The Times, They Are a Changin'

I had a sobering conversation tonight on my way home from the bars (appropriate, I guess based on the beers I consumed). I was sharing a cab with Christie, something I've done dozens of times before since we live about 6 blocks apart, when we got to talking about all the changes around us. As mentioned in previous posts, I've been introduced and had to say goodbye to a host of friends from my Birthright trip, said goodbye to a best friend who moved 3,000 miles away, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Earlier in the evening, I was thinking about what I was going to do tonight. I spent last night at the gym and on my couch watching Taken 2 (don't waste your time, it sucked) so I felt I owed it to myself to be social and go out tonight. I sent out a series of texts to a variety of friends seeing if they were available tonight when I realized 2 things: my list of key contacts isn't nearly as plentiful as it used to be, and the quality of my contacts from a social perspective have declined as well. Basically, many of my friends have moved away and the ones who are left are heavily invested in relationships with their boyfriends/girlfriends/fiancées/spouses. I have friends who are ready to be married and others who are beginning to consider having children. I'm beyond excited for all of them, but a small part of me keeps thinking, what happened to the life I used to know?

Over the past few months, I decided to become a part of the change, and not sit idly by as change occurs all around me. That is why I'll be moving to New York City this summer to pursue my life goals. It's going to be a huge adjustment, one that I've probably been underestimating up until this weekend, but one I know to be right for me. My life in Philly just isn't what it used to be, and I need to do something about it. In New York, I can keep my current job while still pursuing my personal goals as well.

Luckily, Christie texted me tonight and a group of us got together, but if she hadn't, it would have been another lonely night on the couch. I've been extremely lucky over the past 5 years to have a stable and phenomenal group of friends in this city to carry me through good times and bad. Now, the band is breaking up. While I'm extremely excited for the future, I also know how great the past few years have been as well. The bonds we've made will last long into the future, they just wont be renewed as frequently as we're accustomed to. I can live with that, but it's always tough to go through periods of change like this.

Here's to looking forward to the future, while always remembering the comfort of the past, and the excitement of the present.

Kaps

Song of the Day: Calvin Harris - Drinking from the Bottle

Shit People Say in Colorado

During my 5 days in Colorado, I heard some interesting quotes - things you would never hear on the East Coast. Here's a sampling of a few. Enjoy!

"I love that brewery! They are 100% sustainable and even collect all of the methane to power their plant!" No mention of how good their beer is.

"We'll you can't buy pot here yet without a prescription, but we're really hopeful that by January of 2014 it will be legal for everyone." Maybe 2024 back east?

"My regular cabbie drives a Prius." I'm just thankful if the cab driver accepts my credit card in Philly.

"Hi. How are you doing today?" They actually mean it here.

Kaps

Song of the Day: Bassnectar - Vava Voom

Back to Where It All Started

For those of you who don't know, this blog was born in Boulder, Colorado at my cousins house - the same house I'm sitting in right now.  When this blog was born, I was 22 years old, 2 weeks away from starting my career, and had no idea what direction my life would take.  Fast forward almost 4.5 years, and I'm back in the same place, writing in the same blog.  Some things have remained the same, and some things have drastically changed.  The question I want to examine is: have I changed and to what extent?

Let's start with the obvious.  When I started this blog in 2008, I had a (nearly) full head of hair and now I have none.  I'll place a checkmark in the positive column for that one.  Other than that, I look about the same, maybe a little older from 4.5 years of a stressful occupation, but overall, pretty close to the same.  But the physical isn't what I'm concerned with, it's the mental that means the most.

When I first posed the questions to myself, I was worried.  Have I really changed that much?  Am I no longer true to the person I was when I was 22 years old?  Am I "corporate?"  After thinking about it for a while, I believe I have remained true to my values and myself, I just have a different perspective after spending 5 years in the real world.  I still care most deeply about my family and friends.  I still work my ass off no matter what the task.  I still follow the lessons that my grandparents taught me, even though 3 of them have passed away. And I still believe in true love.  What has changed is the knowledge and experience I am armed with to make important decisions and guide my life.  When I was 22 years old, all I wanted to do was start start my own business.  I wanted to be "free" of the corporate world.  Looking back, I had no idea what the corporate world even meant.  I am lucky enough to have a job that allows me the flexibility to do what I want to do when I want to do it (most of the time).  I work with phenomenal people, and I've realized the people, more than the work, more than the pay, more than anything else, make or break a job.

I re-read my first blog post this morning, and I remembered exactly what I felt when I wrote it - I was nervous, angry, excited, and anxious all rolled into one.  I didn't go into the "real world" with a positive attitude, and it impacted the first year of my career in a not so positive way.  I've made great strides at overcoming my "quarterlife crisis," so much so that I changed the name of the blog when I re-booted last month.  I still have a long way to go, a lifetime full of lessons to learn, but I do so now with an open mind.  I'm still anxious and excited, but the nervousness and anger have dissipated and paved the way for more excitement and anticipation at what the future holds. 

