Roy–an insecure middle aged man who–most of the time–is a complete a**. Once in a while he opens up and you see the hurting person inside.

Brian–happy go lucky, Forest Gump-ing his way through life, and mostly unbeknownst to him, madly searching for something, something which he doesn’t know what it is.
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Roy: I chickened out, I didn’t go. Think about all the bad things that could happen!

Brian: Who knows! Who cares! Roy, you gotta be a ten-percenter!

Roy: Huh?

Brian: A ten percenter, like me. See, I’m constantly trying stupid and outrageous stuff, right? Ninety percent of the time it just blows up in my face, but that’s ok, because I rarely use my own name [tongue in cheek].

*pause, for comic effect*

Brian: See, the other 10% of the time when it pays off, it is, a high, like you would’t believe.

Roy: Damn. Why didn’t I have the guts to go.
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I love Brian Hackett’s philosophy. Brian Hackett is a character in the wonderful 90’s show Wings. Granted, I like for things to work out, generally, more then 10% of the time, but his reasoning is almost dead-center with how I like to live life day to day and year to year. All of the face plants and horrific foot-in-mouth moments and the grinding years of working for some extremely tenuous possibility–it is all worth it for that one moment when I bet and the chips fall my way and oh baby hang on because I am going soaring in the stars. As Babe Ruth says: “I like to swing big, with everything I’ve got. I hit big or I miss big.”