Control Our Choices

One chapter in my life has closed and another has begun. College has been the main focus in my life for the last 7 years and now that it is over, things are going to have to change. No more tests, homework, assignments, or grades. (Just kidding... I am now studying for the Series #7 and Series #63 exams because I am going to working for Fidelity Investments.) No more all-nighters or roommates (until I get married and have kids) or random midnight runs for food (unless my sisters are insomniacs too and then Red Arrow Diner, here we come!). Things are just changing and to be honest, I am still trying to find my footing.

People sometimes say that we are our own biggest critics and I agree. I put huge expectations in my life and to be perfectly honest, I can't think of a single one that I actually met. I have definitely put forth my best effort but the not-so-simple-yet-simple answer is that we can't control our own lives or any other person's life for that matter. The only thing we truly can control is our own choices. Bad things happen to good people and karma doesn't always deal out justice in a timely fashion. Life isn't that black and white... good and bad... because honestly, we all are a little grey. What I am trying to say is that for every choice that we make we don't get to pick the consequences for that choice. For instance, I went to graduate school and got a MBA to increase my career opportunities. My expectation was that after graduation I would have better opportunities right out the gate but that was not the case. Don't get me wrong: I am grateful for the opportunity that I do have; it is with a solid company, great benefits, and I am going to learn a lot; but again my "great expectations" need to be accompanied with a great deal of patience. Things will happen eventually but I need to work hard now and my ambitions will be met later. Answers, like I said before, are not that simple.

Waiting for and expecting things to get better doesn't make people happy. It makes them, speaking for myself, over eager. Yes - I need to work hard as I wait for the right opportunity to present itself but I also need to choose to be happy. I need to live in the present and not wait for the future. My old roommate Tim talked to me about this all the time and he was right. Do I know why I am here? For work sure but no, not really. I don't really know why all my other opportunities didn't work out or out of all the parallel paths I could be on, why I am here now. I can think that I control my life but I don't. So instead of wasting time, I need to see what I do have around me and start checking out all of those possibilities. Time to enjoy the ride and make the most of it! This is my attempt of letting go and saying to the world, "Let's go. Bring it on."

The Pixar Way

BPlans is an online small business planning resource. They collected 37 choice quotes from Creativity Inc. that demonstrate how to develop and maintain a creative company, and paired them with images from Pixar's award-winning films and two upcoming features (Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur).

"We believe that ideas only become great when they are challenged and tested."

 

"A hallmark of a healthy creative culture is that its people feel free to share ideas, opinions, and criticisms. Lack of candor, if unchecked, ultimately leads to dysfunctional environments."

 

"Seek out people who are willing to level with you, and when you find them, hold them close."

 

"Mistakes aren't a necessary evil. They aren't evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new."

 

"To be wrong as fast as you can is to sign up for aggressive, rapid learning."

 

"For leaders especially, this strategy - trying to avoid failure by out-thinking it - dooms you to fail."

 

"To be a truly creative company, you must start things that might fail."

 

"There are two parts to any failure: There is the event itself, with all its attendant disappointment, confusion, and shame, and then there is our reaction to it. It is this second part that we control."

 

"A manager's default mode should not be secrecy."

 

"You employees are smart; that's why you hired them. So treat them that way."

 

"Rather than trying to prevent all errors, we should assume, as is almost always the case, that our people's intentions are good and that they want to solve problems."

 

"Our job is to protect our [new ideas] from being judged too quickly. Our job is to protect the new."

 

"Part of our job is to protect the new from people who don't understand that, in order for greatness to emerge, there must be phases of not-so-greatness."

 

"Making something great is the goal."

 

"The system is tilted to favor the incumbent. The challenger needs support to find its footing. And protection of the new - of the future, not the past - must be a conscious effort."

 

"It's folly to think you can avoid change, no matter how much you might want to. But also, to my mind, you shouldn't want to. There is no growth or success without change."

