Month: May 2017

My family is preparing for a trip back east this summer.  Being in Oregon with two children and having families that have spread out around the country, it is a challenge to get to see everyone on a regular basis.  On top of this sports and school put limits on our travel.  So, we are spending two weeks between New York/Long Island, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore/Annapolis.  On the “must do” list for every city (and stops along the way, Like Morgantown, WV, where I attended WVU for my undergraduate and Master’s degrees) there is food.  Pizza tops the list.  I love the pizza in Pittsburgh.  I played youth football on Mineo’s Pizza (recently voted “Best in Pennsylvania”), and it is a personal favorite.  There is also Campiti’s, Beto’s, et al.  Each has its own unique deliciousness.  My wife grew up in New York—specifically, Oyster Bay, Long Island.  I lived on Long Island on two occasions, as well.  While I have no NY favorite, I have had enough NY pizza to know that it is some of the best (maybe the best—if I set aside my Pittsburgh biases) in the country (world?).  Sorry, Chicago, I have had no better pizza than what can he had in these two cities.  I live a desperate life on the west coast.  But, pizza is a personal preference.  Who am I to judge another’s taste (or lack, thereof—kidding!) in pizza.

There are many kinds of pizza.  Pizza will never taste the same from region to region, in part, due to the diversity of recipes, but also because of the water.  It seems that local water is the one ingredient that can’t be match from city to city and is what gives pizza its uniqueness.

Like pizza, we are all unique.  We all have personalities and preferences that are affected by where we were born, raised, and where we have lived or are living.  We are connected to our history.  We tend to think our history is the best—that our unique experiences are better than the next.

While I persist in thinking that I grew up in the best city in the world (thankful I didn’t grow up in Cleveland) with the Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins—the City of Champions, I appreciate the diversity of culture within our nation.  It would not be the same if our towns, cities, and states were all the same.

Pizza would be less enjoyable, if it all tasted the same.  Life would be boring without diversity.  There would be nothing to reminisce.  No memories to relive without diversity.

Appreciate uniqueness.  Celebrate our differences.  Experience the diverse flavors of life.  Carpe momento!

You are (extra)ordinary.  But, you already knew that.  Or did you?

We all tend to think that because we are not celebrities or extremely wealthy that we are less significant than those who are.  The rich and famous are no better than you or me.  Being known is not (extra)ordinary.  We are all significant in our own ways—if not, then, we should be.

In “whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Ecclessiastes 9:10, NIV).  I just saw a video meme that I have seen a few times before.  It is about a 19-year-old Dairy Queen manager who observed a blind customer drop a $20 bill that was promptly picked up and tucked in a purse by a woman standing behind the man.  The manager refused service to the woman because she would not return the money.  On top of this, the young manager gave the blind man $20 out of his own pocket.  This is (extra)ordinary!

The teacher who never gives up on the problem student.  The nurse who works long with rarely a bathroom break.  The custodian who takes pride in his or her work.  The police officer who takes the time to know the people on his/her beat—and occasionally join in a basketball game with neighborhood kids.  The soldier who serves the multitude who have never met him.  The coach who takes the time to encourage each and every child and offer life lessons through sport.  The grocery store manager who notices that you are shopping later than usual.  The barista who remembers just how you like your coffee.  The waitress who serves you with a smile even when she knows that you are going to short her on the tip. ….  Everyone can be and is (extra)ordinary.

I write “(extra)ordinary” the way I do because I believe we can all be extraordinary in our rather “ordinary” lives.  It is a choice—like so many things in our lives—to be (extra)ordinary.  It is a choice to merely exist or to exist with purpose.

We are all connected at the most spiritual level.  We cannot escape the impact—positive or negative—that we have on others.  What might seem ordinary and quite insignificant may, in fact, have an overwhelming and rippling effect on others.  Don’t sell yourself short.  You are profoundly important.  Carpe momento!

Be your best today; be better tomorrow!

It is Memorial Day.  A day off from work and school.  A day to barbeque.  In my childhood, the day the community pool opened to mark the unofficial first day of summer.  It was always a day for parades and community celebration.

I did not serve in the military.  I have lost no one close to me to war.  Thus, it can be easy to forget the true significance of this day.  It is easy to celebrate Memorial Day and forget to mourn.  It is easy to be thankful for the day off and neglect to be thankful for the sacrifice that has made it possible.  Unless there is a grave upon which to place a flag and remember a loved one lost in service of his or her country, this day too often lacks significance.