My favorite song, "All My Friends" has a line which I think about on a near daily basis: "You forget what you meant when you read what you said."  Nearly 4.5 years later, I still have not forgotten what I meant when I wrote in my blog on that first day.  It's still a part of me to this day, and I carry it with me always.  When I look back in another 4.5 years or even 45 years, I hope the answer is still the same.

For your reading pleasure, the inaugural blog post from August, 28, 2008 has been re-posted below.  Enjoy! http://jkapsworld.blogspot.com/2008/08/inaugural-blog-post.html

Kaps

Song of the Day: Eminem - The Real Slim Shady (it's been in my head for 3 days straight - no idea why)

Colorado - The Perfect Place

Have you ever been somewhere before and known it was the exact right place for you to be at that time? That's how I felt yesterday.

I flew out to Denver for work on Tuesday night and spent a couple of busy days in the field. It's been a nice change of pace for me, and the coming months should offer me an opportunity to travel a few times per month, but nothing even close to as much as I was in 2011. Gotta love those ebbs and flows! Yesterday, I spent the first half of the day in the field before driving from the suburbs south of Denver to Boulder, which is about a 1 hour drive. It was 55 degrees, the skies could not be any bluer, and the mountains were majestic. When do you get the opportunity to drive with the windows down in the middle of January and look at snow covered mountains? It also helps that my rental this week was a bright red Dodge Charger, which is really fun to drive.

After taking in one of the shortest 1 hour drives of my life, I caught up with my cousins for a bit before getting a massage. The woman who gives me my massages out here is trained in cranial techniques. She can transport you to another dimension she's so good at what she does. When you get off the table, you feel kind of like Peter Gibbons did after his hypnotherapy session in Office Space. Always one of the highlights of a trip to Boulder.

After I got back to my cousins, I shut off my phone and went to dinner at Avery, which is a microbrewery here in Boulder. For those of you who don't know, Colorado is by far the best microbrew area in the country. There are dozens of microbrews out here, each one better then the last. If you're looking for a solid brewery, my favorite is Left Hand. They're getting big in Philly now and you can get their beers pretty much anywhere that sells six-packs. I recommend the Left Hand Nitro Milk Stout. They patented a new process where they can get a beer on Nitro in a bottle. Pretty amazing stuff. Back to dinner - I sampled about 6 different stouts (one of the reasons I love winter) and enjoyed the time with my cousins who I only get to see 2-3 times per year.

When we returned, my cousin played the piano for about 45 minutes (he's incredible), while I took some time to read (phone still off). I can't begin to tell you how liberating it is to disconnect from the world for a few hours every week. It changes my entire perspective and allows me to reset, especially after a long week. The perfect mental respite that I need.

Today I'll be hitting the slopes for a full day of skiing. In the words of the not so immortal Bart Scott, "Can't Wait!"

Kaps

Song of the Day: Lumineers - Ho Hey

Goodbye - Part 2

Goodbye. It's just one of those words. It can elicit sadness, relief, and even denial depending on the circumstance. I've been saying a lot of goodbyes lately, and I use their frequency as a barometer to measure the change taking place in my life. My latest goodbye was to one of my best friends who is moving to LA to pursue his dreams. I've known and been friends with Heath since I was 6 years old. He was in my first grade class. I slept over his house almost every weekend when I was a kid. We went to every Hebrew School class together, no matter how much we hated it. Outside of my family, I've known him longer than any other person on this planet. We went to dinner Friday night, just the 2 of us, and talked about life for a few hours. Both of our lives are drastically changing, and it was refreshing to share a deep conversation with him, especially when these conversations seem to come up less and less frequently due to life's ever growing demands.

If I were to run down a list of some of my best friends in this world, I would tell you they live in Philly, NYC, Chicago, LA, Pittsburgh, DC, Kansas City, and State College. At one point or another, I lived with or near all of them, which means at one point or another, I've had to say goodbye. It's tough knowing things will never be the same. We become accustomed to our lives and get comfortable. No matter how much it doesn't make sense, we tend to think things will remain the same - until they don't. Yet we move on, we persevere, and we become accustomed to a new normal that hopefully fulfills and enriches our lives.

I think back to the next to last scene in The Sandlot (yes, the baseball movie from 1993 which is one of my childhood favorites). Adult Scotty is recounting all of the kids on the team and how gradually they all moved away from their small town. When they moved away, the Sandlot was still there - the indelible legacy they all left behind. It's not so different when the people who we care most about move out of or take a diminished role in our lives. We take a small part of them, sometimes without even realizing it, and that becomes part of our own personality. When you surround yourself with incredible people, you tend to get great results, and I've been blessed to have some amazing friends over the course of my life. I've had to say goodbye to most of them, but they're all still a huge part of me, no matter the distance, and a major reason I am who I am today.

