Tag: advice

What Is The Real Rate of Return on Investment?

“As you get older, you realize just how valuable time as a commodity is. You tend to start measuring the cost-benefit analysis or the return on investment that you are receiving not just regarding finances and how you spend or invest your money but also on how you spend your time.”

As you get older, you realize just how valuable time as a commodity is. You tend to start measuring the cost-benefit analysis or the return on investment that you are receiving not just regarding finances and how you spend or invest your money but also on how you spend your time. Unfortunately, this is a topic that we do not prioritize or learn about very well at a young age. Often, you must figure out what are the best ways to use your time wisely and your money.

There are numerous tools out there to help guide you find the real rate of return on your investment, but you must be the one making the decision on what you prioritize. We know for a fact that our time on this Earth is limited from the day we are born. Having such knowledge shouldn’t be morbid or despairing, but rather help us to prioritize how we spend our lives in search of a good use of our time, our money, and much more.

Now, not everything that we do in life should be correlated with a ‘cost-benefit analysis’ or ‘opportunity cost’ involved. Such behavior should be discouraged if you’re obsessing over how you spend every waking minute each day. You should be leaving some room for spontaneous actions that you enjoy regardless of if it’s geared towards health, wealth, and personal satisfaction. There are times each day where we have to commit to actions that take time when we would rather be doing something else and that is what adulthood entails sometimes.

The true focus is what can we do with our time that is free, which will help us in the long-term. If we have goals of wealth, health, and pursuing our own happiness, your time should be spent in looking in investing each day in building yourself up in each of these areas. For example, when we look at investing in our health, we know there are concrete things that can be done, which will help us with a return on having a healthier body, a healthier mind, and managing our stress and anxiety.

We may have to join a gym, change our diet, sleep more, and make time for exercising, and these are the kinds of investments, if done consistently, that can pay off in the long-term. These investments that I cite will not guarantee a longer life, but it is giving yourself the best possible chance of living a healthier life, especially if you are focusing on multiple investments.

In this case, the real return on investment may not be seen right away but you are likely to see some results if you’re consistent with your investments on a long-term basis. You can measure how your diet is helping you lose weight, how your sleep patterns have changed, and how much time you spend at the gym, the yoga studio, or in playing sports. These investments are measurable but the results on these investments will eventually show up in a real rate of return that will put you on a path that leads to a healthier life in the long-term. Returns are not guaranteed but if you are putting in the work over a long enough period, I believe the chances are good that you will be better off than you were years or even decades ago.

Similarly, how we save and invest financially for our long-term financial future, we can do the same with our health and our happiness. Everyone has different financial goals, and I won’t talk about specific investment advice to give, but you can always estimate to a degree what kind of percentage return you’re likely to get from your investments over a year or a decade or a century in terms of growth. These real returns will come to you but if you’re not consistently investing in building your wealth, those real returns will not be as impactful or as fruitful as you would have hoped. It goes to show that with either health, wealth, and happiness, that the earlier you invest in those facets of life and the more that you invest in them, the better off that you will be.

What makes someone truly happy is complicated and will differ depending on your emotional state, but I do believe spending more time with those who care about you, and you who care about them, enjoying more time spent doing the hobbies and interests that give you joy, and being able to invest time in learning new skills, exploring new places, or investing in your home and community, those kind of investments will have real returns on making you happier in the long-run. There will be times when what you did or do no longer makes you happy and that is alright. The key here is to keep trying out new things, keep meeting people, keep trying to be involved in areas of life that you think will make you happier, that is key in continuing to make those investments in building your happiness into the future to keep producing better and better returns.

Time is fleeting and you must prioritize health, wealth, and happiness in my view, which will give you those real returns in your life to enjoy and take joy in. Most of all, you have to know the difference as you get older between what’s give you actual returns for your hard work and efforts, and what you have to stop doing that is giving you no real returns. It is important to prioritize more of what will pay off in the future throughout your life and increasingly avoid those activities that produce a negative return and will leave you worse off.

