It’s Valentine’s Day! One of my most memorable Valentine’s Days was in my sophomore year of high school. At the time, I was single but not completely happy about that situation. So it came as a huge but welcome surprise that I received two red carnations in homeroom. The card didn’t say who they were from. It just said, “Someone loves you!” The rest of that day, I spent trying to figure out who could have sent them. I’ll fully admit that I had a slight strut to my step throughout school. My hope was that my secret admirer would reveal herself by the end of the day. Unfortunately she did not.
So I went home and later that evening my mom asked me, “Did you get the flowers that I sent you?” I was crestfallen to say the least. I remember getting on my mom’s case about sending red carnations rather than pink or white. But in all honesty it should not have mattered. At the time I didn’t have the confidence or worldview to realize what I know now. So if you’re one of those people lamenting “Singles Recognition Day”, take some time to consider my perspective.
If you are interested in eventually being in a relationship, recognize that you have a secret admirer someplace. Perhaps you actually have someone that’s interested in you that you just don’t know about their feelings. I know that I’ve found out after the fact several times. Or there is someone out there who is looking for someone like you and they just haven’t found you yet. And the final but toughest one to face is that perhaps you’re not a good enough version of yourself yet to attract that person you want. THAT’S HARSH! But may be completely accurate.
I went to high school with my wife and we did not date until after graduating college. This was probably the best thing that could have happened. If we had dated in high school, I doubt we would have ended up together. I had to become a much better caliber of person in those years, so that I could attract someone like my wife. My hope, in high school, was that someone was secretly watching and thought I was great. In reality, I needed to work on being great so that someone great would be watching.
So if you’re not there yet and you’re lamenting your single life, write yourself a letter. Write down a description of your ideal person. Describe them in every small detail that you can. Then write down who you need to become in order to deserve a person like that. Once you’ve written them both down, put the description of your ideal person in an envelope and seal it. Write next year’s Valentine’s Day’s date on it. Take the description of who you need to become someplace where you’ll read it regularly. If you follow through with this, I’m sure that you’ll be happy with the results regardless if you’re single next year.
Someone loves you!
Pete
To my toilet, I’m either a dick or asshole. To my shower, I’m varying degrees of dirty. To my mirror, I’m vain or self-obsessed. And you can just imagine what the toilet paper thinks of me. All of these perspectives are completely accurate but taken from a narrow view
At one point in my educational career, transparencies were the height of technology. By today’s standards they are obsolete but at the time they were extremely helpful. The ability to manipulate and project for a group to see was used daily. My most vivid memories of them were from history class. A territory could be shown with a variety of borders and other influencers. Depending on the transparency that was placed onto the territory, a force like the Roman Empire could be all encompassing or completely inconsequential. The territory was always the same but the translucent lines of borders and boundaries changed. Even though the transparency projectors have all but disappeared, the influence of invisible and imaginary lines has not.
Physically, mentally and emotionally; what do you believe about yourself, people and the world? Write it down in your notebook, iPhone, laptop or anything else that works for you. Then pick through it to see what you’re keeping, tweaking or tossing. It’s up to you to clean up whatever mess you might have. If you’re honest in your assessment, you’ll be able to see through the person that you need to read better than anyone else: yourself.
As one of my first jobs “adult” jobs, I was a pizza delivery guy. It was great in so many ways. Six dollars per hour under the table plus tips was pretty good pay for a young man. When things got slow, I was also in charge of washing dishes or cleaning up the kitchen. I recall one of the first times that I cleaned. I was scrubbing some of the equipment and got chastised by Enzo, one of the two Italian brothers that I worked for. I was cleaning in the wrong order. He quickly explained that I needed to clean from the top down. By cleaning bottom up, I might get things dirty that I’d already cleaned. This was a simple idea but one that permeated other jobs and situations. The order of operations became important to me and I never forgot that simple lesson. Not every situation in life has a concrete order of operations. Personal preferences affect so many aspects of our lives that there are very few absolutes.
Huryk Unlimited 