When I think back on my relationship with Heath, I keep coming back to an old picture of us. We were in 3rd grade and it was the night of our winter concert - one of those events the school makes up so parents can be proud of their kids for something they genuinely have no talent in (singing). The theme that year was Grease, and Heath and I were dressed up in tucked in t-shirts and jeans with our hair slicked back. I look back on that picture and think about everything that has happened since then, literally a lifetime of memories together, and I realize how lucky I am. Not many people have 1 friend like Heath, I have many. So while it may be goodbye for now, no distance can shatter a 20 year bond formed through a lifetime of shared memories.

Kaps

Song of the Day: Brand New - Jesus Christ

My First Shabbat

As I sit at the top of the Art Museum steps, wrapping up my first "Shabbat," I wanted to reflect and get my thoughts down before returning home to watch football and get some work done. 

This is more rewarding and soul-cleansing than I thought. I turned off both of my phones (especially the Blackberry), downloaded a book that was recommended during my trip, got lost in a half-asleep state for some amount of time, grabbed some lunch, wrote in my blog, and went for walk. By disconnecting from the outside world, I feel liberated. Everything feels different today. There is no stress, no worries, and no bullshit that the normal week brings. If day one is any indication, I'm going to continue this trend for a while.

I know that the traditional Sabbath takes place from Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown, but that doesn't really work for me. If I learned anything on my trip, it's that for this transformation to be successful, I need to do things my way. So I will continue to work this into my schedule where convenient for now, and that simply keeping it as a part of my routine should help by leaps and bounds.

I've never been one to pay much attention to "signs," and I usually chalk things up to coincidence, but I've seen way too many "coincidences" lately that I'm starting to at least question my thinking. As I mentioned at the start of this entry, I'm sitting at the top of the Art Museum steps. If you've been up here, you know you can see the entire Philly skyline from this vantage point. However, today is a particularly foggy day, and it's difficult to see the tops of many buildings. My client happens to be located in the tallest building in the city, and on most days, you can see it from anywhere in Philly. Not today. Based on the fog and the height of the building directly in front of it, you cannot see the building at all. Part of the beauty of Shabbat is that you don't think about work, don't talk about work, and don't do work. I'm sure it's not a stretch to extend that to not seeing work either. On my first Shabbat, in a place where you can almost always see work, I can't see work. It seems like this was meant to be. Maybe I'm just learning where to look.

Kaps

Song of the Day: Bill Conti - Gonna Fly Now

Obstacles

Coming off my trip, I knew this post was going to be a critical one.  Why?  This is the first post I've written since I re-entered the real world (AKA returned to work).  I mentioned to one of my friends on Sunday night that I was really nervous about this week, because I was afraid of what work would do to my resolve and all the positive gains I had made during my trip.  Work is going to be the single biggest obstacle to me becoming the person I want to be after this trip.

Now let's be honest - most days I really do love my job.  I work with some absolutely incredible people who teach me and challenge me everyday.  I love my co-workers and wouldn't trade them for the world.  However, this job, especially at this particular client, can be extremely taxing. Every demand is a fire drill and we operate in an environment that is constantly changing and uncertain.  Take those factors and combine them with the long hours and trying to live up to my recent promotion and you have the recipe for high-stress.  Stress leads to bad habits and bad decisions.  Stress can totally throw this whole thing out of whack.

The week started off innocently enough, but as the week progressed, things really got busy and hectic.  When 5:00PM rolled aroundtonight, I was ready for a drink…a really stiff one.  Compare this week to last week, and you have a 180 degree difference, and not in a good way.  There will be many more weeks like this to come and I owe it to myself to ensure I don't lose everything I gained during my trip.  So as I sit here (still at work), I ask myself one question - now that it's over, how do I feel?

Surprisingly, pretty damn good.  I got beat down today (I get at least one of these every week), but I'm still smiling and really looking forward to the weekend.  The texts from my friends have helped.  As I think about the weekend and escaping this mad reality for a little while, the stress seems to be melting away almost instantly.  One of my team members (probably the guy who is most honest and most critical of me) told me he's hopeful I can make the leap, but he's skeptical.  I don't blame him.  Sometimes, I doubt myself.  The difference between today and prior to the trip is that I would take the stress home with me.  I don't feel the need to do that anymore.  Work is work and I need to make sure it doesn't take over my life.  I'm determined not to let it.  It's only week 1, but they say it only takes 21 days to develop a habit - both good and bad.  So the way I see it, I'm 2 weeks away from being much better at managing my stress level and my priorities.

More to come later this weekend.  Shabbat Shalom everyone.

Kaps

Song of the Day: Radiohead - Everything in its Right Place