The Trapeze Artist and The Commissions Analyst

"I like it here," said the Trapeze Artist.

"You do know you're an uninvited guest," I reply.

"Uninvited guest, my foot.  Or should I say my leg - short of hanging out a "Space to Let" sign, your house was screaming 'WELCOME'.  At least, it was to me."

"Oh, Well!" I reply.

"Oh Well, what?" says the Trapeze Artist.

"Let me guess...as long as you stay out of my way?  I can't promise you that.  After all, I am a Trapeze Artist. An entertainer.  Let me show you some of my acrobatic feats.  

He continues...

"Now I glide.  Now I soar.  Now I climb.  Now I drop.

I am surprised you aren't applauding.  Let's see you do something like that. Acrobatics with Microsoft Excel, Centive and Xactly Incent do not count."

 He continues... 

Photo Courtesy: Tanita Jha

"I can totally tell your Disneyland type.  It's Fantasyland all the way. It's a Small World.  Mr Toad's Wild Ride.  Peter Pan's Flight.  Am I wrong?"

"That's amazing - how could you tell?", I stammer.

"It's my hobby, you know. I do personality assessments on the side.  I've developed a unique indicator called the Disneyland type indicator. It's much more helpful than Myers-Briggs or any other Jungian indicator.

It tells you where you are. And where you want to go.  What could be better?"

"I went on The Haunted Mansion ride  last summer," I say in an attempt to recover some self-respect.

"Good for you. Together, we'll make a FrontierLand person out of you. Can't say I can do that for your teenage daughter, though.  She shrieks every time she sees me.  What's with that?"

"My daughter's actually braver than me when it comes to rides," I reply. "But you are right, she's terrified of you.  So are most people.  In fact, I think the majority of  folks would be surprised that I am cohabiting with you."

"Oh, those Martha Stewart types," he says, "Witches with Brooms is what I call them. The reason I am so comfortable here is that you are not one of those types."

And I know that on the face of it, that appears to be an insult.  But you are great just the way you are." 

I try to get in a word edgeways, but he won't let me...

"Mind you, I say this not because I want to continue to live in your house.

But so you can set an example for others to realize we are all creatures of this beautiful planet called earth and are designed to share the same spaces.

Mercifully, he gets tired... 

"I probably need to rest a while.  I have restless leg syndrome.  And that's not an easy thing to have with my busy legs and all."

He has a few final words... 

"But before you go back to that Xactly Incent implementation or whatever else that was soooo important that you were doing, I want to leave you with this parting thought.  Do you know that the building you are living in will probably not be around 100 years from now?  There are very few buildings that will still be standing a century later - no matter how dear they are to anyone.

So if you want to leave a meaningful legacy, what is one of the best things you can do, tell me?"

"What?" I ask, expectantly.

"Plant a tree.  Any tree.  A shade tree. An oak tree. A walnut tree. A maple tree. A lemon tree. An olive tree. Any tree. Leave a legacy that will benefit future generations for years and years to come."

And with that, my conversation with the eight legged arachnid commonly known as the house spider whom I live with (shhh....don't tell him I called him that - he thinks he is a Trapeze Artist) ends.

P.S. This post was inspired by Raphael Cushnir's book "Setting Your Heart on Fire". In the chapter titled Reframe the Mundane,  Cushnir suggests what to do should one spy a stray spider web while housecleaning.  He says rather than regarding it as a nuisance, we might use the moment to think about what it's like to be a spider --"spending most of your time suspended in mid-air, gliding from place to place on a self-made trapeze."   Cushnir's charming trapeze analogy sparked this post.

Thank you Cushnir.  I hope others will read your book and get inspired.

After they plant a tree for posterity, that is!

How I Lost A Thousand Dollars On Donuts!

There comes a time in every novice investor's life when he or she thinks they've found the Holy Grail.

The Holy Grail is an investment theory or investment method that seems devilishly clever and original to the novice investor.

One which gets them as excited as an archaeologist unearthing the tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen.

And which they just can't wait to hang their hat on.

This investment 'find' could be any of a number of ideas.

From the Dogs of the Dow Theory  authored by Michael O'Higgins.

To the Elliott Wave Theory popularized by Robert Prechter.

From Joel Blatt's Magic Formula.

To the Price to Sales Ratio  which made Ken Fisher's 1984 book Super Stocks a best-seller.

The novice investor will suddenly come upon one of these ideas and allow it to agitate the gray cells for a while.

Then there's Warren Buffett.

