Life Points

So this past summer, my good friend Jacob & I visited our friend Justin in Chicago. Among the many fun & idiotic things that happened, one was the creation of "Life Points". (Please keep in mind that when "Life Points" was created we had just finished off one of these & were at the bars continuing the party.)

Think of playing a video game & earning points. You know the cool graphics that appear above your character when you gain points? Focus on that aspect. Now, take that out of the video game, & apply it to real life with positive & negative points. +/-

Hold open a door for an old lady? Plus Ten Life Points. +10

Spit your gum out on the sidewalk? Negative Ten Life Points. -10

Save a child from a burning building? Plus a Million Life Points. +1,000,000

Push a baby in a stroller into the Grand Canyon? Negative a Million Life Points. -1,000,000


Get the idea? The better/worse the deed, the higher the positive/negative point count.

The idea is, for an entire day, keep a tally of your +/- score at the end of the day. If it was positive, then you were a good person for today. If it was negative, you were not really a good person today.

For the entire weekend, we would randomly say, outloud so that others could hear, "Plus ten Life Points". "Negative fifteen Life Points."

I know as the entire weekend went on we added to the system & it became more complex, but at this point, I can not remember the exact details.

I think the hardest part was figuring out the point scale.

+/-10 for standard good/bad deeds (hold door open/littering).
+/-50 for anything slightly beter/worse (stopping friends from fighting/spreading untrue rumors about someone).
+/-100 vehicular hit-&-run/reporting a hit-&-run.
+/-XXX where XX is the dollar amount.

Now, using this scale as a rough guideline, take everything you did today & assign a +/- point to it, then tally up the total. How did you fair for the day?



Note: no babies in strollers were pushed into the Grand Canyon...that I know of.

Running

So when I ran track in highschool I only did sprints, nothing more than a 400m dash. My coach once put me in the mile, but after one lap I "accidentally" stepped off the track infront of the line judge I was disqualified.

Recently I have started to run longer distances, mainly trying to run 5K, & have been doing pretty good with the training but never able to do more than three to three & a half miles. The other day I found a marked 5K trail that was in a park close by & decided to run it to see how I would do.

I went there today & when I got out of the car I started to stretch & put my headphones on. What I didn't realize was that no more than 50 feet away there was about 20 or so kids having a picnic. Did I mention that all the kids were in wheelchairs? Yeah, that's right.

When I first noticed this, my first thought was "Oh shit, I am an asshole." You want to talk about awkward. Then I made eye contact with one of the kids. I got the, "I wish I could run" look. At that point I felt really really bad. Horrible.

So I stared running. Trying to not think about what just happened & focus on the run. Well, somehow (Karma) I missed the halfway turnaround point for the 5K (Karma) & by the time I realized it I was way way past it. (Karma.) I turn around & head back. Because (Karma) I missed the turnaround, my 5K was turned into an 8K (Karma).

Now I am sore, my calves feel like they are on fire, my body hates me, & I can not drink enough water. Well played God, well played.


I consider myself a nice person & a decent human being. I have tons of friends who will back me up on this too. I want to chalk this one up to wrong place, wrong time but there has to be a lesson learned. Always know & be aware of your surroundings.