Average Joe's Army

Sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, friends of friends, and relatives of friends, everyone who were part of Joe's army and those who sympathized with Joe's effort to keep our freedom intact and eradicate the censorship of nudity that was forbidden, taboo, and illegal were assembled to get naked. As one defying unity united against tyranny, they were all gathered to protect our right to celebrate National Nude Day in the nude. Hell, they can't arrest all of us in our act of civil disobedience. Defying unjust laws is what made this country start the American Revolution and win our independence.

With newspapers and radio and television stations from around the country and around the world directing their press coverage to this one small community that is taking a stand by rejecting the puritanical values of old and embracing the sophisticated sensibilities of a modern society, other communities awaited the outcome before challenging the laws and ordinances in their communities. With his interviews being carried worldwide, Joe was suddenly an overnight celebrity.

There were book offers and movie deals. Vendors and advertisers looking to make a quick buck sold Joe's image and that of his army on t-shirts, balloons, and other trinkets that were sold at fairs, circuses, and carnivals. Joe hired an agent to field the requests for his personal appearance times for national news shows and syndicated talk shows. His agent registered the name, Average Joe, as his trademark and started a corporation, named, what else, Average Joe, to shelter the income expected he'd make in his entrepreneurial venture.

By removing his clothes and casting aside his inhibitions, one man against censorship, Joe hoped to shine the spotlight on how ridiculous this issue of nudity was. One small man making a statement against censorship reminded us of how this country began. Average Joe took a stand for the betterment of all so as to reinforce how we all should live, free and with inalienable rights.

"God bless America," he said before addressing and answering anyone asking him a question.

In his fifteen minutes of fame, just as Joe the Plumber became an instant celebrity during the last presidential campaign between Senator McCain and Senator Obama, Average Joe became the voice for the average American man when the question of nudity was posed against censorship and our right to live freely. Suddenly, a marketing campaign sprung up with Average Joe clothes, even underwear, and Average Joe cereal, puffed rice with cinnamon, nuts, and raisins. Next to G. I. Joe in the toy section was an Average Joe doll. At a time when a bad economy was not giving people much hope for a better and a brighter future, Average Joe was suddenly the biggest thing to hit America.

Average Joe instantly became the litmus strip voice of every politician who needed to test the temperature of the American public by first getting Average Joe's opinion. The President even invited him to the White House and a radio station gave him an Average Joe talk show. Average Joe suddenly found himself on I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here and later, interviewing other celebrities at the Oscars, baseball players at the World Series, and football players at the Super Bowl.

Back when Average Joe was just an average man, before he became a household celebrity, he was just a friendly guy. Joe isn't an army of one. He's an average man who has an army of friends. Imagine what it'd be like to have an army of friends, people who will watch your back, help you in your time of need, and friends who you can call upon at any time and ask for their help, as they can do with you.

There are two camps of people in regarding others as friends. There are those who enjoy having a lot of friends and there are those who are happy to be alone with their bad selves. Who needs friends? You do. We all do and the more the better.

There's a lot of responsibility being responsible for an army of friends and Joe never takes his responsibility of friendship lightly. He's thankful for having such an army of faithful followers to call upon whenever he needs backup and support and he never abuses his army of friends by taking advantage of their friendship. Joe likes having his army of friends. His army of followers and supporters empower him.

Joe is a nice guy. Everyone likes him. He has a lot of friends, an understatement, ergo his army of people who will drop everything, anytime, to come to his rescue. Likewise, Joe comes to their aid, as well, whenever and wherever needed. Certainly, he doesn't fly back and forth across the country or around the world for that matter to help those friends who are in need of his help. He doesn't have the time or the resources to do that. Yet, he doesn't have to do that. Along with his Blackberry, the Internet is his main communication device. The Internet is his command center of operations where he can mobilize his army of friends and direct them where to do what is needed to be done on behalf of his friends.

Instead of being there in person, he just calls upon his friends, his army of supporters to be there in his place, and his friends become their friends and vice versa. And so it goes as it grows, a mushroom cloud of friends, making new friends who are all still devoted to Joe. Without fail, there are always a few dozen of Joe's friends who lived close by to those needing a friend and a helping hand.

"Hi, I'm Joe's friend," is all that is needed for them to say. "Joe said you needed help. What can I do to help?"

It's this network of friends that makes it all work. Joe's army reaches out to include his friends as their friends, even though they've never met. So, why do they do it, why would they help a stranger who isn't even their friend? Well, that's the beauty of it. Working in the way of FaceBook, because both parties are in Joe's network of friends and both are Joe's friend, that premise helps his network to root, stem, and branch out much like a tree. Moreover, they know, when it comes their time that they need a friend, someone will be there for them, too. Call it a policy of friendship insurance.