For the novice investor, discovering Warren Buffett is something else altogether.

After all, he is one of the richest men in America.

And he is also recognized as one of the greatest investors of all time.

So no surprise that investors, novice and professional alike, become instant Warren Buffett groupies - hanging on to his every word, worshiping at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual General Meeting in Omaha, and dreaming of being a future Buffett.

This is where my sorry tale begins.

The Buffett Make-over

I was just as susceptible to the Buffett investing charisma as anyone else.

And after finding Buffett, I set out to remake myself in his image.

This meant reading books such as The New Buffettology.  And The Warren Buffett Way.

And then getting down to business by applying essential Buffett principles.

Bottom-fishing was particularly appealing.

It allowed me to consider dog-house stocks such as Revlon, Rite Aid and Six Flags, which were all under $2 a share, maybe even under $1.

But not content with that, I searched for what I thought would be the quintessential Buffett pick -  an out-of-favor and under-valued stock, the one that Mr. Market was idiotically shunning.

Enter Krispy Kreme Donuts.

I have never been much of a donuts fan.

But at the time, I discovered Krispy Kreme, I had become a heat-seeking Buffett missile in search of a target.

And Krispy Kreme Donuts (Ticker KKD) appeared to be the answer to my prayers.

Firstly, their cream and jelly filled donuts had become the new "delish" in donuts.

People were shunning their corner donut stores and trekking to Krispy Kreme stores instead.

Just Like Starbucks

In fact, they were even willing to stand in long lines to get their Krispy Kreme donuts.

Much as they do for Starbucks Frappuchinos and Lattes today.

And just like Starbucks, Krispy Kreme donuts were pricey.

All this had a distinctly Buffetesque aroma to me.

Reading Motley Fool articles like this one sealed the deal for me.

So when Krispy Kreme stock, which had stratospherically climbed to $40 a share, dropped overnight by 50% to $20 a share on a car-wreck of a quarter, I decided to lock in.  And bought 100 shares.

There - I had bottom-fished.  Just like my hero Warren Buffett. I couldn't have been more pleased with myself.

Or so I thought.

Fasten Your Seat-Belts

I was to find out (the painful way) that Krispy Kreme's 50% decline was just the beginning of  its Drop-Zone like descent.

By the same time the next year, the stock had declined to $10 a share.

Giving my investment a 50% haircut.

$1,000 gone.  Just like that.

Chastened and humbled, I took the loss and got out.

The Flight of The Bumblebee

I read somewhere that according to the Laws of Aerodynamics, a bumblebee should not be able to fly.

The bumblebee of course does not know this, so it flies anyway.

In much the same way, novice stock-pickers do not know that they don't know how to pick stocks.

So they pick stocks anyway.

Sometimes the picks pan out, sometimes they fall with a thud.

When that happens, some investors will never be able to psychologically recover from their mistakes and losses.

Others, phoenix-like, will rise from the ashes.

I am of the second kind.  I was able to take my medicine and move on.

Are there rewards for naivety in investing?

Actually I was able to make lemonade out of this investing lemon.

I took my Krispy Kreme misadventure and turned it into a speech.

Photo Courtesy: Tanita Jha

Which I entered in a Toastmasters International Speech contest at Adlibmasters Club in San Jose.

I won first place.

And took home a trophy.

Yes the mysterious Oscar looking thing you see at right is my Toastmasters International Speech trophy.

Now if only there had been some bling to go with that thing.

You know - Like maybe a 1000 dollars?

Oh Well...

If You Are Ever Stuck With a Lemon, See If You Can Make Some Lemonade Out of It :)

May You Invest Well in 2011 and Thrive!

Postscript:  One of the best decisions I made in my life was to join Toastmasters and complete my CTM.  Toastmasters helped me overcome the near fainting spells I would have when I had to get up and speak in front of even the smallest group of people. It's because of my Toastmasters experience that I picked up the courage to design and deliver a 3-Unit Money Workshop for 5th and 6th graders at a nearby elementary school. If you have a fear of public speaking, I highly recommend Toastmasters.  Want to know more about Toastmasters? You can read about it here. Want to know more about Adlibmasters, which is the Toastmasters club that I joined? You can read about that here.

Raising 'The Bar'

 Take a banana and smush it.

Add a 1/4 of a cup of peanut butter.

Add 1 cup of unsweetened granola.

Then on wax paper, form your smushed banana-peanut butter-granola mix into cigar shaped bars.

Freeze for 90 minutes.

