Author: LrAu (Page 11 of 19)

For those who know me and not just in a work or acquaintance scenario will know i have a few physical scars. The first is on my head from a childhood injury. This is a bit of story but hard to see unless my hair is cut really short. The second are on both of my shins, something I got as an adult. These are the results of 2 bouts with staph infections. Apparently I am very apt to get it, and on my shins where there is very little blood flow they seem to flourish.

There were incredibly painful when I got them, and in many cases the original diagnosis was wrong. Which probably didn’t help matters, strange both happen to hamper vacations. The scars look bad, and often i think the infection is going to come back as they do not look healed.

Well for some reason I am self conscious about the scars. I prefer to wear pants over shorts, and if I wear shorts i wear socks. Even places where i need to put a bathing suit on, I think twice before doing. Now if I am comfortable with you, and or I know you have seen it before I don’t care as much. But in public settings, parties or places where I am not comfortable with showing my scars, I avoid doing so. Lucky at work I wear pants and no idea what i would do if it was wear shorts to work day.

Recently I have been wondering why. My wife Sheila had surgery on her stomach when she was a baby, and had a scar there she was very self conscious about. She always wanted plastic surgery to cover it up. When she wore bathing suits it was always on piece or one that covered her stomach. I knew her issue with it, never challenged her, never asked her to do anything different. I some how wonder if that self consciousness she had somehow subconsciously got into my head. That my scars are something that should not be seen.

We all have scars, some visible and some not. And these scars are signs of survival. Signs that we faced a challenge and made it thru. Some people have less, smaller, some have more and larger. Some are in hidden spots and some are right out in the open. Those who scars run deep (not physical) are only exposed when something happens or someone asks a probing question. Some like mine can be hidden with some work, others cannot. For those who don’t have a choice, they live with it, live with someone looking, some staring, and some wondering what happened.

Mine are in a interesting spot. I have the ability to hide them in most settings, but can also hide them almost all times. Previously I have chose to. I am making the mental decision today not to do it anymore. I should realize my life although has been easy at some parts, been challenging during others. I struggled with some things which my mom used the expression “temporary inconvenience” or “minor hurdle.” No matter how difficult it really was, there was nothing too hard.

My wife used the expression “We got this…” This is the first thing my daughter said when she realized her mom had passed away. The scar of losing her mom will be hidden but there. That scar is one that has also healed as best it can, and only when people have dug deep do they see it. But we have survived that, I have survived other difficult challenges – physical, emotional and mental. But guess what I am still standing, you are still standing. If someone asks you how you got the scar, you can be open and let them know. I intend not to cover mine up, I have healed physically, and have healed mentally (and in both cases got help). Don’t let your scars define you, let them be be like notches on your bed post, signs of victory.

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog. 

My daughter got sucked into Hockey (its really a cult) and you don’t dabble in hockey. Once you get involved in youth hockey, it really is all consuming. I think more sports have gone this way, but my experience is with hockey. What I mean by sucked in, is that you start with say a learn to play, maybe do a house league (single rink kids of same age play against each other) and a year or two later you spend your vacation days traveling to multiple states for tournaments every few weekends abandoning your house. You will spend time on training, 1-1 lessons, group lesson etc. It is an endless money pit.

But all of this is structured training. Each of the classes are supervised by a coach, have specific drills, and goals. As a trained coach from USA Hockey, they gave us drills to work on, even sample practice plans. These are great, in fact by taking the coaching certificate I had a new appreciation of coaches in general. I stopped coaching when my daughter was young as she stopped listening to me, but I continued to go thru the levels of coaching. I actually wish there was a parent class, would help parents really understand what is going on.

This structured class is great, your kids learn to skate with the right stride, learn to do crossovers, get on edges pass and shoot. But this is all book learning, this is all what people have done before. When teachers are watching the students work to show they have learned the skill, follow the lesson. So they become not robots, but definitely not trying something very creative. And strange when we watch a game we see the best players do something insane, mind blowing, and say how the hell did he think of doing that.

For years I was told that Canadian players were better in hockey cause its there national game (No it was not created there, in fact lacrosse is the only sport created in Canada.). But as I got older, what I learned is what great players in Canada did was play a lot of unstructured hockey. They would play “pond” hockey with their friends, without coaching, without parent supervision, without ‘structure.” When you are playing without a coach correcting you, you may be willing to try something that isn’t taught. You may try a move that isn’t in the books. This unstructured play is how you create, it is how you do something different. No one ever wrote a song sitting next to a teacher correcting them.

