When I went away to college I would often come back home to visit my family and friends. Some friends were still in high school or just happened to be home at the same time I was. My college was 180 miles from my hometown and several people I went to high school with would make the same trip back and forth, so I got to carpool and catch a ride about every 3-4 weeks. Growing up in a small town with not a lot to do in regards to entertainment, like a mall or a movie theatre, the common thing to do was to find a group of people on a Friday or Saturday night that were often near a creek or dried up creek area, play some music, start a fire and nurse a few beers. Yes, it was important that girls were there too.
I know what you're about to paint me as! No, I wasn't the guy who went to college and came back home just to make out with high school girls who wanted to add "college guy" to their kissing resume! I'm not saying I never participated in this practice, but that was never the focus of those late night parties. The goal was to find something to do. Anything. This was a time before internet, social media and texting. Having conversations with people you knew while standing next to a body of water or an area that once held water, allowed you to make the most of your time when you would visit home. My folks went to bed around 8pm and we only had 5 TV channels. When you're 18 or 19 years old, you need something to keep you from going crazy. So, you would just drive around till you found a spot where other cars and trucks were parked and joined in.
Here comes the story....
In order to protect the innocent and the possibility that she might read my blog, I will not give a timeframe, age, or name. If you and I had kissed almost 20 years ago, assume I am not talking about you. Assume our kiss was magical and that I saw fireworks when it happened. Flowers bloomed. Angels sang. Assume the best. With you, it was amazing and I will cherish our moment together for the rest of my life. It was the stuff of legends.
After years of hint dropping, flirting and crafting potential opportunities, the moment finally happened. We left the party and found ourselves alone and out of the earshot or eyesight of others. It was dark outside and the moon and a little bit of light from the campfire and headlights of the cars near us gave us enough light to see each other. We walked away innocently, but we both knew what was about to go down. We were totally gonna make out.
We moved in towards each other, arms reaching and heads leaning forward all at once. Eyes closed, mouth slightly open, head tilted with lips about to connect. To take in the moment that was a few years in the making (in my head), I opened my eyes slightly. Also, I wanted to make sure that I was on target. Know what I mean?
Then I saw it. The moment that wrecked everything. I had high aspirations for this young lady, as she was one of the most coveted girls of my youth. All my friends wanted to smooch her too. Her preparation for this kiss a bit different than mine. My mouth was slightly open to make way for some tongue action. My eyes closed, but open enough to hit the target. Like a large mouth bass ready to bite the bait, her mouth was wide open. Her eyes were bugging out of her head as if she saw a ghost. When our lips met, it was literally like kissing a horse. I've never kissed a horse, but I can assume that this is what it would be like. She covered half of my face with her kiss. I tried to make the best of it. I did my best to make it hot as possible. I pulled back and took a second shot at it, thinking that maybe we just got off to a wrong start. It wasn't a wrong start. She swallowed my face again. She just couldn't kiss.
Wiping her saliva off of my upper lip and chin area, we headed back to the party.
She later wrote me a letter telling me how hot it was and that she was looking forward to seeing me on my next trip home. We never saw each other again. My fantasy was ruined. I haven't spoken of this moment or to her in almost 20 years.
Your interpretation of a moment will always be different than the other people who lived and experienced that moment. Negative or positive, stories are made and told by these moments. The girl in this story has certainly moved on with her life, did some epic things and had a family or whatever. She's not sitting by that creek bed waiting for my return. Chances are, she may not even recall this moment and if she does, I'm sure it was nowhere near as strange as I made it out to be. That's the funny thing about memories.
There are things in life that will disappoint the hell out of you. You have aspirations and expectations for people and things and later discover that they will never live up to the hype. Moments you have been waiting for sometimes fall short of your hopes. This is often true when it comes to dating and pining for the attention and the chance to have a moment with a young lady you had been thinking about for years. Not always, but sometimes, the longer you think about kissing her, the more disappointing the moment is when it actually happens. As you know, this lesson goes beyond dating and late night tailgating. Life and stories do not always live up to the built up of expectations you have in your head. Don't allow those moments to disappoint you. Learn from those moments and apply those takeaways to other aspects of your life.
Also, close your eyes when kissing. You will scare the hell out of the other person.
If you follow me on social media, you would know why I use those two words a lot in the pictures I post. For those who do not follow me, I have a reputation of posting pictures of terrible parking jobs I see, under the heading of “Try. Harder”. People who cannot get their vehicle between the lines are lazy and just satisfied with their first attempt. They don’t care about the others they inconvenience in the process and don’t feel the need to do anything more than get the car somewhere near the barriers. They don’t try harder, they are just satisfied that the car was close.
In life and in business, sometimes you have to try harder.
Take a look at professional business profiles of people you know or are “friends” with. Not a question you’ve probably ever been asked, right?
It’s the same thing. Everyone in the same field uses the same words to explain to others who they are. Whatever field of work it is, everyone uses the same descriptive verbiage because they want to sound as smart as the next person. By fitting in and joining the crowd, nobody questions their validity, right?
