Blind spots

“All I want from tomorrow is to get it better than today…”
— Bruce Hornsby (or Huey Lewis — whomever you prefer)

“You’re only human; you’re allowed to make your share of mistakes…”
— Billy Joel

One of my favorite books is The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks.  For the benefit of those of you who’ve never read it (spoiler alert: if you’ve never read it and want to, I suggest you stop reading this paragraph and move to the next one, because what I’m about to say doesn’t get revealed until near the end of the book), the book involves a magic sword that has the ability to reveal truth.  When the sword’s magic is invoked, both the wielder and the recipient are forced to confront the truth.

There are many times that I wish I had a Sword of Shannara.  I can think of many people who would benefit from its magical power.  And I put myself at the top of that list.

An incident that occurred last night served to remind me of the blind spots that I have.  I don’t care to talk about the incident (the details aren’t important here, anyway), except that I felt as though I’d taken a big step backwards.  It’s not the first time that I’ve taken a step back, and as much as I try to avoid it, I suspect that it will likely not be the last.

We all have blind spots; it’s a part of being human.  More often than not, we aren’t aware that those blind spots are there — hey, there’s a reason why they’re called “blind” spots.  There is no magic sword to reveal those blind spots.  The best mirror we have for those blind spots is each other, in how we behave and react around one another.  If someone is smiling, laughing, or nodding his or her head around you, you’re probably doing something right.  If that person is frowning, yelling, or criticizing, then probably not.

As much as we try to do our best, inevitably, we will stumble somewhere down the line.  I admit that I’m probably still dwelling on it — I probably wouldn’t be writing this article, otherwise.  I’ll eventually get over it.  All we can do is to recognize our blind spots — once we recognize that they’re there — keep an open mind, learn from our mistakes, and keep moving forward.

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Memories of 9/11

On this somber anniversary, I am reblogging this post from last year.

Welcome to Ray Kim's 'blog

(Photo image courtesy of Wikipedia)

I still remember the morning of September 11, 2001 (15 years ago today) like it was yesterday.  It was an ordinary Tuesday morning.  At the time, I lived in a townhouse in Clifton Park, about 15 miles north of Albany.  I got up, showered, got dressed, kissed my then-girlfriend (now wife) good day, stopped at the local convenience store to pick up the day’s New York Times, and drove to work.

My company had an office in the World Trade Center.  Although I was based out of the Albany, NY office, I regularly made business trips to the World Trade Center roughly about once every couple of months; in fact, I had been in the World Trade Center only a couple of weeks earlier.  I had been down there often enough to become well-acquainted with the area; I knew the hotels (including a Marriott right…

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