Seriously...Or Not

So this post is for the two or three readers of my blog. (I don't really know why I said that. Of course it is. Those are the only people who will see it!)

I have to apologize. I may have misrepresented myself when I first described my blog. In my very first post, I wrote:

I expect there will be L O N G and short posts, funny and serious posts

which would lead one to believe that I would try to balance evenly between all of those. So ideally, there would be some long & short funny posts, as well as long & short serious posts. In looking back at my blog, I have two kinds of posts: long serious posts and short funny posts, with a heavy emphasis on the long serious posts. If I'm being honest with myself, that balances pretty well with how my brain works, and that's what I'm trying to represent in this blog. But to be fair, I'm going to try to be a more equal-opportunity poster.

That being said, I don't have time to post anything in addition to this, but rest assured, it's coming. I promise! Don't give up on my blog yet. I'm just getting my fingertips wet. (You know, like getting your feet wet...but I'm typing, so...nevermind)

Quicksand

So I was listening to an article on my way to work the other day, and it used the phrase "opposing quicksands of boredom and excessive stress". That phrase really stuck out to me, so I got to thinking about it a little more, so I thought I'd share.

Why quicksand? I think we can all imagine quicksand. I have been most fortunate (as I'm sure many people have) to not have ever run across any, but I thought I'd explore that for a bit.

(DISCLAIMER: everything I know about quicksand is from movies or TV, so this portrayal may be completely inaccurate)

So let's look at some of the characteristics of quicksand (as I understand them) and how they apply to life:
First, it's disguised. At least from what I understand about quicksand, it looks relatively similar to the surrounding area. Both boredom and excessive stress can be disguised. We often don't recognize the effects or the symptoms. of them right away.

Second, from what I understand, it's kind of slow but strong. It's not like a pool of water where you immediately sink. You kind of find yourself getting sucked in slowly. Similarly, I think it's kind of rare to be 'suddenly' overly stressed or bored. Usually, stress builds, or boredom grows. The habits we create are strong, and they can lead to patterns of continued stress and boredom.

Next, the more you panic and try to get out, the more trouble you are in. Kinda like the old Chinese finger cuffs I had as a kid. I remember the old joke, "here, stick your fingers in here", and if you didn't understand how they worked, you'd be trying to escape all day. Sometimes, when we are stressed, we add to our stress by trying to eliminate it. Feelings of inadequacy and guilt can accompany the stress, making it worse. On the other hand, boredom can lead to boredom. At first you think "I don't have anything to do," and then you figure out something to fill up your time, but the more you do that thing, the less you want to do it, so you are even more bored!

Next, it's stronger than it appears, and eventually can kill you. If you get sucked in too deep, you won't be able to breath and will die. Lovely. Well, the influence of either stress or boredom can be very powerful.. It can lead you into self-destructive behaviors, and eventually kill you, even if only spiritually or emotionally. It is amazing what an influence these things can have on your ability to make good choices!

Finally, to get out, you need something strong and sturdy to grab on to. You always see in the movies that the person gets out of the quicksand by grabbing a rope or vine or even (in some silly cases) a snake. The point is, they had to have something they could grab on to. Something sturdy, with an anchor. In life, some of these things can be friends, values, goals, or many other things. When we are struggling, the most effective method of getting out, is grabbing someone's outstretched hand. We have to do our part, and hold on tight and pull, but there is always something (or someone) right there just waiting for us to grab on.

Food for thought: am I there to grab on to your friends and family when they struggle? Or do I just pass by on the other side, figuring that surely SOMEONE will go help?

Anyway, are we avoiding these quicksands? If we're already stuck, how do we get out? The answer is different for each of us.

Dang

I'm pretty sure I could have gotten a medal for that one.

