Category Archives: inspirational

how to lead a mysterious life

Are you the type of person who likes to know how a movie ends in the first five minutes? Do you keep asking “are we there yet?” If so, jump to the end of this post - it’s not for you.

I am a person of routine. I really enjoy waking up at the same time, eating the same breakfast, keeping to a set schedule. Yet at the same time I have noticed that increasingly the routine doesn’t bring me as much satisfaction as it did in the past. I spent some time (actually a lot of time) reading about the ways in which you can increase your happiness, and while a change in routine does not lead to a permanent increase in happiness, the act of changing itself DOES increase happiness.

What does that mean? If you eat toast for breakfast every day, you are happy. You have food, it tastes nice, it meets your needs. One day you switch to eating an apple. Wow! Something new and exciting. You enjoy the change. The next day you eat an apple, and the next and the next. Soon it’s a new routine and while it doesn’t make you LESS happy than when you were eating toast, it’s no better, either.

So what can you do to add some change? Try a mysterious life! This is a phrase I came across that seemed to be a neat concept. Here are a few ideas:

  1. Change your diet. You may eat a typical western diet. Try reading about what other cultures eat and adopting that for a while. In Fujian province in southeastern China, breakfast may include rice porridge and side dishes like pickled vegetables and century eggs (a Chinese cuisine ingredient made by preserving duck, chicken or quail eggs in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime, and rice straw for several weeks to several months).
  2. Change your commute. For most people, the commute to and from work becomes a clockwork activity. Try taking a different route. Try leaving earlier or staying later. Stop halfway through and get off the train or out of your car and buy a cup of coffee (I know about the Latte Factor, but it’s OK once in a blue moon).
  3. Take a break. Try taking a nap in the afternoon. If you eat at your desk everyday, go for a walk. If you can’t leave the building, walk around a different floor. Go to a local park and watch squirrels. You don’t have to work as if you’re chained to a desk.
  4. Exercise differently. Do you run usually? Go swimming. Lift weights? Do a spin class. Do nothing? Try getting off the subway a stop early, or parking your car at the furthest possible edge of the parking lot. Take the stairs.
  5. Read a book. Not one you like or think you’ll like, though. Always thought you hated mystery novels? Try reading one. Not a big fan of romance novels? Give it a shot.
  6. Wear some different clothes. Don’t buy new clothes, but you can probably find something you haven’t worn in a while. If you work in a business casual office, wear a tie. If you normally wear a suit, wear a t-shirt to work (change in the bathroom once you arrive if you must). You’ll feel the world in a different way.
  7. Change your sleep. If you have always felt rushed and harried in the mornings, try waking up 15 minutes earlier. If you feel groggy, try sleeping 15 minutes later. Stay up late, or go to bed at 8 pm. So many people think they have discovered THE pattern for their sleep when they are 25. They don’t realize that their biology shifts when they are 30 and they need a totally new pattern.
  8. Do the unexpected. Cook a new type of food. Call up your college roommate. Pick up trash on the side of the road.
  9. Make eye contact. Don’t freak anybody out, of course, but try looking at people in the eye during the day. Smile. Don’t act like a stalker, but try to send out a friendly vibe, even if it’s just to the person taking your cash at the checkout lane.
  10. Don’t be shy. Shyness is a frame of mind. There is no physical condition or disease called “shyitis”. Decide not to be shy today. Say “hi” to people in the hall. Make chitchat with the bus driver, or the people on the elevator. Most people are happy that you’ve chosen to break the monotony, too.

Most of these things seem pretty silly, but there’s a lot of power in breaking up your routine. See what happens if you change your routine. You never know, it might just make you a little bit happier, and every little bit counts. You probably have similar feelings when you do something new or out of the ordinary. Make breaking your routine a part of your routine!

what lies before us

"An individual’s life is made up not only of experiences and events but also of ideas, dreams and possibilities."

I came across this great quote in an odd place:  a review of "Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten" on the New York Times.

