30 Life Lessons from a Soon-to-be 30-year-old

     

1.  Fulfillment can't be found in a career.  It won't be discovered in a relationship.  It's not the result of a good deed.  It is the sum of all parts.  Fulfillment is a lifestyle.

2.  All my favorite life memories involve mistakes.

3.  Work to improve your weaknesses, but build a life and career around your strengths.  Otherwise, you will never be the best possible version of yourself.

4.  Never cling to dignity at the expense of a worthwhile laugh.

5.  It is better to say "I love you" too early, rather than too late.

6.  Embrace the weird.  It's just more fun.

7.  It's true - things happen.  It's up to us to determine the reason why.

8.  Within each of us is the power to inspire, but that power is never so strong as during childhood.

9.  We can either choose to be noticed or choose to fit in.  No one ever made a difference by trying to fit in.

10. Any good plan for the future requires embracing every moment as it comes.

11.  If kids made the rules, we'd all pick our noses and fart in public without judgment.  And we'd all be really happy.

12.  No one person can change the world.  But one person can inspire 100 people to action.  And 100 inspired people working together towards a common goal can do anything.

13.  The things that get us picked on in junior high and high school often become the things that make us cool when we're adults.

14.  We give words far too much power.  Don't allow yourself to be easily offended.  It gets in the way of progress.

15.  Words are really powerful.  Use them wisely and sensitively.

16.  There is no such thing as altruism.  And that's ok.

17.  Holding back is normal.  Honesty is good.  Authenticity is better.

18.  Every hero has the ability to break our hearts.  We are best served to live as the hero we wish to look up to.

19.  Hard times suck, but they always come to an end.  When they do, I'll either be a better person or I'll be dead and won't care.

20.  The lack of a solution should never get in the way of doing things a better way.

21.  Doing things a better way should never be confused with being the solution.

22.  The 2nd most important people in the world are teachers.

23.  The most important people in the world are their students.

24.  Sometimes it's just as important to learn what we DON'T want in life.

25.  Take chances.  Try new things.  Put pineapple on your pizza.

26.  Love cliches are true.  And they're awesome.

27.  The most important things we learn in school rarely come from a book.

28.  Sometimes lost causes are the causes most worth fighting for.

29.  Among the many balances required for life, it is important to balance every moment as a learning opportunity with equal knowledge that every moment is an opportunity to teach.

30.  Sometimes it's okay to leap before you look.

And one to grow:  31.  Life is thoroughly entertaining.


Now it's your turn.  What advice do you have for my next 30 years?

The Real Nespo's Guide to Not Being An Asshole

1. If you’re about to do something that you’d call someone else an asshole for doing to you, whatever you’re about to do will make you an asshole.  Stop.  Do something else.  Buy them a cookie.
2. If you make generalizations about someone in association with stereotypes regarding race, gender, sexual preference, ethnicity or age, the following happens:
1. Your statement immediately becomes inaccurate.
2. You, as a person, look and sound ignorant.
3. Everyone within ear shot who has any sense of reasoning or humanity will think you’re an asshole.
4. They will be right.
3. When you don't agree with something someone says, if you call that person an idiot and attack them personally instead of providing a substantial counter-point to the argument, chances are good that you're an asshole.  Or in over your head, in which case you should abstain from speaking.  Personal attacks are not conducive to conversation or solutions - just more asshole behavior in retaliation to your personal attacks.
4. Act only in good faith, with good intentions.  But understand we’re all ignorant to some degree.  Acting with good intentions alone does not guarantee we do the right thing.  Further, we can’t guarantee our actions are perceived the way we intend them.  Which brings me to guideline 5.
5. If you find yourself being an asshole by accident, you are still being an asshole.  Own up to it, apologize, and – when possible – make up for it.
6. Doing something in the name of faith, country, or some other “altruistic” reason, does not make an asshole action acceptable.  It makes you a hypocritical douche.  Don’t be a hypocritical douche, asshole.
7. Revenge is not a synonym for justice, but integrity is. 
8. Don’t act or speak in anger.  Everyone is an asshole when they’re mad. 
9. Learn tact.  "I'm just being honest" is not a free pass to say hateful, hurtful things.
10. "Get a job" is not an acceptable response when someone living on the street asks you for change.  Instead, look that person in the eye and say "sorry ma'am (or sir), not today."  
11. If you begin a statement with the phrase "Does it make me an asshole if...," the answer is yes.  Add whatever follows that phrase to the list of things you shouldn't say or do.
12. If anything on this list makes you feel defensive, that should be a sign.  It means you're probably, on some level, an asshole.  Review guidelines 1-11 and try to be a better human being.

