Wednesday Wonderings: What's going on under Hayden's hat? #6

It's Wednesday and the middle of the week makes me think about the interesting questions in my world. Here is the question bouncing around under this week's hat. Feel free to comment on the question (or the hat, the hat for that matter). I may even give away something for the comment that makes me laugh (or think) the most. Have fun with it!

Medical scrubs are used as a uniform but also to be more sterile so then why do people wear them to work and ride the subway in them? Shouldn't they only be worn in the hospital? Doesn't that defeat the purpose?Are THESE the people we are entrusting our care with ??!?!?

These are my thoughts...what are yours? 

Wednesday Wonderings: What's going on under Hayden's hat? #5

It's Wednesday and the middle of the week makes me think about the interesting questions in my world. Here is the question bouncing around under this week's hat. Feel free to comment on the question (or the hat, the hat for that matter). I may even give away something for the comment that makes me laugh (or think) the most. Have fun with it!

Why don't we give older drivers another competency test when they reach 65? How many septuagenarians need to fall asleep at the wheel and drive their car into a bunch of health conscious, environmental aware bikers before we start checking on these ticking time bombs?!?! It's not being ageist: we do the same thing to younger citizens. We make them prove that they are road worthy. Why don't we do the same to people who have proved that they are suspect? Do we need more of a sign that a left blinker that's been on for 17 miles and then they make a right?  

These are my thoughts...what are yours?

Happy birthday to me!

Last Wednesday was my birthday. I am now twice the age of a legal drinking adult in this country. Birthdays are a time for reflective and introspection normally. A time where you measure up where you are in comparison to the dreams and aspirations you had for yourself at this age. We all do it and I do it every year. Inevitably the 'planned' you tends to fall short of the 'actual' you ...unless of course you're Bill Gates or Barack Obama (I can't imagine that their 'planned' selves was greater than the reality of their present!). Then come the questions: when should I have gone left instead of right; when should I have zigged instead of zagged; quite simply, what would my life have been like if I made different decisions?

Every birthday I contemplate these questions, as they pertain to me. I wonder what my life would be like if I put more energy into my academics, or took an internship, or never got married the first time, or simply took an opportunity across country. The 'what ifs' muddle and crowd my consciousness to the point of tainting the joy of my present situation. Until this year.

This year I woke up, rode my bike for the first time in a year, took a great picture of boats in Brooklyn, bought a new phone, hung out with my daughter, ate at my favorite greasy spoon for lunch and at a great new place (for me) for dinner, and spent a wonderful evening with my wife to cap it off. Not once did I compare my life to what my youthful, inexperienced self thought it should be. Not once. I hadn't even realized that I didn't do my yearly ritual until the next day on the way to work. I wondered why and what was different about this birthday and then it hit: I don't care about where I thought i was supposed to be because I'm very happy where I AM!!! I have a great career at an institution that I am happy at, I have a great family that supports me, I get to work with beautiful people through photography, we have a roof over our head and amazing friends by side! I'm there.

Now does this mean that this is the pinnacle of where my life could be? Of course not! I could be richer, thinner, and more famous, if I put my mind to it. But right here? This works for me! I didn't even really want anything for my birthday except this quirky wand remote control (which I got!). I'm so content, it's ludicrous, as Mike Tyson would say. And that's the lesson, I guess: look around and see what's working for you and revel in THAT, as opposed obsessing about where you should have been. That doesn't mean that you stop reaching for your goals. Keep striving but learn to stop and pat yourself on the back every now and again. You deserve it. I know I do.

These are my thoughts....what are yours?

You take that back where you found it!

Kids bring stuff home. Sand from the playground. A stray puppy. A new friend who shows up in your kitchen eating that last piece of chicken that you were saving to eat during Monday Night Football with homemade ice tea... Germs. Colds. You expect all of those things when you send your child into the world to 'play nicely' with others. You try your best to bolster all of that with good home training. Dust your shoes off before you come inside; leave that mangy dog where you found it; let little Johnnie eat at his own house; wash your hands. However my child is at the developmental stage affectionately know as the parrot stage where she repeats everything and incorporates it into her speech pattern. Knowing this, we try to infuse her with as much new knowledge as possible to develop her mind. But we're not the only ones infusing her with knowledge...

The other day my daughter said "go away" to my wife and me. The hair on the back of my neck stood up straight because my child is the most polite miniature human you will ever meet (no thanks to me: all praise to the female parental unit). So to hear her use such an abrupt and abrasive phrase came as a shock to me and I immediately began to try to figure who is teaching my child to be rude when we (read: my wife) try so hard to raise a courteous girl. And then it dawned on me. It could be anyone: the kids at the play center, tv, or adults who don't realize that she's listening. With that I realized JUST how hard making sure you raise your child correctly really is! Trust me; I had no delusions as to how hard that is but that moment crystalized it for me.

So what do you do? You can't/shouldn't put your kids in a bubble. The answer is that we have to be extra vigilant with our infusion of our values and information because before you can say "pardon me", your kid's 'please' and 'thank you's will be replaced with 'go away' and a constant stream of phrases that make you cringe...if you don't stem the tide. And that the real job of parents; not isolation, replacement. At least I think so.

These are my thoughts...what are yours?

Wednesday Wonderings: What's going on under Hayden's hat? #4

It's Wednesday and the middle of the week makes me think about the interesting questions in my world. Here is the question bouncing around under this week's hat. Feel free to comment on the question (or the hat, the hat for that matter). I may even give away something for the comment that makes me laugh (or think) the most. Have fun with it!

When is the MTA going to realize that everyone's ass is not the same size and get rid of the trains with molded seats? It isn't fair to the 400 pound man who has to sit on one and a half of them or to the 90 pound woman he just sat on. 

 

These are my thoughts...what are yours?