Everybody else

Words From People Much Smarter Than Me

Good for the body is the work of the body, and good for the soul is the work of the soul, and good for either is the work of the other.  ~Henry David Thoreau

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted. ~John Lennon

It is not length of life, but depth of life. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence, but it comes from within. It is there all the time. ~ Anna Freud

There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way. ~Christopher Morley

Sometimes, one must embrace silence only to slowly find her voice again. ~ Anonymous

Of Mice and Men

I found a picture of me playing standing behind one of those wooden cutouts painted as a mouse. It got me thinking how often we as humans, act like mice.

Mice lead a simple life, scavenging for food and keeping warm in a little hole they cut themselves. But, it is a life of constant fear. Tiny mice have the disadvantage of having most of the world towering above them. Even though mice are tiny compared to us humans, we are the ones running from them. Why? Read the rest of this entry

Embrace Yourself

As an avid blog reader, I rarely browse the comments. Bloggers tend to develop “groupies”, who fill the comment section with verbal high fives and redundant “Great post!”. Today I actually read some comments on a blog post, which lead to a comment I wanted to “high-five” to.

“… I tend to be an idealist, always wanting the highs in life, always wanting many other things as well that don’t quite ’stay’. A friend recently spoke to one of my struggles by saying “Leif, you are probably never going to change.” It was hard to hear, a bit of a shocker, but it was so strong and counter to what most people say (and to what I spend my life trying to change) that it was actually strangely liberating. I cried. Wow, I might never change. And yet, I’m still here, still alive, still doing pretty dang good.” - Leif

It doesn’t really matter what the blog post was about. Leif’s comment is simple life applicable to all of us. We all have ideas shaped by ourselves, others, society, religion, and media to which we grant some personality traits as “good” and “bad”. Instead, we should embrace ourselves for who we are - even the “embarrassing” things.

So to Leif, I raise my glass and say “I’ll drink to that, and hug myself too!”.

Season Of Giving

Life is big circle of interactions all effecting one another. This is the season where the act of giving is the focus. In reality, we give all year long just in different levels. When we give, is it always to be benevolent or do we hope to receive back?

Taking a broader look at “giving” in our everyday lives, our motivation is different in each instance. In friendships we give an unwavering ear with the truth being we hope they will return the favor when needed. We may not expect to receive anything tangible when donating to a charity, except the feeling of personal satisfaction with helping someone. We give our hard work and dedication to our career or school with the expectation to be rewarded by furthering ourselves professionally. Acts of giving are not typically one way functions, unless of course we are never on the receiving end.

Sometimes the best act of giving is to give back. It’s the neighbor who always shovels your sidewalks that might need a helping hand, but it takes someone to offer one. Maybe it’s your spouse or friend who breathes words of belief and compliments in you, that could use a little belief spoken to them. To have the ability to be thankful for what we have, there needs to be a sense of knowing what we are “given”. If you never give back, will you still receive? It would be a good idea this holiday season to “give back” to those who give to you. We are all a basin that needs to be refilled in order to provide later on.

Economic Cutback On Coffee?

World spread economic woes dominate newspaper headlines. Wall Street Journal Online even dedicates entire page to the Motor City’s crisis. Everyone knows we are in the begining of a long, disasterous economic crisis that keeps growing, but do we “feel” it?
Read the rest of this entry

Make Up Tuesday

My Tuesday’s to-do list got ripped up and rewritten by 10am. Everyone knows, if you take a day or two off, your next week at work will suck. Doesn’t matter if you walk in with a “plan” because life is going to tell you otherwise.

Office hasn’t had heat since the cold started to set in. I figured it wasn’t being selfish making heat my first priority. Having your “headlights” on is one thing, having them frozen off is a different story. Of course, it wasn’t so simple as flippen a switch. Vectren Energy blessed me with heat next Monday…OMG! Pray for my nipples.

Can’t even face looking at my to-do list. The lack of tick marks make me look lazy. In reality, I spent a good portion of my day dealing with hire help that doesn’t want to take direction. Really, if you are hired to do a job, wouldn’t you listen to the direction you are given? If you where hired to take pictures of pumpkin pie for the Food Network, but decided to go with photos of naked chic rolling in pie crust, don’t ya think the client has a right to say “WTF?”.

Then of course, clients. Ah yes, we all love our precious “clients’ that pay the heating bill, Christmas bonuses, nice company cars, etc. Considering there is no heat, I don’t get a Christmas bonus, and the only company anything is the fucking coffee pot, clients can go screw off. Really, some clients are worth your time. Others, well, they just are lazy, stupid, and want you to do EVERYTHING for them. Including wipe their ass.

Speaking of needy clients, which it seems that all the clients we have are insufficient at helping them selves, I have to wonder where web-based client services are heading. It seems as though, web-based companies are sprouting up all over the place. Here, in the world where Google replaces the Yellow Pages, companies are worthless without using the web. How many of theses companies are actually providing “services” over packaging free web 2.0 stuff and selling it. I hope companies know that even if someone provides you with the “shell” to put a website in, somebody still has to FILL it and MAINTAIN the content. Wow, they didn’t tell you that did they? So before you starting slapping down some $$$ on companies who are selling you a fake service, ask what they are actually DOING for you. Are they just slapping up a blog shell with no content support? Giving you expensive analytics on your sites (Oh, Google does that for free) with no actual analysis?

What it comes down to is simply asking what unique service is this company providing? My suggestion, is if your company is not Web 2.0 knowledgable or you don’t want to hire your own IT department, find a company that will do ALL of it for YOU. Not just shove the shell at you, but fill it too. They might be a bit pricier, but not when you add up the cost of employing a full time Website designer in house and throwing in these expert ’services’. Just do your research before you buy.

Not So Sinful Sunday

My Sunday was less sinful than hoped for. Instead of busting out my top things right upon rising, as taught by a legendary lister, I worked it in reverse order. Stopping at number 4. Though I enjoyed a good nap on couch and met friend for dinner, I’m wouldn’t say it was a good trade.

The nap resulted in waking up feeling like someone threw a rock at my head. Should have guessed the multi-color crap I coughed up during my A.M. run was a sign a cold still lurking. Hard headed, nothing stops me from running except post boob-job recovery.

I would have traded dinner for accomplishing number 1. Feeling completely obligated to show face, and kinda thinking real life human conversation instead of Twitter might be good, I relunctantly ate an overpriced salad. Unfortunately, what I realized was trying to talk about nothing is a lot of work. Owning a dog as the only thing in common won’t flourish deep and energizing conversation. Shit, if barely afforded me 50min of meaningless crap.

Lesson of the day is, I value Twitter tweets, blogger’s blogs, newspapers online, and Facebook friends (even if I don’t speak their language.). Simply because you are geographically separated from people who share your real interests and stimulate your mind, doesn’t make them less worthy of your time.