Adventure

The world we live in is a huge place.

 

Growing up, I used to go out in my backyard a lot. It's not the actual yard that made me love going out there. It was the woods behind it. Sure, throwing a ball around and playing in the grass was all fine, but in the trees is where the real action was. Looking out into the brush and not being able to see past that one tree, or noticing something out in the leaves that looks interesting, was enough to get me going back there all the time.

 

I'm in my house right now. Every single thing within eyesight right now (save for what I can see out my windows), exists as a direct result of an unnatural action. People made every single thing in my room. I don't consciously think about that fact very often, but I sometimes get an overwhelming feeling of wanting to be outside. I'm sure other people feel the same way – lots of people say they just "need to get out of the house" for whatever reason. Truth is, people should feel like going outside a lot more.

 

My brother and I used to explore everywhere in the woods behind my house. Nobody really cared about the property lines, so a span of effectively every house on our road was our world. Even the houses on the opposite side of the woods didn't mind us wandering around back there. My point is, there was a lot to do back there.

 

A river runs back there, which we walked on when it was frozen and even swam in when it wasn't. My neighbor built a treehouse out of the wood from our old back deck, so it feels like that part of our house never really left. There's a huge hill cleared of trees that was supposed to be a road which was never paved, which is perfect for sledding. There are huge fallen trees, mysterious abandoned items, and perfectly secluded spots that are just right for taking a seat, taking in a deep breath, and just being.

 

Each trip back there was an adventure.

 

Everyone take a minute and look up "geocaching." In short, you take GPS coordinates from the internet and try to find a hidden stash at the location. You get to take things from it as long as you put something back, and write your name on the list of people who have found it. It's like a mini treasure hunt, a mini adventure. There are millions of these hidden containers around the whole planet too – you will never run out of adventures. Free entertainment readily at your disposal that gets you outside in a unique way that can be shared with friends: Yes, please.

 

It's important to explore. Finding new things, taking part in different activities, and becoming a new person from them will always be completely awesome. We should try to do as much different stuff as possible. And most importantly, think of those things as adventures. The world becomes a much more exciting place that way. Life is one big adventure, but make a point to experience every aspect of life as one, too.

(This blog was uploaded via e-mail because Blogger isn't working properly today. I apologize if it looks messy).

--
Robert Capone, Comptroller
accounting@mtp-usa.com
973-616-2600  x1036
MTP

Talent

Everyone has talent.


Immanuel Kant is thought of as one of the most famous and revered philosophers that this world has ever known. It would take more than a simple blog post to go into all of the ideas he has shared with us. His position on how people should live their lives is based on duty - that is, people should do what they are morally obligated to do throughout their lives. Obviously, there are major objections to his philosophy, but for argument's sake, let's pretend for a moment that Kant is right. Performing one's duty is crucial to living a proper life.


There are several ways in which a person can fail to perform their duties. Some of these ways include breaking promises (it became your duty to fulfill what you said you would do), and committing suicide (regardless of your opinion of your own life, others still care about you, and it is your duty to be good to others). Another is to squander one's talents. You are in complete control of your own talent - and any disregard to hone those talents is a huge problem.


Talents are gateways. Every special skill or unique ability that any person has ever had, has lead in one way or another to a positive outcome. Nothing bad can come from developing your skills. Consider the opposite extreme: Your life is spent stagnating in a state of carelessness. The only things you experienced in life were a direct result of someone else's doing. Already, this sounds like a sorry state of affairs. This is exactly what every human on this planet should work hard to avoid. Knowing that every single person has something that they can contribute to the world that no other person has is the only reason needed for people to strive for dedicated talent growth.


Notice how I said "that no other person has." Whether you know of it yet or not, there is something that you can do that nobody else can. Arguably, everything that you do is completely impossible to replicate, so in a sense, you are the best at everything that you do. However, that doesn't mean that you can simply kick back and play the "unique card" whenever you want. Being unique doesn't mean you are entitled to not try. What life is there except for the one where people strive to be their best? It is our duty to be our best, and developing our talents is what gets us there.


The important thing to do is to just keep doing things. Don't sit around and wait for something exciting to come along. You can be that exciting thing if you just hone your talents to become it.

Happiness

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

-Theodore Roosevelt.

In my New Years Day blog post, I wrote that one of my resolutions is to find happiness, and to keep it. When I first established it, my mindset was this: "Okay, I can handle this. I know I can achieve this resolution, in fact I more or less have done it already. This, I can handle." Upon first reading it, it makes sense. Find, have, and share happiness. Easy. But the concept of "keeping" happiness is a volatile one. Keeping anything is (much) harder than first establishing it.

Think of how long it takes to construct a building. Time and energy are expended to a pretty big extent. Well, one bulldozer and one day is what it takes to bring it down like it never existed. Think of a job interview. You are evaluated with a couple of questions to ascertain if you can do the job required of you or not. But, it's not until you actually start working and potentially mess up until they see your true capabilities, and revoke your position. Think of how it might only take one negative hiccup in your day to throw a monkey wrench in your mood.

The moral of this post that I want to make is this: Happiness is relative. You are only as happy as you want to be, and at the same time, you will lose that happiness to the degree that you let it happen. Nobody on this planet is entitled to be happier than you are, for any reason. Yes, there are people set for life and well-off in healthy environments, but we are all human. We all react similarly to different things. The rich might only find happiness in  things very unrelated to money. Same goes for the people with little money. What's important is allowing yourself to experience the maximum happiness with what you have.

