Situational Friends

Gather round kiddies, the term for the day is situational friends. I coined this term to describe the people who are your friends for a certain phase or phases of your life, but eventually disappear despite all the promises of keeping in touch. This phenomenon is a sad reality of our harried and overbooked culture and lifestyle. You can't really blame your situational friends when they fade from your life. It just happens sometimes. I know that I am more sensitive than many people and that I often take things too much to heart. Lately though, I have lost a large number of situational friends and it hurts me to think that they don't even have the time to exchange emails with me or give me a call. Some of these people were my "friends" for several years. I changed jobs back in December, which has led to this latest bout of situational friendism (yes I know that's not a word).

Let me describe the situational friend in a little more detail. It's a person who at some point in your life, you see and interact with often (at work, at school, at the gym, etc). From this frequent interaction, a friendship develops. Over time, you may grow closer to this person and really think of them as a genuine friend instead of as a situational friend. The true test of this friendship occurs when the situation that facilitates the friendship changes (e.g. you change jobs). If the person is a genuine friend, they will maintain some level of interaction with you. Granted, it may be less than before, but they'll make the effort to stay friendly with you. As an example, I haven't seen my roommate and very good friend from college for two years, but he still manages to email me once in a while despite being extremely busy. There is also the guitarist from my college band who was also one of my best friends in college. Even though I haven't seen him since my wedding nine years ago, he still calls and emails me every so often. These people are true friends - which I am finding out are rare treasures in life. Sadly, most of the people in our lives that we think of as our friends are really just situational friends. Don't believe me? Try changing jobs and see how many of your former coworkers will bother with you in six months. Once the situation that brought you close to them (in this case work) changes, it just becomes too much effort to stay friends. Instead of having a lunch or water cooler conversation with you about your weekend, they would need to shoot you an email or pick up a phone and they just don't have time for that. Or is it that they don't make time because they really don't value your friendship as much as you had thought?

I don't intend for this post to sound negative. Situational friends are just a tragic result of the pressures of modern existence. We always have so much to do that we often don't make time for our friends when it's no longer convenient to just stop by their desk and chat. I guess what saddens me is that over the years, I considered many of these people to be my friends, but they gradually faded from my life. I know the question that many people would probably ask: did you try calling or emailing them? The answer to that question is yes I did. When you email someone and get no response at all or two sentences followed by, "Gotta go, very busy," you quickly get the message. I often wait to see if they'll take the initiative to send me an email instead of just replying to me. After months go by and I haven't heard from them, I add them to my list of situational friends from the past and write them out of my life. The worst part of it is that the list grows ever longer with each passing year. I guess that is just the way that life goes. The one good thing that has come out of all this is that I have learned to really appreciate my true friends whose presence in my life persists in the face of all obstacles. True friends are rare treasures indeed.

Feeling Philosophical

I have been thinking about a lot of things the past few days, so this blog post will be more philosophical than most. When I started my blog, I titled it The Legacy that Endures because it was an interplay of two very important concerns in my life at the time: the legacy that I leave behind and the fact that I was running marathons. I thought that the title was a clever play on the fact that you want your legacy to live on long after you've departed and the fact that marathons required endurance. Even though I'm not running much anymore, I still like the title and think that it's very felicitous considering how I approach life.

Lately, I have been ruminating about my legacy and I am somewhat bothered about a few things. First, I don't feel that I'm doing enough really important things in my life. I feel that I have many talents that are just not being utilized. The worst part is that I'm not really sure how to remedy the situation. I guess I always thought that what I did in my career would help me to build my legacy, but so far, that hasn't really happened the way that I've expected. Most times, I don't feel challenged intellectually or creatively at work. It just isn't really that stimulating. I guess maybe I should have expected that all along, but what can I say, I set the bar high. When I started my current position a few months ago, I really thought that I would be able to come into the role and make a significant impact on the way things were done. I was really looking to come in and help to make improvements. Thus far, the going has been a lot tougher than I had anticipated. It has been an uphill battle against the wind. The only differences day to day are how steep the hill is and how hard the wind is blowing. Don't get me wrong, I have made some improvements concerning items directly within my control, but while noticeable, they don't seem to have the huge impact for which I was hoping.

I know as time goes on that I need to continue to try and find a niche job that will allow me the creative freedom, influence, and opportunity that I crave. I'm hoping that someday I will find myself in that ideal job, but for right now, I just need to continue learning and growing so that I don't become stagnated in work and in life.

Last night, I finished reading Authentic Leadership by Bill George - the former Chairman and CEO of Medtronic. The book is all centered around being a true leader; not just in your job, but also in all other aspects of your life. In one of the final chapters of the book, he talks about leaving a legacy and I felt as if he had written that chapter to me personally. It really made me think and stop to assess where I am in life. There were many passages in that chapter that really resonated within me, but this particular excerpt is what really prompted my current state of self-realization, "What will be your legacy? At the end of your days, what will you tell your grandchild you did to better humankind? No matter how large or small a difference you make, it will become the legacy that you leave the world." He then calls out all of the problems and challenges currently facing humankind: poverty, discrimination, abuse, health care, etc. He later goes on to say, "As an authentic leader, you can change these things. You only need to be your own person, lead in your own style with purpose and passion, be true to your values, build your relationships, practice self-discipline, and lead with your heart.

