Tag: motivation

Uncategorized

The Dead Black Cat?

Pete Huryk

blackcatThis morning on my daily run, I saw something on the sidewalk in front of me in the darkness.  I had assumed that it was a garbage can lid or something of that sort.  When I got close enough to make out what it was, I realize that it was a dead black cat.  It was not what I was expecting but I veered to the right and continued past the feline that had met its demise under a car tire.  As I finished my run, I gave some thought to what a “luckologist” might have to say about my experience.

From one point of view, the cat was not able to cross my path.  So my fate should be clean and clear.  On the other hand, black cats are supposed to carry all sorts of bad omens.  So having a dead one show up in your path could not be good.  Before writing this I did a cursory search of the interwebs and found nothing concrete about dead black cats.

So here I am at the end of my day that basically started with dead black cat.  It was a pretty good day overall.  Although it was busy and filled with lots of “to do” list items rather than “want to do” items, I really cannot complain.  My day was not a product of the luck of the draw.  I was the major factor in the fortune or misfortune that I experienced.  Life is not a set of circumstances to avoid or omens to look for.  It is a string of possibilities that we choose to act upon or let pass.

The greatest predictor of your destiny is not how many mirrors you’ve broken or four leaf clovers that you’ve found.  It is the actions that you take.  The words that you say to a loved one when they need it most.  It’s the helping hand that you give to someone that you barely know.  Choosing to stand up when all you want to do is run away.  These are the decisions and actions that decide your “luck”.  Your good fortune is not something mystical that you have to fear.  Your good fortune comes from a life of good action and recognition that you were “lucky” to be alive today, no matter how it went.

Uncategorized

Stones In a Hay Field

Pete Huryk

hayfieldWalking through a hay field or a field of tall grass, it can be difficult to see stones on the ground until you are right above them.  The hay is the first and only thing that you see as you look forward or backward.  If you were to pick up a stone and throw it straight forward in your path, it would probably disappear from your sight.  However if you repeated this action enough and your throw was straight, the stones would knock over some of the hay and the previously thrown stones would resurface farther down the field.  With enough repetition and accuracy, you could develop a path of stones that would rise to meet you as you walked.  This is most definitely not the way that I take walks but it represents something that I aspire to do regularly.

As we all walk through life, we have opportunities that come to us.  We can only take opportunities in the present.  The past is behind us and the future is beyond us.  However much like the stones in the hay field, our present actions can effect our future outcomes.  If we are consistently throwing stones of fitness forward, it creates a path that makes our journey easier.  However when we throw the occasional stone, we usually cannot find it in the future because it gets lost in the hay.  Consistently acting in the present is the only way to have an effect on the future.

In order for you to get what you want out of life you need to be taking SADD (Simple Actions Done Daily).  Just because something is simple, doesn’t mean that it’s easy.  Going to the gym is a simple action but it’s not easy.  However if you do that simple action daily, you are throwing stones forward.  If you do a daily action long enough, then you will have a system that makes throwing the stones automatic.  The path is picked up only to be laid back down in front of you like the tread of a tank.  Start building the tread of your tank today.

Enjoy today!

Pete

Uncategorized

On Your Feet!

Pete Huryk

ConnorWhen I was a kid, my grandparents were one of the only families that I knew who had HBO.  After we were supposed to be asleep, my brothers and I would hide on the steps and watch whatever movie the adults had on.  This was the 80’s so we got to see some great stuff like Star Wars etc.  One time the movie was the Terminator which terrified me for weeks to come but there was always one scene that struck me from that movie.  For basically the entire movie, Sarah Connor is being hunted by the Terminator and her protector from the future, Kyle Reese, is her savior.  It isn’t until almost the end of the movie, when Reese is barely able to keep himself up that Sarah takes over as his protector.  She yells at the almost lifeless man, “On your feet soldier!” and does her best to support him as he struggles to move forward.  This morning as I was running this scene popped into my head.