 

"Randomness is not just inevitable; it is part of the beauty of life. Acknowledging it and appreciating it helps us respond constructively when we are surprised."

 

"If we make room for it instead of shunning it, the unknown can bring inspiration and originality."

 

"We must meet unexpected problems with unexpected responses."

 

"Change is inevitable... Working with change is what creativity is about."

 

"If you don't try to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead."

 

"Acknowledging what you can't see... Helps promote flexibility."

 

"The most creative people are willing to work in the shadow of uncertainty."

 

"I believe that we all have the potential to solve problems and express ourselves creatively. What stands in our way are these hidden barriers - the misconceptions and assumptions that impede us without our knowing it."

 

"I believe that you should not be required to justify everything. We must always leave the door open for the unexpected."

 

"The attempt to avoid failure makes failure more likely."

 

"Driving the train doesn't set its course. The real job is laying the track."

 

"In my experience, creative people discover and realize their visions over time and through dedicated, protracted struggle."

 

"Earning trust takes time; there's no shortcut to understanding that we really do rise and fall together."

 

"Easy isn't the goal. Quality is the goal."

"What is the point of hiring smart people if you don't empower them to fix what's broken?"

"There is nothing like a crisis to bring what ails a company to the surface."

"Managers of creative companies must never forget to ask themselves: 'How do we tap the brainpower of our people?'"

"It is precisely by acting on our intentions and staying true to our values that we change the world."

"Real improvement comes from consistent rigor and participation."

"It is management's job to figure out how to help others see conflict as healthy - as a route to balance, which benefits us all in the long run."

"A better measure of our success is to look at the people on our team and see how they are working together. Can they rally to solve key problems? If the answer is yes, you are managing well."

Pixar's Creative Culture

Introduction
One of the biggest buzzwords in today's business world is innovation. We hear how different companies claim to be centers of innovation and are pushing the limits of creativity. From a marketing perspective, it is a great way to sell your company as having a culture that inspires and accepts new ways of thinking. Ed Catmull, CEO of Pixar, is quoted in saying, "Managers scour books and magazines looking for greater understanding but settle instead for adopting a new terminology, thinking that using fresh words will bring them closer to their goals.... To ensure quality, excellence must be an earned word, attributed by others to us, not proclaimed by us about ourselves." Pixar is a recognized leader in creating widely admired and profitable stories that have both inventive plotlines and emotional authenticity. In a case study of Pixar's culture of creativity, we will see how innovation can be obtained through the iterative problem-solving process of highly talented and collaborative teams.

Historical Theories
Over the last few years the debate on whether or not lone inventors are the source of breakthroughs has continued to evolve. The idea generation process goes through three basic phases: variation, selection, and retention. Data suggests that although individuals can't typically recognize the difference between good and bad ideas as well as groups, a group that generates ideas together won't produce as much variety. Hybrid teams that start as individuals and then come together for the last two phases have better average quality of ideas, quantity of ideas, and variance in quality of ideas.

Team dynamics also play a factor with the greater the diversity in a team, the more creative the results. Varied backgrounds of individuals will increase the collective knowledge of the group and allow for connections to be made across divisions of individual expertise. One theory is that ideas and knowledge exist because of the individuals whom make the necessary mental connections. Resulting from this hypothesis, the importance of individual talent is key to an organization's success. One study suggested that approximately 5% of all the employees in an organization create more than 50% of all the new ideas for a firm. In fact, who is leaving or joining the firm determines the culture which attracts, selects, and causes other people to remain in the firm. The research indicates that talent is the most important asset or resource a firm can acquire and cultivate.

Pixar's Growth
Pixar is a great example of a company that was able to have a core group of individuals establish a longstanding culture of creativity and innovation. Pixar was the realization of a dream of those few key members of being able to create impactful high-quality computer-animated films. Growth did not come without a few bumps along the way but mistakes were embraced and lessons were learned.