Everyone has bad days. They're like a disease. They infect you, change your mood, make you liable to spread them to others, and sometimes won't go away unless you just wait it out. Bad days just happen. It is up to you decide how low they bring you down. A building might fall down, but you can rebuild it. You might lose your job, but you can find another. You can shrug it off.

Think like a hedonist. For those of you who don't know, hedonism is the concept that all end results, rewards, possessions, gifts, and any other possible thing in life eventually boils down to one intrinsic value: happiness. (Granted, happiness isn't exactly easy to measure, but you can kind of assign "happiness levels" to different things in your life) Your car has value equal to how much happiness it gives you. Your breakfast is valuable only to the extent that it makes you happy. Now, why am I saying think like a hedonist?

You will be better off. Do things based on how happy you want to be in the end. Do things for others based on how happy those actions will make you. Your whole way of life will be oriented around one simple goal, one that you can strive for every day. Finding happiness will be a normal occurrence. And the best part is that you don't need to have anything in order to do this. You just need to go about life looking for a reason to put a smile on your face, and share it with someone else. "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

My goal is not to tell people how to live. But I do think all advice is good advice. And my advice to you is to try and be as happy as possible. Sadness can be a thing of the past if you make it. You only live through life once - I say you should be happy as you live it.

Stuck

At some point, everyone gets stuck.

Raise your hand if you have ever been writing an essay, and you find yourself staring at the page for 10 minutes in the middle of your second body paragraph. Raise your hand if you have ever been working on a project, and you just walk away from it for a while because you need to try to think of new ideas for it. Raise your hand if your car has ever run out of gasoline miles from a gas station. All of these situations, among countless others, are exactly what we don't want when we're trying to do something or go somewhere. We don't want to be stuck.

Today I was balancing a checkbook (Please, hold the applause) for my dad's company. We use an online reconciliation program where the user can make edits themselves after collecting data from the bank accounts online. Some things come through messy, so they need to be fixed. Halfway through, I was trying to find a certain transaction, but couldn't. There was supposed to be something that was causing the bank not to match the program, but I didn't see it anywhere. I looked for what seemed like a year. I was stuck. And trust me, being stuck feels a lot worse when its because of something like a checkbook.

But we don't stay stuck forever.

People all have the unique ability to get themselves out of holes. It doesn't matter how steep the climb is, if you want out of the hole, you can manage it. We are able to finish essays even if we stop for a little bit in the middle of writing them. We can think of new ideas if we put our minds to it for a long enough time. We can call for help when we run out of gas, and we make it back home before it gets too cold. And I did indeed find the missing transaction.

Sometimes, being stuck for a while is what makes the end product better. Suppose during the middle of an essay  (that you planned everything through on), you got stuck. You went into it knowing every idea that you wanted down on the paper, but you forgot some of them. You're stuck, and now need to brainstorm. You then think of something (something that, had you just written everything you were prepared with, would never have existed), which ends up putting a huge positive spin on your writing. Bingo. Being stuck helped you out.

And it makes sense. When something bad happens to someone, yes, there may be bad consequences. But so many more good consequences can come from it. A coworker might laugh at you mockingly for having a stain on your shirt - but it was just in time for you to clean it before you walked in to a meeting with your boss. The teacher might call the class in from recess early, but now you will keep your new sneakers out from the rain storm that was on its way. It's better to take a blow now when you can take it than later, when the situation may be different, and you can't take it.

And hey, me not knowing what to write about for a blog post today might cause me to have something to write about for a blog post today. I should get stuck more often.

Distractions

Staying focused is important.

Right now, I am watching the Fiesta Bowl football game, Uconn against Oklahoma. At the time of me writing these words, I began this blog post 15 full minutes ago. That means, that these few sentences that you have read so far have taken me 15 minutes - just because I keep looking up at the TV. It is also 11:20, meaning I have exactly 40 minutes to finish and post this in order to fulfill my goal. It might seem like plenty of time, but keep in mind... Fiesta Bowl.

Distractions, while completely controllable, can tickle every person's weaknesses. No matter what you are trying to get done, there is always something out there to keep you from finishing. People need to just buckle down and seclude themselves from everything other than their goal. My example of finishing this post might be a little extreme, for two reasons: I actually attend Uconn, so I am emotionally invested in the team (come on, let's see a major upset!), and there are several people from school who I want to see on TV, my girlfriend in the band being one of them. Kind of challenging to 100% not watch the game, considering that there are elements like multitasking at play.

It's not a lie that more would get done if everyone were to dedicate themselves to a task. But, that is unrealistic. We are humans, not robots. Things like multitasking are going to happen, no matter what. Breaks will be taken. Days off will be taken. People forget things. People prioritize some things over others. Regardless of the circumstances, nothing in this life will ever be brought to 100% completion. There will always be something that could have been done in addition to the "finished" product, maybe at the cost of that extra break that you took or those 10 minutes that you goofed off.

That's all fine, though. Nobody should want to be able to do things to perfection. A distraction is just one more thing that is keeping us from going crazy. People can't work solid 8 hour blocks - they need to take breaks. We don't work every single day of the week - we need days off. If people stay focused while they work, then they are fulfilling their capabilities. We can focus on entertainment too, though. Take everything in moderation, as long as you do each thing with conviction. Work hard, and play hard. 

Good thing ESPN needs to take breaks in the form of commercials, too. Finished this just in time.