Am I missing an important guideline?  Email me: JoshNespoli at Gmail.com

The Truth is in the Perspective

Basketball was the first love of my life. I started playing when I was four, and dedicated a large portion of my life to the game. It was through basketball that a stranger (we’ll call him Dylan) became my brother. We helped each other through the hardest times of our early lives, many of which were owed to the game we loved. Before our senior year in high school he went through some difficult family problems. He transferred to a rival high school to play for our former coach – a friend of my family, and a father figure in Dylan’s life. December 23^rd, 2002, marked the first time we would ever compete as opponents. In August, three months before the season began, we made a vow. In a simple gesture to honor our friendship, we decided we would wear the other’s number underneath our own jersies. I have never been so excited for a game, nor wanted to beat someone so bad.

I was team captain and had been starting since my sophomore year. The day of the game, for reasons beyond my knowledge, I was removd from the starting lineup. I saw my first action with just three minutes left, down by 20 points. After the game, almost as if they had just recognized what happened to me, every member of the opposing team embraced me. My own team didn’t even acknowledge it. The opposing coach pulled me aside and told me to “stay up.” He said the team would fall apart without me. I watched the next two games from the bench, playing garbage time at the end of each game. My coach told me wearing Dylan’s number was a betrayal to the team, and he no longer trusted me. The next day, New Year’s Eve, I handed in my jersey and walked away from the game that I had dedicated my life to.

When I share this story with people it’s because I’m looking for a certain reaction (sometimes for as shallow a reason as a little sympathy affection from a pretty girl), and I almost always get it. I tell the story as I perceive it. I tell it from the memory of my emotional pain. It is my testimonial to what I believe was an injustice. The reaction I look for is reassurance that I did the right thing. More often than not my community validates my actions, giving credence to any pain I suffered.

Important to consider here is that while I told the truth, it was my truth. Not once has anyone asked me for my coach’s side of the story. When I tell my story, no one ever seems to consider my coach’s perspective. Imagine you’re a coach in your first year with a team full of disciplinary issues. Your captain, Nespo, is the only senior on a young team. Nespo has a very strong personality, and a name to match. His parents are both tenured teachers. His dad is the last coach to lead our basketball program to a championship, and is now the head coach of the golf team. Nespo’s recently deceased grandfather is a former school board president, served as Chairman for the town’s Chamber of Commerce, and served on the state’s Board of Governors for many years. His family is well respected by the town and school board, and remains influential in school related matters. Nespo and his father retain a close relationship with the former vasiry coach who now coaches at a rival school. During the last off-season Nespo took part in work outs with the rival school. He is best friends with their best player – a kid who turned his back on your town by leaving to play for a rival. There are rumors that Nespo regularly attends the rival’s games with his dad when you do not have practice or games. Early in the season Nespo called an impromptu meeting with you and the team’s starters (including your son), and proceeded to challenge you. He challenged your disciplinary actions – challenged you to take control of the team. In other words, he questioned your ability to do your job. Now, on the night of a league game with major playoff implications, he displays his loyalty to the opponent within his own locker-room. What would you do?

Perceptions. We all have our own, and often history is shaped by the one that is shared most often and most emphatically. But what happens when we recognize the other side of the story? Witnessing events from dual perspectives is important in finding commonality and potential resolutions. It is difficult, but even when our own perceptions appear to be legitimate it is important to at least consider the other perspective. We can apply this valuable lesson to worldly matters like the continued Israeli and Palestinian conflict. True peace cannot be reached unless all injustices are addressed.

Why do people write testimonials, and do we have any responsibility?

I am a witness...

With the words on every page, seen through my own eyes, survivors tell their stories. They share with me their trauma, asking only in return that I validate their pain - that I accept their story as truth. I will not deny them their pain. I will not forget them. I am a witness.

