Communication

Today I wanna talk about a topic that has lead to a lot of issues in my life. Its called communication.

There are all different kinds of communication and even though we might be using the same kind, nothing will ever get to the person on the other side of the conversation.

For example you might be talking to someone, but what you re actually saying will never be understood. You might even speak in the same language but for some reason, it might be misinterpreted or just simply misunderstood.

So there we have the most common kind of communication. A simple conversation in the same language. It is most of the time connected to other kinds of communication, which I for time and space issues, I would just like to call "emotional communication". This emotional communication is often affected, by feelings and emotions. You might say the exact thing to two different people, but what the other person understands depends on how they perceive you, what their state of mind is and sometimes even by "what they want to understand".

Then of course it also plays a roll how you act when you speak. For example, you might change the intonation of your voice, you might change the look on your face, by smiling or just looking straight. You might look at someone or right by someone.

Then of course there is the communication, maybe one more important then using words. I just wish everyone would understand, that even without talking there is so many things that leave your body, to be seen by everyone else. As a friend of mine just wrote on her blog. "We dont see the things that are right in front of us."
But coming back to the communication part. It might just be a simple look, a simple gesture, maybe just our posture. It might not even involve movement. It might just be the way we stand or sit.

Its funny how in this world we have so many different cultures, religions and languages but at the end of the day a lot of our communication is still the same. Some gestures are universally understand as are some actions that can be perceived.
Yes then again there are the differences, where the same word can mean the opposite in two different languages. And even gestures can have another meaning, but postures, looks or emotional signs are most of the time the same throughout every level of the world. Different culture..doesnt matter, different religion..doesnt matter, different social status..doesnt matter. We are all the same after all and that should be an amazing thing.

Actually there is even more kinds of communication out there, but I wanna leave it at this for now and briefly elaborate on some issues, that can evolve.

So coming back to the regular conversation, like I mentioned often things will be misinterpreted and can lead to a totally different story at the end of the day, because everyone has a different way of telling a story, using different words.
And then of course there is this huge language barrier in this globalized world, where people talk in their second languages and totally misunderstand each other leading to anger, disappointment, fear, fights and in the end have the result of a broken relationship, a lost friendship or antipathy in between 2 people that listened all too much to those stories from other people.

The point is. Go find out yourself, talk about things if you re unsure and dont assume things, when you dont know them. Dont judge others without considering the background. Sometimes its also just a bad or a good day that led to an unexpected reaction. Of course, you dont have to talk about everything, which i will get to in just a moment. Its just important that you dont rely on others people stories, while also dont tell stories about others, where you dont know whats actually going on. Dont provoke others or dont have prejudices, because then you will almost certainly perceive things the way you want them to look like.

Coming to the non-verbal communication. Like I said before, people will give you messages, without speaking and it might just be by the simplicity of a single smile. A single smile might brighten another persons day. Holding the door open for someone, getting out of the way for people, doesnt cost us a lot of energy, but it can show respect and lead to others doing the same thing as they might notice the difference. If we stand tall or hunched, it will make a difference, especially if combined with words, make sure you send the right message.

All in all. The most important part of all communication is that we are actually aware of it. When you talk to someone, really talk to that person. When you see someone, look at the person. When you care about someone, show that person. Make sure you re aware of whats going on. Listen, Watch and Perceive, cause there is so much more out there than most of us see in this rushed world. We multitask, we small-talk, we become superficial. But at the end of the day, we might be succesful in what we do careerwise, but we re all alone inside, cause there is no warmth inside of us.
If we take the time to really listen to the answer of "how are you", if we look at the eyes of a person, while speaking to them, if we take the time to care about the people we talk to, only then are we really alive.

Dont be that person everyone remembers for being cold, be the person that everyone remembers for being warm. For always having that smile to lighten another persons day.

To end this, maybe in parts confusing entry (hoping it will get the right message across, but i m afraid not) here is another quote :

Ernest Hemmingway : "When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen."

So wherever you are, when someone asks you: "how are you?" and you answer "I m good and you?" Then actually take the time and listen to what they have to say......

