Concupiscence

Well, I think that several friends of mine who are writers and authors would be very proud of me today.

I learned something new, and it truly is an amazing word! Some of us would dare to characterize it as a “humdinger” of a word.

Concupiscence

 

Concupiscence is defined as:

1. Strong desire, especially sexual desire; lust

2. ardent, usually sensuous, longing.

Wow! Pretty nice, eh??

This word couldn’t be any more clear in its definition. I honestly couldn’t see where there might be any confusion to what this word means. But just to be safe, I looked up the origin of the word.

Origin:

Concupiscence is from Late Latin concupiscentia, from the present participle of Latin concupiscere, “to desire eagerly,” from com-, intensive prefix + cupere, “to desire.” The adjective form is concupiscent. The name of the ancient Roman god of love, Cupid, comes from the same root. Probably 1300-1350 A.D.

The word possibly comes from the Middle English and French as well.

I do not know if Marina Orlova has covered this word on her YouTube channel or not. If not, then I think that she should. She studies the origins of words, and uses her sex appeal to garnish viewers. Perhaps in a sense, she could be described as concupiscence.

I’m going to attempt to paint a picture for those of you reading who aren’t 100% sure where the lines are drawn on the definition of this word.

If you find a person that you think is physically and sexually attractive and all you can think about is engaging with that person in sexual congress. That desire to do that, is concupiscence.

Concupiscence- an ardent sexual lust.

As I said, if you go by the two examples of definition that I’ve provided for you, then it really shouldn’t be all that confusing to what the word means. However, I will say this. I’ve not had so much fun learning a word since the discovery of the word:

Feculent

 

Necessary Evils of Fundraising

“The British Red Cross asked me to help them spearhead a fundraising campaign for the victims of the war in Nicaragua. It was a turning point in my life. It began my commitment to justice and human rights issues.”~ Bianca Jagger

Wildly enough it is that time where I am finding in my personal life to go out in this great big world and ask for donations.

Fundraising always sounds like a thrill but only on the surface. Once a person actually goes out and tries to earn donations for a specific cause or reason, they are either successful or they are not.

So here I am- my schedule becoming busy this month as there are many things that I am about to be involved with my sledge hockey team in order to raise funds so that we can pay for ice time for practices.

This is the beginning of my fourth season. Already in the two sessions we’ve had, I have been ultimately successful ON the ice with five goals scored. But this season is rather different as I have not in seasons past, had to go out and raise funds just so we have ice time for practice.

The team received an e-mail saying that if we get no more money, there will be no more hockey this year. Which really sucks. I mean really really really really sucks! I was looking forward to advancing this season as a player and working ever harder towards my personal goals in the game of sledge hockey. And now it appears that there’s nothing??

I’m not entirely sure how that could be, but it is.

I am happy to report that so far I HAVE been successful. I have brought in $500 in donations. (And with the price tag of $200/hr for ice, that’s another two times on the ice and its only November and hockey is supposed to go on until May.)

My own personal goal is $1,000 so I think I should be happy that even at this early stage I am already half way there to reaching my goal. $1,000 would give us a month straight of ice times. Yes, I am proud of that. And I hope that I will continue to be successful.

But fund raising isn’t really all that simple and easy. You have to be able to accept a lot of people telling you “NO” or giving you answers in which they are saying one thing but are meaning another. And usually that too, is a “NO”. But then some times you find that person that will say “YES”.

Over and over again though, you have to deal with the disappointments before you can land something that is desired. That’s just the way it is.

I have seen from my own personal experiences that a lot of people get frustrated and sick and tired of hearing “NO” all of the time. And from that, they give up and stop trying. But seriously, there’s not a person on this planet that has earned anything by giving up.

That desire to dust yourself off and keep trying has to stay strong when asking for donations. There may be a lot of locked doors, but eventually you’ll find one that isn’t.

As for myself and my team, we are not in a financial position to cover the expenses needed each year on our own. Even though we are under the umbrella of a 501(c)3… we must find our own ways to come up with money to support the team, at the very least cover the expenses of our ice time. And thus the fund raising becomes a very necessary evil.

Whether or not I make it to my personal goal of $1,000.. I do not know. If I do not then I know that I have been able to contribute towards two times more on the ice this season. And that of course is two more times that we didn’t have before.