Does this make sense?  Is it going to provide some sort of deep insight?  Is it OK to get inspiration from an online newspaper’s movie reviews?  Yes, yes and yes.

Many people have life goals expressed in terms of experiences and events.  I have said for years and years that one of my life goals is to visit China.  Oddly enough, I’ve never been there - I’ve been to several other countries in Asia, but never China itself.  I want to take my kids to Europe.  I want to see my children have children of their own.  You could probably start listing a millions goals under the "experiences" and "events" tags.

But the ideas, dreams and unrealized possibilities in your life can be just as important for your own happiness.  I read The Lord of the Rings over and over again as a kid.  I understood that I would never visit the Shire, or see the Misty Mountain, or stay in Rivendell.  But the storm that book set off in my imagination and in my dreams is as much a part of my life - or more - than many of the ‘real’ events in my life.  My own dreams, realized or not, have created a large part of my character, both good and bad.  The ideas you have weave the threads of your daily life together.  You are not a machine, driven by action-reaction.  The original thoughts that you have create a world in your mind that affects how you act.

If that doesn’t make any sense, think about it like this:  have you ever dreamed of being happy?  Sit back wherever you are and picture a happy moment.  Imagine being on a beach, at home in front of the fireplace or whatever makes you happiest.  Now, that exact moment never existed, possibly, but creating that image can make you powerfully motivated to achieve it, to be on the lookout for it.

So what does all of this mean?  It means that even if I never make it to China, the interest I’ve had in the culture and the imaginary trips I’ve taken in my head have provided me with happiness and influenced the way I look at the world.  My perception of myself is measured not just by the fact that I grew up in a small town or live in a huge city now, but is hammered and shaped and molded by the dreams and ideas I had - and have - about what my life looks like, should look like and will look like.

So apply this thinking to your own life.  Overweight?  Imagine yourself fit.  Tired?  Imagine yourself relaxed.  Sad?  Imagine yourself happy.  In debt?  It will be gone someday - tell yourself it’s already gone.  Examine the events that created a condition and then apply your ideas and dreams to overcome them.  You are more than a pinball being banged from event to event.  Your ideas and your dreams can provide a powerful connection between your present and your future, bridging the gaps in experience.  The possibility is there.  The only obstacle is failing to reach for it.

Other reading:

today is better than the day before

Think and Grow Rich

achieving greatness

unusual things I’m thankful for

I’m thankful for:

  • Reasonably priced organic green tea from Whole Foods
  • my community’s bus and public transportation so I can at least read during my commute
  • Walk Fit
  • Dr. Natura
  • Jay McInerney
  • Napoleon Hill
  • 01.20.09
  • the Dolphins and Steelers (to explain: I am a Jets fan)
  • I’m not allergic to sunflower seeds
  • the waterfront walkway in my community
  • cheap and plentiful seltzericon
  • discovering the benefits of a raw food diet even though I am having a lot of trouble sticking to it and Thanksgiving will be the anti-raw food day…
  • electric screwdrivers
  • WordPress
  • consulting work
  • Netflix (I know, I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t, but I do)

And of course, more important things:

  • blog readers
  • blog commentators
  • the blog community
  • high speed internet

And the most important things:

  • my health and the health of my loved ones
  • my friends
  • my family
  • my Bubelah, мое сердце
  • my Little Buddy and his little brother/sister to come!

Happy Thanksgiving!

why do hippies hate the news?

I had an exchange in the comments with a reader (who left no name, just “Email” - for clarity’s sake I’ll call him/her Anonymous). The topic was reading/watching the news (a favorite topic of mine) and I felt it was good enough to move up to a full post. I’ve made a few edits to the original exchange, mainly for spelling, to add and edit a few words for clarity and just to make the flow of the conversation more obvious. This was all in response to the 67 ways to outlive 106 billion people post, in which I argue you shouldn’t watch the news. If you want to see the original unedited conversation, go that post; those comments are unedited.

Anonymous: Never read the news. Never stop learning new things. Enjoy reading. Why do hippies hate the news? But promote what it is?

