Recently, I decided to rent the movie “The Strangers.” One of its calling cards was the “inspired by true events” label. The Strangers is a suspense driven look into two people’s lives that were terrorized by three masked intruders and eventually murdered. The movie does a great job creating and stirring your fear by drawing you into the situation as if you were there with the innocent victims. At each turn, you are left with a question of “What would you do” or “How would you react?” “Knowing” the story was inspired by true events, you are connected with the victims. You are feeling their fear, their suspense, and their dread of the unknown outside the door. In a sense, you become the victim of the event.

Feeling impressed by the movie and sitting in wonderment about the true life event, I decided to hit the internet and do some research on the actual events the movie was based upon. I wanted to know more about the victims and find out if the murderers were ever identified or caught (the movie implied they were going to victimize other innocents in the future). Expecting to find some criminal reports or similarity to a crime report, what I found was completely unexpected.

While the movie was established as being “inspired by true events,” the true events were actually fiction. The entire movie was a farce, not a single moment of truth. It turned out to be a random work of fiction from a writer who was inspired by a childhood event which was in fact, nothing like the movie. While the movie focuses upon a completely random murder event involving a couple in a remote area, the true events came from the director’s childhood. As a child, someone came to his house asking for a person that did not live there. He later found out other houses in the neighborhood had been robbed. The people were checking for empty houses to rob…

No murders, no couple, no true event here. The directory has blatantly utilized the true event tagline to drive people to his movie. While being a great marketing tool, it left me feeling a backlash of resentment towards the director. Why resort to such deceitfulness over something so trivial? The movie was good without the moniker of “inspired by true events.” It was unnecessary to throw in the inspired statement. The movie would have worked with or without it.

But now, knowing that I’ve been “duped” by this movie maker, I feel a bit used by him. I know that Hollywood takes liberties when dealing with true story events and they often fictionalize them up in an effort to add entertainment value, but this was blatant disregard for the event in itself. There was zero true event reality with this story. It’s fine to make a movie, but to try and “Blair Witch” the public is a coward’s way out in an effort to make some money.

The Strangers was a very good movie, but know this, it’s a fiction story inspired by a screenwriter trying to make a buck.

Bill, our down and out “hero,” has a moment in the movie where he expounds to his student about how (and I’m paraphrasing here) “if you work for someone else your entire life, eventually, all you will care about in the end is the paycheck because work sucks.” I’m pretty sure every generation of our existence has come to believe that for the most part, work does suck. We are constantly told from a very young age, find something you love to do, figure out a way to make money doing that, and you will be happy. However, the real world exists and not fantasy island. As rational human beings, the great majority of us in this life are destined to work and make a living doing something we do not particularly love because we must support our life and/or family. Doing what we love doesn’t necessarily offer the best monetary rewards.

Sure, there are those lucky individuals in our society who have hit their niche and uncovered a goldmine of riches because of their persistence and focus on their true talent and ability. For every one of those, there are hundreds if not thousands of us who never reach that point of perpetual bliss. What differentiates those who “succeed” and those who are left working in a less than ideal job for the rest of their lives? Not much. There are some key ingredients of course that must happen for the possibility to even exist. Among those are: timing, perseverance and persistence, sacrifice, faith, and of course, luck. Without these key ingredients, the opportunity cannot exist. While some people may be lucky enough to have their fortune seemingly “drop into their lap,” the rest of us must actually apply the above ingredients to change our way of life. You may be thinking I am missing the most important ingredient of all, money. Sometimes, money is the only factor keeping the dream from happening in the form of startup costs/etc. However, giving the right timing and focus on the other ingredients above, I believe money will come.

Have you ever seen the stories of the “stay at home mom” who has an idea and puts her entire focus on making it happen and she ends up turning a simple idea into a fortune? The mom has turned her life around without the money ingredient. She applied the other key factors and focused entirely on making something happen. Money eventually came. There are many stories such as this. People have found a way to change their lives, but only if they try. Not just try, but give everything they have to make it happen. They BELIEVE they will succeed. They truly believe that everything they do is working towards their goal of achieving the life in which they are working at something they love doing.

I’m not saying that you have to work for yourself to love what you do either. There are many jobs in the world that you can absolutely love what you are doing while working for someone else. However, even for these individuals who have found their calling working for others, I will bet you they can immediately give you a list of what they do not like in their current position. I would place a bet that management would appear on almost every list. The job is great, but management is not. But, it’s a tradeoff they are willing to make because of their love for what they are doing.

