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.

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!

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.

 

Quote without Comment

“The single most important advice: The Muse visits during the act of writing, not before. If you sit around waiting for inspiration, nothing will happen. Get going!”

-The Late Roger Ebert

Cardboard Boxes: Most Important Toy of my Childhood

This morning, I was perusing Reddit.com and found an interesting TIL (Today I Learned).

Cardboard boxes were inducted into the “Toy Hall of Fame” in 2005 — something that I find both amusing and inspirational.

Reflect for a moment, growing up, Christmas morning when you were 6 or 7 years old. I have wildly vivid memories of fun and excitement myself; granted, some of it was the typical American consumerism and my desire for “things”, but the large majority of it is the enjoyment I had spending time with my family. My brother and I would always be found in pajama pants and hoodie. The fireplace would always be going before we would wake up (my Dad was an early riser, still is, actually). The first gift we would go after was always the same: a large bag. My Mom made sure every year that we would have a new, homemade quilt to put on our beds. I still use the last one, from the year I turned 18 years old today. My brother and I were so close together in age, my parents made sure that most of our gifts were the same, or similar. As a result, we would try to open gifts of similar size at the same time: to make sure we both got that sense of excitement.

After opening the gifts, and eating some homemade treats my mother loved to see us over consume, (Ritz crackers, with peanut butter in between, dipped in chocolate were my favorite) my brother and I would begin to play with the things we were most excited to get. These were usually video games, nerf guns, or bicycles.

For those of you with children, nieces, or nephews I am sure you’ve witnessed the same: after a few hours, novelty wears off, and kids begin to seek something else to entertain themselves with — at least, I know I did. Thankfully, my parents were rather lazy when it came to cleaning up all of the packaging and trash. The first thing Cody and I would do is begin building “forts” out of the boxes lying around the living room floor. Anything that was long and slender in shape instantly became swords or guns, and wars would ensue.

Our parents would always make the off-hand comments, “They spend more time with the boxes than the stuff! Maybe we should just get them empty boxes next year!” and everyone would laugh.

It was a joke, sure, but there is something to be said of that same chain of events that happened every year. Toys purchased have a specific purpose. Video games are intended to be played a certain way, nerf guns have those rubber darts for a reason, and you can only safely ride a bicycle so many different ways but cardboard boxes…

 

Those have no boundaries.

They can be cut, shaped, folded, stacked. They can be imagined.

Instant Effect & Lifetime Regret.

Admittedly, I am far behind the curve when it comes to twitter. I have only recently started using it rather frequently because of my desire to learn the in’s and out’s of social media–and its ability to execute quick and shameless self promotion. I had never quite gotten the appeal of watching different messages of no more than 140 characters come up in real time. Now I do.

April 3rd, 2013 was the NHL trade deadline. At 3:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, no more trades could be made prior to the 2013 NHL off season. Typically, this is touted as one of the more exciting days in the NHL season, seeing big name stars moving around, teams loading up for a long playoff run, and other teams blowing up their roster for under performing (looking at you, my Dallas Stars).

NHL Network, the television station that cover–you guessed it–the NHL, even puts on a show that lasts for 10 hours that does nothing but covers “breaking news” in regards to trades. However, they never “break” any news. Ever. And it is all twitter’s fault.

It has lead to these analysts, on NHL Network, sitting at the desk like any other sports round table discussion show, constantly checking their phones and updating the “breaking news” on twitter before uttering a word to the camera.

I found myself falling victim, and quickly, to this instantaneous outburst of information. I was constantly refreshing, “retweeting” news, and attempting to have conversations with people that had far too much on their plate to care about a random guy from Texas commenting on how “horrible that trade” was. I got visibly angry at work because of what I felt was a horrible trade.