Lessons from Mario and Luigi

So as I sat there for a few minutes while the kids played Super Mario Brothers Wii, I was thinking. Some people say that video games are just time-wasters, and have other negative things to say about them, such as the fact that they encourage violence and things like that. This post doesn’t diminish that fact at all; I’m sure there is some basis for truth in their arguments. However, I realized that there are lots of good things we can learn from this game in particular, so I thought I’d mention the thoughts that have come to me.

Trying new things
There are many ways that you can learn to try new things. First off, Mario and Luigi were just regular plumbers when they suddenly got stuck in a world where they had to save the princess from reptiles and other threats. If they had been unwilling to try something new (i.e., save the princess), who knows where the princess would be today. The other thing is that when you first start playing the game, you’ve never played those particular screens before, and you have NO IDEA what’s coming your way. The game just makes you keep trying out new skills and things throughout.

In life, if none of us are willing to try new things, we will not get very far. Starting a new career, relationship, or experience takes courage. It’s scary. We often have to walk into the darkness, trusting that the way will light up as we walk, before we can make any progress. We have to try new things, and no matter how scary or different they are, if we don’t, we will not make any progress, and we will ALWAYS do the same thing, day in and day out. That’s not really living.

Also, life has a way of forcing us to try new things. This often comes through major life events, some tragic and some wonderful. Often, we want complete control of our situations, and that’s just not possible. In addition, we often find that once we’ve experienced this new thing, it turns out to be one of the more valuable experiences we’ve had, when we look back.

Being Persistent
The next thing is being persistent. Video games can be frustrating sometimes, and sometimes you have to play a screen over and over (and over and over) before you make any progress. The game kind of makes you keep trying because you can’t make a lot of progress if you don’t finish certain screens. However, what you learn is that you gain more and more skill and eventually, you get to the point where you are capable of doing better and better as time goes on, and pretty soon, you look back and realize how far you’ve come.

In life, I think it is human tendency to just try something a little bit and then give up because it took too much effort, or because you don’t want to “fail” again, or because you didn’t want to look silly. People who achieve greatness rarely have achieved it on their first attempt. I think the greatness comes with persistency. Sometimes it is difficult to keep trying, especially in the face of rejection and disappointment. However, you also get out of things what you put into them. I think if we were super successful at everything we try on the first time, we wouldn’t appreciate it as much. It is the effort and energy that we put into something that makes us truly appreciate it and care for it.

Being a Team Player and Looking Out for Others
For anyone who hasn’t played this game, it is different in that multiple characters play at the same time. This has its pros and cons. Among the pros are that you can work together towards a common goal, you can save yourself from danger or difficult parts by “going into a bubble” (you have to have played to understand), and you can do some things you couldn’t do on your own (like you can bounce off of other players’ heads to reach things way up high). This all comes with a down side as well. You can hurt each other (like knocking someone down a hole, or getting in someone’s way, or kicking a turtle shell at them). You can also prevent them from doing well (getting all the power-ups, coins, etc. for yourself), or you can make them do all the hard stuff while you just hang back. You can even just ride around in the bubble without getting harmed.

This game has made the kids get really upset at each other more than any other game that our kids have played. Yelling and crying are common. However, I’ve had a number of teaching moments through this. The kids and I had a pretty good talk about how it’s a game and they are supposed to have fun with it. One particular evening, two kids were playing together and there was a lot of frustration with each other because they kept “making” each other die. I told them if they couldn’t actually have fun, we wouldn’t be playing that game together any more. Within a few minutes, I hear them laughing hysterically. When I asked what was so funny, they explained that they both died and they found the circumstances to just be funny. What changed? Well, I like to think they actually listened to what I had to say and were just trying to have a good time together.

Life is like that. I’ve often heard people complain about group projects in school. I used to complain about them as well. Every time I hear about them now, I just chuckle to myself, because what I have learned is that in the “real” world, we are too often placed in situations very similar to the group projects we did in school. If we can just learn to work together at an early age (even if it is in Mario), how much better are we going to be at handling those situations when we’re presented with them.