Even in the above situation, the individual worker would be better off working for himself because he is making a tradeoff. But you may say that we cannot all work for ourselves. We can’t have 250 million sole proprietorships. No, we can’t and I agree. That is where the statement from Bill comes into play. Work does suck. It sucks because you are doing something you don’t truly love and you are doing it for someone who likely does not reward you appropriately for your effort. If that isn’t the definition of work sucks I’d like to see a better one. Are the rest of us destined to work in these jobs while only a small fraction of us succeed at making a living doing what we love? Sad to say, but given our current and past job and market climates, I don’t think anything will change in our near future.

Our capitalist economy prides itself on one thing, profitability. To achieve profitability, most companies depend on workers being highly efficient and productive while at the same time, not being paid what they are worth. This tradeoff is where the company makes their money. Get more out of the worker, but trickle very small portions of the rewards down to them. Are you currently in such a job? More than likely, but so are the rest of us. Very few of us will realize what it’s like to live a life doing what it is we love doing. We are “forced” to spend the majority of our able years doing something for someone else to support our families. Yes, it is an honorable and necessary thing to do, but is it right that we are “throwing” the greatest portion of our lives away when our time could be better spent?

We know everyone cannot achieve the dream of doing whatever they love because like I said, there cannot be 250 sole proprietors and have a successful business market. Where does that leave us? It leaves us with the knowledge that for the greatest percentage of us, we are left to work in positions where we are likely to think that “work sucks.” This can be changed. Work, which you do not truly love, does not have to suck. To accomplish this, we need better management. We need better employee treatment. We need the wealth to be shared fairly within each business. While computer programming may not be your true love, if you are treated with respect and given your appropriate human and monetary rewards, you will not believe work sucks even though your true love may be farming. At that point, work is a means to an end, one that you are not throwing your life away at, one that does not remove your happiness and imposes stress during your hours off the job.

I will agree with Bill in the movie that for the majority of our society, work does suck. But, I place the blame on those we work for, not the job itself. Every job can be made satisfactory, it’s how we are treated that makes work suck. Some people are able to leave this world behind completely and move forward in a business they truly love, but they are the life lottery winners. We all have an opportunity at it, but the practical reality is everyone cannot win. Works sucks, but it doesn’t have to.

The story of the movie “Stop-Loss” is about a soldier in this predicament. He has served his time, served his tour in Iraq, and now he is returning home with the full intention of retiring from the military and rejoining the real world. However, on the verge of leaving, he is notified of his scheduled deployment to serve another tour. His superior officers inform him of the Stop-Loss rule contained within the military law/enlistment contract and the President has chosen to invoke it. The film follows him through his reactions and choices over the next several days. I’m not going to give away the movie so I’ll stop there. As I said earlier, the movie is worth renting so give it a look. While it is a “war flick,” it doesn’t settle for the simplicity most other “soldier versus real world” films eventually come down to.

Now that we have an idea of Stop-Loss and what it means, let’s talk about the article title “Duty of a Soldier.” I am a lifelong civilian with no military experience so this is going to be coming from an outsider’s point of view. However, I don’t think what we are going to talk about is something that requires military experience. We are going to be talking about something I believe has replaced the duty of a soldier in our current military force today. Since the ending of the draft after the Vietnam War, our military has moved to a force made up entirely of volunteer soldiers. How do you get people to volunteer for the military? Some people are of course still called to military service just like some are called specifically for certain professions. There are others who join the military because there are no other options in their lives. And then, there are those that use the military as a stepping stone in their lives to serve a purpose.

My personal opinion is that during the peace years between Vietnam and the first Gulf War, our military became largely comprised of people using the service as a stepping stone for their personal lives. Is there anything wrong with that? No, but there is a major difference between a soldier who is called to duty and a soldier who is there for the sole purpose of utilizing the military as a stepping stone in their life. The military itself is partly to blame. Year after year and advertisement after advertisement, we saw what the military could do for you as the individual. Join the service, serve your time, get paid, learn necessary job skills and after you retire, get your college paid for via the G.I. Bill. The military began competing with colleges for the younger generations and this was their method. Offer the young adult a choice that “prepares” them for life, saves them money, and makes them more marketable creates a volunteer military full of short term service people.

