Tag: learning

Blogpost, self-reliance

A Simple Souvenir

Pete Huryk

Whether it is an “I love NYC” t-shirt or a particular shell picked up off the beach during a family getaway, humans seem to be almost preprogrammed for the collection of souvenirs. Our memories are weak and without some tangible link to the physical world, they tend to fade. Unfortunately the mass production of souvenirs doesn’t particular make our memories stronger, it actually dilutes the keepsakes like a form mental inflation. When we take a photo of every moment and everyone has the same souvenir that you do, it takes away the reason behind picking up those artifacts in the first place. Our minds may not know what’s truly special when we have so many pictures and trinkets.

My box of memories. It was originally an 8 track cassette holder. Yep! I’m THAT cool!

It’s not an easy thing to decipher what moments are going to be really important. A baseball cap doesn’t appear out of thin air when you meet your best friend for the first time, although I’m sure someone somewhere is working on it. We sometimes have no indication whatsoever that a moment is going to change us forever. So we have nothing to carry with us. The reverse is also true that utterly meaningless events have gotten reinforced either intentionally or unintentionally. It’s not a perfect system and if we just go with the flow, McDonalds and Instagram are going to own the lion’s share of who we think we are.

I used to be so much more deliberate about collecting memories. For decades, I’ve had a box with pictures, cards and keepsakes. Some of it is trash at this point because the memories represented by the items weren’t worth keeping. However, some of them are simple and priceless. The shell that reminds me of a friend who has stood the test of time despite distance and turmoil. Ribbons from events that proved my friend’s theory that being “aggressively mediocre” can get you to the cusp of being great! Others that I won’t mention because it’s just too much.

The question that we may want to ask ourselves is two-fold. Do I have any simple souvenirs that can instantly bring me to the verge of tears? The second question is: If not, did I truly live? The items are far less important than the memories. So if you’ve got a storage unit full of items and your heart is empty, then I’d say you’re out of balance. However, if you have recollections of people, places and events that leave you in awe of the past, then maybe you don’t need the t-shirt!

“A simple souvenir“

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

Pushing Too Hard

Pete Huryk

Today I’m feeling the pain of pushing too hard. Not sure if anyone ever really means to do it. Getting caught up in the moment is easy to do. Dialing it back should be an easy thing to do but often the easy things are hard. Doing more feels like progress until something snaps. At that point, it’s too late!

Progress is not usually an instantaneous thing and forcing results is not a winning strategy. Knowing it and living it are two different things. If we got results based on what we know, everyone would have six pack abs and perfect relationships. Unfortunately that’s not how it works. We get results based on our consistent actions and as humans, we fuck up a lot! It’s unavoidable but we just need to keep going.

So today begins the process of recovery and learning. Lick the wounds and try to be smarter next time. Slow and steady needs to be my mantra for a while. The turtle gets where he’s going too and probably doesn’t pull any muscles along the way.

Blogpost, self-reliance

Lesser Known Heroes

Pete Huryk

The “Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman” eventually breaks out of the neighborhood, becomes an Avenger and travels to space. There was a certain point at which only people from a small locality knew about him. If he had stayed small time, would his contributions have been less or just less well known? It’s a question of scale but do lesser known heroes, matter less? The likelihood of any of us having a global impact is pretty low. However, we all can have an individual impact at any moment. So perhaps it’s not scale but consistency that matters.

With so many of the things that we do in life, the opportunity for impact comes in almost direct proportion to frequency. Breathing, heart pumping, showing up, exercising, and so many other activities gain traction and get exponential returns based on their consistency. There is the possibility of overdoing it but most people tend to err on the side of never rather than too much.

So taking those two ideas and melding them together gives opportunity. Doing good for the masses is probably not happening and neither is the big ticket item of saving the world from cataclysm. The opportunity does exist for each of us to do our own small bit to help those who are within our reach. Perhaps that may even mean regularly saving yourself from yourself (yep, that’s a thing). Lesser known heroes are not any less important. They help to keep the world from falling into the pervasive chaos that no Avenger could handle. So whether you think of yourself as a hero or not, suit up and get to work. The world needs you! Ok maybe not the entire world, but definitely YOUR world!

Hero up!

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

It Won’t Always Be Pretty

Pete Huryk

This is by far one of my favorite photos of all time! I’m fairly certain that I didn’t love the moment but I love the memory. My daughter was sitting on my chest and bam! Spit up on the nose, maybe up the nose and definitely a bit in the mouth. Luckily the camera crew got a quick shot of it. There’s nothing to do but laugh! She didn’t mean to do it and she was so darn cute, how could I be mad?

It’s not always going to be so simple to find the beauty in life’s “ugly” moments. We’d all (in theory) love to have everything come up roses but it rarely does. Also there is a bit of extra spice that comes with things that go wrong. Since 1998, when I attended the World Cup, my most commonly told stories are about the loss of a passport, filing a police report and getting pushed by a riot cop. I rarely talk about the games and I was watching my favorite sport with my best friend. Our desire for everything to go well and be easy is both unrealistic and inconsistent with our ability to find the good in bad situations.

