Category Archives: Deep Thought

Passion

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It is said…and said…and said that the best and most fulfilling way to  live our lives is with passion.

I see it on virtually every social media site (not so much on LinkedIn but, then, I don’t go there often) either in status update or graphics or something. There are untold numbers of books and what-have-you about living your life on your terms with verve and enthusiasm.

Jumping for JoyOnly they don’t tell you exactly how to find this passion thing.  It’s assumed that you have a passion for something. You might like to write, take photos, ski, hang glide, write code for killer apps.  Whatever.  You know you love to do it and you would do it for free. All day. Every day.

But, what about those of us who can’;t quite get a handle on it. We don’t really get revved up about much of anything.

Oh, sure.  Maybe we did at one time. We were young and foolish and didn’t have much in the way of responsibility. We could pretty much do what we wanted and be safe in the knowledge that we could come home to a roof over our head and food on the table.

No kids. No spouse or partner. No credit card bills or car payment or mortgage. Life was good.  If we wanted to backpack across Europe or try our hand at interning somewhere, well, that was just fine and dandy.

Reality Check

Then came a time that the Bank of Mom & Dad either ran out of money or cut off the credit spigot. Ooops. Now it was time to do something, er, independent. Now it was time to figure out just how, exactly, people made it in the world.

Around that time was when I lost sight of any passion I may have had…if I ever had it.

Yeah, there was a time that I thought I would really like to pursue this or that career path or avocation. But, as my mother was very fond of telling me, money doesn’t grow on trees. And she wasn’t made of money, either. So I needed to buckle down and figure out how to pay for living.

Other things got in the way, of course. Falling in and out of love with various women. Dealing with issues of drug and alcohol. Working dead end jobs just to pay the rent. Eventually, the passion was sucked out of me. Pure and simple.

I realized I needed to do whatever to make ends meet and that no amount of visualizing, affirmations or anything else was going to do that for me.

A lot of time has passed and I often wish I could live with passion (as Tony Robbins says at the end of everyone of his CDs). But, I’m getting older now and it’s not as easy as it sounds. Saying good-bye to a spouse, friends, job and everything else just to chase after some elusive feeling of fulfillment just doesn’t seem like a good idea.

 

Social Media Distraction

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You know the drill.

You get up and go to your computer or iPhone or iPad with the deliberate intention of taking care of some business. Sending out an e-mail, writing a document, settling up an appointment.  Something, anything besides spending an hour on social media.

But, hey, while I’m here. I might as well check Facebook. Oh look there is a little red thingie with the number 6 in it. Wooooo hooooo! I check the six “John likes your comment.” or “Susan commented on your link.” or whatever.  After that, I might as well check out the news feed. Check out what’s going on in my lists.

Then, I’m off to Twitter. Nothing going on there but I thought I might read through a couple of tweets from my lists while I’m there.  Oh! There’s one I should tweet back to or retweet. Hmmm. Where does this link go?  Looks interesting.

Off to Google+. Wow! Look at all these videos people are posting. Look at all the pretty photographs. Hey, John’s posting a political opinion I agree/disgree with so I’ll post a response. Hey! Here’s a Lifehacker link that looks pretty interesting.

OK. Now, what is it I really wanted to do?  Oh yeah, I need to review this report and respond with recommendations or I need to call a client or I need to….need to….need to…. what did I need to do?

I walk away from my computer and walk down to the kitchen to get something to eat or to the bathroom or, well, you get the point.  Anything I was really going to do and needed to do flew right out of my head when I started playing around in the social media universe.  I didn’t really even look at e-mail.

Sad, isn’t it?

So…here’s something to spend a few minutes on. Just for the hell of it.

Thinking Out Loud

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Yeah.

You hear a lot about the economy and people without jobs. Then you have the independent contractor types. People like me who depend on other people to hire us for short term projects like selling a house or buying one. But, since jobs are scarce and the economy sucks, there isn’t too much of that kind of work going around.

Unless there is.

