Tag: relationships

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Early Seinfeld

Pete Huryk

SeinfeldSeinfeld is one of my favorite TV shows of all time.  It has so many memorable episodes and characters.  Despite my love for the series, I’m not a huge fan of the early episodes.  Many of the episodes, I just don’t find funny at all or they feel forced.  This is not surprising in the slightest.  It took those early episodes in order to get to the later ones.  Early failures lead to better episodes later.  A few of the story-lines were even repeated with better effect the second time around.  The early episodes of Seinfeld were not a good indication of where the series was going.

JKRowlingDespite all of the examples of enduring early hardship, there is still a pervasive desire for instantaneous results.  People want to be hit right away, if not sooner.  The perception of overnight success is usually due to the glossing over of the hard work done before the big break.  Sylvester Stallone was a breakout start with Rocky!  After he was a starving actor who had to deny a big pay day in order to star in his own movie.  J.K. Rowling had the blockbuster Harry Potter book series followed by movies.  After she was on welfare and had her book rejected by many publishers.  Most of us are looking for the triumph without the trials.  It seems that it doesn’t usually work that way.

The road to success in anything will most likely be filled with potholes, detours and poorly constructed bridges.  The sports car or limo that you’ve imagined yourself arriving in will probably not make the trip.  In fact you’ll probably have to go most of the way on foot.  Are you willing to make that trip?  Or will you take the easy road to Nowhere Near Where You Want To Be?  It sounds like a town that many people live in while they dream about being someplace else.

Get on the road today!

Pete

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Your Life in Sexual Terms (Uncomfortable content, you’ve been warned!)

Pete Huryk

strawberryIt’s a longstanding phrase in advertising, “Sex Sells!”  It sells things that have nothing to do with it whatsoever.  Sex or the perception of sex has been used to advertise cigarettes, alcohol, deodorant, shampoo and so much more.  The reason is that it works.  If someone is able to link your desire for sex to their product, they’ve increased their chances of making a sale exponentially.  So with this all in mind, I’m going to try to sell you on your best life in sexual terms.  This sales pitch will start with the less desirable and move up from there.

Rape – Acting on your desires without any thought to the impact or desires of others is rape.  You do things that you know are wrong but you just don’t care.

Fantasizing – All of the action happens inside your head and stays there.  It’s perfect because it’s all imaginary.  You can have anything that you want and be exactly how you want to be but in that moment, it’s just you ALONE!

Masturbation – Desire with a little action is masturbation.  You’re one step up from fantasizing.  You’re actually doing something that will produce a result.  But let’s face it, you’re still alone and you’re still not doing what you really want to be doing.

One Night Stand – You’re another step up the ladder!  You’ve gotten that thing that you’ve been hoping for.  This is a good sign but you know it’s basically meaningless.  A temporary band-aid over the bigger desire that you have.

Porn Sex – You’re doing something like what you want but you’re mainly showing off.  You know there’s an audience and it’s obvious that this isn’t who you are.  Once the spotlight is off of you, you’re going back to your normal life and it’s not as glamorous as you want it to be.

The F*#% Buddy –  This is a comfortable situation.  It’s meeting a good number of your desires and regularly enough that you don’t feel like you’re going without.  It’s a good place to be but you know it can’t last forever and you’ve got needs on other levels that aren’t being met.

The Committed Relationship – This is where you want to be.  It’s good for you and good for the people around you.  There’s a compounding return on the weeks, months and years that you’ve put into this.

Now that we’ve defined the terms, let’s apply them to an area of one’s life.  Let’s use personal fitness.

