Review: The Five Love Languages

Gary Chapman’s book, The Five Love Languages, has been out for quite a while but I had never gotten around to reading it. I’m glad that I have now. If you’re not familiar with the material, the premise is that there are five basic ways people feel love. These are what Chapman calls love languages and they are:

1. Words of Affirmation
2. Quality Time
3. Receiving Gifts
4. Acts of Service
5. Physical Touch

All of us have at least one of these which is primary for us. We feel love more strongly in that manner. For instance, if receiving a compliment from your spouse really makes your day, then words of affirmation is probably your primary love language. On the other hand, if it’s when your spouse takes the time to wrangle up the kids so you can sleep in on a lazy weekend morning, then your primary love language is probably acts of service.

Not only do we feel love in one of these primary ways, but we tend to express love in one of these ways, too. For most, we express love the way we feel it. For others, it’s learned behavior, most likely from our parents. So if our primary love language is quality time but we grew up in a household where mom and dad were always serving one another, we might have learned acts of service as the primary way we express love.

Chapman talks about these concepts as well as our capacity to feel loved and what we do when we have felt loved for some time and what we stop doing when we feel neglected. Often times, if we feel neglected and unloved, it’s hard to respond in a loving way. The catch here is that our spouse might have been doing their level best to express love in the way they see it, but we’re like two ships passing in the night. And so there is guidance on how to discover each other’s primary love language as well as how to begin speaking it, if that’s the way we intuitively express our loves.

Finally, Chapman clears up that “in love” period and explains what research says about it, why it can overcome so many faults, and why, when it ends, we can suddenly be faced with someone we thought we knew but realize we don’t. This is a good set of knowledge to pass on to any couple considering marriage, who are newly wedded, or who have passed that initial infatuation stage into the reality of a life together where not everything is perfect.

If you believe in strong relationships and you’ve not read this book, I’d recommend it. While you may not agree with everything in it, Chapman does provide good advice on how to consider your significant other and work towards doing the things that make them feel loved. The suggestions he gives are invaluable and come from years of counseling experience as well as his own experience in marriage.

 

Working on Weakness

“Pain is weakness leaving the body!”

I heard that quote so many times in my cadet career at The Citadel. So many times, along with other quotes about pain that they just roll off the tongue now when people talk about pain. When we face up to a weakness, there’s usually pain. That’s because we’re trying to force ourselves to change. If you’ve ever taken up running, you know what I mean about pain. Same thing with weight-lifting. Squeezing out the last few reps of the last set can be excruciating. Physical therapy is often painful because you have to reach beyond what is comfortable to get back to where you were. I’ve done three bouts of physical therapy on my left shoulder (in a 12 month period) and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to do physical therapy because of my knees and ankles. And every time I had physical therapists who were focused on strengthening that which was weak, which meant pain, and lots of it. But the pain was worth it to overcome the weaknesses. I was better for it. The quote fit those scenarios.

I long ago identified a weakness in a lot of my people skills. I am painfully introverted. As a result, if I don’t know you I can come across cold and uncaring. Also, even if I do know you, unless we have something very strongly in common, conversation can be awkward. Then there are the stereotypical techie talk full of jargon and bad puns and the stereotypical techie “If I think you’re wrong I want to show you why because it matters, even if you don’t see it” characteristics. I know quite a few folks just like me. Because these are stereotypical techie behaviors, it’s easy to excuse them. “Folks just don’t understand us.” “The guys I hang out with are all the same way.” I could go on, but you get the point.

While I’ve identified this weakness, I haven’t proactively gone after it. I know it can be overcome, as I have had friends who have done that. Also, I remember a Chefography on Giada De Laurentiis which talked about how she overcame the same thing. So that’s the next big thing to work on. I know I miss out on opportunities to connect with people because of this weakness. I also miss out on opportunities to deepen relationships with those I do manage to connect with. Finally, I know that the typical techie stereotypes means that sometimes it’s more a struggle to help someone understand and agree with a given solution, even when it meets their requirements the best. I can save a lot of time and build a better team attitude if I seriously work on this weakness. It’s going to be painful, but as I learned at The Citadel, it’ll be worth it.

