There is much said about youth, particularly about being a teenager. I'm sure you can distinctly recall being told that you "didn't know anything" when you were between say 13 and 20. Which at the time is probably the most annoying thing anyone could say to you. Alas, it is also true. Really the true joy of youth is not knowing anything.
I long for those days when I thought I knew what I was doing, thought that my parents were just trying to control me and that their "advice" was based on their life and not on me. I mean I was going to do things my way! I have to pause now to laugh....
Now that I am older and a parent, I realize (to my chagrin) that my parents were mainly right about what they told me. I am a unique person and not everything they said applies to me or to the choices that I have made but what you don't know when you are young is that there are some rules in life that you don't have the option to follow. When you are young you truly believe that your life is your own, that you have control and that you can "make" things happen the way you want them to.
It is usually painful and sometimes humiliating when life decides to teach you a lesson. Like gravity and physics, there are laws and you cannot change them by design or will. Gravity is gravity...you can't avoid it. But the sheer joy of thinking that you can...is intoxicating.
When my brother was about 5 years old he decided to ride his bike down a large concrete slide in the park where we were playing. He was five and it seemed like a good idea to him. Needless to say, the laws of physics had another plan and in the end there were tears, blood and a lot of panicked adults. Also needless to say, my brother never rode his bike down a concrete slide again. That was one lesson he only needed to learn once!
Unfortunately the life lessons you learn as you stumble into adulthood are similar in experience to the bike/concrete slide story...there is usually tears, sometimes blood and a lot of panicked adults. As you get older the pain is greater, the consequences more severe and longer lasting.
But you do not know this and you are ignoring all the people who could possibly help. It's like falling overboard and then refusing to be rescued because you're sure you can swim to shore. You might be able to get there but what condition are you going to be in when you arrive? Life is all about survival and continual denial of the facts is risky business.
I do miss that feeling of possibility and hope for things I don't understand. It was blissful. Now I have to live with the pain of knowing. And being a person who tries to avoid pain as much as possible (I've had my fill for this lifetime), watching my daughters grow up and seeing what they don't know is almost as painful as going through it all over again in my own life.
I can't save them from themselves...I know this, but I hope that once in awhile they let me show them an easier way or accept that the advice I give is in an effort to save them from what I know is inevitable pain and suffering. I would go back to the age where I "thought" I knew everything in a second, but not if I had to relive the process of learning what it is to "know". Gravity is unavoidable, I have the bruises and scars to prove it.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Just Because You Can, Doesn't Mean You Should
During the 1970's and 1980's there was a psychological movement that was so pervasive that it has created the uninhibited expressionism that we are exposed to on a daily basis. We were told how important it was for us to "express" how we felt about everything. Holding back our feelings was having negative effects on our health and our relationships. We were "suppressing" our feelings to such an extent that we could not be truly fulfilled in our lives.
Thirty years later...we see that self expression taken to the extremes and available to us 24/7 via technological advances. Anyone can say anything they want with relative anonymity in cyberspace. We can hide behind our screen name, email or blog and express our every thought and feeling. The availability to be anonymous and say what we want when we want has seeped out of the computer and into our daily lives. We have taken to expressing everything we think or feel without any thought for the repercussions. Rather than learning how to communicate in a productive and positive way, we have regressed into childish tantrums thrown out haplessly into the universe. The anonymity has lent itself to the inability to talk to someone face to face about an issue. More importantly it has given us the mistaken belief that we MUST express ourselves about whatever we think or feel.
There is a great danger in this trend that has manifested into two distinct problems. The first problem is that whatever you put out in to the universe comes back to you. The universe is a great cosmic boomerang. If you say it, think it, feel it, you have sent a message out into the world to make it true. It may not show up exactly as you thought or how you wished but it WILL show up. For instance, you will have friends who will tell you that they really want to have a relationship but they can't ever find the "right" guy/girl. They are saying that they want to meet someone, hence they will BUT if what they are really feeling is that they don't deserve a "right" guy/girl, or they don't feel good about who they are as a person, the response will be someone who isn't "right" for them.
