You Lose Focus For One Second And…
I’ve always tried to escape whenever I felt troubled about something. Books, magazines, movies, internet, etc. Any type of media that I could be draw in to and consumed.
College breaks were the worst. I really never knew what to do with myself. It’s hard coming home and living under rules when you’re used to being on your own. It’s stifling. So I’d escape, read 3 or 4 books over a week.
Lately, I’ve been making an effort to focus on the task at hand and live within my own moments. I’m still not very good at it, and I guess that’s what this post is about.
Three weeks ago I was training at my dojang. I was focused on my techniques and was feeling pretty good. I was tired, but still had energy and I felt better than I had in a while.
I was doing simple step-ups on to a raised platform as these thoughts were running through my head. As this internal monologue about how good I felt kept getting more elaborate, I stopped paying attention to what I was doing. I stepped down from the platform with my foot sideways and sprained my ankle.
I was so mad at myself. I knew exactly why it happened, and as I was writhing in pain, I immediately got my two lessons.
- Always be humble. Just because you’re not saying it out loud doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.
- Stay focused always. Constantly remain in a state of vigilance because the stupid seemingly inconsequential things will trip you up.
And in this case, it did, as I was performing the most simple movement of the entire class. It set my training back a whole month. One millisecond without focus delayed by training my a month. The pain can be dealt with. But I’m not too fond of the pain being a constant reminder of my fuck-up.
Tonight, I was making cookies for a work party/contest tomorrow. These particular cookies are supposed to crack across the tops when they are done. My second batch wasn’t cracking. Our oven is kind of crappy, so I just left them in longer. Needless to say, I burnt them. Not badly, but burnt nonetheless.
Again, I wasn’t focused. I was busy messing around on my computer.
As I was cleaning up the cookie mess and doing dishes, I started thinking about all the times where I lost focus and the consequences were not so clear or even completely unknown. How many times have I been so close to success and gotten distracted by a stupid deal or allowed frustration to creep in? Or missed amazing opportunities because I wasn’t paying attention? Or lost a chance to meet people that could have altered my life in a profound way?
It’s really a sobering thought. It’s easy to measure our successes and failures or based on what you can see. Same thing with changes about yourself. But those are just the material, or the things that you project to the outside world. I feel much different than I did a year ago. Can anyone tell? Maybe. Does it matter? No.
Inside I know, and that’s what’s important. I think we’d all do much better and realize much more of our potential if we buckled down and focused on finding the truth about ourselves–no matter how unpleasant it may be.
Tidal Mysteries and Inexpensive Art
I’ve been absolutely fascinated by the beach and the ocean for as long as I can remember. Growing up in Pennsylvania, our summer vacations were always to the Jersey Shore. My mom had one sister that lived there year-round and another sister who had a summer cottage there.
When I was little, I cried when we had to leave and go back home.
When I was 14, I had this week-long eye-glance flirtation with this girl staying in one of the rich-people houses right on the beach. It took us a whole week before we ever said anything to each other.
We talked for maybe 15 minutes total. But when she left, she gave me a piece of beach glass with her name, phone number, a bunch of hearts, and the words “Margate 1996″ on it. I probably still have in my parent’s house somewhere.
I haven’t thought about that in years, but it’s amazing how these things stick with you. I actually even talked to that girl on the phone once or twice. We exchanged addresses and promised we’d write to each other. Neither one of us ever did.
The magic was gone, along with the summer.
When I graduated college, I finally had the ways and means to actually live at the beach. Maybe I could be one of those cool local guys with the ridiculously dark tan, that I always idolized growing up.
It didn’t really work out that way. Mostly because it was impossible. I had missed the boat. When you’re young and you think 17 yr old lifeguards are the coolest guys ever, what do you do when you move to the beach at 23? I did however take up surf kayaking and spent a lot of time hanging out on the beach and having a lot of fun.
I think there are a couple of things that always seemed mysterious about the ocean made me think.
