Mitch's Blog

There are two ways to look at life, we are either here on accident or on purpose. If we are here on accident, what we do has no meaning, no value, for it will be gone and forgotten. We are products of the system, and whatever change we bring to the system can be undone as easily as we created it. However, if we are here on purpose, our life has meaning, we can add value and instill ideas that can have a lasting impact. We are no longer products of the system but controllers. There is value that can be added because we have a higher end, something bigger than ourselves that we are apart of.

Its amazing how our entire experience on earth is based off of our own perspective. We can try paradigm shifts, or perspective changes, yet we can still never fully understand or appreciate another’s point of view. All our interactions are based from this position as the main character. We can never have this omnipresent view as Movies can, or have the perspective of several main characters. For all our relationships are based in relation to ourselves. There is OUR brother Sam, OUR mother Holly, OUR friend Matt, OUR neighbor Charlie. Everything is in relation to us, all the rest are just supporting characters who come in and out of our lives, play a part, and move on. And yet, sometimes these passing supporting characters, though their role is small (in our movie), can have a major impact in the overall development of ourselves as the Main Character. Its important to not forget this or take these supporting characters for granted.

What is it that is important in life? The big things or the little things? I often hear the quote, “enjoy the little things,” thrown out in conversation regularly. Yet it is the big things, the big decisions such as picking a college, a job, a career, a spouse, and a location to live, that can shape our lives so drastically. It makes picking what to eat for lunch so trivial in comparison. So should we even focus energy on the little things? And then should we concentrate all our time on the important things/decisions? Not necessarily.

Who truly knows what the big decisions are? One day we might look back and realize those same small things were actually the big things. There may be a time when someone is having a monotonous talk with their father about something of irrelevance. Seems like a small thing, until it is the last time you speak to your father before he passes. Picking a career may seem like the most important thing in the world, until you realize that the happiness you are searching for is a daily choice. Thus, in all things, whether they seem big and small, we need to be more present and self aware. For until our deathbed, we might never know their true importance.

So this weekend I got a flat tire and immediately, my first thought was, I should not have driven into the city today. If I did not, the nail/pot hole that ruined my car never would have happened. And yet, we cannot and should not live our lives with this mentality.

What if we never drove, so as to avoid a flat tire?

Never wore our new shoes, because we did not want them to get dirty?

Never put on our favorite shirt, because we did not want it to get stained?

Never loved, because of the fear of loss?

These are the fears of risk. But with no risk, there is often no reward.

We all want the cards to be stacked. We want the dice to be weighted. In our favor. And yet, often times, we are so worried that the cards are stacked against us, that the games are rigged for the opponent. And so we fold before seeing our cards, we don’t even role the dice of life. We are so worried about getting “lost in the shuffle” of life, that we don’t ever lay our chips down. But if we can never lay our chips down, what is the point of even having them?

I find it interesting how we always rank things.

Ranking, prioritizing, and evaluating things are critical and important for every day life, but it seems that this “ranking” is always biased, whether we know it or not. Take for example food at a college cafeteria: known to not be great. Yet, for a starving college student late at night, that sandwich and pizza could taste the best ever made. Until the friend offers to drive to Chipotle, then all of a sudden that sandwich is old and the pizza is cold. Notice that the sandwich and pizza never changed, yet the college student would most definitely have a different ranking for the scenario based on the “before” and “after” of his friend’s suggestion. So what ranking do we chose to evaluate the quality of the sandwich and pizza? How do we evaluate cafeterias? How do we evaluate ours businesses? If everything is biased, is all our data skewed?

Its impossible. You please one, and another is upset. Please that one, and another is now upset. On and on it goes. There is always a ‘group of people’ or a ‘they’ that disagree with what you are doing. If you decide on one profession, ‘they’ think you should do another. If you start a business, ‘they’ think your idea is impractical. If you move to a city, ‘they’ think you should move elsewhere. Does not matter what it is, ‘they’ will always have a different philosophy on how you should live. There are just so many doubters, critics in all areas of life. But no statue has ever been erected for a critic.

I love listening to song mixes on youtube. (particularly Chillstep Selections) There is something beautiful about all the different songs and how they are all blended together. By being put in the 1-2 hour mix, all these songs are now apart of something larger then themselves. And the whole mix is significantly greater than the sum of their parts. This mixture effect is found in so many things.

When a company is trying to save money, they introduce a variety of different cost-saving ideas, and usually implement a mixture. Movies / books are often sold as a collection, and some of the most famous books are just a collection of short stories. It is no wonder that TV series are such big hits, as they are built from season to season, episode from episode. This gives the directors a chance to really develop the personalities / traits of the main characters. In Broadway shows, a combination of dance moves and songs makes up a routine / performance.

These are all the building blocks of life, stacked one on top of the other. A nice thing about most of these things, is that if you particularly like a certain section, a song, a chapter, an episode, you can go back and rewatch, rewind. But for life, there’s no rewind button.