Live Life With No Regrets!« March 2006 | Main | May 2006 »
Have you ever realized that the economy always goes up, unemployment always goes down, and the nation always does very well during election years.
I would suggest then that Singapore should have elections every year in order to keep it up...
...with yourself.
The problem with depression is that there is this voice in your head that keeps on discouraging you and accuses you. Even worse, when it becomes a continuous tape-recording playing over and over again, it becomes strangling and unproductive ruminations.
How do we deal with it?
Marty Seligman provides the ABC's and the DE of fighting this:
A: Adversity - The adversity is the trigger.
B: Beliefs - The thoughts that are triggered.
C: Consequences - What happens because of your beliefs.
Example:
Adversity: I borrowed a pair of really expensive earrings from my friend, and I lost one of them while I was out dancing.
Belief: I am so irresponsible. They were Kay's favourite earrings, and of course I go and lose one. She is going to be so absolutely furious at me. Not that she doesn't have every reason. If I were her, I'd hate me too. I just can't believe how much of a klutz I am. I wouldn't be surprised if she told me she didn't want to have anything to do with me anymore.
Consequences: I felt totally sick. I was ashamed and embarrased, and I didn't want to call and tell her what happened. Basically, I just sat around feeling stupid for a while, trying to muster up the guts to call her.
There are several D's that are provided to help you fight this:
Example:
Disputation: Well, it is really unfortunate that I lost the earring. They were Kay's favourites [evidence] and she probably will be very disappointed [implication]. However she will realize it was an accident [alternative], and I seriously doubt she will hate me because of this [implication]. I don't think it's accurate to label myself as totally irresponsible just because I lost and earring [implication].
Write a diary of your thoughts and categorise your thoughts into ABC then apply the D which leads to the E which is to Energize! and react with positive action or positive inaction.
Energize: I still felt bad about losing her earring, but I didn't nearly feel nearly ashamed, and I wasn't worried that she would end the friendship over it. I was able to relax and call her to explain.
After reading this book, "Learned Optimism", I find that there really is a scientific basis and evidence that hope really does wonders in one's life and can mean the difference between failure and success in people's lives.
But the hope described here is not just a polyanna type of self-delusion. It is a real belief in yourself, (and for the Christian, that God will put all things well). Hope isn't just "Cheer up, things are going to be alright". There is more to hope than just a pithy slogan.
Seligman writes in his book what hope does and is. The first 2 P's are the most important, permanence and pervasiveness that flows from our hearts and into our speech are indicators of our hope in lives.
(They say you can't put a mother's love in a test-tube, but in the case of hope, he has a way to measure it!)
The 3 P's of our self-talk are Permanence, Pervasiveness and Personalized make the difference.
| Pessimistic | Optimistic | |
|---|---|---|
| Permanence | "I'm all washed up." "You always nag." "The boss is a bastard." "You never talk to me." "It's my lucky day." "I try hard." "My rival got tired." |
"I'm exhausted." "You nag me when I don't clean my room." "The boss is in a bad mood." "You haven't talked to me lately." "I'm always lucky." "I'm talented." "My rival is no good." |
| Pervasiveness | "I'm smart at math." "My broker knows oil stocks." "I was charming to her." |
"I'm smart." "My broker knows Wall Street." "I was charming." |
| Personalization | "I'm stupid." "I have no talent at poker." "I'm insecure." |
"You're stupid." "I have no luck at poker." "I grew up in poverty." |
Now, let's add to Seligman's findings with what the Bible says.
But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more. (Psalm 71:14)
Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. (2 Cor 3:12)
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)
Hope therefore means that we will praise God. Hope leads to joy and peace. Hope also leads to boldness. And the source of hope is the Holy Spirit.
All you are or ever shall become is the result of the use to which you put your mind.
Success in this world is always a matter of individual effort, yet you will only be deceiving yourself if you believe that you can succeed without the coperation of other people. Success is a matter of individual effort only to the extent that each person must decide, in his or her own mind, what is wanted. This involves the use of imagination. From this point on, achieving success is a matter of skillfully and tactfully inducing others to cooperate.