It is this combination of structured and unstructured learning that brings out the best. But unfortunately we focus on structure. We focus on the Gladwell 10,000 hours. The more we do something, the more training, the better we will be at it. We need to practice the precise movements over and over again. But to me that only gets you good and what you practice. We forget that the best stuff comes from experimenting. That nothing new has been discovered by doing the same thing over again. And often that will not happen if someone is correcting you (coach.)

When I hire people for technology, I like resumes that have a git hub link of stuff they did on their own. Just this week I was reading a resume and someone wrote his own chess program with an AI. I immediately want to talk. to that person. They are doing “unstructured” programming – for themselves. No manager telling them what do do, what libraries to use, they get to experiment. We spend too much time working on structure, we need people to become creative.

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog. 

For the longest time I have heard the expression Failure is not an option. In fact it is the key moment from the Apollo 13 move. (Scene here -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tid44iy6Rjs ) But for some reason that attitude and theory falls short. Although I can say the ultimate end state is to succeed but not allowing failure, or even acknowledging failure what are we doing?

Take the Wright Brothers. Did they succeed in flying the first time? I doubt it. They learned from their failures and improved the design to finally get flight. They actually started with Kites and ways to bend the wings to control flight. They continued to improve which each new kite they built. Once they had the kite working, it gave them inspiration that they could create powered flight. Unfortunately the only notes of failure were the two attempts before the final successful day. Even that day, they failed 4 times before successfully flying. Lost in their success is the number of attempts, the changes made, the lessons learned at each step of the way. Their failures led to their success.

Let us take Walter Owen Bentley (yes of the Bentley Brothers and Bentley Automobiles) who was inspired to make a lighter piston based on a paper weight. After dozens of attempts to make aluminum piston and failing he chose to combine aluminum with copper to finally make a light weight piston. No notes remain for how many attempts and different metals he tried. But if he didn’t succeed we would not have light weight pistons (until someone else tried) His failures led to success.

In both cases these great people looked at what they were doing, tried something and then made changes to finally come with a solution that worked. Failure was an option, in fact failure was a necessary option. Without their failures they would have never learned what does not work. Bruce Lee (yes I will quote him again) “Don’t fear failure – Not failure but low aim is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious to fail”.

So why don’t we “celebrate” failures. When I was a child there was the open video for the wide world of supports where they talked about the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv368yWOSas go to the 16 second mark.. This is the one time I see it celebrated, it some strange way everyone saw this and was excited to see it. In auto racing you hear the notion that people watch for the crashes (failures) more than for the win. But how can we figure out how to let people who are trying, it is ok to fail. To let people take risks and let the fail without consequences. Do you think Apple got everything right first? And every product was successful. There are websites dedicated to Googles graveyard (of projects) they killed.

Lastly my thought is about looking at failure. As stated above Bentley and the Wright Brothers learned from their failures and made changes, but is there a time when failure should lead to no change? Is there a time when you fail at something, and it is not about changing but trying again? Take the time you learned to walk, you fell a lot. You did not re-invent the way walking is done, you just got up and tried it again. Eventually your muscles and brains kicked in and you were successful. So it is not “failure” has to bring change, but failure should be celebrated as a precursor to success.

Having failed a lot I guess I learn often what doesn’t work, but my failures always seem to bring a way to succeed. And I am still learning when I need to change something or I just need to try again. Persistence and knowing when to change and what to change leads to success.

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.

Did you ever think how your goodbye is going to be.  You can dream up scenarios, take inspiration from movies and TV, but reality has a way of being so different.  You never will know who will truly miss you, how you will be missed, who will talk about you fondly and who will go on like you were never in their lives.  When the time comes we can only hope that we did connect with a few and changed people’s lives for the better.  

When I start to think about it, there are two analogies that come to mind. 

In sports you often hear that the athlete wants to leave on his/her own terms.  Although this is not possible in every situation, we often make fun of those who stayed too long. We also lament many who left too soon.   But when the choice is not theirs we refer to it as a tragedy.    The sudden loss of an athlete from the sport they excel leaves us feel empty wondering why could have been, and what they could have accomplished.   Some we wish never stopped playing and celebrate their careers.   Often what is left is only memories and if we are lucky some videos. 