Or if you meet someone you care about you might even share a hug, as it is just a simple gesture, but it might go a long way in showing the person that you care.

All the best,
Rich

Quote of the day

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.-Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

Time to shut up - come back to blog

Dear blog,

......So, its time to come back here and blog instead of talkin to people. Why am I always stupid enough to try talkin to people, just to be hurt in the end. Everyone always thinks they are so smart and they know everything.

They tell me, they know exactly who i am and why i am the way i am. they have no f*** clue who i am and what i feel. Cause clearly if they did, they wouldnt act the way they do. So now time to shut up to the world again.

maybe i shouldnt write this hear, cause you can actually find this blog, searchin my name on google, but who cares.

So, yes time to shut up, cause people dont even know what they are sayin.

and lately talkin to people and openin up has actually made me care less. yes sounds weird, huh.

but maybe after all, i should listen to people, who tell me to be more selfish, to think of myself and do what i wanna do. maybe thats the way to be happy.

although if it is, then i wouldnt wanna be in this world, cause i dont wanna be happy if it means being selfish.

weird blog, huh? I guess its because its winter, i dont have baseball and right now i dont even have a job and university to keep me busy, cause I m just waiting for my exams in a couple of weeks and then for the real world. maybe then i ll be happier, cause i m busier and i wont have all this time to think.

but coming back to the point. Yes people trying to advice me, people telling me what i m doing wrong, never looking at themselves. how can someone never listening to anything tell me, i m not listening. how can someone that thinks i have to be there, everytime they are available, but all the time i m there they are not available and then later blame me for it.
how can people that arent happy tell me, that its all my fault, that i m feeling bad, when they are really the ones that arent feeling great themselves either and pretend they are well, but the next sentence tell me they feel empty.
STUPID you all are stupid or ignorant, or i dont know. just make me sick.

how can someone tell me they love me, when they dont even know me.
how can someone tell me to go out with them as bf/gf, when they ve only seen me once.
how can someone want to be with me, when we ve never even seen alone and live thousand of miles apart
whats wrong with you people.

Why do people go on a trip, when they constantly fight and scream so loud they lose their voice, why do they wanna pretend that everything is fine, when all they do is hate hate and make the people around them even more aggresiv.

Maybe i should just be selfish...fool around....do whatever i wanna do and just be like everyone else, who apparently is enjoying themselves. Just stop caring bout others, just wake up and live MY life.

yes i m feeling miserable, more than i have in a long long time. but thats the way i feel and if all you people, who say you care tell me, that i should stop complaining, cause its all my fault, when really all i need is someone to lend me a shoulder....then you can all go to h***...

so yes dear blog....its time to shut up to the world and come back to blockin everyone out, cause thats clearly what at least keeps me on a level where i can wake up in the morning and dont just wanna get drunk and knock my lights out......

Merry Christmas to you dear blog....merry christmas

HATE

I hate the world, i hate my life, i hate my friends, i hate myself....

life just sucks sometimes.

oh well tomorrow is gonna be a new day....

move on, move on, move away

Time flies these days. Its barely 10 days from christmas. I ll soon graduate. well i hope, i ve passed all those exams. Anyways......

A lot of people keep askin me these questions? What are you doing? Whats new? What are you up to?
And my answer would almost everytime be...nothing. My life is boring.

Well this is true on one side, cause it feels like its boring to me. Then there is so many things going on inside of me, that really keep my mind occupied.
I m just wondering, when.......just when........ when will i finally be able to move on.
Let go off the past, clear my mind. See my mind is controlling my whole life. From sleeping habbits...to moods....to practice....to studying.....to eating patterns....to even my sexual life....
its just wrong..you know...you re supposed to be able to let yourself go. Just stop thinkin for a while. I never can. Sometimes I really ponder, just getting wasted, so for a couple of mins i can be numb. Just dont feel my body no more.

well thats not workin either...cause the next day i d feel worse. anyways the point is. I should be better in self control and i should block my emotions even more. Yes its stupid, cause sometimes i feel numb towards other people. actually a lot of times. i dont even know what feelings towards others are sometimes.

