Never Give Up

You can change your mind and decide chasing a dream isn’t worthwhile, but giving up because you doubt yourself is failure on a large level.

Just recently, Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and author of The Last Lecture, died of pancreatic cancer. One significant advice in Pausch’s final lecture was the recommendation to go after your dreams with a spectacular effort. He even awarded his students—who’d strived the biggest and failed—an award. It’s not necessarily reaching the goal that brings the greatest rewards. The striving-after is the important part. We discover brilliance in ourselves in this kind of pursuit.

Never doubt, however, that this can be a challenging, complicated and even, brutal, undertaking. Attempting to make your dreams reality adds depth, texture and quality to your life. It teaches you vital lessons.

The first lesson might be how to decide when to give up. Sometimes letting go of a dream can help you move forward to even more satisfying endeavors. No one can tell you, though, when to give up on a dream. This is an incredibly personal decision and should not be made out of despair. Before changing your direction, you need to ask yourself if the pursuit of your goals adds to your life, even though you've not yet reached these. Frustration and despondency are reasonable feelings in the midst of chasing after longed-for goals. The biggest decisions in life need to take emotions into account, but decision is best made on a logical assessment.

The hard part is deciding the reality of a pursuit, really assessing the possibilities. You may have a dream that doesn’t depend on your efforts. If your goal involves something completely random—like winning the lottery—your success at this will be very much out of your control. You can pour lots of money into buying lottery tickets, but even this doesn’t significantly increase your chance of winning. The attainment of some dreams, though, depend a great deal on your efforts. The summer Olympics are just ahead of us. These athletes have made achievement in their sports their overriding priority. They have been driven. They’ve devoted their lives to this.

Of course, talent also plays a big part in getting to this level.

You may not strive this high, or in this arena, but maybe you’re pouring effort into earning a college degree. This may be complicated by your holding down a full-time job and raising kids. Your dreams are very personal to you. You’re striving for a specific position at work or to run a marathon or write a novel.

Pursuing dreams is a vital part of growth.

You may want to redirect your pursuits. Deciding to pour your focus into being really good in your purchasing job or developing your ballroom dance skills to your best level, dreams and goals are about striving for personal growth.

Without hope, we perish. Going after your goals and dreams keeps you alive spiritually. It may not seem like the challenges that come with your endeavors are healthy and survivable(failure feels crappy). Sometimes going after what you want seems foolish. Other days, it gives you a reason to reach higher. It's important not to give up on yourself. You can achieve, even though doing so is hard.

You may change the direction of your efforts, but don’t stop striving.

Taking the Drive-Thru Hostage

Let’s talk about passive-aggressive power. Lots of people feel powerless and angry about it. To be honest, powerlessness breeds anger. Whether with your supervisor at your job or in your relationship with your mate or just in general, you can feel like nothing you do makes a difference.

This is often the thinking behind destructive, illegal behavior. If nothing you do in a positive vein seems to change your life experience, you tend to do the negative thing that gets you the most bang for your buck. This is why inner city youths stray to the dark side. Everyone needs to feel they have power in some way. If you can’t be the best, you’ll find a way the best way to be the worst.

Look around you, most of the human behaviors that drive you nuts can be traced back to the individual’s feeling of powerlessness.

I was once held hostage in a fast food restaurant’s drive-thru, not with a gun, but with a car that blocked the way. If you’re one of the millions who occasionally gets food from McDonalds or Taco Bell or Jack-In-The-Box, you probably know the structure of the drive-through. A lane with a curb on both sides runs along one side of the fast food restaurant. At the beginning of the lane is a speaker—a squawk box—into which you speak your order. A pimply kid inside the restaurant takes your order, tells you how much it’ll cost you and directs you to drive around to the pick-up window.

On the hostage occasion, I once sat two cars back—blocked in by curbs and landscaping and the cars that kept pulling up behind—while the person at the front of the drive-thru refused to move. Maybe they hadn’t been given mustard. Maybe they were over-charged. Apparently, there was something about their order that wasn’t to their liking. For over thirty minutes, the driver refused to move, blocking the drive-thru. Trapped, hungry people behind him fumed, occasionally honked their horns and swore dark consequences on his head.

I’m sure the fast food manager and the employees were going nuts. The driver blocking the drive-thru clearly wanted to force them to hear him, to pay attention to his complaint.

Have you ever driven down a side street, only to have to slow to a stop when an individual--obviously aware that you were there--strolled slowly across the street? This is a form of passive aggressive power. The individual crossing the street, ignoring the traffic right-of-way, is gambling on a near-certainty. You’re not going to run him down. You’re going to sit, fuming, while the jay-walker enjoys a brief moment of power.