There are still large portions of the military comprised of service people who were called to serve our country. But, as we have all seen and been told by the media and government, our military has become extremely thin by their standards. Even with a nation over 250 million in population, our military strength has become threatened because we cannot keep our troop population growing at an acceptable rate. If you follow the news, you may know that the military has been relaxing their rules on acceptance. They are now allowing people into the military who they were rejecting before. They NEED more volunteers. Yes, it is hard to recruit during a conflict, especially a lengthy one. Initially, after 9.11, people were bursting through the doors joining the military in an effort to protect our proud nation and live our patriotism physically. However, almost 7 years later, the initial impact has worn thin and people have returned to their normal, daily lives. How do you recruit volunteers for a bloody war which the media continually compares to Vietnam?

No longer is the G.I. Bill bringing in volunteers. No longer are the skills you learn in the military a positive for your future life because you may never get to see that future life. The military is recruiting service people for immediate action. If you are a person who is not called to service by your heart, you are most likely only joining the military at this point because it is the last option for survival in your current state of living. Yes, our military is still strong and that is a testament to those individuals in the military. But how long can our military troop population stay strong with the decrease in recruitment of soldiers who were called to duty? We may be getting by in the meantime, but in the future, if a conflict arises in addition to what is already going on, will we have enough troop strength to protect our country?

Our country is continually being fed disenchantment by our media. They continually fill the news with all the bad politicians, all the bad policy, and all the turmoil of our existence. If everything we are fed is what is bad with our country, how patriotic can we be as a society? Yes, we like to think that we all make up our own minds. The truth of the matter is many people have their opinion made for them. So here we are, watching our military become strained because we cannot keep troop strength growing. Patriotism is not instilled within our younger generations because patriotism involves you giving something up for everyone, sharing. Our society has turned from patriotism to individualism. Some may remember and some may not be old enough, but JFK stated “ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” It was one of the speeches that carries with it great impact. Is our society living along those lines today? No.

The military is not a job, it is a calling. Being “Called to Duty” is a testament to the individual’s patriotism and ethical and moral makeup. We must return our nation to the basis of JFK’s speech. We must not worry about our individualistic needs every moment of our life. We live in a nation born for freedom and to protect that freedom, we must have patriots. Patriots are called to the military to give everything for their country. They are not applying for a job, they are living a way of life. If our country would return to our roots of true patriotism, we would not have to worry about offering incentives for joining the military. It would be bursting at the seams without them. 9.11 stirred our nation’s patriotism because we all felt our way of life threatened. Patriotism does not need a single event to stir the fires within. We must nurture what is good about our country, not what is bad. We must again think of our forefathers and generations past who sacrificed their lives for what we have. Bringing back our patriotism is essential to the protection of our country.

Yes, it was a horrible movie. If you have read my review about “Balls of Fury,” throw this one right along with it. Not only that, but it was one hour and forty minutes of torture for one big laugh that lasted about 60 seconds of the movie. Some of the supposed funny “shenanigans” were absolutely not funny. I’m a pretty lenient guy, but this movie should not have seen the light of day. If you can believe me, I AM being lenient in my review. If you wish to put your tastes to the test, be my guest, go rent the movie and I’ll be the first in line to pat you on the back and share your pain. Anyway, what insight do I have to offer from watching this movie? Was there a special line or character or scene that warranted some in depth thinking or a view from an alternative perspective? Nope. Not a one. But, that won’t stop me from writing an article on it.

“Drillbit Dumb” did have something I can write an article about… bullies. Everyone has experienced a bully in their life at some point or another. Some may even be experiencing them in their adult life right now. Bullies are everywhere and they are hard to deal with. During our school years, we had our daily dealings with people physically bigger than us, cooler than us, or smarter than us. During our adult years, we have the same issues. However, during adult life, bullies resort to different methods to bully those around them. They utilize manipulation, lies, and sometimes friendship among other things, to get what they want. Bullies pushed people around in school and they continue to do so in adult life. I’m sure you know a bully or two in your life, how do you deal with them? Do you let them slide by and get what they want because you don’t want to enter into a conflict? Is it easier just to allow them to satisfy their selfish needs in order to go about your day a bit easier? Sure, a lot of people do this and it makes the day go by. Nobody likes conflict and we all like easy days.

Is that the right thing to do? In the end, if we do not confront the situation, we are only supporting and extending the bully’s way of life. People should not succumb to the bully’s desires just because it makes their lives easier. Bullies deserve to be put into their place. Their place of course isn’t any better than ours. We need to short circuit their ability to control others. Without control, they lose any effective power they may have. If you take away their “power,” they are nothing more than an individual crying for personal attention. Without manipulation, lies, and their version of friendship, they have nothing to utilize over their prey. They are nothing more than a loud mouthed jerk. How many of those do you know?