It gives a great example of the step that many of us need to take in our lives.  We need to get ourselves up on our feet.  Eventually we must realize that it is our responsibility to save ourselves.  People can help us along the way but relying on someone or something else to carry us forever is unrealistic.  Our parents, friends, teachers and government are not responsible for carrying us through life.  At some point it is our responsibility to take that scary but necessary step of self-reliance.  Deciding to take charge rather than play the victim is not an easy choice.  It is so much easier to lean on and blame others for the lives that we lead.  The problem with the completely dependent life is that it robs us of all of our power.

So my suggestion to you is exactly that, “On your feet!”  Only you can carry yourself through this life.  That’s your job.  Only you can lose those 10 lbs, exercise every morning, start that new business, ask out that special someone or write that screenplay.  Other people can help and support but if you don’t consistently act then it won’t last.  There is always something out there that is trying to kill your dreams.  Only you can keep them alive by staying on your feet and moving forward.

Live today like it’s on purpose.

Pete

Uncategorized

Delicious Poison Check Up

Pete Huryk

A week ago, I posed a challenge to give up two of your personal poisons.  Were you able to follow through?  Did you last an hour, a day, three days or the full week?  Regardless of the answer, what do you know about yourself now?

If you caved:

Did you do so because of a particular set of circumstances?

Did you fold to pressure from peers or family?

Did you do it unconsciously (without thinking)?

How did you react to your “failure”?

Did you rebound afterward?  Or did you succumb to more temptation because “eh, I already screwed up, why stop now?”

If you made it:

Can you keep it going?/Do you want to?

What positive effect did this subtraction have?

Was there any negative effect?

What other poison could you eliminate?

There are many ways to organize our world and one of those is Inputs and Outputs.  By making deliberate and conscious choices about the things, people and circumstances that we allow into our lives, we can lead ourselves to better outputs.  If we pay attention only to feeling good in the moment, then we are dopamine addicts who are slaves to every “shiny thing” that this world puts in front of us.  I’ve seen the maxim that “ignorance is bliss” hold in many situations.  So perhaps I am the foolish one for looking past the moment for something deeper.

Uncategorized

I’m Here For The Pizza

Pete Huryk

RookIt was my freshman year of high school.  I don’t recall why I was in the halls so late that day but there I was.  A friend from soccer saw me and asked me if I would play for the chess team in ten minutes.  One of their players was sick and they needed someone.  It was also the end of their season, so they were having a pizza party afterward.  My father had taught me enough about chess that I knew how the pieces moved and how to win/lose the game.  I agreed to play with the expectation being set that I was not very good.

My opponent didn’t know anything about my prior experience or lack thereof.  He was an intellectual type that gave thought to each of his moves and the meaning behind mine.  The truth was that my moves were haphazard at best and I was almost impatient with how long it took for him to beat me.  I was there for the pizza more than the chess.  In the end I did lose relatively quickly and easily because I put almost nothing into the game.

Over the years I’ve become a better chess player but I’m still nothing to write home about.  The reason why I bring up this memory is that it is representative of how many people go through life.  They are focused on specific things and take little notice of much else.  They give up on things that could be important if they just took time to notice.  Their focus on the least common denominator blinds them to the upper limits of what life has to offer.

This is probably not you.  You’re probably reaching for the heights of what you can be: physically, mentally and emotionally.  We can’t live at our best every single moment but to settle for the minimum offered seems absurd.  I’m not just here for the pizza anymore!

Go get it!  (whatever ‘it’ is for you)

Pete

Uncategorized

Filling the Void

Pete Huryk

voidIn evolutionary terms, humans have not changed much in a long time.  There is talk that redheads might disappear from the human race eventually.  This is a relatively small change in the dominant (in certain ways) species of the world.  Our historic and prehistoric ancestors generally lived an existence more focused on survival.  Their lives were based on filling the void in their stomachs before anything else.  Some civilizations began to fill the void in understanding the world around them and the heavens above.  Regardless of the time period, man has been trying to fill a void in his life.

Today in the hyper-individualized world of the 21st century, each person seems to have their own personal void which needs filling.  Generally speaking in the US, we have conquered the void of the stomach to an alarming amount of overkill.  The internet has given many the excuse of bypassing the void of the mind.  Since all knowledge is available, it becomes less important to know it.  In a world where the stomach is full and the mind is subject to whims of the shiniest things that shows up in front of us, it’s no wonder that people are struggling.  They are not struggling with staying alive but they are struggling with truly living.  Survival is a 24/7 job.  What do you do when that job is no longer necessary?  How do you fill that time that used to be spent surviving?

