Should I Be Offended?...Is that Going To Offend People?

This is a subject I've been contemplating in my head a lot recently. It's such a sensitive issue. Ironic huh? The fact that so many people can have the same views as you yet that same amount have the opposite. What do you do? Stay quiet? Some people do. For argument's sake, I tend to throw my hat in the ring if I'm fully behind my belief and/or opinion. That rubs some people the wrong way, that's ok I'm running for a popularity contest. I do like to be liked, just like everyone else but I wont compromise my opinions so I can be liked.


Which brings me back to my topic. People are too sensitive these days. Everything bothers people. Weather, sports, politics, work, peers, coffee, holidays. You name it, someone's offended. In this day in age, we all have to be politically correct. Why? So we can get more Facebook and Instagram likes?? Who are we trying to impress? Why does that matter? Aren't we all at this point of our lives by doing things our way anyway? So why are we getting so offended by bullshit?




I'll give you some examples.

Example 1:

Simon Malls Holiday Display

Boycotting Simon Malls for their generic "Holiday display". They claim they wanted to create a more modern holiday experience. How are you going to modernize an old jolly fat guy in red suit? Is he going to be Justin Beiber with a six pack and a nicely trimmed beard? No! Leave it alone. There's nothing to modernize about Christmas. I get that there are people that don't celebrate the holiday but instead of pissing off the majority of the country that does, why don't we incorporate more? Not for nothing, but every religion does get their time to celebrate their big days of the year. It just so happens that Christmas IS the money making "day" that businesses spend months on preparing for. Money talks. Whether you agree with the greed behind the concept or not, it's the truth and it's what makes America the greatest and most hated country in the world. I was in favor of the boycott. While I hate the commercialization of  Christmas and the "What are you getting me " I do like the season, the music, the decorations, the cold, the snow that comes along with it. If it didn't then it's just another day turning into another week, turning into another month. Nothing wrong with wanting to make something feel special. Christmas is something that should feel special, not generic.

Starbucks 2015 Red Cups

Example 2:


Starbucks removed "Holiday themed decorations" on their cups and now all we're left with is plain red cups. Starbucks is claiming they want the consumer to use the extra space to use it as a canvas and decorate the cup as they wish. This is with the hopes of people taking to social media and posting their "personalized design" all the while promoting Starbucks in the process. Genius or a clever escape from controversy? I'm in the middle here. I love the "Holiday Season" so anything that makes it more generic I'm against but I'm going to take a wait and see approach here. While I don't think it really matters wtf Starbucks does because I'm only a consumer 2-3 months out of the year when they have their Valencia Orange Refresher in the summer and their Peppermint Mocha during the holidays, I do like the idea that those two items are significant staples of their respective seasons.

Example 3:




2015 NY Mets Failed To Win The World Series

The NY Mets recently made a run into the World Series and unfortunately came up short on their quest for a championship. This was BY FAR one of the most ridiculous and fun occurrences to happen in recent times. I am a die hard Yankees fan, to the point that anyone who knows me KNOWS this. There are not many things that I am passionate about, but the Yankees are one. I grew up idolizing Derek Jeter. The fame, the fortune, the dream of playing for your favorite team to come true with the absurd amount of success he has had. It just fills you up with jealousy, envy and amazement. I digress. So the time came where the Mets were the ones everyone was talking about. I was too, but I was going against them. I couldn't stand to see the "other" team in NY win while my team was out before the tournament even started. So it began, the banter. LETS GO METS...METS SUCK. For 4 weeks this went on and it felt like an eternity. I was just waiting for the Mets to die. They wouldn't. So I did everything I could to defend my Yankees. I went toe to toe with many Met fans. The general public who stood in the middle of the debate without a clear cut side said I should root for the Mets because it was NY. My answer was no. My answer was I was a Yankee fan. I was loyal to my team. They give me a team that I can be proud to root for every year. I wasn't going to cheat on them just because my "girlfriend" wasn't home and the Mets were right there. To this, it angered most people. First , why? It's my opinion. Second, what was wrong with showing loyalty? Third, people got so offended I was called names and got unfriended on social media. Uh-oh...oh no! Give me a break. You offended that a Yankee fan wanted the Mets to lose? Wow. Most people just take it as good ol' smack talk bur others took it personal, to the heart, and to the brain. I was shocked that people called me ignorant because I was being faithful to the team I love. But it showed that people take some things too seriously and sports shouldn't be one of them.

I could go on and on about all three subjects but honestly, I've spent enough time on them. EX1 I sided with the offended, EX2 I was in the middle, EX3 I was against the offended. Truth be told, all three are topics that some people got offended by and all three are topics people are just rolling their eyes at wondering why we're even wasting time on it. Everyone has a right to be offended, if they feel like there's a legit reason but if you have no reason to be offended then stop complaining and do something to help better the situation.