It's gratifying to know that you never have to go through life alone. Yeah, sure we all have relatives and friends, but imagine a network of friends, a vast army of your supporters, that can be mobilized to help you through a special problem, a problem that they have had the exact same experience with to know what to do in this special circumstance, a circumstance that is unfamiliar and/or frightening to you. That network of friends to call upon is immeasurable. Whether it is needing someone to talk to or someone to ask a question of or to, figuratively and/or literarily, sit and hold your hand while you are going through a personal crisis, Joe's army will help you fight your battles for you to win your personal war.

There are a lot of people like Joe, the only real difference between Joe and other people is, when Joe made a friend, he kept a friend. With that said, all of us, any one of us, could have an army of our own of friends, if we so wanted it and if we valued people and friendship in the way that Joe does. It's a lot of work to maintain such an army, keeping in contact, and maintaining updates on all your friends. Yet, being human, what else must we do that is so important rather than to keep in close contact with our friends.

Take a moment to imagine all the people who you ever met in your lifetime. Seriously, reflect back on everyone you ever met from kindergarten through elementary school, junior high, high school, college, and all those people you met at every job you ever worked. That's right, visualize them. Concentrate, can you see their faces? Can you hear their voices?

It's a lot of people, isn't it? It's more people than you would have imagined had I not told you to take the time to think about them. Now, imagine how massive your army would have been had you befriended all of those people, maintained a relationship, and kept them as your friends. You'd have hundreds of friends, perhaps, thousands of friends.

C'mon, you're human; don't you ever wonder where those people you once knew and who were part of you life are and what they're doing now? Are they dead or alive? Who'd they marry? What are they doing for a living? Have they changed much since you knew them or are they still the same?

Well, none of these are unanswered questions for Joe; he's still in contact with all his old classmates. They are still his friends. Yeah, I know, imagine the funeral this guy will have. Just as all the funerals he's attended to pay the last respects to his departed friends, they'll be a procession of motor vehicles stretched for miles snaking their way through the city streets to the church and then to the burial ground.

Now, let's branch out a bit by adding in your sister's friends, your brother's friends, your relatives, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends of their friends and you have a decent amount of people that you already know, have already met, and that know who you are. Only, we're not nearly done, yet. Let's put some leaves on your tree by adding in all those people who you made small talk with and befriended at the gas station while pumping gas, the post office while waiting to buy postage, at the bank while waiting in line, at the supermarket roaming the aisles, at the beach while enjoying the day, at the airport getting ready to head off to vacation and those you met on the plane, those while you were on vacation, and those at the airport when returning from vacation.

Yes, I understand, of course; who talks to people at the gas station, the post office, the bank, the supermarket, the beach, the airport, and everywhere? Well, Average Joe does and all it takes is to say, "Hi, I'm Joe. What's your name?"

Do you remember how good you felt the first time you watched It's A Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart playing George Bailey opposite Donna Reed playing Mary Bailey? Do you remember when all his friends came to his aid and rescued him at the end of the movie to help him through his financial, personal crisis? That was gratifying wasn't it and is probably why you watch it year after year? You're not human if you didn't get a bit misty eyed during that part of the movie and you'd be lying if you didn't admit that you wished you had as many friends as George Bailey had during his time of need.

Well, that's what Joe's life is like nearly every day. Wouldn't you love to have an army of friends like that? I bet your life would be a lot easier if you had an army of friends. Certainly, it would be richer emotionally and spiritually. Definitely, you'd be a wealthy person having so many friends and you'd never be lonely, that's for sure.

The most important thing to know to maintain an army of friends is that you need to learn to listen and care about what you are hearing the other person say, as much as you need to talk to tell them what you need to say and them to know. Yes, of course, we all know how to listen, but do you really listen or are you busy formulating your thoughts and thinking about what you are going to say next, while your friend is still talking?

If you are not listening to what they have to say nor are you interested in what they are telling you, then you're not being much of a friend. If you're interrupting, you're not listening. If you're talking, you're not listening. If you're talking over them or talking as soon as they stopped talking, then you haven't listened carefully enough to process, understand, comprehend, and to remember what they just said.

We all discount the listening process because we all want to talk. Too often, we feel that we are more important than the speaker and what we have to say is more important than what we must hear before we can talk. In fact, if we listened, we'd discover that what we are hearing is just as important as what we need to say and that the speaker is just as important as we are. Yet, the listening process is what we need to learn. Learning to listen helps us in what we need to know to say next. Moreover, when we show that we're good listeners by showing that we are listening to what the speaker is saying more people will listen to what we have to say.

Learning to listen is not an inherited skill but an acquired one. Think about it. How many conversations can you recall immediately after you just had them? If you can't recall any conversations, then you weren't thinking about what the speaker just said; you were thinking more about what you just said or what more you needed to say. Try to remember what someone just said. That's a telling experiment to know if you were paying attention to what your friend had to say. It's a way to learn if you are a good listener or not.

As an experiment with your next conversation try listening without speaking and without thinking about what you want to say. Just focus on what the speaker is saying and take the time to process what they just said. Now, what did they just say? You don't know because you weren't listening.

