whatareyouthinking

When Tripp was younger, his grandmother gave him a recipe for chocolate chip cookies, saying, “This makes really good cookies!”

Tripp looked it over and decided it was a good recipe for making good cookies.  Now Tripp was young and couldn’t find or understand all of the ingredients to make the cookies himself.  But since his grandmother told him the recipe—and she made good cookies—Tripp concluded the recipe was also good.

One day, Tripp’s wife wanted to make some cookies for their guests.  Tripp said, “I have a great cookie recipe.”  So he shared his grandmother’s recipe with his wife.  Tripp’s wife thought that it sounded like a good recipe, but she ran out of time and had to go to the store instead in order to have cookies for that evening. 

Their guests liked the store-bought cookies and complemented Tripp’s wife on her choice.  But Tripp’s wife said, “I know a recipe for even better cookies!”  Then she shared Tripp’s grandmother’s cookie recipe with all of the guests.

A few days later, one of the guests saw her daughter about to make cookies and said, “This is the recipe you want to use to make cookies.  I understand this makes the best cookies.”  Since her daughter had already started her own batch of cookies, she set the recipe aside.  But she figured it must have been a good recipe—otherwise her mother would not have said so.

Although Tripp’s wife’s guest’s daughter did not have an opportunity to make the recipe herself, she entered it into a recipe contest.  The judges of the contest did not have time to actually prepare all of the recipes that were submitted, so they had to judge many of them on spelling and grammar alone.  As a result, Tripp’s wife’s guest’s daughter won first prize and her recipe was published in a major food magazine.  Many of the magazine’s subscribers liked the looks of the recipe and passed it on to their friends (though they themselves did not yet get a chance to try the recipe).

Some of the readers of the magazine wanted to make some cookies and actually followed through with the recipe. They prepared the ingredients as indicated by the recipe.  The cookies turned out terrible and many were embarrassed before their guests!  Some of them wrote to the editors of the magazine and to the judges expressing their disgust. 

To this the editor and the judges defended, “It was a good recipe—you must not have followed it correctly!”             

Tripp was physically fit throughout his early years.  His favorite workout was the bench press.  Before he got too busy with the demands of work and family life, he was able to bench an impressive 235 pounds—not too bad for a young athlete.

Shortly after he married, he told his wife about how he needed to get back to the gym.  He said, “I used to bench close to 250 pounds you know!”  But children shortly followed and Tripp was unable to resume working out at that time. 

Eventually, his son became of age and was looking for some workout tips from his father.  Finally he asked, “How much weight did you bench when you were working out, Dad?”

“Somewhere between 250 and 300 pounds,” Tripp replied.  So proud of his father, Tripp’s son helped spread the news around school of how his dad could once bench up to 350 pounds.

After all this inspiration, Tripp knew he must somehow find time to return to the gym.  He purchased himself a membership and devised a workout plan.  He pressed on for two weeks but rapidly grew weary and frustrated at his lack of progress. 

“I’ll never be able to bench 400 pounds again at this rate,” Tripp thought to himself.

Tripp and his four co-workers were laboring long hours at the office and — after much persistence — were getting little accomplished.  Then they learned of a study where employees who took quick 30-minute naps during the day were more productive.  For the next week they all decided to sleep in and not go to work at all.  And the recruiter’s productivity increased by five hundred percent.  

Every now and then, Tripp had an uncanny urge to smash his left thumb with a hammer.  He never wanted to nor did this with enough force to crush the bone.  Each time he engaged in this exercise, he only did it just enough to cause some pain.  Tripp thought this action would give him a rush or an endorphin release—and it did.  But it also made his thumb hurt.  So he often found himself searching for all sorts of solutions to settle his throbbing thumb.  Mostly, he just had to wait for the pain to cease in its own time.

One day (having smashed his thumb the night before), Tripp awoke in extreme pain.  Again he tried his usual list of remedies.  But this time Tripp realized that pain was an inevitable consequence of having hammers hitting thumbs.  So he embraced the pain as long as it lasted — and avoided hammers for quite a while.

After a time of healing, Tripp’s convictions concerning the evils of hammers became so strong that he set out to campaign against them.  He wished to rid the world of not just hammers — but all household tools! 

However, after much exhaustion, he decided that others just needed to hammer these things out for themselves.   