Until next time....

The Road Less Traveled - Fitness and Dieting

MERRIBALLZ ON FITNESS

I don’t even know what to focus on, so here’s a list: hoards of selfies, false advice, fucked up dietary advice, objectification of women, objectification of men, waist training, personal training, body image, judgment, narrow-mindedness, fake versus real, opinions versus fact, me, you , them. What I have written above is called a stream of consciousness and is great when you have a topic in mind but don’t know what theme or idea to work with. As I sat down to write my first fitness post I found myself rambling and jumping all over the place with my ideas, so I deleted everything and instead just typed out several topics I will eventually cover in my fitness related posts. True to my libra nature I have the tendency to pass judgment severely in all aspects of my life.

 Growing up, I have become conscious of this part of my personality and have been making a big effort to become well researched and informed before forming my ideas and opinions. In regard to fitness, I have learned that my journey and experience is only relevant to me. My methodology may be useless to one person and extremely helpful to another. I cannot emphasize how important staying true to yourself is when it comes to body image and fitness. Fitness isn’t only about having physical strength and an aesthetically pleasing figure. One must have a happy and healthy mind as well . To begin, I will give that generic “My fitness journey” story so anyone reading this can have an outline of where I’m coming from. Generic as it is, this will help readers as well as myself with organizing future thoughts and arguments.

As a child I was always skinny and never applied any energy or thought to physical fitness. My mom was a homemaker who was always there to make my family healthy home-cooked meals. Growing up I learned to love everything. I had my favorite fruits and vegetables and always loved beef, chicken and especially seafood. I also developed a huge sweet tooth. My mom is a MEAN baker so I always had fresh cookies and cakes to choose from for my dessert. My lifestyle was very active. Growing up before iphones and ipads I had to… GASP! PLAY OUTSIDE!! Dodgeball, manhunt, and street hockey were my favorites and I would spend all day with my friends running all over the neighborhood. Going into high school I started buying lunch and started some less healthy eating habits. I lived on soda, bacon and cheese bagels, and sweets, however I still had an active lifestyle dancing and walking 2 miles a day to and from school. When I went to college things began to change.

 My freshman year I developed seasonal depressive disorder because I was living in Syracuse, NY which is very cold and dark from November to April. I spent most of my time sleeping and would only get up to stuff my face with unhealthy cheap foods. When I wasn’t sleeping or eating, I was drinking like a fish. When I transferred to school in New Orleans I was much happier, but still eating like shit and partying all weekend. My “fitness life” started at about age 20. My mentality was “I want a 6-pack.” Ughh… So I started as I think most young women do, running on the elliptical and doing some crunches. I lost some weight over the summer going into my senior year, but gained it back quickly when I returned to New Orleans for school. With the help from some friends I discovered my love for weights. Starting with the basics I was curling 8 lb dumbells and doing lightweight tricep pull downs along with my elliptical bullshit. I started eating really well and learned how to deadlift.

I had a crazy 3 hour gym routine involving weights, abs, cardio, stretching and sauna time, followed by a healthy post-work out meal. My body was finally starting to look great… and then 2 things happened. I got back together with the love of my life just in time for Mardi Gras season. The party that year was great , but when it ended my routine was fucked. I would finish class and instead of hitting the gym would go and spend the night in bed with my man smoking weed and watching TV with some burgers and fries. Upon graduating another depression hit. What was I doing with my life? What would become of my relationship now that we were apart? So I came home and drank, smoked and ate my feelings away and throwing all my progress out the window. When I saw the photos from my annual Montauk vacation with my friends I was pissed. What the hell happened? This is when I became obsessed. I started following a lot of “fitness girls” on facebook and looked at their posts as my bible. I started all kinds of crazy dieting. Not eating any bread made me a psychopath. Protein pancakes were gross. But I still forced myself into these other people’s diet plans hoping my body would look like theirs. THE WORST MENTALITY EVER! However, my weight training improved as I became more informed and soon I cut out cardio all together and focused on the weights.

I started to love how my body was looking, but my mind was still unstable. Eventually I unfollowed all those “fitness girls” and started making decisions for me. The process was slow but soon I found a way to balance my love for sweets and comfort food with healthy options. This was long process I won’t go into on this post, but I learned dieting was a personal thing you have to do WITH your body not AGAINST your body. Wanting to look like someone else wasn’t working for me. Last year I started dancing again which has proven to be the best way for me to be healthy. Not only does it work my body physically, but mentally as well. I dove headfirst into ballet, contemporary, west African and other styles of dancing. I have re-kindled my true love and have never been more content with my body and mind.

