Success In My Eyes

Success is defined by many as how wealthy someone may be, their job title, or how big of a house they own. Miriam Webster Dictionary defines success as, "achieving wealth, respect, or fame." This definition is old and phased out. The 'New Success' is confidence in what you're doing. A drive and passion to reach your goals that's so strong that nobody can get in your way of it. Success is being satisfied with where you are in life, and the things you've accomplished and achieved. Success is looking back over an experience or a lifetime, and having no regrets. This 'New Success' isn't defined by money, or your material items. I will know I've reached success, when some of my long term goals are met. Goals such as getting married, starting a family, and providing for them. If I can look back over my family, and see that I was able to raise and provide for them, then I will consider myself successful. I don't need a ton of money or a ton of stuff to be happy, all I need is to have people around me who I love, and who love me.

Goals

Everyone has some sort of life goals, or dreams that they want to achieve before they're a certain age, or before a certain time. This past week, our class completed a Goal Setting Workbook, which gave us to ability to plan out our own goals in an organized fashion. This packet was very long, and at times felt a bit repetitive, but at the same time it made me really think about the things I wanted to do by the end of this year, and by the end of three, five, and ten years. One thing that I found that keeps me from reaching my goals, is not having enough time, or allocating too much time to certain goals over others. Some of my goals in the near future are to graduate from high school in June and have a summer filled with memories with all of my friends before we leave for college. A few of my 1-5 year goals are to study abroad in college to experience different cultures, and explore my industry in other countries. Another goal is to graduate from college, and enroll in a Hotel Management training program. And long term, one of my goals and dreams is to travel to Thailand and work at a hotel or resort over there. These are just a few of my goals for the next ten years. 

Handfuls of Kindness

 

It's that time of year again bloggers....HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted" 

~Anonymous

I dig this quote, because around this time of the year, a lot of giving goes on, and kindness is something that should be gifted to everyone, no matter the season!

Being on a high school campus, i'm surrounded by a lot of people struggling to find out who they want to be, what they want to do, or where they want to go. This stress can build up, and spiral into a lot of things such as negativity or depression. As an iQuest class, we could do nothing but attempt to help solve this issue.

My class was recently tasked with one simple job, to exercise gratitude around our school in some form. Keeping in mind all the stress that us high schoolers are going through at this point in our lives, my team of friends Nicole, Rylie, and I set out on a mission. We wanted to create random acts of kindness, and deliver them throughout our campus. So we created little hands of encouragement. We did this by writing some of our favorite motivational quotes on paper hands that we had cut out, and we delivered them to random students and staff across campus. It was pure joy when we would hand someone one of our hands of encouragement and say, "Here, this is for you!" And then we'd see their reaction of surprise, or just happiness.
I hope that this year as a class, we can find more ways to bring encouragement and spread kindness among Cal High.
It's not that difficult to brighten someone's day, and no act of kindness is too small.

~LH
 

 Bucket List

Luke's list of must do's before I die:

• Go to Thailand
• Hike the John Muir Trail
• Learn to ski well
• Give the perfect gift
• Find the perfect guacamole
• Travel to Japan with my dad
• Run a half marathon in under two hours
• Meet Taylor Swift
• Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower
• Travel to the Sydney Opera House
• Learn Italian
• Learn how to do archery
• Do a triathlon
• Go scuba diving
• See they pyramids of Giza
• Surprise someone
• Be on a game show
• Be an extra in a film
• Shower in a waterfall
• Learn to ballroom dance
• Spend New Year's Eve in Times Square
• Remodel my own home
• Get a tattoo
• Go on a Safari
• Do Zumba
• Go to all 50 US states
• Live in a house with a huge tree in the front with a tire swing
• Be on the news
• Build a tree house
• Hike the Grand Canyon
• Visit the set of Friends
• Attend my twenty year high school reunion
• Attend my twenty year college reunion
• Have something names after me
• Memorize a book of the bible
• See a tucan in person
• Pet a panda
• Be in a flashmob
• Get hypnotized
• Drive a Classic VW Van
• Take my mom to the Ellen Show
• Collect a postcard from every continent
• Fly in a helicopter
• Go to an Indian wedding
• Learn to ice skate
• Host Thanksgiving dinner for my entire family
• Live by the ocean
• Go ice blocking
• Have a meal with Paula Dean
• Get married to my true love
• Walk my daughter down the aisle

 

The Alchemist

It's been too long, faithful followers!    