It’s probably all he or she has.

Human beings need a sense of personal power. You need to feel like something you say or do makes a difference. Even when the situation is very, very small. People who feel powerless engage in bizarre, seemingly-pointless displays that they can impact others in some way.

Power.

It is a vital need and can lead the seekers after power to do despicable things…like going below the speed limit in the left hand lane while cars pile up behind.

The next time you find yourself tripping over an individual making a passive-aggressive power play, before you give that person a middle-finger salute, remember this may be the only way he feels he can impact the world.

Feel some compassion while you're swearing at the delay.

A Sense of Their Limitations

As parents, we want everything wonderful for our kids. And they are amazing. They say the funniest things. They figure out tough situations that we’d never expected them to be able to deal with. They get great grades in math when we suck in math. They are beautiful, intelligent creatures.

But we lie to our children if we tell them they can do anything.

The desire to remove limitations is understandable. You may not have achieved your desires…possibly because some adult told you to “get serious” about your future. Maybe you majored in accounting when you wanted a career in music or you settled for a path in business because someone told you that biology was too hard. You’d never make it through medical school.

Maybe you’ve been there for your kids (like grown-ups weren’t there for you). You want to believe that this has made a big difference. You want your children to struggle less than you have. But don’t let yourself believe they won’t struggle in life. Struggle is a part of the human experience, an admittedly sucky part, but still a reality. If you are human, you will struggle. No matter how good your parents were or whether you drove a decent car and went to a good college.

Kids particularly can’t be certain of achieve something that depends on others, as well as they’re own efforts. Some things they can't make happen, no matter how much they want them to. Relationships, for instance, can only be successful if both individuals put forth significant effort. This is just a reality. Personal development involves recognizing personal limitations and areas that need growth.

This kind of growth is a life-long endeavor. We’ll never run out of ways to improve ourselves. It is the effort, the putting forth energy toward developing oneself that needs to be prized, not the reaching of goals. Sometimes you can’t make a situation or a relationship work. Sometimes there are limitations.

It is understandable to want your kid to pursue their dreams. If you did go after what you wanted and ended up achieving it, you may also tell your children they too can achieve their greatest goals. It's the going after goals that will enrich their lives, not necessarily the attainment of them all. Striving for something desired is a good and healthy thing. Knowing they might not reach their goals is invaluable knowledge. Knowing this failure doesn't make them lousy people and that life can still be good--maybe will be the better for what they've learned through failure--this is the important stuff.

Many things can be achieved through hard work. Just don’t forget to mention the hard work part and that, no matter how hard they work, some things will not be achieved. This doesn’t mean life is worthless or not fulfilling. Some dreams are a disappointment, once reached. Some people have unrealistic goals.

Kids need to see that striving for something doesn’t mean automatic success and they need to recognize that failure in a pursuit doesn’t mean worthlessness. They need to keep plugging away.

Don’t lie to them. Life is challenging and frustrating and can be very fulfilling. Failing is a part of being engaged in the process.

When Infidelity is the Answer

If you’ve ever been cheated on, you might want to answer “Never!” to this question. But a lot of people are being unfaithful to their partners and they’re not all terrible people with no morals. Some are just confused and making unfortunate choices. In some situations, cheating can seem like the best thing to do. But it will most likely lead to heartache, life disruption and tremendous guilt.

Short-term relief leading to long-term regret. So, why are so many people cheating. Infidelity must seem like the answer to some people in some situations.

Leaving just doesn’t seem possible right now.(You don’t really want to leave. You just want to feel desired.) When you’re in a committed relationship, a marriage or a long-term dating situation, and there are issues, you can feel unhappy a long time before you’re ready to walk out. “Just walk out the back, Jack” (as Paul Simon said so clearly) can seem harsh, but feeling unloved and conflicted leaves you vulnerable to sex-on-the-side.

You don’t really want your marriage to break-up, but there are problems. When there are unresolved issues in a relationship, and they’ve been that way awhile, you tend to feel disconnected from your mate. Then, having someone else who thinks you’re hot/smart/funny can seem really refreshing. You may end up doing the dirty with an extra-curricular person without planning it. Most people don’t plan to cheat.

You have a life you don’t want to leave (kids, position, money, in-laws you love, all of the above) Divorce disrupts everything. Even your work can get thrown off track when your personal life goes to hell. Even if you don’t feel really loving towards your spouse, you like parts of the life you’ve crafted together. Things you don’t want to give up. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t find something that feels like love on the side.

