I remember being called a monkey. It's a faint memory, but I can recall my dad calling me a little monkey due to some hi-jinx I had played on them many years ago when I was a small child. So.....I guess that proves evolution is real, huh? Yes, I am serious. If I was a monkey then and I'm not now, that means that some kind of change has taken place over the past few decades. Now I know that you are probably wondering if I have ever considered the possibility that maybe my dad might have been joking when he called me a monkey. No, I've never wondered about that at all, because I know without a doubt that he was joking. He joked like that a lot, but it doesn't disprove my theory of evolution.
What is evolution anyway? I'll give you my definition. Evolution: Slow, gradual changes or adaptations that take place over long periods of time. The root word is "evolve." I use that term quite a bit when people ask me about my livelihood and how I got started doing what I do. You see, I'm an independent sales agent, specializing in licensed products with collegiate logos. I began this business in 1986, but when I first started, I had no collegiate products whatsoever, and now, that's almost all I do. The change didn't take place overnight, but over the course of a couple of decades, my business slowly "evolved" into what it is today.
So now let me get back to being called a monkey by my dad. He called me a monkey because I had been acting like one. That was at least a half-century ago, and I don't recall ever being called a monkey since that time. Now I don't deny that I was acting like a monkey back then, and although, technically, I'm still the same person I was then, in a lot of ways, I'm a totally different individual. My basic personality, which I inherited from my dad, has pretty much stayed the same as it's always been, although certain aspects of it have "evolved" down through the years. My self confidence, for example, which, on a scale of one to ten, would barely have registered back then; and now it has climbed to a level of somewhere close to a five. The things that made me laugh in those days may barely get a chuckle out of me today. Another bit of evolution that has taken place has to do with my level of vulneralability. When I was a child, I would take anything that practically any adult said as the absolute gospel. As gullible as I was then, that's how skeptical I am now. When someone tells me something, they need to be able to back up what they say. (I'll be talking in depth about that subject next week.) Here's another change that has taken place: Up until just a few years ago, when it was mealtime at one our big family get-togethers, I felt like I needed to gorge myself until I was absolutely miserable; now I've learned that one plate of food is all I need, and I can have just as good a time and feel better about myself in the process. I've also seen an evolution in the way I feel about celebrities such as singers & musicians, actors, or athletes. It used to thrill me to see or meet anyone famous, but I now view them as regular people, and I'm definitely not influenced by their political opinions, regardless of how good an actor they are. I'm much more even tempered today than I was a few years ago, yet I am less likely now to tolerate sub-standard service from any type of business. Yes, I'm a changed man.
If I were to list all the ways I've evolved down through the years, it would take way too much space and time, and you wouldn't want to read it all anyway, but I think you get the message. In fact, you can probably identify with much of what I'm saying. So, does evolution mean the same thing as maturity? In this case, it probably does.
Preston
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