Is there something you know is a weak spot that you’ve not addressed but could? What’s stopping you? Fear? Knowing the pain the change will require? A good question to ask is, “How much do I lose or miss out on because I won’t address this weakness?” Remember, whenever you have to spend energy and resources to make up for a weakness, you are rendering that energy and resources unavailable for anything else. You’ve used them up. So even if you say, “I can overcome,” you’re still giving up something. Is not dealing with the weakness worth that?

 

The Language of Your Goals Is Important

I was discussing life goals with a childhood friend, Bobby Dimmick (blog | twitter), during lunch today. As we talked about life goals, how to pursue them, the risks involved, and those sorts of things, one of the things that struck me is the language we use. Think about the difference between these two phrases:

• I am willing to give up X.
• I’d like to make Y happen.

Pursuing both ways of saying things may lead you to the exact same list of goals. For instance, “I’m willing to give up chocolate cake,” and “I’d like to have fewer migraines,” are getting to the same thing: having fewer migraines, as chocolate is a migraine trigger. However, if we are truthful with ourselves, saying it the first way doesn’t sound anywhere near as appealing as the second way. Motivation is important to accomplishing our goals. Those things which help keep us motivated spur us towards accomplishing our goals. Those things which are demoralizing can keep us from those very same goals. So language is important.

When thinking about your goals, think about ways to phrase what you want to do and what it takes to do them in positive ways. Eliminate the negative language. Negative language can lead us to not want to think about what we’re doing. Or it can lead us to not do it. For instance, if you’re working with a child and you say, “Walk!” instead of “Don’t run!” you’ll tend to have better results. As soon as you say “No,” or “Can’t,” or “Don’t,” you’re in for a fight. That tendency to think, “Who are you to say ‘No’?” doesn’t go away as we grow up. Most of us just get better at suppressing it. But that takes energy. And that’s the sort of fight that negative language brings about. Energy we spend fighting with ourselves is energy we cannot invest in moving towards accomplishing our goals. That’s why if you can, think about everything in a positive light. Even as you consider what you have to “give up,” focus instead on what you want to do.

 

No New Year’s Resolutions

I was never a big fan of doing New Year’s resolutions but I tried them for a couple of years. What I found was that in a lot of cases they simply didn’t get done. Some did, sure, but the vast majority didn’t. There were various reasons, but the majority of the time the reason was bound into the fact that I didn’t plan on how to get started. So I had goals but no first steps in how to accomplish those goals.

When I started thinking through setting goals but having first steps, I realized that this was something I was doing continuously anyway, so a yearly goal setting exercise didn’t make a lot of sense. It wasn’t often enough. As a result, I tend to take time more periodically, at least once a quarter, to stop and do a more comprehensive review. By doing a periodic review like this, I get a better track on how I’m doing with my goals. I also have a chance to assess whether or not my goals are still appropriate. For instance, work goals might change because of a change in responsibilities, such as when I went from senior DBA to infrastructure architect at the end of 2001 or when I returned to being a senior DBA a few years ago.

It is good to do a review of how things are going and it is also good to set goals to challenge yourself. However, if you only do this once a year, chances are you’ll find yourself falling short when it comes back around to the next year. A more frequent review period serves better if you’re serious about accomplishing the resolutions you’ve set. Also, don’t consider changes you want to make in life, but other areas that simply need to get done. For instance, I know that for work I need to put serious time in obtaining a couple of professional certifications. This isn’t a traditional area for consideration with respect to New Year’s resolutions, but it’s definitely something I need to invest time and effort in.

