A helpful guide to me (Post PGP)

A letter to me, in August:

Dear Gabby (not sure how to go about the grammar for this one but I’ll give it a shot),

It’s August right now. You’re kinda bored but really glad it’s not the school year. Not going to lie, you’re going to miss those summer moments. It’s going to be a really tough year, like the second worst for you ever. For now anyway. You’re going to have to deal with a lot of school stress and you’re going to get a job. The job pays which is nice, but it’s hecka stressful. So, past me, I want you to read this. It could’ve helped you a lot. For so many reasons. Anyway, good reading.

- Gab (you)

Photo from August in Canmore, Alberta

A bit of backstory

So surprisingly, I didn’t decide to do this for fun. It was a school project. This project is connected to our unit called PGP. Or Personal Growth Plan. It’s a whole thing we’ll get into it in a second, but it one of the components was a book called “The 7 Habits for Highly Effective Teens” by none other than Sean Covey. I focused on one of the books 7 habits, habit 5:

“Seek first to understand and then be understood.”

And I will be focusing on this habit and how it could’ve helped me in the past. But! With cool photos that remind of all that jazz and make me think about it.

If you knew what I knew about the power of giving, you would not let one meal pass without sharing it in some way.

- Buddha

The cat

Ricky the Cat, age unknown, presumed to be a hundred

The first component of this Habit is perspective, understanding what others see and thinking like others do. So that’s why I have a few photos of a cat. I know it sounds ridiculous tO think from the perspective of a cat, it’s not exactly like a cat is going to have any fascinating thoughts about politics, but it still has thoughts. What I’m saying is that if you ever thought about thinking how dear old Ricky thinks, or even just pondering what’s happening in his head, you might find some interesting stuff. Maybe cool thoughts on how to hunt mice?

What was I thinking?

In the car there are two or three girls, they’re having a great time. They were super pumped when they saw me and my buddy Fraser taking their photo. The girls were happy. Do you know what I was thinking about when I took the photo?

“I should get back to the sea bus, I don’t want to miss the next one.”

Starbucks and a Rolls-Royce

That’s not good. I wasn’t prioritizing what was happening in the moment. And I should’ve been. It’s a total flaw in perspective. And that there is where another Habit comes into play: Putting things first. Put the moment first
Have fun but work too!

Shot in Downtown Vancouver at Dunsmuir Street

Sparks

Shot in my kitchen with slow shutter speed

I have been focusing on perspective and the “seek first to understand”.. (you know the rest) I wanted to talk about a habit that ties back to that: sharpening the saw.
When you’re parents tell you to do something it doesn’t mean you want to do it, I know. But that’s what they’re trying to get you to understand, that you need to practice to get good a it. And that’s their perspective. Understand it.
The reason I chose this photo of a lighter is because for the longest time I couldn’t turn a lighter on, it terrified me. Until one day, on a camping trip, my dad made me practice so I could light the fire. Long story short, I know how to use a lighter now. Practice the skills you learn don’t let the slip away.

An ode to New Zealand

I took these photos a while ago. I think it’s been three years now. At that time, my goal on that particular trip was to convince my parents to stay forever in New Zealand. To me, it was such a special place. That obviously didn’t work. But I did bring up that story for a reason. Though I did not convince my parents to let me stay by myself in New Zealand, I have started saving so that I can go back one day.. This had to do with another component of PGP, goal setting. There were a lot of things I had to understand before I could just decided to move there and I still think about those things a lot, like how it would impact my family. I really could’ve used this kind of thinking before making a few decisions this year. Every decision I’m ever going to make is going to impact someone, somehow.

Shots taken in Auckland, New Zealand

Shot in Gastown, Vancouver

Different ways of life

Though I have mentioned perspective quite a few times in this project, I really want to break down what that means to me. The phrase: seek first to understand and then be understood to me, and according to Sean Covey’s book means that you can have different opinions than somebody and talk to them and your perspective might have changed after that conversation. This year I have multiple instances where I have met people that I don’t agree with and I didn’t once stop to see where they were coming from, instead I got quite worked up over the fact that they believed something different than me. I spent a lot of time thinking about how to asnwer to those people. As my mom would say: I let them live rent free in my head. But for all this instances I have hundreds of others where I practiced this technique. Sometimes those different points of view can help, like “synergizing”.

Another letter to me

Dear me,

I’m writing you this letter for April 17th. You will know what that means. It has been the worst day ever. You could’ve really used a pick me up. So look at this photo. In the photo, you are supposed to see one part of it in color. That is your mind, in your mind there’s a heck ton of stuff going on. But outside the littler colored in bit there’s a lot going too. There’s a whole world ou there. Connect this with another one of those “Habits” , Habit 1. Be proactive. That means that if you are feeling sad right now, you have to do something about it, you have to change what’s happening, you have to go talk to someone and see what they’re point of view is. Take my advice!

- You