It should be spent living the life that you want.  You have ten, twenty, sixty more years of void.  What are you going to do with it?  That is the true question.  I do not stand in judgment of what you want for yourself.  It is after all, your life.  The thing that I ask is for you to truly consider what it is that you want, rather taking what you are given.  Fill your life, fill your time, fill your mind, fill your heart with the things that truly want.  Do more than just stay alive.  Live as if you’ve only got one shot at this.

Thanks guys!

Pete

Uncategorized

Delicious Poison

Pete Huryk

Princess Bride“I’ve spent the past few years building up an immunity to iocane powder!” -The Dread Pirate Roberts/Wesley

It was a strategic maneuver.  Obviously Wesley knew that at some point he would be faced with a situation where drinking poison would save his life.  However since iocane is odorless and tasteless, the experience was not done for enjoyment but rather protection.  If Wesley had been alive in modern or realistic times, he would have had a greater number of choices to kill Vizzini.  It just would have taken years and not moments to kill him using a soft drink, ultraviolet sun-rays, fast-food and stress-laden office job.  If you haven’t understood any of this post yet, stop everything and watch “The Princess Bride” right now!

Now that you’re back or never left, it should be obvious to most that our lives are full of possible poisons.  Some can be instantaneous killers.  Others take years to grab hold and choke the life out of people.  Why are we surrounded by so much poison?  Because we want to be!  We really don’t want the literal or figurative death that they carry but it is usually an unwanted side-effect to some deliciousness.   I use the word delicious to describe some positive feeling sensation associated with a negative action or product.  It does not specifically have to be a food/drink.

The delicious moment trumps the long term poisonous effect.  It is all over our society: food, drink, relationships, entertainment and the list goes on.  I’m sure that it is not impossible but it would definitely be difficult to go “poison free”.  So I would not ask that of anyone.  Since I mainly write this blog to challenge myself, the challenge that I lay before you and I is to give up two delicious poisons this week.  Tuesday (8/25) to Tuesday (9/1).  Leave a comment with your two and be honest with yourself and me if you drop the ball.  It’s not failure, it’s data!  You’ve learned something about yourself.  My two poisons are: Iced Tea and ice cream.  I also promise to leave a comment if I fall short.  People who know me will recognize the difficulty of this.  Can you give up Facebook, unnecessary cellphone use, your anger, that cup of coffee or cigarette?

“Never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line!  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” -Vizzini

Pete

 

 

Uncategorized

The Path Is Broken

Pete Huryk

Appalachian TrailEach year my brother and I go for a hike on the Appalachian Trail.  It is one of my favorite times of the year.  It’s an awe-inspiring thing.  The trail is only a few feet wide but it is over two thousand miles long.  The path is usually easy enough to follow because lots of people hike it each year.  This past spring we hiked our normal section in reverse.  Due to an overflowing stream, we ended up on the wrong trail for a while.  Eventually we were able to get back to the AT but first we had to get our bearings and hiked some new ground with new sites.  Hiking the AT is a great experience that I’ve enjoyed a lot.  It’s not the only path and it’s not the path for everyone.

While hiking the AT is great, it is a horrible path to be on if you’re trying to get to Ohio.  As I prepare for another year in the classroom, I wonder how many of our paths are broken.  We have constructed so many procedures, social norms and belief systems.  It seems as though many of them are broken or breaking.  The 20th Century American Human had a pretty clear cut set of guidelines for his or her “success”.  Money, fame, power, and possessions were indicators of “success”.  Perhaps they still are but I don’t know that the old paths still lead to those desired ends.  The fact that we have been going down these paths for generations will be little consolation to the young people who end up lost on “the right path”.

Perhaps what we need now is a compass and a machete rather than a path.  The future is an uncertain thing.  Following the well-worn path may still get you to its historical end but it may help more to question the path.  Is this the right path for you?  At bare minimum the question and the decision to follow or not puts your life into your own hands.  In the end that’s where it should be anyway.  If you follow in everyone else’s footsteps and don’t like where you end up, then you made the mistake, not the path.