One of the key lessons regarding company culture is that job titles and a sense of hierarchy is counter to creativity. These labels in a company are important and necessary but when it comes to creativity and innovation, unhindered communication is essential and it is important that as the company grows that everyone is able to share their personal insights with candor. If individuals are afraid of providing negative feedback to a person in a position of authority then the hierarchy inhibited the process.

Another insight that Pixar observed in other companies were environments that hindered originality. Fully worked out and set-in-stone plans increased the chance of being unoriginal. No one ever achieved creative success by clinging to what used to work or following what others had done in the past. Companies have to embrace risk and randomness and reject fears of constant uncertainty and change. As Pixar grew, it worked to balance two competing concepts they named "Feeding the Beast" and "Ugly Babies." The first concept was one where success leads to a demand for more success and a need for increased output. These demands and needs continue to grow to the point that we are just trying to keep up with the appetite of creation and as a result, quality lessens across the board. "Ugly Babies" describes how new ideas may be ungainly and poorly defined but are the opposite of established and entrenched ideas. This type of new idea is exciting and needs time to cultivate and rework until it becomes something truly amazing. It was Pixar's commitment to quality that would keep it from falling to its own success and losing what made it special to being with: original storytelling.

An unexpected lesson that Pixar found was a result of an internship program. Initially, most groups were uninterested in the having to "babysit" young animators and programmers. When corporate announced that the cost came out of the company's budget and not individual departments this incentivized more groups to request the free labor. The unexpected result was that in having to teach others about their processes, they were able to see new ways in which they could improve and change them. This further expanded into a new university aspect of Pixar where employees would have classroom experiences and interactions where everyone would learn more about other roles and responsibilities in the company. These new situations allowed for people to not only gain respect for what others do but made them more comfortable to make mistakes and try new things which is key to a creative atmosphere.

Contracts had a similar effect but dealt more with receiving candid feedback. Pixar had seen that when producers or production managers had contracts in place, if there were areas that the studio could be improved they were less likely to share their feedback out of fear of being seen as someone who complains. If the manager had areas where they could improve, it was more simple for the studio to not renew their contract instead of taking the time provide them with the necessary changes that would have improved their performance. Pixar decided to instead remove the contract model all together and incentivize employees through providing them unprecedented amounts of creative control for projects.

Some barriers were established from the beginning of the company and only continued to grow with the studio as it expanded and eventually was acquired by Disney. A key barrier that was established early was to disallow the sharing of resources. Whether the project was a short, a full-length Pixar film, or a Disney film, there was no sharing of resources. The reason behind the decision was that in balancing freedom and structure, limits forced groups to find creative solutions when time was short or a particular effect was having issues rendering. Limits imply that you can't do everything you want so you must think of smarter ways to work and think. Pixar had adopted the "Toyota production line" model where employees at every level were given the freedom to solve problems themselves. They did not have to go through a hierarchical structure to find a solution. They didn't need to wait and find "the right way" to solve a problem but just solved problems.

Pixar's Team Dynamics
As seen throughout the company's history, the emphasis on quality, embracing the unknown, and trusting and empowering employees really works because of the kind of employees at Pixar. A common best practice is to hire smarter talented people to be the source of creativity. Pixar expands this belief by saying, "Give a good idea to a mediocre team and they will screw it up. Give a mediocre idea to a great team and they'll either fix it or come up with something even better." The secret for Pixar is to focus more on having the right chemistry with the right team than having the right idea.

The dynamic of a team at Pixar is one of candor, safety, self-assessment, and protecting the new. They believe that conflict is essential to knowing if they have the best idea through testing it. If a team is given the tools and space to work on a story they are passionate about, they will be able to rework it through an iterative process until it finds its soul. People offer a multiplicity of viewpoints. Flexibility is demanded. Ideas are discussed and the storylines are ran through a microscope so thoroughly that it has been accepted that identifying with a project will hinder the creative problem-solving process at Pixar.