The day was not intended to honor only those most close to us.  It is intended to honor all who gave the ultimate sacrifice for country—for the freedom we so often take for granted.

Let this be a Memorial Day of true remembrance and sincere gratitude.  As the bible tells us: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13, NIV).  How much greater a love one must show in laying down his or her life for the one’s he or she does not know?

Some Gave All*

“I knew a man called him Sandy Kane few folks even knew his name
But a hero yes was he
He left a boy came back a man still many just don’t understand
About the reasons we are free
I can’t forget the look in his eyes or the tears he cried
As he said these words to me

All gave some some gave all
Some stood through for the red white and blue
And some had to fall
And if you ever think of me think of all your liberties
And recall some gave all

Now Sandy Kane is no longer here but his words are oh so clear
As they echo throughout our land
For all his friends who gave us all who stood the ground and took the fall
To help their fellow man
Love your country live with pride and don’t forget those who died
America can’t you see

All gave some some gave all
Some stood through for the red white and blue
And some had to fall
And if you ever think of me think of all your liberties
And recall some gave all

And if you ever think of me think of all your liberties
And recall yes recall some gave all some gave all”

*Writers: Cindy Cyrus and Billy Ray Cyrus

Image source: http://www.pbs.org/national-memorial-day-concert/memorial-day/history/

“Even if you fall on your face, you’re still moving forward.”—Victor Kiam

I had a pretty ambitious body composition goal for the year.  Unfortunately, I got in the BOD POD® on Friday to be tested, and the results were far less than expected.  They were in the positive direction—a gain in muscle mass and a loss in fat—but nowhere near what I wanted them to be.  The initial feelings were of failure.  After all, I have worked hard (not nearly as hard as I would have preferred).  I didn’t expect to have reached my goal, but I expected to be closer.

We set ambitious goals. (Or at least we should be.)  Sometimes conquer them.  Sometimes we don’t.  The question remains, how do we respond?

We can make excuses.  I really have no excuse for not making in the improvements I sought.

We can blame.  Who am I gonna blame?  My wife for cooking too well?  My trainer?  (I train myself!)

We can revise and renew.  A new year in ahead of me.  I can revise my strategy and try again.

With regard to feeling like a failure, I teach my students about the decline in muscle mass from 25-50 years and how is accelerated from 50-80 years.  I am 54 years old.  I gained muscle mass and strength over the past year.  This is better than the majority of men my age.  I should (and am) be satisfied that the progress is not going in the opposite direction.  I could have lost muscle mass despite my efforts.  My strength gains (though not hugely impressive) were significant.  I should be pleased.

So, my plan didn’t work as intended.  It is time to reassess and reformulate my plan.  I can make my goal less ambitious.  But, to me, that would be just short of quitting.  Better yet, I can strengthen my approach.  I can create a better plan.  Personally, I think I focused too much on dieting in the last couple of months and didn’t adequately fuel my training.  My daily schedule challenged my eating, but, if I want to be serious about this, I have to be smarter and more committed.

Healthy living is not as hard as one might want to claim it is.  Training for performance and more than health takes significantly more effort.  Bodybuilders and athletes work extremely hard for their physiques.  Those bodies don’t come casually.  You want it?  You must work for it?

Do you have an ambitious goal?  Go for it!  Be (extra)ordinary!  Do something that challenges you.  If you fall short, consider the progress you have made and keep going forward.

Be your best today; be better tomorrow!

Carpe momento!

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”—Helen Keller

The bible tells us that where there is no vision, the people perish (Proverbs 29:18, KJV).  The verse more correctly speaks to prophetic revelation, but, like many of the Proverbs, the verse can have many applications.  I often think of it when it comes to thoughts of the future and guiding my path.  We need more than just sight to be (extra)ordinary.  We need vision.

Success requires forward thinking.  It requires planning.  It requires knowing where you want to go.

Having vision requires also that we know from where we have come and what our strengths are.  Having vision demands more than sight.

We all need vision—personally and professionally.  This is the growth mindset.  One who seeks to better himself or herself or better his/her circumstances needs a plan.  The growth-oriented need to look beyond what is seen.  We need to look beyond the box.  We need there to be no box.

Having no vision makes decision making nearly impossible.  Indeed, having sight but no vision is worse than being blind.

