A woman walked up to a little old man rocking in a chair on his porch.
“I couldn’t help noticing how happy you look,” she said. “What’s your secret for a long happy life?”
“I smoke three packs of cigarettes a day,” he said. “I also drink a case of whiskey a week, eat fatty foods, and never exercise.”
“That’s amazing,” the woman said. “How old are you?’
“Twenty-six,” he said.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that habits fall into two general categories: good habits and bad habits. A good habit is flossing every day. A bad habit is smoking. Some habits might fall somewhere in between, or depend on frequency. Flossing every day is a good habit. Flossing once per month isn’t a bad habit, exactly, but it’s not – strictly speaking – a good habit either. Eating a huge overcooked steak once a year is not a terribly bad habit. Eating one for breakfast every day is.

But let’s stick with good habits and bad habits, because most people can tell the difference and don’t need more distinction than that. Most of them can then be thrown into another three categories:

1. habits you should break - debt, looking down on things, negativism
2. habits you should take - wake up early, play outside, etc from when you were a kid
3. habits you should make - positivity, frugality, love

We’ll call that break, take and make.

Break
In a sense, it is often a lot easier to identify a negative habit than a positive one. Overeating or smoking or playing too much Halo is usually a fairly easy pattern to spot. However, the habits that you need to break are often either very pleasurable (overeating for example), or arise from addiction (smoking), or are based on deeply ingrained behaviors (negative thinking). So how do you go about modifying bad habits? What are the methods for eliminating them from your life?

• Stop. Sometimes a bad habit just needs to cease. If you smoke, stop – get some nicotine gum instead. If you watch 6 hours of TV per day, disconnect your cable. If you gossip, turn the subject to sports or politics or movies. This method is hard, and frankly almost never works – but sometimes it’s worth a shot.
• Modify. If you drink Coke, try switching to diet Coke, or diet Sprite, or ginger ale, or seltzer – or cycle through them in that order. You do not have to immediately stop a habit. Take baby steps. If you don’t exercise, don’t imagine that you will run a marathon the week after you start taking a 20-minute walk; but DO imagine that you’ll take a 25 minute walk the next week, then a 45 minute walk, then a 20 minute jog and then – who knows? That marathon might not be so far away after all!
• Inhibit. In another post I wrote about using a rubber band to help stop negative thoughts. You can use this extremely simple tool very effectively. The purpose is not to injure you or create a fear of an action, but merely to jolt your awareness. I think this is probably the easiest yet almost the most effective way to halt any bad habit. It is one of those exceptionally simple methods that most people scoff at until they try it. Give it a shot.
• Journal. I have plenty of bad habits, but I have seldom seen one that can withstand a brutally honest journal. If your habit to break is sweets, keep an extremely detailed sweets journal. When, where, what, how many calories, why you ate it (sad? bored?) and almost inevitably you’ll notice a decrease. Writing things down will help solidify the habit in your mind, and make you think twice before engaging in it, knowing you’ll have to record that incident in your journal.

Take
When you were a child, you woke up full of energy and excitement on Saturdays. The cartoons were on, it was the day you were allowed to eat Lucky Charms instead of something good for you, and you didn’t have to go to school. You didn’t know it at the time, but waking up early was a good habit. It kept you from wasting half the day sleeping, making it harder to fall asleep Saturday night. It meant that on your weekends you accomplished “maximum fun” and really squeezed as much into the day as you could. Where did that habit go? Some of it left because you got older… because work beat you down … because you just NEED that sleep. You don’t have to leave this good habit behind you in childhood, though. Reach back into your past and take back these good habits. Take back the habits of playtime, of reading, of avoiding things that didn’t directly contribute to your health and happiness. These are habits which are just day-to-day simple tasks that improve the quality of your life. Examples could include:

• Making time for play
• Learning about things because you’re curious
• Questioning “the way it’s always been done”
• Never learning to sit still

Here are the first steps to doing this:

