Friday, December 31, 2010

Happy New Decade

Today, millions upon millions of people are getting together with their friends to congratulate the Earth for one more successful revolution around the Sun.


The end of a year is a funny time. It's the time of year where everyone get's to reflect on what they have accomplished in the past 365 days. It's a time of peace, it's a time of happiness, of celebration, and of closure. It's when people will be dating their papers with the wrong year, and then they joke about it. So many thoughts cross everyone's minds of how well things did or didn't go for them, and how they hope things will or won't change for the year to come. Right now, all brains are in the mindset of "the new year."


But I think people should be considering "the new decade."


A decade is 10 years time. But, people often consider new decades to only begin on years that end with 0. But a decade is just 10 years time. We start new decades every year. Technically, not only do we start a new decade every year, but a new century every year. Every decade overlaps with several other decades, but they still exist. Why is the focus all about the new year? Why aren't we thinking about how our lives will change for the better in the next ten years? In fact, shouldn't we just be thinking about ways to change ourselves for the better for the rest of our lives?


I had a conversation with my father today about our family. Keep in mind that I'm 19 years old right now. My dad met my mom when he was 23. Five years later he was married. Two years later he had his first son. He was 30. When my dad was 30, he had a baby boy. Thirty. Remember that I am 19 at the time of this writing. Now, the future is unwritten, and I have no idea what is going to happen (though I like to think I have some semblance of a plan), but in a single decade, I might have a wife. I might have a son or daughter. I might have a son and a daughter. In 10 years time. That's a lot more groundbreaking than thinking of the work you will do in one year, or the things you will accomplish in one year.


People are trying to think of new long term goals to have completed by the end of this next year. My question is this: Are they really long term goals? It's scary to think of it this way, but it's just one year. What about things you want to have done ten years from now? Life goals that you want done? Sure, you can have things completed this year that you ideally want to have before ten years are over, but life is short, people. Blink and it will be all over.


If anything puts things into perspective, it's the next two paragraphs.


Two years ago, I was a senior in high school. I took some AP classes, had many close friends and ended my high school career feeling proud. A year ago, I spent my first year at Uconn in the school of business - I met lots of new people, and got to share a year in college with my brother before he transferred to Quinnipiac. This year I made a ton of close friends at school, and am still working for my father in the family business. Next year, I hope to be a resident assistant at school, and will be taking some core business classes.


Two decades ago, I didn't exist. Nothing on this planet had changed in any sort of way from something that I did. My hands had touched nothing. One decade ago, I was still learning that sharing is caring, I was still blowing my nose in my shirt because I didn't care, and I was actually concerned that I wasn't going to be tall when I was older (but that all worked out in the end). This decade, these 10 years that are ahead of me, will yield so many unknown results that it completely excites me. I'm anxious to experience anything that this next one year has to throw at me, but i'm also waiting to see what the next years have in store.


"Where do you see yourself in 10 years?" is a pretty popular interview question. I hate hearing it as much as the next person, because I'm pretty sure nobody can say for sure (at least, not with complete confidence) where they will be. But we should try to have an idea. Think in terms of decades, not years. Did you fulfill all of your new decade's resolutions this decade? Have you established your future new decade's resolutions for when 2020 comes around?


I have a few. One of them I'll share (and I hope was a part of your resolution list already) is this: Find happiness, and once you find it, never ever lose it.


Happy New Decade, everyone!

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Do What Seems Harder

In the figurative "road" that is life, there are many, many forks.


I like to think that there is a general rule of thumb that can be applied to any type of situation. Pretty much every problem that someone encounters, every challenge that is met, and every decision that has to be made can have a rule of thumb applied to it based on previous similar events. 


For example, let's say you were invited to a New Years party, and accepted the invitation. The next day, you receive a second invitation to a party that you think will be much more entertaining than the first. You already agreed to go to the first party. What would you do? Another example: You have a paper due tomorrow. You finished it, but you really need to get an A on it to boost your grade. Unless you go over it and make some serious edits, you are probably not going to get the A you want. What would you do?


