So... my life is that of an entrepreneur. I love creating businesses, I love taking risks and venturing out. Sometimes the risks are enough to make me go insane, but the rush can be quite a high. Well a couple times a year I am asked to speak at an entrepreneur conference or of similar tastes. Inevitably someone who is not an Entrepreneur stands up and gives a talk on what it means to be an entrepreneur and then proceeds to read everyone Robert Frosts Poem "The Road Not Taken." Then they proceed to go on about how all of these great "entrepreneurs" before us are just as this poem because they "took the one less travelend and that made all the difference." We then hear something along then lines of "Let's give these great people a round of applause for the hard work they do and welcome them.
I want to stand up everytime I hear that and say "Look Mr 'Insert X here' the reason we are all up here is because we pay attention to detail. How did you read that entire poem aloud and not realize that it has nothing at all to do with taking a road less traveled?"
Let me post a copy here so you can quickly read through it.
1. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.
2. And sorry I could not travel both
3. And be on traveler, long I stood
4. And looked down one as far as I could
5. To where it bent in the undergrowth;
6. Then took the other; as just as fair,
7. And having perhaps the better claim,
8. Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
9. Though as for that the passing there
10 Had worn them really about the same,
11. And both that morning equally lay
12 In leaves no step had trodden black.
13. Oh, I kept the first for another day!
14. Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
15. I doubted if I should ever come back.
16. I shall be telling this with a sigh
17. Somewhere ages and ages hence:
18. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
19. I took the one less traveled by,
20. And that has made all the difference.
First let's take a moment to realize that Mr. Frost actually wrote this poem supposedly about his travels through the woods with a great friend of his and how they often came to cross roads and had to decide which path to take, and then realize how metaphorically we all want to use the poem to mean so much more. Okay? Have you taken that moment? Great let's move on.
So look at a few lines for me:
9. Though as for the passing there
10 Had worn them really about the same
11. And both that morning equally lay
Now what makes this poem just like a great fishing tale is the last stanza.
16. I shall be telling this with a sigh
17. Somehwere ages and ages hence;
18. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I---
19. I took the one less traveled by,
20. And that has made all the difference.
So what makes this poem just like "man" is that it's our ability to look someone directly in the eye, and tell them how we have had these humongous struggles, how we chose the path less taken, how we suffered and persevered and "and that has made all the difference," but the reality is we took the path that was equally worn or the easier of the two paths if anything.
To all those entrepreneur speakers out there:
"Entrepreneurs take the risks they do for the rewards." Please do not assume those rewards are always financial. However, please also note that entrepreneurs are going down a path and choosing the risks that most align them with the reward that they want and have the least amount of risks compared to the other paths.
To all of those people out there that say "I was never presented with that opportunity to take that path" I humbly say this to you "It's because you chose to never align yourself with that path."
If there is one thing I have learned in my life, it's that humans enjoy suffering and stress. They look for it, they search it out, and they all deny that they do it. Some of us search harder then other to find some misery, but all of us out there do it. I am not saying there is anythign wrong with that, it keeps us constantly striving for more if you are like most people. If you are terribly unfortunate it puts you in the terrible conundrum that you don't want to be happy, and it's a repeating cycle. To those of you "Please try and find yourself."
To the masters of ceremonies at Entrepreneur conferences "Please stop misquoting us, and please stop assuming we are greater people then we actually are."
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Life in WV and a traffic jam
So I've spent the past ten years living in Northern Virginia and dealing with what is always in the top 10 traffic in the US. It's enough to make you go insane, but what I find most interesting about the commutes is that if you listen to the local radio stations, about 7 am they just stop reporting on the traffic. YEP it's a parking lot out there, you already know about it and we won't make you dwell on it.
But I have been out in WV for about two months now during the week for work. There are a lot of things that make it tough for me to get used to out here, the biggest of which is the lack of food with taste in it. However, the one thing that I love is that there is almost zero traffic getting too and from work. But this morning I was driving in to work at 6:40 am and someone calls up the radio and says "Has anyone called in about the slow down on Interstate "X" mile 131?" The announcer responds with "Well now they have."
I laughed pretty hard and wondered what it'd be like in Northern Virginia, North Jersey, LA, etc if someone called in everytim there was a slow down near an exit. The radio announcer would eventually repond with "Yes I get it, you're dead stopped in traffic. If you can hear this message and your car is moving, would you please call in and tell the other listeners where that small segment is, because everyone else is stopped."