Mistakes are inevitable consequences of doing something new but the risks yield the highest rewards. This is why Pixar continues to push boundaries of technology and storytelling. A lot of these mistakes are teased out through the Braintrust at Pixar. The Braintrust is a group of smart, passionate people in a single room together, charged with identify and suggesting possible problem-solving approaches. This group is encouraged to be candid with each other which is essential. Candor leads to trust which leads to collaborative creativity. This group provides a director and producer lots of solutions in a short amount of time but does not prescribe any single idea. The choice of how to move forward is the sole responsibility of the original team. Not even the executive team can prescribe a specific course of action. This approach teaches everyone that we have incomplete work and everyone is free to make suggestions. It makes it safe to discuss and solve problems together.

Pixar's Culture
Pixar has been able to establish a culture of creativity because of the needs that are part of the process of creating original and impactful quality films. There is a need for balance. There is a need to make decisions at every level of the organization but also a need to admit fallibility. There is a need to feel that progress is being made. The focus is talent-centered cross-functional learning and collaboration. Pixar's culture has organizational support from every level, starting at the top. People are able to speak their minds and they trust each other that when they make mistakes that they will act to help solve them.

The hardest part of trying to define how Pixar has created their culture is it is iterative in its nature. It is constantly changing and adapting. One of their core principles is continuously asking questions and searching for understanding. If I was to attempt to provide a set of factors that would create a similar environment, these would include finding the best talent, loosening the controls, accepting risks and mistakes as part of the process, trusting our colleagues, and working to clear a path for them to succeed. Anton Ego, a character from Ratatouille, describes the scary truth behind innovation best when he says:

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. Bu the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends...."

Having a Genius

There are lots of different ways that we look at people but sometimes we need to let go of our initial judgments. As a society, we have created an idea of what we feel is normal. I feel like we need to change that norm. This is where creativity comes in. Experts and professionals tell you what is wrong and what is right but how do they know? If there are new ideas, there isn't an expert or a professional. If you are looking for new ideas or new ways to do things, you have to know where innovation already exists. We design for the middle of the bell curve but you can find new ideas at the tails.

By catching the tails of the bell curve, you are looking at the extreme users. These are users that have found new ways to use existing technologies. Some of these users are cost sensitive and find the value in innovative ways. If you can find these users and observe their behaviors, you can use that information to create new products, services, and experiences for your customers. Each customer is unique and different but our culture encourages people to be the same.

People don't have the same the likes. We don't even think the same way. Some people think visually, conceptually with words, physically, or kinesthetically. I am a physical thinker. When I talk on the phone, I have to pace. As I listen to people, I animate what they say in my head. I walk around and if I can draw on a whiteboard or a piece of paper, then I can show what I am thinking.

Going back to creativity, we as a society feel like you either are creative genius or you aren't. This simply isn't true. As kids, everyone draws or colors on paper. We all draw. We all dance. We just grow out of our creativity as we get older. We are trained to. And when it comes to "genius," the concept has changed to being a genius when originally you had a genius. In Rome, a genius was a guiding or divine spirit that would deliver inspiration to people. If the genius didn't do his part, then it wasn't your fault as the person receiving the inspiration. Nowadays once you get that label of a creative genius, you have all the pressure to perform again and again.

Unfortunately, our society is all about manufacturing with output... Output... Output... The industrial age changed everything. Our educational system came out of the industrial age. It is no wonder that most students think the same, ask for directions, and don't think for themselves. We are building people that are a bunch of followers instead of helping people learn how to think and lead.

"If you're not prepared to be wrong, you won't be original."

What is Light and Truth?

During church today I decided I would read up on the lesson for Sunday School during sacrament. I wanted to be sure that I was ready to teach in case my teachers didn't show up. This week's lesson was based on John 7 and John 8 entitled "I Am the Light of the World." I read through the manual and the chapters and a few things specifically stood out to me: the word choices and the questions that the Savior used.