So if you’re going through one of those moments when you have the “vomit” of life all over your face, rejoice in the fact that you’ve most likely got a good story for the future. Also it is good context for when things are going well. You’ll appreciate them that much more!

“Anything I’ve ever said is not as good as you”

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

The Water Feels Like Jello

Pete Huryk

Less than two weeks to my sprint triathlon and training has been ramped up in a lot of ways. Due to the swim being my weakest part of the race, I’m overcompensating by putting more time and distance into the pool, double to be exact. For the moment, I’m swimming 1,500 meters each day with only a short break at the halfway point (the actual race distance). It’s the oddest feeling but directly after my break, the water feels thicker and heavier. The consistency of it reminds me of melted Jello. It’s a feeling that only lasts for a lap or so but it felt worth noting.

Consistency and momentum are two things that have relevance in so many parts of our lives. Often the stopping of an action or habit can lead to that feeling of “starting over” or the slog. It’s a little different than what Seth Godin refers to as “The Dip”. That’s a barrier near the beginning of a new thing when the “fun” and progress have stopped but you need to push through. The Jello experience is starting back up on an endeavor that’s well underway. Just don’t let the Jello stop you! It’s easy to lose momentum. Rainy days, flakey workout partners, a headache, a poor attitude, etc. can all be Jello until you work through them. The problem comes when jello is repeatedly given too much notice and it hardens or worse turns into cement.

Decide what it is that you truly want. Momentum and consistency are strong forces that can carry us through so many obstacles. If you’ve already decided the level of your commitment before the Jello comes, it’s nothing more than an annoyance, not an obstacle. The decision fatigue of rehashing what you truly want makes the Jello stronger than it should be. If you’re not sure, it can drown you! So keep going!

Not as bad as it seems!

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

Something Out of Nothing

Pete Huryk

Each moment of our day is not a blank canvas. There’s already a background with component pieces that must be considered. However each moment is a new opportunity to make something great happen out of seemingly nothing. As the line from one of my favorite one hit wonders goes “I’m not expecting to grow flowers in the desert.” The impossible doesn’t appear on its own and without effort. There needs to be intentional thought put into making something out of nothing. Luckily or unluckily, we’ve become programmed into thinking that only the truly extraordinary matters. I’d say that’s probably where we’ve lost most of our opportunity. Taking the “nothing” moments and turning them into something is a superpower that needs to be developed.

As I was on my run today, the song “In a Big Country” by Big Country came on and reframed the moment and many recent events.

“So take that look out of here it doesn’t fit you
Because it’s happened doesn’t mean you’ve been discarded
Pull up your head off the floor, come up screaming
Cry out for everything you ever might have wanted
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can’t stay here with every single hope you had shattered”

Words that I know I’ve heard hundreds or possibly thousands of times before put a pin in my experience. That moment with all of these normal ingredients had truly transformed from nothing into something. A moment of reckoning where the next moment, day, week, month, or year has the possibility to be different. The onus is on me though because that moment could easily be washed away. The reverse is also possible. We turn something into nothing all of the time because we’re too busy, tired, scared or indifferent. Making something out of nothing takes effort.

So if you’ve been knocked down, “pull up your head off the floor, come up screaming, cry out for everything you ever might have wanted!” because “you can’t stay here with every single hope you had shattered!” It’s on you to make the next moment great but it won’t be if you’re too busy to see the possibilities.

“But I can live and breathe
And see the sun in wintertime!”

Pete

Blogpost, posh

Locked Out

Pete Huryk

In a world where we can communicate with anyone globally in an instant, it’s odd to think that we have trouble reaching ourselves. It is almost as if our freedom of communication with others has locked us out of reaching inside as freely. For years now, I’ve suggested to people that they not sleep near their device nor use it for the first 30 minutes of the day. The reason for this is to allow time to decide your own priorities before the feed from your Insta, Snap, Twitter, Facebook or even your email gets its claws into you. It’s easy to think that you’re just checking on what’s going on but usually you’re giving up the reigns of your focus to people who may not care much about you.

It’s easy to blame social media or greedy companies that want to usurp your attention and dollars. Unfortunately, that situation isn’t bound to change any time soon. Even before the technological upheaval of the past few decades, people were giving away their attention to the unimportant long before the internet or cellphones came along. To be honest, distraction isn’t even fully what I’m worried about. It’s being locked away from the things that you truly want.

Each of us has potential beyond our reckoning but the things that we allow ourselves to believe as possible are often disappointing. The extreme of this is the “I can’t” that is attached to normal things. “I can’t get in shape!” “I can’t find the time!” “I can’t find get a break!” Language and thought processes lock the person out of something that’s more than likely within their reach. It’s not REALITY. It is just their reality formed from a variety of things. Possibly past experience but more than likely, it is just easier to believe that something is impossible than to try.