Ahh the funny moments in life.
But I have been out in WV for about two months now during the week for work. There are a lot of things that make it tough for me to get used to out here, the biggest of which is the lack of food with taste in it. However, the one thing that I love is that there is almost zero traffic getting too and from work. But this morning I was driving in to work at 6:40 am and someone calls up the radio and says "Has anyone called in about the slow down on Interstate "X" mile 131?" The announcer responds with "Well now they have."
I laughed pretty hard and wondered what it'd be like in Northern Virginia, North Jersey, LA, etc if someone called in everytim there was a slow down near an exit. The radio announcer would eventually repond with "Yes I get it, you're dead stopped in traffic. If you can hear this message and your car is moving, would you please call in and tell the other listeners where that small segment is, because everyone else is stopped."
Ahh the funny moments in life.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Toyota Trucks and Brave Marketing
So I'm driving down the road this morning and it occurs to me that on the back end of the truck are the initials TRD... and as I sound them out I hear "terd." Being that I am 10 years old I start to chuckle. Then it occurs to me that I wonder if the corporate people at Toyota just like taunting those at GM. I kind of wonder if at some point the CEO of GM and Toyota weren't sitting around a bar one night and the CEO of Toyota doesn't saying "I bet you $20 that we sell more light sized trucks then you guys at GM do next year"
GM CEO says "There's no way, we're American made, we'll always sell more trucks then you guys."
The Toyota guy says "Hell I'll give you one more advantage I'll put terd on the back of all the trucks just to give you an upper arm."
The two CEO's shake on it and here we have all these Toyota trucks on the road.
Cause seriously why is it almost the only thing in the Toyota Racing Development are their trucks. What like two cars? Seriously that has to be a big giant joke at taunting GM. There's Ford though sitting on the side lines saying "There's no way either of you are ever selling as many trucks as we do F150's so you guys just have fun with that."
Monday, May 31, 2010
My mother and technology
I love my mom, and God bless her she's trying like hell these days on making sure we have a great relationship which is really awesome. However what I love most about my mom is the fact that her filter mechanism is straight up broken and the funniest things never cease to come out of her mouth. There is also the fact that there is a technology divide between us, which she is doing the best she can at trying to improve.
The thing that drives my mom insane about me is the fact that my voicemail on my cell phone pure and simple tells all callers not to leave a voicemail. Send me an email, send me a text message, call the office, but don't leave a voicemail on my cell phone. I can't stand voicemails and have no idea as to why they put them on cell phones. I also don't understand why people feel the need to leave long winded voicemails about their day and life. Blows my mind away, and quite frankly I'm lazy and don't want to spend the 20 seconds going through prompts to get to the voicemail. Call me nuts, however this piece of my life drives my mom insane.
So I recently got her into emailing -- my excuse being that my life is pretty nuts and our two schedules don't exactly line up so it's tough for us to find time to chat on the phone. "However mother I'd like the ability to drop you a quick message telling you that I'm thinking about you." She reluctantly agrees and checks her emails once a day, sometimes twice.
Funny fact 1.
If I send my mom an email at 11pm at night after she has already checked her evening emails and tell her about my evening and what all is going on, she wont' get it until the next morning. However she reads 'tonight' in the email and then assumes it's for that day and not the previous day.
Funny fact 2.
Mom now has gchat. I added myself to her list and I know I'm her only friend so if I see her login I'll say hello. I know for a sold 2 months she just looked at that window all confused, before she finally moved the cursor to the box and typed something in. But I kept shooting her messages just to provide my own humor. Well she has finally responded, but now doesn't understand the difference between chat and emails. This becomes especially humorous in that every reply is like an email. Full paragraph with a "Love, Mom" at the end. Which gets even better when I instantly reply to the message and she's now stuck with a whole new paragraph to write and coming up with a new ending to the paragraph "Miss you, Mom." It's a fun game I play, and even more fun in the fact that I type at about 120 words per minute and mom is by nuature a hunt and peck kind of typer so I can see where it says "typing" and I know over two minutes I'm not going to get much out of a reply. Ahh the joys of life.
Funny Fact 3.
The cell phone my mom has, if she remembers to turn it on, doesn't have a working voicemail box. I know right? She gives me all this crap about my voicemail and hers isn't even setup. Who does such a thing!