There are four major words that are repeated over and over again in these chapters and they are belief, know, truth, and light. The teacher who taught the lesson today really focused on the first three words.

"And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come (D&C 93:24);"

 Truth is knowledge of eternal things. But what is the difference between knowledge and belief? Is it the ability to doubt? Because knowledge grows and it can wane with time. Knowledge based on this previous scripture does not have to be based on truth. People who believe things differently than you, who have a different perspective can know things as certainly as you do although they can be opposed. Knowledge appears to be a mental state of being that is deeper than belief.

"Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (John 8: 31-32)."

 If we are curious and question our faith and our beliefs, it is through continued searching and studying that we gain greater knowledge. People knew at one point in history that the universe only contained our solar system. As people continued to search and study the stars, they found more truth and gain greater knowledge. The universe is infinite and it is changing. What we see in the night sky right now may contain the light of worlds and stars that no longer exist as well as the sky may not yet show the light of worlds and stars that are now in existence. Only through questioning, studying, and experimenting, did we gain this knowledge and the same is true with all knowledge.

Before we can begin on this journey though it starts with faith and belief. Faith is our actions which are based on our experiences. Belief is the position we put ourselves in from which we see our world around us. Our beliefs can change as we move to see the world from different perspectives and as we gain more knowledge. I am not saying that beliefs are the same as values so let me give an example. I know that I can be forgiven for my mistakes. My friends and family have forgiven me for things in the past. I can remember my mistakes. Not every individual event and choice and consequence but some. So I struggle sometimes in knowing that God will forget them. I know God will forgive my sins but will He truly forget my sins? I believe that He will but I do not yet know.

Our teacher left us with an interesting question: Why do we do what we do, when we know what we know? How do our faith, knowledge, and choices intersect? Why do we live contrary to our knowledge at times? It is no wonder that when we do that, our knowledge and light within can wane.

"For the word of the Lord is truth, and whatsoever is truth is light, and whatsoever is light is Spirit, even the Spirit of Jesus Christ (D&C 84:45)."

 When we see people, we use the phrase at times to say that they carry the Light of Christ. We are Children of God. We carry a Spirit within us. If that Spirit is light, what is light? Light is both a particle and a wave according to science. Many times when we talk and think about light, we simply think of only visible light. Light has a whole spectrum of forms and it radiates from all living things. Radio waves are also a form of light, which we have learned how to use as a form of communication. It is amazing that mankind created a physical form of communication that uses light when God had been communicating with the Spirit the whole time.

Light can be absorbed and reflected. Since light is a particle, there is even such a thing as light pressure. Light pressure is equal to the power of the light beam divided by the speed of light. A one-milliwatt laser pointer exerts a force of about 3.3 piconewtons on the object being illuminated. It is possible to use the power of light to lift an object, or a person. It would take 30 billion 1-mW laser pointers to lift a U.S. penny. You can YouTube videos where light spins a turbine. Light can be measured but we cannot measure darkness. Darkness is simply an absence of light or an absence of the Spirit. When we talk about how God, Christ and His angels exude light, knowing that we are also spiritual kin and spiritual beings, how do we grow in light? Or in other words, how do we grow in truth? There were many other aspects of these two chapters that were extremely interesting but those will have to wait for another post.

Worse Than Comments Are Interventions

I told myself that I wasn't going to write a post about this topic but for some reason, the only way I can really get things off my chest is through writing about it. Talking through things helps me reason but writing helps me purge. And I don't think I have been that busy lately with only having two classes left in my last semester (a lot of my classes were block classes that finished halfway through the semester) but I certainly haven't written on this blog in a while. So because that is the case, let me catch up a bit on what has happened lately.

