In the bubble

We all have grown up and are moving on in our lives and I know I need to get back to the upbringing and the life we had. However sometimes you need to look forward and also deal with the present.

The present is the challenges of balancing work life with your family and social life. Well life has changed for all of us, we have grown up and we now deal with what our parents did for 20 plus years.

I keep thinking is there a difference in their dealing with life versus ours. I think yes, I believe times have changed. I remember when I live in Minneapolis and going to the Como park Zoo.

There were alot of company parties always going on at the park. Families of workers were in strong attendance. I'm not sure who paid for the events but the fact that it brought unity was a good thing. It also brought family into the work environment on some scale which I believe at the time was a good thing.

Now don't get me wrong work is not necessarily family. However they do seem to coincide at certain levels.
Now move ahead about 20 years and you know what alot of these get togethers no longer exist. I don't even believe it's financial as the company does not need to pick-up the tab for grilling out at a park.  It's to bad as we all should be inclined to become friends at work as well as with our neighbors. There is a connection that we need to embrace.

The problem with the work environment now is it's fairly cutthroad in many ways and people are very cautious as they value their jobs and want to keep them from being taken away. The other situation is people today thru communication devices and job cutbacks which put more responsibility on others have taken them away from their core responsibility of their family.

We are nothing without our family. We cannot live in a bubble of work or life competition we need to remember how important family is to our foundation and our futuren.

So are we living in a bubble? I would say many of us are and I would be glad to be wrong but we are dealing with the cards that we have been dealt. Sometime all of that germ jell that we all rub on rubs off in the wrong way as we become a immune sterile enviroment. Well that is another blog for another day.

Just don't get trapped in your bubble reach out where you can. I know you need to be cautious in your actions and measured in how you deal with things personally and professionally.

Just remember you may have friends at work, that you can embrace and others that you cannot. Also always remember your network of true friends as they will keep you guided and are a great resource for affirmation that you are moving in the right direction.

Again thanks for reading and I look forward to your thoughts and suggestions.

What is under the rock?

We have all been around the block. We have lived in different communities, cities or subdivisions and worked with a variety of co-workers.

Basically what I'm saying is we have all dealt with a variety of people in our lives for the good and the bad. They have tolerated us and we have tolerated them. Now the question is what did we uncover when we moved the rock?

Well that varies depending on the discussion and the relationship. Now I know I am moving around in a variety of ways in this discussion of the small town. The reality is it's not all just about the small town yet it could be about your internal or external manageable relationships.

The question always comes down to how are we living our lives in our micro sector. Well you say what the hell is that. Well you know what we live in a vaccum of groups, how often do we reach out of the group? We do so when a new member comes into the group.

Remember your true friends you need to able to trust without a doubt. This will not happen overnight. You need to work at it. You need to feel them out and they need to do so as well.

Now as we evolve into the workforce and move around the globe we will have new encounters and new groups to engage.

We have our true friends, but now as we have evolved we have added new dimessions to our friendship circle. That is why I say look unde the rock.

It's not as simple as saying I work with them or they live in the same subdivision and we are friends.

Digg a little or actually put some time into and you might find out you have a good friend just a few feet away from you. Some of you may say what is the big deal I make friends at work or in life all of the time..

The reality is can you share your passion, your vision, your life pro and con with them and confide in them     while expecting them to honr the systems?

The reality is we have friends, some respect us as a promotional piece and others as a very priuvate matter.

Again my point of under the rock is to pinpoint the fact that we all have a common goal and we should work towards the success of it.

Realizing what you have

I know this is a jump ahead in the program and discussion. But I was lucky recently where I got to see my fellow classmate for the weekend. Although I may have only seen them for 4 hours total I can tell you it was some of the best time I have had. It continues to amaze me how we can reconnect in a f2f place and feel like nothing has ever changed. Now I know we have aged and our lives have changes but our friendship has not at any level. To me that is impressive. We are still willing to do anything we can for each other. Yes we keep in touch throughout the year and we share our upswings and downswings together.

The beauty of it all is yes we have evolved but the friendship remains intact at all levels. It's not all positive as we argue and disagree on a level that may not have been in our minds 20 plus years ago. But the fact the remains is we in the end know that our friendship is the key to our happiness. You know what that is cool.

I'm very happy to know that my friends that are also my family in my opinion are always there. Let's not forget where we came from or the foundation of our existence which is family and friends. It's vital that we have this foundation as we continue to grown in our lives. I'm fortunate and I hope you all are as well.

The other cool thing about this weekend was that we couldn't see them but we as a group reconnected with 4 other classmates who had made a decision to hook-up as well in another state. What is great about that is they reached out to us via email and telephone and we all reconnected.  Now that is awesome as they are all great people and we miss them all.