I think that at some point in time, we are all bullies. We try and force people that we know to do something we want because we believe we have the upper hand. We have the tools to manipulate people, we have the information to twist any way we wish, and we also have our version of friendship to utilize as a crutch when necessary. When was the last time you played the pity card to get someone to do something? Guess what, you were being a bully. You were manipulating someone to do something you wanted. When was the last time you brought up a past deed you helped with to “force” your friend to help you? Bully. When was the last time that you knew that your friend would do something for you because you could leverage your friendship and “make” them do it? Once again, you’re a bully.

Bullies are all around us and we are all bullies at some point in time. We throw our weight around trying to make people do what we want because we are basically selfish. Some bullies just choose to throw their weight around different and create public displays. Others do it more internally but is there any difference? They are both accomplishing the same thing, just in a different manner. Is one easier to say no to than the other? I think so. I think the quiet bully who manipulates and uses friendship is much harder to say no to because we will feel like we were used and betrayed by our friend. A physical bully offers the likelihood of physical harm in some manner but usually they won’t go that far. The physical bully usually falls into the “bark is worse than the bite” category. They utilize fear mostly as their weapon of choice.

So, how many bullies exist in your life? Do you have any friends, family, or coworkers who fall into the bully category? I’m sure you do. If you sit back and really think about it, how many bullies do you really have in your life? I would think we all have quite a few. Each and every one of us has been trained to be a bully. Either through our environment or way of life, we can all be a bully at any given time. However, it is up to us to choose not to be a bully. There will always be bullies in our lives, but we should try our best to make sure that we are not one of them.

Now, let’s talk about what the title is about. As always, the movie review topic comes from a scene or conversation from the movie. This is no different. In the movie, there was a saying as follows: “Don’t let money raise your kids.” It really wasn’t pivotal to the movie in any major way and it wasn’t repeated. It did however offer some basic groundwork for some of the dramatic sequences of the movie. No, I won’t give it away and ruin it. Everyone knows a comedy always has some sort of dramatic twist to tie things together in the end. So, we are talking about moneysitting, the act of allowing your wealth to raise your kids. You may be thinking about nannies and high priced private schools or whatever, but moneysitting doesn’t only apply to the wealthiest of our society.

Of course, the simplest and most easily targeted parents supporting moneysitting are wealthy people. They spend their money on nannies for their children’s everyday needs and care. They spend money to send their kids to special, private schools where they can receive the “best” education possible. Wealthy people even send their kids off for months at a time so that they can become “educated” and “well rounded.” Does that even remotely sound like parenting? I guess it depends on what you believe parenting to be. Do you believe parenting is buying the best environment for a child or do you believe parenting involves you personally providing the environment for a child? Of course I believe that parenting involves the parent’s intimate interaction with children and not a replacement that money can buy.

Paid stand-ins cannot ever replace the involvement of the mother and father in children’s lives. The bonds that can be built and maintained are one thing, the feelings of being wanted and cared for is entirely another. A child can grow up in an environment without interaction with their father and mother but their minds and heart eventually need an answer to the question of “were they wanted…” Of course, without the necessary time spent nurturing and loving, the intimate bonds will not exist and resentment will enter the relationship. How can trust and honesty exist when there is no groundwork for it to exist and grow upon? Children REQUIRE the attention and dedication of their father and mother. From the very first day until the very last breath of the parent, parental attention is necessary.

Ok, that’s fine and understandable. Rich people have different perspectives on life and they “parent” different than “normal” people. We are the normal people right? Ok, let’s take a look at how we normal people parent our children. Most of us spend the majority of our time working and commuting to work and have very little time to spend alone with our families. If our children are a little older, we spend time running back and forth to school functions, sports games and practices, and many other responsibilities we have to take care of as adults. What time does this leave us for our family and children? Not a whole lot. How many of us actually spend dinner with everyone at the same table? How many of us are lucky enough to have both parents still married and home at the same time? How many of us go our separate ways when we are at home and have a basic acquaintance relationship with our family which lives under the same roof?

