There are moments in your life when you want your name or number called. When the coach needs someone to take the potential game winning shot or when you are randomly selected to win something; those are the times in your life when you want to be called upon. You want to be noticed. You want the attention. You want to be the chosen one!

Then, there's jury duty.

That's where I am at today and hopefully only today. I'm sitting in a room with 400-500 people, all waiting to not be selected for this "honor" of serving their community. As I scan the room and the people around me, I don't see anyone that resembles Pauly Shore. Remember that movie? He was chosen to be on the jury and he does everything he can to extend the process in order to make money and spend time with a girl. When I think of being called to jury duty, I always think of that terrible movie. Not sure if Pauly ever had a good one, but sadly I think I watched them all. My brother did a dead on impression of Shore and because of that, his movies will always have a special place with me....no matter how dumb they are. On a somewhat related note, I interviewed Pauly Shore about 15 years ago and he was a total dick.

To my right there is an older man who appears to be snoring. To my left, there is a woman who sprayed about 2-3 squirts too many of her perfume on the way here this morning. Two rows up there is "phone guy". Phone guy is a prematurely balding guy in his 30s, wearing a blazer and not whispering as he is talking to, what I believe to be, a receptionist or assistant or something. Total power move as he wants the people next to him to believe that he is someone special. He's also wearing a blazer in Texas. In August. He may be a mover and shaker, but let's hope he's wearing extra strength deodorant. Older, cackle laugh lady is about 10 yards to my right and there are about a dozen potential jurors who could be labeled "cough all the time" people. I can feel myself getting sick, just from being in the same room. When the zombie virus spreads, I'm blaming them.

Like ripe tomatoes on a vine, we are all sitting here waiting to be picked.

Don't get me wrong, I am doing my civic duty today and I am very curious about the whole process. I'm here on a day that traditionally is an easy day for court cases. Friday is when they usually do the ones that would require me to be here for days upon days, so I'm pretty happy about that. I don't want to be on a murder trial or something dramatic like that. Maybe it's a traffic related case and because of my "obsession" with bad parking pictures, they will recognize that and not choose me? "Mr. Murphy! How do you feel about people who double park"? Yeah, they don't want me on that trial!

After 5 rounds of panels with 30-75 people getting called up per round, I finally hear my name. I'm 19th on the list and positioned in line between a guy that is 6' 5" and another that 5' 2". They line us up, send us to the 4th floor (we were in the basement) and make us stand in a very warm hallway outside of the courtroom. Then, after 45 minutes, they let us go. I guess the two parties that were fighting figured it out and didn't need us. After spending 6 hours in the same place, I now won't be called up again for jury duty for at least 3 years.

There are times in our lives where we want to be called upon. We want to be recognized, but when it happens, it's more often than not, the moment that we don't want to be called upon. The time you actually knew the answer in class-you never got called. When you are crouching down, not raising your hand and hiding, that's when you get called. It never fails.

Life is unpredictable. You never know what curve it's going to throw at you and you can only prepare so much for what the future plans to present to you. I spent 6 hours preparing for a moment that never happened-nobody saw that coming. Some of us are called for religious reasons or called upon to lead the group in a certain direction. I guess I can add being called to be more than just an uncle to my niece-the daughter of my deceased brother. We all have an unknown calling that will eventually find its way to us.

You can't always prepare for it and you don’t always get to pick what’s next. You can however, take important and calculated steps to allow your life to accept more. For some it can be financial. For others it can be emotional or just prioritizing time to allow for you to accept "more" in life. Take a #Tryharder moment over the next few days to clear your mind and prioritize your actions. Set goals and create timelines for those goals so that if something comes your way or your number is called and you find yourself somewhat distracted or sidetracked because of it, you will at least have a foundation for readiness. It's not about preparing for the worst, it's about preparing for the inconsistency of life. I have no idea what the trial was about, but I am happy they worked it out without my help.

#juryduty

Lube #Tryharder

When mechanical parts work together they are usually separated by a small amount of oil or lubricant to prevent them from breaking down. When we are going through a difficult time and the friction of life takes its toll on us, we often feel the need for some sort of buffer between the grinding of the plates.

We need lubricant.

Time is the thing that lubricates us from one tough moment to the next. Without it, much like the flaking of metal chards in an engine, we can become scarred and our tolerance, mindset, beliefs and sensitivity can erode; causing us to change.

To say that I am the same person I was 5 years ago would be a lie on some many levels. A lot of my life has changed. From relocating back to Texas to losing my brother to crossing another decade milestone in age, a lot has happened and all of those things have made an impact-good and bad. They have changed me and time has been the one constant and buffer. My parents and I are on a different level of communication, my sister and I are closer and my niece and I have a great relationship that probably never would have happened had it not been for the passing of my brother. Those things only became apparent to me due to the buffer of time.

When it comes to music, we in the radio industry, often use the expression "time heals all tempos". What that means is that just because a song or a type of sound is polarizing to people today, doesn't mean that it will be tomorrow. Rap music and hard rock were once not acceptable to the mainstream pallet, but over the years, they found their way into the programming of traditionally formatted radio stations and are now very much the norm. All they needed was time to erode the edges and become more acceptable to the masses. The songs really didn't change, but our perceptions and tolerance did. People don't often change and situations don't always change, but time allows us to cope and become tolerant and accepting.

Work to be accepting of your scars and the scars of others. Understand that life is not a race and the journey is going to put us in places we didn't see ourselves in and provide us with outcomes we never saw coming. You can't place a Band-Aid on life and expect things to fix themselves or heal overnight (like you believed when you were a kid). #Tryharder to accept that time is the only true lubricant and it happens at its own pace.