But the most awesome part of it is they not only called my friend but they called me and emailed me as well. What does that mean they took the effort to connect and re-ignite a storied friendships. I applaud them for doing so and I hope you all will consider doing so as well.

Do not cut off your friends!!!! Engage them and you know if it
s been a while don't be in fear of getting together online or offline. I know I have been very happy to do so online and also it's great to hear a familiar voice on the phone.

Keep connected with the present, past and the future it will make your life grand

Did the well go empty

Let me start off indicating I have no direct plan for the direction of this blog. I'm thinking however that we have moved into such a hybrid world of online and offline communication. Again I am not trying to address patterns or changes in society for example. However if you look at the number of people that are online socially it's crazy big. Now why are we online. Surely we can pick and choose who we want to communicate with offline via the telephone,  in person or even email. You can IM them, text them there is a unlimited venue to reach out to the people you choose to reach. Now Facebook and other social networking sites have given us the freedom to reach out others.

The reality is like your everyday life offline and now online you can pick and choose. You may choose not to communicate with certain people and you have that choice just like in everyday life.  The difference is you don't have to be as polite you don't accept their friend invitation, you don't have to respond to anything. Now don't get me wrong you don't have to accept any of that in the real world either. However it's alot easier to say no online.
Also you have every right to do so. I don't know if that is a good choice or a bad one. Only you know that answer.

I can tell you from my own experience is that I have decided to not block out anyone. I will give them the respect they deserve as long as they do the same to me as well. Why do you ask would I friend people that were not my friends 10 years ago or more. You know what we have all evolved and I hope and pray that they think I have evolved as well.  Think about it, if they are willing to reach out why should you not be willing to accept. And you know what you should reach out as well. Nobody is perfect and we have all made mistakes and evolved in this new world.

I can go down this avenue for ever. The fact is I was an ass to many people, and I'm not asking for forgiveness or special treatment. I'm not even asking they accept my apology. I'm only asking that they consider it.
Now the reality is that we can only manage so much communication. We  have to work it out online and again offline.

The did it go empty comment titles falls into many things. My point is you had 100 classmates in h.s. or junior high or elementary. No the class wasn't that big but your reach was.  Were all of them to become friends that would be great and fantastic but we all know that didn't happpen.

The sad part of this is, many of those people just wanted to accepted and treated as friends. Again I have said I'm guilty of being such a person. I'm older now and I know that I made mistakes.

The other interesting part is the number of h.s. friends that stopped communicating. So again i say did the well go dry. Let's ask ourselves how often do we see them or how often do we reach out to them. I'm sure there are exceptions to the rules but think about it. If you have 20 names to reach out to via email, phone etc. please do so. I think you will be glad you did.

Again this blog is freeflow and I'm just winging it. The fact is we may only be as good as our last friend. Also for another blog let's talk friendship and what that really means to become a life partner in friendship.

Drink some water the well as is not empty but please think about how to keep it full

What was in the water?

I always try to think what brought everyone together. Was there something in the water that brought us all together? I'm not sure or was it community that we all strived for in some form whether we want to or not.

The reality is whether we congregated together from diapers onto the athletic field no one knows for sure or from that great well water. Does it really matter I don't think so. We all grew up in very good families with a a very workmanlike attitude towards life. You get what your work for and you roll with it when the knock of life give you some bumps on the road.

I don't know how many people grew up and said I will be a Dr. or Teacher or a Coach. Instead I think we grew up  with the desire to be friends and be very active in the community with our friends. Sure that sounds Doris Day or Leave it to Beaver but the fact is I believe we all grew up in an environment where we were very social and active. Now again this varies to where you grew up and I don't to just isolate one place. But I believe the fact remains we wanted to get out and play, compete and be very social. Now that is not today's world but you know what we are playing in todays world of blogs, social media, facebook, myspace, youtube etc..So we are part of this generation which is cool and enlightening. However let's keep it in check and  balance it from where we came from. Do you remember picking up the phone and calling your friends? I don't really I just went over and said let's go or they just knew where to meet. There was the f2f communication and discussions which were great.

I only remember the telephone being used when you didn't have the guts to make a personal contact with a girl you wanted to date. Plus come on how many times would you need to practice to make that call. Enough digression on the dating game for everyone as I'm sure that is worth  many pages of discussions.

In my case the volga river was the water. It was dark and cloudy on a good day, but my friendships were as clear as the sea around the coral reefs.