My father has more than once given me the following advice: Whenever presented with any decision where you need to choose one option over another, no matter what the situation, you should always pick the one that seems harder. It's foolproof. Think of the examples I mentioned. Obviously you would want to go to the better new years party. It would be easy to make up an excuse and potentially upset the person throwing the first party. But whatever, they won't mind - right? Well, maybe not. You could instead keep your word and still go to the possibly less entertaining party. It would bug you that you could maybe be having more fun - but it was the right thing to do. Same thing with the paper: Anyone could just stop right there and hand in what they have. But what is harder? Well, staying up and turning it into an A paper is much more difficult than just going with what you already wrote.


So many times will you have to make a choice in your life. The more effort you put into something, the greater a result you will receive from it. Putting in effort is certainly harder than not doing anything, so I think it's clear what the message is. Decide based on the outcome, not the short term. Do you want to go to law school? Better start studying now, even if it means sacrificing some short term free time. Do you need money for a new cellphone? Earning the money and buying it yourself is more rewarding than being given it right away.


Things would work out better if everyone were to adopt this policy. The population's engine would be running at a better efficiency. More happy people, more deals being made, more productivity... more of a lot of good things. Just that little bit of extra effort being put into the harder choice is what makes for a better future. Small and large tasks alike, the effort shows in the results.


I am completely dead from a snowboarding trip today. I don't even want to get up to brush my teeth before going to sleep, and my bed is a few feet away. But... Is it harder to get up and brush my teeth, or just go lay down and go to sleep?


I'll be asleep tonight with minty breath.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Change

The only constant thing in life is change.


Many an essay that I have written in my life has included the above sentence. I don't know if that is a direct quote from anyone that has said it before, and I don't mean to take credit for it if that is the case. But darn it, if there is one thing in this life that I believe in completely, it's that.


You were an egg inside another person. You were length of about three skin cells. Something the size of one skin cell came along and changed you. You started growing, still inside this person, and were born. Your naive baby eyes fell upon different shapes and colors, your tiny lungs inhaled their first gulps of oxygen, your skin was as smooth and pristine as it will ever be, and you knew virtually nothing. You then began to walk, talk, interpret,   learn, understand, experience, pass judgment, use, create, and be. The little skin cell sized fleck of an object that you once were is now a sentient and completely unique person. I can tell you right now that few more than zero things in your life right now are as they were since the beginning.


It blows my mind how people become who they are. More importantly, it's hard to believe how much a person can be different from how they used to be. Personally, I used to never like computers. I liked video games and the idea of technology and what it could do, but I hated computers. To young me, a computer was the thing that my dad had to use when he worked and couldn't play with me. He has worked from home for a long time, so it used to be a complete tease that he was right in the next room but unavailable. But, that's different now. I love computers. I use my laptop all the time. In fact, so do tons of people. They're useful, and I'm glad they're around. The same scenario happens to pretty much everyone - you don't like something, then you do. You never try something for a long time, but then love it as soon as you do. You hate something your whole life, but then you grow to enjoy it.


People sometimes say "Don't change who you are." That's quite possibly the worst advice to ever give to anyone. You might as well say "Stop breathing." Yes, the idea is that you are supposed to just be yourself and become a better person without embodying the traits of others too much. But to not expect any change from any one person is completely unreasonable. Who you are is made up of things you pick up from other people. You only ever try to change for the better anyway, so change should be welcomed by every other person in your life. Imagine a relationship situation where one of the two in the couple is unhappy with the other, and their reasoning for it is because they have "changed." Well... yes, yes they have. The fact that they are saying that should solidify the validity of their relationship, because I'm pretty sure if they were stuck with the same personalities for the whole relationship.... it wouldn't last very long.


I might end up changing this post later... Nah, I'll leave it. But who knows, maybe I will change my mind later.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Go To Bed Tired

Have you ever suddenly realized that it is time to go to sleep, but you are not tired at all?


If you lead the life of an average human in terms of sleeping cycles, you are probably awake for 16 hours every day. The other 8 are spent sleeping. There's room for deviation from that, but for now, let's just say you sleep a minute for every two that you're awake. Even when getting the proper amount of sleep every night, you should end your day tired. Ready for more sleep. The less fuel you have left in your figurative tank, the more you can recover during that night's sleep.