Brip Blap: I copied and pasted the following from CNN.com on 11/14. These are the “top headlines”:

  • Student: Clinton camp fed me question
  • Police kill unarmed man holding brush
  • Surgeon claims he operated on Kanye’s mom
  • Blacks half of AIDS cases, 1% of AIDS quilt
  • Ticker: Terrorist attack on mall portrayed in ad
  • Governor calls on higher power for rain
  • Man tortured 10 months wants apology
  • WPLG: Man fleeing police killed by alligator
  • Blast rips off man’s fingers at ball game
  • Chlamydia cases sets STD record
  • Suspect tries to flush gun down cell toilet
  • Time: Alicia Keys gets phished
  • How to keep sane on your holiday visit
  • Casino implodes in way-cool glitzy fashion

Tell me how many of those are “learning new things.” You call it news, I call it a waste of time. It doesn’t make me a hippie by any stretch of the imagination to dismiss news stories about flushing guns down toilets or casino fashions, does it?

Anonymous: Sorry about the comment, it may have been too harsh. I forgot a smiley. I receive news from friends, that I read, on a daily basis. I was pleased to read that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize. I have a long rant (no link) about News and TV, and about how people dismiss the medium independent of content as a choice of style. I enjoy the news and TV, and know many who don’t. I feel that it is just too simple to find elements of society that you find distasteful and shoot the messenger. Sorry again for the hippie comment. Most people I know that live by the code you posted would consider it an honor. Again though, the human experience is vast … who are you to decide what learning is? how did you learn to not read the news?

Brip Blap: It did seem harsh but that’s OK, I understand (apology accepted). I can’t see that a label like ‘hippie’ would ever be an honor to me, but if it was meant to be, thanks. While I might admire some of the (stereotypical) hippie qualities like peace, love, understanding, etc. I also had a lot of problems with their ideas (again, stereotypical) about drug use and the “drop out” mentality. I am not a hippie by a long shot.

Let’s define news. I say something is news if it in some way provides me with information that affects my life; where I draw the line is arbitrary. Troubles in Pakistan may someday cause me trouble due to their possession of nuclear weapons. Fair enough. Will knowing about riots and so on in Pakistan now cause me to act differently? No. Does it help my career? My family? My relationships with others? No, no, no.

Second: the US media does not actually give us “reporting of events”. They SELL us news. NBC or CNN or FOX receive money for an entertainment program. Some people enjoy the part of the entertainment program that tells them about Paris Hilton, or a triple murder, or Pakistan riots. But each of those networks are using those stories to entice viewers to watch advertising. Same with papers, or online news. There is no not-for-profit news. I also particularly pick on the TV news and yes, I dismiss it both on the basis of style AND content.

Third: the perception of the entire US media towards external events is flawed. If you saw the runup to the Iraq War it is clear that our media is unable to accurately determine the truth of events. They do not investigate. They report others’ assertions. Watch any news program for 30 minutes and at least once I guarantee you’ll see a reporter ask another reporter his OPINION or ANALYSIS of an event. That is not news.

I love reading history. History is also seen through the eyes of the victors and so on, but there is some sort of consensus on events after the passage of time that you can’t get AS events occur. I can even start to agree that there is simply some benefit to being educated about the history of mankind in a general sense. I should know who Caesar was, who Robespierre was, who Hermann Goering was, I guess. I simply don’t think there is much value in learning too much that is not relevant to my daily existence unless I derive some other value from it. I have a lot to keep up with, as we all do. I do not find that knowing Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize is useful information for me. I’m terribly glad he did - I think he represents what is best about America and I wish he was our president today. It might even just make me happier to know that he won. Fine. But knowing he won an Oscar or a Nobel doesn’t really enlighten me, or help me. Reading his book and watching his movie did. Reading about the prizes he won for them didn’t. And hearing about a triple murder in San Diego or Dallas or the Bronx certainly helps me in no way, shape or form. Out of all of this, too, I’m just skipping past the fact that 90% of the news is ridiculous entertainment junk. Britney blah blah blah.

