Month: March 2014

I figured something out about being a good youth coach. You can’t worry about the winning and you can’t let anyone else worry either. When I struggled with players getting down and disappointed it was about this sense of entitlement about wins. We thought we deserved wins and we didn’t train purely for the enjoyment of that act. This season is all about running and swarming to the ball and being in the best condition to be winners.

I wish I had more to say about that, but I don’t tonight. This is one of those blogs where you spend a while trying to get into that headspace but somehow never do.

The fate of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 is still unknown, but everyone has a theory about how we got to this place. I have a theory that involves the U.S. military-industrial complex and a cold war era strategy that might ensure Russia’s play in the Crimea.

The 777 disappeared over the waters near Vietnam on Saturday. Early reports suggested the plane may have turned around at some point. The only evidence of this are reports/images of what is perceived to be an oil slick over the ocean where the plane might have been. Instead of turning this into The Event, I want to offer the suggestion that the plane either (A) Crashed or (B) was landed. My theory works better with the crash scenario, because it removes all possibility of witnesses. In fact, my theory suggests the plane and the passengers didn’t matter at all.

Recently the U.S. sent a warship into the region to aid the search. What if that was the goal? What if the whole thing was about getting the US vessel into dangerous waters? Imagine for a moment that our ship is sunk as a result of a military or even terrorist attack. Attention would shift away from the Crimea so fast that we’d forget it ever happened. That’s the moment Putin would swoop in and reabsorb the Ukraine with nary a shot fired.

This makes sense, because unless we get involved in a significant way, NATO isn’t going to do anything about the situation. Yep, its a theory.

There is a peculiar truth about vacations: Being yourself in a place where you have no attachments or connections isn’t really being yourself. Not entirely. We are who we are partially as a result of the attachments we have in our lives. To deny that would be to admit that the people in your life have absolutely no effect on any aspect of your life. For example, being raised by one parent as opposed to the other can dramatically influence who you become. The same can be said of your surroundings.

I spent the past few days in Dallas, Texas. I didn’t need to wake up at any specific time to make sure the kids were taken care of. I didn’t need to think about ways that I could find time to spend with my wife. I didn’t teach a single class, lift a single weight, dribble a ball, or any of the things I devote my time to on a daily basis. All of this was stripped away and with this the burden of my daily life fell away and I was able to focus on one thing. It was, at times, a hyper-focus. I zoomed in on the words and sought to gain an understanding of what I was creating. Dallas was useful beyond explanation it served as a way to recharge my dying batteries so that I may power through the rest of the semester intact. All I did was write, take in the conference, and spend time with people I care about. Such things are undoubtedly good for the soul.

Who I was when I was there made me recognize what is holding me back from being the best possible version of myself when I am home: responsibility & routine. There is a devil in routine that allows us to forget to question if what is routine is also valid and good. Because I am laden with so much responsibility it is simpler to just schedule everything into a routine, power through and get on to the next day. This is no way to live. Life is evolution, and that requires a moment to reflect on your own growth.

 

The last few weeks have led me to serious thoughts about what it means to be a leader. Leadership is something you have to want. Furthermore, leadership is something you have to believe you can do successfully. In my work life there are many leadership opportunities. I’ve had occasion to be a leader at different levels and bear the scars of the effort. Not all of my attempts were successful. I learned more from my failures than I did from success, because when I failed it was made clear to me what I did wrong. When I am successful nobody tells me what I am doing right. They are simply not angry, and that is my reward for a job well done.  I’ve learned from this practice that leadership is largely thankless activity that one ought to do because it is the right thing to do and because you are the best suited for the position. You can’t do it for any overinflated since of glory or personal value or even for the money. All of that factors into why people want to be leaders and the difficult part for me has been separating these parts out and reflecting on why I want the things I want.

 

The biggest question is do I want to lead and why? I do want to lead. Some of it is ego. I see myself as a leader and have since my earliest memory of myself. So, in a way being a leader is what I expect of myself and what I gear myself for. On the other hand, it feels like a responsibility. I also think that my strength is my creativity. Being a leader creates the opportunity to express that creativity. On the other hand it means involving others in the creative process and having the organizational skills/structure to implement and to delegate. Anyone who’s read my blog longer than a week knows this is a weakness. All of this leads to the question: Can I be comfortable not leading?