Personally though, it kind of bothers me that I have become successful this quick so far. There was an announcement that I had brought in all of this money in front of the team. Now hopefully that was used to show the rest of the team that if I can do it, they can do it too!! I have this rotten fear that if the team doesn’t have that desire within, and they give up too quickly that they will just assume that I will do it all. And that is not fair to me. So I’m getting out this frustration about it here in this blog post.

I do not want to become the one person that the team leans upon. At least not in this sense. I am a leader of the team ON the ice, but I don’t want to have “to do it all” OFF the ice as well. That would take a lot of time out of my personal training and strength conditioning to do so.

To be fair, we will have other activities coming in 2012 where the fund raising WILL be a team effort. But for now, its off the ice and going from person to person, business to business to look for funds.

I love play sledge hockey. I love being a part of this team. I do not mind being a team leader. I just don’t want to be the team’s automatic “do-it-all”. Instead I would want to encourage them by my actions of success to have them get out and do it as well.

There definitely is no “I” in “TEAM”.

Finding Your Motivation

“Get in there, and clean that pig sty!!”~ my Mother.

Throughout most of this past weekend, I have taken the time to go through my place and clean it. Mainly the important reasons are because I am about to go through our monthly inspections.

Now it is not something that they are going to come in here and do the white glove test by any means. The purpose for the inspections are to make sure that things are working properly. Making sure that light fixtures work, the water runs, toilet flushes, and so on. But they do want to make sure that the unit is kept in general housekeeping standards.

The problem is that the definition of what is good housekeeping standards varies from person to person, whomever is doing the inspection. So it is difficult to know whether or not its “clean enough”. I believe that their concern is that there’s not trash all over the floor and old food left out on the countertops and what not. Things that could eventually lead to bigger and deeper problems in the future.

Usually for me though, I’m always checked off that everything works that needs to work but when it comes to “general housekeeping”, the comment is left: Follow-up.

What the heck does that mean?? They’ve never said, “Okay, you’ve got two weeks to clean this place up.” In fact, my housecleaning status has never come under fire. I’ve always had things cleaned up to the best that I physically can, without any help or assistance.

So I had a pow-wow with my apartment manager one morning. I asked “what is general housekeeping standards”?

It was put across to me in this way:

If you met a girl on the street and you wanted to bring her back to your place for a little hanky-panky, once she walked through the front door–would you be humiliated??

Nice point. Motivation is always key.

I do however get very frustrated when I know that things need to be done around, and its something that I cannot do. I need to either ask for help or not be so hard on myself. Yet I strive to make sure that IF that scenario were to come true, that I would not fall into humiliation.

My mother always motivated myself and my brother to clean our room with the comment: Clean up your room, just in case the President of the United States comes for a visit.

It worked for a while.

Now this new motivation of whether or not a woman would dare to visit here is the new motivation in keeping things just a little bit better and better.

Motivation works in different ways for different people. It will cause a person to become more focused on something that they find is the desired effect in the end. A good example is people who want to stop smoking. They find their reasons why they should and then they search themselves to find the positive effects of them reaching the goal. Better health, more money in their pockets, and so on. But that’s only one example.

I think that humiliation in this form, is just life’s way of saying to you that your motivation is low and needs a lot of work. If a woman DID come in here and she found a pair of scorched underwear on the floor or something, then yes, I’d be totally lost within myself and I would make so very sure that NO underwear would be found on the floor ever again!!

So until I am able to find the help & assistance to help me, I continue to do what I can. And I have come to that point where I can do no more today. I’m sure I’ll find bits and pieces to tidy up from now until the day of inspection. But anything that could cause me to be humiliated is no longer there. So ladies, BRING IT ON!! Besides, I think that my mother would be proud. She would question a few things but then once she realizes it is something that is out of my reach or control, she’d smile and probably be more understanding and possibly get it done for me.

In all things, we all have our slumps. We have those things in which we really don’t wanna do but we know that we must. So finding that motivation is very important. If we cannot find it, or do not look for it, then we’ll end up not doing what we are supposed to and thus suffer the consequences for our own actions because we did not do what we should have in the first place.

What motivates you???