There is an actual condition called Oneirophobia which is the fear of dreams, specifically nightmares or night terrors. That’s not what I’m talking about at all. I am worried that people today are afraid of the more common place aspirations. Those things that we had when we were kids! We were all astronauts, cowboys or both! That’s not to say that we need to be fool-hearty or dimwitted. Reality is a factor that needs to be considered. However, there seems to be a space between jumping and flying that we are leaving largely undiscovered or even ignored. Not due to a lack of propulsion potential but a fear of not reaching the desired height.
As a former high jumper, I understand the mental blocks that exist with achieving certain heights. For well over a year, I tried and failed to clear 6 feet 0 inches. Incremental improvement on certain tasks can be time consuming and frustrating. However, I never stopped jumping. In fact, I probably had more attempts at 6’0″ in that year than any prior or since. The problem that I am so concerned with is the concept that if I can’t clear my goal, then I shouldn’t bother to jump. The desire for the result should be a form of fuel but the possibility of failure should not inherently be a brake or an anchor. Guarantees of success are hard to come by in this world and becoming dependent upon them is a strategy wrought with more disappointment than failure could ever offer. The simple and mundane are the only things that are guaranteed.
So be willing to risk failure, possibly even spectacular failure! That risk is the price that one must pay for anything worth having. Don’t fear to dream! Dare to dream! We are not the ancestors of idle dreamers. It is only because they did, that we get to continue to do. Change your dreams, sure! Adjust your plans, fine! But do not fear to dream! Otherwise you won’t have to dream about your tomorrow. It will look exactly like today or maybe a little worse.
We belong In a world that must be strong Oh, that’s what dreams are made of And in the end On dreams we will depend ‘Cause that’s what love is made of! – Dreams by Van Halen
It’s a sore subject! I get it! For many people, Valentine’s Day is the absolute WORST! A reminder from seemingly all of the world about an unwanted status or a commercialism that seems to come with everything nowadays. If you’re steadfast in your hatred of February 14th, have at it! All of your complaints and thoughts about the quasi-holiday are completely accurate! My hope here is not to convince the unconvinceable (real word?). It is merely to offer an alternative to those people who encounter flowers, candy or hearts and automatically SEE RED!
Imagine if there was an International Water Day (actually there is! It’s March 22nd). A day that was intended to celebrate water and how wonderful it is. People going into pools, playing in fountains, drinking that clear sparkly stuff to their heart’s content. The people without any water whatsoever would have every right to get pissed about their lack as others splurge. However I have no doubt that some company named after an Eastern European Country and a season would create commemorative bottles or something to make a few extra bucks off of the holiday. People who didn’t get their “extra special” Water Day present would feel like they had missed out on something. Even if they had plenty of “normal” water to quench their thirst. Somehow the regular water doesn’t seem special enough (hey wait, we’ve kind of done this anyway). You see my point though. It’s not a real lack! It’s a manufactured lack or a perceived lack. At bare minimum that thirsty person on water day can most likely count on the fact that they’ll find themselves quenched at some point soon.
Just like water, love is a human need. We don’t need it on the same level or consistency as water but nonetheless, it’s there. Unlike water, love is something that we can create on our own without digging a hole or waiting for a storm. It’s a moment away from us and the most important person to give that to is yourself. Obviously, many of us have been sold on that “extra special” version of love that Valentine’s Day is supposed to represent. The fact that you thirst for it is a good thing! Even if you don’t have it at the moment, doesn’t mean that you won’t. This day is not life thumbing its nose at you. As it is said in one of my favorite movies “Love Actually is all around.” Whether you have someone “special” in your life or not, there’s plenty of love to go around.
You’re pretty awesome regardless of your relationship status!
It’s a romantic concept isn’t it? Being a monarch presiding over an area that you can call your own. People hold you in high esteem because of your dominion. At a certain point though, you might have decided that it’s not enough. You need more land, more subjects and more whatever. That requires your army to go out into the new territory and take it for your own. Depending on the inhabitants and owner, this could be extremely easy or difficult. Regardless, it requires some form of effort. The world is not going to just surrender to you! Since none of us is a monarch or at least it’s unlikely that one is reading my blog, how does this relate to you?
We all have dominion over certain things. The territory that you own is your comfort zone. It could include anything from your job, relationship or any other manner of thing. Living within that space could be a completely fulfilling life. That’s not for me or anyone other than you to decide. The odd thing about humans is that comfort is antithetical to our survival. As a species, we tend to do poorly with too much comfort. Finding the right amount of pressure and progress is key to keeping us in balance.