I used water, maybe a bad example but you know what we all drank the same kool-aid and believed in the same life of friendship. We knew the future would work out. We were not concerned about it. Maybe someone would be a Dr., Lawyer, Factory worker, Farmer, or business owner. We didn't know and we didn't care because we cared about the person.  The chemicals of the human body are x amount of water. We require water to survive, yet we all think the water supply will never end. Oh sure were all getting more green and ecofriendly. But you really think about it how much of the life supply chain if filtered thru water.

I'm not asking you to conserve water, I'm only indicating the value of water to our well being. I'm also trying to in a weak attempt to make people understand we are comprised of many of t he same properties of water.
We should not forget that and we should remember that all of lives interactions from life to death  involve water.
How does this relate to our friends and our growing up? We were all drinking the same water? Do you understand? We have been doing it since birth. You may think you have changed during this time but the water that we all drank did not.

We are friends and we share commonalities  because we  shared the water of our lives. Now have we changed yes, and do we need to move forward yes again. But you know what wouldn't it be nice to have a glass of water with some old friends?

Think about it

Friendship

Again with the friendship and why do we or should we pursue that avenue? Here is why if you remember from you biology courses or science courses hopefully you remember the study of trees. When you look at the study of trees you the see age and history of life in there circles of history. I know I may not be explaining that correctly but the fact is there is history in the life of the tree and the life of your friends that cannot nor should it be debated over your lifetime. Now we all know we didn't go to school with 300 plus people in our class. We also know what whether we liked everybody or  not we still new everybody in a small town enivorment.

Now yes this can be broken down to big schools as welll as you get micro with your relationships. Now getting back to the history. Think about when you did x or y with this person and it nothing but fun. Also think about it when it wasn't so fun. Weigh it out and see why did it end. Did it end because you got busy? Or they got busy or things just changed? I think all of the above is lazy and I think if I give you a call and you don't return it after 10 plus years of knowing each other that is said. I should take call from anyone I have known for that many years let alone a friend and let alone they called me. I should be asking myself why do I not want to talk to t hem.. You don't have to there is no requirement to do so.

It just makes you look bad to not do so and you know you may have missed an opportunity to re-engage with your network of friends. I think that is a mistake but look at the facts and we all know them how many people really engage with their past peers. They think they have moved on found new friends, built new lives and that is all good but did you really need to ditch the past for the future?

You think about it and you decide, either answer will be correct in your lifestyle I' m sure.

Do you think if there   was more contact you might have bigger reunions? Nice correleations.  Also remember one contact is still good, but don't cut if off entirely. I know everyone is always debating things, be patient.
I just jumped into a weird font and will need to bail as I cannot correct it for tonight.

Let's keep the dialouge going and if there are only 5 followers, I wonder why there are not 100 plus as we all lived in a small town or a small faction of society.  Reach out and let's let it grown

Family and Friends

Where friends become family


As I always try to say this is a very free form platform for people to read and express their opinions.

I have known many of my friends for over 40 years and I'm sure you have known many for a long time as well. We met as infants and moved on to todderville and continued to grow together.



During these times all of our lives have evolved in some form, kids, work, family, religion, politics, you name it we may not be the same people we were at 15-18. The reality is we all shared some incredible experiences together during this time frame. We may not all be as close over the years of devlopment as we would like but we are still friends at many levels.



I always think or what is the definition of friendship? My reply to anyone is that my friends will know the best and the worst of me and still accept me and still want the friendship. Now I don't know that this theory works for everyone, I only know it is something that I believe.



I should be able to know and share with all of my friends and accept that this is a reality and by sharing we all heal, and bond and improve our lives.



My close friends are my family I see them as brothers and sisters, as though we are all of the same blood stream. Now is that reality no. But the fact is I will need to be able to share everything with them and I hope they do as well with me.

None of us are perfect and we may have lost some of that small town friendship feel. I have and I'm sure you have over the years met many people that you will call as your friends. The question is will they be there no matter what? I don't know maybe they will. But the sad part is we all should be able to call on our friendships in good times and in bad as friendship and family make the foundation of our lives.



I'm proud of the fact and also disapointed that I don't have all of the friendship circle from my high school, military and college life. I have some that are very strong and others that are weak. What I need to do to improve on that is up to me and those that I want to communicate with.



Our roots are our foundation and we should never forget that. Now I know we have evolved and some of those friendships you may say I don't need them. I now have moved on to the wine and cheese person vs. the beer and chip person. I don't know I'm just putting this out there for your thoughts.



If you teach, work in factory, marketing, coach, lawyer,. medicine it doesn't matter we should still find a way to stay connected. Facebook and other platforms offer this. At the same time what is wrong with picking up the phone and calling a long lost friend? or keeping connected by phone with a friend?

Neither is wrong and I hope you embrace the new technology but do not forget the current formats on how we can reach out to each other.