I hear all the time about how busy people are. “Oh my God”, they say. “It’s crazy busy out there.” I wonder, silently, where is the busy-ness business for me? What the hell an I doing wrong.  Even worse, I wonder why some of my marketing efforts aren’t paying off.  I send the postcards. I answer the e-mails begging for free advice. I talk to people on the phone and sponsor the groups that ask for money (but not so much any more).

Yet, the interlopers come in and get the job. People who don’t live in the area (they used to…a long time ago), they don’t “market” to the area. They just get a lucky phone call from someone they used to know three decades ago.

Then there are the short sales and the foreclosures scooped up by those that think, “What the hell. I’m just sitting around with my thumb up my ass anyway. I might as well wait while a bank fucks around with this seller and buyer.” The foreclosures aren’t so bad. The short sales suck and buyers don’t understand why they take so long. They’re called short sales, aren’t they. The buyers don’t understand the processes of the banks. Who does? Real estate agents surely don’t. At least, not many of them.

The thing I don’t do right is the phone calling thing. I don’t call all the people I previously worked with to shoot the shit with them and then, oh by the way, do they know someone buying or selling a house. I don’t really know what to talk to them about? Their kids?  Their jobs? The gardening?  Who knows?

Meanwhile, nothing seems to be happening and it feeds on itself. Nothing begets nothing.

Gym Phobia

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Yeah. The fear of gyms.

For the past two days, I’ve been telling myself that it’s time to get back to the gym. After all, I’m paying the suckers $24.95 a month for the pleasure of being able to walk through their doors. Hey, for that money, I should go every day, right. Less than a dollar a day.

But, do I?

Nooooo.

I find “things to do” or I get distracted or I start surfing social media (sound familiar?). The bottom line is that I don’t go. Instead, I sit end up at home plowing through the sweets the Missus and I bought at the Amish Market a couple of days ago. Chocolate…

On the plus side, we had dinner at a reasonable hour which was made even more reasonable since it is now Daylight Saving Time and our bodies haven’t shifted to the new time yet. So it was like eating an hour earlier or something like that.

Maybe tomorrow will be the day I finally overcome the procrastination.

It’s not really the fear so much as the thinking that one day or two days or two months don’t really make a dent. Of course, I know, at some level, that anything I do to exercise and/or curb my eating helps.  It just doesn’t help all at once. I want to be 100 lbs lighter tomorrow…after I come back from the gym. Rationally, I know that doesn’t happen.

Who said anything about rational? Rational wouldn’t have had me tip the scale over 300;bs. Speaking of which. I plummeted from 305lbs yesterday to 299.7 today. How is that possible? Water weight? A bad reading? Barometric pressure (more like bariatric pressure)?

I’ll take it. I’ll see what tomorrow brings. It better get me to the gym.

Trying to Stay Balanced

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Here’s the thing.

The Law of Attraction people say that if I think positive things and hang out with positive people and do positive things than positive stuff will be attracted to me.

Sounds pretty nifty, huh?

Smaller rocks balancing on top of other rocks.How’s this (and this is for real)? I was at a week long conference with Jack Canfield a couple of years ago and he likened the positive thoughts or the affirmations or visualizations to sending out a purchase order into the Universe.  Now, I’m sure he was just using this as an illustration for some larger point but what I heard was this:

If you want something to appear in your life, visualize and affirm it and the Universe will take care of the rest.

Of course this was a week long thing so there was more to it.  The “right way” to visualize and affirm and all that kind of stuff. I was really hoping for the best.

Instead I’m no further ahead than I was two years ago.

I’m told it’s because I don’t hang out with the right people (you are the sum total of the five people you associate with the most) or because I don’t take action when i need to or any number of other reasons.

Maybe so.

It’s just that, for some reason, I cannot get out of this fucking rut.

I don’t have a “passion” for doing something.  I obviously don’t like what I’m doing to make money so the personal development and abundance GooRoos will tell me that I’ll never get out of the rut.  I have to do what I love, you see.  Whatever that is.