Find your True North and follow it this week.

Pete

Uncategorized

Hiding in Plain Sight

Pete Huryk

WaterTowerI’ll admit it openly that I have fallen off of the exercise wagon this summer.  Grandiose hopes of more time and fewer distractions turned into shut off alarms and Netflix watching.  Although there were spurts of activity, I have fallen short of my own standard for acceptability in both frequency and duration of exercise.  Today I began the climb out of that hole.

After completing my run and heading for the gym, I walked by this structure on the right.  I’m not really sure what it is.  It is on the site of an old fish hatchery.  So it might have held feed at one point or possibly it is a type of water tower.  Regardless of its function, I can pretty honestly say that I have never noticed it before.  Despite having many activities as a youth and an adult less than a hundred yards away, it was invisible to me.  If I had noticed it at a younger age, it might have been something that I would have climbed or pretended was a fort or bunker.  Now it is useless to me.

In many ways this experience mirrors that which happens to all of us at one point or another.  We discover things about ourselves which were in plain sight for most people to see.  However we become so accustomed to ourselves that we don’t notice.  We don’t notice that we can be confident, intelligent, funny or courageous until that trait is covered with rust and overgrowth.  It seems useless to us because it would take so much effort to change it, repair it and use it.  It is not too late.

The rust and neglect of the past cannot compare with the continuous action of now.  The picture that you have of yourself may be old and only representative of your past.  Much like when we look at our yearbooks, it is easy to see that we are no longer the same.  We are always evolving into new people.  That evolution can come about by chance or by choice.  So as you look at yourself today, find those things that are hiding in plain sight.  Find your passion, your strength, your courage and charisma.  It is waiting for you to pull away the leaves and polish off the rust.  The same old you is always available if that’s who you want to be.

Enjoy the weekend!

Pete

Uncategorized

Paranoid and the Self-Righteous

Pete Huryk

paranoid“Finished with my woman ’cause she couldn’t help me with my mind.  People think I’m insane ’cause I am frowning all the time.”  Those lines don’t even need the backing of guitars or drums to churn a feeling of very raw emotion in my stomach.  “Paranoid” by Ozzy Osbourne/Black Sabbath was the preferred soundtrack of my pre-high school years.  Despite its melancholy and borderline hopeless lyrics, it always seemed to be able to put me into a frenzy that required action of some kind.  My music selection at the time came as a surprise to many especially my middle school French teacher, Madame Gowie.

Although I’m not quite sure where my ability for languages came from, I was able to display talent even in middle school.  Nothing says “cool” in middle school better than being good in French class!  Unfortunately I was slightly unaware of what it took to be cool and became one of Madame Gowie’s favorites with the French name of “Pierre Paul” to boot.  The first time when I truly disappointed the good Madame was when I brought in a picture of someone famous for description.  My magazine picture of Ozzy Osbourne left her in a state of disgust.  Her thoughts about Mr. John Michael Osbourne were not positive in the slightest and it possibly changed her thoughts about me.  For my own part, I had a much stronger positive feeling toward Mr. Osbourne and the effect he had on my life.  So I took up the more normal disposition and disliked French class with my peers.

It was almost too easy for Madame Gowie and others to dislike Ozzy Osbourne.  He sang loud music that they disliked.  His song “Suicide Solution” had been under scrutiny in a court case where a family alleged that the song caused their son’s suicide.  He bit the heads off of bats and doves, what was there to like?

I’m not trying to portray Ozzy Osbourne as my hero by any stretch of the imagination.  My point is that for many people, his “evil” became a way for them to feel more righteous.  It is all too common of a practice today that we mask our own weakness and shortcoming by focusing on those who are worse than us.  If we are fat, we find the obese or our heavier past to feel good.  Do not look to the evil of others to find your righteousness.  You should be able to have a sense of pride in who you are and what you do without the disclaimer of comparing yourself to another.  It is a shell game that you can’t ever win.  “I can’t see the things that lead to happiness, I must be blind.”  There should be a level of autonomy to who you are and how you feel about yourself.  By comparing yourself to others too often, you are either inflating or deflating that which is unique and special about you.

“I tell you to enjoy life….” forget the rest.

Pete