Our so called “normal” lives don’t sound all that conducive to parenting does it? For the most part, no it doesn’t. Where does moneysitting come into play here? How many people use the television as a babysitter? How many people allow their children to spend play days in some other home or institution? I’m not saying that some of this is a problem. I am saying that a lot of this is a problem. The wealthy spend money to send their children away and hire strangers to care for their children. Normal people spend money on cheaper items that do the same thing. Strangers in other households have more contact with our children than we do. People such as Barney, Spongebob, and Dora take care of our children at home rather than a nanny. They are just simple, and cheaper, replacements for parenting.

Parenting takes a lot of time, energy, and effort. Where do we find that? That’s a very important problem and for some, there isn’t a simple answer. Our responsibilities for our families require that we have to earn an existence to support them. That responsibility may undermine every single thing that we try to do as parents. We must try and find balance in our parenting duties. We must find a way to bring order back to our lives. Try to focus on having dinner with everyone at the table once a week, then twice a week, and so on. Try to focus on having a family viewing of a movie after dinner once a week, twice a week, and so on. Try to focus on spending individual time with your children for an hour or two a week and increase as you go. Children will respond with their parent’s newfound involvement in their lives. They welcome attention and acceptance and they will never again wonder if they are wanted.

Parents must spend time with their children. Stop allowing the ease of moneysitting do your job for you. It will be hard to reverse the tides, but it can be done. You will enjoy the time investment in more ways than one. Your children will also benefit from your dedication to family. Just start small, work what you can in and then try and expand your boundaries. Begin to make time for the most important aspects of being a family, parenting. Having a baby does not make you a “parent.” Most everyone can create a baby, but it takes much more to raise and nurture it through parenting and love. Return to our true human nature and build relationships with our children. In turn, our life will become better and our children will have a well cared for relationship with their parents.

I can honestly say I have never sat down and written down my bucket list. I’m pretty sure the majority of us fall into this category. It can be saddening to think about the remaining time we have on earth and become a depressing process. However, that is completely opposite of what the process is trying to produce. The creation of a bucket list is a process to bring into focus the necessity to do now, not later. We are never guaranteed another breath. Our next hour may be our last, our next week may never exist, or our next 10 years may just be a wish never spoken. How many of us are living for today and not tomorrow? Are we doing what we can to accomplish the goals on our bucket list or are we waiting? What are we waiting for, more time? We all know that’s not going to happen. I put myself in the category of waiting. I rationalize that at some point in the future, I’ll have the time, money, and energy to accomplish all the things I wanted to do through my life. Sometime, I’ll be able to do it.

That sometime however may never come. For the majority of us, I would say that sometime never comes. We proceed through our lives, waiting for the right time to begin living. Are we actually living or simply existing? I know I’ve said this before in a past article, but it is a very serious question. How important do you view the next few hours of your life? Is it time that you just have to get through or is it time that you can utilize to make the world around you a better place? While the bucket list for you may include many things that are self serving and downright selfish, other portions of the bucket list could actually be items that serve the greater good. Initially, each of our bucket lists will be filled with things WE want to do or accomplish. But that only goes so far. Over time, the lists will be filled with items that help others, serve the community, or create joy for others. There was a simple portion of the movie dedicated to this proposition. Two questions are asked: “Have you experienced joy in your life?” and “Did your life bring joy to others?” We all initially aspire to bring joy to our lives. Joy makes us happy and our bucket list will be filled with items to satisfy that need.

However, question number two is very important also. As you read this, has your life up until this point brought joy to others? If not, then your bucket list needs to change. With or without a written bucket list, we are all living one. The items on it may not be something as great as visiting Egypt and seeing the precious ancient history there, but they may be something as small as saving your money to buy the latest television you want. If you review your current bucket list, is it really making you happy? Or, is it actually taking away the time you have on earth away from the more important things in your life? Saving money for the latest gadget or item that makes you personally happy may be better spent purchasing something for your family. Sure, it may not satisfy that “me first” mentality, but in the end, the joy you bring to your family will live longer than any product can ever hope to deliver. I’ll also admit that my bucket list needs to change. I have far too many items that only serve me. Sure, they make me feel good when accomplished, but for how long?

How long do we feel good when we accomplish something self serving? Not long. It’s the equivalent of a sugar rush. We reach the pinnacle of achievement and we immediately turn to what’s next. Where is the next step, what else can we do, or what challenge can we focus upon now? Self serving bucket lists are one of the major issues we face as we live our lives. Can we turn this around and start creating lists that focus more on bringing joy to others? Sure we can. Do we want to? The simple answer is yes of course, but which direction is society headed? We are more and more self serving and individualistic. Society says no, we do not want to bring joy to others. Joy is our own. We make our own joy and deserve it. In turn, our bucket lists are about satisfying our own personal needs and wants. If everyone’s lists only focus upon themselves, how can you ever answer question number two with an emphatic yes? We can’t.

