bookface
Wow.
Being away from Facebook for 21 days is possible... and 'freeing'.
Not having Facebook was difficult at first but I realized that you could live without it. If you don't want to be the first to know something, then it is more convenient. The main things get relayed by word of mouth but you won't be the first to know.
Few things I realized while being away from Facebook:
- Facebook seemingly chops time. For instance, you tend to go on Facebook 1) in between activities 2) to take a break from what you actually should be doing 3) to see what is going on in people's lives (so not thinking about your life) All these segmented activities make you feel busier than you actually are. Doing something and getting it off your plate frees up more time or more concentrated time later. So filling these blocks of time takes more creativity, resourcefulness, and management.
- Facebook is a very tempting creature. That little red 1 can be as addictive as sunless tanning to the men of Jersey Shore.
Few things I realized since getting back:
- Double-booked! Looks like there are a lot of events I missed and dates I have double booked because many of my social events are Through Facebook Only.
- You see what is going on in people's lives. Whether it is a photo album of an engagement, birthday parties, or just awesome photography shots. You read statuses to get a mini glimpse into what people are doing, thinking, and had for lunch.
- Facebook gives me more stuff to write about. I don't know why but I get more ideas when 'seeing' more people. Maybe it is the relinked posts. Maybe it is the videos. Or maybe it is the albums.
You don't need Facebook to live but you do need to live to use Facebook. Uh questionable. Here is a 5 step program to happiness with Facebook.
Share on FacebookI thought I could have both…
You can get sympathy or you can get better, but you can’t get both. You can be in your comfort zone or you can have growth, but you can’t have both. You can be interested or you can be sold-out-committed, but you can’t entertain both. You can have excuses or have results, but you can’t do both. Choose the path that develops your visceral fortitude.
- Mario Cortes
I thought I could get sympathy and get better at the same time. I was wrong. I thought I could be in my comfort zone and still grow. I was wrong. I thought I could be interested and sold-out committed at the same time. I was wrong. I thought I could make excuses and still see results. I was wrong.
I'm a type of guy who wants to 'have my cake and eat it too'. I thought I could have the best of both worlds. Recently I have been realizing that making a choice nullifies other choices. You made a choice. There are pros and cons to that choice, but you can't make a choice and think you have another choice. I thought I could get results while making excuses. Nope. I was just making excuses. You can't make an excuse and think you can get results. You're excuses will bring you down. Excuses dampen any result, even if it was the result you wanted. When we fail, we always look for an excuse. We take the easy way out. We don't look inside.
I thought I could be sold-out committed while being interested in others... which makes no sense at all now that I am writing this. I was just being interested, never committed.
I thought I could grow while being in my comfort zone. This also makes no sense. Growth can come naturally, through experiences and what life brings. I am talking about purpose driven growth. Growth that comes from trying new things and strengthening your weaknesses. Your comfort zone is just being in an area you are comfortable in. Comfort comes from knowing and also, generally, being good at that particular action. It is easy for you. Comfort zone is ease. Ease of mind, ease of actions, ease from growth (change).
I thought I could get better and get sympathy at the same time. When something troubling happens to you, the initial warmth of sympathy does get you better. However, that sympathy can become a crutch to you getting better fully. Sympathy is the social affinity in which one person stands with another person, closely understanding his or her feelings. Initially, having that person stand next to you is what is needed. You don't know what to do with yourself. Your friends and family keep you going. But after a while, the sympathy becomes a detriment rather than a soothing ailment to your suffering and grief. During your state of sympathy, you are not 'getting better'. You are leaning on others. Not on yourself. 'Getting better' meaning further growth, getting on with your life, learning from your experiences.
Choose the path that develops your visceral fortitude.
In other words, choose actions that develop your instinctive (gut feeling/ not intellectual) mental and emotional courage when facing difficulty, adversity, danger, or temptation.
Share on FacebookChange ≠ Progress
Change does not necessarily mean progress.
Change does not equal progress.