It is one thing to be able to invest well in activities that bolster your life satisfaction, but you should also remember to avoid those other ways of spending the time that lower your real returns or negate them entirely. Be sure to know what a waste of your time is, if you can cut that activity out or lower your exposure to it and be able to replace the time spent on that activity with a good alternative. which you can take part in to continue to invest in building a life and a future that will make you healthy, wealthy, and happy.

The Bill Always Comes Due

“It is an inevitability that we all must face and even when we try to push it out of our mind, that responsibility is there to provide lest we face any consequences that comes with not paying the bill.”

When we think about the moment of slight anxiety or stress involved with sitting in a restaurant, you’re satiated from a great meal of great food and drinks, maybe you’re surrounded by friends and family on a special night together, in all that joy and happiness, you still have that thought in the back of your mind, “the bill always comes due.”

There is no way of avoiding it and you’re going to have to pay it, one way or another. It is an inevitability that we all must face and even when we try to push it out of our mind, that responsibility is there to provide lest we face any consequences that comes with not paying the bill.

While you are under the expectations that any food, drinks, or other service at a restaurant always will come at a cost, we as consumers try to not think about that at all to be here and now in the present to enjoy what we have ordered with the company that we keep. It is a key characteristic of human nature that we often avoid thinking about the future even when we do at present is likely to carry its own kind of consequences. I use ‘the bill coming due’ as an anecdote for how what we choose to do, how we act, what we focus on and prioritize, will lead to what kind of bill we end up paying in the future.

Just like you would not want to pay a restaurant bill you cannot afford by understanding your budget and what you can afford to order off the menu of that particular reasonably priced restaurant, we should be aware of the fact that there are other ‘bills’ that can come due in the future that can cost us more than we bargained for if we are not careful about it. What we do in the present can help us manage our bills and how we handle our future by dealing with it in a responsible and mature manner now.

Let’s think about our health and how we manage it as there will be some kind of ‘bill’ handed down to us as we get older. It can be a clean ‘bill’ of health as your physician or doctor will tell you if everything goes well or it can instead be an array of expensive tests, surgeries, or procedures that lead to a hefty medical ‘bill’ that will cost us dearly beyond what we can afford, even if you have some form of insurance. How do we avoid this kind of ugly ‘bill’ of health? Well, I won’t dive into specifics as I am not a medical physician but how you eat, if you exercise, whether you stay active in your daily life, can help us pay off that ‘bill’ in advance or make it that much smaller to manage in the long run. There are common sense ways to manage the ’bill’ of health as it will come due at some point, and you have a measure of control over it in the present to make sure it does not bankrupt you or cost you with your health in the future.

In a similar way, one’s ‘wealth’ and how you manage it in the present can help you pay the various ‘bills’ that come due on a monthly, yearly, or longer basis. When you use part of your paycheck and weekly or monthly earnings to pay down outstanding debt or to save up for an emergency or to help yourself learn an employable skill, you are making sure that you will be able to pay for any bill that can come due because you have accrued your wealth and investments in a way where you will never be broke from these ‘bills’ coming due.

If you make other choices instead where you spend every dollar you make and beyond that, get into debt with various bill collectors including the credit cards and other loans you have taken out, the bills that come due will be beyond your accrued means, and you may be struggling for the rest of your life to get out from the ‘bills’ coming due that you have to pay or face serious financial consequences.

You do not want your health, wealth, or ability to earn a living to suffer because you cannot handle both present and future bills to come. You should make sure to think of the future to save, invest, and earn for a ‘rainy day’ fund that can overcome an unforeseen or unexpected bill coming due. Again, I am not making any specific financial recommendations to you as I am neither a financial planner or investor, but I do want to impart some common sense and wisdom in how to avoid future ‘bills’ by planning to save and invest for the future in some measurable way so the bills coming due will be paid for entirely without any stress or anxiety.

Lastly, it is unfortunate where we live in a society where it can cost exorbitant amounts to educate oneself for the workforce and for financial success, indebting ourselves in the process. I believe education is worth investing in if you are able to afford the bills to come due, but if you are in a cycle where you can’t get out of accrued bills or debt because you went for higher or professional education, please make sure that the investment that you make in the present will help pay off the debt in the future. The worst thing to do is invest in an education that does not end up paying for itself later and help with all the bills coming due to that investment.     

