For informational purposes only. All opinions expressed in the blog are solely mine.
Be excited every day.
Robert Benchley wrote this short essay in 1949. No, I didn't read the original publication...but I may have read it in junior high in the late 1960s.
PROFESSIONAL PRIDE I suppose that it is a very good thing for the Nation's business to have people take pride in their work, and I am sure, from certain hints dropped here and there, that it would be a lot better for me if I took more pains with my own. It probably is because I am always in a hurry when I get my hair cut that it seems to me that barbers, as a class, have made too much of a religion of the mere snipping and shaving of hair. Granted that hair-cutting is a delicate operation, the bungling of which can send a man, or a woman, blushing into the seclusion of a hill-side dugout for two weeks. But once my hair is cut or my face shaved with all the artistry that he wants to bestow upon the job, couldn't he just dust me off and let me out of the chair without taking as long on the "finishing touches" as Gutzon Borglum on the mountain carving of George Washington's head? The curator of the Luxembourg Museum never took so long in dusting off a Rodin as most barbers take in flicking a few hairs away from my neck. It is bad enough that they insert dry towels into your ears, causing a squeak which is practically death-dealing to a man of my temperament. But surely five minutes is too long to stand flicking, like an artist, in front of a canvas, just to get me ready for the street. Granted that after shaving some sort of cooling lotion is grateful, even though you have to avoid your more virile friends for hours after. But why five different lotions? Then, just as it seems as if it were all over, and you could make your appointment, the hair brushing begins. This involves a free scalp massage, which, in the old days, would have cost you forty cents. A great deal of professional pride goes into this scalp-massaging and it sometimes runs into fifteen or twenty minutes, what with rubbing and fingerwaving. A nice, gentle rub is a highly pleasant experience for any scalp, but I have had barbers who put real venom into the thing, evidently with some idea of getting the fingers through the scalp and well into the anterior lobe of the brain. Now, all of this comes under the head of hair-cutting and shaving and doesn't cost you a cent, and I am sure that the barber does it because he wants to give you your money's worth. This is very laudable of him. But if I am in a hurry, as I always am in a barber's chair, it is all a little irritating. This conscientiousness is not confined to barbers alone, although I seem so to have confined it. There are elevator operators who are so careful about stopping the car exactly flush to an eighth of an inch with the landing that you are sometimes kept within calling distance of a business date for ten minutes. There are waiters who— But there! Why complain, really? Suppose I am a little late getting somewhere? What would I have done if I had been on time?
Why this? Why now? This interview with Patriot Morgan Moses reminded me of this essay. Hearing the excitement and pride that Moses shared shows that professionals are not so different from high school athletes.
I don't suggest that MVB needs individual game captains. That's not the message. Benefit from the authentic joy that Moses shared. Whether early in your athletic career or a 12-year NFL veteran, be excited about every chance to take the court.
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