Capitol Hill : Where Neither Bright nor Brawny Reside

The greatest men in political history were neither the smartest, nor the strongest men this world has ever seen. These men were some of the most clever, and the most cunning though. Those who play hardball in the political world, are the men we saw playing by themselves as children. They were the ones who watched, listened, and learned. They were men who above all things, understood how people work.

Jimmy Carter was a man who watched and understood. He saw that when a man has been knocked off of a high horse, all that is needed to pick him back up is a little bit of encouraging. Carter was also a man clever enough to see that if you help a man back up, he is certain to follow you. Carter utilized the charm of the political world, to convince men to delve even deeper into that world, and most importantly, follow him into it during the 1976 elections. The glamour of the political world, a world where everyone in the nation could possibly love you, and the opportunity to help others into it in the hopes of riding on their coattails.

Whoever works the small jobs behind the scenes on Capitol Hill, has the most power. It is those workers, that men such as Jimmy Carter have laid their foundations on. On Capitol Hill, in the Hardball world of politics that so many are attracted to, the one skill one has to hone and master is people. One must convince others to join their cause, and ensure that they support them; more importantly, continue to support them. It is men such as the manager of phones who anyone playing hardball wishes to have on their side. Everyone on Capitol Hill is a pawn, including the men who might seem like kings. Those who succeed on the Hill are those who learn to use all the other pawns to their advantage, thus becoming a player.

A clever player of any game will always use is weaknesses to the best of his ability. Such a clever player turns his flaws into the weapons he uses. A player on Capitol Hill must ensure that his pawns never discover that in truth they are just that, pawns. A tool to ensure that pawns stay pawns, is to never show that the player is weak. Barbara A. Mikulski fought her way to the senate with her clever wit. She used her wit to arm herself with what has held so many others back, her height. Rather then hiding her weakness, she exposed herself to the world, and they accepted her exactly as she was, all four feet and eleven inches. She controlled what her audience saw and interpreted, never showing that she could be taken down.

To listen, learn, and understand is what it takes to play hardball. To make it in such a charmed world, one cannot let themselves be drawn in. They must play the game but not be in the game. The smartest, and strongest men don’t reside on capitol hill, these men avoid it if anything. It is those who are witty, and cunning, who truly thrive.

I pretend that I'm confident... because I'm afraid.

I pretend to be loud... because I'm afraid what they'll ask if I'm quiet.

I pretend to be strong... because in truth i'm pitifully weak.

I pretend to know what i'm doing... because I honestly have no clue what to do.

I pretend to be so much... because I'm afraid that you won't love me. ♥

I am at a loss...

Well, at a loss for words. Life continues to move and move and just continue on moving. It's that train that doesn't wait for anyone so once you fall off it can be just so hard to be able to jump back on. It will continue to take you on your journey, whether you're ready or not. Today was registration. It hit me all of a sudden that my childhood years are nearly behind me. Another year and I will have to be an adult because I no longer have a choice. Life has continued to move onward, leaving me behind because I wasn't ready to continue onward. But of course, since when was life fair to us? Since when has this world cared about what we wished for? Since never. So this is where I have to realize that life is never going to slow down for me so that I can enjoy it. I am the one that is always just getting comfortable after the change only to have life change again. Only now am I beginning to seem more like a normal teenager as I am on the way out of high school into college life where no doubt I won't get into college life until it's almost time for me to leave it.

Who knows why this is? Well, other than God, no one has the capabilities to answer my questions. So of course, I am going to have to wait and continue waiting while I continue to fall behind that train that is disappearing into the distance. Well, maybe I will catch up someday, but I am not quite so sure about that day being anytime soon.

Either way. With school starting in just a week and what, two days? I have to be ready to fight through my last year of high school.

Words

Words. No one knows exactly what they can do. Sometimes, they do nothing, they are just there, but sometimes, they can change a person's life.

The other day, I watched this show. There was a man, and his son (whose names I can't remember). The man's business was failing, and he blamed alot of people for his problems and the things that happened. One day he took his son, who was 15, to a cabin he owned in the woods. They talked, and after a while, he asked his son to go outside and gather firewood for him. As the son is coming back, he hears a shot, and when he finally figures out what it was, he finds his dad. His dad had committed suicide and left the son (who had no mom) all alone in the world. In his suicide note, he gave examples of people who just didn't care, who were unkind to him. He wrote that he was too cowardly to take his son with him, and finally, that no one cared.

But the son cared.

For the next few months, he killed everyone who he thought was responsible for his father's death. All of the people that were named in the letter were killed because they had to do their job. When the boy grew up, he had a lot of financial problems too, and began to blame others for his problems. When he was the same age his father was when he killed himself, he began killing again. He killed those people he blames, people who told him that "no one cares." In the end, he was ready to kill his wife, then himself.

Words. They can make a person's day, but they can ruin it too. They can change a person's life. They changed the life of that boy who didn't know what to do. The one thing he remembers about his father's note was that he wrote that no one cares. It hurt him to the core, because he cared about his father, and that death scarred him for life.

So, one thing that you can never forget: no matter how angry you get, how sad you feel, you can never carelessly throw words out there. Someone may remember those words for the rest of their life, and unless they're good words, you don't want to be responsible for the well-being of a person to be worse off than it could have been.

Be careful with words, they can be dangerous weapons, but they can also be the best medicine.