flaunting her stuff online (tap Like). We tap, tap, tap. We’re quick to leave comments on someone’s page, on someone’s picture, on someone’s life, on someone’s clothes, on someone’s personal matters, on someone’s hairstyle, and all this for people who we don’t even know. Tap, tap, tap, tap away.
Thanks to phones/tablets, everyone has a very short attention span nowadays. Anyone that is savvy enough to find the correct tapping rhythms on their phone are totally sucked into the world of their gadgets.
I’m driving behind a car early this morning and I’m wondering why is he swerving in and out of lanes and driving so slow. It’s 9am, he can’t be drunk. I pass him up and look to my left to see him on his phone. I look to my right, and even the guy on the horse picking up broken electronics to fix is on his phone too, except at least the horse is driving for him.
Last week I went to the park to work out and saw parents on their phones, not supervising their kids properly because they were taking pictures of THEMSELVES or playing on their phones.
I’m reflecting back two weeks ago when I was hanging out with my little sister (15 years of age). She would use TIKTOK or Instagram, and when you jump from one thing to the next scrolling down, you hear the sounds change, the music change, the concept or theme change, and every time you log in or scroll back up, you hear the same sounds over and over once you keep scrolling down. Oh shhh, here goes Groundhog Day.
I don’t remember the song that kept playing, but it was only a snippet, of the song, like 10 seconds. But it kept playing over and over, for like 5 minutes straight. I kept thinking to myself, like damn, “Don’t you get tired of listening to the same 10 seconds.” Like I totally understand if you love a song and keep listening to the song over and over because I do the same, but dang, the same 10 seconds over and over.
It made me want to break her phone out of frustration! She then showed me some jokes on the phone and they were pouring in so fast by the second (scrolling), on the phone that it didn’t even allow me enough time to laugh at one because the next one was coming in, and after that one the next one was coming in.
All this with just the scroll of the thumb and a matter of seconds, literally, and trust me people, I’m not slow. My brain computes information at an extremely great rate. I still memorize phone numbers for all those closest to me, and just to prove my point, my sister had only laughed like one time out of the 10-12 jokes we saw.
It wasn’t because the jokes weren’t funny. It’s because there wasn’t any time to appreciate the joke and frankly there wasn’t even enough time to laugh, as she skipped from one to the next.
Let’s compare: You probably haven’t eaten all day, (For whatever reason) and by the time you eat, let’s say your juicy cheeseburger with 5 different cheeses, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, jalapeños, (damn my mouth watering) every bite probably tastes delicious and scrumptious. But what if someone gave you another cheeseburger at the same time, you’re eating yours, and then someone else gave you another cheeseburger and before you know at the scroll of your thumb, you have 10 cheeseburgers in front of you and you’re not even hungry.
That cheeseburger as tasty as it maybe, won’t look delicious to you anymore. You won’t even appreciate any aspect of any of those nine burgers in front of you, because you’re not hungry. This may not be the best analogy, but I think you get my drift.
Is there time in this world to appreciate what you have in front of you at this very moment, without thinking about what next minute brings? When you read a book, I know you don’t skip chapters to get to the end, right? You read through it completely, or you will never know what the book was about.
All I’m trying to get some of you men and women to do is unplug yourself from the filtered life, from unreality TV, from whatever TIKTOK challenge is on there, and start challenging yourself to start looking at what’s really going on in the world. There are real issues out there that affect all of us.
Start spending more time on more important things in life, like how to make your “just another day” better than the day before. Look and read the news from an actual news outlet, not from social media, and get the full story on what goes on in other countries around the world.
See how people live in other countries. Sometimes other countries’ challenges will help you have a greater appreciation for your current situation. Or looking at other countries, may motivate you to take a trip, and learn about a different culture and ethnic upbringing.
Expand your mind beyond your neighborhood, street, block, city, state, or the same APPS you log into on your phone/tablet/iPad every day. You get a better appreciation of your day when you take time out of your day to appreciate how beautiful the world and life really is. Make the best out of every day you get!
One love to all you ladies and gentlemen. OT is signing out and The Beat keeps going and going…
Thank you, OT for your latest message about appreciating each day and making the most out of it. Thank you, readers of The Beat Within for embracing our publication, sharing your story, your views, your art and ideas. We are all better people for it. Your story matters, stay writing and sharing. As always, stay in touch wherever you go, we want to hear from you. See you in the next issue!