    Over the past few months, I have been diving into the book "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho. This book is a compelling story of a young shepherd boy named Santiago, who desires to fulfill his destiny and wander the desert in search of a treasure buried aside the Pyramids. Along his way he meets a lot of various trials and also rewards. One of his encounters included an alchemist who was on his way to the pyramids as well. When Santiago told the alchemist of his destiny to find treasure beside the pyramids, the alchemist was entrigued and urges Santiago that he must fulfill this task. At one point along their journey, they are stopped by a group of robbers who threaten to take all of their money. While held captive, the alchemist exclaimed that within three days, Santiago would become one with the wind and display his importance and power. Sure enough, three days passed and a sandstorm engulfed the desert and surrounded Santiago, lifting him and the alchemist up out of captivity, and back on their way. 

   Once they reached the pyramids, Santiago began digging, searching for his treasure, only to be hit with a vision of an d dream he used to have, of sitting beneath an aged Sycamore tree aside a church in Spain. He then travels to Spain, to where his vision led him, and to his pleasure he found his treasure of heels and gold, buried beneath the Sycamore tree. 

    This book was so entriguing to me, becuase it tells the story of someone who had such a clear, set vision of something that lay ahead of him. A clear destiny that he wanted to achieve. And through some bumps in the road, he reaches his "ideal picture" only to find that it truly wasn't what he was looking for. And his path changed to a different goal. This is just like in life, where we may think we know exactly what we want, or what's best for us. But in the end, our "ideal" may not be our destiny, and sometimes plans change for the better! 

    I really enjoyed this book, and I hope I have time sometime to read it again, to catch all the details, including some that I may have skipped over. 

                             ~LH

    

A Lollipop Moment

This week I watched various Ted talks on the Internet, in search of one that had some material that I was passionate about. I stumbled upon a Ted talk by a man named Drew Dudley from Toronto. Drew spends about six minutes talking about the importance of leadership in our lives today. He speaks of something called Lollipop Moments, where we may do something, or perform an action that we didn't realize would positively affect someone in the long run. They're the little things that we do to brighten people's days, whether it's smiling at them on the street, opening a door for a stranger, or just greeting someone passing by, all of these are examples of lollipop moments. In Drew's Ted talk, he goes in depth talking about his favorite lollipop moment on his college campus. 

Drew also raises many compelling arguments as to what leadership truly is. On of my favorite things he said was, "As long as we make leadership something bigger than us, as long as we make leadership something beyond us, as long as we make it about changing the world, we give ourselves an excuse not to respect it everyday for ourselves and for each other." Drew talks on, and eventually argues that leadership qualities aren't just reserved for the extraordinary, everyone has some inside of them. These leadership qualities can be brought out and used in your work places, schools, and homes. 

https://www.ted.com/talks/drew_dudley_everyday_leadership

-LH

The Long Awaited Update

It's been a while since my last post, and it's about time for an internship update! I have spent the last two and a half months at ID/Architecture, an interior design and architecture firm, about fifteen minutes away from my house. I spend about five hours a week, doing various different things, from organizing the sample library filled with hundreds of samples, returning color swatches, helping create project boards, going on project site visits, and helping out wherever I can. 
 Some of my favorite experiences to date have been accompanying our designers on job site visits. On these trips, I have gotten to tour spaces that are potential projects for us, buildings in construction, and completed spaces. I have learned that a lot more goes into designing a space, than your initial design on paper or on a screen. There are a lot of logistics that need to be seen in person, in order to understand the space you are in. The design process before beginning construction on a site can be very tedious and time consuming. The first layout you make, most likely won't be the final design plan executed, many drafts are made and proposed to the tenant owners before construction begins. Even thought I don't work on design plans myself, I see that it can sometimes be a challenging task. 
Another job that I enjoy helping out on, is creating project design boards, that we present to clients. Our boards consist of a picture of the project design, and samples of all the materials we plan to use in the project such as paint, tile, and wall bases. I find it really enjoyable to match different colors and materials that fit the design plan best. This is definitely something that I hope to help out with more in the future. 
Some of the less enjoyable projects I have been tasked with have been stuffing folders and returning color swatches. But even in tedious jobs like those, I enjoy, because as an intern i'm glad to help out in any way that I can. Contributing to that, the people and the work environment of the office, make everything I work on enjoyable, because all of the employees and designers are so kind, and love sparking conversation.  
I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of the year brings, and all of the various experiences that I will encounter!

"Design is not what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."

-LH