The logo on one of my favorite coffee mugs has long since worn off. Now it’s just a blank black mug.
But the (not so) crazy thing is I still get the same wonderful feeling when I grab it out of the cabinet as I did when the logo was on there.
Stories, memories, attachments, souvenirs…if they’re warm and joyful and help the morning get off to a better start, they’re worth hanging onto.
If not, toss out the mug and buy a new one.
- The shoes make the outfit. Jeans and a t-shirt with Beatle boots. Same jeans t-shirt with Jordan 1’s. I’ve done them both. Completely different looks. The shoes are a powerful story teller.
- Some shoes look and feel better after they’re worn in. Some shoes are at their pinnacle right out of the box.
- This is more of a sports angle…But if you show up to the pickup game and someone has fresh new shoes, then you’re dealing with one of two people. 1) Someone who hasn’t played in forever and had to get brand new shoes for the occasion. You don’t want this person on your team. 2) Someone who plays all the time, wore out their old shoes and just got new ones to dominate with. This is your desired teammate.
- It’s hard to believe but the most likely scenario is that the pair of shoes you’re working really hard to keep clean will one day be your lawn mowing shoes.
- I imagine it’s little tough to connect with people at a shoe convention because everyone is looking down.
So why all this shoe talk?
The things you wear are whispering. To you and to us.
Construction sites are noisy.
Power drills and chop saws. Then nail guns. Then a compressor kicks on. Then it calms down and gets quiet for a minute or two before it all starts up again.
So what happens if you need to have a conversation at a construction site?
Obviously when it’s the quiet times it’s easy to talk and listen. And if a couple power tools get turned on you can probably raise your voice, listen harder and still make it happen.
But then there comes a time when the dump truck is dumping, saws are buzzing, everyone has a nail gun and the classic rock radio station is blasting.
You have to stop. You can’t talk over it and listening is impossible. It’s just too much noise.
We can all survive a little bit of noise but it’s important to recognize when your environment is too loud for speaking and listening and you need to wait for it to calm down…or a new location.
If there’s a new thing you want to get good at doing, odds are you’re going to have to be bad (or not very good) at it first.
And that’s the price.
That’s why we’re all not good at everything in the world. There’s only so many things we can and are willing to push through being bad at in order to get good.
When we were kids we were really good at pushing through a lot of these moments. We had to be. We didn’t know much.
But if you haven’t gotten good at something new in a while, try it.
I think you’ll find it’s like riding a bike.
No one knows the exact kind of attention you want.
So if you want it, you’re going to need to ask for it…and give others a lot of grace and patience in their response.
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We idealize fame because we see it as a level where people will finally treat us how we’ve always wanted to be treated…when really fame just means you get a lot of attention…but go back and read the first line of this post…no one knows the kind of attention you’ve always dreamed of. So you’ll get quantity but not your brand of quality.
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We do our best to give the people closest to us the type of attention they want. It’s not exact but it’s probably in the ballpark most of the time. The attention we give, out of love and care, is needed and is always a good thing even if it can’t be everything.