It is a great paradox really: this idea that we, as readers of their testimony - witnesses to their pain - accept their story as truth. It is a paradox because pain exceeds the description of language, deeming its sufferers incapable of conveying its truth - all this, contrary to the very reason why they write. After all, according to scholars like Elaine Scarry, "'hearing about pain' may exist as the primary model of what it is 'to have doubt'" (Body in Pain). So if their pain cannot be literarily expressed, and to hear of their pain creates doubt in their audience's mind, then why do they feel compelled to give testimony? What obligations do we, as readers, have towards the writer?

I don't know why they write. Perhaps it is the weight of their grief, bearing down on them from within the depths of their soulds. Perhaps they write in hopes that we will relieve them of some of their burden. I once heard a metaphor made about the weight of personal anguish and stress. Though the name of the speaker has long escaped my memory, his words are fresh in my mind. He held up a glass of water to his audience, asking how much they thought it weighted. He said the absolute weight of the glass did not matter as much as the length of time in which a person holds it. If held for a short time it is no problem, but hold it for a long period of time and the arms will begin to ache. It is the same weight, but the longer it is held the heavier it gets. The same goes for the weight of emotional pain. We must set it down once in awhile. Otherwise the burden grows too heavy for us to carry. By sharing their stories with us, maybe the authors are trying to relieve some of their burden.

Maybe that's not the reason at all. Maybe they write for legitimacy. Going back to Elaine Scarry, she has a theory that the real power of torture is the denial of the victim's pain. The torturer objectifies the victim's pain, allowing the torturer to deny its existence. By writing a testimonial, the survivor gives life to his story, and he merely asks us to accept the reality of his pain.

I am a witness...

With their words they tell me their story. With my eyes I have verified their pain. From here it becomes my responsibility to share what I witness with others. It is not enough to feel sorry for what has happened in the past. It is the duty of the reader to recognize new instances of these same violations and put a stop to them. Americans are lucky enough to have a voice that our government must recognize. Those who bear witness would be remiss to let the world repeat what has happened in the past. Today there is Darfur. Who knows what we will see tomorrow. Individually it is difficult to affect change, but it can be done. Together, as a whole people, it must be done.



Scarry, Elaine. The Body in Pain. 1985. Oxford University Press: New York.

Are Comments Against Israeli state practices really anti-Semitic?

It was the systematical extermination of more than six million Jews. It was the annihilation of over 10 million human beings. Whether we recognize it as the ‘Nazi holocaust’, or the more emphatic ‘Holocaust’, does not change what ook place in the concentration camps of the Third Reich during World War II. To call it man’s single worst crime against humanity simply does not capture its horrific reality. It is only logical, with a human rights violation of this magnitude, that any claim of its memorialization or industrialization for the personal gain of mostly Jewish lineage, or for the sake of U.S. global positioning, would be received with ridicule and charges of anti-Semitism. First we are appalled that such accusations could even be imagined, quickly followed by anger and personal attacks on the integrity of the individual responsible for such hateful and hurtful allegations. For a guy like Norman Finkelstein (wrote the hotly controversial The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering), we dismiss him as a ‘self-loathing Jew’: an anti-Semite of the worst kind. We are quick to discard his claims solely on the anti-Semitic basis; but we never dismantle his theses with legitimate counterpoints. If you’ve never read the essay, in it Finkelstein makes the shocking claim that the Nazi holocaust has been used to justify U.S. support for criminal policies of the Israeli state. Offensive to many, but he supports his claims with powerful evidence that should not be dispelled without a reasonable investigation into their legitimacy. Unfortunately such an investigation cannot take place without first addressing the controversy surrounding the alleged anti-Semitism in his claims.

Here’s a brief summary of his claims:
The Holocaust Industry was created in 1967 after a dominant display of military prowess in the Six Days War proved the Israeli state could be a powerful Middle East ally to the U.S. Shortly thereafter, a dramatic increase in scholarly attention in the U.S. to the Nazi holocaust resulted in the popularization of Israel as a victim state for a victimized people; the effect of which created anti-Semitic implications in any criticism against the state and its military action. “The Holocaust” became a means to reach the end (the end being a formidable ally in the Middle East, particularly for the U.S.): “an ideological misrepresentation of the Nazi holocaust” (Finkelstein, 3).