Think of what entails being tired at the end of the day. Save for the obvious situation where you just didn't sleep much the night before, there are several positive parallels. You probably worked hard that day. You might have played hard that day. Whatever you did, it took energy to do, enough to make you need to get more when the day is done. Maybe you exercised for a long time, which means you are getting healthier. Maybe you shoveled snow all day so that your family and neighbors didn't have to. More often than not, if your energy was spent, you spent it somewhere worthwhile. Be it for personal entertainment like a day ski trip, or volunteering for the day for a charity, your energy was put to good use.


I hate rolling around wide awake in bed. Not because I am trying desperately to get to sleep and can't, but because it means I didn't use all of the energy I had for that day. I could have done more. I could have helped out more. I could be more easily enjoying my sleep that I am now struggling to get. What's wrong with this picture? If I still have the energy I got back from last night, why would I insist on trying to get back even more? Would the next day be the same, where I don't use it all, and don't sleep as well again? It doesn't matter where you use it, but it matters that you do use the energy that you have each day.


People should make a point to do more with what they have. Carrying things for others, rushing ahead to hold doors open, helping move furniture, taking care of a friend's dog, working harder for a cause that means something to you, and every other activity during the day, regardless of its importance. In fact, you should strive to make it important through putting your best effort into it. Making something out of nothing is not as unrealistic as one might think.


It's 11:24 PM as I write this sentence. I'm tired to a pretty reasonable extent, and I'm happy with that. It means I used up my energy, and am ready to get back as much as I can for tomorrow. Now I just need to go to sleep... And not get distracted just before I do. Someone should shut off the Internet for the night...

Monday, December 27, 2010

Make Your Own Fun

You could be the most entertaining person in your life if you wanted to be.


Raise your hand if you have ever caught yourself saying "I'm bored" on more than one occasion in a day. My hand would be up if I wasn't typing, in fact today is a perfect example for me. Just from those two words, "I'm bored," you could probably conclude that your day is not quite up to par with others. People that are bored want something exciting to happen. They want to hear a joke. They want their day to take a turn for the better. They're looking for something different. They want something new. But what these people are missing is the obvious solution to their problem: they can make their own fun.


Full disclosure, I get bored just like everyone else. There are days where I want to be served entertainment on a silver platter, just because I don't want to go get it. But that's bad. Imagine a stand-up comedy routine. Think of the huge audience that has come to listen to this one guy. One person is supplying entertainment to dozens and dozens of people, when he might as well be telling his jokes to a couple of his close friends. The ratio is a bit imbalanced, isn't it? One comedian to many, many audience members. It only takes one person to make a ton of people happy - and the person making the jokes is probably having a good time too.


The point I am trying to make is this: Everyone on this planet is a consumer. We pay for food, we pay for shelter, we pay for clothes, we pay for other people's food shelter and clothes (if they are close enough to us), we pay for entertainment, we pay for transportation... We give away a lot of our earned money for a huge variety of stuff. But that stuff has to come from somewhere. Who made the food? Who built the house? Who made the clothes? You're one of three types of people - a consumer, a creator, or a mix of both. Consumers make up an enormous percentage of the population. But creators keep them going. Creators can keep themselves going. Creators don't ask for entertainment on a silver platter - they're not the bored ones.


Anyone can be a creator. Comedians are creators. Cooks, babysitters - really, employees of any kind are all creators in some way. Be the one to tell a joke and laugh along with the person who is hearing it. Be the one to cook a meal and still enjoy it with the others that are eating it. Make something for someone that you can both enjoy together. Make your own fun.


The secret is to make your own fun, and then make more so you can share it with others. Nobody was ever ungrateful for the person that gave away extra anything. Create for both yourself and your neighbors.


...I'm not bored anymore.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Nothing Days Don't Exist

There's about a foot of snow on the ground right now.


Today felt to me like a "nothing day." Everyone knows what a nothing day is. I'll fill you in on mine: I didn't do anything outside (a trip to the store in the morning doesn't really count), I was on the internet a lot, and I did so few productive things that I might as well have just skipped this day of my existence and picked up tomorrow, when maybe I get some things done.


At least, that's my mindset. But I'm wrong to think all that. Nothing days don't actually exist.


