Posts

Posted on

I Fell In Love With A Boy

I fell in love with a boy….
He was a few years older than I was.  I hadn’t decided yet to enlist in the Air Force.  He was a blond farm boy from Indiana.  I met him in California where he drove his truck to, broke down, and moved in with a family who took him in when he was down on his luck.  He was so charming.  It was a good thing, too, because he didn’t have a job and was basically freeloading off the family he had the fortune of living with.  I enlisted in the Air Force and he “let me go”.

I fell in love with a boy…
He was a free spirit.  We had fun no matter what we were doing.  We even got a pet rat, skied Mt Bachelor in Oregon, and made a model airplane.  In the end, we just weren’t going in the same direction.

I fell in love with a boy…
He was such a jerk.  Unfortunately, I didn’t find out about it until I married him.  He never loved me.  He used to say, “You’re pretty, but you’re not beautiful.”  He was so verbally abusive that I started to feel trapped by my own inadequacies, although they were likely manufactured by this “boy”.  A few years after I left him, I started to breathe again.

I fell in love with a boy…
He was the most beautiful person I ever laid eyes on.  I kissed him a million times.  He was a part of me in every way.  It was just the two of us for many years.  My world revolved around him.  I think so fondly of him even now, and I miss him like crazy.  He was my first experience of unconditional love.  He can drive me crazy, and he is bigger than me now, and more hairy, but I still love him.

I fell in love with a boy…
He is my best friend in the whole world.  He knows me.  He loves me anyway.  He also can drive me crazy, but we are still heading down this road together.  We are Yin and Yang, Frick and Frack, Bert and Ernie. 

I fell in love with a boy…
He is so accident prone.  He doesn’t know how to ride a bike yet.  He asks me about wind advisories and political parties.  He is so smart, but the least observant human being on the planet.  He gets to laughing so hard his eyes water and he can’t breathe and that makes me laugh. 

My life has been amazing so far, and in no small part to these boys I fell in love with.  Even the ones that broke apart for whatever reason shaped a part of who I am today and what I value.  For that, I am so thankful.

Posted on

What Difference Can .0000005% Really Make?

We have a new computer system at work.  It hasn’t been implemented yet, not until next month.  However, lots have already been cast, lines drawn in the sand, teams picked, war paint applied.  And you can take a guess who the project manager is for the implementation.  Yes, indeed…yours truly.

Any time I have a meeting about this system, 3 out of the 12 implementation team members attend.  I have been told I can “drink the Kool Aid” if I want to, accused of forcing a useless program down peoples’ throats, told the program is destined for failure (with even a monetary wager), and told point blank how much this program is hated by the masses.  Closed-mindedness can be so mean-spirited.  Although, I don’t take their angst personally.

Here are a few interesting factoids.  Back in Jesus’ day, the world population was about 228 million.  He began His ministry with 12 souls.  That would have been about .0000005% of the world population.  There are about 2.1 billion Jesus-believing people in the world today…about 33% of the world population, and 9 times more than the total population of the world in Jesus’ time.  But He started with 12.  Sure, Jesus’ mission and purpose is exponentially more significant than my workplace’s new computer system, but even the founder of Dell said about his efforts in his own company, “…while some resisted, many welcomed the chance to play a more prominent role in the entire process.”  The lesson I learned from this?  Don’t concern yourself with the naysayers and scrooges when you are trying to move forward with something you know will ultimately be a benefit to business and customer service.  Cleave to your compadres–those few who stand along side you and are doing their part to help things progress as they should.

Play it out in your mind.  What could happen?  Now, STOP IT!!!  Are you kidding??  Don’t play anything out in your mind!  Just press forward with your plan.  Exercise patience, humility, careful directing, and positive control. 

The Bottom Line:  If it is a venture that is truly worthwhile, people will become believers, even if they don’t start out that way.

Posted on

Does Perception Rule the Day?

Before I continue, take a look at these individuals.  Then ask yourself, which do you think are likely a success at their workplace?

 
There’s a perception out there that overweight people are less capable of having successful careers.  There are many factors that play into this widely adopted perception.  We all know what they are: lower self-esteem, less assertiveness, more anti-social behavior, more health issues that can reduce time at work, etc.  I liken it to the equally popular perception that individuals with a southern accent are not intelligent.  True or not, it is just what a lot of people think.
 
In the private sector, the struggle is simply the perception.  If you are overweight and can rise above the petty opinions of the small-minded masses, you can rule your own destiny.  And good on you, I say!  Because I care, I would urge these individuals to pursue a healthy lifestyle regardless of your weight.  I know there are people out there who like you a lot and want to see you stick around for a while.
 
In the military, there is a bit more to the perception.  There are fitness tests that must be passed in order to keep your job.  The perception is also if you don’t look like you could either bench press an ox or blow away with a strong wind, you are somehow of less value.  Your opinion has less weight; your skills become less utilized. 
 
I know what you’re thinking…I’m whining and complaining.  Perhaps.  But the reality of the situation is that I will not change this perception.  The reality is that in order to better myself, I must make a few conscious choices.  I must also acknowledge a few things.
 