In music you often hear the same thing.  We often wonder what could have been for those who left sooner than we wanted. We wish they could have made more music.  We were lucky to get to hear the sound of their voice or their virtuoso on an instrument.   For those who remain too long we hope when we see them, we hope they can recapture glory of the old days and bring back the feeling their music brought us in our youth.  And when they are gone we often make fun of them for well being there “too long” and no knowing when to leave.  

But these are examples of outsiders in our world.  When the person is in our world that goodbye is not followed by headlines of news, global reaction and famous tweets.  Maybe on social media there are few comments from friends and family.  But for most it is just shock, disbelief and reflection.  If you are lucky you are surrounded by loves ones old and new consoling your loss.   We don’t talk about if they stayed too long nor about what they didn’t accomplish.  But still is someone that isn’t you.     

But when it is time for your own goodbye will you be at peace, will you watch your life flash before your eyes and will you have accomplished the things you wanted to do.  Did you say yes to something that scares you, did you take that job that was a stretch, did you help that stranger you did not know, did you forgive someone who did something unforgivable, did you apologize for the things you did wrong, did you thank the people who helped you along the way, told the people close to you how much you mean to them,  did you raise your kids to be good people first, and did you find your sole mate.

I don’t know why I think about these things on the anniversary of my wife’s passing, these should be things I think of every day and follow.  I know I am posting this a day early as I have no idea what I will be thinking over the next few days, and not wanting to ruin mothers day for those close to me.   Every day I just try to be a better person and move forward.  I hope that the legacy I pass down to my kids is one that the also pass along.  Unlike an athlete or musician, I hope I can stay too long to see as much as I can and no one says what could have been.  I hope I do most of what I listed above and when my life passes before my eyes I see all of my friends and family there.

It is now 4 years and for me I believe I have done the best that I can.  I still talk fondly of the great memories and have people close to me sharing that part of my life.   I wrote last year that I hope this year we will be talking about getting together, going out and this would all be behind us.  There is light at the end of the tunnel and I can wait to celebrate, be around friends, family and loved ones.  I apologize for this being so long, but appreciate those who read it all.  This is just one of the many things I have written over the past few years, and mostly during the pandemic I have written a lot, and it has been therapy and well as a passion.

Thanks for being there… 

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.

As I get older I noticed something, the days seem to go by slow and the years are going by fast. It seemed like yesterday the kids were toddlers, and today well they are almost 20. I really started to think about why that happens. And without my kids knowing what I was doing I asked them some questions, and realized they seem to think the days go by fast, and the years slow. Just like I thought.

So I wanted to know why, and came up with my thoughts. Please note, I did not do any experiments, talk to 100s of people to see what they thought but just something I see in myself.

When you are young, there are dozens of milestones that are years (1-2-3 etc.) away, as you get older those milestones seem to go away. When you are younger, things like your first birthday, first day of Pre-k/K, first day of first grade, first day of middle school, getting to be “10,” becoming a teen (13), first day of high school, sweet 16, drivers license (17 for me in NJ), getting to be an adult (18), being 20 (no longer a teen) and then 21 (drinking age) and other things may include going to college (or trade school) getting that first career job, finding your soul mate, moving into your first “own” place and possibly starting your own family. This is a whole bunch of things that happen between when you are born to sometime in your are in your 20s. Look there can be dozens more depending on location, background, religion, race, family values etc. For example in many areas of the US getting your first car is big, but some people in other areas don’t even want to drive. What happens when you are passed all that, your milestones seem to be closer to retiring.

So mentally what I believe is that your mind sees a milestone that is a year or two away. That anticipation of wanting to reach that goal so quickly you feel those years go so slow. Your desire to want to get there so quickly, it seems so far away. Your can’t wait, and when you can’t wait for something it just seem it is taking forever. Funny we have some of these micro “goals” in a day and have these tricks our mind plays on us. Say you go to a restaurant and you are told the wait is about 20 minutes. If you are starving that 20 minutes feels like an hour, if you are not that hungry it doesn’t seem that long.

As I think about it even more, there are probably a ton of these smaller ones as a young kid, like first dance, holidays etc. that get you so excited and you can’t wait for the event. But it is your brain that is making you think about time differently. The length of a second, minute, hour, day and year have not changed. Our perception of the days and the years that are different.

Having kids I also think changes your perception. You always hear someone say “they grow up so fast” and having two girls I can say the same. But being a kids once before I heard my kids say the same things I did like “I can’t wait till this year is over,” “I can’t wait till I drive” and the worst on “I can’t wait till I am an adult.”