Think of a time that you were talking with someone, and you start talking about what the other person has been up to. "Oh, nothing really... today has been kind of slow, I didn't do anything at all." Really? Nothing at all? Oh, you mean you just had a "nothing day." I see, I mean I guess we can accept that and just hope that tomorrow is more exciting... No. Wrong. You mean to tell me that you did absolutely nothing of note today? I call shenanigans. You must have done a few things - maybe few enough for you to have forgotten all about them, or few enough that the lack of productivity the rest of the day clouded the significance of those events. But they still got done. You did the basic requirements to keep a human body alive and functional for a day. You probably socialized, which developed your relationship with whoever you were socializing with. Maybe you walked your dog. Maybe you read something - anything is enough to build your intelligence, in even the slightest extent. Maybe you organized some things. In every pile of dirt are a few shiny rocks - and in every slow day are a few productive activities.


Not a single day goes by where a person accomplishes nothing. I don't care how little you think you did, you still were a part of this Earth for a day, and you still affected something in some way, no matter how little the result of that action was. Every action has consequences. Think of the theory that, if someone were to travel backwards in time and kill a fly, it might drastically alter the future. Flies might as well have "nothing days" every day, at least relative to humans. Well, if a fly can do things to drastically change the flow of history, a human could do it without even lifting a finger. Not saying that you did any potentially history-changing things during your nothing day, but you still did things.


The main point is this: Even when dwarfed by comparing it to your most busy of productive days, your day today was not a "nothing day." Surviving on this planet, all things considered, is impressive enough, so pat yourself on the back.


I did indeed buy groceries today - so money exchanged hands and my family now has more food. I did get some work done for my dad - productivity. I spoke with friends and played with my dog for a little while - socializing, which was good for the well being of all of us. And I'm sure I did a bunch of other things that I can't remember right now, not because they weren't important (because everything is, for everyone), but because they just are slightly less impressive or noteworthy that I don't make a point to remember them. Small impulses, though, can still have large repercussions.


Oh, and I wrote a blog post, which if nobody even read, helped me develop my writing skills - or at least, prevented me from squandering them. But, for every person that reads it, that's one more person that I influenced in some way, big or small.


I guess I didn't have a nothing day today, after all.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Stop Only When You're Finished

Christmas is supposed to be a happy time of year.


Earlier this evening, my dog Bella (no, my family didn't name her, and no, her name was not a result of the Twilight series) was nowhere to be found. Apparently, she was let outside to do her business, and no more than 5 minutes later, she was gone. My family immediately went into panic mode. Keep in mind, we were all borderline asleep from eating a huge dinner, and the last thing we wanted to do was move around - let alone look around for our lost dog. Talk about a nightmare. But still, we of course went out to look for her.


So my brother started searching the backyard and in the woods, my dad walked up and down the street to see if she was close by, and I drove around to see if maybe she got a little further from the house. After a few minutes, I picked up my dad after a little while so we could drive around together. I said to him "Don't worry dad, we'll find her."


For all I knew, Bella could have been running full speed away from our house for the entire time that we were searching. But I was 100% right when I said we would find her. Not because I was confident that she would be near our house, but because there was no way we were going to stop looking until we found her. None of us cared that we were tired, we just wanted our dog. We weren't going to be done looking until our dog was back home. Anyone else would feel the same way. She's a part of our family. Every law of Christmas says that family needs to be together.


Our dog being lost was a pretty extreme case of the point I want to make today. It is a pretty simple moral: Don't call it quits before it's time to actually call it quits. Nothing is ever done until you are happy with what you have in the end. Ever look at an unfinished painting before? It might still look okay, but don't you just want to see it when it is actually done? I feel that way. I feel similarly about movies. I hear people talking about movies that they walk out of half way through because they didn't like it. Well, they just solidified their opinion, because now they didn't even see the whole thing. Maybe their minds would change if they watched all of it. The ending could be worth the 10 bucks to see the movie. If they just finished it, at least they would be able to pass a proper judgment on it.


You don't hand in papers before you write the conclusion. You don't give someone a gift before you finish making it. You don't leave halfway through a meeting. You don't build a house without a roof. You don't cook food and not feed anyone. And you certainly don't stop looking for your dog before you find it.


I proofread what I just wrote, and made sure I liked it all. Everything's proper, and I think the post says what it needs to. I say that its finished.. It's safe to stop and post it now.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Right On Time

It always feels good being right on time.


Walking into a meeting right when everyone is sitting down, coming into your house and watching the clock turn to 12:00 when that is when you had to be home, and submitting a paper online minutes before the due date rears its ugly head. It's like a little victory in the day when you just barely make a deadline. You challenged, and succeeded. It never fails to feel awesome.