I used to be a news junkie. All day every day I read about death, stupid politics, hopeless terror and the sex lives of celebrities. I filled my head up with tension and worthless knowledge. Then one day, after reading a particularly horrible series of news stories about abused children I decided enough was enough. That time I spent reading about abused children? Better spent working to make more money and give it to causes I support like children.org and the Russian Children’s Welfare Society. The time spent on politics? Pointless - if you think anything these politicians say will come to fruition, go read about Bush’s compassionate conservatism. Go read about Clinton’s promises in 1992. There is nothing there.

And as far as the question “who am I to decide what learning is?” I cannot learn for you, or for my wife or my family or my friends. I can only learn for myself. For others I can teach, or give opinions, but I cannot learn for them. So who am I to decide what learning is? Since I am the only person I can learn FOR, I am the ONLY person who can decide what learning is for me. I turn around and explain my position, but whether you accept it as knowledge for yourself is up to you, just the same as my decision to watch the news or not was mine. And really, if the tone of this seems overly angry it’s not meant to be, but I do feel it strongly. None of this, finally, is original thinking. Thoreau said it best:”If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, we never need read of another…. All news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.”

the stone in the shoe

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 be well looked after.

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 emstrur)

public declaration and some news

Mike over at Four Pillars pointed out (quite correctly) that I haven’t actually made a public declaration myself. I didn’t want anything I said to give anyone any ideas, so I was holding off, but fair enough!

Mine is simple but difficult: always think positively.

I have struggled with this recently. I’ve been in what I call a blap period, struggling with a lot of minor problems. Nothing terrible, but a lot of small stuff adds up. I’ve been eating poorly and gained some weight. My exercise program is really hitting the skids. I’ve been tired a lot as my son’s been teething and sleeping very poorly for several weeks, keeping me from getting a solid night’s sleep for a while. My commute isn’t bad, but it’s long and it’s taking hours out of my day. My client is a nice place to work but the actual job duties are boring. Cold weather is arriving and I’m not a cold weather fan, at all.

So I have been using my Vulcanized Rubber Happy Thoughts Maker and reading (and re-reading) one of my favorite inspirational books, Think and Grow Rich. You might think that’s just about money from first glance, but it’s not. Napoleon Hill has a lot to say about attitude and desire and focus, and I find it very uplifting.

My goal, therefore, is to keep this up and not let small things get me down! We found out recently that baby #2 is on the way so we’ve got all the happiness (but nervousness and stress) that come with thinking another Little Buddy (or Buddette) is fast approaching. The challenges will double but so will the baby energy - and that’s a good thing, and worth staying positive about. I will avoid moping, or dwelling on negatives, and try to maintain a positive outlook - because life is generally pretty good any way you look at it, but at a minimum, it’s the only one we have. The only thing we truly control in this life are our own thoughts, and I will make sure I control mine.

(the picture is my feet, standing on the Tsar’s mark at the entrance to Red Square. The point? Wherever you are, that’s where you are - that’s always been a strangely deep thought for me).

public declaration

Based on my earlier post, I would like to start a new meme: I commit publicy to….

If you haven’t participated in one before, you basically post on it, or leave a comment on it, then “tag” someone else (ask them to answer it). So here goes:

What one goal have you always had privately that you would be willing to commit to publicly - right now? Post it and give a public commitment to stick to it!

It can be as simple as “waking up at 6 every day” or as ambitious as “be financially free in 10 years” or as silly as “I will stop watching American Idol.”

Give it some thought, and let ‘er rip! Put it on your own blog and link back here, or just comment on this post, and I’ll occasionally post summaries from everyone’s site. Email me if you want to make sure I add you to the list. That’s going to ensure that your commitment will be seen by more and more people.