The raw power of the waves could totally end you at any moment. It feels good letting yourself go into the barrel of a wave and getting spun over and over again underwater until you don’t know which way is up. I still come up laughing every time that happens to me. At least until the kayak hits me.
Another thing was the history of everything that washed up on shore or was hidden until the tide was low. Beach glass, old jetties, old trash even. I always wondered how it got there. Who had touched it before me? What were they like?
And the landscape is constantly changing. One summer to the next, I could never predict what the shoreline would look like. Sandbar one year–gone the next. Maybe that old jetty washed away a little bit more. Maybe something entirely new to me would be revealed from erosion.
I recently bought two prints from an art gallery in New York City. I bought them because I think they do a very good job of reflecting my thoughts about the beach. I really like being able to compare and contrast between the two, and how the shadows, contrast, and hues change between them.
 Praia Piquinia 04/08/07 16h04 by Christian Chaize |
 Praia Piquinia 02/08/07 15h16 by Christian Chaize |
I’m a big fan of this website and these aren’t the first prints I’ve bought from them. I really like their business model. You can buy some very inexpensive art, but they only sell a certain number of prints, so there is still some exclusivity to it.
I highly recommend getting on their list and seeing what you can find.
Why Me, Why Now, Why Here?
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My uncle is a mechanical engineer and has been for almost 30 years. Him, his wife, and their two children live in a nice house, in a nice neighborhood, in a very nice suburb of Boston. I lived with them for 3 months on my first pre-graduate work assignment away from school. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but something my aunt said to me has never really left my consciousness.
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She of course was referring to my uncle’s career. At the time I thought, “So what? ‘Comfortable’ is good enough for me.”
I was, and continue to be, a little naïve about certain things.
Here I was a 21-year-old kid on his first engineering job for less than 3 months and had no reservations about the profession I was about to enter for the next 40-45 years. After all, why should I? I was an ENGINEER!
And then I had my first encounter with what I like to call “the itch.”
“The Itch” in this case, manifested itself in an intense desire to finish my internship and return back to college. Before I had finished a mere 13 weeks of work, I was ready to be finished.
This should have been a bit of a warning sign. But I had thought that it was an artifact of being on the quarter system in college. I was used to completely changing my schedule and classes every 13 weeks.
10 weeks of classes, 1 week of finals, 2 weeks off. Rinse, lather, repeat.
A thirteen week internship was just another block of time.
I liked that job. I really LIKED that job. It was interesting, I worked with cool people, and the corporate culture was amazing. I returned to that company for another 13 week block. This time I didn’t live with my family. Life in suburbia was just a little too surreal - almost like the future was laid out right in front of me.
Same thing happened, even earlier in the internship this time.
I was doing something completely different in this job. This time I rationalized it by assuming that this type of job just wasn’t for me.
The next job was different. It was always something new and challenging. This internship lasted 7 months and I decided it was the job for me. I returned to college to finish up my Master’s degree.
The whole time I was gone, I had idealized this job. I built the whole thing up in my head. Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s a really good job. But what I finally realized is that it wasn’t the specific job creating “the itch.” It was the fact that I had a job, period.
Once the learning phase is over, any job will become ordinary. Maybe I’ve got a bit too much mathematician in me. After all, what’s the point in actually going through the motions and SOLVING a problem after you’ve already figured out HOW to do it.
The hard part is over. Leave the grunt work to someone else.
Companies don’t think like this though. You have a “training” period and then you’re expected to be able to repeat that task over and over again 40 hours a week for 40 years.
So after a couple of months on my full-time job, I was looking into getting a second Master’s degree or a Ph.D. Retreating into what is familiar is a perfectly normal response to a frustrating situation.
Now don’t get me wrong. I do my job and I do it well. And there are some people that would be envious of my position. But I’ve realized that in the long run, this isn’t for me. Changing to another job or another company will only delay the inevitable.
I will get bored. I will be unsatisfied.
So here I am striking out in a new field for me - Internet Marketing. I have no professional credits or education. But I WILL make it work.