Productivity – More Than a System

It’s not about the system. It’s about me. It’s about you. At least, most of the time it is. What I mean is that we could have the best system in the world for productivity, but the fact of the matter is that if we’re not using it properly, it won’t work for us. This is the point that Seth Godin (blog | twitter) makes in this post.

This is a truth I’ve seen time and time again in my own life. As a matter of fact, I was reflecting on the fact earlier this week when I realized I hadn’t been tracking some things as closely as I should have been. My “excuse” was I was on vacation. However, some of the things I should have been tracking better and working on included things on the reknowned “Honey Do” list. Vacation is supposed to be about rest, but it’s supposed to be about family, too. Ugh.

I can blame Skyrim, which has seen a lot of my “free” time lately. I can blame the migraines which have hammered me for a couple of weeks, rendering vegging in front of a screen about the only thing I felt up to doing. However, at the end of the day these are all excuses. They impacted my productivity because I let them. There were things I could have gotten done within the confines of dealing with the migraines. Changing out the filters in the water filter/pump for the turtle aquarium comes immediately to mind. However, I didn’t get that done.

Why not? At the end of the day it comes to a simple answer: I didn’t want to. I wanted to be lazy. So the turtle’s water pump is staring me in the face, needing to be done this weekend. I think I’m going to try and tackle that tonight, rather than procrastinating further on it. Productivity systems work, but we have to want them to work for that to happen.

 

Cherry Blossoms

Some of my most cherished memories from Japan center around cherry blossoms. I remember the cherry blossoms at Kintai. I remember eating under the cherry blossom trees at school. They last for such a very short time but are so beautiful and so fragile. When I see cherry blossoms, they bring me back to those peaceful times. They remind me that there is time to pause and reflect. And they also urge me to think of the ephemeral beauty of not just the cherry blossom, but of so many things in life, too.

As a Christian the cherry blossoms remind me of Christ. The pink on the petals are a reminder of Christ’s shed blood and the white of my own life before the Almighty, washed white as snow because of His blood. This is a state I don’t deserve, can’t deserve, but ultimately Christ did it for His own glory and I am the benefactor all the more for it.

Cherry blossoms tie me back to nature, where I have often retreated when life seems overwhelming. There were many dark days in Japan due to family issues, but walking along the seawall and gazing at the Monzen River or walking along the hills at Tsuwano, or seeing the deer that walk like sacred cows through the streets of Miyajima all brought me back to a realization that there is more. There is a world around us of such amazing beauty. There are places which can soothe my pain, but all are tied to the expression of God’s creation. And cherry blossoms seem the most poignant of it all. They draw me out of pain and suffering and into a epiphany of God’s grace and peace more than any other sight. It wasn’t until I was a Christian many years later did I realize why they had such an effect on me.

Cherry blossoms are distinctly associated with Japan and Japanese culture. It was the gift of cherry blossoms from Japan that surround the Washington Memorial. A song that celebrates the cherry blossom, Sakura, Sakura, is learned by Japanese school children. Yes, I am an American. Yes, I went to American schools and served in the American military, however, a lot of my upbringing, a lot of my ideals and concepts and beliefs are strongly Japanese. This is due mainly to my Japanese mother, for whom I am grateful. My names might be Irish and my look might be European, but my half-Japanese side dominates my mind, emotions, and sense of purpose. It defines who I am. And thus the cherry blossom, even rooted here in US soil, defines me as distinctly Japanese.

I have already remarked on the beauty of the cherry blossom and in my life I want to create. I am scientifically and militarily trained. I went to the South Carolina Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics for high school. Then I received degrees in physics and mathematics as an undergraduate. But my undergraduate experience was at no ordinary school. It was at The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. Then I served four years as a US Air Force officer. My career field after the service is highly logical and ordered, with stints as a developer, as an infrastructure/security architect, and a return back to the realm of the database administrator. Logical, practicality, and efficiency all define these places and positions. However, every one also has a core of creativity. The cherry blossom, because of its short blooming period must be efficient. But it is also a wonderful and most beautiful work of creation. Therefore it inspires me to strive to create things of beauty that fill my heart with awe. While these could be centered in technology, still, it is art.