What you wanted to say was more important than what they were saying. What you wanted to tell the speaker was more important than what the speaker was telling you. Both of you have missed out on a conversation. Both of your words have fallen on deaf ears because neither one of you were listening. In essence, you were talking to yourselves and imparting information that you already knew without learning anything new.

Whenever Joe has a conversation, it's always a two way street and, always, he takes a part of them with him by thinking about what they just said after leaving them. After his friend has spoken, Joe remains silent to process and understand what was just said before replying in kind. Most people have the talking part down pat, but they don't have the time to listen or to care to know any more about the person to whom they are talking. Allow me to give you a simple example of a typical exchange at work, in school or on the street.

"Hi, how are you?"

"Good and you?"

They're done with the conversation and you are, too. They've already disappeared around the corner without waiting for your response and you've gone your way in the other direction. Now, they are too far away to even hear your response, if one is even given or has answered with a response of their own or even cared enough what the other had to say. How does that make you feel? Certainly, without doubt, they are not your friend nor are you their friend to accept that kind of uncaring behavior.

Why bother saying anything? Why not just avoid eye contact? Pretend that you don't even see them. Hey, what the Hell, bump their shoulder and knock them to the ground. Not acknowledging their question is just as rude and insulting as what just transpired by walking away without waiting for their response.

What if there had been something really important you wanted them to know?

"My dog died. I have cancer. They just fired me...and you. Hello? Is there anyone there? Hey, where'd you go?"

Now, instead, if you just stopped and took a few seconds out of your valuable life to listen long enough to hear how the person you just passed by is really doing, you may learn something that could help you later in your life. Why not? We are all people traveling the same path. You are no more important than the next person. What they have to tell you is just as interesting as what you need to say. By showing people that you care and are willing to take the time to hear what they are saying by listening, they are more apt to give you the mutual respect by listening to what you have to say. Try it. It works.

Certainly, you don't want to spend your day talking to your co-workers. Your boss will think you are not very productive. Yet, by taking the few extra seconds to listen and process what someone has just told you will, no doubt, teach them to do the same when listening to what you have to say.

Allow me to ask you a question? Why so glum? Why are you hiding behind your frown, your big hat or baseball cap, and your sunglasses? You're not in the Witness Protection Program are you? Then, why dress to be so invisible? Who are you to be so private when appearing out in public? Cat got your tongue? You don't have anything to say, not even so much as a hello? This is your chance to make a friend. Go ahead. Don't be shy. You just need to smile and say, "Hi." See? Wasn't that easy? No one shot you in the face. Don't you feel better?

Being a person himself, Joe likes people. Matter of fact, he prefers being with and talking to people than he prefers doing anything else. After all, he is a person, a member of the human race. Why wouldn't he prefer talking to people, one of his own kind, rather than talking to, say, an animal, a cat or a dog? Think about it.

How much time do you spend talking to your pet? Yeah, sure, it's good to bond with your pet, it's therapeutic, but you begin to have a social problem when you prefer your pets to people, as too many people do. Some of these people hide behind their pets and become so misanthropic that they actually go out of their way not to talk to anyone. Do you really expect Fluffy or Buster to answer you or even understand anything beyond their 2-year-old mentality of comprehension? If you ask me, you're getting the raw end of the deal trying to have a conversation with your pet when they only care about food and eliminating their waste.

Joe devotes all of his time in not only cultivating friends but also in keeping friends and it's more difficult by a long shot to keep a friend than it is to make one. Think about that. Imagine never being bored. Imagine having a wealth of people to ask and answer a question that you need answered. Imagine having a friend everywhere you go and never being alone. Can you hear me now? Yeah, Joe has his own Verizon network of family and friends, only so much bigger and so much more loyally devoted to him.

Indeed, there is something special about Joe. He enjoys being ordinary and in that regard has become extraordinary because so many people believe that they are special after having had a conversation with Joe and he is special to have made them feel that way. Yet, they are no better than anyone else and that's what comes across when talking with Joe.

He's the type of guy who can find common ground with anyone rich or poor, educated or illiterate, and angry or kind. People are relaxed and are themselves when talking to Joe. Average Joe is non-judgmental. He's accepting. Because Joe accepts people and accepts whatever they say as the truth, after a while, there are no pretensions getting in the way of two people having an honest conversation and a healthy discussion while maintaining a give and take dialogue.

There's a warm inner glow when you've had a good day and a good time conversing with people. You can't put a price tag on friendship and a healthy exchange of communication. When talking to someone, especially when talking to a stranger before making them your friend, you're imparting your knowledge and listening to their experiences. There is a wealth of information that both of you take away just from a simple exchange of dialogue. How nice is that and it's free, too?

No one can quite put their finger on it, but they like Joe, as soon as they meet him. Yeah, Joe's a talker, but he's a listening, too, and he's not a liar. Everything he says is the truth. Why not? He has nothing to hide. Besides, you can't possibly start and continue a friendship on lies, half truths, and deception.

Some mistake him for a spiritual man. He could have been that, but he's not. Not that he doesn't believe in God, he does, he just enjoys meeting and talking to people. He just wants to make you his friend.