  • A person who does not care about their fitness at all is raping themselves.  Over and over acting only out of desire and never thinking of consequence.
  • A person who sees fit people and thinks about how they could be or used to be is just fantasizing.
  • The person who joined a gym but never goes or goes only when they feel like it is masturbating.
  • Training for and running a 5K is a one night stand.  It’s not going to last.
  • Entering a fitness challenge at work is porn sex.  Without the spotlight, it’s just not happening or at least not to the level that it is.
  • Personally I’m in a F*#% buddy relationship with my fitness.  I do it when I feel like it.  I’m not committed to it.  It’s convenient but not committed.  I’m missing out on all of those connections that would take it to the next level.
  • The fit person is in a committed relationship.  Not particularly to the type of exercise that they do but rather to their body.

Apply these labels to any area of your life.  It could help you to realize that you’re raping your career and you really don’t want to be anymore.  No matter what your situation this is a tool to help you examine where you are and where you want to be.  ENJOY!

Pete

If you’ve got suggestions for other possibilities, leave them in the comments.

 

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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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Are you a Black Diamond?

Pete Huryk

black-diamondThe sport of skiing is one that I did not acquire until I was well into my twenties.  My wife took me for the first time while we were engaged.  I enjoy it but because I learned to ski later in life, I feel a certain amount of hesitance about pushing my limits.  Skiing is an activity that allows for a good amount of self-policing.  Generally speaking, there are no official representatives of the mountain telling you what trails to take.  You need to have enough self-awareness to know if you’re a green circle, a blue square or a black diamond.  Incorrectly gauging your level could have disastrous consequences.  Despite this possible peril, most people make it down the mountain unscathed because they accurately police themselves.

It is amazing to me that in certain areas, the idea of self-awareness is ingrained and almost automatic.  While in other places people are seemingly unable to see themselves at all.  Perhaps it is the number of variables in the given situation.  Or it is the perceived risk of bodily, emotional or social harm.  Whether it is in sports, dating, business, school or any other area, we all know someone who does not know their own level.  Either they think they’re an expert when they’re truly a novice.  Or they think they should be on the bunny hill when they could truly handle or deserve so much more of an experience.  Regardless of the situation, there are rewards to reaped from self-awareness.

So where do you belong in a particular area that means something to you?  Are you a green, a blue or a black diamond?  Take a real look inward and decide where you think you belong?  Then take your self-assessment and bring it to people that you trust.  Depending on the area, it may be worth it to take it to the streets and see what the common person thinks.  Regardless of the outcome, the exercise is valuable because a map of Chicago is worthless if you’re lost in New York.  Having a knowledge of where you are is a key component to getting where you want to go.  Denial is not a strategy for progress.

So go out there and hit the slopes!

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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High Jump and Long Jump

Pete Huryk

high jumpIn high school, I was an above average high jumper.  My secondary event was long jump.  I was only slightly above average in long jump and did not enjoy it or practice it as much.  In my senior year, I started to notice that I had better results in high jump at meets where I was also long jumping.  If there was a meet that I was only competing in the high jump, I tended to fall short of my best.  Despite the fact that long jump was never my primary focus, it helped me not to “over-focus” on high jump.  The slight distraction was valuable because too much mental and emotional energy spent in one direction had diminishing returns.  This realization was made about a very specific activity but has influenced the way that I think daily.   In the fast paced world that we live in, it is easy to get distracted.  Distraction for the purpose of others is usually not helpful.  However release of the pressure of intense focus is both helpful and desirable in many respects.  Most activities and even people can be put into one of these groupings.

Less to get more – There are some things that it’s better for me to not focus on all the time.  Writing and other activities that I enjoy would become burdensome quickly if I was over-focused on them.  The amount of mental and emotional energy that I put in would begin to deteriorate the positive feelings and outcomes.  On the people side of things, in the past I have smothered certain relationships through over-focus.

None to get more – There are things that it’s better if I ignore them completely.  Complete ignorance is not particularly healthy.  However there are things that I should not let into my brain at all.  I’ve gotten better at taking away extraneous activities and thought patterns to be in a better mental and emotional state regularly.  This has become even more important for people.  There are some people that I’ve just had to cut completely out of my life.  Their presence was a drain on time and energy.  The positive effect on my life was minuscule compared to the drain.  So they needed to be cut out or ignored.