The second problem is that saying everything you think or feel may make you feel better temporarily but it doesn't resolve the real issue. If you do not give yourself time to think about WHY you feel the way you do AND more importantly what part you play in the situation, expressing your feelings about it will be like constantly eating but still feeling hungry.
Acknowledging your feelings, thinking about why you feel the way you do and most importantly what you are doing or not doing that is helping to create this feeling, is an imperative part of your growth as a person. If you are not patient with your feelings you will never understand them.
Self-expression is a unique and wonderful part of being a human being. It is how we connect with one another and how we learn about ourselves and our world. But, just because you can express yourself at any given moment, doesn't mean you should. Next time, before you post that blog, or send that email or instant message, give yourself time to think about it and then decide whether you want to put it out into the universe.
Thirty years later...we see that self expression taken to the extremes and available to us 24/7 via technological advances. Anyone can say anything they want with relative anonymity in cyberspace. We can hide behind our screen name, email or blog and express our every thought and feeling. The availability to be anonymous and say what we want when we want has seeped out of the computer and into our daily lives. We have taken to expressing everything we think or feel without any thought for the repercussions. Rather than learning how to communicate in a productive and positive way, we have regressed into childish tantrums thrown out haplessly into the universe. The anonymity has lent itself to the inability to talk to someone face to face about an issue. More importantly it has given us the mistaken belief that we MUST express ourselves about whatever we think or feel.
There is a great danger in this trend that has manifested into two distinct problems. The first problem is that whatever you put out in to the universe comes back to you. The universe is a great cosmic boomerang. If you say it, think it, feel it, you have sent a message out into the world to make it true. It may not show up exactly as you thought or how you wished but it WILL show up. For instance, you will have friends who will tell you that they really want to have a relationship but they can't ever find the "right" guy/girl. They are saying that they want to meet someone, hence they will BUT if what they are really feeling is that they don't deserve a "right" guy/girl, or they don't feel good about who they are as a person, the response will be someone who isn't "right" for them.
The second problem is that saying everything you think or feel may make you feel better temporarily but it doesn't resolve the real issue. If you do not give yourself time to think about WHY you feel the way you do AND more importantly what part you play in the situation, expressing your feelings about it will be like constantly eating but still feeling hungry.
Acknowledging your feelings, thinking about why you feel the way you do and most importantly what you are doing or not doing that is helping to create this feeling, is an imperative part of your growth as a person. If you are not patient with your feelings you will never understand them.
Self-expression is a unique and wonderful part of being a human being. It is how we connect with one another and how we learn about ourselves and our world. But, just because you can express yourself at any given moment, doesn't mean you should. Next time, before you post that blog, or send that email or instant message, give yourself time to think about it and then decide whether you want to put it out into the universe.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Becoming You
Here is the myth: when you become an adult you somehow, "magically" know who you are. You are supposed to be a whole person, a completed individual at some intentionally hazy moment in time. This moment has been defined by our society and government as the 18th year of your existence. The reality is that at 18 you are a person transitioning into adulthood, the first step of which is leaving your parents house and going to college or work. Other steps hopefully follow, work, financial independence, possibly marriage and children. So at that point you should be a fully formed person and "adult", right? Yeah, right.
The first step to adulthood is independence but becoming you, knowing you, is far more complex and time consuming than transitioning into independence. Independence is an important part of understanding who you are but it is only a small part.
Have you ever purchased an inexpensive piece of furniture that requires assembly? You purchase the piece, bring it home, open the box and here is what you find: instructions (usually written by someone who has never tried to put the item together), and several pieces, including nuts, bolts and sometimes special "wrench's to insert said hardware. If you have never had this experience - the "put it together yourself" furniture - you must try it. If you want to really learn something about yourself - a "do it yourself" project will give you some great insight into your personality. But I digress...
My point is that YOU are the piece of "do it yourself" furniture. At 18 or 19 or even 20, you are just pieces or who you will become. Your job is to put it all together. Which does not happen in the manner, the speed or the method that you imagine it will happen. It's a slow process with a learning curve the size of the Jura Mountains (look it up).