• Identify those habits:
• Remember how they felt
• Ask yourself if there’s any reason you couldn’t still do that
• With a nod to Prince: act your shoe size, not your age

Make
If you have seen The Secret, or read any similar self-help book, you’ll realize that the power of positive thinking is a hot topic right now. It has been a hot topic for hundreds of years, in fact, and there’s a reason for it. It works. Having a mental habit like positive thinking is a snowball habit. The more you do it, the more powerful it becomes and makes it easier and easier to maintain as a habit. There are other key “make” habits like this:

• Eating a healthy, natural diet
• Spending time with family and friends by actually being there; no Blackberries, no agendas, and no pressure
• Making time for meditation
• Daydreaming
• Being kind

So how do you make these habits? I’ll refer back again to The Secret, but it could just as easily come from the works of Benjamin Franklin or any self-help individual in-between. You can control your thoughts. There is very little else in this world that you can control the way you can control your thoughts. Use that power to your advantage. Tell your mind “this is a habit, this will be a ritual and we will keep it.” Imagine you have already been doing this habit for years. Imagine that it has made you happier, more fit, richer, calmer – whatever it is that you want. You really have to visualize it, write it down, draw it or otherwise make it a real image in your mind. You will be amazed at how quickly your mind adapts to a “new reality” once you order it to. A habit is not a set of chains or a gun pointed at your head. It is 100% the result of your mind, so only you – as the person in control – can change your mind and therefore the habit.

how to develop good habits is an original article from the website brip blap.

But if you can’t focus on something, it’s a shortcoming. In my case, I don’t have a lot of passion for my work.  I view it as a mechanical activity that provides food, shelter, clothing and Netflix for the family.  I wouldn’t view this as ideal, although I realize at the same time that 99.99% of the human population wouldn’t view sitting in a quiet, air-conditioned cubicle for 8 hours a day for an income in the top 1% of the planet’s population as a hardship.  Many of the “seize your passion” bloggers do – they assume that everyone can seize their internet business bliss – nobody has to make the computer, only to live off of them.

But that’s fine – of course some can and some can’t. Whether any of us choose to do so is of course a choice; if you love taking care of horses and instead choose to pursue a career as an account receivable manager, you’ve made a choice.  Whether you can live with it or not is the problem – many can, and a few can’t.  I’d guess that the time when all of this questioning really came into play was when the social contract that said companies would handle retirement broke down.  If I worked for IBM for 25 years and knew they’d take care of me during those 25 years, and after, I’d be a lot more inclined to give up on the need for passion.  But nowadays, that’s not true; just recently a colleague of mine got laid off from a company he’d worked for over 20 years without even a thank you.  Your future is not secure.

I realized all of this tonight while reading to my son.  For about a week we’ve been reading a few pages of “The Hobbit” by J. R. R. Tolkien every night.  I’ve explained the general story to him – a little hobbit goes with a bunch of dwarves to steal back their gold from a dragon – but I don’t have many illusions about how well a four-year-old can follow Tolkien’s esoteric prose.   It’s not exceptionally complicated, but it’s not Goodnight Moon.

But tonight when I asked him if he wanted to try something easier, he said no. I asked whether he understood most of it, and he said no.  I asked then if he wanted to stop, and he said no.  I asked why, if he couldn’t understand all of it, and he gave me an answer that should make things clear (to paraphrase):  I’m excited about it because you’re excited about it, Papa.  He liked listening to it because I liked reading it.  Something was in my voice that wasn’t there when I was reading Goodnight Moon or I’m A Truck.

Some of my fondest memories from childhood are of my father reading The Hobbit to me from the same book at a slightly older age. I remember being a little confused by the language and the complex plot, but loving the fact that my dad thought I was ready for something so amazing.  That passion translates easily, and makes reading something like The Hobbit far simpler than struggling through Goodnight Moon for the 100th time.  Sitting down at the desk in the corporate office for the 100th time is much like that; coming up with new ideas, starting new jobs or developing new ideas is much like picking up The Hobbit.