Now, I don't mean to say that things should be put off until the last seconds of available time. Not at all. In fact, that should be avoided at all costs - it merely is epic when you pull off a last minute goal. I'm a big advocate of getting things done early. The reason I am is because I never get things done early. I procrastinate. A lot. Heavily. To extreme extents. If there was an award for procrastination, I'd have it sitting in a glass case so i could show it off. Regardless of how I carry myself, I still think people should try hard to work hard. Having nothing to worry about is such a worthy cause for being early.


Think of a workplace scenario. Early is 100% always better than being right on time. How do you think your boss or supervisor would feel if you handed them a report exactly at the deadline they gave you? Don't you think they'd feel a little better if they had gotten it a little sooner? Maybe they would need to review it before talking to their superior about it later. Everyone wants more time to do what they need to do, and in the workplace, everyone's time is interdependent. Your slacking might mean someone else will have to rush. Less problems will come up if things get done early. It's just easier.


It's not just in a serious scenario like during office hours that this applies. Suppose your parents want you home at 11:00 PM. As soon as you get home, they plan on going to sleep, because they know you are back and safe. If you came home at 10:00, they would go to sleep then, and get an extra hour of Z's before getting up the next day. That sounds nice for them. But for that to happen, you would have to be early. Being right on time would feel cool just for the sake of barely making it, but more good can come from being early than from being on time. More people are better off than just you.


If anyone has been keeping up with the past few days of my blog posts, they would know that I was going to do two posts two days in a row in order to avenge myself from missing a day. The time stamp below this post will end up reading 8:59. The program works through the west coast's time zone, so really I am posting it at 11:59 (two minutes from the moment I am writing these words).


Right on time. I could have crashed and burned and not been able to put the post up on time. But I didn't. If you are wondering - yes, it does indeed feel awesome. Never fails.

Nostalgia

I played a lot of video games growing up.


Raise your hand if you can think of something from childhood that you did all the time. Whether it was being outside, being at a certain friend's house, or just being a crazy little kid around the house, I can guarantee that you smile when you think about it deep enough. Everyone's childhood is so much different than everyone else's, whether you think so or not. So many variables are introduced to each person's life - what their house was like, what their neighborhood was like, what their school system was like, among other things big and small. People are shaped so much by what happens to them when they are very young - and so much happens when people are very young.


Before anyone makes it to the second grade, their brain makes choices. It develops certain areas based on what it has (already) decided is important to you. For instance, a baby that grew up constantly listening to music will likely want to have music in their life at all times when they're older. Likewise, children that did not listen to much music as an infant would subsequently not feel as inclined to listen to music as adults. Sure, there are exceptions. I'm not trying to argue that every person deprived of music as a kid will never be interested in hearing a song in their future. But the correlation is there - and it helps shape the personalities of the people on this planet.


My brother is about a year and a half older than me. When he was around 6 or so, my parents bought a Nintendo 64 video game system right around its release. Being 4 and a half, I was probably not quite at the age of fully understanding what to do in games like Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda. These games relied heavily on the intuition of the player, and were really more oriented towards an age group a bit older than I was at the time. But I didn't care. I watched my brother play all the time. I bugged him to teach me how to use the controller and play the games. Anyone else that had the interest that I did in video games would have done the same to their siblings about whatever it is they were interested in. I just wanted to play. My brain was slowly orienting itself towards technology, which is still a big part of my life today. I use the computer all the time, read up on newly developed gadgets, and I still play some games when I can.


A couple of days ago, I downloaded Star Fox 64 on my computer. This was one of my favorite games as a kid, easily. A quick summary of what the game is: You play as a pilot in a spaceship, and the goal was to defeat enemies in order to save a planet that is under attack. There were different paths that you could take in the game based on what you accomplished on each stage. For example, if you keep all of your teammates alive, they will show you secret passageways that lead you to different areas, and thus new levels. So, after downloading it, I played through the game three times (it's about 7 or 8 levels long in whatever series of levels you choose) so I could visit each and every level. I remembered pretty much everything about each one. All of the bosses, all of the lines that your teammates say throughout them, and especially the music and sound effects. Remembering so much of the game both shocks me and doesn't at the same time. Sure, knowing so much about some video game might seem strange, but it was one of my favorites. I played it a lot. I remembered all of those cool things now because I was so interested in them as a kid. Everyone will remember the same amount of detail in whatever they did as a kid as I do in this game. It's the way nostalgia works. You find something fun, hold it close to you, then reminisce about its... awesomeness.