Voila - you now have a healthful snack bar to eat whenever those inconvenient hunger pangs arise.

Whose DIY Bar?

Now let's see if you know whose favorite snack bar recipe this is?

You do - good for you!

You're clearly a fitness buff.

Anyone who is aware of Tony Horton and has tried (or is planning to try) his P90X workout qualifies as a fitness buff in my book.

After all, Tony Horton is the Jack LaLanne of today and his P90X workout is the Number 1 home fitness program in Ameria.

What's the big deal with P90X?

It's targeted at making sure you don't plateau in your exercise efforts. 

'Muscle Confusion' is the science behind P90X

It really is quite simple.

It's about mixing it up.

Varying your exercise routine.

And varying the intensity.

The idea is to keep your muscles continuously surprised and challenged, so they have to adapt and grow.

You can find out more about P90X by visiting Beach Body.com. 

Get Off That Booty

I know you think you are a lost cause.

And there's probably an exercise cycle or treadmill in your home just taking up space or gathering dust.

That's okay.

How about making a fresh start?

To begin with, just spend a little time every day  "reading" about fitness.

Eye exercise.  That's all I'm asking.

Sooner or later, I believe reading about fitness will work on your sub-conscious to give you the surge of motivation and determination you need.

Not very different from the way my meditations work for me.

Isn't it worth a try?

After all, tell me -  Flat-screen TV or Flat Tummy.....which will do more for your self-esteem?

Yoga Mat or Latest I Pad - which will do more for your quality of life?

I think we both know the answer.

For more inspiration,  you should also check out The Institute for Healthy Lifestyle Habits at http://www.hlhinstitute.com/.

May You Live Well and Thrive.

P.S.  Want to Make Your Own Granola?  You can find a great recipe from Raleys right here.

Letters to Lucas

On April 25, 2008, my neighbor Cindy's first (and only) grandchild Lucas was born.

Lucas was born prematurely and weighed just 1 lb 2 ounces.

As the NICU doctors and nurses worked around the clock to save his life, Cindy remembers holding a 2 lb bag of rice and weeping uncontrollably at the thought Lucas weighed less than that.

It was a trying time but prayer and faith kept her going.

Cindy wrote several letters to Lucas in the first months after his birth.  These letters (edited in the interest of space) capture some of the events of that time as well as Cindy’s thoughts and wishes for Lucas.

Letter 1 - You Are Not Alone

Dear Lucas,

I am tired tonight. It was a long day for me.  I'm sure you know about long days.  You had one just 2 days ago. 

When the eye surgeons had to perform an emergency surgery to save your sight.

I imagine there were many people rushing all around you.

And noise, noise, noise.

But in your mind's eye was the softest, most beautiful face.

And a voice that sounded warm like sweet music.

With it was another face and voice. Tender and strong at the same time.
 
There will come a day when you will put a name to these faces and voices.

‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’.

You will find out you are more precious than life itself to Mom and Dad.

Lucas, there is a voice inside of you too.  And God already knows the sound of that voice.

And what your first words will be.  Life is filled with wondrous things and this is one of them.

I love you sweetheart,

Nana Cindy

Letter 2 - Soon You Will Be Home

Dear Lucas,

Yesterday, your Dad phoned and told me you would soon be coming home from the hospital.

Home is where you belong.

Your bed, your clothes and your toys are waiting for you.

Kisses from Heaven will sprinkle silver and gold.

And your Mom and Dad will catch them for you and plant them on your cheeks, your forehead and your little toes.

You will hear the words "I love you Lucas."  Over and over again.

Until the very sound of those words becomes your own special song.

Love you Sweetheart,

Nana Cindy

Letter 3 - Thoughts About Life And Love

Dear Lucas,

I see pictures of you smiling and laughing.

And gazing with love into your parents' eyes.

You won’t have any conscious memory of this time when you grow older.

I have often thought about this. And pondered over it at length.

(Your Dad will tell you I enjoy pondering about things. I always have.)

"Where do these early childhood impressions go?", I wonder. Deep into the soul?

Or do they drift up to the heart of God for safekeeping?

This is one of the many questions to which we will never know the answer.

Lucas, as you grow, you will understand that life is a series of choices.

When you are young (and not so young), I hope you will make the choice to listen to your parents.

They really do know what they're talking about.

And they would give anything (put their lives before yours) to keep you from hurt and harm.
 
Seek wisdom and learn to truly love others more than yourself.
 