We will see where this goes…I’ll start by tagging:

Quest for Four Pillars
Money Socket
The Money Gardener
I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…
Moolanomy
Ask Dong
plonkee money
How I Will Be Rich
Cash Money Life
Lazy Man and Money
My Two Dollars
Saving for a Home of My Own
The Digerati Life
Millionaire Mommy Next Door
A Penny Closer
The Finance Castle
The Financial Blogger
The Wealthy Canadian
Drinkin’ Guinness in the 416
Rather Be Shopping

And if you aren’t on the list but read this - consider yourself tagged :)

Image thanks to Our Butterflies

teaching risk tolerance

Risk is the possibility of an event occurring that will have an impact on the achievement of objectives. Risk is measured in terms of impact and likelihood. (from Wikipedia)

That’s the definition from my profession, auditing. Basically risk is the possibility of something bad happening. It does not necessarily follow that if the risk event doesn’t happen, something good will happen - simply that the negative outcome won’t. Most people have a subjective perception of risk.

For example: you and I may perceive bungee jumping in vastly different ways. Let’s say that 1 out of every 1 million bungee jumps goes really wrong - it snaps and the jumper dies. If it does not snap, you get your thrilling giant rubber band ride up and down. For me, the 1 in a million chance of death renders the benefit of the jump (a thrill) as unacceptably risky. For you, 1 in a million may not be enough to make you forgo the benefit. You have what is known as a higher risk tolerance.

I think that risk tolerance and lack of fear is key to achieving great things. Don’t assume this means being a risky adventurer like Steve Fossett. This simply means not being afraid to risk failure. Most of the great entrepreneurs and thinkers have been characterized by a boldness and lack of concern about risks in their personal and private lives. They were not afraid to fail. Their willingness to accept a potential negative outcome was much higher than the average individual’s.

So my question would be a simple one: is risk tolerance learned or inherited? I’ve been wondering about this as we start teaching my still-less-than-2-years-old son about ‘danger’ - don’t jump off the stool! Don’t touch hot stuff! Slow going down the stairs! Don’t jump around in the tub! While you certainly would never want to encourage risky behavior, is this teaching him to be less risk tolerant and more fearful? And - I mean this very seriously - is this good or bad? Should we encourage fearlessness, risk-taking and boldness? If so, how do you know it’s not too much, making your children reckless? And it extends beyond children, too: how could I teach myself to be more fearless and risk-tolerant in my old age? Should I?

What do you think?

all aboard; or, why the earth is doomed

Sometimes life just hands you a little gift. It wasn’t expected, wasn’t particularly sought after and certainly can’t continue to be counted on - but it’s nice. Here’s a little story about a bus, with a surprise ending.

The community I live in is close to a lot of public transportation but not conveniently so. To get to the excruciatingly slow and (in the evenings) somewhat dangerous trolley system you would have to walk a long distance along a major highway with no sidewalks (urban planning failure). It’s also quite expensive considering how slow it is. Parking is expensive, too, making it a bad option - both for slowness and expenses.

The New Jersey transit system is further away - several miles - and requires driving along a heavily congested highway and parking in an $8 per day parking lot. It’s more convenient but I hate driving my car every day. Lo and behold, my community cobbled together funds from our maintenance fee and started a once-every-15-minute shuttle service to the NJ transit system station. We have clean, private buses that will accomplish a half dozen things, both for me and other residents:

  • Increase housing values: obviously having a cheap, safe transportation option for the community will help increase housing values.
  • Helping the environment: today, on Blog Action Day, this is a nice bonus - I rode with a half-dozen other people who otherwise would probably all be sitting alone in their cars riding to the same place.
  • Better use of my time: I hate car time. You can’t do anything fun or productive while driving unless you are a big audiobooks or music person; I am not really either. I prefer reading or writing or (if I’m tired) napping. Now that 20-25 minutes I spent sitting behind the wheel can be better spent blazing through another highly productive personal finance book. Oh, alright, you got me - actually I’m reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Sue me :)
  • Safer: it’s taking dozens of cars out of the morning commute mix, which can get ferocious right around my community. It’s a huge community with ONE exit to the main highway nearby, so there are big jockeying-for-position battles every morning around that exit.
  • May even allow for one-car existence: “my” car is paid off, so I don’t have much incentive to get rid of it, but if I don’t drive it every day to work I keep my fingers crossed that I’ll be able to stretch its use out for another 10-12 years (it’s already 6 years old). If I don’t drive it to work I’ll barely drive it 1000 miles a year, I bet.