Are these claims anti-Semitic? If they are anti-anything, they scream anti-American foreign policy. The lack of a U.S. presence in post WWII Holocaust issues prior to an extensive interest in Israel’s power within the Middle East is a recurring theme in Finkelstein’s supportive evidence. The implications of this expose a controversial and underlying factor in the discussion of the industrialization of the Nazi holocaust, but are of little consequence to the relevance of anti-Semitism in Finkelstein’s claims. Therefore, I will refrain from comment on the validity of his statements and concentrate on the motives behind them.

An unbiased reading of the text will reveal a simple theme. We are presented with a Jewish son of survivor lineage, whose perception of today’s exposure of the Holocaust has him concerned about the legacy of Holocaust victims – both the survivors and non-survivors. When he sees individuals (Jewish or not) actively pursue capital or social gain from the suffering of an entire people, he sees a loss of solemn reverence that should accompany the history of the victims. The way he sees it, “Holocaust profiteers” are diminishing the suffering of his ancestors through the objectification and misuse of the monumental devastation that was the Holocaust that justify the infliction of the same kinds of suffering on another people. In his own words, his concern is that “[t]oo many public and private resources have been invested in memorializing the Nazi genocide. Most of the output is worthless, a tribute not to Jewish suffering but to Jewish aggrandizement” (8). He is angered that “the moral stature of their (Holocaust victims) martyrdom” (8) is being cheapened by efforts for monetary retribution and social advancement. Finkelstein blatantly states that he cares “about the memory of [his] family’s persecution” (8). Here is the key point that Finkelstein wants to get across: He believes the “falsification and exploitation of the Nazi genocide…has been used to justify criminal policies of the Israeli state and U.S. support for these policies” (7-8).

Are these statements anti-Semitic? I do not believe so, but let me explain why. He expressed one man’s pride and respect for his people’s history. He expressed the concerns of a man who genuinely believes their memory – the solemnity of their suffering – is being tarnished by the use of that suffering as an excuse to use any means necessary to protect against anti-Semitism or to defend the Israeli state and military policy, including the oppression of others. When broken down in its simplest form, Finkelstein’s text introduced me to an individual deeply offended by the world-wide manipulation of his people and their history for reasons of personal and national gain. His claims include the actions and manipulations by individuals of Jewish ethnicity, including the heralded Elie Wiesel (and amidst much controversy). Finkelstein generalizes with the term ‘Jewish Elites’ multiple times in his criticisms, but sometimes for articulation purposes such generalizations are necessary. He explains his definition of the Jewish Elite strictly as “individuals prominent in the organizational and cultural life of the mainstream Jewish community” (13). They are the ones with the access: the power. Was every US Jewish Elite guilty of conveniently ‘forgetting’ about the Holocaust during the Cold War (when the U.S. relied on West Germany as an ally)? Of course not, but as the most personally invested social group with the power to influence action, they have to be referred to as one unit. I equate this to saying SUV drivers are responsible for the hole in the ozone. Accuracy of the statement is secondary to the implications my statement makes. Does it mean I am anti-SUV drivers? Absolutely not – my mom is one of them – and it certainly doesn’t imply that I am anti-automobile drivers as a whole. It is conceivable that I can be against my mom driving an SUV without being against her personally. Similarly, it is conceivable that Finkelstein’s frustration over the presence of U.S. Jewish Elites in Holocaust issues now that there is something to gain does not make him anti-Semitic.

Here is the point: If accusations like Finkelstein’s are viewed as anti-Semitic, then there is a severe flaw in our sociological makeup. We should be able to express displeasure with Israeli policies – particularly military policies – when we disagree with them. Exactly when did a criticism of an individual’s (or a state’s) actions become the criticism of his ethnicity? When did the expectation of accountability become an offensive suggestion? Finkelstein might suggest it was right around 1967 with the international casting of Israel as a victim state. Then again, we are still waiting on a legitimate exploration of his evidence…

Finkelstein, Norman G. The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of the Jewish Suffering. 2^nd Ed. Verso; 2000; 2001; 2003.