When I started to think about writing tonight, I wasn't even sure where to post, or if I remembered how to find my account because it's been so long since I've written -- such seems to be the beginning of each period of reflection, usually along with the realization that the community we had built at one point among those of us who blogged frequently has dissipated with the busyness of life. I think the decline of it all, from LJ to MySpace to Facebook has been the corporatization of it all; if you don't have a presence on FB, who are you? I see Taco Bell's postings on my feed as often as my friends...

Along with the decline from communities built on something of substance into corporate monotony, we've declined from more formally written blogs into tweets. And eventually I think we're going to see a resurgence of intelligence - God, I hope. I think we're going to hit a point where the speed of technology maxes out to a point where our generation, whatever our name is, logs off of Facebook and finds a real connection with people again.

I'm most guilty of this, mass texter that I am. I don't call, I text. It's quick, it's easy, I can do it without really interrupting what I'm doing... and the positive reinforcement is there almost instantly in the form of responses. It's not about relationships anymore, it's about affirmation - whether people are begging for comments on MySpace pictures or texting about a bad day at work. But it's so disconnected from the people involved...


When I started college I wanted to be an engineer. I don't think I really wanted to be an engineer as much as I wanted to get away from the people I was surrounded with at the time. I hadn't yet progressed from high school thinking into more mature social thinking (arguably I still haven't), into thoughts more aligned with creating a new environment rather than dwelling on an old one.

As I've moved about as far on the spectrum as I can think from engineering into management, I find myself directly involved with people, investing in them and thoroughly enjoying it. Not long ago I could never have seen myself in charge of people or even wanting to be, but as I've found myself in a leadership position, though unofficial, I've found I really enjoy the kind of work I'm doing. I've found management not to be about being bossy or demanding that things get done, but about maximizing efficiency by using people where they are most effective (and therefore usually most happy) and helping people grow in their weaker areas.

There are some really interesting dynamics to it. It's more about making good, smart decisions than about demanding results. There is a place for that, but I think the art of management with motivated employees is more subtle than what I've often considered the norm. Motivating people, of course, is a prerequisite to expecting good performance, and that is an artform in itself. I have found, though, that the managers I have been willing to work the hardest for, though, are the ones whom I feared disappointing, not the ones whose wrath I feared.

I think there's a place for firmness, but I think kindness and empowerment are far better motivators than strict, soulless demands for the benefit of a faceless company. I think that when people feel their work is meaningful, that they themselves are meaningful to an organization, that they are more willing and more motivated to work harder. This is what I want to create with my life, with my career, in whatever business role I find myself in - and note that money and profit haven't been discussed once; I feel that these things flow naturally from empowered employees working for a well organized, structured business.

I don't think that all of the talk people do about maximizing profit is very meaningful. It goes along with the speed of technology, this nameless, faceless corporate-ness of everything. I think that we need to see a resurgence in the personal relationships we have with people, with our customers and clients. I love my job not because I love my hotel or our business model or our profit margin, but because I love the people I work with and the people I've built relationships with who come to us with their business.

I never thought this would be what I wanted to do with my life. I fell into it, guided by my teachers and mentors. Now that I've found something I find deep satisfaction in, the hours don't matter and the money doesn't matter. I truly feel like I'm making my difference in the world, even if only in my own small corner of it.

Passive Ambition

I came across some old pictures today - or rather, I conveniently happened across them in that voyeuristic way that the internet allows so easily, right alongside the guilt that somehow people will know you're looking or the people in those photos will know you looked and make assumptions about why you were looking at them. The new pictures didn't interest me so much as the old ones, the ones I had a more direct personal connection to, some kind of possession over that time, as if my being around with that person at that point in time somehow gave me ownership of those memories. Possessive - very much a good word to describe that relationship, though at the same time it was ostentatiously the most I have given of myself, or at least pretended to. But pretended to whom? Even I knew it was all about me - the plans I had made, the things I wanted, the edification of myself by pretending to be a saint with all I'd pretended to give... and some of which had given. It was entirely selfish, but I invested so much emotion in it. I was in love with me right then. And it was horrible.

During that time I invested heavily emotionally in the future, in my teenage ignorance of what I thought was planning for forever, in a very passionate, if naive, way. And even after it was over, that passionate planning was a security for me because I always had a plan, even if it were to change entirely. I was in control. But when those plans were changed, there was a real heartache involved because I had invested so much into the idea that those things would come to be. Only teenagers can save the world; I knew I could.

What changed is the passion I put towards planning, the obsessive planning, though even many of those plans weren't very detailed. I went into school thinking I'd become an engineer, and all I had to do was go into autopilot for 4 years and come out on the other side making $70,000 a year with my chemical engineering degree. Currently my plans only run through the next seven or eight months, with little planned ahead of that in the way of specifics.

