Tag: self awareness

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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.

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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

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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

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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

Blogpost, self-reliance

The V.O.C.

Pete Huryk

VocIn today’s high-speed world, people use acronyms more often than ever before.  In the past people hoped to be the MVP, a VIP or the CEO.    Now we are saying IDK, LOL, BRB and other things that I don’t even feel comfortable writing in acronym form.  Today I’ve decided to coin my own acronym.  It applies to many people and even applies to me at times.  Rather than being a VIP, we seem intent upon being the V.O.C.

The VOC is the Victim Of Circumstance.  It’s a really tough place to live.  Circumstances keep piling up on these individuals that they don’t like.  The world has thrust all of this upon them.  They don’t like their job, school, boyfriend/girlfriend, lack of popularity, lack of influence or prospects for the future.  These people have it, THE WORST EVER!.  Go ahead and try to tell them about a bad situation in your life and they can find one from theirs that is ten times worse.  The worst thing in most cases about being a member of the VOC club is that you have to choose to be a member!

That is one heck of a choice to make.  There are many things in this world that we should choose to be, a victim should not be one of them.  The problem with being a victim is the lack of power.  It is by nature a position of weakness and defense.  At some point the VOC decided that it was better to be weak, defensive and blameless rather than taking responsibility for themselves.  This is a dangerous bargain to make because eventually it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  When you are wearing brown tinted glasses, everything in the world looks like feces.

So rather than being the VOC, become the DOC.  The Director Of Circumstances is not completely in control of circumstance but acts more like a traffic cop.  The DOC decides what he or she will let pass and what needs to be stopped and evaluated further.  The traffic cop is separate from the traffic.  They may cause it, they may alleviate it but they are not the traffic.  Ultimately, they can usually move to a different intersection if their position becomes too much to handle.  It is a game of choice.

Direct your life today!  Don’t be a victim within it!

Pete

 

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Ketchup Sandwiches!

Pete Huryk

Ketchup SandwichWhen I was a kid, I was an extremely picky eater.  For an extended period of time, the one food that I would make for myself was ketchup sandwiches.  It really needs no explanation but just in case, it is simply two pieces of bread with ketchup in the middle.  (Do not judge my mother, I did this mainly at her protest or without her knowledge.)

Ketchup is intended to be a condiment.  Something that is a taste enhancer.  It should not have been a staple of anyone’s diet.  However I made it a center of my diet between my sandwiches and drowning things so completely in ketchup that I was often asked, “do you want fries with your ketchup?”  Luckily this was just a phase and eventually I found a lot more foods to fill my plate.  It’s an easy thing to explain away in these terms.  A young boy, who is afraid to try new foods, relies heavily on something that is safe but nutritionally empty to make it through.

This concept becomes more difficult to explain when we look at ourselves.  We’re not little kids anymore yet we cling heavily to things of little or no value.  In small doses, things like junk food, television, alcohol, etc. are not life altering forces.  However when those “condiments” become staples of your life’s diet, it is hard to say whether you are truly living or if you are just alive.

I’m looking in the mirror here.  Have a great weekend people!

Pete

 

 

Blogpost, self-reliance

The Scumbag and Tragedy Report

Pete Huryk

100_9372My son’s first birthday party is a memory that I will never forget.  The unfortunate thing is that the reason that particular birthday sticks in my memory is not the cake, the presents or the joy of my wonderful little boy celebrating his first year on this planet.  It is memorable because of what happened the next day.  The next day a student at Virginia Tech killed 32 people and wounded 17 others.  The two events are forever coupled in my mind and at the time shook the very foundation of who I am as a person.

In the aftermath of the shootings, there were several practical things that needed to be done.  I was teaching at school less than two hours from VA Tech.  We instituted protocols for locking down the campus and dealt with the grief of students.  There was a lingering problem that I had trouble reconciling.  I had an extreme amount of guilt for bringing a child into a world that was capable of such evil.  After celebrating the life of one of the people that I love the most, this act of evil made me question what I had done.  The tragedy in Charleston is the latest reminder that the evil of man is still here.  My heart goes out to the people who have lost someone in these senseless acts.  The victims, their families and friends are the only ones that matter now.  I know they are hurting much worse than I was over eight years ago but I have hope for them and us.  For my own part, I was able to pull myself out of the pit of despair that I had created for myself.  There were two words that brought me out: focus and hope.

By focusing on the evil of the world, I had made it my reality.  It is an easy thing to do at times because the media shows us regularly what horrible people can do.  This is not particularly their fault because we pay more attention to tragedy and they are giving us what “gets the ratings”.  However I choose to focus on other things now.  I see joy in my daughter’s eyes for big events like “field day”.  My eyes turn to Mrs. Lobby, the kindergarten teacher, who pours her heart and soul into little minds every day.  You’ll never see those things on the “scumbag and tragedy” report in the evening but they still exist and that is the world that I live in.

My other word is hope.  I have hope and confidence that the good in people will spread and win.  It is my influence on my children and the other people that I have contact with that I can affect the future.  I am a small drop in a large ocean but I hope that my small ripple combine with those of others can create a tidal wave of good that reaches around the world.  We must find the good in each other and expose that to the rest of the world.

As my final thought, I’d like for you to imagine two pitchers and a large bucket.  In one pitcher is red colored water and in the other there is blue.  If you only pour red into the bucket, the bucket water will be all red.  If you pour equal of both, you get purple.  The water has no choice what color it is.  However we have a choice what we put out into the world.  If you want the world to be greedy, selfish, hateful and driven by negative thoughts and emotion, then put those out there.  Recognize that you have a choice.  I don’t have rose colored glasses on and I’m not going to break into a verse of “kumbaya”.  The only thing that I want you to realize is that you have a choice.  The world is not inherently evil nor is it inherently good.  People have choices.

