Mental reboot

It’s funny how sometimes the smallest action, thought, sounds or smells can send you down memory lane. My wife and I were heading home after picking up a pizza and I decided to go a backway. This backway used to be how we would get home from picking up the same brand of pizza when we lived in our old apartment almost 3 years ago. “Hey honey, do you remember when we used to…” she finished with “drive this way every time we got pizza for date night? Yes, I remember”. We have been married for 3 years now. We spent the rest of the night reminissing of old times that aren’t old, new times that seem old, and then all the possibilites of the future made possible by all the actions of the past. It reminded me of how even when the toughts of the past may send chills up our spines because of some super-embarrasing and life altering moment, the past puts exactly where we need to be. Though we very rarely see it that way.
When I think about my past, I remember very few good times and a lot of rough times. I have a lot of blame assigned to people and choices and situations along the way. Until a few months ago, that blame is what I clung to and used to validate where I was: 26, in school for 8 years and still counting, stressed out, angry, blah, blah, blah. You all know the story… It took 2 random acts of violence in the community that caused what I am calling my “blame pedestal” to crumble and I crumbled with it. I felt truly lost and broken. From that state I was able to talk to people and for once actually understand everything my wife had been telling me since the first we met: I am ME. It is ok to hate the past, fear the future, and yes even have strong negative feelings toward the people who helped put you in that state. What you really have to work on is recognizing that all that is ok, you are human and normal, and all you have to do is make yourself happy. Happy doesn’t mean shopping spree, though I am told it helps! What I mean by happiness is acceptance and growth not complacent and sedentary. The past is one giant lesson learned and a kick in the pants… Use it to figure out your likes and dislikes, your hopes and dreams, all the little future “what ifs” and then dive right in and experience life! You will find that your past experiences having given you most of the tools you will ever need.
Remembering all those converstions and self-realizations brought up more memories, some old and some new. I’ll shiver at a few of them I’m sure, but for now… I thank God I have them and pray for many more.

Life lessons in a glass of water...

So I was reminicing about what my life has been like in IT. If you can think it, I’ve probably seen it over the last 4 years. I’ve seen computers that have been run over by cars, thrown out second story windows, stabbed, kicked, etc. But one of my favorites was a cute story about a laptop that had been completely ruined and was being replaced under flood insurance. How that works I will never know because what had happend to the laptop was not a flood but a cute 5-year old little girl. The mom brought her in when she dropped off the laptop and the little girl began explaining how she was drawing on the lapdop: “I was dust making a piture for bowyow and bowyow got upset cause there’s no wader in da piture if he gots thirsty. And I didn’t wan him to gets sick frum “d-wy-dra-shun” so I got him a cup of wader.” Then the mom quietly picked up the story, “bowyow is her imaginery friend. I think he is supposed to be a dog but we aren’t quite sure. Anyway, I just gotten home from work and she was walking to the table with a cup of water. It wasn’t until I heard her saying here is the water for the piture that I knew what was going on. I went running into the the room but it was too late. I got their just in time to watch the entire cup of be poured onto the screen and hear the sizzle’s as the laptop shorted out. I called the warranty people and told them that water had gotten into the laptop and it didn’t work anymore and before i could further explain they told me to call my homeowner’s insurance. Well long story short, I told them the whole story of what happened and they decided that they would pay for the replacement or fixing of the laptop since it “would really have been a shame for bowyow not to have any water. So here we are.”
I went on to order her a new laptop and suprisingly I was able to recover some pictures and stuff from the fried laptop. And yes, one of those pictures was bowyow: 2 bright pink ovals arranged like a snow man with green squares for eyes, brown stick figure arms and legs, and one big mess of mutli-coloured scriggles for hair. Yeah, scriggles…I said it.
Remebering this story made me think. A little girl had a friend, an imaginary friend, who was upset and thirsty and she stopped what she was doing and got him something to drink.  As older people we have real friends and neighbors. And we know when they are upset and in need. Maybe they lost thier job, or the times are rough, or maybe they are just down on thier luck but so often we make ourselves blind to what is going on and turn them into imaginary friends. We make excuses like we are just to busy, or we say it’s their own fault or blame something else. Butall the excuses in the world won’t change that they need help and without it they will short out like that laptop. Maybe they need to talk, or a shoulder to cry on, or someone to hangout and laugh with, or maybe they just need something to drink. So let me ask you… have you gotten your friend a glass of water lately?

Take it to heart

While looking at my “unofficial” college transcript I had an epiphany…
Sometimes we fail at things because we can’t do it. Sometimes we fail at things because we don’t like to do it. Sometimes we fail because we aren’t meant to do it.
In college, out of all the students who usually don’t do well it is either because they didn’t like the classes and work or because they were taking the wrong classes and were meant for something else. In my experience, I have tried 2 different (but very similar) degrees: Computer Science and Computer Engineering. I am very good at programming and for the most part it comes naturally to me, wish I knew why… And yet my other classes suffer. As my wife and I talked it over and analyzed everything we cam up with this:
Common Theme: Good at Computers, bad at Math and lazy at everything else. Nutshell: Fail at Math because i can’t do it, Fail at everything else because I don’t like it. And, the higher I go in programming, the more I don’t like it…hmmmm what a pattern.
So, we looked at what I liked: Nerd Factor: Computers and Networks and the Business process. I work as an IT Administrator (4 yrs now and going) and I am working in an accounting firm. It is absolutley remarkable how IT and Business go hand in hand.
So I made the decision to switch to Management Information Systems and I am also working torward a Masters in Business Administration. Now, I like everything and I can do everything. Wow…college career saved… and the really funny thing about all this:
Why did it take 7 years to figure it out? I’ll tell you why, letting others influence my future by allowing them to dictate what and when is the best decisions for me and allowing other to plan my future.
Remember: Only YOU can make YOU happy. Only YOU can make decisions for YOU. To succeed, be prepared to ask for help. And, make sure that the path your on is yours and that you enjoy it. If you don’t, it is never to late to late to change it. Just a little harder…
Ask yourself: Am I doing things I enjoy? Why are these classes so hard for me? Do I skip class because I really have other things to do or is it because of something else? And Freshman, if your advisor tells you that you have to choose a major and pushes a plan-of-study in your face and says you have to do it now because of <insert random lame excuse> don’t be afraid to them NO. You can change your mind up until you apply for graduation. I think you can even change it then to…