Hello, Hello blog followers! On the Wednesday class before break, we had a very special visitor, a Guilford Alumni named Patti Digh. Patti has written several award winning books and writes in a blog that garners a large following from the blogospheric realm. After reading us a couple of her stories she took us through some excellent exercises that demonstrated some metaphors for ways of thinking about life. I would describe each one of them but I know that I would not give them justice. However, my favorite activity came at the end when she had us walk around casually and then pick a partner. I was coupled with Meredith, an English major. First, Patti instructed us to look at each other completely for a while then close our eyes and remember a few memories including our favorite childhood game, our first love, and a time where we felt great loss. Afterwards, we were instructed to look at each other again and then sit down and talk about our experience. Meredith and I talked about how hard it was to maintain eye contact because it left us very vulnerable but eventually we were both able to let that go. Then, we also explored how even though we had not talked to each other, we still felt like we had communicated our emotions with each other. Often times, we forget that while people have had vastly different experiences than you, they still have experienced a great loss, or had a favorite childhood game, and through these, we still feel very similar emotions. It was a very bonding exercise and afterwards Meredith and I had a nice embrace.
After enduring midterms, I was able to get a much needed break from school. During the break, I traveled far and wide with my beautiful girlfriend, Sara. First we went to Morganton to visit her family, then to Chapel Hill to visit my family and celebrate my birthday. On Monday night, my dad took Sara and I out for dinner. Recently, I have been exploring the definition of success and talking it over with people in my life who I look up to. This dinner gave me a great opportunity to explore this with my dad. For my dad, success was harnessing your special abilities that you also enjoy doing, and using those to make a living and share with the world. We also had some more personal conversations that proved to be very helpful.
On Tuesday morning, we were off to Wilmington where Sara had purchased me flying lessons! With my new sporty moustache, I certainly look like I could be a pretty badass pilot. After flying down to Bald Head Island, and then making it back up to the Wilmington airport, I really do feel like I could pursue flying if I had the money and motivation to do so.
We danced the night away in Wilmington that night with Sara’s best friend, Tara, and a few of her friends. Afterwards, we cruised down to Chucktown where we stayed with my cousin Nathan and his family consisting of his pregnant wife Ana, and his three kids, Phillip (5), Joey (3), and Samuel (1). There, we relaxed and played with the kids all weekend, jumping on their trampoline, doing arts and crafts and pushing them on the swings. On the last day I sat down with Nathan and had a quality heart to heart. We talked about Sara and his family and then I told him about the IDS class and that he is one of the people I have idolized in my life from the time I was born. A little context about Nathan: he’s a financial advisor for doctors and shares a business with a partner, his hobbies are being with his family, thriving in his business, and doing jujitsu style fighting. He is also the most genuine, honest, and loving person I know. When I asked him how he would define success he responded that success is carrying a positive mentality and being honest with the people who are close to you and emulating this in everything you do. As he said, when he died, in order to feel successful, all he wanted was that he could feel that he had affected people positively and that he had provided a great foundation for his kids and family. This was very good for me to hear because this is more or less my own definition of success: being able to positively affect people.
Below is a picture of Nathan and his son Samuel Justin Straus
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