ARE YOU THIRSTY?

Perhaps you have heard the phrase, "If you're thirsty, you're already dehydrated." As a former soccer player, hydration was very important. It was necessary to drink sufficient water every day and especially the 24 hours before a game to prevent dehydration during the competition, for it was difficult to replenish fluids quickly enough while running around for two hours. The more hydrated I was, the more apt I was to play at peak performance; the less hydrated I was, the more likely I was to become fatigued, ineffective, and perhaps even have my muscles cramp up.

Even now, although I am not playing sports at the same intensity every day, I can see the importance of drinking enough water (the same could be said for getting enough sleep). I find the more water I drink - especially in place of coffee, soda, beer, etc - the better I feel, the more sound I sleep, the more energy I have, the easier it is to fend off colds, etc. And the better I feel, the healthier I am, and the more energy I have leads to being more productive at home/work, easier exercise, and generally enjoying life more. (Now, I'm not saying that drinking water leads to happiness like some magical fountain, but I am saying it is one of many factors that I have noticed that makes a difference in my quality of life.)

Now that I know this and have experienced this correlation, I have been able to be more intentional about how much water I drink. Most of us have heard that people are supposed to drink a doctor-recommended minimum of 64 ounces of water each day. (That's eight 8-ounce glasses, or more than the equivalent of 5 cans of soda.) Its one thing to know how much to drink; its another to be intentional enough to actually drink that much. Every day. And more on the days that require it. Every week. Every month. Every year. For the rest of your life.

Sounds like a lot of work - a lot of being intentional. But if that's what it takes to be healthy - which can help lead to happiness - isn't it worth a little effort on the front end and a little effort each day, one day at a time? Isn't it worth it to avoid thirst at the very minimum? Fatigue? Weakness? Sickness? I know this is extreme, but what if we never drank at all? We would die... eventually.

And so it is with communication and relationships.

Water is to our bodies, as communication is to our relationships. Instead of thirst, fatigue, and illness, without proper or adequate communication we can experience misunderstandings, frustration, and loneliness as symptoms that appear.

Like our bodies, our relationships require a certain level of communication to maintain themselves. Each relationship we are in requires a different level (quality, depth and quantity) of communication. My relationship with my spouse requires much more and much better communication that my relationship with my mail carrier. Some days communication comes naturally and easily because we're around each other and nothing is going on to distract us. Other days/weeks, communication is more difficult because of work, kids, other responsibilities, etc. Being intentional about communicating is so important because otherwise life will get in the way. I would say this is true for ALL relationships, not just for people living in the same house.

If you're not communicating well with your employees, co-workers, or superiors, how effective would you be as a company if you didn't know what/how each other was doing?

If you're not communicating well with friends, are they going to feel as connected and feel those positive feelings that made them want to be friends with you in the first place?

If you're dog didn't communicate with you, would you know when to let him outside or would you be cleaning up messes?

Again, my recommendation - for whatever its worth - is to be intentional about your communication with others. Set aside time on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. Make a covenant with yourself to make communication a priority. If you are not a communicative person, and you are living with a spouse/partner, then use helpful tools like "3 things that happened today and how you felt about them" or describing how each of your five senses were stimulated that day or buy a book or questions (even "would you rather" books). Plan date night for the first Monday of every month. Read a chapter from a book each night and discuss. Even with non-partners, set aside time to call, text, email, write, meet with, or talk to those people.

I'm just sayin...

...be intentional about communication - get your daily allotment in - before your relationships get thirsty.

The Parable of the Wooden Spoons

This is not a Ryan original, but it is one of my favorite parables of all time about a motto that I have learned to follow: serving one another. I suck at it, but I'm learning.
A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, "Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like." The Lord led the holy man to two doors. He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in.
In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew which smelled delicious and made the holy man's mouth water. The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished.
They were holding spoons with very long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths. The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. The Lord said, "You have seen Hell."
They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man's mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.
The holy man said, "I don't understand."
"It is simple" said the Lord, "it requires but one skill. You see, they have learned to serve each other."

Who Am I?