The two questions are really one question. It boils down to question two. If you bring joy to others with your life, your life will in turn be joyful. It’s that easy. It IS that simple. Focus your bucket list on bringing joy to others through your life. Not only will you fill your life with abundant joy, but you will never be left wondering “where did all the time go?” Live life with joy and bring joy to others and you will never be left with any regrets that most bucket lists are filled with at the end of our journeys. Never again wait, focus upon living now. Don’t wait for the next time, make that time now. Start living and stop existing. I’ll wad up and throw away my selfish bucket list and I challenge you to do so also. Joy through living and helping others, that’s the true bucket list.

I’m not going to talk about something within the movie itself, but I am going to talk about the title itself, “For One More Day.” We live our lives, KNOWING that we will go to sleep, and wake up for another day, another day of work, errands, or rest. We just KNOW that the morning will come. It’s hard not to. We live our lives in a manner where we do what it takes to get by. Do what it takes to get through to the weekend. Do what it takes to get the next bill paid. Do what it takes to live our lives. But, what exactly are we doing to live our lives? Are we doing anything outside of basically existing? Are we making an impact on our world? Are we impacting other people’s lives in a good way? Are we really living? I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “Live like you were dying.” That’s the focus of my “For One More Day” thoughts.

One More Day, just 24 hours of existence, how important is that? In our lives, 24 hours can pass by in an instant. We satisfy our time with nothing more than fluff and filler a vast majority of our time. I include myself here. There are many hours wasted in my life that will never return. How do we pull the reigns in over our wasted time? How do we get that one more day mentality to enter our existence? What can be done in a 24 hour period? You can spend the day with your family, having meaningful conversation while teaching your children. You can take your children to a park or an event that they will never forget. You can spend the time with your parents, cook them dinner, and let them know how much you love them. You can donate your time to a charity such as the Make a Wish Foundation and affect many people in need. You can help build something for the community that will play a part in many people’s lives for years to come. There are just too many potential great things that you can do in 24 hours than could possibly be named.

If you lived every day of your life like you had just One More Day, how would you change your current utilization of time? I’m sure it would be a VERY drastic change and you probably wouldn’t be sitting here reading this. I’m sure I wouldn’t be sitting here typing this. We are satiated with the existence of a seemingly endless supply of tomorrow, of coming hours, of coming seasons. We have lost the urgency of living. We have succumbed to the forces of nature which lead us to believe that we can be immortal, or at least for a short period of time. It doesn’t go together, immortal implies forever, short isn’t quite forever. However, that’s how we think. We think we are here forever until it’s too late. Until we are old and fragile and cannot do what we once could. We need to take back the urgency of living and spend our time and existence as if we were only on this earth for one more day.

I’m not saying that this can be done overnight. What I propose to everyone reading this and to those you talk to about it, is to focus on changing something in each day of your life knowingly focusing on it like it’s one of the last things you would be capable of doing while on earth. Maybe it’s only 30 minutes to start with, maybe it’s an hour, or it might even be just 5 minutes. It doesn’t matter, but it’s a start in your life. It’s a start of bringing back the urgency of truly living in your life. Do not allow your life to merely be an existence. Make your life something more. Make it an impact in the lives of those around you. Make it a point to live.

Sounds simple doesn’t it? Fight the simplistic living of existing in the rat race. Live with urgency. Live with the desire to make an impact with everything you do. Live like you just have One More Day to share with your family. The impact we can have while living with urgency is far too great to measure. If we can motivate ourselves to “Work at Living,” then our “Living to Work” mentality will be replaced. I want my life to mean something, not for selfish reasons, but because I know I’m here for a reason. That reason is not to merely exist. Whatever the reason, I know that if I live life with an URGENCY to live, I will find that reason and I can help others find theirs. Find your reason, live your life with urgency, and refuse to just exist.

