A Death in Oxnard and Keeping Ones Cool.
July 26, 2008
The cover story in Newsweek is about a young man murdered in his junior high school for allegedly “coming on” to his killer.
I am not going to retell the story here. You can read it all over the net and in Newsweek. What I am going to cover here is the young man who is the shooter. (That part is not in question). He is going to be tried as an adult and could end up spending his life behind bars.
What I am interested in is the moral of the story I want to impart to my readers. Do not lose control. I know what many of you are saying. Easier said than done. Please folks, trust me on this one. The second half of the moral is “know what you have to lose.” Pretend it is a game of poker. Something I did and am not proud of nearly landed me in prison. I KNOW I have control issues, LOL! I had to go to anger management counseling, (what I call with a smile, Naughty Counseling) to learn that.
Every emotion, psychological trait, whatever you want to call it has a good and bad side, yin and yang. I just bought a book called Mental Toughness Baseball’s Winning Edge. Even if you do not follow baseball, much of it is a metaphor for life.
The yin and yang for athletes is as follows: The good, competitiveness and concentration on a goal. The bad? The competitiveness can lead to inappropriate aggressiveness.
Back to our case in Oxnard. It SHOULD be obvious to ALL it is a tragedy for family of the victim of the shooting and those who cared for him. It is also a tragedy for his shooter, Brandon McInerney. Why? Because he did not stop to think about what he had to lose. Was his young life so bad, he felt shooting Larry King (obviously not the well known and beloved CNN talk show host) was needed to stop being “hit on?” The State of California has decided to try Brandon as an adult. If convicted, Brandon is looking at spending his life behind bars. Why? Loss of control.
I’m not going to get into the blame game here. There is enough of those slices of pie going around. Please allow me, dear readers, to leave you with this.
Know what you have to lose.
It only has to happen once.