From ostrich to eagle – There are things that I ignore wholly or partially that I should really be paying attention to.  Usually these things are fear based.  The fear is not real, it’s a story that I tell myself inside of my head.  It is a story about disappointment, rejection, pain and failure.  Most of the time when I break out of the ostrich perspective, I realize that it is not anywhere near as bad as I thought.  The hardest part is pulling my head out of the ground or my ass and start doing things.  Unfortunately this also works for people.  There are people in my life that deserve attention but I don’t give it to them.  Again the investment of time seems much bigger than it probably is.  So ignoring is easier in the short term but there is a price that is paid in the long term.

Your focus determines your reality.  So as you go through your day and your life, it is important that you choose what you focus on and how often.  If your life or relationships are not working in one area or another, it is at least partially due to the focus or lack there of that you are putting in there.  More does not always translate to better!  Find the right balance to the ingredients in your life.

Focus on making today great!  But not too much.

Pete

 

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Invisible People

Pete Huryk

InvisibleAs a teacher, I take pride in the fact that I learn all of my students’ first and/or last name within the first three days of class.  Learning the names of over 100 people in that amount of time is not always easy but it is good for building a rapport with people.  There are plenty of tricks to acquiring information that quickly.  Unfortunately the honest truth is that I don’t remember all of the names after the year is over.  The other day a former student came to visit and it took about five minutes for me to remember her first name.  While I’m not proud of this event, I don’t feel all that badly about it either.  The information was in there but just not near the top of the filing system.  I feel much worse when I first meet someone and less than a minute later, I don’t remember their name.

There are many reasons why this happens but a major one is that new people aren’t usually important to us yet.  In English class you may remember your teacher talking about the “first person”, “second person” and “third person”.  That basically represents the way that we used to define people’s importance.  In a pre-technology world, the most important person in our lives was ‘self’.  This was followed by the people we had contact with directly.  Finally there was the rest of the world that held up that third position.  Now there is a third class of people, invisible.

Invisible people are all around us.  Of course they’re not truly invisible.  We can see them if we look hard enough.  The reason we usually don’t see them is because we’re looking at our phone, TV or tablet.  In theory these should be “third person”, people that are there but you are not directly interacting with.  The problem is that position has now been replaced by the “second person”.  These are the people that we are in direct contact with but today they are almost universally ignored in favor of the digital.  The digital second person is basically the default contact that we reach to before anyone else.  For some, it seems as though all people have become invisible people.

So this weekend, give life back to the invisible people.  Take the time to see who is there.  Engage with people you know and don’t know on human level.  Remember that a hug is better than text.  A smile is better than a like.  Time with an old friend is better than a new Facebook friend.  Technology is a tool just like a hammer.  Used correctly, both are intended to build.  Used incorrectly, both have the possibility to destroy.  Be human this weekend and visit with the invisible people.

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Love and Peanut Allergies

Pete Huryk

Peanut heartRecently I’ve given this advice to some younger people in my life, my hope is that it helps someone avoid relationship potholes.  During my college years, I dated the same girl on and off for almost three years.  We ran on a six month cycle.  Almost every six months we would have some big issue and it would end with us breaking up.  Inevitably we would get back together a few weeks or a month later.  That would start a new six month cycle.

With each breakup came a few friends or family members that would say “she was a b____!” or something like that.  I never felt comfortable with that kind of 180 degree turn.  After spending months of being “in love” with this person, how could I forget all of the positive that quickly and focus on the negative.  It just didn’t sit well with me because although obviously not a perfect fit, she did have many of the characteristics I wanted.  The problem was that I had not diagnosed my “allergies” before we started.