Recently, I switched from a 7 year old phone to a new iPhone 4. I am paying about the same price in plan as I was before so my only real cost would be the initial $200 to get the phone. Thoughts: I was living in the dark ages. The iPhone is a neat phone with every app you can think about. I have noticed my production levels 'drop' as I keep checking the phone. I appreciated how I would just check my emails once a day, usually at night; rather than checking it several times throughout the day... o' technology
For me, changing phones did mean progress. I got a 5mp camera, sweet apps, and email. I may think my productivity levels have dropped but once I master the phone I should be efficient again. But many times people associate change with progress. If I had gotten a new phone but all the features were the same, that change is not progress. Changing politicians does not necessarily mean progress. Yes we voted for Change with Obama and Republicans in the midyear elections (progress yet to be determined) but that does not mean things will progress. We 'think' something different (change) will mean a different outcome. This is a wrong association. Things change, for good or for bad, because of value. If that person or object is of no value or less value than its predecessor, we will see digression not progression. Sure we like to compare to the most recent predecessor (it is the easiest thing to do and the one we have the most knowledge of hopefully) but we also need to uphold comparisons to what I call the average. I am not bashing Obama and saying he is worse than Bush or vice versa. All I am saying is that we voted for change but we need to vote based on value of person and not because 'the current state of affairs is bad'. Another word for 'the current state of affairs' would be circumstances. Circumstances change every day, especially in the political arena. Basing our judgments solely off circumstances is a shortminded perspective.
I bought the iPhone 4. My coworker calls it the snooty phone, which I tend to agree with. Most people that do have the iPhone 4 have a 'snooty' attitude about them. Am I one of them now?! I didn't buy the 3G or the 3GS because they were ridiculous prices. I am not going to spend $300 $400 or $500 on a phone that will be outdated after calling 3 people. You saw it with laptops. You are now seeing it with smartphones. $200 is reasonable (probably debatable) and if you saw what I was carrying before, more of a weapon than a telecommunications device, you would understand I needed an upgrade. Smartphones are only going to get cheaper. Why? Phone companies will be driving the price down to get you under their subscription (where they make their money). Look, if you are a telecommunications company and have already spent millions and millions of dollars setting up an infrastructure for wireless internet/communications, you will give a customer $100 to get them to spend several thousands of dollars over their cellphone lifetime.
Let's vote on value, not on the circumstances.
Let's buy on value, not impulsively.
Let's eat nutritional value, not junk.
Let's value others, not degrade them.
In all changes, we are shifting blame. We don't blame ourselves for issues so we 'change' things to cover it up.
Change ≠ Progress.
Share on FacebookParty: Private Facebook Event Style
Facebook Events.
We have all made one. We have all hosted a party, event, or birthday celebration. Recently, I have noticed an increase in SPAM Facebook events. You get all excited to see where you have been invited to find out that someone got a hold of your friend's account...
As a host, you have to cater to size of party because you may not want to overcrowd the area you are in, food quanitities if you are gracious enough to provide food, drama as we select people on who makes the cut or who doesn't (obviously I want everyone to be there and there is NO drama in my life 
), and many other factors.
I haven't actually thrown a party or made a Facebook event in a long time so this is not to hate. I just felt it curious on our thoughts to the whole Event thing. Here are my raves, rants, and desires as a responder or a host:
Sticky scenarios I have had as a responder or host to a Facebook event:
- You get invited to a 'private event'. You feel honored. Privileged. Exclusive. But you are hanging out the next day with the host and some other people. Do you bring up the event, meaning the person not invited will have to be invited because of shame and guilt or just not invite them, leaving the non-invitee braised, hurt, and annoyed. OR do you not bring it up at all?! Obviously, you don't want to be the guy who ruins a surprise birthday party to the birthday guy/gal. Do 'private events' force us to check the whole invite list? To find out who and who isn't invited? Obviously there are logical reasons for having a private event if cost or space is an issue but does that mandate all invitees to check who is in and who isn't? I say 'private event' because after the event is over it won't be private. Pictures. Statuses. People talking about their life.