Look back on some of the things that you used to do when you were little. Go and do them again. They will be just as satisfying as when you used to do them all the time.  Have your kids get into different hobbies so that they can do the same when they grow up. Think about who you are right now, and what you did as a child that brought you there. Everyone is made up of so many completely different memories, and yours are just as special as anyone else's. Nostalgia is a powerful feeling, and its so easy to create it for yourself. Share it with others that grew up with the same things that you did. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a few more games that I want to go play...

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Technology

Earth has gone through a lot.


Right now, you are reading my blog online. Think of how many inventions and innovations it took for that simple sentence to be a fact. The Internet has not been in existence forever. In fact, it hasn't been existence for very long at all - not even 30 years (for public use, at least - its development started quite some time before the 80's). Think of a time long long ago when technology was a distant dream. No internet. No computers. No cars. No skyscrapers. No jet planes. No cell phones. No telephones. No television, no news, no weapons, no tools, no written language.... And certainly no blogs. In its early years, life on earth consisted of what today's standards would be effectively nothing.


The concept of something "natural" is debatable. Pretty much everything man-made can be dismissed as unnatural. But on the other hand, don't you think it's natural for people to take showers? Showers didn't always exist. Don't you think it's natural for people to play sports? Those didn't always exist. So many things today would be considered by an early human as unnatural, but at the same time, it makes sense for some things to be done on a day-to-day basis. So what makes things natural?


Have you ever thought hard about what a "car" is? Humans have developed a means for personal transportation with which they can go over 100 miles per hour (which I don't endorse) down stretches of paved earth for as long as their gas tank and wallet can let them. Now imagine something with me for a minute. Picture yourself riding in a car. Now, picture that, but without the car. Something along the lines of Wonder Woman in the invisible jet. You're a human, flying through space in complete control of where you're going. You were born into the body of an organism that, on average, can max out at maybe 15 miles per hour (for a short while), and now you are traveling 70 on a highway and dismissing it as normal. Doesn't sound very "natural" to me. Back when cars were owned only by the very wealthy, people often never left the state /country they were born in - for their entire lives. I just got home from my girlfriend's house in Connecticut (about an hour and a half drive away) at little cost to myself, and I'm not even 20 years old yet - still a lot of life left to live. Technology has allowed me to not only visit her in a timely manner with little inconvenience, but also to write about it for anyone to read here. And that was just a trip to Connecticut. I could go to any location on this planet that has an airport in a day. Unbelievable. 


I'm pretty grateful to have been born when I was. Internet, cellphones, access to information... Technology has been pretty kind to the modern day human. And with that, this post is complete. Time to get a drink... From my refrigerator, which keeps everything in it chilled to a temperature that I tell it to. 

Better Late Than Never

The date of this blog post is the 23rd of December.


Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "But wait, wasn't there supposed to be a blog post every day for a month?" The answer to that is yes. Yes, there are indeed supposed to be posts for every single day for a month. So, what happened yesterday?


Well, things happen and plans change. Posting was on my mind all day, but I could not find time to do it. It was a travel and work day, yielding very little time for posting on the blog. Even right now I am still very busy, but I am getting the post for yesterday done.


Growing up, any time I was obligated to go to any event that I didn't want to go to, I would hide from my parents and stay away from the car so I would end up being "late." In my mind, being late meant that it was unacceptable to still go. But no, that is never the case. There's always a chance to make up for lost time. I always wanted to put things off until it was, in my mind, morally wrong to continue to do it due to how late I was. No. Being late means nothing, and sometimes being late can make a situation better.


Later today I will post a second blog. And, to make up for breaking the rule of "a post a day," I will again put up two posts tomorrow as well.


Better late than never, as they say.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Forgetting Is Good

Do you consider yourself to be a person who remembers a lot of stuff?