As you begin this process you will put things together incorrectly and have to start over. You may be missing a piece or something may not fit exactly as you think it should. It will be frustrating and aggravating. There will be swearing, sweat and possibly tears and blood. Hopefully it won't require a trip to the emergency room but sometimes it does. You may put it all together and decide you don't like it and want something completely different. No matter what...it won't be easy.
Putting YOU together is a process. You are in the process of creating YOU. Right now, you don't know what that is going to look like and you're not sure if all the pieces are going to fit right but you just have to dig in and get to work.
The path to adulthood is built upon experience and choice, learning what works for you and what doesn't and ultimately being unafraid to work at creating something out of a box full of pieces. You can't become YOU without learning to do it yourself.
The first step to adulthood is independence but becoming you, knowing you, is far more complex and time consuming than transitioning into independence. Independence is an important part of understanding who you are but it is only a small part.
Have you ever purchased an inexpensive piece of furniture that requires assembly? You purchase the piece, bring it home, open the box and here is what you find: instructions (usually written by someone who has never tried to put the item together), and several pieces, including nuts, bolts and sometimes special "wrench's to insert said hardware. If you have never had this experience - the "put it together yourself" furniture - you must try it. If you want to really learn something about yourself - a "do it yourself" project will give you some great insight into your personality. But I digress...
My point is that YOU are the piece of "do it yourself" furniture. At 18 or 19 or even 20, you are just pieces or who you will become. Your job is to put it all together. Which does not happen in the manner, the speed or the method that you imagine it will happen. It's a slow process with a learning curve the size of the Jura Mountains (look it up).
As you begin this process you will put things together incorrectly and have to start over. You may be missing a piece or something may not fit exactly as you think it should. It will be frustrating and aggravating. There will be swearing, sweat and possibly tears and blood. Hopefully it won't require a trip to the emergency room but sometimes it does. You may put it all together and decide you don't like it and want something completely different. No matter what...it won't be easy.
Putting YOU together is a process. You are in the process of creating YOU. Right now, you don't know what that is going to look like and you're not sure if all the pieces are going to fit right but you just have to dig in and get to work.
The path to adulthood is built upon experience and choice, learning what works for you and what doesn't and ultimately being unafraid to work at creating something out of a box full of pieces. You can't become YOU without learning to do it yourself.
Monday, August 27, 2007
You are an Investment
The transition from childhood to adulthood is not an easy one. That transition culminates in the "child" becoming a young adult, leaving home and going out into the world - to college or work usually. It also culminates in a relationship shift between the young adult and the parent - which is not easy for either party. It is difficult for young adults to understand how to handle their parents at this stage of their lives. They fear that if they involve them too much that the parent might try to intervene more than the young adult would like. They fear that if they involve them too little that the parents will become upset and angry. It's hard to figure out how to deal with this new relationship complexity.
Being a parent and having been a young adult, I can relate to the feelings of both parties. I've thought long and hard about what I could say to someone to help them understand how they can make this transition less painful for their parents and themselves. Below is my advice to young adults fresh from leaving home...
Think of your parents, not as the your parents but as your investors. Whatever support - financial, emotional, physical - they are going to offer to you in the future is an investment in YOUR future. Imagine that your new life is a business. You have talent and great ideas but you don't really have much money and you've never run a business before. However, you are smart enough to know that you can't make the business successful without the support of people who are already successful business people (your parents). So, you need them to invest in your business so that YOU can be successful as well. How do you do that?
First - you need a plan, a course of action for college or work.
Second - you need to be able to explain what you are going to do to make this plan work.
Third - you have to be willing to communicate with your investors on your progress, giving them insights to your successes, being honest with mistakes and what you have done to correct them and knowing when to ask for advice.
Note: The trick with asking for advice is to know ahead of time what specifically you need advice about. Make it a straightforward request - not "I just don't know what to do" but more "I am thinking about doing A but I am also considering B, what do you think?" Coming up with two choices instead of leaving it open to the person giving advice to figure out the choices for you is always the best way to get good advice. Save the "I just don't know what to do" for your friends, who are there to give you unconditional support, not great advice.
