All Hat and No Cattle

Knowing I’m adopted, sometimes I feel like I miss out on the positives that come with the Almand bloodline (those of you who know my family are quietly chuckling). My great-grandmother was a Whitacre, and my great-grandfather was an Almand. The famous trait the Almand bloodline inherited was charm. The famous “Almand charm” is a phrase passed around at family gatherings and loud, boisterous phone calls. Sadly, charm alone doesn’t make you money – nor does it actually exist in the Almand family, at least in the traditional sense. What does exist, however, is the famous Whitacre work ethic. Whitacres would be known to work out on the ranch or farm until their bones were 90+ years old, and riddled with various forms of cancer and emphysema. They would collect eggs, milk cows, and mend fence until their hearts would carry them no further.

Not only are Almands aware of their work ethic, but also boast it as necessary trait for success. My great uncle Hubert Almand wrote a textbook for a business class before he passed away that is still used at the University of Miami to this day. He joked that the tome was done so well as a guide to true business, that they only took out one chapter, “Chapter One: Hard Work”. Well, the University of Miami hasn’t been the only ones who have tossed out hard work. We all have.

In a world now dominated by technology and social media, we’ve all been given numerous outlets to forgo the hard work of relationships, and take shortcuts. This might have been fine at first: lets not forget how easy smartphones have made it to take pictures of happy couples, send short cute messages, or leave long apologetic voicemails. However, I truly believe that what started as mere convenience has led this generation to unshackle the traditional forms of chivalry, and rather embrace this warped, sexual, manipulative sense of romance that has been hastily adopted.  And now, what started as a well-formed idea of a blog post will slowly digress into an angry commentary on how terrible we all have become:

Why is it that in the good old days (whatever decade this is to you, it really could be any), divorce rates were so low, but now they are so high? Why is it that the concept of ruining the sanctity of marriage is so readily associated with homosexual unions by the media, and not the heartbreak of divorce? In the good old days, husbands would hold their wives hands in the hospital until they were gifted a second sunrise, or, God forbid, a bitter separation - and now the main reasons for break ups and divorce as found in a study by the University of Utah are: lack of commitment, lack of equality, and infidelity?

Don’t get me wrong, if you are a divorcee due to verbal, physical, sexual, or emotional abuse of you or your children, or you are a victim of infidelity, I don’t look down upon your decision at all. Exceptions can be made.

Moving on.

What happened to opening the car door, and not just the front door? What happened to meeting her parents before you take her out? What happened to flowers after a successful first date? What happened to phone calls and letters, which have now been replaced by cryptic Facebook statuses and snippets of conversations via Snapchat? Why is it now that being Facebook official is the only indicator that it’s not acceptable to cheat, and that you are now “going steady”?

I’ll tell you exactly what happened. We got lazy. Sex has become more commonplace outside of committed relationships, and less taboo in every age bracket. Why do we even need commitment if we can just satisfy our primal urges with just a few clever words on Tinder? What used to be set plans for dates have become tentative plans in case you find something better. What used to be working towards intimacy with someone you truly care for has become silver tongues and tequila on Ladies Night.

We’ve just…stopped working hard. We’ve taken the shortcuts and the backdoors, and we’ve gotten really good at it. Dating is a game, and commitment is game over.

So who do I dedicate this post to? Those parents still together. To the prom king who didn’t get his date drunk for a higher chance to score. To the guy that asked her to dinner, showed up on time, with a small bouquet of lilies – and a large bouquet for her mother the first time he gets invited to dinner. Respect to the couple that worked through the insecurities from previous relationships together, through open communication and hesitation to judge. Mad props to those who didn’t let baggage slow them down. My heart goes out to those that suffer through long distance, in-laws who hate them, and friends who disapprove. Shout out to those that rose to the challenge of becoming a pseudo accountant to not let the lack of cash flow put pressure on him and his bride.

Please, boys and girls…lets be men and women. Lets not let some statistic defeat us. We’re the next generation; let’s set an example our children will be proud to follow. 

Stop being “all hat and no cattle”, as my father would say.

“You can’t get there by bus, only be hard work and risk and not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.” – Alan Alda

Let’s get to work.