That all sounds great, and I’m sure many of you are ho-humming. Here’s the surprise twist ending: it’s a clean, quiet, comfortable private mode of transportation that’s exceptionally convenient and free and good for the environment - and in our community of hundreds of homes, I see dozens of cars, one right after another, streak by on their way to the train station passing up the free bus. Usually there are 5 or fewer people on the bus every time it leaves.
Why are people so unwilling to give up their cars in this country? I wonder if there’s hope for public transportation anywhere but in the heart of east coast cities, when even New Jerseyians - a hop, skip and jump from New York City - won’t give up their beloved cars for free public transportation. Yesterday was blog action day and everyone was hopeful about the chances to slow down climate change, but sometimes I wonder, faced with such short-sighted behavior.

Thoughts on: Jordan

Michael Jordan is arguably the best basketball player in history. At the height of his fame he was known in every remote corner of the world, and he raked in hundreds of millions in endorsement money. Yet I think one of his quotes has impressed me more than any of those statistics. Jordan was unafraid of failure - yet, by his own admission, he failed again and again and again.

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” - Michael Jordan

When most people speak of goals, they speak of positive goals. It is much better to have a goal stated as “I will lose 10 pounds” rather than “I will deny myself food and burn more calories than I take in for several miserable weeks.” Jordan really got to the heart of the matter. He never let the last missed shot affect his concentration on the next one. He was willing to take the chance, willing to fail.

If you have played sports of any sort, you know this is no small achievement. I played tennis and I raged at myself after every botched return or double-fault. I didn’t understand that failing is part of succeeding. I thought that a failure was a shortcoming. I never learned to analyze my failures and turn them into strengths. Rather than analyzing a botched backhand to reconsider my approach to the net, I cursed my racket. When I missed the game winning shot I raged. Jordan forgot and moved on, which is one reason (among thousands) that he is an internationally-known sports legend and I am not.

I think of this quote in terms of personal finance. I make mistakes in personal finance. I make a bad investment, or a foolish purchase or miss an opportunity for additional income. Yet the only way that’s truly a failure is if I don’t build on it, understand why it happened and use that knowledge to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Jordan knew this, and that’s why he succeeded.

7 random things about me

OK, I was tagged by Kyle at Rather-Be-Shopping and plonkee to list seven things about myself. I’ll make that my Saturday post instead of my usual link roundup. Well, at the risk of exposing my superhero identity, here they are, divided into two categories:

Amusing:
1. I had a morbid fear of macaroni and cheese until I was a college student because my dad jokingly told me it was made from worms when I was a little kid (and felt bad about saying that ever since). I still feel uneasy sometimes when I see it.
2. When I was 10, I wrote a letter to ABC when they canceled the original Battlestar Galactica. I thought if I wrote a compelling enough letter, they might reconsider. They didn’t, but maybe an old copy of my letter made it into the hands of the SciFi channel years later.

3. I don’t care how ridiculous people may think they are, I admire Brad and Angelina for taking on so many kids. This may make me seem like a silly person in some ways, but I think they are great.

4. I cannot add 8 and 5. Seriously. Despite a mathematics degree, I have to mentally rearrange the numbers to 9 and 4 or 8 plus 4 plus 1, etc. When I see those two numbers added together, I cannot mentally make the number 13 appear in my head. That is the only such combination that I can’t add (or subtract or anything else).

5. I stridently denied Maynard Jackson, the Democratic mayor of Atlanta, from entering a Democratic Party benefit where I was a volunteer once - because he didn’t have a benefit invitation. I lived in Athens (right outside Atlanta) at the time, so I probably should have had a rough idea who he was… considering he had been mayor for about 10 years at that point. He was exceptionally good natured about it, and laughingly introduced me around all night as a stickler for the rules.