There is going to be a time in the next few years where I have to step back from the leadership role I’m in and my primary concern is that I won’t have a voice to express myself once that happens. This is probably not how things will go, but the fear of it drives this blog—as does the fear of letting go of what I continue to work so hard to build. I guess the best any of us can do is put our soul into the things we do and know that we’ve done everything in our power. That work—that effort—has to be able to stand on its own after we’re gone.

Eleanor Roosevelt quipped, “There is no experience from which you can’t learn something. [T]he purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for a newer richer experience.” When this process started 1400 days ago I wondered aloud what I might gain from the experience. I learned that I have within me the discipline to do whatever I want so long as it means enough to me to put forward that Herculean effort required to do so. I am no different than anyone I pass on the street in the sense that great potential lies within me.

The 10 minute rule was a test to see if I could access of fraction of that potential, the way so many of us access strength, perseverance, dedication, willpower, etc. exactly when we need it. When I think about people who have ‘successful lives’ they are always the ones who can put their abilities to work even when it isn’t a matter of survival instinct. So, where do we go from here? The only way to grow as Eleanor Roosevelt suggests is to push ourselves to experience more and more often. I’ve decided to put together a plan that sets me back on the path I was on when the ‘Rule’ hit the web. I recognize now that I was trying to do too much too soon and with experience came a sense of understanding as to how to level up my life.

What comes next is a better me, because I will make it so. We all have that potential if we are willing to take it.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Internet connection is spotty, so these blogs are going to be a bit more sporadic than normal.
2. There is something to be said about alliteration.
3. I was going to post something insightful about what I learned about Developmental Students today but my learning, much like my internet, has been shoddy. The Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas is not shoddy. In spite of producing a vapid and undeserving heiress who is plainly reflective of everything I expressed a few days ago, the Hilton family can make one feel at home.

 

No matter how much money we make or how pompously we sip our tea, in the end most of us are still animals driven by a biological imperative. I’m reminded of this more and more watching all forms of media. Beauty, see, drives a lot of the media message. I’m hard pressed to think of the last time I saw an ugly news anchor—especially a female one. Women are subject to the rule of beauty more than men, but we are in no way immune to its pull.

 

I’ve seen all manor of product sold with beauty. The webserver this very site lives on is sold on the back of beauty. Appropriately dressed yet sublimely attractive women beckon you to the front page with the forward promise of affordable technology and the implicit promise of being in the presence if not being recognized by beauty. I think that is the problem there—we want to have beauty or to be beautiful so much that it creates a subconscious binding to all things beautiful in the sense that we want beauty and anything that consciously represents that is something we subconsciously yearn for.

There is nothing to be done about this relationship with beauty, but understanding in allows us a modicum of freedom. The things we understand and are consciously aware of are the things that we have the ability to affect, if only a little.

Some Thoughts:

1. 1400 posts. That. Just. Happened.

I want to start by quoting something I read on NPR: “A judge held an unusual hearing in New Jersey on Tuesday: a lawsuit brought by an 18-year-old who says her parents kicked her out of their house. Rachel Canning is seeking to force her parents to give her financial support and money for college, in addition to pay for tuition at her private school.”

This can only happen in the USA. See, I almost said America there, but then I would be a hypocrite and a victim of my own entitlement. America–The Americas–consist of a lot more than our 50 some odd states. Because I myself am entitled, I generally feel okay calling our chunk of the Americas the only America. I, like most of us, tend not to consider Mexico and Canada as part of the Americas, and tend to ignore South America on most days unless I am thinking about vacations or really good soccer.

The point is we are living in a dangerously entitled society. Once kids start to believe they can sue parents for college money we need to go back to the part where when they didn’t do their chores we locked in a dark room and slid bread under the door. There is a reason my kids don’t watch commercials. I can’t lie–there was at least a year where I sat my kid down in front of a TV and called it good. I mastered the 30 second skip forward feature and danced past all of those silly commercials. They’ve started to believe they have an inherent right to television, and from that television and from the things they have they believe they have a right to privileges in general. I don’t think I’m going to be sued if I opt out of paying for college or put them out on the street, but they are far from understanding what it means to live in a shanty town.

My wife and I came from humble means. She is a refugee and I lived in Harlem when there were still black people there. Because of the way we were raised I’m driven to give my kids more than I had. This in no way means they are entitled to those things, but I understand that giving things to my kids can lead to that impression. It is something important to recognize as a parent.

Some Thoughts:

1. That soccer comment got me thinking about the upcoming youth soccer season. I’m pretty excited. No expectations except a lot of kids running really hard to to the ball

 

Its about the story arc.