Also, humility is strength, not weakness.  So never stop learning.

Love you always,

Nana Cindy

A special thanks to Cindy for allowing me to publish these letters as a guest post on my blog. I recently attended a Health Seminar organized by Good Samaritan Hospital of San Jose.  One of the break-out sessions of this Seminar was a presentation on neo-natal intensive care:  "How Does a 12 Ounce Baby Survive?"  Dr. Richard Powers,who heads up the 60 bed Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Good Samaritan Hospital gave the presentation.  From this presentation, we learned about the life-saving miracles that happen every day in the Good Sam NICU through the coordinated effort of multiple specialists, technologies and processes.

If you want to know more about Good Sam's NICU, you can read about it here. 

Classic Silicon Valley Recipe

Start with $44M of Palm.

Fold into US Robotics.

Fold into 3Com.

Separate Palm from 3Com.

Separate Palm from Palm Source.

Fold Palm into Handspring.

Fold Palm-Handspring mix into HP (should have risen to 1.2B).

P.S. Results will vary depending on companies.

P.S.  Oh yes, and don’t forget to drain the fat between steps.

Why I can never get a job at Google

I haven't fact checked this.

But one of the pieces of information doing the rounds on the job market is that Google will hire you only if you have a college degree.

It means I can never hope to occupy an 8 x 8 at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California.

Which is where Google is headquartered in the Bay Area. And where they come up with all those crazy algorithms.

But wait.....I may have already occupied an 8 x 8 at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway.

Wasn't Palm, one of my former employers, located at that address at one point of time?

I do believe that when Palm vacated its headquarters at Mountain View to join 3COM at its sprawling and swanky campus on Great America Parkway in Santa Clara (complete with Valet Parking), Google moved in to take its place.

So maybe I can say,  "Hey Google!  Who needs you?  Been there.  Done that."

But on a more serious note, why do I not have those letters at the end of my name that would make me Google-worthy?

This is My Story

Back when was I enrolled in the Undegraduate Bachelor of Arts program at Jyothi Nivas College, Bangalore, I didn't get the memo.

You know - the one about the minimum number of classes you need to attend.

With the result, my attendance was short and I was barred from taking the year-end exam.

I was told I could take it 6 months later.

But since this would put me out of step with my classmates, it had no appeal.

'This going to college business is not working for me, ' I told myself. 'Better to switch to independent study'.

Basically giving myself the license to carry on with my activities and diversions. Just as I pleased.

As to these activities and diversions, some were respectable, some not.

The Truant Student Becomes A Teacher

Overnight, it seemed, India had become a mecca for Middle Eastern students seeking a college education.

These students needed to learn English ASAP.

My college-professor sister started offering them English language lessons.

We (another sister and myself) decided to jump in and start giving these lessons as well.

So when I switched to "independent study", I was tutoring 4 students, and making quite a chunk of change.

House of the Rising Sun

Then there was my guitar.  Where there's a teenager, usually there's not one far off.

Except that this teenager knew all of 6 guitar chords.

With those 6 chords, I would spend all my free time (created from not going to college) singing "The House of the Rising Sun' , Joan Baez's  'Banks of the Ohio', and whatever else comprised Baez' most monotonous songs.

Over and over and over again.

It must have been quite challenging for the neighbors.

One of them came to our door.

"Please,", he pleaded to my parents, "if she must sing, can she mix it up a bit? She's repeating the same songs over and over again."

Move over Beethoven

'House of the Rising Sun', Joan Baez and my 6 guitar chords were a launching pad for me to start composing music.

You have no idea.

While my family delighted in my creative output, the neighbors and anyone who was trapped in our house would find themselves at the receiving end of mind-blowing lyrics like this:

"A Tooter Who Tooted the Flute.
Tried to Tutor to Tooters to Toot
Said the Two to the Tooter
Is it Harder to Toot
Or to Tutor two Tooters to Toot
And she sells sea shells on the sea shore
And the sun shines on the shop signs
And the sun shines on the shop signs
And I'm stuck for more rhymes to go on".

Yes, I actually composed a song, the lyrics of which were entirely composed of Tongue Twisters.

I still know the tune to this little ditty and can sing it for you, sans guitar.

Mercifully, I abandoned the guitar as soon as I was exposed to "real" musicians.

My present neighbors have no idea how lucky they are.

When The Sun Shone At Night

Not going to college released me from peer pressure.  So I was quite the oddball.

For a while, I wore sunshades day and night. Michael Jackson style.

