KENSON’S KORNER: Balogna (Baloney) Sandwiches

by Coach Dave Kenson

At the beginning of the summer between my freshmen and sophomore year of high school, my father and maternal grandfather sat down with me to have a talk. They said that they had good news and bad news. The good news was that I was going to be the first member of our family to go to college. I beamed with enthusiasm and a big smile spread across my face. And then it hit me – “What’s the bad news?” The bad news, they said was, “We’re not paying for it”. Up to this point I had earned “good” grades and had enjoyed some success playing football, basketball and baseball. They now announced that I would have to do even better in all areas in order to get a scholarship to pay for the college education. They also felt that I needed some extra motivation to accomplish this goal so that I wouldn’t end up doing manual labor for the rest of my life.

My grandfather had a friend who owned a number of businesses. One of these involved pool installations. I didn’t find out until the first day of work that this didn’t involve any heavy machinery. The holes would have to be dug by hand. Since I was the newbie, I was teamed with Frank, a veteran in the business. Monday, on my first day, using pick and shovel, Frank and I began digging a hole. After about four hours of fun in the sun, Frank said, “Let’s stop for lunch”. I was excited. It didn’t take long to realize that lunch was going to be the most enjoyable part of this job. As I began to eat my lunch, Frank opened his lunch box and I heard him say, “Oh no, Bologna sandwiches”. Having known Frank for only four hours, I kept my head down and didn’t say a word. The next day the same thing happened, “Oh no, baloney sandwiches again”. Once again, I kept a low profile. This same lunch-time scenario repeated itself for the rest of the week. Finally, on Friday when Frank again exclaimed “Not baloney sandwiches again”, I felt bold enough to speak. I said, “Frank if you don’t like Bologna sandwiches, why don’t you tell your wife to pack something different?” Frank looked at me with disbelief and said, “Wife! What wife? I’m not married. I make my own sandwiches”.

There are two lessons in this story. The first was that I did become even more motivated to go to college and never to do manual labor like this again. The second was that we all make our own bologna sandwiches. We don’t make them with bread, but with our thoughts and feelings. I hope you noticed that I spelled bologna two different ways in the previous paragraph. Bologna is a sausage which originated in Bologna, Italy, and is utilized primarily as a sandwich meat. But I also remember when I was a kid and someone said some stupid, people said he was full of baloney; and they didn’t mean sausage. The baloney that enters our lives originates in our mind. The universe reacts to the thoughts and feelings vibrations that we send out by sending us back more of the same. What you think about, you bring about. Why is this true?

Quantum physics now tells us that what I learned in high school is no longer true. Atoms are not the smallest, most basic building blocks in the universe. Over the last fifty years we have learned how to break the atom down into smaller parts: protons, neutrons, electrons, croutons, and futons. (My apologies for checking to see who was still reading and thinking). When we break down the parts of atoms as small as possible, the result is no longer matter, but energy; vibration. But even though it is no longer matter, it does matter. Everything in the universe is made of vibration, and every vibration has a different frequency (some so low that they are imperceptible to the senses of mankind and are called inanimate). Quantum physics also tells us that every one of these vibrations is connected to every other vibration, therefore, if everything is connected to everything else, how many things are there in the universe”? That’s right, ONE. Hence the name UNIverse. Also, all vibrations can be influenced by other vibrations. If you and I both look at a vibration through a very powerful microscope, that vibration will react differently to our two different vibrational frequencies. Remember, I said EVERYTHING has a frequency of vibration and that includes our thoughts and feelings. What we do on the inside (such as think and feel) affects what happens on our outside (environment). In the universe, like attracts like and so when we make those baloney sandwiches on the inside (our mind) we attract more baloney from the outside (our world). Our lives are built from the inside out and NOT from the outside in!

“What you think you become.”

–Buddha

“What you feel you attract.”

–Rhonda Byrne

“Whatever the mind of men can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

–Napoleon Hill

Back when I was still teaching, on the first day of every new class I would ask my students to raise their hands if a teacher or other adult had ever told them to think “outside the box”. Inevitably, all the hands would go up. My next question was “Did anyone ever tell you what the box was?”. Look Ma, no hands. Well then how do you know if you’re inside or outside? The “box” is actually CULTURAL CONDITIONING. From the time we are born we are taught to conform with out thoughts, feelings and behaviors. First our parents and immediate family, then our friends, followed by teachers and later by bosses who train us not to be different, not to make waves, not to get in trouble. But, can you think of anything great that a CONFORMIST ever accomplished? We are taught phrases like “Everybody knows that” or “That’s not the way we do things”. General George S. Patton once said, “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking”. If my goal is to be happy and successful, and I’m suggesting that in life, just like in the dictionary, happy comes first, they why should we think feel and behave like everyone else? Is everyone else happy and successful or are the majority waiting for some external event to magically change their lives? There’s a John Mayer song that I like called “Waiting on the World to Change”. It has a great melody and rhythm about it, but it was clearly written from inside the box. The song states that we are waiting (inside) on the world (outside) to change and then our lives will be better. I am going to suggest to you just the opposite. The world is waiting on US to change. To see it on the outside you have to believe it on the inside first. What actually happens is we change ourselves internally. We DECIDE to be happy and grateful for our life and then our immediate environment will change for the better. IF enough people do that, the world will change. As Socrates says in the movie PEACEFUL WARRIOR, we need to “take out the trash”. The trash is every thought or feeling in our mind that prevents us from enjoying the present moment and being happy and at peace. We need to stop making baloney sandwiches. And so, with apologies to Oscar Mayer,