When I’m playing with the kids, I try to spend most of my focus on trying to make the other person be as successful as possible. I bounce them up out of a hole, or get them power-ups, or risk myself to destroy an enemy that’s coming after them. They all have much better experiences with the game. I think life is like that. If we would all focus on trying to make others successful, then we’d have just as many people trying to make us successful. I just think it’s a great philosophy.

You Have to Look to Find Things
Last thing I’ve been thinking about is that there are lots of hidden paths and treasures. I didn’t have to think really hard about this analogy. Can you finish the game without finding all the secret doors, coins, and other things? Sort of. However, as you learn to search and explore new things, you are rewarded.

In life, as we search out the hidden things, we will find treasures that we never imagined. This is especially true of spiritual truths. The knowledge that there is a loving Heavenly Father needs to be acquired through some effort and experience on our part. It isn’t automatic. When we reach out and stretch ourselves to do this, there are things that we learn that could only be learned that way.

DISCLAIMER
No, I’m not operating under the illusion that this is an educational game. Nor do I even think anyone plays it thinking “gee, what life lesson can I learn from this today?” I guess this is just an illustration that when we take a few minutes to try to learn, we can learn from anything. I find that very interesting.

P.S.
Oh, one last thing I’ve learned? It’s fun. And even after all of what I’ve said in this post, that will still be my primary motivation for playing.

Kudos to a Friend

I just want to tell the story of a friend of mine.

I have a good friend that I met a number of years ago. I actually worked with her, or at least worked in the same area. I saw that she was very good at staying busy and being responsible (something I was NOT very good at during that point in time). Over the years, it was obvious the company we had worked for recognized those qualities, because she was promoted and given lots of responsibilities. She continued to work hard for the company, and do her best to follow protocol and meet assigned tasks and train her employees. During this time, she was confident, independent, and successful.

A few years later, she got married, and then quit her job to be a full-time stay home mom. So she went from getting respect, adult interaction and self-esteem that came from the career success that she had experienced this far, to spending a lot of time at home alone with kids, changing diapers, and feeding babies, along with the many, many other things that stay-home moms are responsible for and usually don't get very much respect for.

As I’ve watched her, I’ve seen a bit of that confidence, independence and self-esteem that she had at her job fade over time. Her husband was never home, due to work and school. So she didn’t really have any help. He tried, and still does, but he doesn’t take a lot off of her plate (in my opinion, she could have done better at her choice of husbands, but that’s another story!).

It’s been a number of years since then, and I just have to say that over the years I’ve watched her grow and mature (not that she was immature before). She’s so giving and caring. Her 4 children are smart and well-behaved, all due to her. Her husband has learned a LITTLE bit about being more responsible. Each person in the household eats every meal because she goes shopping to buy the food and prepares it. Every person in the household has clean clothes to wear because she washes them. Every family member participates in and enjoys family home evening because she helps them with their assignments. The kids get to experience things the best way they can based on their family’s financial situation. She cares for others, and she is willing to sacrifice anything for herself if she can provide for another family member first. I know this because I’ve seen her do it.

She had a very deep desire to do things exactly right, which inspires and amazes me, and I think it is a great trait to want to do everything exactly the way it should be done.

Sometimes, though, this same trait (something that some people call being a ‘perfectionist’) can be damaging as well. She feels as if some things are beyond her grasp because she can’t be perfect at it. She feels like she is the only one, or at least one of the few people, who can’t be perfect at certain things. She feels like she is either GREAT at something, or TERRIBLE at something, with no room for “OK” or “pretty good”. Over and over I have seen her discount the amazing things she has done or incredible effort she's put into something because it wasn’t perfect. She often responds to a compliment with a self-criticism. She feels like she can’t measure up because she sees people do specific things REALLY well, and she admires those people so much and all she sees is a HUGE gap between where they are (where she’d like to be), and where she is. What she doesn’t recognize, at least doesn’t appear to recognize, is that she is admired by many and a great example to others as well.