This week, you need to go out and be a conquering queen or king. You don’t need to take over the world or even someone else’s territory. It is merely time to bump up against your edges and see if there is someplace new to discover. The reason to find those edges is because it isn’t new land, it’s new you. Finding your own limits is what life is about. Define it for you. Expanding yourself in the directions that matter most to you.
It’s 9:09pm! That’s similar to something that my teenage self wrote in every yearbook that I signed. The first page of our annual had the title to the popular Van Halen song at the top. As a wise-cracking teenager, I took the opportunity to point out only the time that I signed, not realizing that the moment for me to make a true mark was possibly passing me by. It’s part of being a teenager in so many ways. The desire for the next step while discounting the one that you are on in the moment. Most likely it is inherent to that time in life because a lack of experience and loss lends itself toward being frivolous without regret.
Right now! is a different time. The years have built up so much in the rearview mirror that I’ve been forced to know that 5 years in the future is tomorrow. So grasping onto the moment is a skill that needs to be developed. A white knuckle grip on the things that really matter becomes the order of the day. Like catching river water with your bare hands, it’s futile to expect that you’re going to be able to hang onto anything but enjoying the feeling as it flows past is probably the point. I’m definitely not very skilled at it. Often I lose myself in the trivial but also try to make the mundane magical. None of this is a superpower or cause for special attention. It is merely the state of being an older human who has made the realization.
The realization is that RIGHT NOW is all that you get. There is nothing else. Your past is an accumulation of old right nows that you’ve distorted. While the future is an infinite field of possible right nows that won’t turn into anything until the moment that you get there. So do what you can with it because you’re not going to get another one just like this. Even if your days seem like they are repeat, that’s your opportunity to pull yourself back into the moment. It’s all you get.
Don’t want to wait ’til tomorrow Why put it off another day? One more walk through problems Built-up and stands in our way, ahOne step ahead, one step behind me Now you gotta run to get even Make future plans or dream about yesterday, hey C’mon turn, turn this thing around, hey It’s your tomorrow (Right now), C’mon, it’s everything (Right now), Catch a magic moment, do it Right here and now It means everythingMiss the beat, you lose the rhythm And nothing falls into place, no Only missed by a fraction Slipped a little off your pace, ohThe more things you get, the more you want Just trade in one for the other Workin’ so hard, to make it easier, whoa Got to turn, c’mon turn this thing around, hey It’s your tomorrow (Right now) C’mon, it’s everything (Right now) Catch that magic moment, do it Right here and now It means everything It’s enlightened me, right now What are you waitin’ for? Oh, yeah, right now, hey It’s your tomorrow (Right now) C’mon, it’s everything (Right now) Catch that magic moment, and do it right, right now Oh, right now It’s what’s happening Right here and now Right now It’s right now Oh Tell me, what are you waiting for? Turn this thing around
It’s a pretty typical thing in soccer to describe a player as “in form.” Consistent performance is something that people value from players regardless of the level. The markers for form vary from position to position and league to league. Despite the fact there is variation, people know when a player is in form.
Most of us are never going to play professionally, so the idea of being in form is largely irrelevant. The more important factor in most of our lives would be the concept of being “true to form.” In my mind; this is the idea of showing up the same way over and over again. People know what to expect from you before you get there. This may fly in the face of being your “authentic self”. However, the idea of being whomever you want at any given moment is unrealistic anyway. It is far more powerful to be a person that people know and understand. Be true to form.
It may look foolish now but at the time, we LOVED these jerseys!
The final piece to this that I’d like to add is keep improving your form. Incrementally get better over time in whatever matters to you. Consistency is a valuable characteristic but who you are today should never be the goal. People love you exactly as you are but sometimes that’s problematic. You are not a finished article! Keep developing the person that you are into better and better versions. Use the years of your life like the codes to a computer program. Excel 2.1 should be better than 2.0. Different to say the least but hopefully better in many ways.
It’s always tough to say whether or not things will translate from the States over to the UK. 7 Eleven is an almost ubiquitous convenience store that was bordered on a cultural phenomena at one point. The local bodegas tended to get overrun by the chain store that had all of your immediate needs on the shelves. It was relatively cheap and predictable but not fulfilling or meaningful. Although there is a time and a place for a 7 Eleven, there are places where they just cannot survive.
The reason that I bring up the historical king of quick stop shops is the number combination. Although it has nothing in particular to do with soccer/football, it represents one of the issues of the mighty POSH at the moment. Seven out of the eleven players on the field seem to be completely committed to the cause of the club. Today Dembele departed for AFC Bournemouth which takes one player who was indifferent away from London Road. This mathematical representation of the player commitment is not 100% accurate. It can change game to game but it identifies something that most POSH fans should recognize. Teams with high priced players can afford to have a 7 eleven type of commitment and still get results. Unfortunately for the moment, we cannot! Our present situation requires an 11 out of 11 or possibly 15 out of 11 type of endeavor from the group. It’s not going to be easy and especially not convenient! No one is going to hand over any points to us for free. The price is first going to need to be paid in the minds of every single player that steps onto the field. Belief is the currency and without it we’re bankrupt. Everyone needs to believe and then put forth an effort and compete. Not work hard, compete! Here’s a video about it. It’s not due to a lack of talent.