Carpe momento!

“When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.”–Tecumseh

There is so much for which to be thankful, yet gratitude is often in short supply.  In looking for inspiration, I am grateful to have come across the above quote.  It provided a much needed reminder.

Gratefulness takes effort.  It is an action that doesn’t always come naturally.  As parents, how often do we have to ask our children, “Did you say ‘thank you’?”?  How often do we have to remind ourselves to say “thank you”?

We often have to overcome a bit of inertia to say “thanks”.  Once we do, however, it comes easier.

I am not speaking of the robotic, habitual “thank you”.  I want to address—and practice—the purposeful, heart-felt, thank you that is spoken with the sincerest appreciation.  I refer to the thanks given for the seemingly mundane.  The “thank you” for what we take for granted.  The “thank you” for the unwanted circumstance that gives us the opportunity to grow.  The “thank you” for the pain and the difficulty that makes us stronger.  And, of course, I refer to the “thank you” for the blessings in our lives.

I must whole-heartedly agree with Tecumseh.  “If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.”

Like so many things, gratefulness is a choice.  It may take some searching and creativity, but there is always much for which to be grateful.  Once we start the list, though, there can be no stopping.  Like opening the flood gates, so is the expression of gratefulness.

Take time to reflect on all that has been given to us.  Be thankful.  Carpe momento!

“This is the lesson of the wildflowers. At first they don’t look like flowers, they present as a weed. And if we fail to recognize them, we will miss their beauty. Sometimes what we most fear is just the bud before the blossom. If we are patient and let things unfold, we may discover an incredibly beautiful gift just waiting to be enjoyed. Other times, there was no blossom. It was just a weed as I suspected. The question is, when will we know? When should we pull the weeds? When should we let them grow? What happens if we pull too soon and miss the flower? What happens if we let it grow and the weeds get stronger and harder to pull up?”–Shane Hipps, Selling Water by the River

How many of us are attempting to weed our lives and missing the wildflowers.  Personally, I know I have a tendency to over-weed.  I am inherently impatient and often fail to trust in the direction my life is going.  Not only do I fail to stop and smell the flowers, but I don’t even all them to blossom.

Life is often unexpected.  Life is always uncertain.  It is difficult—if not impossible—to tell the weeds from the wildflowers.  So, what is one to do?  About all one can do is watch, wait, and learn.  With maturity, one will begin to discern.  One learns to recognize the weeds and flowers early.  With such wisdom, we are able to make better decisions.

We will make mistakes, for sure.  Better to allow an occasional weed than miss the flowers all together.

If you are missing the analogy here, the wildflowers are the good that comes from adversity.  I shared the quote, yesterday (and metaphors are getting mixed), but Mattie Stepanek’s words warrant repeating: ““We all have life storms, and when we get the rough times and we recover from them, we should celebrate that we got through it. No matter how bad it may seem, there’s always something beautiful that you can find.”  Even the rough times we have can produce beauty—if we look.

I often think of some wonderful people who have experienced the worst of heartaches.  Despite the pain, they have managed to appreciate the wildflowers while they were in bloom.  Honestly, I am not sure I could have stood as strong as they did.  Put in perspective, most of the “weeds” we experience are trivial.  Our energy is best spent enjoying what we have to enjoy—the wildflowers.

As usual, I am writing to myself.  Perhaps, one or many might find themselves where I often find myself—searching for weeds among the wildflowers.  Let us ignore the weeds and take time to appreciate the wildflowers.

Carpe momento!

Image source: http://www.pacificcreststock.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/mp1.jpg

It has been raining in Portland, Oregon, for what seems like forever.  It has been a rainy winter to say the least.  Finally, the sun has come out. 

When I was moving out to Oregon, I was told that Oregonians don’t use umbrellas.  In fact, it rarely rains hard enough to need more than a rain jacket.  I don’t mind the rain a bit.  I do, however, prefer the sun.

Monday night, at my son’s lacrosse game, I got a bit of a chuckle.  The weather was perfect.  It was sunny and warm.  After listen to neighbors complain about the rain for weeks (months), I thought it funny to hear people complain about the heat.  On top of this, the spectators broke out the umbrellas.  The people who aren’t supposed to use umbrellas were now using them to shield themselves from the sun for which they had, until quite recently, had been anxiously waiting.  Am I the only on tickled by the irony?

