This one is from the heart. If you want something that is yours, don’t give up; don’t ever give up! Fight to the very last. This article is primarily about what we call “the system. “The system” is designed to make you quit, and I am not talking about just Belize. “The system” exists worldwide.
I have been a devotee of the “sweet science” (boxing, for the uninitiated) all my life, and Teddy Atlas, one of the best trainers and analysts in the sport says, “Boxing is 75% mental and 25% physical.” For those of you who question that, just review the Manny Pacquiao-Oscar de la Hoya fight. By the end of round #4, Oscar de la Hoya had given up! Did he still have a chance? Perhaps if he had been willing to turn the fight into a street rumble, he did. But he gave up. He decided in his mind, “I can’t handle the tactics and I can’t handle his speed.” From then, it was done. I’m sorry; I’m used to the old time champions. They went in there to win or to be carried out on their shield, not to quit on the stool.
This happens on every level of sports. Look at the New York football Giants. Two weeks ago they were being hyped as the best team in the NFL. Then they lost two games in a row, and it was the way they lost them that stood out. It was like they didn’t care to play. “Hurry up, let’s lose and go home.” This also happens in the NBA and in soccer. It’s sometimes called “mailing it in.” The mind isn’t there and when that is the case, all the physical training in the world won’t help you.
A fight with “the system” is almost never a physical fight. It is your willingness to refuse to give up regardless of what you have to go through that makes you win or lose. I have had a very rough time lately. The personal details don’t matter: it’s not about that. It’s about perseverance. Public officers in Belize – they call them civil servants in the U.S – have a particularly onerous reputation. They lie to you on the phone, “He/she is in a meeting.”
I had a unique experience last week. Someone was in a meeting for an entire f——n’ week! This was a first, I’ve never heard of a week-long meeting before. They lie to you and tell you, “He/she’s not answering their phone.” They lie to you to get you out of the office, “No one is available right now”; this after you have travelled an hour or more to see them.
To be fair, I’ve been on the other side. When I first got into the insurance industry, the standard file load for a claims adjuster was 60 files. Then the computer was introduced in the early eighties. Oh how prognosticators went on about how the computer would reduce workload and introduce the four-day week so that employees would have more free time for themselves and their families. WRONG! The bosses, those same ones who get those multi-million dollar golden parachutes after they bankrupt their companies, decided that they could increase everyone’s workload and fire staff. When I left the industry, the average file load was 600, up from 60 in just ten years. God knows what it is now.
There is no way a person can handle that kind of workload without being constantly on the edge. You get a call, “What about this and that? When will you handle this claim?” You can’t find the damn file and as a matter of fact, you’ve never seen it, so you lie! You don’t mean to, but you tell the guy, “I’ll get back to you shortly!” Deep down inside you know that you have a snowball’s chance in hell of keeping your promise. As soon as you hang up, you receive another call. This caller is angrier and more irate than the first caller. A few of those and you instruct your secretary to tell everyone that you are in a meeting! Then she takes all the abuse!
The recent past has been real rough, and in the process I have discovered some disturbing things about what rough times can do to people. I have no small children to mind and my wife is away dealing with medical problems. I have cats and a dog. I don’t condone domestic abuse, child abuse or animal abuse under any circumstances and I have never struck any of my animals, but when things got real rough I discovered that I would yell at them; something I have never done before. I have a huge male housecat named “Sun” because of his brilliant orange and white coat. There are times when I will get up at night and find him on my favorite chair.
In the past I would walk up to him and say, “Sun, give me my chair back.” He would look at me, stretch lazily, and go somewhere else. Lately, as soon as I see him there, I yell, “Sun, get offa my f——n’ chair.” He takes off towards the laundry room and won’t come out until he sees that my attention is focused elsewhere!
What this has taught me is that I now have a better understanding of things that can happen in a home where the money ain’t there and “pickney” are being “pickney.” They don’t know how stressed their parents are and one innocent move can easily spark a reaction that becomes child abuse! I’m not saying it’s right by any means; just that it happens, and it can almost happen inadvertently.
I was taught by my father to fight to the end, no matter how bad it seemed. When I got involved in street fights as a child, my Dad told me, “I don’t mind if you fight, just don’t quit!” My Mom wasn’t with that at all, she wanted him to prohibit me from fighting, and he wouldn’t do it. Then they would argue over that. To this day, I thank him every night for what he did for me. I have had a lot to fight for over the last few months and I have had to deal with the royal runaround, the one that the system has designed to make you quit. They want you to say to yourself, “I can’t win, so screw it.”
I had a friend of mine say to me, “Maybe you should just leave it alone.” I told him, “That’s what they want you to do. That’s why you’re in the position you’re in!” I fought and I fought, and yesterday I got my confirmation. The deal was agreed to!
I don’t kid myself, this one took a lot out of me and I am mentally and physically exhausted. Stress is an enemy of diabetics and I have never been able to internalize stress well. I still have to fight to push the paperwork through, but after this, I’m going to relax for a while to try to recover my health. When you fight, you have to deal with the damage, but today is a hell of a lot better than yesterday. Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up. Don’t quit in your corner. If you get knocked out, so be it.