GaryTalk # 8: Choose Your Crowd

Think for a few minutes about the different camps of people out there. I know there is a gray scale between the extremes but I'm looking for the sense of a person being closer to one or the other.

Optimist or Pessimist

Sedentary or Active

Positive or Negative

Bright or Dull

Adventurous or Cautious

My parents were in town last weekend, and our late night conversations were about risk taking, pushing your limits, and the hard work and joy that comes from home ownership and tackling a (forever expanding) project list. We were able to do a lot in two days, including building a heavy duty work bench and planting a vegetable garden. I am so lucky to have parents that don't mind a "visit" which entails hard work. 

On the drive downtown to hear a blues band, dad shared a new way he's started thinking about people. There are those that sit around and talk about other people, and those that give them something to talk about. 

One group is out there living, being adventurous, trying new things, looking stupid and silly, and at the end of the day having a hell of a lot more fun. Clearly, by now you know what group my dad falls in. It's up to me to behave (or misbehave) such that I am there as well. You know the moment you're about to do something ridiculous and you know you will be the talk of the neighborhood, and you shrug your shoulders and do it anyways? 

a quick trip to the dump required a ride in the back to hold down the brush

Life is too short to care what other people think, to gossip, to observe life happening. Get out there and jump in. Look stupid. Laugh at yourself. Be crazy. Give the other folks something to talk about. 

GaryTalk #6

Set aside your fear and embrace change.

A fortuitous and at the time quite scary event happened in my life when I was 15 years old. My family moved away from our home in North Carolina to a small town called Beaconsfield outside of London.
We lived there for three years before moving back to the States.

At the time, I DID NOT want to move. I loved my friends, my school, and my life as I knew it. I didn't want to make new friends. My father, sensing my fear, called a family meeting and proceeded to read, out loud, the motivational book "Who Moved My Cheese". I'll sum it up for you in a few sentences: the story is about two mice and two small humans named "Hem" and "Haw". They all live in a maze and eat cheese. The cheese is moved. The mice adapt and find the new cheese, no biggie. The humans do not adapt and cry and mourn and have a giant hissy fit, and then die. The end. Adapt to change. Do not hem and haw. Got it.

Over the next year, there were many challenging moments, but I can not even describe how much my life was affected for the better because of that move. My brother and I became incredibly close, London was our new playground, yet most of all I realized how big and fun and adventurous life can be when you do not live with the fear of change. My dad instigated that move. He took the plunge with the family, one that changed the course of my life for the better.

Now that I am an adult, it is up to me to instigate good changes and not be paralyzed by fear of the unknown. I ask myself: Are you currently happy where you are living? In your career? Want to move out West? Want to go back to school? Want to take 3 months off and hike the Appalachian trail? The biggest plunge that I have taken recently was starting this blog, and at the time I was scared that I wasn't tech savvy enough, that nobody would read it, and that I didn't have the photography or cooking expertise to have a blog. Then, one day, I just did it. Gary says, set aside your fear and embrace change.