I pulled this one randomly from Linkdin. This person works in sales:
“Helping companies create and execute marketing strategies and advertising campaigns”. “Creating marketing and social media solutions for businesses”.
Smart words placed together to impress people who might be in need of their services? Maybe? What the hell does this person do? They do exactly what everyone else is doing. They use the same words to describe themselves to others and they fail to stand out in the crowd of people who do the same job they do. Don’t you want to stand out? If you work in marketing or sales, your job is to be creative and different, not to join the herd.
If your professional profile could be duplicated or is like someone else's, you are not trying to impress nor are you being real with your audience, clients or yourself.
Great, this person is just like the others….NEXT!
Try. Harder.
If your professional profile is riddled with buzzwords and “industry speak”, then you are doing it wrong and not standing out. Be creative. Get noticed. Stop using the descriptive words you THINK you should use and start using the words you WANT and NEED to use. How many marketing companies or advertisers use the phrase “out of the box” to describe themselves? Damned near everybody... Hey, we’re all out of the box now! Let’s find a new shape or a place to be inside of. I’ve read all those marketing books-they all say the same thing. Think about it-A whole row of books that are all telling you, in the same way, to be different. We get it. Write about something else because this one has been done to death.
Let’s take this beyond the boring business world (have I lost any of you, please come back).
If you’re on a first date or you’re creating a profile on a dating site, would you use the same descriptors that everyone else uses? No. You would want to stand out, right? You’d want to say something or post something that would catch the eye or ear of a potential date. If they are reading your profile and looking for interesting things about you, using generic phrases and general statements about your personality would get you overlooked. A picture of yourself from 8 years ago and 15lbs ago can only take you so far. How are you unique? What makes you different and interesting?
Your profile needs to be more interesting than you think you are. We are all unique in some way and we are passionate about different things. Have the courage to share what makes you different than the other people. Share things people might be shocked to find out. It’s memorable! (Unless you killed a guy with a trident, then you should probably lay low). Don’t lie and sell yourself as something you are not, giving the customer or potential date the wrong impression. Share with the world the person you want to be and not always what you want to be perceived as.
You only have 160 characters in life. Are you going to use those characters to be just like everyone else or are you going to put your best and most interesting foot forward?
Try. Harder.
We all get stuck in our "me" bubble from time to time and we may need to reprogram ourselves to get out.
I get a lot of questions thrown my way. Perhaps it's the nature of my job or that people are truly interested in my thoughts and opinions on topics or how my family is doing. I often spend conversations crafting answers to questions and I don't get a chance to ask as many questions back as I would like. I feel guilty. I would prefer asking people about their day or how they feel about things. Because of these moments, I often feel like I come across as "that guy" who is stuck in his bubble. All he cares about is himself. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
When it comes to how we communicate, one of the best and worst inventions has to be the internet. The fact that we can access the internet everywhere and anywhere-resulting in our desire to hide behind a screen, opposed to communicating and connecting on a more literal platform. This is not something we should be proud of. I heard someone say the other day that people don't need to go to high school reunions anymore because everything we want to learn or experience from a reunion, we can already do via social media. There's a lot of truth to that. The dirty laundry, where they have been, who they married, what they do, etc is all out there for the world to see on Facebook. So why not just skip the expense of getting on a plane or renting a hotel room for a night? Everything you wanted to know can be figured out by glancing at a Facebook wall. Depending on how good of a selfie taker they are, you can tell how many pounds they gained since high school. If your high school crush has no pictures from the neck down, you dodged a bullet! I kid, I kid....
Shouldn't our relationships and connections go beyond that? Is there more to being human or wanting to stay wired into the world than what there is to learn from Facebook? If we don't like the conversation we burry ourselves in our phones. If we are feeling uneasy about our surroundings, we run to the world of apps. We kill time killing brain cells with stupid games or feeds instead of taking in the world around us. It's there. Take advantage of it before it's gone-meaning the moment. Most of what resides on the internet will be there for you tomorrow. You know, when you're reading on the toilet.
I bet you learn more by forcing yourself to communicate for real than you would from checking your email. So much of your life can be squandered because you run to your iPhone security blanket. You'll watch your kids grow up through that small window and not in physical real time. You paid a ton of money to sit front row, only to watch the concert through the screen of your phone. You'll live your life in a digital bubble and miss out on all the great stuff in your peripheral. We are creating a generation of cross eyed people, with memories of life experiences that match the picture that was taken and not the true life experience. We see pictures posted, showing everyone how great of a time we are having, instead of just having a great time. It didn't happen unless we posted it right? You're not a great parent unless you post a picture of yourself playing with your kids, right? I'm guilty of this, but in all honesty, I have awesome kids! I probably only post 2% of the things we do. Yet, I am just as guilty as everyone else
Leave your phone in your pocket. Connect more with the room you are in and not to the internet. Watch the concert and tell everyone what you saw. Don't show us a slide show of pictures you took with your phone that we get bored looking at after the 3rd one. Get out of your bubble and see the world how it was meant to be seen.
Real. Live. unfiltered.