My fitness journey is on its 5th year and had a lot of ups and downs. Besides figuring out your diet, injuries, heartbreak, and stress have a big impact on physical fitness. Your journey has to be all about YOU which is a huge challenge this day and age with influences from friends, family and social media most of all. It really is a challenge to stay on track but anything that knocks you down will make you stronger if you choose to learn instead of lament. My next posts about fitness will be targeted toward certain topics so please feel free to comment something you would like me to write about. I will do my best to be objective, but certainly be prepared to hear some ranting and raving as I find many aspects of fitness culture to be extremely problematic.

~~MERRI BALLZ~~

The Life and Times at NYSC

Merri Ballz here- I am very excited about this blog my friend Frank started up here. I’m a 24 year old brunette libra with an innate sense of justice and an allergy to bullshit. While my sunshine and yoga loving self is always trying to cultivate wholesome thoughts and ideas, I have another side that loves to wear black and go on verbal rampages whenever something or someone pisses me off. In other words, I’m a total weirdo still trying to figure her shit out and get her life together… Ideally without murdering someone in the process or running off to live the traveling gypsy life. Enough about me already.

 I had such a hard time figuring out what this first post should be about, because I have so much to say and it’s all pretty important. So I’ve decided to tell the story of how I met this Frank person who started this blog. Frank and I met years ago at New York Sports club aka the worst fucking place on earth. NYSC had a habit of trying to suck every last cent out of me despite the fact that I was a struggling college student working a service job just trying to get swole. Frank was a membership consultant who set me up with a free personal training session… It was horrible. The guy called me fat, weak and had me driving my ass home in tears after a 20 minute session. When I saw Frank the next day he greeted me with a smile as usual asking how everything went. Me being me I let him have it. I laid into this poor guy but eventually eased up when I could tell he genuinely felt really bad. I stayed at NYSC about 3 years for two reasons: it was less than a 2 minute drive from my house, and Frank. In those years this guy, whose head I wanted to rip off for putting me in that awful situation, became a great friend and my source of sanity at New York Freak Club.

Frank is everything NYSC is not. He is the genuine article who put more effort into his job than anyone else who worked there and they STILL treated him like garbage. With the exception of a few others; NYSC managers, trainers and consultants have sticks up their asses and a big attitude problem. Get ready to be harassed by CLUELESS trainers for half your workout because they have “quotas” they need to fill to keep their job. The managers there? They order mother-fucking pizza and stuff their fat-ass faces stinking up the gym with sauce and cheese as members try and get their FITNESS on. I cannot express how much I hate this fucking place, and I knew when Frank finally bounced that I would have to as well. I am now at a smaller, locally owned gym that I love but I miss my friend Frank.

I’m super excited to have this opportunity to work with him on this blog as we have spent hours ranting and laughing together. He knows I’m out of my mind but still gave me permission to write something for him. That’s it for now. Now we all know I have a foul mouth, love fitness, and think NYSC is run by a bunch of idiots. Hopefully my writing has been entertaining somewhat, and if you feel inclined ask me a question or my opinion on some shit and that will be the topic of my next post. I have a lot more to say and it’s only gonna get more outrageous so be prepared.

~~ MERRI BALLZ ~~

Yeah..This is Life AND I'm Sharing!

We all have things we want to share with the world but just don't know how. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter seem to be the way we communicate everyday life situations, thoughts and opinions. But there's only so much you can type, only so much a picture can say, and quite frankly, only so much time people will get to read your post before it gets buried in the shuffle. So I thought this might be the next best thing. I've blogged before ( Click Here) and many people have tried but honestly, our everyday life consumes so much of our time that its near impossible to maintain a site on a daily basis. That's what makes social media so much fun, you can updates things within seconds.

The vision I have for this site is to be an access "Go to" site when you're bored with social media. It happens more often than not. I've come across so many stories both good and bad that I've wanted to share someway but Facebook statuses can only do so much. I wanted to write about horrible dates I've gone on, great workouts I've had, unique experiences or something funny I saw. Now I'm going to do it. But I won't be alone. I have a few people that want to contribute to this project and it'll make it fun.

Now, I know what you're thinking...who the hell are you and why do I want to read about your boring ass life, my life's way better. While that may be true for some, but I think I have a good hold on the pulse of what might be interesting to you the reader and what's just probably stupid. The thing is...no matter what I put up or write about, there will be an audience for it. Whether it's sports, wrestling,music, dating, food, trivia, travel, work, memories, debates or entertainment, someone will read it and have their opinion on it. Maybe they'll write their own opinion on it from a completely different perspective. Isn't that exciting? I think so and with the response I've gotten so far, a lot of people think so too.

So if you have a great place to go eat, or watch a movie, or a great bar, shoot me an email FNegron24@Yahoo.com and let's get you the credit you deserve! I can't tell you how far this will go but one thing I've learned is, never say never!