How will you be remembered?

Imagine you are at a funeral. Imagine yourself walking into the room filled with people you know and love. Then imagine it is your funeral – 3 years from today. What would you want your family to say about you? What would you want your friends to say? What about your work colleagues? This scenario is given by Stephen Covey in the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” as a way for people to think about how they want the world to see and remember them. The scenario is a little morbid (especially for those of us with a death phobia) but it is powerful. Take a minute and really think about it. What mark do you want to leave on the world? How do you want each of these groups of people to remember you? If the funeral was in 3 weeks instead of 3 years – would people say what you want them to? How close are you to who you want to be?

For those of you who are content with who you are – congratulations. For those of us who are not – it is never too late to change. If you want to be remembered as helpful – help someone. If you want to be remembered as kind – think twice before taking a hostile attitude with the people around you. If you want to be remembered as a loving daughter/son – do something nice for your parents. Even the smallest steps can make a huge change in perception. I guess the hardest part is figuring out exactly how you want to be perceived.

Robbed – grrrrrrr!

Someone stole my bike seat. I have my bike locked in a room in my building and someone broke in and stole a bunch of bikes – and my seat!!!! I suppose I should be thankful that they didn’t take my wheels as well as they have quick release levers and it would have been quite easy to take them. My seat had a quick release lever as well and they took it. So IRRITATING!

I have never had anything stolen before and it sucks! The night concierge tells me that they have the “perp” (his brother-in-law is a cop so he has the lingo) on tape and they are almost ready to make an arrest – but that doesn’t bring my seat, seat post or safety light back. Boohoo!

So much for the safety of locked storage rooms…sigh.

Why do people take vacation again?

Arugh – what a day. This morning I was jolted awake at 4AM by a ringing phone. It was a support call from the office. So I basically worked from 4AM until 6PM today. Welcome back Gwen! Surprisingly enough I only had 177 emails to deal with this morning. That is a pretty low number for me actually. I also had a new person start today so although I am very happy to have the addition to my team – it added to the hectic day.

That first day back does make me wonder if the week off was worth it though. Maybe I should take another week off to test the theory…yeah that sounds like a good plan. Everyone knows theories have to be proven and it takes many iterations of the experiment to get solid results. Hey man, I have no choice – I can’t argue with science.

There’s no place like home

Written August 28, 2005
The wheels hit the runway and I was filled with this happy feeling. I was home. It was an odd feeling as normally I feel a little sad when I return from a trip – but not this time. I was so very happy to be home. I dropped my suitcases off at home and headed to Starbucks to get some real coffee. It was heaven! After a week of bad coffee I thoroughly enjoyed it. Ah…the simple pleasures of home.

The other thing I couldn’t wait to see was my computer. Sad but true. A week with no internet – torture!

So another trip comes to a close – now if only I didn’t have to work tomorrow.

Homeward Bound!

Written August 27, 2005
Today was our last day in Newfoundland. And the sun actually came out. But it was too little, too late. We were so disillusioned with our trip that no matter how we tried we just couldn’t enjoy the day. We went to Signal Hill and took some pictures of the city. There are some great views from there. Then we did some walking on Water St., grabbed some lunch, went to church and then back to the hotel for an early night. Our flight leaves at 6:30AM. The trip was not a complete disaster and we did have fun but it was disappointing. We will both be glad to get home. I think that if I came back (and I probably will) I would do more of a camping trip. Do some of the hiking trails and enjoy the scenery. I’d like to see the west of the province as we didn’t make it there. Maybe that will a trip to plan for sometime in the future. For now, I am going to bed with the happy thought that tomorrow night I will be home.

Positive thinking or ignoring reality?

Written August 26, 2005
As a general rule, I do not read self-help books. For the most part I find them a little hokey and not particularly helpful or ground breaking. I can understand their importance in validating what people already know but I have never really bought into them as a means to better our lives. However, a friend gave me “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” to read and I promised I would. So that was my vacation reading book. The first habit deals with proactive thought. Covey’s basic idea is that instead of reacting to things that happen to you, you should make things happen – be proactive. He uses an example of weather. As you can tell from my week of entries – weather has been a bit of an issue for me this week. So in his example he says that people who are bummed by the weather are reacting to it – they are letting the weather affect them. People who are proactive bring their “sunshine” with them wherever they are.