Now that we have that out of the way (and I’m not going to spoil the movie for anyone), let’s get into something that piqued my interest during the movie. There was an occurrence in the movie of the dreaded “A” word. If you know what I’m talking about, good for you, I’m sure you have some instant opinion on that subject. If not, the word I’m talking about is “Abortion.” If you are a regular reader of this site, I’m pretty sure you can guess my personal stance on the issue. Just to make it clear, I am vehemently opposed to abortion. I know all the liberal ideology about how it’s the woman’s body and it’s their decision and it’s their right and all the psycho babble that comes with that argument, there is nothing new to the argument and hasn’t been since Roe v. Wade.

My simple proposal to the entire issue is this, replace this particular “A” word with another “A” word. I’m sure you can guess what it is also. Replace Abortion with Adoption. Yes, I agree, it is your body and you have the right to do anything with it you like. Read that statement. Your body is a very big portion of that. What about the life being created within “your body” makes it entirely yours? Why do you have absolute power over its existence or not? Sure, you may not believe it has a soul until birth, or you may not believe it’s alive until its breathing. You may have lots of potential “if” and “until” statements regarding pregnancy. That’s fine and that’s your own path to choose. However, why should the child growing in your pregnancy have to pay the price of its life because you don’t want it? Can’t afford it, can’t handle it, don’t have the room, don’t want to put on weight, not ready, father doesn’t want to help, people will make fun of me, my church will look down upon me, there are thousands if not millions of excuses NOT to have a child. EXCUSES!

There are many families in this world that try every day of their lives for years to have children and cannot conceive. There are many families in this world that have lost their children to diseases or accidents that are looking for a child to help and raise and provide love to. My proposal is simple. If you do not want a child and find yourself pregnant, rather than ending the life of a person who can be loved by wonderful people, save the life of the infant and allow someone to legally adopt. Sounds simple in writing and theory, of course it’s not my body that is going to gain 30 lbs and make my back hurt and make my life turn upside down. I’ll have to agree, it is easy and simple to say and write. I won’t argue that pregnancy is hard, I’ve heard the stories, been around lots of pregnant women (one is my sister who has 5 kids) and they all seem to be ok after 9 months of “torture.” I don’t see any growing segment of crazy mothers out there ranting and raving about how pregnancy has destroyed their lives.

Yes, it’s 9 months of your life that you will have to deal with. But is 9 months so hard to live through if you can provide a family with a lifetime of love and memories? Just because you had an “accident” and don’t want to deal with the circumstances, it doesn’t make it right that you can end the life with a pill or a quick trip to the clinic. Don’t want to get pregnant, guess what, stop playing house and make decisions like mature adults. Sure, there are mistakes and accidents, but as with all mistakes and accidents, we pay the consequences of having done them. If you view a pregnancy as an accident or mistake, don’t make the child pay the consequences for your actions, how fair is that? Pay the consequences yourself and quite possibly, learn a valuable lesson in the process. Maybe you will decide NOT to give the baby up for adoption. Maybe you will change your mind and decide to raise it with your own love in its mother’s arms.

It all comes down to one thing. Love. Do you love enough to keep the child? Do you love enough to work through the pregnancy and provide another family a child to love? Do you love? If you are selfish enough to override love in your life, then abortion is an option according to our current laws. Yes, I said it. Selfish. How else can you explain it? When it comes down to the basic argument of abortion, it means you care more about yourself than a living being within you. It IS that simple.

I may or may not have offended some who have read this and if so, I apologize. You can enter into a mature debate below. I’m not placing blame upon anyone, but I am offering a solution to the matter. Choose adoption over abortion. Create, do not destroy. Love, not hate.

I just checked the online sales total for this movie and somehow, it raked in about $40 million worldwide in ticket sales (DVD rental figures unknown to me and I’m not wasting more of my time searching). People paid $40 million dollars to watch this movie. $40 million!! What can 40 million dollars do? What good can be accomplished by this amount of money? How many school classrooms can be upgraded to the latest technology? How many bridges can be repaired? How many free surgeries can be performed to help the people with no health insurance? How many orphans can be treated to a day of answering their wildest dreams? You get the idea. How can the public come up with 40 million dollars for such a complete waste of brain cells and time and we have such glaring needs in our community, our life, our world?

Is this a movie review or an article about my contempt for the movie industry for supporting blatant money grabs? It’s a little bit of both don’t you think? The movie industry KNOWS that certain movies are absolute wastes of time, but they KNOW that their marketing department will do a good enough job to turn a very low-budget movie into a gold mine. The data was not released on the budget for this movie, but I can bet it was less than $5 million, probably 1. Think about that, even if there is a 5 to 1 cost of marketing and distributing the movie, the movie STILL raked in how much in profit? It would be over $15 million minimum off the ticket take, let alone the DVD sales and rental market. Isn’t that a lot of money? I think so, very much so. People are always looking for ways to better our world, our society, and our standards of living (or at least I hope so). If we can somehow get people to freely spend this sum of money for something so outrageous, why can’t we get people to freely give to respected initiatives and foundations?