So its gonna be decision time for me soon. in a lot of ways. more than i can put down here, but one of the most important ones is my job, which i hope i find, i just dont know where yet...but i guess, i ll find that out eventually.

anyways, unfortunately i have to cut this blog short, cause i need to go help out on baseball stuff.
i ll try to continue this later....maybe....

Curse of growing up on the fast track

How many times do i start wondering, if its just me, or if its everyone that went away or took over responsibilites at a young age.

Well the thing is. Everyone always tells me, wow you ve done this, you ve done that. You were able to go there and experience this. Well for me it might have been more of a curse then it gave me joy. I mean of course I had tons of fun and i m grateful for the experience, yet since i came back I think i m suffering from it.

It might be like a drug. If you do something all the time and then its not there anymore, you miss it and when you cant get it, it affects your mood and your feelings. And when you get it, its not enough anymore, you need more, you need it better.

Again, to not get me wrong i cherished all these possibilites, but now I feel like I m missing something all the time. When i went for a one week vacatino to canada everyone was jealous, while for me, it was like i didnt even go away. I wasnt even excited to go, even though toronto is the place where i d love to settle. Its cause its nothing special for me anymore.

So when people tell me, wow you ve done this and that and been there etc....for me its more like...yeah i would have happily traded with you, if thats what makes me happy.

Also I ve been in a posistion where i ve coached kids over several years. That is actually where you really have a chance to make an impact on not just kids as your players, but kids as people. Believe me, its amazing how much impact a coach can have on kids, even though he only seems them 2-5 hours a week. They look up to you, they see what you re doing. They often wanna be like you. So you also have to be very careful of what you re doing. Well now after about 8 years, i ve stopped coaching the kids. I ve arrived in the top class, as coaching men is often considered. Its like moving up from the minors to the majors, yet for me, I know i m gonna miss coaching kids or players that are willing to learn or that need to learn. Well of course we have that in the mens too, but you cant really shape them that much anymore and you can barely shape them as a person anymore.

Also working 3 jobs, while graduating from highschool and coaching and playing baseball and just working full time and still studying and stuff like that. its nice and i m glad i ve accomplised it. sometimes i m even proud of it, cause i was able to do something like that, but then on other days, i just feel like there is a hole in my life, cause right now i m not doing it. Well of course i m also in a transition phase, where i m waiting to graduate and get a job, but yes i might just have become a workaholic.

You know a while ago this afternoon, i had nothing to do and most people would be happy with that. just to relax and do nothing, they might play a game or watch tv. things like that are often to boring for me, cause i have shaped peoples minds (at least thats what i d like to think), i ve made an impact on people in other countries and i ve been away to all these places with different emotions, now studying for my finals, just seems so irrelevant as do all of my studies. cause when you go out there and you actually live life on the fast track no one cares bout your studies, no one cares about what you know, they care bout you as a person and what you re willing to do and what you re willing to show them. They see passion and attitude.

Meeting all these people has also helped me see myself in the world better, its helped me understand other people, it made me understand what impact we have on them. And therefore intolerance, naivity and arrogance just make me sick. They make me made and drive me crazy. And when i m around my friends, i often think to myself. What is wrong with you guys? how can you be so rude, how can you be so ignorant. What gives you the right to judge other people. Then of course i wouldnt say anything, because they would probably look at me as if i was from outer space.

And thats really what it is these days, if its relationships or friendships, i often feel alienated and even though i get along with people just fine, there is something that i miss and that i dont get and i know its probably more my fault then my friends faults, but i miss it and it kind of alienates me. I know that in relationships the one thing that all of them complained about was that i didnt open up to them, that i pushed them away and yes they re right, cause i ve tried before and when people dont understand you and dont understand the feelings you re going through its the most painful feeling in the world, especially if there is no one out there that does, cause you just feel lonely. Even in a room of a million people you would still feel lonely. Sometimes the world around you just freezes and you wonder where you are and what you re doing and nothing makes sense anymore.
And even if people say they d understand they really dont. And thats the last thing i need, advice. Cause I pretty much know why i m feeling like i m feeling and why i am like i am, and whats made me the person i am today. And for people to tell me...that its not like that and that they know why and that i should be adjusting differently, well i m sorry...maybe i m stubborn on that part and i probably am, but all the advice i ve gotten so far, wasnt really anything close to helping me and by trying to give me that advice it again showed me how little people understood and that again alienates me.