So now we come to the whole purpose of this blog post.

My hope and wish for her is that she will recognize her value in her position as a wife and mother, as a caretaker, and as a friend.

I want to tell my wife, my friend, that she is simply amazing. I want her to know what everyone else already knows. She accomplishes more on her “unproductive” days than I do on some of my most “productive” days. It is because of her that our household and family are as great as they are.

Rhoda, I’m so glad you were willing to marry me. You are my valentine, forever. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, and you are a beautiful, wonderful, amazing person. I try to tell you “I love you” all the time. I hope that doesn’t diminish the impact of those words. It certainly doesn’t for me. I love you and always will!

Some Funny Stories...

I'm not planning on actually TELLING any funny stories. I just thought I'd mention:

Man, sometimes I crack myself up.

Life Advisor

You know the old saying “you are your own worst critic”? In many ways, I agree completely with this. However, I have found one area that this doesn’t apply. It’s in the giving of advice.

We’ve all been there. I’m sure you can think of someone, right now, who could really use your advice. It might be financial, relationship, career, or any other kind of advice. You know that you don’t know everything about their situation, but you are close enough to this person to feel like you could really help them, if they would only ask. You are also probably a decent enough person to NOT barge in and force your advice on them. And it’s not even like you are trying to appear better or smarter than them. You just want to help that person be successful at whatever it is they need help with. You definitely aren’t trying to be judgmental.

Here’s the irony. Why is it that you can give that person great advice (If they would only ask!), but often, if you were to make an honest assessment of your own life, it would occur to you that you could use some help in that specific area yourself. Funny part is, you KNOW all about your situation, yet you can find more ways to help others without knowing their whole situation.

I don’t think it’s a hypocritical beam/mote situation, either (see Matthew 7:3-5). It’s more like the saying “can’t see the forest for the trees”. In our own lives, we are in the middle of everything. We are emotionally involved in everything. When it comes to our own lives, we can’t see the “better” path because one or more “other” paths are right in front of our faces. When we look at someone else’s life, it’s like we have the 10,000 foot view of things. We are not in the thick of their day-to-day struggles and decisions, so we can see that “better” path more clearly.

So here’s my idea. Since many of you out there could probably give me better advice and help in decision-making than I can give myself, I propose a swap of services. I could use a Life Advisor. I am willing to act in that same capacity in return. Any takers?

Programming Suits Me

Someone asked me what I do for a living, which sparked a conversation, which in turn sparked something that made me think.

I told him I am a web programmer, and that I really enjoy what I do. I get some weird looks when I tell people I enjoy programming. It makes me laugh.

Ever since I was I kid, I've always been very interested in how things work. I love it when I learn something in a very logical way. For that reason, I've always enjoyed math and science. I remember in 9th grade we took some test that is supposed to tell you what your ideal career would be, based on questions about what kinds of things you enjoy. My result? Electrical Engineering. I didn't even really know what it was, but from what little I did know, it seemed right up my alley.

At the same time, in my 9th grade year, we had also just gotten our first computer at home. My mom got it mostly for work, and none of us really knew much about them. I really liked it, and wanted to play and explore, but wasn't able to do much with it because my mom was afraid of me breaking it. Totally understandable.

So from there I placed my trust in the career test and planned to look into Electrical Engineering. As I proceeded through high school, I learned more about computers and started leaning toward Computer Engineering, which is about half Electrical Engineering and half Computer Science, or programming. So that's what I did.

A (large) number of years later, I now have a Computer Science degree AND a Computer Engineering degree. Yeah, I'm a geek.

So what do I like about programming? Well, I always thought that programming is pure logic, the opposite of art and creativity. That thought is reinforced by the fact that in college you can get a bachelor of science or a bachelor of arts.

