Month: January 2014

Sometime when I was in junior high, my brother and I had a long talk about the things we wanted to change about ourselves. I wanted to be less shy. I wanted to be myself around new people, make friends easily, and those things were sometimes hard for me. My brother had been reading all kinds of self-help books and had received advice from a few people on why we do the things we do, and you know what he told me? Everything we do is a habit. He said the reason why I was often quiet around new people and had a hard time breaking down barriers between myself and others was simply because I’d made those habits a part of my life.

The good news? Habits can always be broken, he said. You just have to form new habits to replace them.

Depending on who you talk to, I’m still either the quietest person in the world, or I’m not. While some situations make it more comfortable for me to be friendly and outgoing, I’m often naturally quiet until you get to know me. Perhaps this will be a lifelong habit I’ll work on changing, but I’ve learned as long as I’m working on it, it’s never impossible.

There are generally about 15 things going on in my mind at once. I’m always wanting to change habits, from how I spend money, to how much I exercise, to how I treat others, to how ambitious I am at work and in learning new things. And the good news always is that change is always possible, a little bit at a time.

I’m going to start listening to the book “Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg for the third time. I’ve mentioned before how I love good books and this is a good one. Each time I listen, I feel inspired and want to make my life and decisions better.

The book goes through how habits are formed and how to change them. It also talks about how businesses use our habits to target us with ads. That part of the book is half genius, half scary. It’s crazy how much companies can learn about us simply by the things we purchase.

The author also writes about how some small changes in our lives, such as exercising and even making our bed every day, can lead to big changes in several other areas of our lives. These are called keystone habits. They have a ripple effect.

I’ve got big dreams, you guys, and I’m sure you do, too. Getting there takes so much effort and change is often difficult. But I think the more we listen to the wisdom of others, and in this case, some research on habits, we’re maybe just a tiny bit closer to those big dreams.

For your inspiration, here are some quotes from the book. And remember, if you don’t have time to read, you can always get an audio book and listen in the car. We’re in the car much more than we think and that’s time we can be productive instead of passive.

“Change might not be fast and it isn’t always easy. But with time and effort, almost any habit can be reshaped.”

“Champions don’t do extraordinary things. They do ordinary things, but they do them without thinking, too fast for the other team to react. They follow the habits they’ve learned.”

“This is the real power of habit: the insight that your habits are what you choose them to be.”

“Once you know a habit exists, you have the responsibility to change it … others have done so. … Almost all of the other patterns that exist in most people’s lives — how we eat and sleep and talk to our kids, how we unthinkingly spend our time, attention and money — those are habits that we know exist. And once you understand that habits can change, you have the freedom and the responsibility to remake them. Once you understand that habits can be rebuilt, the power of habit becomes easier to grasp and the only option left is to get to work.”

On Tuesday morning in Roswell, N.M., a 12-year-old boy walked into a school gym and fired shots at classmates, sending two of them to the hospital. One of them is in critical condition with injuries to his face and neck. The other is in stable condition with injuries to her shoulder. Both students needed surgery. And the rest of kids from the school? Well, they’re shocked, scared and saddened of course, and so is the rest of the community, many, many people from the state and many others from around the country.

Work was long and exhausting that day, and unfortunately when you work in news, sometimes you forget to feel as you’re so busy trying to do everything else. I work on our website, so Tuesday was all about making sure it was constantly updated as new information came in. There were scripts to re-write for the web, videos to clip, a photo gallery to update, live streaming to set up for a vigil and news conference, alerts to send out over social media and text messages to schedule. And what’s unfortunate about news in general – even if you don’t work in it – is stories like this happen so often that we’re probably all a little numb.

I know this shooting could have been a lot worse, but it’s still a shooting. It involves violence toward children, by children, and it’s something that’s very hard to understand.

By the end of the night, my mind was spinning with all the “why” questions, and there will probably not be any solid answers. People will say we need to tackle mental illness issues and offer more help for those who need it. Others will say we should have stricter gun laws. Others still will say teachers should be equipped with guns. And some will try to figure out what’s promoting so much violence in society. Is it video games? Is it bad parenting? Is it depression? Is it violent movies? It’s it the news glorifying these events?

I’m not going to blame anyone, because I don’t know anything about what went inside this kid’s head before he packed up a gun and decided to create chaos. But what I do know is that for whatever reason, the lives of others were not precious to this student, at least not at that moment – and that in itself is really, really sad.

It’s interesting because the night before all this happened, I was reading a blog written by two parents a few years ago whose baby died after 99 days. Their words were so beautiful as they described this precious life they got to hold in their arms for little more than three months. Before their baby was born, they knew he would die. They knew he may never even grace the earth with his presence. But then he did! And he survived longer than all the doctors predicted.

