Decisions

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” – Voltaire

I am inanely annoyed by most sports broadcast analysts.  They get paid handsomely to repeat recycled comments week after week after week.  Gee, did you hear Adrian Peterson has a firm handshake?  Did you know Kobe and Shaq had a falling out?  Did you know whenever the [insert team] play the [insert team] you can throw the records out the window? 

What bothers me most, though, is the way these suits in the booth second-guess everything on the field or court.  And they do it with such certainty.  If they know so much better, why are they not coaching themselves?  We’re all entitled to our own opinions, and we’re likely to disagree from time to time with the decisions made by our beloved sports authorities, but what gain can come from berating their every move?

When it comes to decisions, we all make bad ones.  Coaches.  Players.  Actors.  Moms.  Dads.  But we all make good ones, too.  I have a theory that while bad decisions are very much a part of everyone’s life, wrong decisions do not exist.  Just as every action has an equal and opposite reaction (thank you, Mr. Newton), every wrong has to have an opposite right.  Otherwise, how could we be assured it is wrong?

Once a decision is made, there is no way of ever knowing what the result of an opposite decision would have been, unless we are Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day.  We can speculate, and in many cases the speculation leads us to believe strongly that a different decision would have yielded a better result.  But that’s the key – it’s speculation.

So I’m living my life knowing that every decision I make is the right decision.  Don’t get me wrong, many (maybe most?) of those right decisions are still very bad decisions, but at least I don’t have to burden myself with worries of making a wrong decision.  Good or bad, I can only make right decisions.

Time will tell if my decision to spend money I don’t have on a trip I can’t afford will prove to be good or bad.  I know it was the right decision and I’m glad I made it when I did.  I met many wonderful people and learned from some of the great screenwriters working today.  I’ll share in the coming entries some notes I took from the 2009 Screenwriting Expo.

If I’m lucky, some expert sports announcers will critique all the notes…

Hope

“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

I plan to soon share my experiences from the 2009 Screenwriting Expo, but I received my weekly Max Lucado e-newsletter today and found its message remarkably poignant for anyone trying to keep their head above water these days.  We creative types are certainly of no exclusion.

So I share, with permission from UpWords Ministries, this excerpt from A Love Worth Giving, copyright 2002, Max Lucado and Thomas Nelson Publishers.

When You Are Low on Hope

by Max Lucado

Water. All Noah can see is water. The evening sun sinks into it. The clouds are reflected in it. His boat is surrounded by it. Water. Water to the north. Water to the south. Water to the east. Water to the west. Water.

He sent a raven on a scouting mission; it never returned. He sent a dove. It came back shivering and spent, having found no place to roost. Then, just this morning, he tried again. With a prayer he let it go and watched until the bird was no bigger than a speck on a window.

All day he looked for the dove’s return.

Now the sun is setting, and the sky is darkening, and he has come to look one final time, but all he sees is water. Water to the north. Water to the south. Water to the east. Water to the …

You know the feeling. You have stood where Noah stood. You’ve known your share of floods. Flooded by sorrow at the cemetery, stress at the office, anger at the disability in your body or the inability of your spouse. You’ve seen the floodwater rise, and you’ve likely seen the sun set on your hopes as well. You’ve been on Noah’s boat.

And you’ve needed what Noah needed; you’ve needed some hope. You’re not asking for a helicopter rescue, but the sound of one would be nice. Hope doesn’t promise an instant solution but rather the possibility of an eventual one. Sometimes all we need is a little hope.

That’s all Noah needed. And that’s all Noah received.

Here is how the Bible describes the moment: “When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf!” (Gen. 8:11 NIV).

An olive leaf. Noah would have been happy to have the bird but to have the leaf! This leaf was more than foliage; this was promise. The bird brought more than a piece of a tree; it brought hope. For isn’t that what hope is? Hope is an olive leaf—evidence of dry land after a flood. Proof to the dreamer that dreaming is worth the risk.

Don’t we love the olive leaves of life?
“It appears the cancer may be in remission.”
“I can help you with those finances.”
“We’ll get through this together.”
What’s more, don’t we love the doves that bring them?
Perhaps that’s the reason so many loved Jesus.

To all the Noahs of the world, to all who search the horizon for a fleck of hope, he proclaims, “Yes!” And he comes. He comes as a dove. He comes bearing fruit from a distant land, from our future home. He comes with a leaf of hope.

Have you received yours? Don’t think your ark is too isolated. Don’t think your flood is too wide. Receive his hope, won’t you? Receive it because you need it. Receive it so you can share it.

Love always hopes. “Love … bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:4–7 NKJV, emphasis mine).

Soap Athetic updated links

I realized some time ago that the Soap Athetic links in earlier blog entries are now dead.  We removed the show from Numa Network, but I have re-cut it into three segments and inserted a few extra jokes that weren’t in the original release.  So here are the three segments and the gag reel for you to laugh at hysterically all over again. ;)

Soap Athetic part 1

Soap Athetic part 2

Soap Athetic part 3

Soap Athetic Gag Reel

I am now in full pitch mode in search for a home for my little mock soap opera.  Good news to come.  I know it.

Quick backup tip

I suppose I’m late to the party on this one, but I’ve recently started e-mailing my script to one of my Yahoo e-mail accounts every time I finish writing.  It’s a quick and easy way to back up my work.  I haven’t seen the tip anywhere else, so here it is, free of charge.  ;)