Folks later told me they thought I had started using something.

Actually, I just liked the way I looked in shades.

The most significant thing which happened as a result of doing my bachelors in escapism, masters in goofing around and PhD in musical torture was that I began to write.

I would find an entertaining topic, write up a little sketch and send it off to the local newspaper.

A few pieces got accepted.

One of those pieces caught the eye of someone who worked in an advertising agency.

She knew my sister.

So she called my sister and said "we have a copywriting job for that sister of yours who writes for the newspaper."

The rest is history.

Ogilvy. But Without The Castle in France 

I joined a local agency as a Cub Copywriter.

And never looked back.

That is until...

I emigrated to the US and switched careers. And discovered through reading job description after job description, that just maybe I would have been better off finishing college when I was supposed to.

What prompted me to think about all of this was that James Altucher, a Hedge Fund Manager, author and Stockpickr.com founder, did a controversial interview on Tech Ticker recently - discouraging people from going to college.

In this interview  "Don't Send Your Kids to College - It's a Scam", he talks about why the high costs of college tuition are not worth it.

In a follow up to this (and as a response to the huge amount of backlash he received), he went back on Tech Ticker with "8 Alternatives to College."

As one of those unfortunates without a college education,  I couldn't help getting a warm feeling from these frontal attacks on formal education.

Terrible as it sounds, I do feel vindicated.

Even if the hallowed hallways of 1600 Amphiteatre Parkway will forever be beyond my reach.

You Know What Wesabi is. How About Wabi Sabi?

Create beauty. Value imperfection. Live Deeply.

These words are the sub-title of a book by Richard R Powell.

The book is about a Japanese idea called Wabi Sabi.

What's so special about this idea?

You can think of it as the "original simplicity movement".

700 years old, Japanese monks rejected the pretentiousness of Chinese tea ceremonies with ornate utensils, replacing them with simple tea bowls like this -- in what would come to be known as Wabi tea ceremonies.

From this, Wabi Sabi grew into a world view. A way of life. And an aesthetic.

Powell describes it this way... 

Wabi-Sabi  nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities:  

                                    Nothing Lasts. 

                                    Nothing is Finished. 

                                    Nothing is Perfect. 

The cup gets chipped. The paper yellows. The leaves turn from green to orange to brown and then fall.

A wabibito sees the natural life-force behind all of this and gets in step with it.

Wabi Sabi  then is to appreciate things as they are. 

Here are some of the ways you might put the principles of Wabi Sabi in action in your life....

Let Go Of The Past

When you were in your 20s, you had the body and mind of a 20 year old.  

Now you are older.  You have a different body and mind.  Observe it. Value it. Work with it.

Accept That Nothing Lasts

You were once King of the Hill.  Or Queen of All You Surveyed. 

Now things have changed.  Enjoy your new state. Find beauty in it. Create beauty from it.

Don't Let Your Unachieved Goals Get You Down

You had some goals and ideas. Life interrupted them again and again. So your goals and ideas are ever in an unfinished, incomplete state.

Expect this. It is the Way of Life.

Enjoy the effort.  The movement. The process. 

Observe the dynamism in every day. 

"It is what it is"  as my former boss Judy would say.

Don't Expect Perfection Of Anyone Or Anything

Good, scintillating, wonderful, right, clever. 

This is how you want everything in your life to be.

The outcome of expecting perfection - whether in our job, lifestyle, partner, children, purchases - is frustration.

Don't focus on what is lacking in anything.

Just observe what is.

Become A Student of Life And How It Changes

A wabibito finds materials that age interesting because they exhibit observable changes over time.

Become a wabibito.

Stop fighting to keep everything in life just as it is.

Instead look upon everything that is happening - even the losses and decay - with the eye of a curious and enchanted observer.

It might bring you to the point where, Thoreau-like, you can resonate with the essence of Wabi Sabi as described on the back cover of  "Wabi Sabi - The Art of Everyday Life" by Diane Durston"...

.."tranquil simplicity, rustic elegance, imperfect beauty".

Happy Super Bowl Sunday. Hope it's not too late to suggest you make it a Wabi Sabi day.

Note: Wabi Sabi Simple is just one of the many books that explores Wabi Sabi.  

Here are some others:

Cindy's Corner

My neighbor Cindy has an interesting point of view, a fantastic memory and a terrific way with words.

I asked her to contribute a guest post on the intriguing subject of what being a teenager was like back when she was an American teen in the 70s compared to what it is now.