You're parents will love you unconditionally, but your investors will not invest unconditionally in you. Investment has conditions. Namely that you can prove that you are worth the investment.
As long as you want your parents to invest in you, you must be willing to commit to the three principles outlined above. If you are unwilling to do this, then plan on trying to get the job done on your own. You may not have to answer to anyone but it's going to take you twice as long, cost you twice as much and be twice as difficult.
You are an investment. The most important investment your parents have. So far they have invested 18 years in you. Now they are willing to invest even more into helping you become an adult. And adulthood is only achieved when you can fully support your business and in turn invest in someone else.
Being a parent and having been a young adult, I can relate to the feelings of both parties. I've thought long and hard about what I could say to someone to help them understand how they can make this transition less painful for their parents and themselves. Below is my advice to young adults fresh from leaving home...
Think of your parents, not as the your parents but as your investors. Whatever support - financial, emotional, physical - they are going to offer to you in the future is an investment in YOUR future. Imagine that your new life is a business. You have talent and great ideas but you don't really have much money and you've never run a business before. However, you are smart enough to know that you can't make the business successful without the support of people who are already successful business people (your parents). So, you need them to invest in your business so that YOU can be successful as well. How do you do that?
First - you need a plan, a course of action for college or work.
Second - you need to be able to explain what you are going to do to make this plan work.
Third - you have to be willing to communicate with your investors on your progress, giving them insights to your successes, being honest with mistakes and what you have done to correct them and knowing when to ask for advice.
Note: The trick with asking for advice is to know ahead of time what specifically you need advice about. Make it a straightforward request - not "I just don't know what to do" but more "I am thinking about doing A but I am also considering B, what do you think?" Coming up with two choices instead of leaving it open to the person giving advice to figure out the choices for you is always the best way to get good advice. Save the "I just don't know what to do" for your friends, who are there to give you unconditional support, not great advice.
You're parents will love you unconditionally, but your investors will not invest unconditionally in you. Investment has conditions. Namely that you can prove that you are worth the investment.
As long as you want your parents to invest in you, you must be willing to commit to the three principles outlined above. If you are unwilling to do this, then plan on trying to get the job done on your own. You may not have to answer to anyone but it's going to take you twice as long, cost you twice as much and be twice as difficult.
You are an investment. The most important investment your parents have. So far they have invested 18 years in you. Now they are willing to invest even more into helping you become an adult. And adulthood is only achieved when you can fully support your business and in turn invest in someone else.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
To Thine Own Self Be True
When I was in sixth grade, my teacher had the quote: "To Thine Own Self Be True" over the blackboard in our classroom. A tall order for sixth graders, who did not have the first clue about their "own selves". It is a line from Hamlet (William Shakespeare), in which the character of Polonius prepares his son Laertes for travel abroad with a speech in which he directs the youth to commit a "few precepts to memory." That quote has stuck with me all these years. I knew that it was a statement of fact - you should be true to yourself in all things. Not an easy lesson to learn but definitely one to aspire to every day.
I love quotes. A great quote is able to sum up something that is true in a few words. The less words that you can use to say it, usually the better the quote. One of my favorite websites is www.thinkexist.com. You can look up quotes, subscribe to daily quotes, get a quote put on a t-shirt. It's awesome!
Here are a few of my favorite quotes - the short summation of a truth, a reminder of what we should be aspiring to everyday.
Aristotle:
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion and desire.”
“Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.”
Socrates:
"The unexamined life is not worth living.”
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel”
"To find yourself, think for yourself”
Albert Einstein:
“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.”
“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough”
"The only real valuable thing is intuition.”
“The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything”
“Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.”
Mark Twain:
“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”
"There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.”
“A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.”
Edgar Allan Poe:
“All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry”
“Stupidity is a talent for misconception.”
Dr. Suess:
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”
“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
George Sheehan:
“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be”
Bertrand Russell:
“The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe:
“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”
Calvin Coolidge:
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”
Find your own precepts, write them down, memorize them, find a place to post them so you can be reminded every day. To Thine Own Self Be True.