I don’t like to think that work – and through that, life – is bleak without purpose. It’s not; other things should put life in balance even if there isn’t purpose in one’s work.  But work and parenthood and friendship and one’s relationship with parents, community, school and whatever else are, in fact, intimately tied up with passion.  Without the passion to pursue something – church, charity, community, work, parenthood, etc. – life is going to be a little less exciting.  Excitement is its own reward.

the passion of the hobbit is an original article from the website brip blap.

A positive attitude can be as elusive as a perfect cheeseburger, shoes that are both gorgeous and comfortable, or a TV show with a compelling and engaging script (we’re all missing Lost right about now). But by starting every day off on the right foot, literally rolling out of bed with a spring in your step, you are much more likely to live your life in a positive way and enjoy the many things that make being alive worthwhile. So here are a few ways to get on board with positive thinking so that every cheeseburger tastes better than the last (shoes and sitcoms are sadly beyond your control).

1. Eat when you’re hungry, sleep when you’re tired. In this fast-paced world, we train our bodies to go without food and sleep much of the time. We skip breakfast and rush through lunch, only to pop a high-sodium calorie fest of an instant meal in the toaster or microwave when we get home (yes, we are all guilty of eating Pop Tarts for dinner once in awhile). We scrape by on five or six hours of sleep and lament the fact that our eyes are baggy and bloodshot and we just can’t seem to get rid of those ten extra pounds of spare tire around our midsection. But you can live like the Buddhists and lead a happier, healthier life by listening to your body and responding to its needs.
2. Learn to say “no”. This may be the most important word in the English language, as every two-year-old knows. In order to put yourself first, you have to learn to deny demanding bosses, shrug off guilt-laden requests from friends and family, and stop yourself from joining every club and charity on the planet. Just say no! Schedule in some time for yourself and don’t let anyone deter you (especially YOU).
3. Appreciate what you have. The world is full of have-not, why-me, and grass-is-greener complaints. Don’t be one of those myopic souls who can’t see the good that’s staring you in the face. Instead of wondering why you got passed up for promotion, get proactive and seek out ways to improve your standing and recognition. Don’t try to keep up with the Joneses (or Kardashians, or whoever else has more money, fame, and acclaim). Live well, within your means, and love the life you have. Being content is a big part of being positive.
4. Create something. Working in a soulless corporate environment can often make you feel like you’re just spinning your wheels. So think about ways in which you can produce something tangible in your life that makes you feel good. Plant a garden, paint a portrait, or build a scale model of Devil’s Tower in your living room. There are plenty of ways to enjoy the creative outlet you desire, so make something (anything), even if you think it will be bad.
5. De-clutter. This is something that you can do both physically and mentally. Proponents of feng shui will tell you that de-cluttering your living space will simultaneously clear your mind of debris. There may be some truth to this, but the two do not always go together. However, a clean house will certainly allow you to relax and enjoy your free time more, so it couldn’t hurt. As for a worry-free mind, that is easier than you think. If you have a problem, write it down and forget about it. You can always come back to it if you need to, but the simple act of releasing it from your thoughts will take a weight off your shoulders and allow you to focus on something more positive.

Today’s guest post was written by Kyle Simpson.  Kyle writes for Medical Billing and Coding Schools where you can find more information about a career in medical billing and coding.

Photo by kevindooley

Wake Up on the Right Side of the Bed Every Day is an original article from the website brip blap.