What really kills me is that just when I start thinking that I’m getting out of the rut, getting out of the quagmire of debt and general listlessness, something happens to kill the momentum.

That’s right.

Just when I think, “Ahhh. I’m starting to feel better about things. Life is taking a turn for the better. Yay!”, something comes along and BAM! the big setback. It’s pretty frustrating, let me tell you.

I should be grateful and thankful for what I have.  People younger than me are dead and have left behind families because of war and illness.  People I know or know of get desperately ill and then die.  In comparison, my life is a bed of roses and a bowl of cherries.

On the other hand, the personal development GooRoos are always saying not to compare.  ”Don’t compare your insides to someone else’s outsides.”  or words t that effect.  The idea here is that everyone is different.  Yeah, they may be rich and famous but they can’t keep a relationship for more than 2 years…or they have no family life…or their health is bad…or they work 24/7.

I’m really trying to find that balance between striving for something which may never come and being satisfied with what I have.

It’s not as easy as it sounds.

 

 

The Value of Doing Nothing

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Forgive me if this isn’t exactly right.

“Do or not do. There is no try.” — Yoda

Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between an activity that produces a good result and an activity that produces, at best, a neutral result. No result at all.

For me, an activity that holds out the promise of a good result is worth trying. It may even be worth trying twice, three times. If the activity doesn’t produce the good result anticipated or it turns out to be a waste of time, it’s time to cut bait.

This leads me to the value of doing nothing.

In my mind, sitting at home and reading or going to a movie or maybe just vegging out in the recliner beats the hell out of going somewhere and doing something that is supposed to achieve a certain result…but doesn’t.

It seems the we are pushed to be productive and engage in activities that “produce” certain results all the time. The latest is this trend to require retail store personnel to show up for work on Thanksgiving night for the mad Christmas rush. Of course, at the most fundamental level something like that is a real pain in the ass but it’s achieves a good result — pay for the store personnel and sales for the store. It’s not absolutely worse than nothing but it’s close.

What if the store didn’t pay an hourly wage but only paid you if something was sold…and no one came by. No one bought anything. Then it’s a waste of time. However, the personal development gurus would have you believe that one time does not the tale tell.  You need persistence, tenacity, perseverance, stamina. Just keep showing up and, sooner or later, something good will happen.

Maybe.

For my money, I would rather stay home. I have no desire to “tough out” long periods of many days. I guess that makes me impatient. It puts me into that immediate gratification category. Some might call it lazy.

Struggle

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There are people who move through life effortlessly with a smile on their face and a song in their heart. Others kinda muddle through one day to the next. Nothing great and wonderful but nothing overly tragic or debilitating.

For many, though, life is a struggle from one day to the next. Sure. There are the ‘good days” when things flow smoothly. Moods are good. The sun is shining. Most days are more of a fight.

The bodily aches and pains. Tooth aches, arthritis, overweight, tired, depressed. Just when you think you have it whipped and things will work out well, something comes along to remind you that The Book of Job was written with you in mind.

Patience is a virtue but it’s a virtue rarely rewarded. Perseverance, persistence, tenacity — all wonderful traits to have in the face of never ending adversity. But what is it that causes us to go on in the face of the seemingly unending challenges?

Some don’t, of course. Suicide is common.  Maybe not as common as we would think but more common than we might otherwise believe. Most people keep plodding through life without passion or purpose or even desire.  It has been snuffed out. Smothered.

The gurus would have us believe that this is all a trick of the mind. We control our thoughts and our thoughts control our destiny. But do they and can we?

Maybe there’s a trick to it that the gurus are holding back but for the nominal membership fee to their website or program. Kinda like the secret ingredient in your neighbor’s blue ribbon pecan pie. Yeah, she gave you all the ingredients for a passable pecan pie but she left out that one thing that made it the best pie at the County Fair.  That’s her secret. Her life.

You hear the old saying about being sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was like that once. It helped. I pulled myself back from the brink. I thought life would get better. Much better.

Maybe it did and I didn’t notice.

Morning Writer

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Truth be told, I think I’m probably a morning writer.  It goes with being a morning person.