First off, I have been having struggles finding a job. Johnson & Johnson is just one shining example of how I don't have enough experience to do what I want to do. I went through three rounds of interviews with them and HR cut me off because I didn't meet their post-graduate work experience metric. This is the story of my life currently. MBA doesn't mean advancement... At least not yet anyways. I guess I have to bank on it meaning something later in my career because the only jobs I can get interviews with it in the business world are entry level. Good thing I didn't rack up any college debt... Oh wait... Grad school... Riiiight.

Second headache as of late, girls don't really work right now. I have tried dating. I have tried dating for a long time. This blog is full of great stories of success and failure and quite a few more funny dating failures but failures nonetheless. Right now, I am about to graduate in a month and so I decided to put dating on the back burner so I can spend time with my friends that I made during my MBA program before we all head out to our various careers around the country and around the world. And here enters my third issue. Friends... What really classifies as a friend?

Are friends people that are brutally honest with you? Are they the people who see your flaws and accept you for who you are anyways? Are they the people who you can be yourself with? These are all assumptions that I made on what classified someone as a friend but a perspective is only one person's version of reality from their narrow point of view. And after my spring break in Moab, my friends whom I went with decided to share with my their point of view of me in what felt like an intervention of sorts.

Don't get me wrong. I ask for feedback a lot more than the average person. And I tend to listen and ask questions so I can understand why and where someone came to the conclusions that they did so I can determine how I can improve. I want to improve. That is the reason I asked for the feedback in the first place. Taking that into account, the feedback I got stung more than usual. It hurt actually and it has been hard to shake it. It wasn't like it was funny or that what they said could have become funny. They questioned my character and the relationships I thought I had with them.

They said that I couldn't be trusted. They said that I was a liar and a slimely salesman. They said that because of those things, they kept me at arm's length because they didn't know what was real and genuine or if I was not being authentic. They said I didn't own things or take responsibility. They said that they couldn't believe that I was happy for them because of their success when I was trying to be. They said a few other things as well but these were people that I thought I was close to. These were the people that I spent most of my free time with. They are the guys I live with, go climbing with, go hot tubbing with, etc. I appreciate candor probably even more than the next guy but this felt more like a brother stabbing you in the side and twisting it than someone telling you that you have food in your teeth.

I am not the best person by any stretch of the imagination. And it is true that I stretch the truth time and again. It is also true that any person's perspective is their viewpoint of reality and everyone is different in that regard. So I decided to see if this was only the viewpoint of a select few individuals or if this was common. I asked a few other people to try and get a 360-degree perspective. I was grateful to find that their belief was fortunately not commonly held however, it did make me begin to doubt more and more my self image and my relationships. Was everyone as honest with me as these few people? What were people really saying with their body language versus what they told me?

I guess one of the reasons this was such a hard pill to swallow was because it lacked the Sandwich Effect when it comes to delivering bad news... sandwiching the meat of your discussion with some positive feedback to soften the blow just a bit. It was like getting a sucker punch followed by right hooks and left jabs. I honestly felt and continue to feel beat up just being around them now because I can feel the sting of their comments even a week or two after the fact. I know I need to work on those things because I don't want this to happen again and I will try it but at the same point in time I don't know how to directly improve our relationship or their perspectives. I feel whether or not this is true that this is kind of out of my control.

Sometimes I Don't Want A Comment

 My family and I went to a movie tonight before I head back to Utah. We were sitting in our row watching the previews when a row or two behind us someone commented on a new movie coming out in March. "The first one was good but the second was only okay. I will be surprised if this one is anything." I turned to my dad and we laughed to ourselves. Everybody is a critic.

 I sat there for a second and thought about that. Facebook, family, friends, etc. We all have opinions and comments on what is happening in each others' lives. Why do we care? Why do we care about what others think? I know a lot of those people we love and care about but at the end of the day we make our decisions. We choose what we will do, where we work, what we study and whom we date. Before Facebook and Instagram and all of these other narcissistic social media tools, we physically called people. We talked to people. We made an effort to get to know one another and we weren't so busy.