Last night, I came downstairs to find my father watching a special on 60 Minutes about people who remember everything. I walked in halfway through, and did not hear exactly what made these people remember everything, but some sort of condition in their brain allowed for just that. For the sake of this post, I'll just call them "the people," because I don't know the condition, their names, or anything else about them. Rest assured, they did in fact remember everything. Questions were asked of them regarding the 1960s, football games from when they were 7 years old, and as many other obscure topics that you can think of. They continued to rattle off every last detail about those specific years, those specific football games, and other events that we dismiss every day as nothing. Rest assured, these people rattled off more details of these past events than I can give in a description of what I did this morning.


These people were human video cameras. Everything that they have seen and heard has been archived in their super-storage heads. They are outliers in a sample of normal human brains. But a problem lies dormant at the bottom of their incredible gift - they can't forget anything. It's not that they don't want to forget and try to retain every lick of information, they simply can't forget. Forgetting is a basic facet of human function, but they can't do it. Not to say that they aren't human. Humans can lack arms and legs and still be human, just as mega brain-power doesn't rule you out either.


I don't remember much from kindergarten. Or first grade. Or even a lot from my freshman year of high school. I can tell you a few key moments of those years that stick out in my mind as unique, but that's about it. I can recall a few little this-and-that things as well, but not very many. People forget a lot of stuff throughout their lives, regardless of the importance of those memories, the magnitude of those memories, and when those memories first happened. Everyone's personality is shaped based on forgotten events. Decisions are made based on how you have made similar decisions in the past, regardless of your recollection of the outcome.


In the 60 Minutes special, a point was brought up about how people familiarize themselves with a recurring event, and establish a "typical" sense of that event in their minds. Think of a walk that you might take often, or a road that you frequently drive on. You can explain a typical walk or drive - you might look at the trees, you might say that you like the scenery in that area, or you might just go that way because it's quicker than the other options. These people can't form typical memories. They notice every nuance of every event, regardless of how often they experience it. They might say that they saw a squirrel behind the 11th tree at 3:47 PM when they took their walk yesterday, but today they saw it (they'd say it was the same exact squirrel if they got a close enough look at it to be sure) behind a different tree at 3:30. Every single experience becomes 100% unique, and can't be related to other ones. Personalities are formed based on completely independent events, all of which are very hard to connect to each other.


None of the people in the special were unhappy, in fact they all seemed very pleased with their ability. I'm not trying to argue that they should be unhappy with what they can remember, but I am saying I like being able to forget. I don't know if I would want to never be able to forget a negative thing that someone might have done to me. I don't know if I would want to remember every gross image my eyes have ever come across. I don't even have much control of remembering those things, unless I commit them to memory on purpose - which, if the memories are unpleasant, I won't do.


I've had to go over this post several times because I forgot a lot of what I had already written, and didn't want to repeat myself. But I guess that's okay, I forget a majority of the information I take in. Or maybe I forget a minority... I don't know, I forget how much I have learned in the first place.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Laughing is a Gift

Laughing is awesome.


I can say with considerable conviction that laughter is one of the best things that a person can do. The reason why is because of all of the different things that parallel laughter. It means the situation is light hearted, it means two or more people are coming together, it means you're socializing, it means you're losing weight (yes, people lose weight from laughing), it means you can put away any negativity for a minute and let out a smile, and it means you have something to laugh about.


Think of a time when you have walked through a densely crowded area. Think of everyones faces. Have you ever noticed that a handful of them (or even most of them) look unhappy? Granted, the thing on everyone's mind might be something along the lines of "Get me the hell out of this crowd," so they might all look unhappy for a common reason. But still, stern faces are abundant when you look at enough of them. Point is, there are people out there that rarely laugh. I can't believe that. I'm the kind of person who laughs at absolutely nothing, so that kind of situation is very foreign to me. Laughter to me is innate, and it bothers me that to some people it is not. It shouldn't have to be that way.


But think about those types of people. How many people in the world are worse off than you right now? If I asked myself that question, I wouldn't know the answer. I can't count that high. Right now I'm sitting in a warm room, in my bed, using the Internet as I smell a home cooked meal being made downstairs by the family that I love. There are people with none of those things. Some of the stern faces in that crowd have been stern all day. The circumstances that some people have are opposite of my own. A joke I find hilarious might fall flat for someone just because they are too preoccupied thinking of how unhappy they are with something in their life. I find days unique when I laugh less, but some people think just the opposite. I don't care what anyone says, this world needs more laughter. Too much is not enough - load it up, keep it coming, and don't stop.