Experts tell us that the design of a wineglass — from the shape to the height to the width of the rim  — can affect the way you taste the wine. Supposedly at the high end of the scale, a wine that might taste perfect in one glass would be less than perfect in another. From an old New York Times article (I had the quote but the link didn’t work anymore):

“We started with a typically full-flavored California chardonnay, from Kendall Jackson. In Riedel’s Vinum Chardonnay glass (Steve’s note – cost: approximately $95 – the glass, not the wine), notes of tropical fruit wafted up and expanded lusciously in the mouth. We transferred the wine into the Vinum Sauvignon Blanc glass, where it seemed to lose depth. Creamy oak and vanilla overpowered the other flavors. It also seemed unpleasantly tannic. Finally, we poured the chardonnay into a “joker” glass — those miserly little wineglasses that you can barely fit your nose into. In this glass, alcohol burned on the nose, and the tropical fruit disappeared.”

This all sounds crazy, right?

I drink red wine. Probably the best glass of wine I ever had was a Chianti (Peppoli 2000) at a Roman restaurant, San Teodoro, in May of 2004. Probably the beautiful restaurant, the view on the Forum and simply the fact that Bubelah and I were in Rome had something to do with my pleasant memory of the evening, the meal and most particularly the wine. My recollection of the day includes spending the morning, a clear spring day, in Hadrian’s Villa and then a long evening after dinner walking through a rose exhibit near the Circo Massimo and enjoying some campari in a café while listening to jazz.  At home, I usually use a small tumbler for my wine, and I seldom get out the wine glasses.  I drink inexpensive wine for the most part, and can’t remember the last time I spent $20 on a bottle unless it was a gift for someone else.

I guess my point is that – at least for an unsophisticated wine drinker – the atmosphere surrounding the Peppoli at San Teodoro made the wine fantastic rather than any magical combination of earthy vanilla tones. I doubt the Peppoli was a particularly impressive wine, strictly speaking. I suspect if I drank it sitting at home while eating a plate of leftovers it would not have made such an impression on me. So the surroundings, which might include a fancier glass than normal, probably made the difference in taste and perception. The goal for all of us, then, has to be to create the atmosphere and environment in our lives around us to make the mundane seem transcendant.

Trying to create an atmosphere of beauty in your daily dining – or any part of your life – can have more of an impact sometimes than actually upgrading the things in your life. Imagine, for example, these two scenarios:

1. Fresh slices of tomato, slices of buffalo mozzarella, olives, bread and olive oil. Glass of red wine, candles, tea after dinner and music – classical, jazz, or whatever works for you.
2. An expensive filet mignon steak, carmelized onions, butter, rolls, a side of creamed spinach, a glass of expensive red wine with brandy after dinner – eaten on a TV tray while watching the last 15 minutes of Wheel of Fortune.

The first dinner would be substantially cheaper and some would say less satisfying than the second. However, the atmosphere it is delivered in would make it infinitely more satisfying to me. Coming full circle back to the question of drinking wine from $100 glasses, I can say with some certainty that I am sure that if I knew they were $100 glasses, I would enjoy the experience more. I would probably savor the wine, remember the moment, talk about it, and enjoy it. If I drank the same wine out of a paper cup, it would still taste the same, but some of the beauty of the moment would be lost.

I am not recommending anyone rush out and buy $100 glasses, but I would recommend that you take a few minutes when eating (or doing anything, really) to consider how you will undertake your meal. Will it be rushed, on paper plates and with a TV blaring? Or will it be in a calm, pleasant atmosphere? Making your dining more pleasant can transform the mundane into the excellent, just as drinking a wine – according to the New York Times – can be changed from “burning” to “luscious” by using the right glass. Just make sure someone else buys the $100 glasses!

photo by delphaber

how to enjoy a meal is an original article from the website brip blap.

So I arrived at graduate school with a specific goal:  to become a college mathematics professor. Sure, I had dabbled with the idea of being a lawyer/diplomat/etc. throughout college but it had become clear to me after four years that I only enjoyed two subjects enough to be serious about them:  mathematics and Russian.  I also enjoyed computer science and linguistics, but I didn’t spend enough time taking classes in either discipline to have the credentials to go to graduate school without a fifth undergraduate year.  I briefly considered Russian, but this was the early 90s, and Russia appeared to be descending into chaos; a PhD in Russian seemed to be a ticket to nothing more than reading Dostoyevsky in the original Russian.  So I settled on mathematics.

