What’s in your orange?
About 25 or 30 years ago a good friend, Nellie Vernott, gave me a couple of tapes from a guy by the name of Wayne Dyer (http://www.drwaynedyer.com/). He was someone I had never heard of before she gave me those tapes. I suggest you click on the link and give a listen to some of the things he has to say. Like fine wine he has gotten better with age.
Anyway, that was a long time ago and I don’t really remember much from those tapes. Well, except for this one thing that has stuck with me for all these years. What was in my orange? I’ve used this story on more than one occasion because the point Doctor Dyer made can help us understand an awful lot about ourselves. It sort of went like this….
If you pick up an orange and squeeze it what happens? The answer to this question is obvious to anyone who likes fresh squeezed orange juice. Out comes orange juice. That was easy. It’s the next question that had me wondering if Doctor Dyer had all of his ducks in a row.
“Why?”
I thought, well, gee, that’s because it is an orange and that is what’s in it. How dumb a question was that? If this was a motivational talk I was losing the point. It sounded more like an advertisement for Tropicana orange juice.
While you are figuring that one out here are a couple of other things that I’ve noticed. There seems to be an epidemic of bad behavior in the world today. It’s like pollen in the spring; it’s everywhere! I’m not sure but I think that it has something to do with that orange.
I play video games on line. It’s my son in law's fault. He gave me a PS3 several years back. I mostly play the war games. Call of Duty Black Ops is one of them. In this game you and your teammates play against another team. I play hardcore. I have a three to one kill ratio in that game (no brag, just fact). That means I die once for every three of the enemy that I kill. Not bad for a 64 year old gamer. In that game mode you can kill your own teammates either by accident, or if you are a jerk, on purpose. There are an awful lot of jerks out there. I’m pretty sure that this has something to do with that orange.
People are stealing the pipes out of houses to sell them for scrap. They are stealing ornaments from graveyards and selling them for scrap too. Once when I stopped at the 7-11 near the Casino someone stole a toolbox from my truck. If that wasn’t bad enough they stole my lunch box too! I liked that lunch box. I think that there was an orange in it.
Just the a while ago the Secret Service guys were kicked out of some country for arguing with a hooker over her fee. Some other gal was on the news because she thought someone other than herself should pay for her contraceptives for her recreational sex while in college. What was that about? I remember what my mother had to say about girls who had recreational sex. It wasn’t complimentary. This most certainly involves that orange.
If you think about it, oranges are really useful. They provide vitamin C and other good things like fiber (when you get over 60 that somehow becomes important) and on top of all that they taste good too. I just peeled one a little while ago and ate it. While I was taking the peel off I remembered something from back when I was in the Navy. With a little effort you can fix it so that when you squeeze the orange something else comes out other than just the orange juice. You can fix it so that a screwdriver comes out.
You might know where I am going with this. All you need is a really large hypodermic needle, a shot of vodka and the orange. You inject the vodka into the orange and shizzam, you have a screw driver (vodka and orange juice) disguised as a harmless orange. Eat a half a dozen of those and you will need a designated driver to get home.
So, by now we have figured out that what comes out of the orange may not be just orange juice. If you put something else in there, when it gets squeezed something else will come out. We are all kind of like that orange. We may look like an orange on the outside but what have we been putting in our orange? What have we been putting inside ourselves?
What kind of music do we listen to? What kind of movies do we watch? What kind of company do we keep? Do we have a moral compass at work inside of us? Do we even know what that is? Do we have character? Do we have integrity? Are we the same person when no one is watching us?
Just this evening Fred, a friend of mine, said that he teaches his children that character is doing the right thing even when no one is watching. He is putting something good inside the two little oranges that he is raising. How about you?
Almost anyone is a good enough actor to put up a good appearance for those people around them, but very few of us are good enough actors to maintain that orange like exterior when the pressures of life squeeze us. Whenever that happens, what ever we have been stuffing in our orange comes squirting out.
I’m convinced that those guys or gals killing their teammates in that Call of Duty game have got something in their orange that shouldn’t be there. After all, the old saying "it’s not whether you win or lose that counts, it’s how you play the game" is a statement on character. If you figure that most of those people are young adults and kids, I’m wondering just who has been filling their oranges?
So what do we do? What do we do if for years and years we have been injecting our own orange with stuff that we know shouldn’t be in there. Do we just say that’s the way I am too bad for the other guy. It’s like the bumper sticker I saw yesterday that read, “my attitude, your problem.” The confusing part was that right next to it was one that read “mean people suck.” I’m not sure that I want to know that person. It was bad enough that I had to chase that car to three stoplights to read both of those bumper stickers. That isn’t easy in my 1984 Ford F-150 pickup truck.
Several years ago another friend of mine, George, was giving a talk at church. He said something that at the time I thought was pretty stupid. He said, “If nothing changes, nothing changes”. Well, I was the one that was stupid because he was exactly right. If you don’t make some kind of a change nothing will change.
There is a basic law of physics at work here. Two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. What we need to do is put enough orange juice back in our orange to force the other stuff out. If we work at it we can empty all the bad behavior from our orange. It may not be easy or it may not happen quickly, but you can do it.
Pay attention to what you are surrounding your self with. If you listen to music, listen to good up lifting music. I like the Beach Boys but not in the car. They make me drive too fast. If you use foul language, stop using it. Many years ago I was working on a car with a friend of mine, he banged his knuckles and yelled out “rutabaga”. He then told me that he was trying to stop his cussing. It worked for him. What the heck is a rutabaga anyway?
The problem for most of us is identifying our own bad behavior. Once we do that we can change it. Knowing what to change is the key. I remember the story I heard about a supervisor who had a lot of bad stuff in his orange. He worked at a plant that I myself worked at for nearly twenty years. He had some kind of a seizure. He couldn’t speak or move but he could hear. When he collapsed one of the two people with him asked, “What should we do?” the other guy answered, “Let the SOB die”.
Allowing for the guy who said “let the sob die” having his own issues, the supervisor suddenly realized that the people that worked for him actually hated him. It could have gone either way but in his case the revelation changed his life for the better. He fixed his orange.
If you are still alive you can fix your orange. Then when someone asks you what’s in your orange you can proudly say, “Orange Juice.”
And if you have a bag of little oranges running around your house you can get right to work filling them with good things. One piece of advice, keep away from the vodka.
Until next time, remember to kiss your kids and tell your spouse that you love them and when you bang your hand remember to yell rutabaga.
I would like to remind you to visit my blogspot and purchase a copy of “Operation Armageddon” so that I can give just a little more to help our veterans. After all, if it weren’t for them we wouldn’t have any oranges.
Just a note, I’ve added a sample reading of my novel to the website. Please enjoy. If you purchase a copy of my novel in Kindle format I will send you a copy of the play “A Rare Encounter” in a pdf file free of charge.
Somebody email me and tell me how to spell shizzam!!!
Again, please note that I am donating 50% of the royalties from my novel to "Soldier On". They provide housing for homeless veterans. Please help me help those who have given so much to provide the freedom we all enjoy.
My Website: http://tagewright.blogspot.com/
Download my novels "Operation Armageddon"
and "Project Vengeance" in Kindle Format on Amazon