- Facebook events should only be YES or NO. As I have found out, Maybe means NO. Probably less than 5% of maybes will show up to the event. Why? Maybe means there is a conflicting event and I will only go if that thing doesn't work out. OR if you can persuade them (incent them) enough to come.
- People who say YES only in support. Facebook should have a support section. People who respond YES only for support skew total numbers. Facebook etiquette for supporters should be to leave a post on the event wall that they are not attending but support the event.
What social issues arise in relation to Facebook for you?
Share on FacebookAmerica’s Next Best Engineer
After reading a light hearted yet frightening article by Thomas Friedman, I had a thought. The article was titled: WikiChina in light of the wikileaks of government documents. Some of the depictions Friedman uses are, to say the least, frightening. In my Facebook status I said: If we were a football team we (America) would be the Minnesota Vikings. A character on Jersey Shore: we'd be Snooky. A golfer: Tiger Woods.
Do you know how bad it looks when something like that leaks to the public? How bad that looks for us (America) as a country? Diplomatically? In an obvious sense, it is like having secrets with all your close friends and then OOPS, you get drunk and stuff spills out about your friends to other friends. Friends who knew it, kind of, themselves but now that it is in the open it is definitely fact. Friends who trusted you will not say a word. Why would anyone trust you? Now you look like an IDIOT and no one will ever trust you again....or in a long long time. Only your close friends will listen but they, too, shake their heads. Didn't get that one? How about: you are playing poker and you have a losing hand so you are trying to bluff but as you go for your chips, you accidentally flip over your cards.
I say these things because our government is so divided that we can't get anything done. We use to be a powerhouse (we still are in many aspects) but seem to be declining. I recommend reading the first few comments made on the article as well. Now I don't know your political preferences and I don't agree with all that is said with Friedman, but there are certain issues in America that everyone should agree upon.
- That our educational system is a mess
- The President NEEDS to be persuasive, not just to fellow Americans but also in the international political arena. I want someone that can negotiate. Someone that speaks so smooth that I get sold 'white gloves when eating a ketchup popsicle'. Maybe it is the image of America and not the President. Maybe there is nothing any president can do. Maybe our image needs to change.
The United States is not measuring up in the science and technology departments, because we do not focus on science and technology in school. There aren't many kids who want to become a great engineer: rather, everyone wants to become the next singer, or an actor, but we fail to properly motivate people to foster a love for science. I have heard so many of my peers shrug off the fact that they don't succeed in math and science, simply because they're not "math people". It is dangerous, the little emphasis that Americans put on science education, because gradually, this hurts our nation. Many engineers immigrate from foreign countries to do an engineering job for less than Americans are willing to do it for, and they tend to perform much better at the task than the average American. It makes perfect financial sense for an employer to spend less money on a more efficient result, and this leads to a risk of jobs being outsourced. America needs to start focusing on important issues, primarily education, and create strong incentives for students to pursue careers in science, so we can compete with other nations. We need to increase teacher salary and create a strong incentive for individuals who know the subject well to go on and share their knowledge, and eventually, with good teachers and motivated students, American can achieve in the field of Science.
You have heard it before: 'Oh ya Math is not my thing. I'm going to be a liberal arts major'. I think we give ourselves a disservice by giving up on things too easily. After reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, he stated that other countries 'tried' (stayed longer to figure out a problem) a couple minutes longer to solve problems. When we (Americans) try to solve a math problem and get stuck, we quit.
What if you knew you were only a few minutes away from getting the answer? Would you try and figure it out then? Because we aren't trying to be the next best engineer, we are trying to be the next best dance crew...
Share on FacebookDreaming With A Bowl’n Heart
As the Huskies win on a last minute drive, I wrote this song for my love.hate relationship with them this season. One win away from the Holiday Bowl!
When you're dreaming with a bowl'n heart
When Jake throwing it up is the hardest part
You roll off the couch and down on your knees
And for a moment you can hardly breathe
Wondering do we really have a chance?
Is this season really done?
No it's not, 'cause we won, won, won, won, won!
When you're dreaming with a bowl'n heart
The giving up is the hardest part
Sark takes you in with his stalker eyes
Then all at once we have to wonder why
Do we really need one more?
