Author: Pete Huryk

Don’t give me a hard time!  I’ve got kids!  However I wanted to draw attention to the subtle beauty of one of the aspects of Disney’s brilliance.  Almost all of Disney’s truly iconic films have a catchy tune that works its way into your brain like those bugs in “The Wrath of Khan”.  If you’re not familiar with that movie but have gone on “It’s a Small World After All” at Disney World, you know exactly what I mean.  The ability to have a song from a movie get stuck in the consciousness is priceless.  The problem is that things like “Bippity boppity boo” are not what we want to have swimming around our heads for hours.  I truly apologize if I just did that to you.

Having a thought repeat in your head thousands of times is not a bad thing, if it is the right thought.  So dust off those fairy tale theme songs and put them to a better use.  It doesn’t have to be a Disney song, anything that gets stuck in your head will work.  My personal favorite that is not Disney is “Jenny (867-5309)”.  The Disney one that I usually go to is “Hustle While You Wait” to the tune of “Whistle While You Work”.  It’s a useful one for me as my players tell me that they can’t wait for the season to start.  While the waiting is going on, they can get to work on making that season better.  That’s a thought that needs to be stuck on repeat in my players’ heads.  The Seven Dwarfs just make it easier because the tune is already implanted.

At this point, you might hate me for implanting that tune into your head.  Now the responsibility falls onto you.  If you don’t want some inane thing repeated in your brain, make it something useful.  It only becomes maddening if you don’t do anything with it.  Progress is something that we are all after.  If this silly little trick helps you make progress, then use it.  If not, then find your own silly little tricks.  The tricks only matter if they get results.  Disney is a master at making memorable movies.  This is your movie!  Make it memorable, if for no one else, for yourself!  Cheap tricks, sound planning or anything else that will get you closer to where and who you want to be.

Truth is often stranger than fiction but through our fiction we often see some of our most important truths.  For me, Star Wars has been an extremely influential piece of fiction.  From the pure story-telling to the philosophical concepts explored in the movies, the stories have enriched my life in so many ways.  A few weeks ago, I made a realization that I had never considered before and I was giddy with excitement.

In the Star Wars saga, Darth Vader becomes one of the most evil people in the universe based mostly on two events: the deaths of his mother and wife.  These two losses seemingly catapult an extremely talented young man toward a path of destruction.  Even though the story of Darth Vader is completely fictitious, it is not a far stretch from reality that we see every day.  People use the events of their lives as a justification for their later choices.  The truth in the fiction of Darth Vader is that he chose to be evil in wake of what happened.  This becomes ever more evident when juxtaposed with my favorite president.

In the world of reality, Teddy Roosevelt faced the exact same circumstances.  His mother and his wife both died within a day of each other.  Given that same pair of tragedies, Roosevelt could have chosen to lament his misfortune and lash out at the world that dealt him a poor hand.  Quite the opposite, he chose to become one of our most influential leaders.  The effects of many of his policies are still felt today in the National Parks and business practices.  The key was the choice.

Many people forget that they have a choice.  Although humans can sometimes act like stimulus/response animals, choice is a power that we almost always have.  The problem comes when people assume that circumstances dictate their actions.  Your biography is not the crystal ball that shows your future.  Just because you’ve been disappointed, letdown, screwed over and depressed in the past does not mean that you need to continue along that path.  Also the fact that you’ve been successful, fortunate and lauded does not mean that you always will be.  Choices in the present will change your future much more than the circumstances of your present.  Will you choose to destroy planets or start a system of National Parks?  Only you get to choose.

Roadkill is not usually something memorable.  In fact it is usually something that we want to forget as soon as possible.  Flattened skunks or broadsided deer do not create fond memories but rather revulsion and disgusting smells.  On my latest run, I encountered this unfortunate fellow who seems to have been hit by a car at full stride while crossing the street.  I happened upon him only because I was feeling particularly winded and slowed down to walk for a moment.  After stopping just long enough to take the picture, I got back into my run with renewed vigor.  My furry little friend had reminded me of something in that instant and I knew that I had to press on.  The intriguing thing was not the cause of death but the cause of the stride.

In the very last moment of his squirrel life, he was bounding fully and it was most likely due to fear.  He had made a bad mistake to cross the road at the wrong time and paid the ultimate price for poor judgment.  For some reason in my ten seconds of looking at him, I thought of a better possibility.  What if his stride had nothing to do with the car?  What if he was racing home to a squirrel wife whom he loved desperately?  What if he had just found a new tree for his family to live in and was bounding to share the new?  What if he had found an open can of peanuts forgotten by some stupid human?  While none of these is probably accurate, they are a reminder that I needed at that moment.

We are all roadkill.  The only thing that we were guaranteed at our birth was our death.  That’s just the truth.  When I meet my end, I want to be at full stride as well but not out of fear.  I want to be so filled with life that I do not see my unfortunate birthright coming.  I do not get to choose the how, when, why or any other detail of the end.  However I do get to choose so many of those attributes right now.  I can decide to stride now rather than waiting for circumstance to force me to move.  Life should be lived with inspiration and perspiration rather than desperation and resignation.  The car is out there somewhere, what will you do before it gets here?

As anyone who has ever read my blog knows, the reason that I start writing anything is to help myself through a struggle.  I publish them in the hopes that it may help someone else.  I’ve not written in a long time.  The main reason being is that I’ve been lost for a while.  So many different things have happened or not happened in the past few months that I’ve lost my sense of direction.  This has helped me create many feelings that are uncomfortable to wear on a daily basis: uncertainty, confusion, timidity but more than anything fear.  The odd thing about this mental situation is that I don’t have the same reaction to physically being lost.  In fact, I believe that it is almost impossible for me to be lost in the physical world.

Last year on my annual Appalachian Trail hike, my brother and I got physically lost in the woods.  We figured out where we took the wrong turn during this year’s hike.  However at the time we were lost, we never got fearful or confused because being lost was nothing to fear.  We simply had to get our bearings and hike that much harder in order to get back on the path.  The lack of fear came from my belief.  I believe that I can basically never be lost if I’m surrounded by a triangle of three things that I know.  If I have that, I’ll eventually find my way.  That belief made getting out of the woods nothing more than a matter of time and effort.

After considering my belief about the act of being physically lost, I’m finding that I’m less fearful of my present situation of being mentally lost.  In the mental space, I create the terrain.  Since it is all up to me, I can always choose to be surrounded by a triangle of three things that I know: my family, my friends and my perseverance.  At no point can I be lost if I have encased myself in those three things.  So now it is time to get back on the path or create a new one.  Regardless of which I choose, fear is not going to be my compass.  I’m excited by the prospects of where I can go.  Just because I don’t know the path, does not mean that I need to fear the path.  Hiking harder or possibly farther does not scare me but the thought of being immobilized does.  One foot in front of the other may not be the sexiest concept ever invented but it will get me going.