If you left, your mate would kill himself. (At least, that’s what he’s said when you’re fighting) When life with your mate has gotten complicated, unhappy and hard, you might want out. You want someone different who listens. Someone who doesn’t make you want to scream. Still, break-ups can be difficult, particularly when one half of the couple threatens to take his life. Guilt can keep you in the shell of a relationship, but it doesn’t always keep you out of someone else’s bed.

You love your spouse—you don’t hate your spouse—you’ve always seen the two of you together…but things have been bad for a while now (or there’s a lot of sizzle with the other man/woman. You haven’t felt this hot for someone in a long time) Relationships fall apart from the inside and sometimes you get used to really dysfunctional patterns. You get used to your partner not understanding you or screaming that you don’t understand him. The new guy at work likes you and thinks you’re funny. You find yourself thinking about him a lot and texting him all the time. Soon, you find yourself making out with him. It just happened, you say, like you were magically transported—naked—into his arms.

It doesn’t mean anything. Just an itch to be scratched. It won’t hurt your mate unless he/she finds out. Only it does mean something. It means your current marriage isn’t working. It means you’re avoiding dealing with issues. That’s what infidelity is—avoidance on a major scale. Cheating doesn’t fix anything. It only complicates an already difficult situation. You may tell yourself you’re staying for the kids…staying because your mate needs you. Heck, you may be waiting for your spouse to finish college, your kids turn eighteen or until his psychiatrist announces him cured. Whatever you tell yourself, infidelity only makes the waters murkier.

Don’t cling to the delusion that you’ve found your soul mate. Relationships that stemmed from one or both partners cheating have an even higher divorce rate. Maybe once a cheater, always a cheater is too narrow a view. But once you’ve broken vows, it becomes easier to do it again…unless you’ve dealt with your personal issues and/or those in the relationship.

Work on the relationship you're in. Deal with it, one way or the other. Don't stray out into darker pursuits because it only makes matters worse.

When You Hate the Kid You Love

Don’t tell your kid, you’ll never be disappointed in him. You will be. You are. When the child you’ve nurtured, the kid with a limitless future and a hundred joyful gifts, sells himself short, you’ll be upset, sad and angry. When he doesn’t go for the goal he wants because he’s convinced he can’t achieve it, you’ll be disappointed. When he gets in a relationship that only brings him grief, you’ll be frustrated and saddened.

Loving someone doesn’t mean always liking him.

You want only the best for your child and while life unavoidably brings bumps, some bad, ugly things can be avoided. You’ve lived long enough to know this. You may not have had people watching out for you the way you watched out for your kid. You’ve invested yourself in a thousand ways. Was it all for nothing? Did it matter at all?

A heart-warming card on Mother’s or Father’s Day just isn’t enough. You want the kid to take care of herself, to respect herself. All those lessons you taught her can’t have been a total waste. It’s not the kid’s thanks you’re looking for (although that’s nice to hear). You want her to live well. Make smart choices. Take care of herself.

You have hopes.

Then your kid does something really stupid, makes some choice you’d thought he was too smart to make. Some choices bring massive pain. Who would want their child to make those choices? Who wouldn’t be disappointed?

It’s not about a lack of love. You love this kid with every fiber of your being. When the kid hurts, your heart cracks open. The more you love, the more you hope for that person …always for the child. You want him to be smart, to see the choices that will lead him down painful roads in life. You’d thought he would have learned from his earlier experiences. The ones you carefully let him have when he was younger.

In a loving relationship, knowing how to let go is terribly important. Your child gets to determine her own course. Read the Unsolicited Advice Column that defines What Real Love Looks Like —letting your child discover her own path is more loving than telling her how to live.

Sometimes he’ll get it; he’ll believe in himself. He’ll realize the relationship he’s in has only more bad stuff ahead. He’ll realize he’s not giving himself the best shot professionally. Good things will happen, too. But don’t lie to yourself…failure is an option. Your kid may fail, may make—probably will make—foolish choices.

You won’t like the kid then. You may not get how she can make those choices.

You just hope the kid learns from it, wrings every ounce of learning out of those unhappy choices. All you can do is hope, because telling your child what to do—when she or he is an adult—just puts up walls. Don’t do it. Don’t think your kid needs to be told what to do. Even if he’s making stupid, foolish choices—spending more money than he has, not investing in your grandchild the way he should—don’t tell him what to do.

Even if you don’t like your child, you have to let her figure life out herself. Hopefully, she will. And then you’ll like her again, but maybe not now….