It was then I realized I needed to take a step back and consider what was happening. I had a visible, instantaneous reaction to an instantaneous bit of news. Why was this? I did not have my usual reaction of skepticism, or the desire to understand the information, unlike the times I see “news” on places like Facebook, Reddit, or other sources. I wanted everyone to know, and by everyone I mean the 20+/- followers I have, how I felt instantly.

 

I fell into the trap of Twitter.

 

There is a lot to be said about reflection versus reaction. After spending the rest of the day considering what the one specific trade consisted of, rearranging thoughts, and more research on the information–I realized it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought. It is still not something I would have considered a good trade, but the doom and gloom I was spreading 80-90 characters at a time were a bit… sensationalist.

This situation can easily be applied to all the situations I find myself in. Like a large percentage of people, I don’t enjoy the taste of crow. Assessing, and researching the situation is the best way to avoid chowing down on that gamey black bird. Popping off short message after short message is not.

This may seem trivial, my reaction to a trade in professional sports, and it wont cause a life time of regret as I alluded to in the title. However, this is meant to be extrapolated across a wide range of situations.

The moral of the story: take a step back from your knee jerk reactions. Look at the information, and go find more. Then make an assessment and respond. Oh, and stay off twitter during the trade deadline.

Found My Motivation

One of my closest friends was in town this weekend. We were getting fitted for tuxedos for his wedding. I am best man. Since he was here the entire weekend we decided to throw together a guys weekend and just do what we do.

It is times like these that I am able to reflect on my past, and compare it to where I am at now, and finally, where I am going with my life–and I have to admit, I’m rather pleased.

A bit of background:

This friend of mine and I have known each other since our Seventh Grade Art class. I cannot recall the teacher’s name, but can vividly remember he, I, and two other friends sitting in the back of the middle row of art tables put together in sections of four. We spent middle, high school, and the first semester of our college careers in the same place. His family has helped me through several bad instances and taken me in, almost as one of their own–something I am eternally grateful for. We have been in differently places since then, but still manage to talk and interact on a consistent basis. It takes no time, when we get together, to get back into the swing of friendship.

Because of our long past, ease around each other, and more of a disconnect in our present we typically get into talks about how much things have changed. Going through school, I spent very little time worried about what I was going to do afterwards. More energy was devoted to video games than my next homework assignment. Now, I have almost graduated. I have got my health and fitness levels to the best they have ever been. I have a full time job that pays surprisingly well for someone with no degree, even if the work can be a bit monotonous. And finally, I have found the drive to do things like a pod cast, a blog, and a bit of sports journalism-and for free! I never thought I would be in a situation like I am now, and more curiously, I only have a general idea of where this motivation has come from.

Where I found it

I found my spark. The one event or action that sets the entire ball rolling in favor of productivity and achievement. For me, that was fitness. I was a rotund 260 pounds of fatty, sedentary, gluttony. Beer, fast food, and pizza–my go to’s on the weekend made sure I would suffer some form of heart disease, hypertension, or worse diabetes. After years of Googling things like, “how to lose weight” and being bombarded with result after result of snake oil, I found Reddit.com’s “subreddit” (a community built area for a specific topic) /r/Fitness. There, on Reddit, it was plainly laid out: If you want to lose weight, you have to eat less calories than you burn; simple enough. I started down this road and instantly started seeing progress. Six months later, I was in the gym 3 to 5 times a week exercising on top of it. Results happened, and happened rather quickly.

I saw the work I was putting in paying off.

Those few months have started me down a path of seeing my work for what it was: work. Sure, I have hit snags here and there… hell, I am in one now, plateauing at 191 pounds, but I know it is because I am not making the right choices, not that the choice isn’t available.

I have finally be able to turn that mentality into success in most endeavors in my life. School, I realized after spending years of procrastinating and not doing anything on the basis of “I spend eight hours a day at school, I shouldn’t have homework”, was a choice. I had a choice to do my work, to get a degree, and to move on in my career and life. I see the work that is needed, and the payoff that is going to be there: and I just do it.

I am motivated to do it.