Because this couple knew their time with their baby would be short, they decided to have a birthday celebration for every day of his life. They made him different hats, ate cake and planned parties with their friends. Every day that their baby was still breathing and could open his eyes was a day to be grateful for. And even the hard stuff, like dealing with breathing tubes and long, difficult feedings, were blessings.

I wish there was a way to remember that life – every single life, no matter how short or long – is precious beyond imagination. How wonderful would it be if we could all remember that?

For whatever reason (there are probably a million reasons, actually), sometimes we forget that the person sitting next to us could be gone tomorrow. Sometimes we forget that our lives and our loved ones’ lives can change in a moment. And sometimes we get so caught up in our own worlds that we forget there are billions of people out there who need love, kindness, patience and care.

Sometimes, unfortunately, people hurt us and we decide we don’t care about them anymore. We allow others to get under our skin so much, we forget to care for their wellbeing. We’re probably all guilty of this at some point. And sometimes, it takes some sort of tragedy for us to wake up again.

Luckily, the teens who were shot in Roswell on Tuesday did not die. But we all know of many other shootings that didn’t end the same way. Most recently, a student was shot at a Colorado high school and died in December. And how will any of us forget the Connecticut shooting just over a year ago when the world lost 26 innocent people in an instant, 20 of them children.

I’m focusing on school shootings here because they seem to catch us off guard more than others. Perhaps it’s because they always seems so random and the victims so young. But the truth is, I read about shootings almost every week. And like many of you, I read or hear about war, sickness and tragic accidents that occur all over the place every day. And every one of those people who dies means something wonderful to someone.

I don’t know what to do about mental illness and guns and violence in our culture, but I do know if we all truly believed everyone had value, so many thoughtless tragedies would never happen.

So, what can we do? Where do we go from here?

I think that’s a personal decision, but I think there are ways we can learn to appreciate, love and care for the people in our lives, and even the people we don’t know. Maybe in tragedy, all we can do is pray, but maybe that’s enough. We can remember that couple who celebrated every day of a baby’s life … a baby who never even spoke a word. If 99 days of one baby’s life was that precious, imagine how many other days of everyone’s lives could be celebrated.

When we hear about tragedy, maybe we can try to be more gentle in a world that seems harsh. And maybe that gentleness will grow and grow.

Just to make your day after this heavy conversation, here is the tribute video for the baby who lived 99 short days. And don’t be surprised if I bring him and his parents up again down the road. Their story just inspires me so.

If there’s one thing I always wish I’d do more of, it’s documenting the good times. Well, and exercising, but that’s a whole different topic.

I have a ton of pictures and a bunch of memories with family and friends stored in my brain, but I wish I’d written more growing up and in college. The times I wrote the most were when I was sad which is unfortunate because I was happy most of the time. I don’t have too many inside jokes written in my journal, or many of the nights my friends and I stayed up doing random things. Yes, I still remember a lot of it, but I know there’s probably a lot I’ve forgotten, too, especially the funny little things people said and did.

I have a good memory, but I always seem to want to remember even more of the good times I’ll never get back. Sometimes the best thing about seeing a picture or reading a journal you haven’t in a really long time is having a lost memory come back in full force, like a movie playing in your mind.

The last few years, I’ve done relatively well at documenting my life and the people in it thanks to blogging and a Google document I created so I can write anywhere if I want to. But this year, I’m going to add one more thing: a jar of memories.

A couple summers ago, I challenged myself to take a photo a day for a year. This helped me look for something to remember each day, or find something beautiful to take photos of. Sometimes, in order to make the goal, I’d go for walks around my neighborhood looking for new flowers or views I hadn’t noticed before. I’d take pictures of familiar places I didn’t want to forget like the Island Market, the big tree right in front of my apartment door, and the road I used to run on. One day, I biked home in the rain and got a photo of myself soaked from top to bottom. I have a photo of my friend cutting the cake at her wedding, and another photo of a rainbow made of flowers in someone’s yard.

I was never perfect at this goal, and some weeks only had four or five photos. Eventually, it became a little exhausting to maintain, so my year of taking pictures didn’t last longer than about six to eight weeks. But since I moved from Logan, Utah, that year, I’m so glad I have those photos of some of my last months there.

On Facebook last week, I saw the idea for a jar to slip memories in for a year. They can be notes with blessings, laugh-out-loud moments, accomplishments, surprise gifts, moments of beauty, or pretty much anything positive that stands out in the day. Then on Dec. 31, you can open the jar and go through them.

I thought this was a great idea and figured I would pass it along. I don’t think it matters that we’re a week in the year already. I don’t even think it matters if you write something every single day, although if you do, that is an awesome goal. I think the point it just to help us see the good, little things around us more frequently. I know if I do this, at the end of the year, I won’t regret not documenting more of those things.