Simplifying Your Life

In roughly twenty hours, I’ll be making a move for the third time. That does not sound like a lot, and in the grand scheme of things, it’s not. Many people move far more often than I do. I have had the luxury of living in a very steady situation, and even when turbulence did hit, it was mild. So, what kind of advice do I have to offer concerning moving, with so little experience under my belt? Not much, really. Only one thing that is important: Simplifying.

I have spent the last several days browsing websites like ApartmentTherapy.com and Houzz.com. Both of them are interior design websites, where I was looking for inspiration on how to live simple and small, but still maintain a home feel. While contrasting what I see in the photos, and what I see in my own place, the only glaring difference is my stuff. I have way too much of it.

Granted, during my last move, I had to move back into my folks home, who had staged the room for guests. We consolidated as much as we could into the room, and a cluttered feeling is the result, but I flat out have just too much stuff.

I took this observation to heart, even desiring brand new furniture to lower the entire footprint of my things, throwing away and donating a large portion of the things I decided I no longer needed.

The interesting outcome of this situation is the immense feeling of relief. Not just relief in that I will have less things to move, although that is fantastic, but internal relief of less distraction.

President Obama has been said to only have blue, gray, or black suits in his closet. Not because he doesn’t appreciate style, or have an adventurous personality, but because those types of decisions are too insignificant for the President to worry about. This has resonated with myself, and simplifying my own possessions to reach this sort of goal–where I no longer have to think about routine, mundane decisions too intensely–is a desire of mine. Here are a few steps I have taken to reach it.

Too many choices often lead to no choice being made. Although it is a basic human desire to increase our options, I have found that decreasing them to only important options is far more rewarding.

I implore you take some time and think of ways you can simplify your life. Eliminate some of your possessions by gifting or donating them to others, reduce your visual stimuli to a more manageable level, and live a simpler life with more focus on people and less on things. It’s an ever rewarding experience.

Perception VS Reality — Attitude

Attitude changes. I’m not entirely sure they’re possible. There are modifications, and perceptions that you can push to the outside world, but will it ever be changed?

This could be my youth showing through loud and clear, so please, comment if you feel as such, but I just don’t see it.

I just finished a One on One assessment, done monthly by my company. The meeting, as it’s described, is a discussion between just you and your supervisor. You cover things like, what you’re working on right now, where you’re at with any developmental things covered before, and a general assessment of your performance the past month. We are rated on a scale straight from kindergarten:

• Green means you’ve exceeded expectations, or have done better than a baseline
• Yellow is the baseline. You’re neither doing bad nor great at this category
• Red is needs improvement.

I was rated Green and Yellow on all categories, but only by a hair in one in particular: “Values”. He explained that he can hear a bit of attitude in my voice some days. I’ve also come off as “cocky” in responses to my co-workers.

I don’t disagree with this assessment. I even intended for these things to happen (not that it’s a good thing). This was an isolated incident, and I slipped up, that happened to occur in a very short timespan before my review. 

Some ways I have found to combat this issue within myself, and hopefully some things you can use in your journey after the jump.

Why Men aren’t Growing Up.

Over the past several years, there has been an intense discussion about youths never growing up. More specifically, men, never moving from adolescence to adulthood.

Articles dating all the way back to 2007, coming from all corners of the globe, and repeated by some reputable sources have been springing up with different outlooks on the subject.

I want to throw a wrench in this topic. Sure, I’d say men aren’t growing up in the old definition of growing up. But why? It’s impossible for them to.

My understood definition of growing up: getting a job, moving into your own house, settling down with a family, kids, wife, what-have-you.

Why is that impossible now? Money. The root of all evil. What average 25 year old has the money to go purchase a brand new home, or even the solidarity of lifestyle that allows that? What two young people just starting out in life have the funds or careers that allow them to begin raising children?

The short answer is very, very few.

It’s flat out cheaper to not grow up. Splitting living costs with roommates is obviously cheaper. Living in apartments with short term leases or renting homes allow for flexibility in your residence so you can move when a career affords it.

Babycenter.com estimates, not including saving for college, that raising a child from birth to 18 years old will cost an estimated $220,000+ or over $12,000 a year. I personally don’t have that short of income to just move around.

So why are men refusing to grow up? Because it’s damn expensive to, thats why!

Kickstarter Feature: “4,000: A Documentary”

This is going to the first installment of a new feature. I’ve taken an interest in the efforts of Kickstarter.com. A crowdsourcing website intended to get new startups funding for their projects. The website has garnered some intense popularity lately, and even several copycat websites that attempt to hit more niche markets.

With this popularity, though, comes some serious volume. Everyone is jumping on the quick moving bandwagon, attempting to get things from screenplays and movies, to blogs and podcasts, to experiments and even road trips funded by the masses. Sorting through all of these can be quite daunting — trust me, I’ve been searching through several categories for the last several hours.

I’ve dug through the trenches, eliminated some strong competitors, and now bring you a Kickstarter project that strongly appeals to me — and hopefully you.

