Tag: family

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The Shoehorn, the Crowbar and Bulldozer

Pete Huryk

ShoehornThe shoehorn*, crowbar and bulldozer; all use a combination of an inclined plan and a lever.  While they all have the same base components, almost no one would ever use one as a replacement for the other.  Using a bulldozer to get your shoes on could get messy really quickly!  It’s overkill and everyone can see that.

As we go through the tumultuous times in our lives, it can seem easiest to bulldoze through challenges.  As the “pressure” of daily life seems to be getting higher, bulldozing can become the default lever that people use to move forward.  In the end this leaves a flattened earth with nothing living left behind.  People are especially susceptible to being hurt in the process of bulldozing.  Getting what you want from a personal situation is usually better served by using a delicate tool rather than a massively destructive one.  In a world where we’ve become comfortable with possible heart attack from a drug intended to length your eyelashes (tongue in cheek), it might be that our tolerance for negative consequence has gotten too high.

Choose the right tool for the situation.  Damage control is not something to be done after the fact.  It can be done beforehand with even better results.  Exercise your leverage without the destruction.

Pete

*A shoehorn may not be something that young people recognize.   It is a tool that is used to help slide a shoe onto a foot.  They used to be prevalent but I’ve not seen one since my grandfather passed away.

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Mind the Gap

Pete Huryk

mindthegapIn the English subway system, there are both visual and auditory reminders to “Mind the Gap”.  This is a call for attention to the space between the platform and the train.  It is a helpful reminder but probably almost unnoticed by most local people.  However for the American tourist this is an out of the ordinary bit of speech.  “Mind” is rarely used as a verb in American English and “the gap” is a store or possibly brings thoughts of Michael Strahan.  Due to its unique wording and situational use, it tends to have sticking power with tourists.  It is helpful to “Mind the Gap”.  While it is a everyday practicality in the UK, it seems as though there is a gap issue in the USA.

The gap that I am referring to has nothing to do with the subway but rather the “gap” between you and your goals.  It is a space that many people do not want to acknowledge.  The gap represents all of the undesirable aspects of the goal: the work, the discipline, the sacrifice and persistence.  These are the bricks that form the path to the object of our desires.  Unfortunately the easy road is so seductive that you forego logic and buy the false lottery promises.  So you ignore the gap and sit on the couch to dream the impossible dream.  The only reason that the dream is impossible is that you never take enough action to get there.  All of that action happens in the gap.

Since the gap is a necessary part of eventual success, why not mind the gap or even better learn to love the gap!  It’s the place where you will be spending most of your time.  So why waste it by avoiding or hating it?  Take it as the place where you find out who you really are.  Anyone can sit on the thrown of triumph without effort.  It takes a totally different mentality to wear a medal that was buried under a mountain of muck.  So can you mind the gap?  It is a difficult task but your up to it.  Don’t get discouraged by the other people (even those who care about you) who are afraid of the gap and try to protect you from the gap.   They are invested in their own comfort, not your goal.  If you succeed, then they might have to mind the gap.  So take the step!  Start now because the gap isn’t going anywhere and right now, neither are you.  Your goal is not magnetic, you need to go to it.  Get in the gap!

Pete

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Completely Focused On Being Scattered

Pete Huryk

In 1925 President Calvin Coolidge famously said that “The business of America is business.”  Almost a full century later, those words are still quoted often enough for it to be recognized.  Since the proliferation of the internet to most households, the pace of information exchange and communication has continued to increase almost exponentially.  The problem is that with so much information flying around, very few people are taking the time to communicate or do anything to the best of their ability.  It seems that with technology as our guide “The business of America is BUSYness.”   There is no soap box under my feet.  I am not chastising, judging or pointing a ridiculing finger.  This post is as much for me as it is for anyone who reads it.

focusDistraction is a way of life in the country at the moment.  Not only is completing tasks without getting distracted difficult but the fear of missing out (FOMO) seems to be an almost pervasive issue.  People have divided their focus between too many activities and are simultaneously getting distracted from them.  It’s a recipe for disaster no matter how you slice it.  No one can be everywhere for everyone every time.  Distraction always comes with a price tag and it is not you who is profiting.  The losses are felt by you, your family, your friends, your colleagues and classmates.  The people who are actually in your life are the ones who are missing out on a key component of their experience and that is you.  All of you, not the partial you that has a technological device in hand “JUST IN CASE!”  The cyborg version of you that cannot let go of the phone, tablet or computer has a distinct weakness, it is never fully present.