That is why I have chosen to have the cherry blossom adorn my personal brand. It is the background of my Windows laptop. It is even the background on my logon screen. It is on my business cards. And when I redo my professional site and blogs, they will have some element of the cherry blossom tied to them. It is time to leave the silliness of the duck behind. The wise-cracking rabbit-eared ferret had his place, too. They have been my symbols and they fit those periods of my life. But now is the time of the cherry blossom. While the petals last but briefly each season, the tree itself is long-lived. And I have a feeling that this is the symbol that I will stick with for the rest of my earthly life. It is a good one and fits where I am and who I want to become.

A More Personalized Christmas

It was either last year or the year before that I first ran across The Advent Conspiracy. As the front page says, there are four basic concepts:

• Worship Fully
• Spend Less
• Give More
• Love All

If you’re not a Christian, the last three certainly apply. For my family, the Worship Fully has always been emphasized at Christmas. We even take it to the point that the presents in our house are opened on Christmas Eve, because growing up my wife and I both felt that Christmas with presents became more about the presents and we didn’t want that.

The key for us is to focus on Spend Less and Give More (Love All is part of our personal philosophy already and not just for Christmas time). Those are contradictory goals in today’s material-driven society. But they really aren’t if your focus is spending more time, putting a more personal touch on things, and just getting the “stuff” out of the way in your interactions with others. We started down that road last Christmas and have done more this Christmas. Our kids have less stuff under the tree but that’s because we’re putting more of the money into doing things, into spending time with those we love, and basically memories and experiences that can’t be reproduced by picking up some toy at a big box store.

We also want to give gifts that are obviously ones we spent time on. It’s easy to spend money on someone and do it without really thinking about it. But when you make or produce something nice, something that obviously took time to do, that says more, doesn’t it? It says to the other person, “Time is a precious commodity, and you are important enough to me for me to spend a good amount for you.” Also, when you take the time to personalize things, it says you are thinking about that other person. That’s what we’ve tried to do. Here’s some of the things we’re doing:

• We’ve made our own Christmas cards with nice card stock and stamps. These are obviously “kid produced.”
• I’m making soap to give as gifts to those who would appreciate them (like my mom).
• Kim and the kids will be making covered pretzels to give to everyone.

I’ve attached to this post a couple of pictures of some of the soap that I’ve made over the last couple of days. Producing the soap isn’t difficult and there are quite a few options. The first two items require some start up costs, so for this year we may not be fully honoring the ideal of Spend Less, but we will going forward, as these are things we will re-use over time. And we will get better at doing these things, meaning the quality will only continue to improve. Plus, these skills we’re developing will be something my kids can pass on to their children. And in order to develop these skills, that means we are spending more time together learning them.

Quickly Implement What You’ve Learned

I just recently finished reading Presentation Zen, which talks a lot about slide design in addition to just the art of presenting well. There are a few things I noted that I needed to do a better job of:

• Put key information in the areas which the eyes naturally fall.
• Divide the slide into thirds, both horizontally and vertically. Where the lines cross, those are the areas that the eyes naturally fall.
• Try to use images, but if you can, use a whole background that relates to what you’re talking about.
• Try to minimize the text and use color and font to draw emphasis to what you want the reader to see.
• Asymmetric layouts can draw focus to your points.
• Make effective use of white space.

One of the things I learned a long time ago is that learning something new is great. However, learning is not the same as doing. If I want to be able to do what I learned, I have to practice it. Also, the longer the time between when I learned something and the first time I put it into practice, the less well I remember what I learned. So if I want something to stick, I need to try and use it very quickly after I learned it, preferably multiple times to work through it.