Peterborough may eventually have the resources to field a 7 Eleven team but for now, it takes everyone, even the fans. Every player that makes the squad needs to believe that they can help the cause even if it is for two minutes. No ask is too small or too large. I’m sure that the new signings can help but unless they are part of a squad that is at least 11/11, nothing is going to change.
There was a time when language did not exist as it does today. Communication was a series of grunts, groans and gestures (I work with teenagers, so this still exists). Over time, those simplistic sounds became consistent enough that meaning could be attributed to a particular sound or set of sounds. That developed into words, then phrases and you get the idea. We were once dealing on a very simple level and now we are much more complex. A caveman would not understand our language but might eventually get there after much frustration. As a language teacher, I see this frustration regularly. People tend to want to jump from knowing nothing to being fluent in an instant. That’s not the way it works. We need to go through the grunts and groans.
As each of us looks to begin a new endeavor, the grunts and the groans are almost a right of passage. That time where you know absolutely nothing, everything is hard and you have the added frustration of not knowing if you’ll ever get there. This is part of the deal but that doesn’t make it any easier. The question that you need to ask yourself is whether or not the fluency will be worth it. If you project out to the future and you achieve your goal, how would you feel about the grunts and the groans period? Would you still feel ashamed or would there be a sense of pride about what you accomplished? My guess is that there would be all kinds of positives gathered from the experience. Self-esteem from persevering, learning about the process, pride in accomplishment and so many more. Those grunts and groans were not meaningless! They were necessary and valuable. We can wish that they weren’t necessary at the beginning and sometimes forget them after the fact. However, much of our lives are grunts and groans. Trying to make something out of nothing when we don’t fully understand.
So if you’re in a time of grunts and groans, try not to get frustrated by them. You need them! Everyone who has ever done what you’re doing had to go through them. It may take longer or shorter for you but that’s not for you to decide. Keep on going! You’ll find your way eventually if you want it badly enough.
Although I’m sure that I don’t speak for everyone, most people love their mom. It’s inherent to the relationship with the person who brought you into this world. Even when that connection is strained, there is almost always a recognition of her importance. For around nine months, she gave you a beginning. Then she kept you alive for a number of years before you were able to do certain things on your own. The more that you progressed, the less that you felt like you needed her but she was always in the background. None of us would be anywhere without moms.
In the acquisition of any level of success, the mom that is most important is MOMentum! Anyone can do something for a day or intermittently. It’s the consistency of action that truly carries one through those beginning stages toward results. Unfortunately, people often hope that some mom type of figure is going to cradle them through the tough times to the other side of what Seth Godin calls “the dip.” This unrealistic view is almost the exact opposite of the truth. The person who is craving the success needs to recognize that they are the “mom”, giving life to a dream, keeping it alive and setting it up for success and sustainability. Being a mom and building momentum can both feel like thankless jobs at times. The key is to look for the instances where progress can be seen. Much like a small child, the milestones are great to see but mostly it’s feeding and dealing with crap! Monumental growth doesn’t usually happen overnight, no matter how much we may desire it.
So if you have a goal, it is your turn to be “the mom” in order to build momentum. It will be more difficult than you ever anticipate that it could be. However if you are willing to put in the time and effort, it is possible that you’ll be able to breed life into the dream that you have. Mom’s not coming to save you. This one is on you!
It is so funny to me at times that life exists in such duality. Humans are odd creatures who desire two things at once and finding a balance within them is difficult. We want things like certainty about our lives but as soon as we know what is going to happen regularly, we get bored! Uncertainty is another desire that we value. In our relationships, we want connection and togetherness but if you’ve ever spent too much time with someone, you know that space is also necessary. So it is unfortunate that I must state very plainly that GRATITUDE for what you have is an absolute superpower. However desire is also necessary to move someone forward which creates a bit of friction with the idea of being grateful. This friction is most likely not a problem because friction makes the world more functional rather than slippery.
Keeping this duality in mind, I’m going to use the same acronym to help people who are stuck in the hamster wheel looking for “success” while also speaking to those are content but know there’s more out there. The silly acronym is D-TECT.