You may not like the work in which you are now engaged. There are two ways of getting out of that work.
One of the greatest problems of life, if not in fact the greatest, is that of learning the art of harmonious negotiation with others.
No man has a chance to enjoy permanent success until he begins to look in a mirror for the real cause of all his mistakes.The 17 Laws of Success
You can't make money unless you're having fun.
Fun is when WORK becomes play.
Never confuse brains with a bull market.
Love thy business or try Las Vegas.
THE TEST OF PURPOSEYou can't make money unless making money is MORE IMPORTANT than having fun.
Business takes place when the customer uses the product.
Fun provides commitment and intensity.
Commitment and Intensity mean focus. Focus leads to success. Success means making money.
Income less expenses equals profit.
You can't cost-cut your way to prosperity.
Cost control will keep you whole, but for profits to soar, it's big sales you must score.
Bad sales hurt; costs can kill.
For employees:
Perpetual prosperity comes to those who help others.
In inner cities, some buildings are beautiful and clean, while others are rotting hulks. Why? Researchers in the field of crime and urban decay discovered a fascinating trigger mechanism, one that very quickly turns a clean, intact, inhabited building into a smashed and abandoned derelict.
A broken window.
One broken window, left unrepaired for any substantial length of time, instils in the inhabitants of the building a sense of abandonment--a sense that the powers that be don't care about the building. So another window gets broken. People start littering. Graffiti appears. Serious structural damage begins. In a relatively short space of time, the building becomes damaged beyond the owner's desire to fix it, and the sense of abandonment becomes a reality.
Andrew and David apply this principle used by police forces and town councils to software. Leave badly written software lying around, and it starts a habit that creeps into your whole software development team.
It can also be applied to lots of other areas of your lives.
Leave your desk messy for a while, and soon the whole desk really becomes messy.
Leave the dishes unwashed, and the whole family develops a very messy habit.
Leave an argument hanging or a a slight unapologised, and slowly it cracks into your relationship. (Strange, apologies don't seem to be a good habit around people.)
Therefore, the conclusion is to always quickly repair even slight damages whether physically, or in work or relationally or mentally. For any slight that you perceive to have caused quickly apologize. Any slight mess on a desk or kitchen, clean it up quickly.
The basic problem in human relationship is that of freedom. We call people bad because they do not do what we want them to do. We judge them for being themselves, for fulfilling their wishes. We withdraw love from them when they do what they feel is best for them, but it is not what we want them to do.
..., we have all but said that life without boundaries is no life at all. But establishing and maintaining boundaries takes a lot of work, discipline, and most of all, desire.
The driving force behind boundaries has to be desire. We usually know what is the right thing to do in life, but we are rarely motivated to do it unless there's a good reason.
Even with the desire for a better life, we can be reluctant to do the work of boundaries for another reason: it will be a war. There will be skirmishes and battles. There will be disputes. There will be losses.
The most common resistance one gets from the outside is anger. People who get angry at others for setting boundaries have a character problem. Self-centered they think the world exists for them and their comfort. They see others as extensions of themselves.
It is not the situation that's making the person angry, but the feeling that they are entitled to things from others. They want to control others and, as a result, they have no control over themselves.
When a person becomes angry that you set boundaries:
Winners practice Positive Self-Projection. They project their best selves every day in the way they look, walk, talk, listen, and react.
They specialize in truly effective communication, taking on 100% of the responsibility not only for sending information or telling, but also for receiving information or listening for the real meaning from every person they contact.
Winners are aware that first impressions are powerful, and that interpersonal relationships can be won or lost in about the first four minutes of conversation.
Winners say "I'll make them glad they talked with me."
To a Winner you'll say "I like me best when I'm with you." Nothing marks a Winner so clearly as a relaxed smile and a warm face that volunteers his or her own name, while extending a hand to yours, looking directly in your eyes, and showing interest in you by asking questions about your life which are important to you.
Winners know that paying value to others is the greatest communciation skill of all. A Winner's self-talk: "Tell me what you want, maybe we can work on it together." Losers say: "There's no point in discussing it, we're not even on the same wave length."