I didn’t have a presentation to put together, but I did need to put up an advertisement for my organization’s Toastmasters club. Our meetings are always open to those within the organization but there are a couple of times a year where we do a bit more than a normal meeting to draw folks in so they can see what we’re about. The December meeting is just one such event where we also offer food, since we meet at lunch time. There were a few things I wanted to communicate in the ad:

• Who we are.
• When the meeting is.
• Where the meeting is.
• Who is invited.
• The fact that we have fun.
• We also build relationships.
• We’re also providing food.

So here’s the finished product. I know I still have a lot of practice to master some of the points mentioned in Presentation Zen, but I wanted to try and use some of them as soon as possible so they would become developed skills, instead of being lost. I still need to do some more practice just to reinforce these lessons in my head. That’s not mastery, it’s just the initial steps of proficiency, but you don’t start as a master.

 

Teaching Children How to Cook

I was extremely fortunate. My mom had me on a stool stirring spaghetti sauce when I was 6 years old. She got me involved in cooking early and while I didn’t do very much of it with her over the years of my childhood, I did learn several important lessons from her:

• Be prepared
• Understand proper timing
• Have a passion for your work
• Check your work
• Master your work
• Understand how much is too much

Except for the last one, my mom excels at each of these. I learned the last one in reverse. It’s often joked that when my mom cooks, she cooks for about 3-4x the number of people there actually are. It probably comes from the fact that she grew up in a large family with a lot of boys and men around. Add to my mom’s impromptu lessons the ones I received from Japanese culture classes during my time in Japan and a regular classes during a quarter of home economics in 7th grade, and I found that cooking was something that was useful, enjoyable, and carried lessons for other aspects of life. Needless to say, I’m starting to make sure that my oldest children learn how to cook. Here’s how:

Start Small and Simple

Last night we had cubed steak, green beans, black-eyed peas, and biscuits. My younger son (12) was tasked with preparing the vegetables and the biscuits while I worked on the cubed steak. Now it’s easy to heat up vegetables on a stove, but he also had to keep an eye on the biscuits. They were all going to be done around the same time, so he needed to think about what to do, not panic, and do the things in the way he thought through them. Of course, I gave him coaching to help him be ready, and he did just fine. The biscuits came out great, the vegetables were seasoned and hot but not mushy, and everything hit the table warm and ready to go.

Build Up Their Skills

My oldest daughter (6) is learning to bake. We started simple, with a cake mix. For her first go around with baking, I had her put the eggs in and use the electric mixer. Now with cake from a name brand cake mix, as long as you have the ingredient ratios right, that’s pretty much all there is to it. All that’s left is to spread the cake batter into the cake pans, stick them in the oven, and ensure they don’t burn. Yes, there’s some things to do on the decorating side, but they aren’t very difficult either.

The next time we went after a cobbler. I wanted her to do more as she learns how to be a better baker. So this time I measured out all the ingredients and she had to put them in. In addition, there was one point where hand mixing was required (cornstarch with water and lemon juice as a thickener for the fruit “filling.” She did that, too, to the best of her ability and I finished it up until it was ready to put in with the rest of the fruit mix.

Logically what’s next is for her to get some practice measuring out her own ingredients. I know this will be a bit more trouble for her, but it’s the next step in what she has to do, ehich leads to the next thing to remember.

Expect Mistakes

I know she’ll do fine, but one of the things to realize if you’re working with children is they are going to make mistakes. I’ve been cooking and baking for years. A lot of things aren’t hard for me, but that’s because I have had plenty of practice doing them. For instance, the first time I tried to put icing on a cake… it didn’t come out so well. So it’s important to remember that most of the time when we ask children to do something, it’ll be their first time, too. Therefore, expect mistakes. You can minimize the impact of mistakes by:

• speaking words of understanding when a mistake happens
• Ensure you have extra amounts of the ingredients for the mistakes
• Practice the concept of mise en place to ensure you aren’t waiting for an ingredient when it’s needed, thereby ruining the dish

When we were preparing the cobbler, my daughter went to pour in the lemon juice and moved too quickly. It went all over the counter and not into the cornstarch slurry. This wasn’t a problem. We had practiced mise en place in getting all the ingredients together and weren’t in a rush. So I told her it wasn’t a big deal, she cleaned up the spill, and then I pulled more lemon juice from the refrigerator. After the measuring spoon was refilled, she completed the step in the recipe and we were fine.