I love quotes. A great quote is able to sum up something that is true in a few words. The less words that you can use to say it, usually the better the quote. One of my favorite websites is www.thinkexist.com. You can look up quotes, subscribe to daily quotes, get a quote put on a t-shirt. It's awesome!
Here are a few of my favorite quotes - the short summation of a truth, a reminder of what we should be aspiring to everyday.
Aristotle:
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion and desire.”
“Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.”
Socrates:
"The unexamined life is not worth living.”
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel”
"To find yourself, think for yourself”
Albert Einstein:
“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.”
“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough”
"The only real valuable thing is intuition.”
“The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything”
“Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.”
Mark Twain:
“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”
"There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.”
“A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.”
Edgar Allan Poe:
“All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry”
“Stupidity is a talent for misconception.”
Dr. Suess:
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”
“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
George Sheehan:
“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be”
Bertrand Russell:
“The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe:
“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”
Calvin Coolidge:
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”
Find your own precepts, write them down, memorize them, find a place to post them so you can be reminded every day. To Thine Own Self Be True.
Be Contagious
The English language is complicated and fascinating.
I have always been in love with words. I love that you can change the meaning and tone in any sentence with the words you choose. Take for example the difference in these two sentences:
The noise from the other room grew louder and louder. OR
From the other room erupted a cacophony of sound.
They really mean the same thing but one gives you a literal meaning and one paints a picture of what is occurring (plus I just like to use the word cacophony whenever I can).
Words are magic. The great thing (or not so great depending on who you are talking to) about words is that the same word can have different connotations. One of my favorites is the word contagious. The usual immediate reaction to the word contagious is not so good. I mean contagious is defined as “communicable by contact", and usually refers to some kind of infectious disease. But the beauty of words is that contagious can mean to infect with something good.
So BE CONTAGIOUS - spread love, joy, happiness, a smile, a laugh, a hug, a kiss. Spread kindness and positive thoughts. Go ahead...pass it along...infect someone...BE CONTAGIOUS.
I have always been in love with words. I love that you can change the meaning and tone in any sentence with the words you choose. Take for example the difference in these two sentences:
The noise from the other room grew louder and louder. OR
From the other room erupted a cacophony of sound.
They really mean the same thing but one gives you a literal meaning and one paints a picture of what is occurring (plus I just like to use the word cacophony whenever I can).
Words are magic. The great thing (or not so great depending on who you are talking to) about words is that the same word can have different connotations. One of my favorites is the word contagious. The usual immediate reaction to the word contagious is not so good. I mean contagious is defined as “communicable by contact", and usually refers to some kind of infectious disease. But the beauty of words is that contagious can mean to infect with something good.
So BE CONTAGIOUS - spread love, joy, happiness, a smile, a laugh, a hug, a kiss. Spread kindness and positive thoughts. Go ahead...pass it along...infect someone...BE CONTAGIOUS.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Writing, Wrestling and the English Professor
Writing is like wrestling in the WWF...there is me and there is the idea. In this case, it's the ideas...as in plural. It's not that I have trouble writing, it's that I have trouble deciding which of my many ideas to pursue. So I wrestle...it's exhausting. I focus on one idea and as I am about to "pin it" down...along comes another idea to hit me over the head with a folding chair. They tag team eachother...my ideas. "Let me at her!", they scream. They have interesting names like the "Punctuation Punisher" and the "Idea Suckinator". Meanwhile, I'm running around fending them off and trying to pin the one that will help me win the match. So far, I'm losing.
As if that isn't bad enough, there is "The Professor". The Professor is my inner critic and she's (because women are far better at criticizing) an elitist, snobby, English professor from Oxford, England, who looks over her glasses and down her nose as she proclaims my work as "trash".
I'd give up but I'm just too stubborn. Besides, I still think I can win. Maybe I'll invite "The Professor" to a wrestling match.
As if that isn't bad enough, there is "The Professor". The Professor is my inner critic and she's (because women are far better at criticizing) an elitist, snobby, English professor from Oxford, England, who looks over her glasses and down her nose as she proclaims my work as "trash".
I'd give up but I'm just too stubborn. Besides, I still think I can win. Maybe I'll invite "The Professor" to a wrestling match.
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