Hugo's World

I have not written any new story in more than a month but I decided to do this time after CTV news showed part of my interview with them more than 2 months ago.

First at all, I am a person who fights every single day with a very busy and demanding job, supporting as much as I can my ex partner with my child and rescued dog and doing some research activities outside of work on new technologies. If many of you think is impossible to accomplish all of what I described above… I make things happen.

Secondly, my main goal to put myself on media was preventing others from the romance scam I faced earlier this year and educate others that they are tools to keep yourself moving towards in the correct direction available but unfortunately sometimes not accessible for everyone such as having real friends and people in your life to help you when things are difficult to handle.The feeling of being scammed is terrible due to the process of lack of confidence within ourselves; however we need strong determination and support to move forward from the hole of feeling ashamed of making such a mistake.

Thirdly, CTV news shorten the information I provided based on their format which shows some of my desire to advocate for awareness of these matters but missed the part of mental health awareness and support system when individuals like myself are in a vulnerable stage due to separation, suddenly death of a partner, etc.

Lastly, I will be more than happy to receive comments and invitations to advocate for educational and mental awareness purposes from individuals and institutions to make this experience that I went through not be only part of the statistics in the world and inspire others with my resilience towards this unique matter.

Looking forward to seeing comments and hopefully inspire some of you and make our current world of lack of leadership towards geopolitics but we can start the change from each of us.

After going through my healing process and working towards my divorce I have been realizing how our legal, health and educational systems here in Canada and probably in lots of places in the western world do not fit the needs of the cases outside of the average.

First, post Covid lockdown children has demonstrated much more anxiety to get into a regular long hours of activity and my 11 year old didn’t fit the public system and after a long challenging time now he is in a special needs private school with support from my ex’s family.

Second, diagnosis for ADHD and Autism were private and even good work benefits like the ones I have don’t cover at all.

Third, divorce laws only look for the ex partner who makes more and who makes less and do not take in consideration the mental toll and burnt out that someone like me had for years which at end I got separated scammed which makes totally sense now to me. It could be gambling, drugs for others like me and could finish out in the streets.

I also realizing that I am resilient individual who is able to fight in different fronts: my very demanding job, my separation dealings, my self care with daily meditation, pickleball, looking forward to ice skating again and ice hockey, career objectives and R&D on the side.

Hopefully my words above can help someone who is dealing with separation and the stupidity of our broken systems but if I can be resilient and move forward and battle in many fronts anyone can.

It is easy to ignore our surroundings when we are doing fine in life after a pretty remarkable way back on track in my career, objectives and personal life.

…But this is not how I am. As part of my healing I am able to feel compassion for the struggles of others. The homeless man who inspired me to make my story of struggles public is making one step forward and four backward and walking in circles without finding a way out of his situation due to inability to beat his own demons of drugs and mental paralysis.

It hurts to see a human being taking his precious life with no direction only showing his lack of motivation to get out of the hole where he finds himself.

My fellow Randy is in my prayers and daily meditation. Hopefully one day a miracle happen and he gets back to society until that day comes if I see him I will say hi, share some food and feel compassion for someone who shows with honesty his struggles.

Few days ago a very good friend shared with me an interview to a psychologist regarding the future of the workforce in key sectors and the approach of new generations addressing gaps. It was interesting to hear from different perspective how previous generations like mine in the 40s and older don’t fully understand the view of new generation and see some sort of entitlement and fight the old stereotype to work hard to get things and stay in a dream job forever but our world has changed dramatically the social media component is huge.

I was not surprised at all listening to this podcast, first things coming to my mind were old memories from the 90s when hotmail and internet became huge in late 90s. Also, famous athletes had good salaries before the big internet explosion but after this the salary was not only based on the performance, also on the jerseys, media and business superstar vision of many which made our world very different showing the difference between rich and poor since then much bigger and the new generation saw their superstars success and found more power to challenge the typical business world of basic steady work commitments.

In my view, even now there is a way to lead and inspire new generation to gaps in key sectors of our economy such as health, electricity, education but we need to listen and learn from the new generation and mentor them towards uniqueness and leadership.

Last week, I felt so happy that after 7 years having co-op students finally one student followed my lead to assist a technical event and after a crazy work day in the power sector my student took a commute similar than mine 2 hour to be in a networking event in downtown and meet peers from different companies and gather new contacts. There are unicorns out there but leadership, commitment and some sort of additional push is needed to create leaders that our society very much needs but the work starts with everyone of us.

There are many things that I have been learning as part of my own healing process post separation such as that every day is different and I will have ups and downs and I need to adjust to the moment the best way I can to move forward emotionally from it.

Today, I had 2 specific situations that made me feel weird and little sad, the first someone during my pickleball game mentioned that he was getting married in a week and he was a little scared about it. The second, a relative of my ex got married. I didn’t realize that these kind of regular situations were going to be tricky sometimes to deal with my emotions.

As part of the healing process, uncomfortable feelings towards my marriage seem pretty natural and I am 100% sure that many others going through this process have felt the same way as me.

I think that the best approach towards any trigger of sadness during this journey can be to see everything in a big picture and celebrate small victories one day at a time and realize that these situations will affect me less in the near future.