Taking Action:
When Michelangelo was asked how he created a piece of sculpture, he answered that the statue already existed within the marble. God Himself had created the Pieta, David, Moses. Michelangelo's job, as he saw it, was to get rid of the excess marble that surrounded God's creation.
So it is with you. The perfect you isn't something you need to create, because God already created it. The perfect you is the love within you. Your job is to allow the Holy Spirit to remove the fearful thinking that surrounds your perfect self, just as excess marble surrounded Michelangelo's perfect statue.
To remember that you are part of God, that you are loved and lovable, is not arrogant. It's humble. To think you are anything else is arrogant, because it implies you're something other than a creation of God.
Love is changeless and therefore so are you. Nothing that you have ever done or will ever do can mar your perfection in the eyes of God. You're deserving in His eyes because of what you are, not because of what you do. What you do or don't do is not what determines your essential value--your growth perhaps, but not your value. That's why God is totally approving and accepting of you, exactly as you are. What's not to like? You were not created in sin; you were created in love.
Now if I may put it that way, Our Lord is like the dentists. If you give Him an inch, He will take an ell. Dozens of people go to Him to be cured of some one particular sin which they are ashamed of (like masturbation or physical cowardice) or which is obviously spoiling daily life (like bad temper or drunkenness). Well, he will cure it all right; but He will not stop there. That may be all you ask; but if once you call Him in, He will give you the full treatment.
That is why He warned people to "count the cost" before becoming Christias. "Make no mistake," He says, "if you let Me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest nor let you rest until you are literally perfect--until My Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with Me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less."
And yet--this is the other and equally important side of it--this Helper who will, in the long run, be satisfied with nothing less than absolute perfection will also be delighted with the first feeble, stumbling effort you make tomorrow to do the simplest duty. As a great Christian writer (George MacDonald) pointed out, every father is pleased at the baby's first attempt to walk: no father would be satisfied with anything less than a firm, free, manly walk in a grown-up son. In the same way, he said, "God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy."
(Mere Christianity Book IV, Ch. 9)
We live in a media generation.
This is no longer the information age, it is the media age. The iPod is the precursor and the sign of the times that media will be the underlying theme for the next 25-40 years.
Skills like html, photoshop, photography, videography, music, and the like will be the basis of a lot of communication and entertainment.
People will be judged on how well they present themselves using new media.
It will become a commodity.
But also, the rise of the skilled artist will be ever more increased. Just like sports was an amateurish profession 50 years ago but now paid multi-million dollar professional salaries, so will the creative arts.
The best video editors, the best 3d artists, the best producers and directors.
Hollywood will continue to be a major power together with the games industry and other media institutions like news, publishing, broadcasting entities.
Media will become all pervasive. Instead of reading newspapers and books, media like videos, music, news will be on the go in trains, busses, cabs and the like.
Things to think about:
"There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago."—J. Robert OppenheimerThe poet, the artist, the sleuth--whoever sharpens our perception tends to be antisocial; rarely "well-adjusted," he cannot go along with currents and trends. A strange bond often exists among anti-social types in their power to see environments as they really are. This need to interface, to confront environments with a certain antisocial power, is manifest in the famous story, "The Emperor's New Clothes." "Well-adjusted" courtiers, having vested interests, saw the Emperor as beautifully appointed. The "antisocial" brat, unaccustomed to the old environment, clearly saw that the Emperor "ain't got nothin' on." The new environment was clearly visible to him.
Media, by altering the environment, evokes in us unique ratios of sense perceptions. The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act--the way we perceive the world. When the ratios change, men change.
Television completes the cycle of the human sensorium. With the omnipresent ear and the moving eye, we have abolished writing, the specialized acoustic-visual metaphor that established the dynamics of Western Civilization.
The main causes for disappointment in and for criticism of television is the failure on the part of its critics to view it as a totally new technology which demands different sensory responses. These critics insist on regarding television as merely a degraded form of print technology. Critics of television have failed to realize that the motion pictures they are lionizing would prove unacceptable as mass audience films if the audience had not been preconditioned by television commercials to abrupt zooms, elliptical editing, no story lines, flash cuts.