What I've realized, however, is that to be a good programmer actually requires a fair amount of creativity. Every problem that you must solve is just slightly different, and while the logic is truly in the center of a program's operation, it is really the creativity in applying the logic that will make a program simple, efficient, and easy to update.

THAT's why I like programming. It takes both creativity and logic, and I just love to solve problems. Ask my wife. I try to single-handedly solve all of her problems, whether she wants me to or not. (Sorry honey!)

As a side note, you probably looked at my very plain, not very exciting blog and thought, sheesh, what kind of web programmer has a boring blog like this? Well, I do. 'Nuff said.

Mondays

So last night, just before bed, I thought to myself, "Here we go, another Monday. Back to the ol' grind!"

I kind of thought the same thing this morning as I woke up (tired after not sleeping long enough, as usual). I then had the thought, "What's so bad about Mondays?" So here's why I think Monday's aren't my favorite day of the week. Don't know if this applies to anyone else's attitude, but it certainly is true for me.

• First of all, just like I thought last night, Monday is the day you start it all over again. Don't get me wrong. I like my job. But to be perfectly honest, I like NOT going to work even better! So the thought that goes through my head on Monday morning is OK, 5 days of going to work coming!


• Next, and related to the previous one, is this. I absolutely love family time. I may not always make the most of it, but I love being at home (or out and about) with the whole family. It makes me happy to be around my wife and kids. Monday, when I go back to work, starts a week of NOT being around them very much. On work days, I leave for work before most of them are awake, and I get home after they've started dinner most days. I sit down and eat with them, help clean up the kitchen (sometimes) and then it's almost time for the bedtime routine. Sheesh


• I think everyone loves the weekend, and Mondays are the day that is furthest from the next coming weekend.


• I don't know about anyone else, but when I'm not at work, like when I take a day off, I have an "inbox" that is pretty ridiculous. It grows very fast. Often times, in fact, I get calls from work to resolve immediate problems. I always have a bunch of email to go through and requests or questions to handle. Well, even if it was just over the weekend, it seems like this is true. It takes a little extra time each Monday to get through with everything so I can really dive in and start working on my main work.

OK, so after all that, I started feeling like yeah, I'm pretty justified to not like Mondays, right? Well, I like to be both optimistic and fair, so I started thinking a little more about why I should have a better attitude about Mondays, and here's the list I came up with. I'm not sure there is enough to tip the scales on my feelings about Mondays, but maybe they're not as bad as I make them out to be in my head.

• First off, as I mentioned before, I really enjoy spending time with my family. The fact that it's Monday tells me that I've most likely just spent the last 2 days with my family. It is a time with funny memories (trust me, most of the time we are all together, there are funny memories) and just a general joy in my heart after spending time with them.


• Family Home Evening (FHE). It took us a long time to get into a routine of holding a regular FHE, but once we did (and I give most of the credit to my wife for that), I look forward to it. It is difficult to have a FHE without some frustration (yeah, I never realized how difficult some things can be with small children), but at the same time, it is an opportunity to realize that we are trying to do what is right, and teach our children about things that are important to us. Love it. I look forward to FHE, and that could be more prevalent in my mind when I think about Mondays.


• This one is related to the first reason, but I have just spend Sunday renewing my spirit. I love doing the "Church" thing, and I love that spending the day with my family doing things I wouldn't normally do on any other day (even Saturday) is a wonderful thing. My spirit is "charged up" and ready to go for the next week.


• Finally, Monday is kinda like the Spring, or New Year's of the week. It's a fresh start, a new beginning. Sure a week's kind of a small scale to be thinking about that way, but nonetheless, I often go to work with a fresh perspective and new determination to get things done that week. I make small plans and goals for that week, and I generally spend a little time on Monday just sort of organizing myself, and knowing what all I have to do for that week.

Anyway, after all is said and done, I think Mondays aren't so bad after all.

But I wouldn't complain if every day was Friday, either.