Looking back, I realize that I was good at Russian and mathematics for only three reasons:  I had some talent for languages, I was good at abstract thinking and I had young, enthusiastic and personable professors in both subjects. I’ve always thought of mathematics as a language:  I can’t understand why someone who is good with foreign languages wouldn’t have the skills necessary to understand the “grammar” and “vocabulary” of mathematics.  But without good teachers I would have lost interest in those subjects.  I love history now, for example, but my history professors in college (and high school, for that matter), were boring, pedantic and uninspiring.  It took me ten years after leaving school to rediscover my love for the subject.

To summarize my experience in PhD school:  I didn’t make it past the first year. I didn’t enjoy my teachers.  They weren’t teachers.  They were researchers and writers who were forced by their sponsor – the university – to stoop down to teaching on occasion.   Conversely, I did enjoy teaching the intro to calculus classes I had to teach as part of my graduate stipend.  I think my students enjoyed them, too.  But one thing leapt out at me early in my stay:  I’d have to endure 5-6 years of horrendous “instruction” in areas I didn’t enjoy to become a college professor.

I think looking back I would have been happy enough to continue teaching intro to calculus.  It’s hard to understand how another five years of abstract mathematics would have enabled me to teach better.  It would have helped me write papers or do research, of course.  But I wondered as I dropped out why I couldn’t have been on a “college professor” track instead of a “college researcher/writer who teaches an occasional class” track.  The same thing can be applied to almost any discipline.  Could I be a good history teacher, for example?  I think I could, because I’m a good teacher.  I’ve taught enough training classes in my corporate positions, mentored enough staff and done enough speaking to realize that you don’t have to be an expert to educate.  And conversely, just because some of my professors in graduate school were brilliant at, say, field theory didn’t mean they could teach anyone how to tie their shoes.  They were clearly bored with the concept of instruction.

There’s a tired old saying that makes me grind my teeth every time I hear it – in my younger days I actually punched a fraternity brother who was mocking me with it:  “Those who can, do, those who can’t, teach.” Anyone who thinks that because they are an “expert” at something – sales, car repair, accounting, golf, whatever – that they can teach that subject should shut up and go run a course on that subject.  They should develop lessons:  not just a speech, but lessons.  They should try working with slow learners while challenging fast learners.  They should experience how easy it is to lecture and how hard it is to engage.  Too many people think they can teach, when all they can do is talk.

Good teachers have inspired me. The same can be said of good mentors.  My first manager in public accounting (now a partner) was a wonderful mentor and teacher.  She patiently worked with me my first couple of years to develop my accounting and auditing skills.  She was never too busy to explain and never impatient.  It took me another four years of working for petulant, irrational and mentally and emotionally abusive managers in the firm to realize how rare she was.  When it became my turn to mentor staff, I always remembered her example.  Being a good teacher made me far more effective in corporate life; it made my relationships with the people who worked for me better.  It made them more efficient, happier and more likely to turn around and train the people who worked for or with them well.

I’ll finish with another anecdote. When I started third grade my family very briefly moved to northern Illinois (I think we were there less than a full year) for my father to finish his graduate degree.  My parents jumped through hoops to get my brother and me into a good public school, rather than the faraway and dangerous public school we were zoned for.  Even then, I didn’t fit in with the kids there, and disliked most of my teachers.  One teacher, Ms. Zider, took it on herself to help me since I was struggling so.  She came up with extra lesson in geometry for me (this is third grade, keep in mind).  She worked with me at lunch and after school.  I was excited by the lessons and they are the only thing I remember from that long, largely sad year.  As an adult, I can better appreciate what she did:  she gave up her free time at lunch, time after school when she could have been finishing up lesson plans or doing paperwork to stay late with one friendless kid who was otherwise bored at school.  Teachers matter.

teaching matters is an original article from the website brip blap.

embrace life is an original article from the website brip blap.

