Life is a Balancing Act

OMG she's about to get deep. Feelings might come out.


Sure you could infer that from the title but not to worry. This isn't that blog and I'm not that girl.

Perhaps you are aware of this but I have what some might refer to as a "fresh mouth". I've been called sassy, smart mouthed, sarcastic, frequently ridiculous and always flippant.

My first instinct is to make a joke and never to remain silent.

(This is so true that I once joked about my friend's father's passing less than a week later. Much to the horror of everyone else in the car.)

Each time before I open my mouth I weight the consequences. It might not seem like that but I really do. Sure sometimes I still make the wrong call and offend someone or hurt someone's feelings, but I did think about it.

Sometimes the consequences come back on me and I have to decide if I'm willing to pay them.

In high school I could pretty much mumble anything under my breath and remain untouched but then I decided to go to a military college with rules and regulations. Punishment for opening my mouth went from a stern lecture to push ups and extra work.

The good news was my arms were really strong. The bad news was that I really had to make sure opening my mouth was worth the punishment.

After that though I was on my own and the consequences pretty much went away. If you didn't like that fact that I was frequently, brutally, honest you could always choose to not be my friend.

The other night I was reminded again that there can be potentially painful consequences for calling someone out.  In Krav Maga I felt it was possible that the instructor might have been fudging his stop watch. His "10 seconds more." seemed a lot longer than they should have and not just because I was sucking wind.

Calling him out earned me and extra ten seconds of suckage but it was totally worth it.

Balancing acts require some give and take. I'll take an extra ten seconds of punishment every day if I get to speak my mind.


See how I brought that back around to the fact that today is the Fouth of July?

Freedom is an amazing thing. Make sure you are using yours wisely.

This photo is called irony. Just because you are free to do something doesn't mean you should.