First, the acknowledgement:  I am intelligent and bring value to the team.  I have skills to improve upon and will make a conscious effort to do so.  I am struggling with my weight and need to lose 20-30 pounds.
 
Now the choices:  I choose to make changes in my lifestyle to lose the weight.  However, I also choose to drop the chip on my shoulder about why I need to lose the weight.  I scored well on my last fitness test, but I do not look nor weigh the part of a fit individual.  This is what people see of me, unless I tattoo my fitness score on my forehead.  This is the chip on my shoulder I choose to shrug off.  I choose to believe that ultimately I will feel better about myself regardless of why I must lose the weight. 
 
I love serving in the military.  I am proud to put on the uniform every day.  And if I must cater to a perception that lean equals value, I can.  It is all about what I choose to do, say, and think.  Perception may rule the day, but the way I live my life is always my choice. 
Posted on

Do You Even Own an Iron?!

I am in the US military.  Although I am not completely “ate up” about my uniform, I pride myself in being “clean, dry, and serviceable”.  I press it to keep the collar tamed and the pocket corners from curling up.  But I wonder about some of my colleagues.  Do they even own an iron?  Or a mirror, for that matter? 
An iron…a simple contraption, but it sure packs a punch!  Everyone who has ever wielded one has been “bitten” by its hot temper at least once.  The concept is very basic, yet very successful: the application of heat and pressure flattens surfaces and sharpens edges.  This is not a very precise equation, but both components, heat and pressure, are required in some form or fashion.
If the iron is not hot enough, it is completely ineffective.  You might as well be sliding a book or a block of iron ore across the fabric.  If the iron is not weighty enough, or not enough pressure is applied to the fabric, the heat will just wrinkle the fabric and actually make it worse.
As we have all felt the sting of a hot iron on our skin, we know that applying an iron to an unintended surface can cause damage…sometimes serious damage.  Have you ever tried to iron silk with an iron on high and ended up melting it on to the iron?  Yeah, that’s a bad day. 
Think about the people you work with, your children, yourself…
It takes the right combination of heat and pressure to be adequately effective…not overdone or underdone…but just right.  You must know the “material” you are working with to know the right amount of heat and pressure.
I hope that everyone owns an iron and takes the time to learn how to apply it properly.

Posted on

Appreciating People’s Strengths and Weaknesses??

I read a statement recently that said that we should learn to appreciate people’s strengths AND weaknesses.  I spent a lot of time thinking about that one.  Appreciating strengths, sure, no problem!  What do people bring to the table?  What positive things do people have to contribute to the team?  When the chips are down, what quality does an individual have that enables them to rise up from the ashes and keep moving forward? 

We view strengths as assets…positive things.  They are the best of what anyone has to pitch in to the survival soup to keep us healthy.  They are desirable traits that draw others to the individuals who possess them.  I have evolved during the course of my adult life to learn to find these positive traits in others…sometimes in an effort to improve my tolerance of some individuals since I can see strengths as “redeeming qualities”.  (You know the type of people I am referring to!)  I am 40 years old, and I honestly did not believe I could read a statement that would throw me on my ear quite like this one did.  I can’t put a big enough question mark on this inquiry:  How in the world do you appreciate someone’s weaknesses??

I think I worked my way back in this discovery chain far enough to ask myself, “what are MY weaknesses?”  I am confident enough in my strengths that I will tell you my top 3.  1. Although I don’t like drama, I often wear my heart on my sleeve and react emotionally, and that emotion, usually anger, causes me to say or do things I regret later.  2. I have moderate OCD…I will ask others to help out and do something but if they don’t jump on it within seconds of my request, I have to do it myself…I can’t stand clutter or trash and I throw things away almost immediately.  Kind of the opposite of a hoarder.  3. I struggle with my weight and the psychological damage of never living up to my own standards.

Okay, now that’s out there, what could anyone possibly appreciate about that? 

I’m a big picture person.  I deal with the details, knowing they are essential to the big picture, but I don’t really like them.  What’s the big picture here?  Don’t just consider appreciating strengths and then move over to appreciate weaknesses.  The lesson here is that people are a sum total of their strengths and weaknesses.  These traits often bleed into each other and can sometimes even take on each other’s form in different situations.  That’s the point.  I think the idea is to appreciate the whole person, warts and all. 

There’s a movie called “Fred 3: Camp Fred”.  A teenage boy goes to Camp Iwannapeepee and everyone there is a social outcast, the camp is sub-standard, and it looks like they have no chance of winning the camp competition with Camp Superior.  Instead of claiming defeat, Fred comes up with this concept, “We’re the best at being the worst!”  They go on to demonstrate that they actually have some talents that the kids at Camp Superior lack and end up winning the camp competition.  In the end, Fred still tells his mom that it was the worst camp ever, but he had fun.  Note: I wouldn’t recommend watching it…and if I didn’t tell you this, you would really be mad at me if you did actually attempt to watch it! (Fair warning!)

The movie outline to say this: we can all learn to appreciate weaknesses by understanding that they are a part of each of us, just like the strengths.  The weaknesses that you appreciate are interwoven with the strengths that represent those “redeeming qualities” that keep an individual palatable.