Real, total war has become information war. It is being fought by subtle electric informational media--under cold conditions, and constantly. The cold war is the real war front--a surround--involving everybody--all the time--everywhere. Whenever hot wars are necessary these days, we conduct them in the backyards of the world with the old technologies. These wars are happenings, tragic games. It is no longer convenient, or suitable, to use the latest technologies for fighting our wars, because the latest technologies have rendered war meaningless. The hydrogen bomb is history's exclamation point. It ends an age-long sentence of manifest violence.
The environment as a processor of information is propaganda. Propaganda ends where dialogue begins. You must talk to the media, not to the programmer. To talk to the programmer is like complaining to a hot dog vendor at a ballpark about how badly your favourite team is playing.
We spend our lives building our reputation and name.
That is what certificates, diplomas and degrees are for.
You could jolly well be disciplined enough to study, memorize and practise some discipline, however, without that piece of paper you can't convince others strongly enough to give you that job or to give you that salary level or persuade people for anything for that matter.
The diploma or degree is a communication tool that sums up a few years of study into a glance.
However, a diploma or degree is not necessary if you have other ways to build up your reputation.
Warren Buffett when he took over Salomon Brothers sweated about the requirement to take a securities exam that all heads of must take. He kept on delaying taking the exam when he was interim CEO of Salomon until he could step down.
A man like Warren Buffett doesn't need to pass an exam for him to influence people and markets. Bill Gates didn't need an MBA to be the CEO of one of the most successful companies in the world. Neither did Steven Spielberg need one in film-making to command the ears of studios (though he did get one a few years back to set a good example. He submitted "Schindler's List" as his student project. I doubt the professors would have failed him. :)
Therefore, your resume is your second degree. It is the second piece of paper--your secondary degree, if you may put it--that you are perpetually adding to. It is the summary of your lifelong learning experience. And in cases, it can be much more powerful than a degree, masters or a Phd.
But is a degree important? I would say so, because it jumpstarts your progress in building your reputation. It compresses your learning and provides a kind of seal of approval. Something like a PSB grade. But if you don't have one, there are other ways to build reputation. We should not look at that piece of paper as the standard of our worth, those who have would be prideful, and those without would look down on themselves. And then go around thinking that just because you don't have a degree you cannot achieve something or because you have one you are entitled to certain rights and salary levels.
Somehow, when you realize your own true worth, you will be able to communicate it in the way you talk, walk, and behave.
Thoughts to ponder:
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.
All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people.You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whome we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.
This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.
Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat—the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself—is truly hidden.
"The Weight of Glory" in Screwtape Proposes a Toast.
The real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists of simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.
We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through your system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us. It is the difference between paint, which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks right through. He never talked vague, idealistic gas. When He said, "Be perfect," He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder—in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: It would be jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad...
This is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else. It is so easy to get muddled about that. It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects—education, building, missions, holding services. Just as it is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects—military, political, economic, and what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden—that is what the State is there fore...
In the same way the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make the little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose.
Mere Christianity Book IV, Chapter 8
Either you're a masterpiece of God or you're not.
Either everyone is unique or they're not.
Either every person is a relationship or an object.
Either life is an adventure or its not.
Either life is beautiful or its not.
Either you're going to live life to the fullest or you're not.
Somehow in the end these are the binary choices of our life and how we view it.
I wonder if humans should have the same kind of laws...
Actually, humans do have their own laws, its called the Ten Commandments. Unfortunately, its not embedded in our brains. If robots could not function without their robotic laws, what about humans?
The 3 Laws of Humanity however when applied to humans brings up a lot of questions. Can God ask us to harm other human beings? It seems the 2nd law has a higher precedence than the 1st.
But then again, Isaac Asimov is writing a set of ethical laws. And where did he get these laws from? He got it from a certain truth that was set into his heart by a higher power. We cannot murder. But at times we need to punish and execute.