Once there was a farmer with a beautiful daughter. Men came from miles around to ask her father for her hand in marriage, but he was the old-fashioned type, and wanted to make sure his daughter would have a husband who provided for her – strong, sensible and industrious.

So finally he settled on three likely young men, and told them he would ask them a question to decide which one could woo his daughter. The three young men nervously waited while he prepared his pipe. Finally, he asked all three of them a single question: “If you are working in the fields and find there’s a stone in your shoe, how long can you work?”

The first young man sprung to his feet. “I can work all day long! I can ignore the stone in my shoe until the sun sets! I am tough and I will endure the pain.”

The farmer nodded and turned to the second young man. “I can do the same, but I’ll even whistle to show I’m not bothered one bit by the stone! I can completely ignore the pain.”

The farmer settled his corn cob pipe and turned to the third young man, who declared, “I can’t work one minute with a stone in my shoe.” The other two young men laughed and congratulated themselves, declaring loudly that one of them would surely be chosen. The third man finished as they laughed, saying “I’ll stop and take the stone out of my shoe and keep on working like I always would. And at the end of the day, my wife won’t have to wash a bloody sock.”

The third young man and the farmer’s daughter were married the next spring.

———-

The moral of the story is that it’s not always about being the toughest or the most driven – sometimes it’s about being smart. This applies almost every day in your work life and in your personal life. Don’t just keep hammering away at a problem to prove you can stick to a task. Know when to quit, reevaluate and begin fresh. And if you don’t know, stop, take a break and start again. The answer will come to you.

(photo by tibchris)

the farmer’s daughter is an original article from the website brip blap.

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?

- Robert Browning

Here am I sitting in my tin can, far above the world.  Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do.

- David Bowie (Space Oddity)

Next year, the three remaining Space Shuttles will be decommissioned, and for the first time in almost 50 years, the United States will lack the capability to put a human into space.

I am a baby boomer.  My young formative years were shaped in no small way by the so-called Space Race of the 1960s.  I was eleven years old when one evening I watched a scratchy black and white broadcast and heard the words live: “It’s one small step for man, one giant leap for Mankind.”

I watched astronauts die; I saw the Space Shuttle Challenger explode.  I saw the initial report of the loss of contact with the Space Shuttle Columbia on reentry, and knew immediately it was lost.

I met Neil Armstrong, the first to set foot on the Moon; and John Glenn, the first to orbit the Earth, in person.  I knew Air Force colleagues with astronaut wings, because they flew outside of the reach of the atmosphere.  I myself applied for training as a Space Shuttle mission specialist (alas, I was rejected).  Astronauts were rock stars, and rock stars composed lyrics in praise of astronauts.

It pains me to see us as a society give up on space exploration.  What has happened to subsequent generations, to not appreciate the sacrifices made by those who paved the way, and to build on those experiences and sacrifices to reach just a little bit farther?

We can reasonably offer a great many justifications for abandoning human space exploration.  It is too expensive, too dangerous, we have too many other priorities closer to home.  All are true, but none is a reason not to reach for the sky and beyond.

There many practical and farsighted reasons to continue that reach, starting with the fact that curiosity is a survival trait.  The more we understand of the world around us, and beyond, the better prepared we are to live in an unforgiving universe.  We can’t say today how we may apply this knowledge in the future, but there will come a time when we wish we possessed it.

Most of us don’t look at life as particularly easy.  Today, we may face the prospect of being unemployed, employed in a boring dead-end job, losing our home, having health issues, or even simply frustrated with our lot in life and our seeming outlook for the future.  Space exploration can seem like a trivial and unforgiveable luxury when we are just trying to get through the next day.

It is to the credit of humans that we have the ability to look beyond our individual issues to abstract concepts that define us as a society and a species.  We need the knowledge, the experience, and the courage of those who are willing to push the boundaries of our existence still farther.

