Archive for June, 2009
Is Work Blocking Your Life?
When it comes to priorities we may say that something is important to us, but our actions just don’t show it. A quick test to see what your priorities really are? take a look at what you make time for. For most of us it seems to come out to work and career takes precedent over family, over personal dreams, over taking care of health… and the list goes on.
See a problem here? We have only one life that we are absolutely guaranteed. It is limited, and could be over at any second. This does not mean that we should put work completely on the back burner. Making a living is important, having the money to feed ourselves and family is important. What it does mean is that it is much more common for us to ignore the things that we say are important to us in favor of a job that we started working so that we could provide not only for our needs but for the other things that are important to us as well.
If you are valuing work over your own health, than you are drastically hurting your ability to work. If you are racked with guilt all day while you are at work, because you are breaking your promises to your family so that you can work for a boss who will not always be in your life than you are hurting your productivity at work. If you are saying that you can never travel or write a book because you have to work, than when are you going to live your life?
Don’t get me wrong here. Work is not your enemy, doing something productive in trade for the resources necessary to achieve your needs and wants is honorable. Providing for yourself brings freedom, and your boss is not the one who is really stopping you from your goals. Your job is not the thing keeping you from doing the things that you say you really want to. It comes down to a question of what is important to you.
If it is important to you to go on vacation than you can schedule time off, this may mean working a little extra hard for a month so that things go smoothly, but if its important to you, you can make it happen. If your health is important to you, than you can make the time for a Doctors appointment. If your children are important to you, than you can set aside at least one day a weekend to spend with them. This comes down to time management. This comes down to realizing that someday will never come until someday has a calendar date. One of these days does not exist, until you put exactly what day that is and clear it out.
In order to do this you may have to sit down and do some soul-searching. Take a look at the things you have made your priority. Make a record of how you spend the time in your week. Make a list of the things you’ve been wanting to do someday, and either take them off the list, hire someone else to do it, or set a calendar date on it. And not just a calendar date, but get a partner to keep after you and make sure you keep that calendar. It may not be easy, but since when does life come in easy? Since it doesn’t you may find that your excuses for not going after the things that you say are important to you, often don’t hold much water, and when they do maybe there is some rearranging that can be done in your life to make it so that you can still take care of whats important. Again this is your life, and you are only guaranteed one shot at it. As Henry Ford said “You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.”
Add comment June 24, 2009
It’s Never Too Late
Sir Ken Robinson Phd. wrote a great book called “The Element” on how successful people from all walks of life, found their calling, and how that impacted their lives. He focuses on the attitudes that these people have in common, and he attacks misconceptions about going after our passions. One of the ideas that he focuses on in this book, that really struck me was that it’s never too late. It is never too late to do something that works with your passion. It is never too late to find a new passion. It is never so late that their are no more opportunities.
We seem to have this idea that all of our opportunities are earlier in life, and that because of some tragic accident, or some wrong move all of our opportunities for moving forward are gone. They are never all gone, and even when old doors shut because that does happen, new doors open up. Its not just a cliche, there are people out their right now who live this as a reality daily.
Imagine how easy it would have been for Dr. Stephen Hawking to decide that he wasn’t going to be able to find success when he was told that he had a terminal illness. He had not yet written any of his books, and he wasn’t sure about what would happen with his career. His doctor and wife both encouraged him however to continue, and today if you follow science at all, than it is likely that you know who this man is.
Or what about people that didn’t make it big till well into their old age? There are successful photographers, writers, announcers, world record holders, and club starters that all fall under these categories.
The point is that if you let yourself believe that your opportunities are gone, than you are automatically blinding yourself to possible routes, that could really bring you forward in your career, in your passion, and in your life in general. You have to get rid of the notion that opportunity is a one time thing and that if you don’t get it while your young its gone forever. Its never gone, it reinvents itself constantly, but you have to look for it, and you have to make it a priority to find. Anything that is not a priority is not going to get done.
For Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk click here.
For Dr. Stephen Hawking’s personal account of life after his diagnosis click here.
Add comment June 23, 2009
Pushing Understanding
I like to read some heavy reading, and a lot of times it can be hard to understand. Like the first time I tried to read the Communist Manifesto I had to have a dictionary next to me, and I was looking up every other word. I still didn’t finish it the first time, I had to go back to it after I had read enough political writings that I understood the language usage better. Right now I’m reading Plato’s Republic, and while I’m understanding it much better than I initially understood Marx it is still pushing my mind to follow the conversations. I’ve got the gist and its getting easier as I go, but its still a challenge.
Recently I was scolded for answering a question to two young teenagers about why I had become a vegetarian. I told them that I watched a few documentaries and read some writers like Ghandi and it started bugging me, and since it bugged me I decided not to mess with it. I was scolded for confusing them. The kids I was talking to told me they were not confused, and said that they understood my answer, but the person scolding me seemed to feel that on the basis of their age that even if they did not understand that they would not be able to ask questions. Which was how the whole conversation was started to begin with, by asking questions.
