Subjective Blog | Useful. The New Black.

Even though I posted this sentiment earlier…

Making a goal your “New Year’s Resolution” is the fastest way to watch it fail. You shouldn’t need New Year’s as an excuse to do it.

…I eventually decided upon a sole resolution for myself this year. One word. One Resolution. I like to think of it as my theme for 2009.

Cull. #onewordresolution

I have a lot of crap in my life that I don’t need, and a scene from a John Wayne movie, where he was explaining his usage of the word ‘Cull’ to his lady lead, kept playing through my mind. I have a lot of junk around my house that I need to get rid of. I have a few *cough* extra pounds I need to get rid of. I have RSS feeds in my reader that I need to get rid of. I have a lot of stress to get rid of.

I’m culling the herds of my life.

But looking upon the definition at Dictionary.com I found that Cull also represents a deliberate choosiness in general and I think this is particularly apt as well. If I’m to add anything to my life, it’ll be thoroughly considered.

I’m an extreme person. I do not believe that life is to be idly cherished. Rather, it is to be actively enjoyed.

Two of the most important things in life are learning and believing in yourself. If you can steadily do those two things, you can achieve your goals.

What would you do if you had no fear?

Who are those that are remembered? Those who touch people’s hearts.

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight. It’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

If you are worried about your financial future right now, don’t be. Instead, concern yourself with the determination you have to get through it.

If you need help in this regard, find love. Hold on to it, and fuel that love. It will guide you.

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
Confucius

An old proverb that’s true. Doing work you love will leave you feeling impressively good.

To an alchemist of the classical era, work was defined as a spiritual endeavor. Turning lead into gold was as much about transforming yourself as it was about transforming physical matter. In the end, the elements themselves become symbols that tell the story of the transformation in ourselves.

What do you think? Can you separate your labor from your work? Is your personal development something you should do only on the evenings and weekends? Or should you “maximize your return on investment” by investing in yourself every moment of the day? Imagine what you could do in ten years if you made every waking moment a step towards being a better person. Imagine what the world could be.

To me, the matter of the question is really happiness. If you’re happy doing your job, and salivating at the thought of going there again, you’re half way there - the purpose of life is to find happiness against all odds. Being stuck in a boring, demeaning or unfulfilling job is a terrible burden to bear. If you have any doubts about work actually being, you know, healthy for you, I recommend reading Happy Hour is 9 to 5 — it’s free.

The Ethics of Desire

First off, while you may be comfortable with your current job title and/or salary, how do you know if you’re truly happy? I have to write this extended quote from the ever insightful Frank Herbert.

“… one does not obtain food-safety-freedom by instinct alone … animal consciousness does not extend beyond the given moment nor into the idea that its victims may become extinct … animal pleasures remain close to sensation levels and avoid the perceptual … the human requires a background grid through which to see his universe … focused consciousness by choice, this forms your grid …”
Frank Herbert – Dune

If you apply those paradigms to the current economic weather, and understand that the situation is as much about trust and ethics as it is about mortgages we can’t afford, it becomes plain to see that those at fault acted like animals with no conscience, no remorse, and no consideration to the potential for extinction amongst our world that their actions have caused.

Now… we’re on the brink of global catatonic failure of the systems which facilitate our survival. We are a few key collapses away from the whole thing crumbling. Because of ethics. Because of greed. Because of a choice to follow selfish and temporal desires for pleasure, rather than lasting happiness.

Happiness v. Pleasure

In simple terms, I’ve been questioning my own ethics. I’ve been working to develop my own business for several years now and it’s been especially difficult because I haven’t known what I really wanted … I haven’t known what would make me happy.

I’ve read a lot, whether online or on sheaves of dead trees. And in 2004, during a particularly trying era of my life, I read a copy of The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Llama. In it he spoke of the difference between pleasure and happiness. He said that, essentially, people are unhappy because they seek out pleasure instead. It’s easy to find examples, especially if you look at the culture of the ‘Night Life’. You may take a bit of pleasure in binge drinking, or that fine piece of ass, but you’ll regret the effects of it the next day, and like television, while you may provide a temporary boost to your feelings, in the long term such behaviors will make you even more miserable, and encourage greed, dystopia, and negligence.

Therefore, in order to endure long and satisfying happiness, one most forgo the pursuit of pleasure. On this the Dalai Llama and Cicero speak the same words 2000 years apart. Forgo small pleasures now, to receive happiness later.

It’s because of this pursuit of happiness that I’ve ultimately said ‘No’ to the vast majority of projects that I’ve started. It’s not that they were bad ideas, or that they wouldn’t have worked, it’s where they would have lead to that ultimately would have delivered unhappiness to me, and I can’t stand that.

I’ve looked high and low to find (or create) work for myself that would ultimately feed my family, as well as my soul. I’ve finally found that and look forward to sharing it with you soon.

One philosophy that has served me very well in my undertakings is to just keep going.

While some may consider this an inclination towards workaholism, as an adult, I see no time in my day that is not filled with work of some kind. While this will lead to a restructuring of the definition of “work,” I certainly hope you’ll see my point.

It’s very common for Designers and Developers of my age (mid-20’s) to work more than one job, typically in a Day Job + Freelance situation. I’ve also noticed that many such workers, though more appear to be in their 30’s, are also having children.

I happen to be in the enviable situation of mixing both. I have two wonderful children (who conspicuously arrived without instruction manuals); a full time job where I am the primary driver of the Design Department, and have been for two years; an adoring wife whom I cherish like no other, and spend as many moments with as I can; and finally, I’m producing work on the side that I’m unable to put down — the fires of inspiration are burning hot and I’m energized immensely by it.

Oh, and I have to sleep too.

I love my life, and I’m certain that makes a major difference in my attitude. having been on the other side, a life you hate leaves you lethargic, drained and bored (at the least).

Through it all, I can’t stop and say “Sorry kids, I’m not going to be your Dad for a while. I need a vacation.” No, I listen to them, play with them, give them medicine and a snuggle at 3 in the morning and love them the best that I can. A child deserves no less than total adoration.

The same goes for the woman who made my life so wonderful in the first place. She deserves no less than my undivided affection. As Stephen Covey says, “Love is a verb.”

And that truly is the difference between a life drug down by work, and a life uplifted by it: you must love what you do. For then it no longer becomes work, but the genuine outpouring of your heart.

A while back, on twitter, I divulged that I had used the the word ‘Entrepreneur’ to describe myself, and that it felt too cliche too fit me. To remedy that, I recently cracked open my handy Thesaurus.com and browsed the synonyms of that paltry word to find an appropriate noun.

I found one.

To me, it bears the Saturnian qualities of darkness, and heaviness, and points to a brooding nature that accomplishes it’s work in solitude, oft in the dead of night. It flatters my personality, and compliments the history of my name.

I am an Undertaker.

Yesterday, as I sometimes do, I visited lipsum.com to procure some fake Latin. When I arrived I did a remarkable thing — I read what was there.

What first caught my attention was that the words have their origin some 2000 years ago with a man known as Cicero. For those who don’t know he was one of the most brilliant writers from the Roman era, and I bet he would be thoroughly pleased to know that his words still echo within people’s minds today.

Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics…

The site also has translations of the words that inspired the faux text, and I enjoyed them a lot.

“But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness.

…

The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.”