Will we make it to the bowl?
Yes we can, 'cause we won, won, won, won, won!
Now do I have to fall asleep with Bibles in my hands?
Do I have to fall asleep with Bibles in my hands?
Do I have to fall asleep with Bibles in my hands?
Do I have to fall asleep with Bibles in my , Bibles in my hands?
Do we know where Pullman is?
I don't care, 'cause we'll win, win, win, win, win!
When you're dreaming with a bowl'n heart
The giving up is the hardest part
Finding Happiness vs. Being Content
Is seeking happiness in direct opposition to being content? Can you seek happiness while being fully content with what you have?
That is a tough question and one I have been thinking about. Interestingly enough, I stumbled onto a post by Get Rich Slowly called Fantasy vs. Reality. To an extent, finding happiness can be a fantasy. It can be chasing a dream while other times finding happiness is reality. GRS did a great job differentiating our present and future -selves and how your present self can be content and happy.
Another link through I found was an interesting article titled: To predict what will make you happy, ask a stranger rather than guessing yourself. I tend to agree that we, humans, are more in common than you think. We think we need to do everything ourselves and solve everything ourselves but this article debunks that thought. It says that we should rely more on 'our neighbors' thoughts. Even if you do the activity yourself, it is good to get insight from friends, family, or strangers. Refer, refer, refer!
Share on FacebookBut the point is not that a peer's prediction will be perfect, but that it's better than what you could do yourself. Gilbert notes that people's emotional reactions aren't as different as we may think. Many of them are based on ancient bodily processes that are consistent across cultures. And we're especially likely to share emotional reactions with those people most likely to share theirs with us - our friends and family. As he says:
"[Firstly, we prefer] warm to cold, satiety to hunger, friends to enemies, winning to losing, and so on. An alien who knew all the likes and dislikes of a single human being would know a great deal about the entire species. Second, people tend to marry, befriend, work with, and live near those who share their preferences and personality traits... In short, there is little disagreement among people about the sources of pleasure and pain, and even less disagreement among neighbours."
Gilbert's experiments are compelling and they are just the tip of the iceberg in similar research on the psychology of happiness (see chapter 11 of his book for more). But more pessimistically, they also suggest that people are unlikely to take full advantage of the "power of surrogation", of using other people's experiences to simulate your own. Instead, we tend to hold to the mistaken strength of our own predictions, misguided though they may be. As Gilbert says:
"When we want to know our emotional futures, it is difficult to believe that a neighbour's experience can provide greater insight than our own best guess."
The Conditional Chill
With the first signs of snow in the Pacific Northwest yesterday, the first thought in my head wasn't 'please God let it dump down'. This would be a normal response to any school-zombied-Justin-Bieber-loving-tweenager. No. My response was: 'how will I get to work tomorrow?'
WHAT HAS BECOME OF ME?!!
Albeit my desire for snow was so school would cancel and I wouldn't have to do homework, I really wanted lots and lots of snow. Snow is awesome. You get into snowball fights until your fingers are frozen. You make snowmen the size of Goliath. You get to dress up in so many layers that you can barely move your arms or tie your shoelaces. You get hot cocoa and stinky wet hair once you are done. SNOW IS AMAZING!
Fast forward to me today with a job and my perspective has changed. It is not an initial desire to see more snow, nay it is a desire to have free and clear roads....
To prepare for the winter season, I got some new tires on Saturday. Waiting an absurd 4 hours to get it done! That didn't change the fact that I was thinking about different routes to take to work as I live near many hills. My desire for snow has now become conditional. I will like snow only if the roads are clear and it is safe to drive. Then I can have snow. Whereas before I would say snow dump down! When a kid, I wouldn't be the one driving. I wouldn't be the one worried about my health. My mom would be the one taking care of me
WHAT HAS BECOME OF ME!?!
It got me thinking what else in life has become conditional. Do we become conditional because we are the ones watching out for ourselves now? Do we become conditional because we are nitpicky and selfish?