More than 17 years ago I saw a video and listened carefully Johnny Cash’s version of Nine Inch Nails song Hurt and it impacted me deeply enough that I made my interpretation of this in a Toastmasters Public Speaking Club at that time. I remember the lyrics were raw “What have I become
My sweetest friend?
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt”

The video showed the ups and lows of Cash’s life the love for his mother, his late second wife June Carter, the luxury of his status as a famous country singer. His activism for native Americans, the Vietnam war of the 70s, prisoners rights.

A very honest delivery from beginning to end showing images of young Cash and his evolution in time. I am pretty sure I am not the first one admitting that I cried few times when I watched the entire video of this song.

In perspective, the openness of a performer to show compassion for the prisoners, segregated native Americans was Cash’s legacy perhaps ours is different but inspiring others and feeling compassion for others can help to make our world a little better

https://youtu.be/8AHCfZTRGiI?si=gQpkOATNRKG2v_fW

Growing up in a South American country with some pros and cons of a latin society when the idea of having a million of friends was never my idea; I found refuge drinking a bit with some people and listening rock music specially 90’s where cool bands with some depressing content were a perfect fit to my stage and challenges growing up in an environment where my father was absent most of the time.

I remember very well an interview of the 90s to the pretty famous Spanish singer Julio Iglesias stating that the new generation views are many times without looking your surroundings and the whole beauty of what you have up front and this moment kept in my hard disk forever. I decided to look for my own self development despite the noise of the world with great people and tools along the way. The truth I had some ups and downs but at the end I was able to get back to my inner self. This year was a little deeper because my comeback was after separation and scam which I never got knocked out twice as hard as this; however with the real friends as support I had not million, honestly I can count with one hand they were always for me and I have been seen the light at end of the tunnel.

Few weeks ago, I needed to kill time for an hour during my car service and I found a flyer for a community pickle ball following a link then I contacted the admin Amanda who as a fantastic host along with Mark made feel welcome at home having some fun and meeting great people, helping me socializing and doing something that I love as a community.

For the ones who in dark times, there is always a better tomorrow but for this idea we need to start today being around real friends and community to help you going through the challenging times, the choice is yours and with strength and determination it is a process one day at a time and we are never alone there is always a community and God who looks after you.

Education and health are key components of everyone’s lives.

Specifically Ontario, Canada both extremely important are designed only for the average person.

When someone has a partner with more than one health concern and a child with anxiety and pending diagnosis of ADHD and autism don’t meet the criteria at all despite having a very good job.

I started realizing that even losing my savings to a crypto scam was painful due to lack of judgement, things can be much worse when you feel that the public system and many people don’t see the specifics of mental health and how individuals like myself cope with extremely challenging events in life.

Based on my own experience, the only way out of depression and negativity is making a strong plan commitment to find tools such as a good therapist who can guide you, check up with real friends, look for activities to open yourself slowly, find refocusing on your job and seek always for the light at the end of the darkness.

My ex and I got a 9 month old rescued mixed dog from the Caribbean 4 years ago. The try out for this dog was 3 weeks max to decide if we keep him or not.

During the 3 weeks, this creature was extremely anxious, he didn’t wanna go outside, accidents as expected. I needed to carry him with his 50 pounds plus everywhere and keeping in perspective that he was an orphan dog. He nipped my son’s cousin because didn’t like the kid put his face on him and forgot that he didn’t trust him yet. It was almost the end of the try out and we needed to make a decision on the dog. Prior to this, we asked the agency about his history and the poor dog had a previous owner for short period but he was returned from Florida to the Caribbean.

After speaking with my ex we were 50% on keeping the dog and we needed to make a decision. My statement was that if we don’t give a chance to this creature who will do? then I empathized to my ex to keep him.

I am not saying that my dog is an easy one, he takes anxiety and skin medication everyday but the love that this creature brings and the truth company is unique and I was 100% correct to give a chance to this orphan to have a better dog life.

The bottom line is feeling compassion for humans and other creatures is the best idea to make our lives and the world a little better.

Many people would prefer to not think too much about the whole background behind a favourite song of a favourite singer, I would try my best interpretation based on what I know.

Like A Stone of Audioslave by Chris Cornell quotes:

“In a room full of emptiness
By a freeway I confess
I was lost in the pages
Of a book full of death
Reading how we’ll die alone
And if we’re good, we’ll lay to rest
Anywhere we want to go”

Perhaps the meaning is a real journey through depression fighting with own demons of drug abuse, loneliness and seeking for ways to communicate publicly and share the message in a powerful way that Like A Stone may be part of your personal troubles and die alone.

Trying to see this from another perspective, the main singer and my favourite performer Chris Cornell at the time of writing this song in 2002 during a rehab of drugs and probably unhappy prior separation from his first wife the following year 2003.

In other words, music is art that heals people and shares messages of personal journeys with some stories of compassion for ourselves and others and hope that the future is better.

We don’t need to feel alone and isolated as the main character of the son but the answer and the change is personal and we can inspire others one day at a time.

https://youtu.be/7QU1nvuxaMA?si=8FI7kegxMQ0MnVq2

Also Chris’ honesty as performer and composer is alive always everywhere.