I thought about the can’t wait till the year is over, and it really is about school. Kids of the summer off, thus getting to the part of the year where there is no school is the long wait. Actually any wait for a long break is something kids also mention often. As an adult most jobs do not have a break, we work all year long. Of course we have some holidays and vacation (note i know everyone doesn’t get those perks) but at the end of the day we don’t have “yearly” breaks. So this is kinda like the restaurant, they want no school and its this anticipation the brain perceives as taking a long time.

Of course what kids do not realize is that their desire to become an adult they do not get that time off and they will not enjoy the length of the year. That same theory for the kids also goes to why kids think summer goes fast, and everyone thinks their favorite season goes so fast. It is also why some people like me who are not fans of the winter think it goes by slow.

In my office we often hear the statement that perception equals reality. So if you think the years are going by slow, well they are, and at my age as I think the years are flying by, well they are also. But at least now I think I understand what happened to me when I was young, and now as I am older why my years seem to fly by.

As and Adult, the look forward is not time/date set, or its a long time off. Retirement is also not a set date (like sweet 16, or HS graduation) – So these really long targets don’t seem to be in our heads. I do think that waiting for out kids milestones should have some entry into our brain, but its not the same. The anticipation is just not the same when it is for someone else. Thought in my situation I could not wait for the kids to have the ability to drive to help out.

Other milestones like promotions at work, changing jobs, kids getting married, being a grandparent, getting the first AARP membership invite (for some reason it seems earlier and earlier age wise) – getting a Sr discount is not things that are 1-2 years away. Our brains don’t have that milestone so close we think it takes forever.

I have heard that people think it is because at age 5 that 1 day is a larger percentage of you life than 50. But although I can sorta except that as a reason, I don’t think that plays as much as the anticipation. Our perception of time is fascinating to me, and hope this gets you to think about time, and try not to waste any of it. And yes, the perception doesn’t change the reality that a second is the same for the total of your life.

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.

I got the iphone in October 2007. Yeah, I didn’t get it first and most people would think I am the “have to get the first tech thing” kinda guy. Well, once I got it I thought it was going to be life changing. But it wasn’t. I was demoing all the cool things I could do with it and a friend asked me if it makes calls I responded “I haven’t tried yet…”

But so much for memory lane. The phone didn’t really change my life, not till years later when it became more popular and apps started coming around. Then came “alerts.” Well alerts were like the neatest thing. I could know when I got an email, a text, or anything. Well the ADD person inside of me got a dopamine hit when this happened.

Now years later if left to everything alerting me, my phone would buzz constantly and the dopamine would blow whatever hair is left on my head off. Between social media, email, texts, dating apps, workout apps, podcast, streaming media apps, shopping apps, my home automation apps I can tape my phone to a glass of milk with some U-bet chocolate syrup and get chocolate milk in no time. Shaken not stirred..

I wondered what all these alerts are doing to me. Do these short term hits affect my job, my relationships, my family? Do I spend time thinking how to get a hit? Is this a relationship between other kinds of addiction (drugs/alcohol etc.) and the dopamine from alerts. And if there is, are only certain people affected by it? Am I ?

Then I started wondering what effect this has on my kids. They have grown up in a world where this was the dopamine hit they would get. They are not getting it from person to person interactions. In fact their person to person interactions are waiting for alerts or likes. At one point there even was a company that rated how important you were and gave you a “klout” score based on the likes/followers you had.

Well with all that on my head, i figured i would post the thought on facebook and see how many people like it. NOT. I wrote it here, more to get my thoughts out on paper. And wonder what I can do not to fall into the trap. And what do I say to my kids about the trap. I think social media has some great things, texting is fun, etc. But humans are social creatures, and a visit with some close friends reminds me of it. During times of covid people may have lost that interaction, and found the dopamine hit. But that does not match the feeling of seeing someone in person, having a great conversation and hearing the elation in their voice.

I know I use texts, probably too much. But I often do it as the ADD in me multitasks a lot. I wonder if it is an excuse to get a free dopamine hit? But hopefully when Covid is over I will go back to doing things with other people. Not sure I will talk on the phone as the last time I called a friend we were on for 2 hours. And often when i call someone its a long chat, and sometimes I just don’t have the time for that. But seeing someone in person gives them the time, which is your most valuable asset.

I probably can’t get rid of my phone, as how would I text someone to tell them I want to meet them anyway. Well back to posting some funny meme to get a like on instagram and facebook, we will chat later.

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.