This is life.  We tend to be dissatisfied with the current situation.  It’s rainy—we wish for the sun.  It is hot—we want it cooler.  We are where we are—we want to be somewhere else.

The grass is always greener?  The weather is too…?

Why are we like this?  Can we not be satisfied with where we are in the moment?  Carpe momento?

This is our path.  Good.  Bad.  Indifferent.  We are where we are in the moment.  Enjoy the present.  Take pleasure in being where you are—in the circumstances you find yourself.  Carpe momento!

“We all have life storms, and when we get the rough times and we recover from them, we should celebrate that we got through it. No matter how bad it may seem, there’s always something beautiful that you can find.”—Mattie Stepanek

Image: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/46760551

I have been on a bit of a music kick lately.  Today is no different.

Music touches the heart.  Music stirs the emotions.  Music helps me be more “well-centered.”

I write this after having a friend remind me of the Jim Croce song, “Time in a Bottle”.  Like all of Croce’s music, it moves me.

I began to think about the words.  They reminded me that I cannot store time and wishes.  These are for the present only.  We have the memories, but the moment quickly passes.

There are so many days that I wish I could slow down time.   There are so many moments that I wish I could save in a bottle.  Unfortunately, time passes.  So, we live every moment—every day—with gratitude for having spent it with the ones we love.

I have to many friends who have suffered the premature loss of a loved one and would give anything to spend one more day with their child or their spouse.  Sadly, they can’t.  They are left with the memories and the pit in their being.

If I could save time in a bottle?  Knowing that I can’t, I am left with just one thought: carpe momento!

I take the advice of my friend, Andy, and shift my attitude from “have” to “get”.  I get to spend this moment with the people who mean the most to me.  It doesn’t get any better.

“If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day
‘Til eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I’d save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go
Through time with

If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory
Of how they were answered by you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go
Through time with”

Written by Jim Croce • Copyright © BMG Rights Management US, LLC

Image: http://ldsmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Hourglass-1024×683.jpg

 

I had a conversation Saturday night with a friend who is a high school English teacher about the growth mindset in sports and education.  (We share a view that the two really go hand-in-hand.)  We talked about K-12 and college and how we are trending toward an easing of standards out of a desire to help young people feel successful.  I understand the motivations of such well-intended educators, but they are misguided.  What my friend sees in his school spills over into what I see at the university.  Frankly, I feel we fail society when we don’t raise our young to embrace the challenge.

As an English teacher, my friend teaches what he describes as “functional literacy”.  Long past are the days when students are “forced” to read the classics and write creatively.  Thus, a passion for literature is lost.  Creative writing is now limited to memes (often wrought with grammar and spelling issues) and brief tweets and social media posts.  Words are replaced with acronyms and emotions are expressed with emoticons. 

My pet peeve as a professor is Math.  Somehow the perception has become that “we don’t need math” and “we’ll never use this”.  Math, however, serve a greater purpose than stressing young minds.  Yes, perhaps, I might not use everything I learned in Calculus, but Math has taught me logic and perseverance.  Math has served me in far more ways than I can every comprehend.  I am saddened (and a bit angered) by the comments of students that they “can’t do math” or “math is hard”.  Maybe I was just fortunate in the math teachers I have had, but I feel so many of my students have been short changed.

We watched Hidden Figures on Friday.  I was struck by the repeated examples of how these brilliant minds were not successful because of what they knew, but because of what they were able to figure out.  Numerous times the comment was made that “we need math that hasn’t been done, yet” (paraphrasing).  It was America in one of its finer hours (the progression of knowledge and technology, as well as the progression of the rights and opportunities of women and people of color).  It was a story of doing what had never been done because it needed to be done.

I am educated and hold degrees, but these are meaningless if they don’t serve to remind me of how little I know.  I have heard it said that “PhDs learn more and more about less and less until they know everything about absolutely nothing”.  Maybe.  I have found that what I have learned has opened doors to opportunity to learn more—ever revealing my ignorance.

There is satisfaction in “failing”.  Something has been learned when one fails.  Failure is the impulse to succeed.  Without challenge, however, there is no failure.  With no failure, there is no growth.  In exercise physiology, this is the “overload principle”.  It is the idea behind “momentary muscular failure” and muscle growth.  In well-centered fitness, we likewise do not grow unless we are challenged.

Embrace the challenge.  Be your best today; be better tomorrow.  Carpe momento!