Origins

So, I guess I should cover the origins of my nickname. In first grade we had weekly writing sessions where we would create short stories, our teachers would edit them, and then we would illustrate the books. I put out some high quality stuff.

Luckily, we never had writing time extended by four hours. Nonetheless, we would right our little fingers off with all the mind numbing stories we could about topics like "Dude", "Soccer", and "My Best Friend Colin", all actual titles of mine by the way. My mother and sisters in law discovered these epic titles while preparing for my high school graduation party. They became a last minute contribution to my "shrine of awesomeness".

One particular story was entitled A Christmas Story. The story followed a similar line as the popular Dickens story, and by similar I mean it was plagerized exactly, except that the Scrooge like character said "Humrat" instead of "Humbug" and Tiny Tim became Tiny David. God, I am clever. Well, needless to say these stories and this one in particular entertained my family. I was quickly known as Tiny David from then on.

It is probably very fitting. I have never been a menacing or large fellow. My personality is probably more jolley than scroogelike, and I try to think of myself as just another person in this big old world. Someday, when this blog becomes an Oscar winning feature film known as "Tiny David's Big Adventure" I will be thankful my family dug up those classic literary works of art.

Living up to Expectations

We all have expectations of ourselves, our friends, and our coworkers or teammates. Living up to these expectations can be a difficult task. I know that working to live up to my expectations has always helped me to perform better in sports, school and work. As I sat watching the Superbowl with my 12 year old roommate, and a man named Charles who had his Ipod in and Marvin Gaye turned up to 11, I thought about Aaron Rogers living up to his expectations as the next great quarterback in Green Bay. Pending his endorsement of Wrangler Open Fly Jeans, zing Brett Favre, I think he has done a pretty good job in his first three years.

I know that I have always put a lot of pressure on myself to live up to the expectations of others. This is not a bad thing, but it can also lead to making decisions or choosing paths that others may want for you. Instead, it is important to figure out what YOU want and go after it to meet your own expectations. I'm not necessarily talking about "Lowered Expectations". It is more about figuring out what you really want and then going after that with Great Expectations.

I will provide my own example. I have always had what I sort of phrase as a "badass" complex. I always wanted to be, and do stuff that was "badass". For that reason I had always said I want to go into the military, jump out of planes, etc, etc. This is not to say that I don't think I could do that stuff, but it was more of my magic bullet to life. If I did that stuff I would be forever respected and admired. I created a set of expectations based upon what I thought others would deem "badass". The fact of the matter is that there is no silver bullet, or easy answer. There is no "key to everything" for our expectations, diets, lives.

The short of the matter is that you have to figure out what you want in life and go after it. This doesn't have to be one thing. It is of a theme throughout life. Living up to others expectations is definitely a good thing, but make sure that their expectations are in line with yours.

On a final note The Sizzler is about two blocks down the road from my living arrangement. Maybe I will give Bunifa a call.

Treading Lightly

I am in a new area, and when in a new area it is important to tread lightly. Utilizing GPS has been a huge help to me while navigating. At the same time it is probably a pretty big crutch. Many people got around quite well before the invention of GPS and they did just fine. In some instances my focus on the direction the GPS is giving me has made me lose sight of the things around me. Let's just say I have been honked at in a few instances. Treading lightly simply means don't do anything too stupid.

Yesterday, while leaving the grocery store I input an address in my GPS. As I followed the path laid out for me I accidently, slowly, pulled out in front of a car. It was in a parking lot so there was no real danger of getting T-Boned, but the other driver was not real happy. To make things worse another car coming from the other direction had to stop while I was pulled out in the middle of the intersection. A moment of indecision on my part caused the whole group to be at a stand still for a few moments. I recieved two honks and a couple of "warm" gestures for my mistake.

As I, finally, was able to navigate by both cars one driver happily gestured for me to take a gun and kill myself. He was an older gentleman that evidently needed to get somewhere before he died. Nonetheless, he had a point. I should pay attention first to my immediate surroundings and then focus on my destination. It is easy to overlook the journey in hopes of attaining the reward.

Book Review: The Tipping Point

How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference!

Malcolm Gladwell's  The Tipping Point is a collection stories about what he terms as "social epidemics". How do things like the American Revolution, Sesame Street, and wars on crime take off from their humble beginnings? The simple answer is that they grow steadily, and in most cases slowly, until they eventual tip and take off into more prominent positions in society.

Many small things around us are easily taken for granted. Your friend that knows "everybody". The graffiti, or lack thereof, in public places. The format of a children's show like Sesame Street. All of these things while appearing to be completely different have one thing in common. They all are products of many small factors that lead to their eventual prominence in our society. 

There are many parts to the tipping point, and to describe them all would not only do a disservice to the book, but it would also take me to long. That being said I will focus on a few of the prominent pieces of "social epidemics".

The first being that friend of yours who knows "everybody". Gladwell describes this person as a "connector". Connectors play important roles in the spread of information by creating a network or web of diverse acquaintances. These are the people you can sit down on a plane with and talk to the entire flight with ease. Mastering the loose tie is what a connector is all about. The weak tie is the person who connects friends to other friends, acquaintances to jobs, and patrons to knew restaurants that come highly recommended. 