Failure - Just a Corrective Tool

You never know how to hit your goals if you don’t have some feedback when you miss the mark. Think of failure—even crushing failure—as a voice telling you “a little to the left.” Screwing up and blowing situations is part of the path to success. A bump in the road. Don’t ever believe you can do really well at anything without messing up in your earlier attempts.

Maybe you blow a presentation to a major potential client. You don’t respond to a boss’ warning. You may mess up a date with a really hot guy. You say something stupid. You do something that, as you look back, was idiotic.

This is how you learn. You’ll most likely not make this mistake again because you don’t like the consequences. Failure sucks. It feels bad and you don’t like it. Some people live their lives on what they think are safe, sure paths or with mates they think will never leave, never cheat, et cetera. All to avoid failure.

But failure is life’s very best corrective tool. It works. This is how you learn.

Don’t think that avoiding failure is a functional life goal. You’ll be limiting yourself and your experiences. You’ll be choosing to live a stunted life. You’ll probably also have a really boring time. I’m not suggesting that you throw yourself into new pursuits, new jobs or new relationships with no regard to the possibility of blowing it. Failure still counts. But you need to take the message and interpret it correctly.

Don’t think that this is just a warm, fuzzy pat on the back. I’m not attempting to make you feel better, although that's good, too. It's important not to miss the functionality of failure. Don’t walk past a tremendously helpful tool. Failure has lessons to teach you. Did you choose your goal well? Were you committed to doing what it takes to achieve this goal, or did you just give it your minimum? Just show up? Why did you fail? This is a hugely important question and don’t think the answer is that you’re useless or stupid. That’s not going to help you learn the lesson this failure has for you (and it’s very likely untrue).

Ask yourself—and any other informed person—why you failed.

What is there to learn in this experience? You need to know if the achievement of your goal will take perseverance and persistence—some goals require just that. You need to assess yourself as objectively as possible. Beating yourself up about failing really doesn’t help. It’s counter-productive. A waste of energy.

If you’ve set a goal for good reasons (another excellent question) and this is something you really, really want to achieve, then take your failures and learn from them. Learn.

Use the tool. Fail and fail again, if necessary. Just don’t do it blindly. And don’t live your life thinking failure will kill you. It won’t, even though failure feels pretty bad. It has lessons for you. Be smart enough to listen.

What Real Love Looks Like

Most people are confused about what’s love and what isn’t. You may have a rush of heat when a man walks in. Maybe love’s scary and exciting, like sky diving. Or safe and comforting, like a fire in the fireplace on a cold night.

Not everyone wants the same kind of love.

There are some constants, though. When you truly love someone, some actions and motivations will always be there, no matter who you are or what kind of relationship you want. In his book, The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch leaves this advice for his toddler daughter: Look at the guy's actions, not what he says. Knowing he won’t be there when she’s teenager entering the world of dating,a dying Pausch recommends his daughter take words of love with a grain of salt. Behavior, though, that tells a truer story.

When you are loved by someone, that person will generally place your best interests at a high premium. In other words, while he may not always put you first, the one who really loves you isn’t going to do what’s bad for you. It’s not love when another person acts out of his own fear and yells at you or hits you. That’s something other than love, no matter what you did.

A person who loves you will—most of the time—like and enjoy you, too.

This is tricky because sometimes the people we love do stupid, self-destructive things. It’s hard to like them then. But, overall, when you’re in a relationship, your significant other needs to like you…find you amusing and intriguing and interesting. All that makes relationships easier. There will be difficult times in all relationships. Liking one another makes it less difficult to work through conflicts.

The most elusive aspect of a loving relationship is that it makes you better. If the relationship you’re in drags you into bad, destructive behavior, you need to question the foundation of the interaction. Love makes you better. This isn’t to say that it’s always easy. Growth can be painful, frustrating and infuriating…but it helps you deal with stuff you need to handle.

It’s really important to realize, too, that love isn’t one-sided. This isn’t all about him or all about you. There needs to be a balance—a benefit to you both—or this isn’t good for either of you. You need to be challenged to grow, face your fears, believe in yourself. Your partner needs the same.

If you find yourself in a relationship that encourages you to sever connections with those who’ve been important to you—if the relationship only thrives when the two of you are isolated from others--this isn't love. You might need to end some destructive, bad relationships, but most likely, not all your other relationships. You can’t live a life with only one person in your world.

Does being with your lover make you better? This is the bottom line. Love enhances. While it doesn’t always make life easy, love helps you become who you want to be. Before you jump into a major life change, make sure the relationship you’re in is good for you.