Are you sure you want to let others decide what you want in life?  A pizza may be a fun little suspension of responsibility especially when the person offering knows what’s good at a restaurant and you don’t.  What about a house?

So, I took the kids to a hometown artisan pizza place when my wife was traveling for work. Peel in the town of Frederick, Colorado is good to say the least and a place I totally suggest to anyone in the area.  It’s become a tradition for me to shuck my normal responsibility of cooking for the family when my spouse travels leaving me with the kids.  Provided the kids don’t bicker or spill their drinks, it can be a fun little escape from normality when mommy is gone.  Don’t get me wrong, cooking is a passion for me but it’s fun to let it go every now and again.  While we were waiting for the food, I noticed the people next to us were listening to an architect who was reviewing some customization on some house plans.  I heard interesting statements like, “This is what you want to put here.”  When one of the couple would say they wanted a wall or fixture somewhere, the architect said, “That wouldn’t be good to do because…”  “What you want is to …”. Occasionally, I would catch the architects eyes and he would look down at the drawings and refocus his clients on how he thought their house should be laid out in the matter he drew up.  “Your kids won’t like this.”  “I don’t know how you’ll use this space but its intended for…”  Before long the clients just didn’t talk to him and just listened to his rambling on about his experience and why he knew what’s a good house design was.

I suppose I took more interest in the situation than I should.  One of my goals is to work with an architect on a retirement house design.  Of course, I’m gathering a list of requirements and have thoughts on layout.  I plan on interviewing architects to ensure they are willing to work with the ideas from my spouse and I.  I realize that every family has an idea of what makes a good house.  Every architect will have their thoughts on what a good house design is.  However, if I find a designer pushing their agenda or ideals on me, I’ll drop them like a bag of dirt and move on.  Obviously, I don’t know the whole situation between the clients and the architect this evening.  Perhaps they didn’t know what they wanted and the architect was filling the need with his own experience.  What struck me the most was the fact that someone was pushing their ideals onto another without being open to exchange or modification.  The interaction I observed was a one-way street and had hints of one party being taken down a road they may not have wanted.  After the house plans were put away, I heard the architect tell his clients, “Let me order your pizza.”  The response in my head was “I can order my own damn pizza, thank you.”

So when someone is pushing their agenda or ideal of perfection on something you know well and good for yourself, remember you like your pizza how you like it.  Order your pizza your way and let everyone enjoy their own damn toppings however the hell they like it.

If you’d like to open a dialog on this or any topic on this blog, feel free to email jacob@bizofyou.com

I apologize for any typos, punctuation or grammar errors.
Feel free to comment and let me know of my errors so I may correct them and better my biz.