Connectors are one type of person that Gladwell describes as integral to the spread of social epidemics. I will allow you to read the book learn about the other two types. What is important is that the message conveyed by these persons must be adequately "sticky". In other words the message must remain on our mind even when the conveyor of the info is gone. Children's shows like Sesame Street and Blue's Clues master the art of being sticky in order to help children learn. These shows scientifically adapted their program in order to determine what stuck in the minds of young viewers. In that way they went above and beyond what might be sticky for an adult. Advertising, marketing and sales are all dependent on the stickiness of product image. If a product is sufficiently, hip, innovative, or at least marketed effectively it will be more sticky to consumers.

So what is the result. Well, overlooking a great amount of minutea that the book covers that little things we may take for granted can eventually cause a little issue to turn into a "social epidemic". I will let you read the book to discover just how people and messages can play a role in reaching that tipping point. What is important is to realize that little changes can add up to make big changes. This can be both for good or bad.

For example a few degrees of temperature may not FEEL much difference. How different does 65 degrees feel from 67 degrees. Or how much different does 14 degrees feel from 17 degrees? Not much. BUT 65 degrees feels a lot better than 14 degrees. TAKE THAT IOWA.

You can all laugh at me when I come crawling back to Becky and Mike with no money!

Thy Ten Commandments

Today I encountered another elderly individual asleep in public. Fortunately, unlike yesterday this man had his pants on. He had an uncanny resemblence to Moses. As I attempted to take a picture of him with my camera phone, this is rude and childish do not attempt unless you are writing a blog about some sort of life journey, he awoke as if the will of god had provoke him. As I turned away and played off the act as if I was using my phone for some other nefarious purpose I decided that there must be a set of guidelines for sleeping in public.

1. Thou shall not snore if under the age of 65.
2. Honor thy neighbor, do not sleep if seated directly next to another individual.
3.Thou shall not sleep while occupying a phone booth, single stall in restroom, or dressing room.
4.Thou shall rest thy head and cover thy face. To prevent embarrassing photography this is a must.Refer to exhibit A.

 

5. Sleeping in public is a curve. Baby= Ok, 85 year old male= ok, but in between are varying levels of improper public sleeping.

6.A linear pattern is established for time of day. Morning at around 9 AM= your a lazy bum, but 9PM = your a well rested individual who values a good nights sleep.

7.Value your reputation. If you are an esteemed individual avoid the public cat nap out of fear of negative publicity. 

8.Keep your valuables in a safe place. Don't get caught dozing and become the victim of a petty criminal!

9. If snoring is a necessity do it in an area where your loud noises will be less noticed. I.E. my father likes to sleep in the car while waiting for other to get done shopping. His snoring goes undetected thanks to the enclosed area.

10.Honor thy cat nap. 15-20 Minutes is fine, but keep it under 30 or you will begin to lose your esteemed reputation as a productive member of society.

Getting Caught With Your Pants Down

Borders has been sort of my base of operations. Between their free wi-fi and the library's I have been able to get work done. I took a bathroom break during my most recent to see that the first stall was occupied by someones pants on the ground. I proceeded to go to the bathroom. I came to the realization that this man was snoring while sitting on the pot. They do say that it is a good place to read and relax. I guess I'll try taking a nap in the future.

 

I have been filling out applications and turning in resumes for the past few days. Today I took advantage of some career exploration tools that the city offers to go over the process of getting a job. I discovered that my Phone number was incorrect. Ouch! I am a moron. Pants on the ground. So what am I gonna do? I promptly adjusted the resume and drove to the places I had applied and turned in a new resume. Bonus networking and the good thing is that they know I am willing to fix my errors.

Pull em back up. Pull em back up!

Thankful

As I have grown up I have realized the importance of the things around me. It is to easy to take for granted the many good things in our lives. As I am looking for housing and employment I am taking time to realize just how easy it has been for me in the past because of the help of family and friends. While this new hunt is fun, for now, it also gave me pause to reflect on the fact that I have never had to worry about a roof over my head or money, even though I often was overly concerned with money. The reward of finding a place to live and some type of income will come eventually, for now the flux of life is fun. Other people, less fortunate than myself, have it a lot worse.

I am looking at my situation as a challenge. It shows my naivete. Other people look at job hunts and housing hunts as critical to their survival. I took this trip to get away from the security blanket in order to try to develop as a person. There is nothing wrong with being comfortable in life, in fact at some point I think it becomes the ultimate desire. For me, in my current place, I am looking to branch out. Many people do not even get the opportunity to "branch out". Instead they must act out of necessity with little concern about "growing" and instead must be focused on survival.

I am thankful for the people who love and support me in my life, as well as the opportunities that they have granted me. I guess even my perspective grants me the ability to say that "The Journey is The Reward". Many people's lives are not a journey, but a struggle.

Comedic Part of the day: After that mystifying note on thankfulness I think it is appropriate to lighten the mood with a bit of humor. I left my sunglasses on the roof of the luxurious 1997 Honda Civic while I was turning in a few job applications. I heard a light scratching as I drove about a block. Then I saw the glasses slide down the back of my vehicle to be immediately crushed by a "soccer moms" SUV.  I am thankful I didn't put my phone on the roof, checks pockets, and that the sunglasses were found two years ago and not purchased.