In other cases, we see in human society that the laws are ignored when "defending God's honour". Killing or beheading other humans for the sake of a Jihad. Does an almighty powerful God really need defending? Or is it the persons belief system?
Lots of philosophical questions to think about...
An amazing performance on a 4-String Ukulele by Jake Shimabukuro. Inspires me to take up the guitar again.
It's really not the instrument, its always the performer. No matter how small you think you are, if you let the Master use you, anything is possible.
(Apologies for those who didn't see the video from my first post of this, the link was specific for my PC. It seems Milk & Cookies has some way of preventing deep linking of content. Here's the video link from Google Video. Or you can dowload it from my website here. 9.7Mb)
I remember when my mother wanted me to learn the piano, she forced me to sit at the keyboard with her cane, threatening me to practice it. That's not the way to motivate someone. As such, I never wanted to learn the piano.
However, it was in church, through the companionship of people who cared that I learnt the guitar. No rod, no punishment, no threats.
Show your children videos like these, make them WANT to learn something. A rod at best gets compliance, it does nothing to inspire or create commitment.
If a drunk, reeling in the steet, shouted at you, "You always screw up! You have no talent! Quit your job!" How would you react? You wouldn't take the accusations very seriously. You'd either dismiss them out of hand and go about your business or, if they happened to strike a nerve, you'd dispute them to yourself: "I just wrote a report that turned around our red-ink situation"; "I was just promoted to vice-president"; "Anyway, he doesn't know the first thing about me. He's just a drunk."
What but what happens when you shout equally damning things to yourself? You believe them. You do not dispute them. After all, if you say them about yourself, you reason, they must be indisputably true.
This is a bad mistake.
The things we say to ourselves when trouble strikes can be just as baseless as the ravings of a drunk on the street. Our reflexive explanations are usually not based on reality. They are bad habits that emerge from the mists of the past, from ancient conflicts, from parental strictures, from an influential teacher's unquestioned criticisms, from a lover's jealousy. But because they seem to issue from ourselves--could there be a source with higher credibility?--we treat them like royalty. We let them run our lives without even shouting back at them.
Much of the skill of dealing with setbacks, of getting over the wall, consists of learning how to dispute your own first thoughts in reaction to a setback. So ingrained are these habits of explanation that learning to dispute them effectively takes a good bit of practice. To learn how to dispute automatic thoughts, you first have to learn to listen to your own internal dialogue at work.
Anybody can make a million dollars, the only variable is your time-frame and the sales frequency with each customer. (Thanks to some ideas from Jay Abraham).
All figures are just rough guides
| Profit Amount ($) | Customers | Frequency | Time Frame |
Examples |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000,000 | 1 | Low | Short | Airplanes, Professional Sportsmen |
| 100,000 | 10 | Low | Short | Heavy Equipment, B2B |
| 10,000 | 100 | Low | Short | Wholesalers, Distributors |
| 1,000 | 1,000 | Low | Short-Medium | Education |
| 100 | 10,000 | Low | Short | Electronics, Furniture |
| 10 | 100,000 | Low | Short-Medium | IP (Games, Books, etc) |
| 1 | 1,000,000 | Low | Short | Toy Fads, Gadgets |
| 0.10 | 1,000,000 | Low-High | Short | SMS |
| 1 | 100,000 | Medium | Short | Retailers |
| 10 | 10,000 | Medium | Short | Online games |
| 100 | 1000 | Medium | Short | Stock Remisiers, Stationery |
| 1000 | 100 | Medium | Short | Office-Equipment |
| 10,000 | 10 | Medium | Short | High-End Equipment |
| 1000 | 10 | Low-Medium | Medium | Real Estate, Sales |
| 10 | 1000 | Medium | Medium-Long | Food |
| 100,000 | 1 | 1 times | Long | Salary, Wages. |
However, it's not as easy as choosing which way. Obviously being "rich" is merely a snapshot of your finances at any time.
Next to think about, what about the other variables:
Remember the "soup stone" parable? That's how you get people to give you things.