So don’t lock yourself out! You have what it takes to do whatever you set your mind to. For now, you need to decide what you want. Then break it down into smaller pieces and give yourself enough reasons to go after it. VCR Most of the prisons that people are living in are self-made and invisible. The bars are nothing more than a lack of vision.

“Grab your things I’m going to take you home!”

Pete

Blogpost

Currency

Pete Huryk

When most of us hear the word currency, we automatically think of money.  Money is definitely currency and we deal with it all the time.  Unfortunately at times it seems like we have forgotten that it is not the only currency.  Currency can be just about anything that is exchanged.  Whenever I ask people about currency, they usually start off with money, gold, silver, diamonds, etc.  Eventually as I probe, they come up with less obvious answers like love, respect, kindness, time, etc.

There are many natural laws that govern our World.  Laws like gravity do not waiver regardless of how we may plead with them.  There is a less definite but still applicable law of exchange.  It was much easier to see in the past.  Farmers, hunters, gathers and trappers understood this law very well.  They needed to give an extreme amount of effort before they could take any rewards.  The farmer especially had to put in months of work in order to reap its rewards.  Unfortunately many of us have lost touch with that law of exchange.  The focus has shifted solely to the reward and getting it with the least amount of time and effort possible.

I cannot blame anyone in the modern world for overlooking the simple currencies.  They can be easy to forget about as we rush around trying to fit in all of the different parts of our lives.  As the world becomes more connected, these currencies become more important.  I don’t want to live in a world where the currencies of anger, hatred, distrust, skepticism, greed, etc. are exchanged regularly. The more often they are circulated, the more people that they touch.  So whenever possible, take them out of circulation by letting them go. Then put the truly valuable currencies out into the world.

This is not a simple task because we do not always get back in equal measure to our initial investment. It’s easy for me to tell anyone to persist despite the lack of reward. At times, it will feel downright foolish. However, I am going to implore that you do not give up on mining the currencies that truly matter. Your windfall is coming. It just might not be what you expected!

Time to cash in!

Pete

Blogpost

Fill In the Gaps

Pete Huryk

The best ideas are not particularly the most complex. They also don’t particularly need to come from philosophers or physicists. Simple and usable is far better than complex and unattainable. So when considering the best people to ruminate on relationships, the fictitious boxer, Rocky Balboa, is not a name that springs to mind for most. However, in an offhanded comment in a meat freezer, he explains some of why we are drawn to particular people and keep them in our lives.

Paulie: I don’t see it. What’s the attraction?
Rocky: I don’t know. Fills gaps, I guess.
Paulie: What’s ‘gaps’?
Rocky: I dunno, gaps. She’s got gaps, I got gaps. Together, we fill gaps. I dunno.

It’s easy to get distracted by Rocky punching a side of beef after this conversation. However, in this short exchange with his future brother in law, he is profound in his reading of the human condition.

None of us is a perfect person. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses. Despite the fact that we can’t achieve perfection, most of us look to improve or diversify our experience. Discovering new territory and finding new/unique ways of looking at the world is something that we’re built for. Often it is the people that we surround ourselves with that help pull us forward into the void or push us beyond our comfort zone or makes us feel secure due to their strengths being different. Fill the gaps.

Most relationships don’t last for a lifetime. People come in and out of our lives like seasons. Some last for decades and others for much shorter. It’s important to recognize those people who fill the gaps because no matter how long they are in your life, they’re not here forever. Do your best to be present in the time that you have and be thankful that you had it. Some people are too busy covering up the fact that they have gaps to let anyone in.

Not a perfect person!

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

Overlap of Heroes

Pete Huryk

It turns out that two of my heroes actually crossed paths. Teddy Roosevelt was presenting at an awards assembly where a young Dr. Seuss was supposed to receive an medal for selling war bonds. Unfortunately for the future author, he was last in line. For some reason there was one award missing. The very brusque former President asked “What’s this boy doing here?” A very embarrassed Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss’ real name) scurried off the stage and developed a fear of making public appearances. It was neither man’s best moment.

The thing about heroes is that we often want to see them a perfect, indestructible or superhuman. They are none of the above and are just as human as the rest of us. Foibles, failures and fractures happen to all human beings regardless of the esteem that they accumulate throughout their lives. Although they feel their own imperfection, the rest of the world tends to heap a status of extraordinary upon them. The part of that word to focus on is the “ordinary”. That’s all that they are with a bit of extra focus, extra care, extra work, extra creativity or extra effort. Otherwise they are just like the rest of us.

It’s so much easier isn’t it? Seeing our heroes as superhuman! That perspective lets us off the hook. If we see that we overlap with them in so many simple ways, perhaps the spectacular is right at our fingertips. Could it be that all we are missing is that little bit extra? Possibly! Maybe the fear isn’t that we’re not as good but that we’re capable of the same and we don’t want the expectation that comes with extraordinary. Whether you want to believe it or not, you overlap with heroes. Can you become your own?

See where extra takes you today!

Pete