There really is nothing better than sitting back in a comfy, oversized recliner. Feet kicked up. Back tilted at just the right angle. Game on the big screen (Go Wings!). Snack of choice balanced perfectly on…let’s be honest…the stomach that’s just not quite as flat as it was 5 or 10 years ago.
Heaven must surely be something like this.
Life, truly, is good.
But then…horror of horrors…[insert dramatic music here]…your beer is empty!!
What do you do? You have no cooler close at hand! There are more in the fridge in the kitchen…but my god, that’s at least fifteen to twenty steps away…but at the moment, it might as well be a ten mile walk through barbed wire, guard dogs, and zombies. And not those old school “Night of the Living Dead” shuffle-footing slower than molasses zombies, either. They might even have werewolf friends in the hallway.
Is it worth it?
You really, really want another beer…
…but the chair is really, really comfy…
…but you really, really want that beer…
…but…then you’d have to move…and probably never get quite that comfortable again…
So, therein lays the dilemma – make the move to get what you want, or stay where you’re comfortable until something forces you to get off your butt like…well, it might just take the house starting to burn down to the ground around you, huh?
Now take a good, hard, honest look at yourself during your normal workday.
Are you stuck in the recliner?
Is there something that you really, really want…but you just can’t work up the energy, drive, or motivation to go get it?
Is it going to take zombies uhhh, “Human Resources” showing up at your desk with a box for you to put your stuff in while Steve from Security avoids eye contact and waits for you to be done so he can take your badge and walk you out? Yeah, Steve’s not going to be any help here. Forget all those trips outside to smoke and how many wild and crazy stories you’ve shared about each other’s wives/girlfriends/weekends with the guys – Steve’s there to do his job, and that means bringing yours to an end without “incident”.
Co-workers? They’re not going to help, either. Oh, you’ve talked about it…ever since the layoff rumors started it’s been all anyone’s talked about at lunch, for crying out loud. How you’d all stay in touch. How you’d help each other find work. How there’s this great gig that you heard about from your best friend’s sister’s cousin’s roommate. But when the hammer falls and Steve’s standing at your cubicle…suddenly the rest of the floor might as well be a Whack-A-Mole game. Nobody’s sticking their heads up for fear they’ll be next. Sure, there’s a phone call or two that night – vows of getting together for drinks or passing on job leads…but it hardly ever happens. It’s almost like when my grandfather was young, and his mother told him to avoid the man down the block with cancer for fear of catching it – we all know you can’t “catch” cancer…any more than you can “catch” unemployment from someone…but it takes a while for the fear to dissipate anyway.
Everyone’s got their own recliner, don’t they? As long as nobody’s forcing them out of it, they’re going to stay there as long as they can, with as little movement as possible.
So what’s my point in this rambling blog entry?
See this guy?
Don’t be that guy.
Get out of the recliner.
Get that beer.
That’s what our meetings are all about, really – getting that beer.
ITintheD – networking Detroit, one beer at a time. It’s not just a slogan or a motto, folks – it’s an encouragement to get out of that recliner.
Hope to see you at one of our upcoming events…where, for the record, there are no recliners…but plenty of beer.