From the time Tripp was a small child, he wanted to become a Railroad Engineer.  After Tripp finished High School, he attended Railroad Engineer School so that he could become a Railroad Engineer.  About half-way through his education, a certain manager was visiting the school and noticed Tripp’s potential for success.  Consequently, he offered Tripp a job as a Railroad Engineer with an attractive salary to start immediately.

Tripp declined the invitation saying, “I’m sorry.  I’d love to take you up on your offer, but I must finish my schooling first so that I can become a Railroad Engineer when I get out.”

Tripp went to a life-changing seminar that totally revolutionized the way he interacted with others.  The seminar encouraged him to think outside the box in every area of life.  The meetings placed a special focus on family life.  Tripp heard advice like:

• “No longer call your wife—‘wife,’ instead, call her your ‘love.’”
• “Don’t call your children by their names, instead, refer to them as your ‘beloved offspring’”
• “No longer call your home—‘home,’ instead, say, ‘special abode.’”

The seminars propogated these and other life-changing strategies that Tripp followed to the letter.  In fact, each night ,Tripp would come home and say, “Hello my love and beloved offspring.  Isn’t it wonderful that we’re all safely here together in our special abode?”

Tripp’s family was so grateful that Tripp was finally thinking outside the box and really thinking for himself.

Tripp noticed a tree in his front yard becoming quite huge.  He said to himself, “That’s not so bad, I can deal with a big tree.”

A few weeks later, Tripp’s wife noticed the size of the tree and lack of soil for its roots, so she suggested that he trim it.  Tripp said, “I’m no good at trimming trees—just leave it!”

Several months later, Tripp’s children tried to warn him of its size and how unstable the tree had become.  Tripp replied, “What do you know about trees?”

A few years passed, then Tripp’s neighbor approached him about the tree.  Tripp agreed something needed to be done, but he did not want to cut it as he was afraid to offend the birds, the squirrels, and others that had grown accustomed to the tree as it was.  Once again, Tripp refused to deal with the tree.
After a series of thunderstorms and heavy winds, the tree fell on Tripp’s house, nearly demolishing his family’s home!  Many of their belongings were also destroyed. 

So Tripp decided to move to a new house and leave everything else behind.  This time he would look for a piece of land with no potential for plant life.

Under pressure from upper management, an employer needed to do one of his least comfortable tasks.  He had to give one of his employees the old ‘shape up or ship out’ speech.  At the end of the day he called the problem employee into his office, and—not wishing to offend—said, “Tripp, you have worked here for quite some time.  Throughout our working relationship, I couldn’t help but notice that your unique skill set does not necessarily match those of the position for which you are presently employed.  Tripp, you may want to prepare yourself to seek out some other opportunities that better suit your particular talents.”

Once dismissed, Tripp raced home to tell his wife the startling news!  He said, “I just got done talking to my boss!  He told me that I’m overqualified for my job and need to prepare myself for a promotion.”

While entertaining some guests, Tripp’s wife also entertained the subjects of politics and justice.  As the dialogue grew with intensity, Tripp’s wife hastily blurted out, “Well I just think they should send everyone who does that to the chair!”  Needless to say, many of the guests were offended and informed the couple they would not be returning. Disappointed in his wife’s behavior, Tripp discussed with her the necessity of demonstrating respect for the diverse political backgrounds and experiences of the friends they invite to their home. 

After a time, Tripp and his wife begged their company’s forgiveness and requested they come again for dinner.  Eventually, the same topic of discussion arose just as it had before.  This time, however, Tripp’s wife purposed to respond differently.  She stated, “I don’t wish to offend anyone here, but I think they should send everyone who does that to the chair!”

Tripp cut off a driver while merging on to the Interstate.  Out of panic the driver sounded his horn, and Tripp replied with an offensive hand gesture.  Then, Tripp spotted an opportunity to get in the left lane to make some time, but there was a slow-moving minivan preventing him.  So, Tripp blew his horn while approaching the minivan from behind at high speed.  The driver of the minivan changed lanes and Tripp was finally in the fast lane with no vehicles in front of him.

After a short time, Tripp noticed the fast lane was coming to an end.  Instead of merging, he raced to the top and tried to get in front several of cars that had already merged in to the center lane.  Of course, none of them wanted to let him in.  Therefore, he honked the horn and charge toward the traffic until somebody finally yielded.  The remainder of the road trip was rather uneventful. 

When Tripp got home he said to his wife, “I’ve been thinking.  Driving wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for all of the idiots on the road.”