Shark Week
This week is Shark Week and excitement is in the water.
For the uninitiated, Shark Week is a weeklong series of shows on the Discovery Channel about sharks. It has become a big deal over the last decade or so, and it is certainly a big deal at our house. Matthew is a big Shark Week fan and will rearrange all aspects of his life around it. Justin has a growing appreciation for them, and even the girls would get into it at different times. Barbara might be the biggest Shark Week fan of all and she looks forward to it every year.
While I definitely enjoy everyone else’s enjoyment of Shark Week, I could care less about most of it. I mean, sharks are fine. I get that the oceanic ecosystem needs their presence. I have respect for them. What I don’t have is a deep desire to watch John Cena talk about them every night for a week, or watch the shows in which people who should be smarter keep putting themselves deliberately in harm’s way. It is all a little much. (Author’s Note: I will absolutely make an exception for shows that show sharks attacking people who do dumb stuff. I am a sucker for karma.)
What Shark Week reinforces for me is that everyone has their own ideas about what’s good and what’s enjoyable. I have my own preferences (and they tend to be very, very strong), but that doesn’t mean that I expect everyone in the family to share my love of 70s music or horror movies. In fact, I know most of them don’t enjoy that stuff at all. Even though we are family, we have different interests and passions. There is no expectation that everyone will like space like Justin or video games like Lizzie or writing like dad and Alex.
Different strokes for different folks.