People with acute peanut allergies have to be extremely cautious.  Their life depends on avoiding certain substances.  People with seasonal allergies are often inconvenienced by the amount of pollen in the air.  In both cases, it is intelligent to take necessary steps to diagnose and use preventative measures.  This mode of thinking can be used very effectively for relationships as well.

I did not have a “peanut allergy” to my college girlfriend.  It was seasonal and only became pronounced in certain circumstances.  The problem was not her but the combination of us and environmental factors.  I selected someone that was going to continually provoke my “allergic” symptoms.  We very rarely get into relationships with people who cause major “allergic” reactions because like a peanut allergy, the reaction is immediate and pronounced.  So the key is to go in with a plan.

Write down a description of your perfect partner.  Take as much time and paper as you need.  Go into detail on all levels: physically, mentally and emotionally.  List all of your MUST HAVES but list your MUST NOT HAVES as well.  These are your violent allergic reactions.  SHOULD NOTS will be your seasonal allergies that may crop up from time to time.  With this list, you are more likely to diagnose problems early and make an informed decision on how to proceed.

Too often we start a relationship and “love, lust, attraction” all take hold and we no longer diagnose anything.  We go on autopilot taking in all of the good and ignoring the bad that could eventually cause major problems.  If you’re still in high school, you don’t need to do this yet.  You need some failed experiments to figure out what it is that you want in the first place.  Once you understand your “allergies” (both severe and seasonal), you’ll be able to have a better chance of finding someone for the long term.

Click HERE to tell me about your experiments and findings.

Good luck in your search.

Pete

 

 

 

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It’s Not You, It’s Me

Pete Huryk

Relationships are complex things with hundreds or possibly thousands of moving parts.  When things break down and relationships end, all parties should take stock of themselves and their part in the demise.  For some this self inspection can be difficult and painful.  Often when the end comes, the phrase is uttered “It’s not you, it’s me.”  Sometimes this may be true but if we want our next relationship to be better than the last, we cannot assume that it is.

From my own experience and watching others at the end of relationships, the tendency for many is to totally discredit the other.  “She was a b____!”  “He was such an a________.”  The problem that I’ve always had with that is, what does that say about me?  I just spent 6 months, a year or two years with this person.  Now all of the sudden, they are a horrible person.  It doesn’t make any sense.  At bare minimum, that would mean that I need to fix my selection process but rarely is that it.  The only thing that you can control is yourself.  So all of the power is in discerning our faults from the faults of the other.

If we assume that we are faultless, then we learn nothing.  It is always easiest to point the finger at the other person but it does nothing for us.  By looking at our faults, it forces us to do something about them.  This is uncomfortable but growth often is.  The reason for this failed relationship is to prepare you for the next one and eventually one that you will maintain for life.  Like so many other parts of life, it is necessary to “fail forward” in relationships.  It may not feel good at the moment but it will get us where we need to go.

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What Language Are You Speaking?

Pete Huryk

Languages are essentially agreements.  At the moment, you and I are working under the English agreement.  We both agree that you are using “eyes” to read this post and the thing that processes your thoughts about it is called a “brain”.  As my day job, I try to get young people to accept the Spanish agreement.  Over the years that I have explained this concept, I was aware that there are many variations underneath each agreement.  There is American English and Australian English but in essence they are close enough to allow communication to flow.  Today I had a thought that I may have sold the idea of variations a little bit short.

The problem with the language agreement is the same as with most contracts: the fine print.  As I was driving home, I began thinking.  If language is an agreement, why do we disagree so often?  One of the issues is that I am not exactly writing English here.   I’m writing American 39 year old moderately educated Northwest New Jersey English.  I could probably lump a few more descriptors on there but you get the point.  Does this mean that we can’t understand each other?  No, that’s not necessarily true.   The key is to recognize what language you’re really speaking and the language of the other person.

This simple shift can make your communications better with the most important people in your life.  For example, silence can mean something very different in the female language than the male.  It can also change person to person.  The key is to work to understand the other person’s language rather than assuming that your languages are compatible.