Talk to Them about Next Time If You Can

With my son, since it was dinner and he’s helped in the past, there really wasn’t any major conversation about next time. However, with my daughter, since all of this is new, we talked briefly about how she would do more measuring of the ingredients next time. We also talked a bit after putting the cake in the oven. Next time she’ll get to help decorate. She’s looking forward to that.

Remember It’s Time with Your Child

An old saying is, “Children spell love T-I-M-E.” That’s so very true. I know nowadays the talk is about maximizing your time by having “quality” time, but the truth of the matter is that you don’t know when those special moments will come. Therefore, quantity of time is required to set the table for those special moments (pun intended). Since this is time with your child, don’t be in a hurry to get it all done. Make sure you have enough time for your child to be able to help you, allowing for mistakes and for the fact that they aren’t experienced at doing whatever it is you are trying to show them. Also, seek to have a positive and nurturing spirit during this time, not a negative one. Your role is not one of executive chef where you’re barking out orders and your charges must snap to immediately with exactly what is demanded. This isn’t a job for your child. This is fun time with you.

 

Partially Avoiding the “Filter Bubble” Using Private Browsing

If you’ve read or heard anything about The Filter Bubble, you know that your on-line habits, content choices, searches, physical location, etc., are now being used more and more to give you a customized view of information. This is true whether we’re talking search results via Google or seeing updates on Facebook. The main issue with the views that are being presented to us is that the filtering of information is being based on algorithms we have no input to nor have much way to change. As a result, the filters could be way off, such as a case given in The Filter Bubble where a search of BP during the last oil disaster brought one person news on the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico and another person information on investing in BP. The problem with the latter is the person wasn’t an investor and couldn’t figure out why their search results would bring up such content so highly.

When I did a search of my name using Google, I noticed that there’s definitely a filter being applied. For instance, here’s one search:

Compare this to another search where I’m able to somewhat bypass the filters:

Note the difference in number of results and in how the entries I’ve marked with red arrows are flipped between the two searches. These searches were conducted at about the same time (seconds apart) from the same computer.

Part of how the filters work is that cookies are being used to track your browsing habits. That’s something you can control. There’s some other things that are entering in that you can’t without using a proxy or the like. For instance, note that both searches clearly show my location. This is being determined based on an IP address range from my Internet provider. So unless I bounce through a proxy, which would mask my originating IP address, this sort of information can be picked up. That’s why I said this is a post on partially avoiding the filter bubble.

The key to avoiding the filters is to remove cookies altogether. Doing this automatically for normal browsing isn’t a good idea. Cookies are often used to keep track of the fact that you’ve logged in successfully to a particular web site, hold the contents of a shopping cart, etc. So the use of cookies themselves isn’t bad. However, trying to sift between cookies you need to use the websites you frequent and other cookies which are tied to tracking and/or advertising can be downright impossible. Therefore, if you could start a browser window that basically shielded off your existing cookies, that would work and would be a nice compromise. And you can, depending on your browser.

• Chrome: Toggle a window with incognito browsing (Ctrl+Shift+N)
• Firefox: Toggle a window with private browsing (Ctrl+Shift+P)
• Internet Explorer: Toggle a window with InPrivate browsing (Ctrl+Shift+P)

If you look closely at the second search results, you’ll see in the upper left corner a figure that looks like a spy. That’s how you know that Chrome window is incognito. The other main browsers have similar indicators. Open up the appropriate private mode for your browser and issue your search from that window. That should reduce some of the information being used to figure your results.