What we need, much more than solutions to our own individual problems, is heroes again.

photo by jurvetson

Reaffirming a Vision is an original article from the website brip blap.

Listening to an interview on an ESPN podcast a couple of weeks ago (I forget which one), I heard a commentator bring up an interesting point about point-after-touchdown tries which I thought made a good life lesson, too.  The point was this, in a nutshell:  in football, when you score a touchdown you get an “extra play” in which you can kick the ball for one point or run, throw or pass it for two points.  Kicking is ridiculously easy – the success rate is 99% or something along those lines.  The two point option is much tougher, with a much lower chance of success.  The better result needs to be practiced when it can be practiced – so why isn’t it?

But the commentator asked this question:  since the preseason games were meaningless games, why didn’t coaches use the opportunity to practice the much riskier two point option and get better at it before the real games began?  Another commentator offered up this response:  “nobody wants to be the first coach to do that, but if someone did, everyone would quickly follow.”  He continued, “But nobody wants to fail making those two points, even in a meaningless game, because it would be embarrassing.”

Crazy, right? But why do we all do the same thing – avoid the meaningless risks?

As you move through life you’ll have a lot of opportunities to take a chance on something. Sometimes it’s something big – quitting a job, starting a business or buying a house – and sometimes it’s something that will make little difference in the long run:  pitching your boss on a new idea you had or asking the beautiful wallflower to dance.  Why don’t people take advantage of the small risks in life to practice their decision-making skills when they get a big chance?

It’s easy to take a risk on a small choice - don’t get the bleu-cheese burger at Houlihan’s, get the Shrimp-Ka-Bob.  Don’t get a Pepsi, get an RC.  These are the kind of risk-taking moments we all avoid but should take in order to advance in life.  If you get an RC and hate it, fine.  Go back to Pepsi.  But exercising that muscle – that risk-taking muscle – will make you a better person, whether you actually take those risks or not.  Taking those risks opens you open to possibilities, and possibilities are endless once you are willing to accept them.

photo by hellolapomme

take small risks is an original article from the website brip blap.

I find inspiration in stupid places. Before you read further, let me say again:  stupid places.  Sure, I’ll quote Einstein and Emerson and Franklin from time to time.  Even guys like Napoleon Hill have a little bit of non-dumb cred.  But if you tell people you get inspiration from someone like Donald Trump or Adam Carolla, you’ll get a look or two.  It took me years to realize that if I enjoy metal music and get inspiration from it, I don’t need to feel bad about hating opera.

I’d like to think I’m a cultured guy. I am, by many standards.  I’ve studied four languages and still speak two of them.  I have read philosophy, poetry and prose til I’m blue in the face.  I play the flute and tuba, and back in the day could hold my own on the bass guitar.  I knew BASIC and Pascal.  I like country music (Hank Williams, Sr. era)  and drink cheap beer.  I love dumb sitcoms and heavy metal.  I’m all over the place in terms of culture.

You may think of yourself as the kind of person who needs inspiration from wonderful sources, but you don’t. Warren Buffet is a good guy to listen to, but let’s face it – if you get inspiration from Trump, there are bits and pieces to admire about his life, too.  People will tell you you’re a fool to draw inspiration from the dross – from Wayne Dyer or Kiyosaki – but there is something to be found in Seneca, and in the Secret; in Plato and in Oprah.

I spend more time than I should trying to find inspiration instead of acting on the inspiration I already have. It’s a failing of mine, and I imagine many people do the same.  How many self-help books suffice?  1? 10? 100?  I think if you read one and don’t act on it, two self-help books are too many, and by that standard I’m over the limit.

But find your inspiration where you can. I find it in movies and in books and even in music.  The point is not where you find inspiration – the point is whether you act on the inspiration you DO find.

photo by LancerE

low brow inspiration is an original article from the website brip blap.