- Are your friendships conditional?
- Is your ability to help someone conditional?
- Is your money conditional?
- Is your love conditional?
Goals: Reloaded
Money! Power! Fame!
I recently read a great article in the Harvard Business Review about not basing your leadership on money, power, or fame. Rather we should be basing our leadership off purpose, passion, and humility. This got me thinking. Are my goals oriented toward money, power and fame or are they directed toward purpose, passion, and humility? I find myself struggling with desires to seek fame or fortune, but is that really the leader I want to be? Leading because I have a lot of money or leading because I have fame of some sort?
Great leaders don't see themselves at the center but rather their purpose. They lead with this sense of passion that attracts others to their cause. They are humble throughout the whole process.
Share on Facebook"Humbition is one part humility and one part ambition," they wrote. "We notice that by far the lion's share of world-changing luminaries are humble people. They focus on the work, not themselves. They seek success — they are ambitious — but they are humbled when it arrives. They know that much of that success was luck, timing, and a thousand factors out of their personal control. They feel lucky, not all-powerful. Oddly, the ones operating under a delusion that they are all-powerful are the ones who have yet to reach their potential...[So] be ambitious. Be a leader. But do not belittle others in your pursuit of your ambitions. Raise them up instead. The biggest leader is the one washing the feet of the others."
In Debt Over Our Heads?
When you read reports with numbers in the billions or trillions, do you get what they mean? I know I don't really grasp some of those numbers, which is probably a reason why most Americans (1) Don't know (2) Don't care about issues of GDP, economics, and our budget deficits & debts. We are lazy beings. Put things in front of us that don't make sense and are 'hard to figure out' and we will default to not learning. That is why TV, video games, and movies are so popular.
This is my feeble attempt to address the deficit and debt specifically, relevantly, and contextually.
In October 2008, the U.S. government bailed out banks and financial institutions to the tune of $700 billion. That’s the numeral 7 followed by eleven zeros! $700,000,000,000. Does your mind wrap its head around that? I know it really doesn't for me. San Jose Mercury News reporter Scott Harris put the number into a context his Silicon Valley readers could understand:
- $700 billion is twenty-five times the combined wealth of the Google guys.
- It is the equivalent of 200 billion venti lattes at Starbucks or 3.5 billion iPhones.
- The government could write checks for $2,300 to every man, woman, and child in America or provide free education for twenty-three million college students.
That is how much that bailout cost. Can we try talking in the trillions now? With our national debt almost at 14 trillion dollars, do we grasp our head around that number? Not really. But 14 trillion dollars maybe a small or large number depending on what we compare it to, which is why we make it relative. That is why we use percentages. We can make sense of percentages.
On current policies the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reckons that the federal debt, now 62% of GDP, will hit 87% by 2020. Add in state and local-government borrowing, and the total approaches 110%.
Lets try to relate this back to simple terms. GDP is kind of like US' yearly income and debt is debt.
- Lets say our country is a person who makes $50,000 a year.
- If we equate our 62% debt (our debt to GDP percentage) ,we would have $31,000 in debt.
- Now we use to make $60,000 but had to take a pay decrease. We put all our money in a zero percent interest card but know in the next few years our promotional rate will expire (elderly + Medicare, Medicaid) This will make our percentage 87% by 2020, which is $43,500.
- Now we have a brother who isn't doing well with finances either. He thought he could spend and spend and got stuck in debt too. You make a better wage than he does and you are older so you may or may not foot his bill. All local and state level borrowing is 23% of GDP.
- That makes our total debt $55,000 with a $50,000 salary. I don't know your preference on debt and don't care if you think there is good debt and bad debt. I don't care if it was from student loans (infrastructure), credit cards (lavish and excessive programs), car loans (bailouts), whatever.
I know we are leveraged up, maybe not to our eyeballs but to our chest with debt. I know how hard it is to climb out of debt. I have done it myself. If we think of our GDP and debt in terms of a person, we can see that we are not doing too well. China is the well off, well positioned 'financial individual' who is buying up or 'loaning out' to everyone else they choose.
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