Please note, I have no affiliation with this project, but was an anonymous browser on Kickstarter.com

“4000: A Documentary” is a film project that plans to follow 25 University of Texas Students riding their bicycles from Austin, Texas to Anchorage, Alaska.

Let that sink in for a moment.

And now, the reason: to raise awareness about their family’s fight against cancer. Here is a short video detailing their project, a pitch of sorts.

You can view the video pitch here. WordPress.com does not allow JS or MP4 embed links.

Although the message itself is enough, in my opinion. The filmmakers are offering some significant backer rewards. For $25, they will send you a free copy of the DVD. The typical price of a new movie from Best Buy or Target. For $100, you get the DVD, a “4000” t-shirt, poster, and a credit in the movie under a “Special Thanks To” section. At the upper echelon of investment, $1,000, you will receive all other backer rewards, and a credit as a Producer on the film and a custom, signed, 4000 cycling jersey.

Offered without Comment.

Good Questions and My Workplace

There is a long standing phrase, “There is no such thing as a bad question.”

I want to refute that. There is most certainly a bad question. I constantly get asked bad questions, and it is rather frustrating. (A funny sidenote, while typing that sentence through Google Docs, spell check flags “bad” as an incorrect spelling of good. I’m not even kidding.)

A large portion of Corporate America is constantly pushing their managers and leaders to be more “HR Friendly” or rather “Lawsuit Paranoid”. No longer can someone be reprimanded, less the company get put into hot water for discrimination. My place of work, specifically, has to go through two verbal warnings, and five written warnings within a rolling 12-month calendar before someone can be held accountable for their actions — and that is for a specific type of occurrence. Attendance and performance are not tracked on the same paper trail, for instance.

After years and years here, I’ve realized this attitude towards discipline or “seeking to understand” helps people that shouldn’t be afforded the jobs they have hold onto them for the sake of getting a paycheck. A direct result of that being those that are more capable or intelligent in their current position being forced to constantly coach these people along their day-to-day tasks.

Here is where those bad questions come into play. I am rather convinced that these questions are not brought up from a curiosity or the seeking of knowledge, but as a way to decrease their own mental investment to the least amount possible. They are not asked in an effort to understand the task at hand or thought of in a sense of solution. The answers received are not written down, practiced, or noted for later. And the worst situation of all, the questions aren’t even asked hoping for an answer, but asked in hoping that the person that was asked will take care of the situation themselves.

And those, my friends, are bad questions.

I have been asking myself for a while what to do with situations like this, and quite frankly, I’ve got nothing. I typically fall into that last category — I just take care of it. I do this because I can get it done quickly, I get the satisfaction that it’s done, and I don’t have to look at a long chain of emails later on covering why it wasn’t done. It’s easier that way.

One Line Wonders.

Some of these are more than one line.

Inspiration comes from weird places. I was just writing how I hated the mind-to-twitter movement, skipping the thought stage, and now I’m writing short thoughts skipping that same step.

And I don’t feel bad about it.

Macklemore is a pretty good artist. Smart, thoughtful, and good lyrics.

It’s really amazing how much music can affect my mood. The right song at the beginning of the day can largely set the entire tone. Something that makes me think, social commentary, really puts things in perspective.

Online college really misses the boat on what I feel college is about.

And businesses really overvalue degrees.

EDM (electronic dance music) is very repetitive.

But I still like listening to it.

And I can’t dance.

Paleontology is pretty weird. Just look at Chalicothere. What the hell?

Why are creative positions seemingly so difficult to get into? The demand can’t be that high.

Or is the demand for the product just that low?

The line between Pleasure and Pay

I am sure you have heard someone ask, or even searched yourself, “How to monetize my blog (writing, twitter, facebook, etc). I spent a portion of the day today searching out that specific information. And believe me when I say, it is quite the search…

There is quite a bit of information, and a lot of it is repeated from blog to blog, and page to page. Some of it copied word for word. That can make any search daunting.

So what did I find out?

 

I have debt, like mostly everyone else does. I am working my way out of it, and it is putting a strain on my account. Like most everyone else’s.

Five hours of my morning was spent searching, reading, indexing, bookmarking websites that explain how to make cash both passively using your computer and doing something as lovely as blogging or writing.

After the initial reaction and excitement of possibly making money either not working, or not working much (who can honestly call blogging work?) I realized — in the five hours of research the line between doing something I enjoy and doing something to only make money blurred. I was not worried about the next blog post or topic, but rather the next site I needed to register on to generate more traffic to get ads up.

That is not why I decided to start doing this. It is not why I want to continue doing it. Is this where I draw my line? It seems I may have already.

But that begs the question, “Will I turn down monetary gains because I am doing this for the enjoyment?” Of course not. Life’s quest revolves around getting paid to do something you enjoy love and that is something I will pursue tirelessly.

So, I pose the question once more: What did I find out?

Do what you love. If you get paid for it, awesome. If not, you’re still doing what you love. Don’t focus on the end game — 90% of the fun is the journey.