My Three E's

I am passionate about the 3 E's (I know, Jack Welch has 4, but that's an unlucky number in Japan, so I'll stick with 3).

Engineering

Entrepreneurship

Environment

Each of these have a deeper than surface meaning.

Engineering is all about problem solving. In the popular sense, engineering is about understanding the laws by which the physical world operates and using that knowledge to create structures, devices, chemicals, and software. In a more human sense, it is about learning from our life experiences. It is about rewarding intelligence over laziness. It is about being open-minded, observational, and retaining a life-long thirst for knowledge. It is about knowing that you don't know everything. It is about believing that facts are more convincing than opinions. It is about knowing your expertise, and trusting others on their expertise.

Entrepreneurship is literally undertaking an endeavor. It is popularly used to describe those who start their own business ventures. It also describes my favorite definition of leader: "Not necessarily he who strives to be first, but he who is first to strive." Being an entrepreneur is about ignoring antiquated social norms and being your own person. It is about taking a step back, looking at the big picture, and seeing what others are missing. It is about rallying the pimps (ie your coolest friends) and getting them to collaboratively do something awesome. It is about not settling for the old and proven, but venturing out into the uncertain unknown. Entrepreneurship is about sacrificing good now for great later. It is about following the vision of Gordon B Hinckley, who at age 92 stated, "I am no longer a young man filled with energy and vitality. I’m given to meditation and prayer. I would enjoy sitting in a rocker, swallowing prescriptions, listening to soft music, and contemplating the things of the universe. But such activity offers no challenge and makes no contribution. I wish to be up and doing. I wish to face each day with resolution and purpose. I wish to use every waking hour to give encouragement, to bless those whose burdens are heavy, to build faith and strength of testimony. It is the presence of wonderful people which stimulates the adrenaline. It is the look of love in their eyes which gives me energy."

Environment, in the green movement of the new millennium, is about stepping back from a myopic view of the consequences of human activity on this planet. What one of us does today effects everyone tomorrow. Therefore, environment is about solidarity. It is about never being alone on this journey. Environment is about service and sacrifice. It is about not separating the end and the means. It is about Stephen R. Covey's "Third Alternatives". It is about consensus, equality, liberty, unity, and teamwork.

These are deep-rooted beliefs. I will never think it is dumb to be smart. I will always hope you dance, instead of sitting on the sidelines. I will respect the earth and all people who live here.

What is unanswered is this: how will I make progress on all 3 of these when I wake up tomorrow morning?

Quote from "The Voice of the Martians"

"Cynics say that, Hungarians created America's Hollywood befoer other Hungarians less destructively created America's atomic bomb." - The Voice of the Martians

In case you have not realized, just as I did not, the influence of Hungary in Hollywood, here are just a few American movies that were filmed in Hungary:

• Evita
• Underworld 1&2
• Munich
• Kontroll

Traditional Families

The "Traditional Family", by a popular defintion, currently describes a meager 7% of American households. This definition states that a traditional family is one where the male head of household is the wage-earner, the female head is responsible for caring for the household and rearing the children, and at least one of these children is under the age of 18.

From where and when this definition stems is not the most pressing issue at hand. What brings greater concern are questions such as, "How do we define family," and "How does this effect us?"

The family, in many cases, is considered a safe haven of love and the fulfillment of one's pupose in life. But for many people, family is a source of turmoil, grief, stress, and frustration. How are these people's needs quenched in our society when the family is unable to do so?

Another drawback of the traditional family is in the rights granted to this classification. Our government and other socially supportive organizations often award financial aid and assistance to groups defined as families. What if a societal group provides for the needs of children, but does not meet the dying traditional definition of family? Where do grandparents, single parents, unmarried couples, same-sex parents, and other leaders of familial teams go when they need help raising children? Why does our society continue to glorify an ideal of family that hasn't been the norm for over 2 decades?

Since my mom went back to work, following a demanding life of raising 3 very active children, my family's classification has moved from Traditional to Dual Income. I never realized that this change meant that my family had migrated away from the percieved norm, but find comfort in the notion that we may have become more "normal". Even my parents, whose 1960s-1980s Catholic familes had 6 and 7 children, were from untraditional roots because both of their parents worked. The family is far too complex of an entity to have any single situation deemed as its ideal. Even American TV has caught on to this fact. "Seventh Heaven", "The Gilmore Girls", "American Dreams", "Desperate Housewives", and even "The Brady Bunch" can help us disassociate ourselves from the inaccurate "Leave it to Beaver" idealization.

A few other points to ponder:

• the divorce rate in America has been steady since about 1980.
• the average number of pregnancies per American female has stayed nearly constant at 3.5 since 1900
• despite the fears that heterosexual marriage is an endangered institution in our country, almost 90% of Americans will marry in their lifetimes
• Is your family a "Traditional" one?
• If not, how has this affected your development as a person?
• How would you define family?

(I was inspired to write this following a weekend where 2 sets of my college friends were married, thus starting new familes of their own. In addition, my girlfriend, who is majoring in sociology, is taking a course on familes this semester, and is at this hour slaving over 3 complex essays on the subject.)