Be good to one another.

Pete

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The Pepsi Challenge

Pete Huryk

pepsiLast century (specifically in the 1980s) Pepsi had commercials and other advertising with the “Pepsi Challenge”.  An “unbiased” consumer was asked to try two different colas and give their preference.  Of course the on-camera participants always chose Pepsi.  Perhaps it was what they truly liked or the entire thing was rigged in some way.  In all honesty it doesn’t matter that much to me because I preferred Pepsi to Coke without the seeing choices of others.  It does make for an interesting discussion on why we choose the things that we do.

In a given day, you have literally thousands and possibly millions of choices to make.  Some of these choices are simple and probably automatic.  For example “Am I going to wear clothes today?”  No matter whether the answer is yes or no, it is an easy choice based on your daily life.  Other choices are much more complex and require major deliberation.  Choosing to go to college or the military is life-altering and for many would demand some time and attention.  In the middle of the automatic and grandiose decisions are many moment to moment choices that need to be made by you.  There are many people who treat these mid-level choices as though they were huge.  Others put all of their choices on automatic pilot letting others decide for them.  The worst scenario is that people forget that they are choosing at all.

In each moment, you have choices and some of the most important are about how you are going to feel.  Believe it or not, it is a choice.  If you are feeling sad, it is a choice.  Perhaps there are very good reasons for you to choose that but it is your choice.  By taking the physical state of your body, your mental focus of the moment and your inner dialogue, you determined the feeling that you were going to produce.

So now I put a new “Pepsi Challenge” on to you.  Let’s call it the “Huryk Challenge”.  Can you choose to feel good in all circumstances today?  No matter what life throws at you, can you CHOOSE to feel good.  You do not need to like the circumstances but you choose your feeling despite the poor situation.  I challenge you.

Choose to have a great day!

Pete

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Full Throttle All the Time

Pete Huryk

BoltWe are not machines.  It seems as though we wish that we were at times.  However the human animal is not infallible and fatigues just like any other creature on earth.  If you look at the World Records for running events, there are a few truths that you can learn about humans.

World Records for varied differences.  Please check my math, it’s late and it might not be perfect.

100 meters – Usain Bolt – 9.58  (23.37 MPH) (2 min 34.14 sec per mile)

200 meters – Usain Bolt – 19.19 (23.31 MPH) (2 min 34.38 sec per mile)

1 mile – Hicham El Guerrouj – 3:43:13 (16.13 MPH)

5K (3.12 Miles) – Kenenisa Bekele – 12:37.35 (14.83 MPH) (4 min 02.74 sec per mile)

Marathon (26.2) – Dennis Kiprutto Kimetto – 2:02:57 (12.78 MPH) (4 min 41.68 sec per mile)

After all of those numbers, names and information, what is my point?  You need to know what race you’re running in order to determine “full throttle”.  Each of these amazing athletes ran their race as fast as they could for the distance that they had to cover.  Usain Bolt’s 100 meter record is amazing but his pace is completely unrealistic over a 26.2 mile race.  Dennis Kiprutto Kimetto’s pace for a marathon is astounding but if he ran a 100 meter at that pace, he’d be considered “slow”.  The key is to know the race that you are in and what “full throttle” means for that race.

This is applicable to many areas of real life.  For example intimate relationships.  If you are looking to get married, recognize that it is a marathon.  Expect that the pace is slow and steady in order for it to last for years.  High school relationships are usually over in a few months, so the sprinter’s pace of spending every moment together is natural.

So what kind of races are you in at the moment?  Recognize what “full throttle” means for each of those races.  Perhaps there’s a project that is a sprint, then sprint that project.  Maybe at the same time you need to take control of your health, which is a marathon (figuratively).  Then you need to marathon your health.

Regardless of which form of “full throttle” you are in, realize that you are human.  The expectation that you can maintain Usain Bolt speed for 26.2 miles is ridiculous.  Don’t set yourself up for failure with unrealistic expectations.  Recognize the race and go after it intelligently!

Go full throttle today!

Pete

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I’m a punk soccer nerd

Pete Huryk

breakfast clubHigh school is a tough time for many reasons.  It is a time when young people are looking to solidify their independence from their parents.  At the same time they create new relationships that tend to define those years in so many ways.  It is extremely cliche but generally you are the company that you keep.  That is why cliques and labels become so widespread in high school because it is easier to lump people in with a group rather than take each person as an individual.  With everyone looking to discover who they are, they are not all that interested in finding out who everyone else is.

Perhaps I was fortunate that I had absolutely no idea who I was in high school and became quite comfortable with that fact.  I played soccer and ran track, so despite being athletic I wasn’t considered a “jock”.  My best friends smoked and listened to punk, so they would be considered “burnouts”.  Fortunately I liked the music but didn’t wear the uniform or pick up the bad habits.  My other circle of friends included at least four guys in the top ten of our class.  I got decent grades and loved learning things but refused to join the National Honor Society.  The adjective “normal” was used to describe me once and I took major offense.  At the time, I was just hoping for a better label.

In the end I’m not sure who the labels help more.  Does the label give the outside world a quick grouping system that allows them to dismiss the different?  Or does it give the individual a sense of self because they at least know their classification within the social class structure?

No matter who it helps more, it definitely has more possibility to hurt the individual.  This may not be in the “bullying” sense but rather a surrendering of self.  At this vulnerable time of life and in a society of pre-scripted paths, young people are capable of following to the point of almost non-existence.  They become the persona rather than a person.  None of this is particularly new nor likely to change quickly but in a world of almost infinite choices shouldn’t we be getting closer to being able to choose ourselves?

Let me know what you think.  Click here.

Be you today people!

Pete