Well Mr. Covey, no amount of proactivity is going to allow you to overlook 6 straight days of rain. I tried to ignore it and enjoy myself, but at some point it just became impossible. So at what point do we just decide that no matter what we do, circumstances won’t change? Is there a time in each situation where we just have to call it quits and admit that no matter how proactive we are, we can’t change the outcome? If we keep trying to change it are we being proactive or just ignoring reality? How fine is the line between the two?

Country bumpkin becomes city girl?

Written August 25, 2005
Today is my Mom’s birthday. She turned…heehee don’t panic Mom – I won’t write it down. Unfortunately – it rained AGAIN!! Yesterday we went to Heart’s Content. This is where the first transatlantic cable was laid that joined the New World to the Old World. It is a very small town but it has a pretty cool claim to fame. After our visit there we headed back to St. John’s. We originally planned to do some touring north of St. John’s but we spent most of the day in torrential rains and so we decided to abandon that plan and return to the city.

I normally crave the open spaces outside of the city but for some reason, this trip I actually wanted to get back to the city. I found many of the small towns in Newfoundland (which is really pretty much every town) depressing. I usually feel a sense of bonding with small towns because it reminds me of when I lived in Mattawa. But for some reason, I didn’t get that feeling this time. There was something about the people in these towns that had a different effect. Newfoundland is a harsh place to live. The weather is unforgiving, the ocean is a tough mistress and the opportunities for growth and advancement are almost non-existent. And that brings me back to a question in a previous post – why do they stay?? Have I changed so much from my small town days that I can no longer see the draw of life outside the city? Is it that something was missing in Newfoundland or have I lost my small town centre?

Rain rain go AWAY!!

Written August 24, 2005
I am SICK of the rain! When I can curl up at home with a movie or a book, the rain makes everything cosier. But when I want to see sights and take a walk around some of the rugged Newfoundland landscape – the rain sucks!! We haven’t seen a ray of sunshine in 3 days. And there doesn’t seem to be much hope for tomorrow either…ARUGH! It is funny how the same weather can be a joy or a chore depending on the chosen activity. Maybe it isn’t the weather that is the problem – maybe it is my perception of what the weather should be that is the problem. If I accept it no matter the activity would that be better? Actually I don’t care – I don’t want to accept it – I just want it to stop!!

All calm on the water.

Written August 23, 2005
Bigger boat and calmer seas. Hallelujah!! We spent the morning in St-Pierre and then headed back to Newfoundland. The trip back from St-Pierre was thankfully much much smoother than the trip over. It is really unfortunate that we had the Atlantic Jet on the way back when the water was calm – I could have used this big fella on the way over. We are headed north tomorrow up to the Baccalieu Trail which is at the north of the province between Trinity Bay and Conception Bay. The entire province is split up into regions that have names like Osprey Trail, Baccalieu Trail etc. Each “trail” has its own attractions (and in some cases I use the word “attractions” very loosely!)

I wish I had more to say but it was really a very uneventful day.

Choice or Habit?

Written August 22, 2005
Today we went to St-Pierre (small island off the south-eastern coast of Newfoundland that belongs to France). We had to take a ferry from Fortune, NL to St-Pierre. Normally I quite enjoy a boat ride but today there were some very rough seas. Okay I will be completely honest. I lasted about 1.5hrs of a 1.75hr trip and then my stomach had had enough. I have never been seasick before and in my defence I was not the only one that saw their breakfast twice. There were really high winds, rain and some serious swells – and we were in a very small boat. A fisherman I am not!

St-Pierre is an interesting place. It does have a very “french” feel to it but it also has a touch of the Maritimes. Brightly coloured wood shingled buildings on little narrow streets. It is a very small island with a population of about 6000. What I can’t seem to figure out is why people live there. There does not seem to be a lot of financial resources available on the island and they don’t seem to want to take advantage of the tourist dollars – they barely acknowledge the groups of people that invade their island twice a day (well except on Sunday of course) for 5 months every year. And yet – people stay there.

I am fascinated by how content people are to live in these small towns that have no apparent future. I grew up in a small town and I know a lot of people that have never been more than 70km from our town in their entire lives. And I have never understood why. The people of St-Pierre appear to be content to stay on their little island, isolated from their home country and their Canadian neighbours – and I just don’t understand it. Is it a habit or are these people actually happy where they are? If they never try anything else do they even know if they like it? Can you make a choice without knowing what the choices even are? Or do they stay because that is just what they have always known?