You know its just hard on the mind, body and soul, when you wake up without a purpose in life. Yes, yes i know you ve got to make an impact on people and we all do make an impact, then again, is that enough? well it aint enough for me. I even tried to write up christmas cards for both of the teams i coached and i brought the kids small gifts from canada. Well i wanted to make these cards really special by writing how much impact that person made, so i wrote 31 individual cards, which actually was an emotional rollercoaster, but i m afraid i wasnt able to put the meaning behind the words that i was trying to say. I hope one or two of them do understand what i meant and how much it means to me to have been part of their life.

Anyways this entry starts becoming to long again.

Well what i was trying to say is, that everyone in life makes different experiences and when the person comes out of it, they have different expectations and different needs. For some it might be heaven on earth, while for others it might just be the hole in the ground.

so to quote a song from a very childish movie, which some people consider to be without a message, it still had a message for me and for now i m just hoping to find a person that has the same effect on me :

It's become so hard For me to be surprised You're bringin back the real me No judgement in your eyes Cuz when I dance with you It's how I speak the truth

(well it might be difficult again to get the message out of the quote, cause there probably is another long story attached but i ll just leave it at that.)

I ll talk to all of you soon!

take care

On the clock

So I m slowly creepin down to the end of the studies.
5 days till i write my 1st final. I really need to start studying. I m still pushing it off.

But at least i handed my thesis in and now i m really just about 7 weeks removed from graduation. Wow...then job hunt.

I really wish this baseball work was a full time job, cause I m pretty sure i would also thrive in it, but well it isnt. I think i m gonna hand more responsibilites over as time passes, which is a good thing. Well seems like sometimes i clinge on things. I m really not content with myself in that way. And also some things i might say, make me seam like a show off. And I m really uncomfortable with that. I think if its anything than lack of self confidence.

Anyways, now i m officially Head Coach of the mens team. And I let go of the girls and kids team. Wow only one team to coach. Seems crazy. I m really not used to it anymore. I guess its time to take a step back though.

As for the rest of my life... pretty much nothing new goin on. hehe boring, huh?

I ve been single for 8 months now. So the time i chose to be single my friends seem to have their eyes set on becoming serious. Best friend getting married, other friend moving in with his gf. another friend having his first relationship. and yes this really is my closer friends.
oh well. I guess i m not good at having a relationship anyways.

So anyways this is another boring blog during a sleepless night. I guess its good i didnt go through with my previous blogs though, cause they were mainly complaining bout life and people.

I dont know why, but makin my blog interesting doesnt seem like a priority anymore, its more just writing thoughts off of my head. but i m sure it will come back to me at one point. i hope you guys just bare with me until then.

good morning to europe, good night to north america and good afternoon to asia.....

see you all soon

3 hours in the life of Richard Hilgart IV

So the clock strikes 7, my sis is calling me up, she just found out one of her best friends mother is probably going to die soon, because of lung cancer. Of course she is really upset and start worrying about our parents health. Of course something like that is never easy.

Clock strikes 7:30, mom comes home from a 3 week trip to korea. she is tired and exhausted
starts arguing, but settles down.

9:00 My best friend calls telling me he is getting married...whooooohooooo. I m gonna be his best man and organizing his bachelor party.. its gonna be a blast =)

9:30 Another really good friend calls, telling me bout his troubles with his girlfriend. I thought they were really happy as they were looking for an apt. Now it all doesnt seems so happy after all. Well maybe its just one of them days and its gonna be better tomorrow?
But it also makes me think about the troubles I m having.

Its just 3 hours of my life, but it already is like a rollercoaster, learning that someone you care is in sorrow, next finding out your best friend is getting married and coming back down to a possible break up. We re livin live on the edge...crazy huh...

ok just a short post today, but i thought i should as its 3 live changing moments within just a few hours of each other..

take care,
Rj