Not So Amusing:
6. I have a problem with authority, and it’s caused me a lot of trouble through the years, particularly at work. I think it’s because deep down I think there’s no way ANYONE could be smart enough to tell me what to do, and that’s a ridiculous conceit on my part. Plus saying being so “against” anything is a pretty strong negative emotion, and I am trying to get rid of that.

7. I seldom dream, but when I do they are often bad nightmares, which always makes me a little bit nervous about what’s roiling around in my psyche. Most involve something like monsters or aliens enslaving my family or just people in general, and my violent reactions to this. It began when I was very young. Dream interpretation says two things about this: first, the aliens/monsters represent my fear of the unknown. Second, violence supposedly shows resistance (either internal or external) to change. I suspect it’s my own internal mental and emotional resistance to change. The trick will be to work with these nightmares, not against them.

And although I always enjoy these tagging memes, I’ll let this part of the chain end with me and not spread it further. I actually plan on trying to create one of my own soon…

But feel free if you read this to consider it an open-ended tag to the blogoverse if you want!

a building mental storm

“Success in highest and noblest form calls for peace of mind and enjoyment and happiness which comes only to the man who has found the work he likes best.” - Napolean Hill, author of “Think and Grow Rich”

cognitive dissonance (n. Psychology) A condition of conflict or anxiety resulting from inconsistency between one’s beliefs and one’s actions, such as opposing the slaughter of animals and eating meat. - from American Heritage Dictionary

The quote and definition above describe my current mental state about my work these days. I thought for many years that I could achieve happiness through one of about five different ways. When I write the list out now, several of them seem terribly trivial to me now, but bear with me:

  • Making a lot of money
  • Travel throughout the world
  • Nonstop nightlife
  • Working at a big corporation with a good title
  • Keeping myself free of obligations as much as possible

If I redid the list today, it would probably read more like this:

  • Achieving financial freedom
  • Travel throughout the world
  • Safe and comforting home environment
  • Going to work for myself doing something I like
  • Loading myself up with obligations that please me; exercise, family time, etc.

Here is the real problem, though: although I have read many books on financial freedom, productivity, etc. I am often suffering from cognitive dissonance trying to pursue my “old” goals (with the exception of the nightlife) even though I know better! Even though I know, for example, that I should do something for my work different than what I do today, I have taken very few steps to pursue it. I still avoid obligations out of laziness or simply fear of setting priorities. I still worry more about making money to pay for things (although when I say things, I mean “our house” rather than “my iPhone”) than achieving financial freedom. I talk the talk, but often I don’t walk the walk.

So why is this? I think the problem is that your thought patterns and objectives are often set more firmly in stone than you realize in your youth - and by youth I’m talking about the years from, say, 13-30. All of the patterns set then are interrelated. Your exercise (or lack thereof), your entrepreneurial spirit (or lack thereof), your creation of a lifestyle where financial freedom is a forseeable future or even your ability to easily change goals all intertwine and make a tangled mess where changing one goal means changing all of them.

I debate, therefore, how to smash through these bad habits that prevent my goals. Should I:

  • Abruptly quit my job and launch a private company doing something interesting?
  • Massively restructure my work life to free up more time to prepare for something ‘new’?
  • Work like crazy ‘on the side’ (although at the expense of my time with my family)?
  • Just suck it up, hammer down at work and try to grit my teeth through to 60 years old when I’ll achieve freedom?

This is my building mental storm - the idea that nothing will change with a continuation of the daily rotation of wake, brush teeth, ride train, stare at computer screen, attend meetings, ride train, brush teeth, sleep. This daily rotation is a part of the steady progession: Birth, School, Work, Death. But finding the right moment to make that break, to take that leap, seems to me to require a spark of inspiration.

But what I’m really afraid of is that there’s no inspiration needed. What I’m afraid of is that Nike is right and we should just do it. Don’t wait, just change. And doing that without seeing the guiding star of inspiration seems really scary to me. And so I will wait for inspiration and thereby find none. Or, hopefully, I will simply just do it.

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