It's funny, but I've never really thought of myself as a leader. I tend to be mostly quiet and reserved; especially at work, but I have come to realize that a person doesn't need to be vocal and outspoken to be seen as a leader. When I first became a supervisor, I did it more as a developmental tool rather than through any real desire to influence, inspire, and develop others. I have been in a supervisory position for almost three years now, and I've had as many as twenty-two people who have reported to me. I've learned a great deal about my leadership style and personality along the way, and I've also gotten much better at communicating with people and understanding the best way to motivate my employees. Bill George's book as a whole inspired me, but that last chapter made me realize that I want to be a leader. I am quiet, but very passionate, and I truly care and sincerely want to make a difference both at work and in life. As I read those passages I mentioned earlier, it became clear to me that I have the tools to lead and I need to build my legacy through my leadership.

The legacy that I leave behind when I'm gone is of utmost importance to me. I want to be remembered as a person who cared and made a difference. I want the things I do in life to have a lasting influence on the lives of others. I recently saw the following quote by Benjamin Franklin about being remembered posted on a person's cube, "Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." I actually want to do both. Wish me luck.

Just Checking In

I don't really have a whole lot of any substance to post about tonight, but in the interest of maintaining my blog revival drive, I thought that I would "stop by" and pen a few words.

I had a very nice weekend that consisted of not really doing much of anything important, but I did get a lot of little things done around the house that have been nagging at me for a while. I took Toby (my beloved canine son) for a walk on both Saturday and Sunday. Toby loves to go for walks or "w's" as we call them because it's very dangerous to say the word "walk" around Toby unless you're ready to take him right that minute. The exercise is good for him - and me.

On Saturday, I did play several hours of Rock Band on PS2. Let me just say that game is an awful lot of fun. I alternated singing songs, playing guitar, or playing drums. My favorite song to play is Celebrity Skin by Hole. That is a cool tune on the guitar. I can play most of the songs on the game at the "hard" level and have tried and completed a few on "expert". The interface to the game is much the same as Guitar Hero so playing Rock Band came easily. I can play through almost all of the songs on the GH franchise at the expert level. Playing the drums for the songs on Rock Band is rather difficult. I can get through most of them on medium, but sometimes, even that is too much.

I am still trying to get plenty of exercise and eat right and I can tell that I'm making progress because the pants are fitting more loosely and the shirts are getting a little tighter around the arms, shoulders, and back.

That's all for now. I'll make sure to check in again soon.

Awesome Concert!

I took a vacation day from work yesterday to go see a concert at the Bryce Jordan Center. The concert was Seether, Three Days Grace, and Breaking Benjamin. Wow! What a show! I was very impressed by how clean the sound was. It was loud of course, but not so loud and distorted that it just sounded garbled. Sometimes when you go to a concert, it's very loud but yet you can't really "hear" anything but a bunch of noise.

A band called Neverset (who I'd never heard of before) from Dallas, TX actually opened the show. They played like four or five songs. The music was decent, but the singing IMO was horrendous. All that the guy basically did was scream. I don't think that I understood one word that he uttered the whole time.

After that, Seether came out. They were heavy, tight, and solid. Shaun Morgan's voice sounded incredible. They played about seven songs including Fake It, Jesus Christ, Rise Above This, Broken, Fine Again, and Remedy. I was totally impressed by them.

Next up was Three Days Grace. I actually saw all three of the bands from last night back in September, 2007 in Hershey along with Live and Collective Soul. I thought that all three were better last night than in September, but Three Days Grace displayed the greatest level of performance elevation. They put on a fantastic show. From the very first song, they sounded great, they had the crowd into it, and they had all kinds of flames and explosions erupting that added to the effect. They really blew me away. They put on the best performance of anyone last night. Their singer was really into it and he kept inciting the crowd to stand up, get loud, sing along, and generally just get crazy. It really pumped everyone up.

Breaking Benjamin headlined the show. They are my favorite band, and last night they reinforced my appreciation for their music. What can I say; they totally rocked. If you haven't ever heard Breaking Benjamin and are in any way a fan of hard rock, do yourself a favor and check them out. I think that the reason I like them so much is that they meet all of the criteria that I love in music. Ben Burnley has a great voice, there are heavy, crunching guitars, catchy riffs, and pounding drum beats. Their lyrics are thoughtful and intelligent and they mix in just the right amount of raw emotion and power.

All in all, it was a power-packed concert. My wife and I both had a great time. The Bryce Jordan Center is a really cool place to see a concert. We got right in to park and right out after the concert. Up there, they are accustomed to handling large numbers of people as they have to deal with the 100,000 plus that pack into Beaver Stadium six or seven times every Fall.

My next concert will probably be over the summer or in the Fall. I would really like to see Nickelback again, but I'm open to checking out almost any band that plays hard-hitting tunes.