This year, make a change that matters. To illustrate the importance of doing so, here is a moral tale based on the National Football League franchise, the Dallas Cowboys. (Don’t worry, NFL fandom is not required to learn this lesson.)
Once upon a time, there was an evil NFL franchise owner and CEO, Jones Jerry. Jones Jerry was neither faery nor orc. He was pure-D avarice from his wazoo to his cork. Stab him with a knife or blend him with a spoon, as owner, operator and general manager, he’d fork you in the end.
He lined his wooly pockets by milking talent and sparking drama. He drove his players to the point of slapping their own mama while he danced and jigged high up in his skybox.
“A pox!” his subjects did cry. “It’s rigged! We supply you with money in exchange for more than Romos and Wittens and Bryants. We want a championship, or we’ll switch our allegiance to the football Giants!” (Now with more iridium!)
At first Jones Jerry did fret to the point of regret for purchasing his multi-million dollar bionical-hip (and stadium). “Don’t be a dope,” he smirked a wicked smirk. “Those hicks, I’ll lend them hope.” A mad hatter with geriatric bladder, he passed haughty gas from his executive potty. “I’ll fire the coach, that torpid roach.”
A year passes. “No playoffs!” The minions pump their fists, “it’s all been in vain!”
“Never fear my sucklings, I’ll draft a big name.”
Another season. “Ugly ducklings don’t always make swans! We need fame,” the ilk bellowed “in exchange for our magnificent brawn!”
“I’m just getting started,” Jones Jerry belted then he farted. “We need a new scheme, I think on defense first.”
Someone sneezed, the crowd reluctant to listen.
Jones Jerry rent his polyester in a display of emotion, “Brought to you by none other than Monte Kissen!”
“Oh, well that guy!” tears trailed down cheeks as nudists did streaks and the media did glisten, “He’s a genius at only 72 years young. I’ll buy! I’ll buy!”
“Heh, heh, heh,” Jones Jerry wrung his arthritic old hands with ben-glee, mumbling to himself “Excellent, because I’m still selling without a single victory.” He flung down his shirt, his pants, and sprung into the air, as nude as the day Beelzebub bore him in sulfur flatulence from his derrière. “No championship! No ring! No classy outfits for the cheerleaders! No Tom Landry I sing!”
Jones Jerry reared and jeered from his high-ass until a single somber sanitation engineer took notice from far beneath the skybox dais.
“I’ll take and I’ll take year after year, until sanity like vanity is neither thither nor there!”
The janitor slumped in a chair, his head in his hands. “It’s not fair. We’re doomed.” But then from the mist of his mind, the only way out of the gloom, the truth. The truth did loom. He wrested it within a single daring, glaring dare. Wrested it from nothing less than mid-air. “This, I bear, is the truth, the truth laid bare.”
The humble dirt servant rose as he spoke. “I will not sit, nor will I sulk. Engorged by truth, I’m no less than the Hulk! This team will not change as long as Jones Jerry is around. He’s gone clinical, even the least cynical can see. I am bound, as a true fan, there is only one thing for me.”
Then the lowly Cowboy butler brushed off his saddle. Not for a second did he prepare to straddle. He placed it on the ground with the tenderest of care, laid down and propped his head without pomp or flare.
“How’s this for a fan? I’ll just do a lazy-ass job, you crazy old sod.”
And that, my friends, is the 10-year plan.
And so, my New Year’s resolution for 2013 is to not expect much from institutions run by nutters, like Congress and the Cowboys. You see, I’m vowing to change the one thing that matters most. Me. The rest are symptoms. It is the only vow worth vowing. And year after year, I’ll just keep vowing it, until I get there.
Yes: change yourself and you change your world!
Now if only Mr. Jones could take a hint!