 For as much as I am an introvert, I want to talk to people. I don't want to burden them. I guess that is why I can be such a good listener at times. Still, the biggest thing I think everyone wants is to be noticed. This is going to have a little "me marketing" but people want to matter to someone. They want to be thought of. They want to be needed. They want to be accepted. They want to be understood. I guess that is why I try to love people the way that I do. I love people the way I wish I was loved.

I pray for people. I want them to be successful, I worry about them, I remember things and I ask. The biggest thing I forget to do is pray for myself. Sometimes I don't do it because I don't think I am worthy. Other times, I simply forget. Recently, I don't know what to ask for because I feel like I should be more grateful. I know what I want. I just hit roadblocks each time I pursue things.

I was talking with a friend later that same night and we talked about these same things. Her stance was that we don't need someone else to complete us and that we need to love ourselves. In some aspects I agree and in others I don't. God made Eve so Adam was not alone. No matter how much Adam learned to accept and love himself, he was incomplete without Eve. It is in through our relationships that we become whole. I do my best to love and accept others with the understanding that we are always changing and (hopefully) trying to become better. I feel like I can this more easily with others than I can do with myself.

I struggle so much accepting my own insecurities, failings, weaknesses and faults. I know I can become better. I know I will fall short and I am supposed to love myself but I struggle because of that and with that. I was taught that I should maximize my strengths and minimize my weaknesses. When you are on your own without a spouse to compliment your weaknesses with their strengths, it is hard to minimize characteristics that are necessary to accomplish the things you have to do. I know patience helps to accept where I am and hope that things will be better soon. With graduation from graduate school around the corner, I hope "soon" is coming real soon.

The Fault In Our Stars

There are movies and then there are MOVIES. The Fault In Our Stars may be one of the latter. Typically I am not interested in the sappy life story kind of films where the main characters are dying but I liked the approach. It reminded me of The Bucket List in that it encourages people to live and love and find freedom in situations out of their control. It reminds me that there is always a silver lining in even our worst experiences. I don't want to share too much from the movie because it was really good but there two different parts where the main characters share with each other the eulogies that they wrote for one another:

Being an engineer, I love math so this was particularly beautiful to me. It is logical and emotional. It made me think of each relationship I have been in. Do your friends know how far you would go to support them? Do they know how much you care? It doesn't matter how many friends but how deep your friendships are. Do I let people in so much that they can glimpse an infinity of memories? It gives new meaning to best friends forever.

 "Van Houten,

  "I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good team. I don’t want to ask you any favors, but if you have time – and from what I saw, you have plenty – I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I’ve got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently.

  "Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease. I want to leave a mark.... Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either.

  "People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm. The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention....

  "After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die, too.... But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark blue and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar....

  "She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers"

 - Augustus Waters

 To be honest, I have been in this boy's shoes before. I know the feeling. I know the scars. And I know how grateful I am for each and every one of them. Sometimes my parents let it slip that they wish I would just date someone "normal." I don't think normal exists as much as it is a point of view or a perspective. We all carry things and have our own experiences and we survive in our way. No one comes without scars. Love is finding the beauty in the pain because "pain demands to be felt." Our emotions and feelings want to be shared. We want to be understood. We want to be accepted. Love is choosing to accept the whole person, both the good and the bad, knowing that inevitably they will hurt you in some way but you still would love them because they are worth it.

 One of the things that this movie made me think of was how we are to be remembered. People talk about their lives as if they are passing from chapter to chapter in a book. You close something old to begin something new. The period both ends a thought as well as foreshadows the beginning of a new one. You don't know how long you have to be remembered and you never know how long you will have to wait for that new chapter or thought to begin. Still, if we notice more and observe more, we can make memories out of the small things. In all parts of my life, I am transitioning. I'm coming up on the end of some chapters in my life and I'm ready to see what's next.