D – is for DECIDE. Decide to be thankful for all that you have. This is not particularly easy but it is a necessary step. Even the “problems” in your life are probably worth being thankful for at some point. Either your problems are a better version of challenge than other people’s. OR this obstacle that you deride is actually making you a better version of yourself.
D – is also for DIRECTION. If you don’t have all that you seek in this world, its is very possible that you have not defined a direction with laser-like accuracy. You have preferences but haven’t really settled on that thing that you really want. Hitting a target is impossible if you don’t know what it is. Being surprised by your desire is possible but its impact will be less because you didn’t actually do anything to pursue it.
T – TAKE STOCK! It can be extremely easy to lose sight of all that you have. Our minds instinctively tend to ignore the familiar or at least value it slightly less. Unless there is some consistent reminder to bring all of our blessings into focus, they can get overlooked.
T – TIME is a necessary ingredient to any endeavor. In our next day shipping culture, it can be easy to forget that things of value often take time. It’s so obvious yet often forgotten. People want results yesterday and it can be frustrating to wait for things that we desire. However that price of time is one of the prerequisites for achievement that will feel like it has value.
E – ENJOY the simple things. Beauty, meaning, joy, etc. can be found in the most common of places. However if we do not take the time to enjoy the moments that exist in our everyday, it makes us addicted to the grandiose. Therefore our life is a series ratchets where we become less satisfied with what we are getting.
E – EFFORT is a requirement for any goal or objective but it also works as an eventual indicator of value. People tend to esteem something greater if it was difficult to attain. That’s why actions like cheating actually erode a person’s self-esteem over time because even though they attained the desired outcome, it came without the necessary effort.
C – COMPARE? This is a bit dangerous for creating gratitude. I’ve heard it said before that “comparison is the thief of joy” and I fully understand the sentiment. Therefore it is important that comparison be used to uplift rather than drag down. No matter who you are, there is always someone who has got it better and someone who has it worse. Seeing yourself on a spectrum can help to underly the fact that you have a lot to be thankful for.
C – CONSISTENCY is a crucial part of any endeavor of meaning. Anyone can do the necessary thing once. It is the person who is able to consistently show up in the world with intention that is able to breakthrough. A rocket heading toward outer space requires the consistent propulsion of its engines until it breaks free of gravity’s pull. The same is true to people looking to have some form of success.
T – TRANSFORM everything in your life into something to be grateful for. This is not an easy exercise. It is difficult to look at things that you did not want with gratitude. However, most people have had the experience of seeing tragedy turn into triumph over time. The recognition that trying past events are often the ingredients to our own greatness is transformative.
T – TRACKING is a key component to the acquisition of any goal or objective. Action is a spectacular step but it is possible that your actions are moving you away from your goals. Assessing your progress or lack of it is extremely important.
I’m sure that my setup for this blog was frustrating for someone. The reason that I put each item next to its counterpart is that is how we live. At times, the need for gratitude is going to be directly juxtaposed to our ambition. Most of us do not live at the extreme of either disposition. Every day we are trying to move forward in our lives and feel fulfilled at the same time. Both are skills worth developing and honing.
Time passes without us. We are incidental passengers riding through time. The future is coming regardless of our disposition toward it. The future just showed up… and there it goes again! Despite the fact that the future arrives without our help, what future will show up for us is very much dependent on us. A future that looks worse than the present need minimal effort, probably even a little carelessness. If you want tomorrow to look like today, keep doing what you’ve been doing. A better future is a BATTLE!
[Colonel Roosevelt and his Rough Riders at the top of the hill which they captured, Battle of San Juan] / by William Dinwiddie.
LOC
When I use the word battle, I don’t mean literal war or something ugly and distasteful. I just mean that it will take more effort than we may want to give but it’s about survival. If you want the better future that is off in the beautiful horizon, it needs to be taken. The horizon doesn’t come to you, you must go to it! People hope that the future is going to be improved just through happenstance. That the planets will just align without any real effort or focus applied. Unfortunately that future that you desire is not a willing hostage. It is going to fight against capture then it will try to escape. Anything worth having is going to take this type of effort. Be prepared for it and enjoy it in the moment. Despite the horror that is war; intense bonds, lifelong friendships, feelings of accomplishment, etc. have all come from those times of intense fighting. In the metaphorical battle for your best future, even better outcomes are available.
So now it is your turn to “fight”! Perhaps it is not physical but more mental and emotional. Regardless, the future that you want is not going to lay down at your feet and surrender. It is going to demand that you pursue it until you eventually win the day. And if you haven’t realized it yet, sorry to tell you that the battle never ends because another future is right around the corner! It’s never over! “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” Heck no! The battle for your better future never ends but it is possible for you to move the front forward today.
Huryk Unlimited 