The thing that drives my mom insane about me is the fact that my voicemail on my cell phone pure and simple tells all callers not to leave a voicemail. Send me an email, send me a text message, call the office, but don't leave a voicemail on my cell phone. I can't stand voicemails and have no idea as to why they put them on cell phones. I also don't understand why people feel the need to leave long winded voicemails about their day and life. Blows my mind away, and quite frankly I'm lazy and don't want to spend the 20 seconds going through prompts to get to the voicemail. Call me nuts, however this piece of my life drives my mom insane.
So I recently got her into emailing -- my excuse being that my life is pretty nuts and our two schedules don't exactly line up so it's tough for us to find time to chat on the phone. "However mother I'd like the ability to drop you a quick message telling you that I'm thinking about you." She reluctantly agrees and checks her emails once a day, sometimes twice.
Funny fact 1.
If I send my mom an email at 11pm at night after she has already checked her evening emails and tell her about my evening and what all is going on, she wont' get it until the next morning. However she reads 'tonight' in the email and then assumes it's for that day and not the previous day.
Funny fact 2.
Mom now has gchat. I added myself to her list and I know I'm her only friend so if I see her login I'll say hello. I know for a sold 2 months she just looked at that window all confused, before she finally moved the cursor to the box and typed something in. But I kept shooting her messages just to provide my own humor. Well she has finally responded, but now doesn't understand the difference between chat and emails. This becomes especially humorous in that every reply is like an email. Full paragraph with a "Love, Mom" at the end. Which gets even better when I instantly reply to the message and she's now stuck with a whole new paragraph to write and coming up with a new ending to the paragraph "Miss you, Mom." It's a fun game I play, and even more fun in the fact that I type at about 120 words per minute and mom is by nuature a hunt and peck kind of typer so I can see where it says "typing" and I know over two minutes I'm not going to get much out of a reply. Ahh the joys of life.
Funny Fact 3.
The cell phone my mom has, if she remembers to turn it on, doesn't have a working voicemail box. I know right? She gives me all this crap about my voicemail and hers isn't even setup. Who does such a thing!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
The Title of My Blog
So this is my first blog, and I guess like any book I should start first with explaining why I chose the title that I did.
I'm going to be so kind as to post the lyrics for you now:
and for those of you who would rather hear the music please check out (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIiUqfxFttM)
-----------
That's life, that's what all the people say.
You're riding high in April,Shot down in May
But I know I'm gonna change that tune,
When I'm back on top, back on top in June.
I said that's life, and as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks,
Stompin' on a dreamBut I don't let it, let it get me down,
'Cause this fine ol' world it keeps spinning around
I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate,
A poet, a pawn and a king.
I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing:
Each time I find myself, flat on my face,
I pick myself up and get back in the race.
That's lifeI tell ya, I can't deny it,
I thought of quitting baby,
But my heart just ain't gonna buy it.
And if I didn't think it was worth one single try,
I'd jump right on a big bird and then I'd fly
I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate,
A poet, a pawn and a king.I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing:
Each time I find myself laying flat on my face,
I just pick myself up and get back in the race
That's life
That's life and I can't deny it
Many times I thought of cutting out
But my heart won't buy it
But if there's nothing shakin' come this here july
I'm gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die
My, My
-----------
Frank Sinatra to put it simply is a man's man. The kind of man that the rest of us look up to. He had the girls, he had the parties, and well he lived in a time where the media didn't show his flaws. So for now he lives on in great admiration in my mind.
I also believe that when you are a kid life has this giant progression forward of big leaps forward and you have all of these great things you are doing and exciting movement in your life. You have all the risk in front of you and you keep taking it. As a child you don't have barriers in front of you and everything is an opportunity. I think many people see graduation from High School and College as a way then to find a path and then continue on the path. I guess there is something about human nature that makes us become risk adverse and afraid of change. My point being there are a few of us in this world that don't ever want to grow up. We end up dying to continue to take risks over and over again, like a giant rush. Some people may say we are irresponsible etc. I think to me it's more of a life of seeing how quickly I can get back up from falling down.
One of the things that I hate most is when people quote Robert Frost's poem "A road less traveled" and try to use it actually talking about people who take a road less traveled. The poem in two different places blatently states that both paths were equally worn, however later in life he will tell people he took the path less traveled. Point being here Robert Frost got even so many years ago that most of us don't take a road less traveled, however we go about telling the next generation that we did. How we were loan wolves doing what no one else had done.