Family and Friendships, we tend to share more with our friends. We tend to to embrace them in a more forward way. Don't minimize that opportunity whether it is online for f2f to connect with your friends or on the telephone. They know you and understand you and I think will help give you good guidance, and balance for your life. Keep in mind they love you and respect you. They also willl be there for you.

If you have not done so reach out now to all of your friends and keep that bridge of friendship alive

Posted by Jim W at 8:51 PM

Capture the moments

Here is where technology has come a long way to make it all easier to embrace the ways we can capture the small town and everything that makes it so perfect in either video or in picture. Now is any of this really any better than the old slide show or the old one-step picture. Maybe only because it is viral.
I don't know if that is a great thing and I'm not sure I want to totally embrace it. In fact I'm very glad that the video camera and picture phone didn't exist everywhere. At the same we sure lost a lot of memories isn't that what people will tell you?

How about the memory of the story teller, does he or she need a picture for a video, does that image need adobe photoshop or need to be loaded on the Iphone for all of the world to see? Maybe maybe not, but you know what we still need the storyteller who gives us the run-down of what transpired that to me is worth a million plus images and videos.

My point here is the need for  communication between all aspects of life. Video and pictures cannot capture the reality of the event or the story. Yes they will give your toddlers and family a viable footprint to follow but I will miss many pieces of the puzzles and provide a seemless disconnect that you may not be able to recover without the storyteller.

Plus unless your are true hollywood, please don't tell me you can get everything and all of the emotions and communications of the toddler and his friends on video.  It's a good documentation, but don't rely on it make sure you know the story and make sure you can write it down or relay the story to all of those involved.

Some of the best things in life have been told thru a story and don't forget it. Also remeber in small towns or small circles that stories is remembered and the foot print and viral effect of that story is huge on the memory base of all those that want to continue the story of the journey of the baby that became a toddler who became an adult in a small town where everyone knows not the book, nor the video, but the complete story.

Just some more food for thought on this fine easter.

Toddlerville and more

You know toddlerville is some very cool and interesting times for all that get to be part of it. Now think back you didn't have a car seat, multi-functional care pack and "add" challenged or enforced toys. Think about it wherever you go video, games, etc. At a game, in the park in the van, heck I've seen it at church. Now who is the enabler to this, ok let's say TV and all of the marketing agencies and the new way of thought process. Let's justify and say this will give them all a leg up in the technological advancement sector.

Don't worry about social skills, you don't need them, just engage thru technology. Alot of us have embraced the new technology. Heck let's put a gps on the diaper or the toddlers pants.  How about a video cam to on their lapels. You think I'm joking were heading there. Technology will not be denied. Parents that grow up in this advancement will pick and choose and will also embrace the items they feel that are appropiate and as prices go down will embrace more. How about the toddler app or the baby app come on if it's not there already it's just a matter of time.

Now I'm sure there are many of us that embrace the techonlogy and others that say no way and some that are indifferent who succumb in some for to both model of either denial or embracement. I'm not sure that either is wrong nor will I say you need to do either of the programs.
You need to look at it all and see what works for you and don't look out the window to what others are doing nor listen to what they say about what they think is the greatness of what they are embracing as a family.

It will all work it's way out one way or another and things will work out positively for your toddlers.  The fact is they are loose and they are having a good time and they just want to go with the flow when it is fun time and are like a sponge when it's time to learn.

You know the baseball now has the speed on the ball, and next thing you know there will a be a laser from glove to glove to make sure the catch happens or from ball to bat.  The problem with all of this I believe is the analysis. The triage, the diagnostics, the mental preparation, the negotiations skills, the understanding of innate reasoning.

The technology can cloud all of these things. Please don't have a toddler text? You say never, but I say it's a matter of time. Before you know it the toddlers have there own facebook. Scary yes, is it a possibility doubtful but for the toddlers that move up the ladder i'ts already a foregone conclusion on how they communicate.

I'm sure they're are some very interesting stasts on development of our children. Let's keep an open mind, but also a open conversation going on with them. They want that and need it and we as adults need to embrace what got us to where we are today and find a way to properly embrace technology into the needs of the young children.

We will do that and we will make many great and bad decisions on both ends of the spectrum. However remember the most important thing we can do for anyone is keep the human element essential to all of our everday lifes. If we do this our toddlers will grow to the next step. We will grow and become encouraged byt the progress and results of our efforts.

So hang in there, I'm just saying have a healthy mix and balance of tecnology and human involement. Remember they are sponges and we meaning all of those involved in their development process are the key ingredients to their succcess.

Again I hop you keep reading their no defined plan for this blog other than to keep it interesting and hopefully encourage you to enage your ideas.