Where is Your Heart, Really?

A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter is not a nice person. ~Dave Barry 

Have you ever wondered what motivates people? Once you start thinking about it you won't be able to stop analyzing.

I was at work today running A/V for the orientation programs getting ready for one of the last events of the day - a talk from a university higher-up and part time professor to the incoming freshmen. It was supposed to be a really easy session - just a power point, no microphones, no videos, no music. Just a guy talking one on one with the students. Honest-like. It seemed like it would be pretty cool.

On my way to the theatre, I got a beautifully composed message from a friend updating me about her work with middle-schoolers on a reservation. She's been there for a few days teaching programming and animation trying to develop interest early so the kids stay in school. I can tell simply from the updates that she is there purely because she cares about her field, the students, and the reservation. It's refreshing to read something like that - to observe someone at work with what she loves and making a difference just because she can. I have so much respect for her.

The joy I found in that message and the news it brought to me was almost immediately shattered at the theatre.

Although we'd though the lights and projector were on and ready to go, they were not. Although I was there 15 minutes early in case work still needed to be done (which it clearly did) I was confronted by a student orientation leader and told I was late and that the speaker had already gone to the event center office to page A/V and complain that things weren't ready for  him. I was given a stern phrase or two about my unpreparedness in place of a greeting and introduction. Needless to say, I got right to work. It took me five minutes, if that, and each minute I was prompted by the speaker with the items that were left. But as soon as the students sat down, the demeanor changed - a quiet, relaxed voice talking to the students about the things they should focus on for the upcoming semester. It was as if he speaking in order to get the special treatment; because he could flaunt his importance and gain reassurance of his status; recognition for how advanced he was. It seemed so false.

As I reflect on the people that I know and the work that they do, I can continue to make these contrasts and comparisons. I can see motivation in interactions. I can see who is jaded and who still cares.

I don't want to become jaded, callous, or pompous. I want to be genuine. I want to love what I do.

I hope I don't lose sight of that. 

Time Capsule-Esque

I was cleaning today (my SM Kit, specifically) and I found an old notebook. I must have been using it to blog when I didn't have internet because there were a few drafts scribbled on the opening pages. But if you skip forward a bit, I simply began writing quotes. They're good quotes. I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote them, but they were worth it. Some of them were things I really needed to stumble across today. Past me must have been really intuitive.

Here are a few for you to ponder:

"But listen, nothing ever comes to you entirely clean, and if you walk away from everything once it gets a little tarnished, you'll always be walking away." The Busy World is Hushed

"I wonder if you've already decided what you're going to do and you're just picking this fight to make things easier for yourself." The Busy World is Hushed

"What mattered was sleeping next to someone. Do you know what I mean? Knowing someone, another human being in the bed, in the room, in the dark, there with you." The Eros Trilogy

"And I was so happy because I was so lucky. Not because I had found someone who love - two people - who loved me...but because I have been able to love them - two people, three, four, in this lifetime. I'm so lucky." The Eros Trilogy

Being miserable doesn't make you better off that anyone else, House, it just makes you miserable." House

Peace and Love.

Ready. Reset. Restart.

Time to start blogging again. It's been ages, I know. But so much has been going on. I've been so busy. There has simply been no time.

That's a terrible excuse, by the way.

I read an essay - a speech, actually - from William Deresiewicz to the plebe class at the United States Military Academy at Westpoint in 2009. It was all about Solitude and Leadership (found here). It was about always finding the time to sit and think and really get to know yourself - in the midst of the rush and rumble and the demands of life, just stop and listen inside instead of outside. If you don't do that, you lose yourself in everything else.

I've been doing that. Losing myself. Blogging used to help me sit and think and get things straight and I let that go. So I could do more, be more, create more...go farther. And I think I hindered myself in the end.

Luckily, with a leadership program at the university, I was required to sit and reflect on things throughout the course of the class. Sometimes I slacked on it, sometimes I rushed it, and sometimes I really thought about it. Either way, it challenged me to keep thinking. Those thoughts can be found here. They may not have been the same as what I do here, but it was at least something. When I got really busy, I didn't journal. I didn't do my leadership assignments. I put them off until the end. And I again hindered myself. I don't think I got as much out of that portion of the program. Clearly, I need the little something.  I need the thinking that writing brings to me.

So much has happened and changed since I stopped blogging. I wish so much that I had been writing through then in order to keep things together. I learned so much and I grew so much and I had so much to share. It would have been so good.

Regardless, I want to start again now. Perhaps I will take a new direction with this. Perhaps I will continue to attempt to be insightful and scholarly. Who knows. But I will keep thinking, I promise.

Come think with me.

Peace and Love.