I am sure for the most part in my life it's been a rather simple journey compared to most, but in relation to the song "My life" that I have named this blog after there are highs and lows in my life from getting knocked down and being back on top. Inside of that journey I have noticed a lot and learned a lot. Mostly in that journey I have become happy with myself and learned that there is humor every day!
I guess I could have probably used many other songs like "Where I'm going" by the Kottonmouth Kings, but I've never smoked pot so it doesn't really fit for me. But I can relate to lines like "going from have a little to have a lot" and asking myself questions like "is my life going north is it heading south."
This blog is supposed to be a point of sense of humor and outlet for me to express that humor. While most of the blog will be based on people I know in my life and events that have taken place, please realize that I am just telling embelished stories. Before you go saying to someone "I read in the blog that so and so did.." please talk to me and get the facts straight. If you don't know me and you decide to repeat these stories at truth, well good luck, people probably won't believe you anyway. I promise you if I hear someone start drama over "well your blog said..." I'm just going to start laughing at you.
I hope my life and ramblings bring humor!
-Author
I'm going to be so kind as to post the lyrics for you now:
and for those of you who would rather hear the music please check out (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIiUqfxFttM)
-----------
That's life, that's what all the people say.
You're riding high in April,Shot down in May
But I know I'm gonna change that tune,
When I'm back on top, back on top in June.
I said that's life, and as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks,
Stompin' on a dreamBut I don't let it, let it get me down,
'Cause this fine ol' world it keeps spinning around
I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate,
A poet, a pawn and a king.
I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing:
Each time I find myself, flat on my face,
I pick myself up and get back in the race.
That's lifeI tell ya, I can't deny it,
I thought of quitting baby,
But my heart just ain't gonna buy it.
And if I didn't think it was worth one single try,
I'd jump right on a big bird and then I'd fly
I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate,
A poet, a pawn and a king.I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing:
Each time I find myself laying flat on my face,
I just pick myself up and get back in the race
That's life
That's life and I can't deny it
Many times I thought of cutting out
But my heart won't buy it
But if there's nothing shakin' come this here july
I'm gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die
My, My
-----------
Frank Sinatra to put it simply is a man's man. The kind of man that the rest of us look up to. He had the girls, he had the parties, and well he lived in a time where the media didn't show his flaws. So for now he lives on in great admiration in my mind.
I also believe that when you are a kid life has this giant progression forward of big leaps forward and you have all of these great things you are doing and exciting movement in your life. You have all the risk in front of you and you keep taking it. As a child you don't have barriers in front of you and everything is an opportunity. I think many people see graduation from High School and College as a way then to find a path and then continue on the path. I guess there is something about human nature that makes us become risk adverse and afraid of change. My point being there are a few of us in this world that don't ever want to grow up. We end up dying to continue to take risks over and over again, like a giant rush. Some people may say we are irresponsible etc. I think to me it's more of a life of seeing how quickly I can get back up from falling down.
One of the things that I hate most is when people quote Robert Frost's poem "A road less traveled" and try to use it actually talking about people who take a road less traveled. The poem in two different places blatently states that both paths were equally worn, however later in life he will tell people he took the path less traveled. Point being here Robert Frost got even so many years ago that most of us don't take a road less traveled, however we go about telling the next generation that we did. How we were loan wolves doing what no one else had done.
I am sure for the most part in my life it's been a rather simple journey compared to most, but in relation to the song "My life" that I have named this blog after there are highs and lows in my life from getting knocked down and being back on top. Inside of that journey I have noticed a lot and learned a lot. Mostly in that journey I have become happy with myself and learned that there is humor every day!
I guess I could have probably used many other songs like "Where I'm going" by the Kottonmouth Kings, but I've never smoked pot so it doesn't really fit for me. But I can relate to lines like "going from have a little to have a lot" and asking myself questions like "is my life going north is it heading south."
This blog is supposed to be a point of sense of humor and outlet for me to express that humor. While most of the blog will be based on people I know in my life and events that have taken place, please realize that I am just telling embelished stories. Before you go saying to someone "I read in the blog that so and so did.." please talk to me and get the facts straight. If you don't know me and you decide to repeat these stories at truth, well good luck, people probably won't believe you anyway. I promise you if I hear someone start drama over "well your blog said..." I'm just going to start laughing at you.
I hope my life and ramblings bring humor!
-Author
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