So many of our systems are built largely upon attendance but that model is at best flawed and at worst catastrophically broken. Absence, attendance, presence, engagement and immersion are very different levels of an inverted pyramid of human involvement.  While attendance is a nice start, it is just barely above absence and meets only minimum requirements.  Showing up is just not enough.  To really take full advantage of this life that you have been gifted, you must strategically move up the pyramid with the things that you have decided really matter.  And there lies the problem we must DECIDE.  Decide comes from the Latin meaning to cut off.   We must cut off the things that don’t matter in order to preserve the things that do.    Our focus needs to be cut down to that which we value most.

The only person who can win this focus battle for you is you.  Anyone can suggest, plead or punish you to do it but you do not have to comply until you choose.  In the end there are so many companies and individuals who want your focus.  It is your job to divvy it out as you see fit or scatter it without a care.  Where you put your focus determines your life.  If you decide to immerse yourself in Facebook, that is your choice and far be it from me to judge.  As long as it is a decision and not a resignation to the world of distraction.  Choose what you want for yourself before others choose for you.

Pete

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.  -Theodore Roosevelt

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The Wolfinger

Pete Huryk

WolfpackFor the past few years, I’ve had a student whose last name is Wolfinger.  I refer to him as “Dedo del Lobo” or in  English “Finger of the Wolf”.  Obviously this translation is completely incorrect because wolves don’t have any fingers.  So I looked up the origin of the name Wolfinger and it comes from the German meaning “a person from the area of Wolfing”.  Of course my student did not know the origins of his own name.  Despite the fact that people have become very self-interested with the advent of the internet.  It seems odd that we don’t spend a little more time to find out where we come from.

Going back to my student, wolves definitely don’t have fingers but they do have packs.  That is the strength of the wolf.  They protect themselves from enemies and hunt more efficiently because of the pack.  We used to have packs too.  Families, villages and teams used to mean a little bit more than they do now.  At the moment, the individual seems more interested in what they can get from the pack than what they can give to the pack.  The key factor to the effective pack is that the pack is more important than the individual.  No one is more important than everyone.

Perhaps it is time for you to invest in your own wolf-pack.   Maybe you need to rediscover your family because you’ve gotten too caught up in you.  Or it is possible that need something different than what your given wolf-pack can provide.  If that is true, you might want to use the internet to find a new wolf-pack that offers you the things that you need.  The one key thing to remember as you join a pack is to figure out what you have to offer the pack in return for what you get from the pack.

Happy hunting!

Pete

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Who Deserves It?

Pete Huryk

Nothing is infinite regarding human beings and our lives.  Time, money, love, adoration, fame and respect are all commodities that run out at some point.  Since we know that all of these are meant to deplete, why don’t we spend them more wisely?  Shouldn’t we be asking regularly, who deserves it?

The world travels at such a fast pace that many of our daily interactions seem to be reactionary or on some form of auto-pilot.  It may serve us in some ways by helping us to get things done but we need to make sure that important things are not left behind.  Our Facebook timeline, Twitter feed and Snapchats may seem important at the moment.  Perhaps they connect us to the people that we love most because they are far away.  The technology is not inherently evil or disruptive.  We make it that way by our choices.  Do you have a better relationship with your cell phone than your: mother, father, brother, sister, best friend, boyfriend or girlfriend?

We are surrounded by devices that are “connection tools”.  Are we using them to connect or to distract?  Take a moment and use your phone or a piece of paper and a pen.  Write a list of the five most important people in your life.  Within the next five days, contact each one of them in the most human way that you have available to you.

1. Face to face

2.  Facetime, Skype, Google Hangout

3. Phone Call (that thing actually makes calls still!)

It doesn’t have to be the most Earth shattering conversation.  You just need to relay the message however subtly or bluntly that you can, “You’re important to me.”  In a world of unlimited connection, shouldn’t we spend most of our time connecting with those we love rather than with strangers who are “Trending”?  Make these five people trend for a few days and notice how you feel.