Entertainment, it seems to be the ruling form of mind numbing and removal of self from our problems in life. We will spend countless sums of money to disassociate ourselves with our reality, our current issues. Aren’t there cheaper ways to do this? Ever hear of a library or a book? Reading books might actually make you smarter by the way. Pretty good side effect if I say so myself. Now, I’m not saying there aren’t times when we need to have a mental place to go that totally removes our daily thoughts and worries and dive into something so inane that it makes us feel good. That does help. However, it’s not like 1 of these movies show up per year. It’s a repeat offense by the movie industry. They know the public will spend the money and be entertained like mindless drones. We sit there, staring at a screen, laughing at morons saying and doing moronic stuff.

Who actually is the moron here? Is it the person raking in the profits and money, or the person on the couch at home or in the seat at the cinema at the theatre with a jumbo soda and bucket of popcorn? Sometimes, I am content with being that moron. But hey, I like being entertained by stupidity at times. However, if I turn this around and think about the good the money that went into these projects could have done, I feel sad. Sad because I contributed to the profits of a moron movie maker and sad that the money I spent could have been used for something better. Next time you see a movie that is “too dumb to be true,” think twice about spending your money on it. Rather than line the pockets of people preying upon your need to disassociate, re-associate with reality and do something good with the money. I’m sure there are millions of people out there that will appreciate it.

AVP:2 is your typical action/science-fiction movie. It features simplistic drama scenes only to allow for a break in between of the expected gore and death scenes that we have come to expect from an alien or predator movie. There have been no improvements or advancements with the standby character development of the predator or alien. Character development for an alien or predator you ask? Yeah, that’s a problem because they have been basically been given zero attention to their history or race origins. If you’re an alien or predator fan however, you will still want to see the show to stay on track. If not, your best bet is to pass and watch a better movie with your time.

In this movie, which takes off exactly from the end of AVP:1, you are finally given the opportunity to see aliens on planet earth amongst a civilized community. The predator seems like an afterthought to most scenes and is mostly in the way in my opinion. The human element is also very lacking as there appears to be scenes out of nowhere to fill an allotted space in the movie reel. We are given a very straight forward movie with very little substance in any way. The alien and predator series before this sequel at least offered some higher profile actors and movie development to keep our attention spans in check. This movie has failed in almost every category and does not support the alien or predator legacy.

Where do we go from here? Well, there were two statements within this movie that were cliché but sparked my interest. Statement one goes basically as follows: “The government doesn’t lie to us.” Now, I know there are certain factions of society out there that may actually believe this, but I hope they choose to not exercise their right to vote. While it may be nice to think this statement to be true, it truly does belong in a science-fiction movie. The government is a collection of nothing more than highly paid public servants with an agenda of retaining the support of their voters. If truth were at a premium, we would have a continuous string of single term officials. Why? One, the public wouldn’t be able to handle to truth behind all of the lobbyist money and vote trading going on and two, legitimate officials would not be able to withstand the hypocrisy required of a public official. I’m not saying there aren’t people with good intentions, but I am saying they have all sacrificed some of their integrity to reach the highest level of political ambition. Politician, do you see truth or honesty in the dictionary definition of this word? No.

Second statement up for review was given to us by an acting marine: “We were just following orders.” How many times throughout history have we heard this from all angles? Nobody just follows orders. We are all human beings with our own consciousness and determination of right and wrong. The time of only following orders occurred during the ages of 0 to maybe 4 and that’s probably pushing it. Beyond that, the little devil or angel sitting on either side of your head has given you the ability to disagree or agree. If there is something that comes up in your life that you are morally required to object to, then you must refuse to comply and accept the consequences at hand. You cannot sacrifice your moral values to satisfy the orders of supposed authorities. To choose to “just follow orders” puts you as much responsible for the action as the person who decided what to do. Yes, I said choose. You chose. You are responsible.

To close my first movie review, don’t watch AVP:2 unless you are a diehard alien or predator fan and NEVER believe “the government doesn’t lie to us” and NEVER “just follow orders.”