Today my brother and myself were sitting on the couch at home, both of us on our laptops working. Long story short, the two of us were laughing uncontrollably for a solid 10 minutes (over one of those "you had to be there" kind of situations, so I won't try to explain it). When I say "laughing uncontrollably," I mean uncontrollably. One of the only things I am ever comfortable with that I can't control is laughing. We were somewhat laughing simply at each other's laughter, but it was still incredibly fun. We were happy people for those 10 minutes. We were coming together, we were losing weight, being positive, and smiling in those 10 minutes. I'd say that was a well spent 10 minutes. I wish it lasted longer. I wish more people got to laugh with us. I wish that it will happen again in the future.


Laughter needs to be thought of as a gift. It is the kind of gift that you should give frequently, more than once to the same person, at every chance that you can. The kind of gift that you can just throw in with what you already were planning on giving, because you can afford to do that. It is free to give, and free to receive. Whether you think so or not, it is not something that everyone has - and even those who do have it will welcome more of it.


So go listen to some stand-up comedy, or talk about a funny memory with a friend, or think of some crazy thing to do just to be random. And make sure you laugh when you do it.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Negotiating

People tend to settle for less than what they really should.

I took an Intro to Communications class this past semester at school. Among other topics, one of the concepts that was covered was negotiating - how people do it, when it is done, trends that we can see in negotiations, and the like. One of the ideas discussed was that, when presented with a conclusive situation, people simply accept it. We hear that there is "nothing we can do," and we then proceed to do nothing. What's our deal? Naturally, people want to enjoy the best possible results from every situation. Why give in for a fraction of what we wanted?

Raise your hand if you have ever called customer service. I cringe just writing it out. Consider this scenario: You're calling some phone company for a refund because your cellphone hasn't been working for the last month. You're looking for a $30 reimbursement (which to a big company is chump change). You're greeted by a slow-talking, monotone "automated assistant" who cycles through ALL of the options before he gets to the one you want. You finally get a live person on the phone and start explaining your situation, and they promptly tell you they don't give refunds. You hang up and call back hoping for a different representative, who when consulted, gives you the same answer.

Here is where the fork in the road lies. At this point, more often than not, people are already so disinterested in staying on the phone with customer service (considering they had to go through the automation and 2 representatives), that they accept that answer. But what if you tried to negotiate more? Maybe you would be rerouted to a supervisor, who would then also tell you they don't give refunds. But what if you negotiated even more? What if you gave them such a hard time that they not only give you a refund, but pay you extra for the time you had to waste trying to get it? Many people would have given up by that point, thinking there was no chance of getting their refund. But they wouldn't know unless they negotiated.

So, next time you call customer service (or negotiate anything for that matter), give them some problems. Be that guy that they need to get the supervisor for. Argue your point, don't just give it. Make the other side give in, you don't have to.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

An Experiment

I like to think of myself as a spur-of-the-moment kind of person.


Hello! This is a blog. Upon its completion, there will be one month's worth of daily posts, where every day there will be something different, unique, and hopefully interesting. I had the idea to create this blog exactly 5 minutes before the time of me writing this, and decided to follow through with it about 3 minutes later. I have never done anything like this before, and have no idea how people will react to it. But that answer will remain unknown unless I do it, so lets find that out together. We'll have to think of it like an experiment, with the results out of sight until it is finished.


I am a firm believer that long term success is just a string of short term successes. The most impressive books are the ones that can survive for a multiple installment series, namely things like Harry Potter or The Chronicles of Narnia. There is power in numbers. My hope with this blog is that, even though each individual post might not be something especially incredible (but I hope each one is), it will still stand on its own when it is done, and be something special. Thirty days of whatever I might feel needs to be said, written for anyone who is interested to read it. Small daily projects to make one success after a month.


So, welcome! I will not promise anything in terms of overall quality that this blog will have to offer, but I will promise to try and create something that is worth the time to visit each day. Posts may be relating to news, to something that happened to me that day, to something that might be bothering me, or to something completely random. Everyone has ideas to share - I'll try to think of a few that people would want to hear. We'll see what happens as we go.


One month of words, beginning now.