Here's what Cindy had to say:

Having lived in San Jose since the age of 5, I have seen the city grow until it sprawled out into smaller towns separate unto themselves.  San Jose sits in a basin, surrounded on two of its borders by hillsides leading to small mountain ranges.  The third and fourth stretch to the borders of adjacent towns.  I have seen 4 freeways constructed since I've lived here, as well as a public transportation system beyond imagination in the 1960s.

My story begins a decade later in 1970 which was the year I turned 13.

To me the phrase "teenage experience" begs the question.

Because back then, there wasn't a single universal teenage experience.

As I am sure there isn't today.

Despite this, I will approach this question with a sincere attempt to document the changes that have taken place over the years.

As well as the similarities.

What's Hasn't Changed

One similarity I still observe is the need of a teenager to belong...

To find a group of friends that they feel comfortable and at home with.

To seek out those with the same interests. The same world view or perception of life.  And the same purpose, or lack thereof.

The 4 Paths out of High School

Also then, as now, plans for after high school were already being cemented from that first awkward day of freshman year.

Those who were headed to a four year university would spend much of their time in study.  Concerned about grades, GPAs.  And engaging in service projects.  So they could present themselves as well-rounded college applicants.

Those who wanted to continue education after high school, but had not come away with any "vision" for their future would be advised to attend a junior college and knock out their GED requirements by obtaining an AA degree.

Others would set their sights on a trade school where they could learn the nuts and bolts of a specific profession. Like plumbing or air-conditioning.

And sadly others still would just drop out of the game. As early as the second or third quarters.

All this was as true back then as it is today.

What's different? Who else is wearing the pants for one thing!

In 1970, I was beginning 8th grade and it was the first year the dress code was lifted.

The main impact of this change was that girls were now able to wear pants to school.

We all still wore dresses on the first day of school - just to be sure.

And the idea of pants was so novel, we continued to alternate between the two.

Today, there are dress codes again.

However, these are anti dress-codes -  or anti-affiliation codes if you will.

Clothes that you cannot wear because the symbols on them are anti-social.

And colors such as red or blue that you also cannot wear for the same reason.

As for fashion, the difference in fashion (or lack of thereof) in my generation seems almost humorous in comparison to today.

Clothing in my high school years was fairly eclectic.  Students wore whatever they wanted to school. As long as it was modest.

There was no thought to designer anything.  Unless you were to count The Gap.

Most girls wore their hair long and parted straight down the middle.

Other than trying various products to deep condition my hair, I washed my hair and let it air dry, trimming it myself.

I know today is very different in terms of the "right stores to shop in " and the "right clothing to be inside the bags" when one exits the store.

Not to mention the variety of ways to personalize one's look through piercings, tattoos, hair color and make-up.

High School Campuses Are No Longer Regarded as Safe

This is a really big change.

Today, in addition to parents and teachers, there are off duty policemen patrolling high school campuses.

And despite this, students have died at school.

They've been shot, stabbed or killed on the school grounds itself.

As a high school freshman, if I could have seen 40 years into the future, I would have been shocked that anyone could die on a high school campus.

The world is a much less safer place than when I was growing up.

Besides the pressures, changes and general awkwardness of my transformation from being just a little older than a girl to dancing on the edge of womanhood, I was not aware on a conscious level for sure, that life was fragile.

Technology has changed the way teenagers keep in touch, listen to music, watch videos and more

The most obvious difference in my teenage years and in those of teenagers today are the tremendous advances in technology.

Many of the day-to-day items we used back then did not depend upon battery power or electricity.

We were accustomed to wind-up alarm clocks. Hot water bottles instead of heating pads.  And pre-cordless phones that functioned even if the electricity was out.

Instead of "texting" or instant messaging, we wrote letters.

Instead of the internet, we went to the library.

And if we were with a friend, we planned when we would meet again before parting company. Or agreed to a specific time to call each other.

Technology makes things like that seem quaint.

 But Homecoming and Cheer and Marching Band Still Live On...

Teenagers still attend dances and proms and have a homecoming queen as they did when I went to school.  There are still competitive sports, cheerleaders as well as other young girls, whose role it is to spur their team onto victory.

A competitive marching band remains (I cannot write this without smiling, since that was my niche) and several electives as well.

Naturally, they are geared much more towards technological advancement which is only logical.

In closing, I find that what remains the same for the teenage young person will be the same for the remainder of our stay here on this orb.

I quote Michael W Smith "I am lookin for a reason, tryin to find my place in this world."