What I’ve found is that even when I’m completely confused, as long as I can ask, “what does that mean?” or investigate an idea further, than I’ve been able to push myself to at least get a general idea of the subject. I’ve grown by diving into ideas that I did not understand, and asking as many questions as I thought of in order to try to understand them. When there was no one to ask questions I did searches for my answers. This has started to teach me, and I say started because I have a lot more to learn, the value of asking questions about things that I do not understand, even when I don’t understand the answers at first.
If someone asks you a question that you don’t think they’ll understand the answer to, the least you can do is try. The person may surprise you on how much they are able to understand, and even if they don’t understand it exposing people to new ideas is still good for them. I didn’t finish Marx the first time, but because I tried I understood references to Marx it made other things easier to understand.
Add comment June 22, 2009
Thoreau Quotes
Henry David Thoreau was a man who lived by example first. If he believed a law was wrong than he would rather be in jail than support an unjust law. He is one of America’s greatest writers, and his thoughts on the freedom of personal responsibility, political life, leading by example, and nature have been a strong influence on me. Please enjoy.
“If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see.”
“Men are born to succeed, not to fail.”
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
“However mean your life is, meet it and live it.”
“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.”
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
“There is no remedy for love, but to love more.”
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
“Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.”
“Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.”
“…be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else’s idea of yourself should be.”
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
“One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something.”
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”
“Not till we are completely lost or turned around… do we begin to find ourselves.”
“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
“Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.”
“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
“In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.”
“Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.”
“We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal and then leap in the dark to our success.”
“If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.”
“public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. what a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.”
“The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend.”
“It is never too late to give up your prejudices”
“I can alter my life by altering my attitude. He who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers.”
“Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.”
“But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”
“Things do not change, we change.”
“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”
“We should impart our courage and not our despair.”
“A Friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who can appreciate them in us.”
“It’s not worth our while to let our imperfections disturb us always.”
Add comment June 21, 2009
Judgment and Modern Racism
You will be judged by the standard that you judge others. When I went through to see what Jesus said about forgiveness of sins, the only thing I found that directly addressed it was “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” I than went on a study of this theme throughout the Bible and found that it had a strong precedent in the old testament. If there is to be judgment on the other side than this strikes me as the most likely, and most just punishment/reward that would be met, and even if there is nothing on the other side, I believe this is also a principle that applies to our living lives.
The thing is that a lot of people take the judgments they make for granted. We let public opinion form our judgments, or those of our friends. For example, in the US Mexicans and by extension due to ignorance most hispanics are viewed as trespassers by a good deal of people. We are told that they just want to feed off the welfare system, and that they bring crime and drugs with them. This is racism. I don’t care if there are people who do that. Whether one or two really are like that does not justify a sweeping statement. What about people in your groups? What would happen if you were all considered a cause of crime or a bunch of lazy bums? What if it was over something you couldn’t help? Like the color of your skin, or the country of your birth. What if no matter what your values were you would always be seen as this?
Yesterday I had the group of people I associated with called a bunch of criminals and bums. There was no basis for this charge, and it was founded in ignorance. When all arguments against this charge were used the accuser decided to default to the age argument which is a fallacy that was alive and well but pointed out in ancient Greece. I’ve been friends and co-workers with Mexicans, and while there is definitely a different culture, many of these people are trying just as hard as I am to figure out what the best way to make life work is.
Please, until you’ve walked in somebody’s shoes please do not make blanket statements about their groups, and actually, even than, don’t do it. One bad example, does not mean that the rest of them are bad. If anyone who knows me catches me doing this let me know, so that I can correct it. Whether it is public opinion, or not, these prejudices are not justified, and they create far more harm than they do good.
Add comment June 20, 2009
Prioritizing Rest
It is so easy to get caught up in just getting things done. There is always so much work to be done, and getting that break in is something you just don’t have time for. After all working your way through is the best way to get it done right? Wrong.
In matters of business the most productive people are often ones who take breaks. The reason being is that in order to take a break you must be able to do two things that are crucial to productivity. You must be able to decide which things are important, and which things may be put off for ten minutes while you take a breather. This prioritizing is a skill that business leaders look for in employees. Secondly you have to be able to manage time without it being frantic. If you are rushing from one place to the next all the time with never any time to stop than you are cramming your time space too much. This makes you look disorganized, and puts your mindset in a rushed state, which is when most mistakes are made, which in the long run takes a lot more time to fix.
Another thing to consider is the power of your sub-conscious. A lot of times we don’t take a break because we think of it as accomplishing nothing, but the truth is that unless your watching tv your sub-conscious is always working. One of the best things you can do to get some benefit from this work is take a break and relax. While you are relaxing your sub-conscious mind will be hard at work on problems that you have wondered about. You’ll be able to come back to work refreshed, and you’ll have a better chance of finding a better way of doing something. Your mind will be sharper and you get hung up less. Not to mention you look less frantic.
Taking a break is accomplishing something. Taking the time to eat, taking the time to let your mind settle down will help you do a better job. Just like little things like checking the oil in your car can save you a lot of money and time in the long run, taking the time to rest and refresh yourself for work, will also save time and money. You’ll be cooler headed, which is important when making big decisions, and you’ll be more likely to be ready. Plus if this is a regular habit, and you have to miss a break one day the calm will normally spill over a little bit, giving you much of the same benefits on the days when you just can’t rest
Add comment June 19, 2009