I was walking into work last week, and for some reason I was thinking about how the average job interview process is lame - for the most part. How does someone describe themselves? "Tell me about yourself." "What are your strengths and weaknesses." Etc, etc. I don't think it is possible to say "who you are." A description of "who I am" is like describing a photograph: its static. I can vaguely describe my appearance in terms of measurements and colors and ideas of relativity, but how does one accurately describe "who they are"?
"WHO I AM" isn't consistent. Who I am changes. It is not static. I can maybe tell you about who I was or who I want to be, but not who I am. Unless you want me to tell you who I am right this second. I can do that. But that won't do you, or I, or anyone else any good two second from now. My point is, who I am changes every day as I take on new knowledge and experiences. Who I am also changes, to a certain extent, based on my environment or situation.
One could argue that we are the same person no matter where we are - and I can see that argument - but I'm talking more about the outward behavior part of who I am. In other words, the part that people see. Call it the part that would make you decide if you would want to be my friend or not. For example, even though I am the same person everywhere, I am different at church than I am at a bar on New Years Eve. I don't mean to suggest that I have dissociative identity disorder (DID, f/k/a Multiple Personality Disorder), just that the context/situation I am in somewhat dictates how I behave.
This reminds me of the Nature vs. Nurture debate: are we who we are? Or are we 'trained' to be a certain way? Are we strongly influenced by our environment. For those of you who took Psychology 101, you may remember the similar debate about personality traits. The "Big 5" personality traits are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. These have been analyzed, studied, and debated for years, but have held up remarkably well in our disposable world. Take each of the big five:
Openness: would I be as OPEN in a job interview as I would be with my best friend of 40 years?
Conscientiousness: would I be as conscientious with my brother as I would be on a third date with a woman I really liked?
Extraversion: would I be as extraverted in line at the DMV as I would at my 21st birthday party?
Abreeableness: would I be as agreeable in divorce court as I would be on my wedding day?
I would answer "NO" quite emphatically to each of those questions; I don't know about you.
So, I am assuming at this point we can agree that "personality" - at least to a certain extent - can change based on situations or context. Included in that - and where I'm heading - is the area of context that includes people. Let me explain:
I think specifically which people we are with, more than any other factor of context, determines our behavior - our personality - more than any other factor, such as time, location, etc, etc. Who am I with? Who is around me? Who am I interacting with? If I am a soldier in Iraq, I would probably act much differently with my comrades in the middle of the desert than in the middle of town, because there are other people present. Or even the same town at night versus during the middle of the day when people are walking around. Many of the environmental factors may have changed, yet its the people that would most affect my behavior.
Who I am is not something necessarily within me - at least operationally speaking. I (and therefore you) cannot "measure" who I am within my own head. I may be able to think it or say it, but until it is exihibited, it just isn't. It doesn't exist. It cannot be measureable. Further, who I am is only measureable by some other person. Its relative and relational. Read that again: RELATIVE and RELATIONAL. Look at the BIG FIVE personality traist above again. ALL FIVE are relational and relative. I would include other so-called personality traits like honesty, trustworthyness, funny, caring, etc, etc to be the same.
RELATIONAL:
Relational, to me, means that each of the personality traits cannot be experienced in a vacuum by myself. I cannot be agreeable to myself. I cannot be open to experiencing myself, because I am me. I cannot be dishonest to myself, because I know what I know. All of these traits must include another person. They can only be measured as they are exhibited within a relationship. They ARE the relationship.
RELATIVE:
Relative, because they are all abstract terms without measurement. Of course you could measure the percentage of time someone is honest versus not honest - or you could try - but there is no absolute scale for conscientiousness or neuroticism. All of the traits are on open ended spectrums with no set endpoints or even relative range. The relativity comes from our personal experience, meaning Person A is more agreeable than Person B. Person C is less extroverted than Person D. We continue to place people on multiple spectrums all based on our experience. But since our experiences/pasts are different, "WHO I AM" is going to be different to everyone since everyones' spectrums are different.
One of my favorite person examples of this is from college - though the same can be said for bosses at work or friends of friends: when scheduling classes for the upcoming semester, I would have acquaintences that would compare courses and professors. I often heard a phrase like, "Ooh. Don't take that professor, he/she's really tough/mean/bad/dumb/[insert favorite negative personality trait here]." More often than not (roughly 100% of the time), those professors were my favorite professor of that semester. There is a lot to be said for that - many different variables and factors - but my point is, how can I base my opinion of anyone on a third party's opinion? Or rather, how should I? Or even better, why would I? when I know that personalities are relational and relative. Who someone is to me will be much different that who someone is to another person. Our "relationship" - which is what I call that space "between" two people - is unique to those two people. Its a constant give and take of information/communication/behavior. Its a "dance", if you will.
So, who am I? You may all call me Ryan, but I am somebody different to each one of you. I am who I am to you. And you are who you are to me. We are.... we.

Love. Don't just say you do.

One of the best words of advice my mother gave me when I was younger was, "Love is an action, not a feeling." That always made a lot of sense to me. More recently, I've integrated that statement with my interest in cybernetics and communication theory and systems theory, which has augmented the idea.

One cannot love in a vacuum. Other than "loving yourself," one cannot love without an "other" to direct the love toward, an other person, thing, etc. As much as I love animals and nature, let's use the example of two people. If we consider two ideas, 1) One cannot not communicate, and 2) All behavior is communication, then it leads to support the claim that "love" is an action - or behavior or communication - rather than some abstract term representing a feeling.

Maybe its better to back up a level and discuss the idea that love has various definitions and (I think) those definitions are often mixed up and/or misused:
There is a "love" that is used to describe the way someone feels when they are getting to know someone and are excited by their interactions. Going forward I will refer to this as a chemical response called infatuation.
I will refer to the observable action or behavior - or manifestation of the infatuation - as "love".
Also, for the sake of breadth, "love" will include any and all favorable behavior - or behavior that is received as favorable by the receiver - including but not limited to romantic love, platonic love, brotherly love, parental love, Samaritan love, etc.

In our lives, do we say things like, "I love you" or "I have always loved you" or "I will always love you"? What does that mean? If person A says, "I love person B" does that mean Person A feels good inside because of the relationship with person B or that Person A behaves in a loving manner toward person B? I think too often it is the former, especially in newer and younger relationships. In either definition, does that mean that we always feel excited, every minute of every day? Does it mean that we behave in a loving manner every second of every day? Is it just a cliche? Am I un-romanticizing it by calling out its meaning?

How do we love? Are we overt with our love or do we keep it all to ourselves and just think about it? Does it do any good to think about loving? Which is better: saying "I love you" or doing something that shows love like doing the dishes or giving a back rub or playing a game or listening intently?

It might be worth asking yourself: is my love about me and my feelings or about my relationship, my interaction, my behavior with another person? and see if it changes anything.

What about hate?