The only problem is that I sometimes have a little trouble setting aside the time.  It’s not like I couldn’t. After all, the Missus is reading the paper and drinking coffee. She wouldn’t miss me. But I don’t. Or, at least, I haven’t.

So tomorrow, I have an early appointment and have to get out the door by about 7:30. The day after, earlier than that. So I may be able to get a few words in but if I really want to go nuts, I won’t have the time. Then by the time I get back and have the time, the ideas have flown out of my head just like the Rick Perry third thing and the thing with Herman Cain having lots of thoughts whirling around in his head.

Yeah, I know. Write the idea down. Or start a draft and come back to it. Simple solutions. But I don’t do that either. Maybe it’s so I can have an excuse or two or three. You know, it’s not my fault. I just couldn’t get around to it.  I forgot.

They say that the first step to recovery is awareness. Acknowledgement that their is a problem. Maybe so. But some of us can’t get past that first step. Awareness. Acknowledgement.

I’m fat. I need to eat right. Exercise. I’m aware. I don’t do anything.

I want more money. I need to work more productively. Take the actions that are tried and true and tested to get more income. I’m a little lax, there, too.

Write? Get up. Fire up the computer. Put on a cup of coffee. Come back to the computer and pound out some words. I’m working on it.

Writer’s Block

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I always read that the most important thing a writer can do is write.  Reading comes in a close second.  Maybe even tied for first.

I also read that the important thing about writing a blog is to write witty and charming  or, at least, interesting and entertaining content (i.e, the writing) so that one builds an audience.

That one being me.

It’s hard to come up with stuff all the time, though.  What’s good, interesting? Is there a topic or something?  Who the hell knows?

I see blogs all the time that are written poorly or with that great, snarky tone that seems so prevalent in the blogosphere. But they get lots of traffic, lots of commenting, lots of interaction.

Others like Paul Krugman’s blog on the New York Times’ site — The Conscience of a Liberal — gets tons of readership for blog posts that sometimes are two tor three paragraphs long and sometimes posts about not writing posts. I guess that’s the difference between a Nobel Prize winning economist on the New York Times’ site and a canoodler with no credentials.

Sigh.  Maybe one day.

Binging

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Binge
noun
1. a period or bout, usually brief, of excessive indulgence, as in eating, drinking alcoholic beverages, etc.; spree.

verb (used without object) binged, bing·ing or binge·ing.
2. to have a binge: to binge on junk food.

binging. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved September 08, 2011, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/binging

 

Sound familiar?

College students do it with booze during their college years.  Supposedly it’s a big problem.

Dieters do it with food.  It’s no accident that the definition came with an example of “to binge with junk food”.

Such it is with me.Try hard. Count calories. Log food intake. Head out to the gym for some time on the treadmill. Lose a few pounds. Plateau. Keep trying. Gain. Keep trying. Gain. Keep trying. Lose a little bit.

Finally, it’s fuck it. It takes forever to lose the weight half pound by half pound. Then it’s dinner with friends, a birthday cake, a craving for ice cream, a work reception.  All of a sudden, I’m up three pounds in a day when it took me two weeks to get it off.

Two weeks of counting calories, two weeks of hitting the treadmill, two weeks of logging in all my food intake making sure I don’t eat anything with too many calories that would fully negate any exercise I’ve done.

So, I say fuck it. I start binging.

Ice cream, steak, potatoes, toast with jam, rice, muffins, cookies. Morning, noon and night.

I get on the scale and I’m disgusted but I don’t do anything. It’s raining cats and dogs so I don’t go out, I have appointments to keep most of the day so I don’t make it to the gym, I don’t feel like it, plain and simple because I know if I start it’ll take me forever to work off what I’ve put on by binging.

Binging on food is not like binging on booze.  With booze you wake up with a hangover, you throw up, take a couple of aspirin and you’re good as new. With food, you’re not good as new the next day. You’re 5 pounds heavier and the clothes that were feeling a little loose have tightened up, again.

Binging sucks.