I’ll start this post with an apology to anyone who had been following me and then suddenly couldn’t when my blog had expired. I never intend for that to happen again.
In October I enrolled in Continue Reading…
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 4,600 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 8 years to get that many views.
Soren Kierkegaard, philosopher and author was an existentialist. He believed that the main purpose of philosophy is to increase happiness through analyzing and understanding ourselves.
The unexamined life is not worth living.
Much of his work deals with the concept of despair. The lowest level of which he believed was to have the wrong idea of who we actually are. Who our “Self” actual is. Being ignorant of who we actually are allows us to Continue Reading…
Is someone still trying to potty train you?
Are you still repeating kindergarten?
Do you purposely re-break your arm by falling off your bike?
Participating in car accidents daily?
The answer to these question, for most I hope, would be: NO!
These are situations where a lesson needed to be learned. We need to learn to take care of our selves, learn designated curriculum, what risk means and how to be safe and responsible. Lessons are learning opportunities that help us to improve and overcome obstacles. The good thing about them is that there is an unlimited supply. Some are hard, some are easy, some are one time and some will be repeated.
So how do we know when we need to learn a lesson? Continue Reading…
Time is money.
This is a very common saying we hear in our capitalist society. Of course time isn’t really money. Time is time and with your time you can either be working to make money or any number of other things on your priority list.
With my time I like to:
- Work to make money
- Spend time with my daughter and family
- Practice Taekwon-Do
- Study for university
- Read
- Volunteer
- Write
- Play music
- Hang with friends
These are not in any particular order. Some of them are almost universally seen as Continue Reading…
It seems at times, at least to me, that a culture of ME is becoming more and more prominent. I think my generation is more focused on themselves than my parents generation and I can see it happening even more so in the generation after mine. There is a large number of people who lack consideration for much outside their own needs, wants and ambitions. I don’t blame them I think we got the ball rolling somewhere along the way.
Being introspective and wanting to take care of yourself is great. It needs to happen to be able to give to your full potential. I think now it’s time to develop more of a balance, help yourself but help others too. Be more considerate.
How do we become more considerate?
It’s a matter of perspective. I find that when I am being inconsiderate I stop looking for other perspectives. When you assume that other people sense and experience things the way you do that’s when you stop considering how they feel. I try to take a mental step out of my body and ask myself, how does this person feel about X? What do they think about X?
Why should we be considerate?
For those people who just choose not to act in a way that could help someone here are 3 good reasons why you should:
- It will make you feel better. Seriously, I’m sure science backs this up with some explanation of a chemical release in your brain but I just know from experience.
- What goes around comes around. You will be waking up society one person at a time. When people realize their thoughts and feelings are being considered they are much more likely to pay it forward when the opportunity comes around because they are now aware of how much a little effort and acknowledgement goes.
- You’ll feel a greater sense of control in your life. By being considerate and taking action when you can in ways that will help someone out or make them feel better you are exerting a force and control over your life and the culture you live in. It is one of the only real ways people can influence the world around them in a meaningful way.
So why would we avoid being considerate?
We sometimes lose sight of long-term benefits and returns on our investment because there are so many ways to get instant gratification. It feels better today to sit home and take care of ourselves and it is much easier but tomorrow you’ll have that same feeling again. Considering someone’s circumstances and helping out may turn out to be something the both of you remember for a life time and for ever feel good when thinking back on your effort.
The Art Of Adaptation: Being considerate gives you long-lasting gratification.
You ran in this weather?!
Yes I did. We should all run in bad weather. Or more generically, we should all (Insert verb) in/while (Insert adverse condition).
Why? For two reasons:
- It allows you to say YES! If you plan on doing something but decide against it, ask yourself, why? When you say no, there is often a reason and if that reason is an excuse you should say yes.We say no and make excuses because there are obstacles we are to lazy or afraid to overcome. These include weather, temperature, money and fear. Obstacles are supposed to prevent you from succeeding. They aren’t supposed to prevent you from trying. Obstacles are interchangeable and if you can say yes to overcoming one you can say it to the next one.
- It gives you perspective. I see fair weather runners all the time. They are never happy running. They hate it even when conditions are perfect. I run in bad weather because it allows me to appreciate the days where conditions are perfect. We can’t always have perfect conditions and if we only practice or perform during these times those people who are willing to overcome obstacles will quickly surpass you.
The Art Of Adaptation: If used properly obstacles can make for the perfect conditions.
