Nick's Blog

The Hardest Thing About Change

    You know you have a problem, or an obstacle in front of you.  You're unsatisfied.  You want to start something new, or stop something old.  You know what you need do, or maybe you don’t and you just know where you want to end up.  You put it off, go about your life, lie to yourself and say that “things aren’t so bad”, or “maybe I was overreacting and don’t need to change after all”.  But history repeats itself and you find yourself in the same situations, over and over.  You’re done, you’ve had enough.  Change is slow, but you finally start taking steps.  Their small, but hey - one foot in front of the other - right?  Right. Slowly you start to see progress, until you get to a point where you feel like the tables are finally turning.  Your starting to get a leg up on this thing.  Your starting to think differently, and really starting to feel differently.  All is right in the world.

    Your doing good, chugging along, making progress.  And then it happens.  Maybe its a partner, co-worker, or friend.  They make a small gesture or comment(which they probably didn’t even think twice about), that directly implies that you are exactly as you were, before you changed.  It hits you right in the gut, and makes your blood instantly boil.  How could they?! They are supposed to support me.  How could they not see that I am not like I used to be?  Can’t they tell how far I’ve come?  The answer is no.  Or at least probably not.

    You haven’t given them a chance, you haven’t shown them.  How could they know?  You have a unique perspective on yourself and your behavior.  A glimpse that most people on the outside don’t see.  You notice the small minute changes, that may get overlooked by even your closest friend or partner.  When we start to see changes in ourself, we have to give the people in our life time to see them too, before we expect them to treat us any different.  And this goes double if they aren’t a close friend or partner.  Everybody has been there.  It’s hard to change, and when we do we expect the world to open up and accept us for our new self, and it will.  So long as we show, time and time again, that we have indeed changed.  If the tables were turned and we had a one time incident where we acted out, or dropped the ball on an important project, we wouldn’t expect the same people to all of the sudden write us off as “that’s how they are now”.  No, you would want them to look at your track record and say, “they’re probably just having a bad day”.  Well, it goes both ways.  It takes time, and instances where the change can be seen for people to accept it.  Multiple instances that show specifically that you are not how you once were.  This is how you make the world change in relation to you.

    So what do we do?  How do we show the world and the people in our lives our new selves.  Well, we change.  We don’t let anybody get in the way of our goal.  We show, time and time again, that we are not who we once were.  If they don’t see the change, they either will eventually, or they won't.  If they don’t support you after you've showed them time and time again, maybe thats a sign that they are not meant to stay in your life, or at least shouldn’t be given much of your time.  We can’t measure our success in change by the reaction we receive from others.   We have to follow our own moral compass.  We have to dial in this compass until true north is our picture of the best version of ourself, defined by our truest moral standards and values.  This is how we change.  This is how we grow.

Tragedy, And Why You Should Seek It Out

I went out for a drink with a friend last night.  He’s a co-worker, and this is the first time we spent time together outside of work.  We had a couple drinks, ate some food, and exchanged stories.  He’s 5 or so years older than me, and has been through much more hardship in his life.  He spoke first, and told me about love, lose, children, family and all the ways things have gone terribly wrong.  When the tables turned, I thought about my life and realized how privileged I was.  White, male, born in the United States, both parents still alive and although they may be on the verge of separating now, this only came to light when I was well into my 20’s and well equipped to view the separation through a lense of understanding.  I had won the lottery.  The next day as I sit and drink my coffee, I think about the fact that things could very well change at any moment.

“Nothing happens to a wise man against his expectation.  Nor do all things turn out for him as he wished, but as he reckoned - and he reckoned that something could block his plans” - Seneca

One day, shit is going to hit the fan.  Tragedy will strike.  For me, for you, for everyone, and chances are we wouldn’t have planned for it.  It’s an inevitability.  Loved ones pass, people change their minds, your job may suddenly not be yours anymore, and occasionally the universe will conspire against you for no particular reason at all.  How do we prepare for such hardships?  Do we prepare?  I think most of the time the answer is no.  But we should, because these things are going to happen, and if you know that something is going to happen that is going to drastically affect your life, why wouldn’t you do everything in your power to minimize the damage?.  Who wants to be caught off guard by an extremely uncomfortable event?  Who wants to suddenly realize that they should have spent more time with that loved one, or put more money away.  Who wants to live with regret?  Especially when we have the power to do something about it.  Well, I'm here to say that it’s not too late.

“We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”  - Archilochus

So how do we train for such events? How do we prepare?

Well, it’s very simple and something that we should all be fairly good at, because we’ve been doing it since we were children.  We pretend.  We visualize negative events happening.  We put ourselves there.  Your worst fear, it happened, how do you feel?  What do you do?  More importantly what do you wish you would have done differently? This may be the most useful question of them all, because your biggest fear hasn’t happened.  You can do these things.  So grab your cup of coffee, tea, or what have you, sit down, and think.  What if the worst happened, and what can I do now to make sure that if it does happen I will have prepared.  I will have made decisions that align with my values.  The majority of us only realize what we truly value in the face of these tragedies. This is when we see clearly what is important in our lives.  So let this exercise open your eyes.  Let’s not waste another minute on things that are unimportant, but instead realize these things now and live a better life because of it.  Put money away, invest.  Say I love you, spend time.  And for the love of god don’t stress.  Because stress takes away,  It takes away from things that are currently still here, and things that could actually be gone tomorrow.

Something New

In January of 2016, I started something new.  I was working as a Guest Service Manager at a hotel in downtown Chicago when my manager was promoted and moved to another property.  As a an ambitious, driven young man, I approached the Hotel Director and expressed interest in my previous managers position.  Somehow, after multiple interviews, being the youngest and least qualified on the team, I got the job.  I would describe my first 6-12 months similarly to how Kurt Vonnegut would describe his writing process.  I felt like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth trying to write.  I struggled, I made mistakes and had no idea what I was doing.  But I was motivated, I knew what a good manager looked like, I just couldn't BE that good manager.  Now it's May of my second year, and just now am I starting to feel like I am getting a grip on things.  This made me think, why am I not starting this same uncomfortable, awkward journey in the space that I truly want to occupy.  I know I don't want to be a hotel manager for the rest of my days, so I decided to, again, start something new. So here I am, starting a blog.  In hopes of feeling uncomfortable and awkward and one day maybe feeling like I have a grasp on what this space is, and how I can navigate it.  This blog will serve as a collection of thoughts that are currently in my head, clawing tooth and nail to get out.  So here it is, read it, or don't.  It's for me, its for anyone who wants it, but mostly its to get me from this uncomfortable, awkward beginning to a place where I finally feel like I'm starting to get it right.