I had occasion to tell a friend about my obsession with How I met Your Mother. I started on the show years ago, solely as an opportunity to enjoy Neil Patrick Harris being Legend—wait for it—Dary. I didn’t explain much of my obsession past the fact that I really do enjoy NPH. Tonight’s episode reminded me why I started watching to begin with.

How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) is a 30 minute sitcom about a man who is desperately searching for happiness and companionship in New York City. It takes the group dynamics of ‘Friends’ and ups the level of humor and acting, and stuffs them into a bar to hang out, tell stories, and experience life. The central story premise is that the lead character, Ted Mosby, is in a room somewhere in the future talking to his two teenage kids about how he met their mother. Every episode is Ted telling a story about his life and his friends to his children. Season by season we see them sitting in this one spot as Ted recounts his life. Even within this frame story there are deeper frame stories. Often within an episode a character will launch into their own frame story and slip further back into history.

Through all this we learn that Ted Mosby is a sad sack of person. He is a hopeless romantic and quite eccentric. It is clear that is perfect woman is going to need to be someone who can identify with him as much as she puts up with him. Here’s the rub: we know he finds her. We know the show must have a happy ending. Or does it?

*********SPOILERS TO FOLLOW*******************

 

 

 

 

 

The fact is, we never even consider why Ted is telling his kids how he met mom. Yet in this one brief moment of honest pain we know everything we need to about the series and its deeper purpose. There is a moment in this newest episode where the mother and Ted are sitting at a table telling stories about a wedding they were both at. At one point Ted’s wife says something along the lines of ‘mothers will always show up at their daughter’s weddings.’ Ted immediately starts crying. Weeping, actually.

She quickly scolds him and changes the subject fast enough for him to forget his tears. However, those few seconds were enough to let the cat out of the bag. Now we know that mom is dying and every memory of her is about what she did for him and for them. This is a brilliant end to a show that everyone expected to end on a happy note. Now we are left to wonder once again how it ends. Will Ted find another love or is he doomed to forever be trapped in the past, content telling stories about what was to his children?

We are obsessed with happy endings in our culture. Not everything is supposed to be happy. I think for once, sitcoms got that part right.

I decided to take an hour to myself in order to get in the right headspace. FAIL. See, I discovered this unusual game called Bejeweled and quickly decided that this is the cause of my soul…

I’m being dramatic, of course, but I was drawn to this game. Spatial awareness is a skill I’ve neglected for some time now and Bejeweled is a low-impact way to work on the ability to see and make visual connections. It is crazy addictive. I played for the better part of 30 minutes and gained the awesome level of ‘Beginner’. Needless to say I have a lot of work to do on the game. I gotta say that I truly enjoy learning–especially when it comes in the form of a game.

Experiences like this serve as distractions from the every day world, but they can also be valuable learning experiences. I’ve redesigned my classes following this principle of fun and distraction. As always, it is about the skills you learn more than it is about the classical classroom experience of ‘Sage on the Stage’. I want the students loud, rowdy, hard working, and driven to be the best in class.

What you see above totally describes the Bejeweled experience. I’m learning something new. I’m being challenged in a way that shows me that I’m making gradual improvement without feeling shamed by the experience–maybe frustrated a bit. Still, its a great way to learn and the way all learning should be — fun and rewarding.

What do you do when the pot runs empty? Every writer has heard of writer’s block. Some believe it exists while others deny it. I’ve become a denier as of late. My denial is part of a deeper understanding of the way my creativity works. It is not endless. It is a subconscious way of rationalizing all of my desires with all of the experiences I have over the course of a day, week, my life. From time to time life itself can become overwhelming and during those times I lose that ability to connect my creative side with the rational understanding of what is happening. I get backed up, and don’t produce new ideas. It isn’t a block in the traditional sense of having nothing to write, but a disconnect between the craziness of the world and the part of my brain that makes sense of all that.

Sometimes there isn’t enough time to let your mind sort things out. You do the day to day routine, living the part of an automaton more than a thinking, feeling being. When this happens it becomes difficult to generate new ideas and to go to that place where your true self exists–that place where the writing comes alive and explodes unto the page.

I could use a vacation…

Some Thoughts:

1. TLC’s obsession with polygamy and dwarfism is getting old. Of course, a show about  little people polygamists might be interesting, but I’m more interested in seeing a little bit of polygyny. What will the media say about a show where a woman has five husbands?