It’s your birthday, Saturday night. You’re sitting at a table, eating buffalo wings with friends, and things slow down and you start to realize that you aren’t just eating wings. You watch as one guy keeps taking all the wingettes(that’s apparently what they’re called), while another person is clearly using up all the Blue Cheese. Big, giant dips! Then you notice that the celery is gone, but they are all just half eaten on that woman’s plate. There are no napkins left, they are all crumpled up in front of that guy who takes a new napkin after every bite. Then it happens, there is one wing left, it’s sitting there. Your good friend, the one you are closest with, that you trust – your thoughtful, insightful and just a great person kind of friend, reaches down and takes the last wing, without hesitation. And you think to yourself….

What do you think, before reading on?

Scenario #1: Things are not what they seem.

• The guy eating all the good wings, he has an issue with his teeth, and recently had surgery. He can’t open his mouth all the way, so he is eating the thinner wings.
• The person with all the blue cheese, she can’t eat wings, they are too spicy and make her lips swell up, but she didn’t want to ruin the fun, so she’s soaking the wings in blue cheese to cut the spice.
• The woman eating all the celery, she took one and noticed it was bad, like it had been sitting out all day. She knows her friend will get angry and send it back and she hates the drama, so she is eating them quickly despite the gross factor.
• The guy taking the napkins, he’s just an asshole taking all the napkins.
• And your good friend, the one who took the last wing, like he didn’t care one bit about anybody else…he was thinking, this will be awkward for everyone, I’ll just eat it so nobody else looks like a jerk by taking the last one. He was protecting the others in advance.

Or, Scenario #2: Things are exactly as they seem,

• They are all selfish, completely unaware, and uncaring. They are doing their thing and couldn’t be bothered to accommodate anyone else, no less you. They have no good reason. They just “make decisions”.

The beauty of this is that one or both may be true. And you will never really know. Because if you ask, you get the old rule that once you measure something, it has been affected, and therefore your measurement is no longer valid. Meaning, if you ask, you’re not going to be able to believe the answers anyway, because you had to ask. So, as with anything in life, the only thing you can really control is your own reaction. 

Eating wings has so may stupid little nuances. Or maybe they aren’t so stupid. 

This podcast is about those last wing moments. It’s about whether you can maintain your integrity, trust and move forward, whether you can focus on the things you can change and not the things you can’t. How to deal with those people who ruthlessly make decisions without thinking of the consequences or impact. The clueless, the naive, the nasty, the well-intentioned, everyone. It’s about focusing on you, even after a last wing moment.