Recently, I've considered my lack of passion and emotional investment mostly to repeated academic failure. My time in community college effectively killed my ambition. But ambition is the manifestation of planning for the future; ambition is the drive to get you to where you see yourself in the future.

In giving up planning, dreaming, I let myself succumb to this "Let It Be" passive attitude that just fatalistically expected things to happen rather than going out and creating them. If I created something, it was subject to change, and my emotional investment was liable to turn into pain. By not investing, I was less open to disappointment, hurt, and the panic of realizing I was losing control.

I've become somewhat disconnected, disengaged, and I usually considered myself "calmed down," or less of an impulsive teenager, even if less passionate. I began to think of passion as something youthful, something that had led me to do things, very ambitious things for me then, that later would be monuments to my naivete and things that part of me considers embarrassing failures while the other half tries to look back from the perspective of an older wiser me and say, "You tried. Good for you!"

How can you get anywhere worth going without the ambition to go there? I've resigned myself to this fatalistic, somewhat predestined, idea that wherever I'm supposed to end up, I'll be. It's not to say I don't try to work hard, but I definitely do so from my safety zone. I obviously can't know the future, but I don't even try to actively influence it anymore.

I must reengage.

A new blog and a clean start. The hardest part is always getting started, the inaugural post, because I feel like it somehow has to be the beginning of something, a theme for the new blog. It's when I decide what I'm going to write about myself, what I'm going to say about myself in this one, how much or how little I'm going to say, how anonymous or known I will be - or how I want to or will be known. Much of what I've written (even more so not written) over the past period of time has been about that anonymity. And I haven't yet decided who or what this will be. Sometimes I want to write in character, to be someone else, some other version of myself, and yet each of those written moments however separate comes to define a collective me. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does. Maybe it should. All of the preconceived notions within myself and within those who read affect this - unavoidable. But anonymity is certainly an almost ironic thing when you write about yourself, to find yourself, to figure out who you are, or just put forward a piece of yourself in thought.

I came back to Birmingham this weekend and drove past a lot of places where a lot of memories are stored. Or maybe they're only in my head, but I like to think that places can hold memories. I think they do because when you enter places with a lot of history, you can feel that history even as an observer - but when it's a personal memory, it's even stronger. But sometimes when you go to a place after a while, it's not really yourself that remembers something - or maybe it is you in the present that remembers, but you remember as you now, as an outside observer into the past. You remember a person who was, and not the person you are now. This is obvious when stated, maybe esoteric or philosophical, but I think very real in a way. Time plays an interesting role in people and places. The places that hold memories are often physical buildings or have to do with the physical nature of the place itself - and as those change, as buildings are destroyed, as nature changes places over time, perhaps the memory fades. Perhaps the amount of emotion put into the memory has to do with the rate of decay; certainly those places with the most emotional attachment relate the most to memories that are associated with a place. And possibly the size of the place in question - a specific place, a specific building or area, holds more specific memories than a larger area, like a city. So, coming to Birmingham has a lot of facets, a lot of memories, some faded with time and other fresher in mind.

 Memories can be stored in people as well. And people can change as places do. And people do change... Upon seeing many people whom we have not seen in long periods of time, we often see in them as much about how we ourselves have changed. People change mostly through struggle, adversity. I certainly don't feel like I'm at a place in my life now where I'm facing much adversity; I feel static, and it isn't a bad thing for a time. I think that a lot of people lack challenges, adversity, hardship in their lives and that this is a major cause, if not the cause, of anxiety, depression, frustration, and general unhappiness. Though "happiness" isn't a word I would use to describe my current overall condition - it feels like a word that describes a moment more than a period - I would use contentment. "Contentment" is more filling, less hollow of a word. I think though, that this is probably best left a temporal thing. There are season in life, and each is to be enjoyed as it comes, but only for a season. When we leave ourselves too long in one season, we begin to fill ourselves with pointless struggles, drama, to fill the void of plateauing. There is a time to climb mountains, a time to rest atop the mountain in victory, and a time to come down from the mountains and move on. All in time.

Here in this place, I rest, not actively seeking any battles, having no quarrel with the world. It isn't aimless, as it serves a purpose. There is a time coming when there will be battles to fight, victories to win, as well as times to lose, to learn, to suffer, to grow. All in time. This rest feels eternal, not rushed as we often feel in battle. The intensity of emotion decreases our horizon of the future; the most intense emotions leave us to focus only on the immediate present. But a rest, a lack of heavy emotions, can feel eternal, restful as sleep. Here in this respite I lie, undisturbed by the battles I've fought in the past - victories, unconquerable enemies that left me fighting with only myself, failure, and great battles won and lessons learned. Here is where I stand, unsure of what is ahead, but unconcerned. This moment serves its purpose, and that is enough. All in time.

Who I am now, who I have been, where I am going, who I will be... All in time.

All in time.