Make sure you focus on those employable skills or to be a subject matter expert or practitioner, in an important area that will pay off because you invested in your education in a useful area. I know of a lot of people who cannot get themselves out of a debt or pile of bills, even with their extra years of education, because what they learned what not useful for the job market, and now they are stuck with bills that will never be paid off.

I am not against the idea of paying for more education but please make sure it is aligned with your future career or business goals. If you are not sure of what you want to invest financially in an education, there are many free tools and videos that can help you understand better of what opportunities are out there. I think it’s important to think hard about what bills you want to take on for your education because it is no good to have a debt burden that will prevent you from future job or educational opportunities because you have bills coming due that you must sacrifice your ideal career or business for.

Whether it is health, wealth, or education, you will have to pay the bills that come due, even if they come at an unknown future date. Make sure you invest in each area within reason that you will be able to afford to do so without suffering later for bills or obligations that you took on that you found were beyond your capacity.

Do not sacrifice your future by what you do in the present. Make sure you practice good health habits, invest in your wealth accrual with whatever route that you find is best for your goals, and to reasonably access educational opportunities that can create excellent business or career opportunities that you will not have to sacrifice either your health or your wealth to achieve. Remember that the bill(s) always come due at the end, but that does not mean life should not be enjoyed or taken advantage of, but to do so in responsible manner, where your present is secured in each of these three areas, and as a result, your future is prosperous, healthy, and full of opportunities.

To Write, You Must Observe

“Being a good observer contributes to being a good writer. Taking the time to observe the world around you help to stimulate a good sense of what to write about and what could be put to paper.”

Being a good observer contributes to being a good writer. Taking the time to observe the world around you help to stimulate a good sense of what to write about and what could be put to paper. I find that observing people, animals, or just nature without distractions can stimulate your ability to process possible ideas whether for poetry, stories, or for articles. You can draw both hypotheses and conclusions from you observe the world around you. It allows you to come up with scenarios or storylines just from seeing what’s going on around you.

You can really let your imagination run wild with coming up with fictional events, stories, or essays when you can draw on what you observe. Being observant allows you to think about good ideas for what you would like to write further about or to come up with ways to flesh out a person’s story or history. A good writer can flesh out the details based on what they are observing and create a good story or plot from what they may see out in the world. Being an observer doesn’t have to be a majestic place like from a mountain top or overlooking a lake.

You can make insightful and creative observations just by sitting at your neighborhood café for a few hours or from walking through your local nature park. A simple change of scenery stimulates your mind just from putting yourself in an unfamiliar location. A writer should immerse yourself in different settings and bring a pen and paper or their laptop with them. Having a quiet place to observe is also much better than a noisy place, similar with how a pond or a backyard porch is better for observations to be written down than going to Times Square or Las Vegas to come up with good writing ideas.

I do believe certain places are better for writing down your observations especially if they are quiet and allow you to concentrate more. You’re able to not only come up with story or novel ideas in those places but can write more in-depth about what you’re seeing without being distracted in those crowded, noisier, or places with sensory overload. It is a key part of being a writer to hone your observations as much as possible without overwhelming your senses by trying to observe everything all at once.

It is more productive to focus your observational writing on a particular part of a place or scene rather than trying to make sense of everything going on around you all at once. To develop your creative writing abilities, when making observations, do your best to hone your story idea or your poetry to a specific animal, nature scene, person, or theme. Observational writing can really let you hone your descriptive abilities by letting you expand your vocabulary, develop your chance to set the scene, and use your imagination to create a story out of nothing.

I would also say that being a good observer does not end at fictional scenarios but can help you with your non-fiction writing as you can attend live events like concerts, protests, or speeches, where you can observe the speaker or the attendees and writing about the setting along with the sequence of events that happened from first to last. Observational writing comes in handy when you are a news reporter, journalist, or in forming opinions. Without being able to be at the scene or where something is happening as it happens; you rob your writing from being able to recall in as much detail as what happened and how it happened when you’re not actually there.

Experiencing something virtually or secondhand does not lend the same kind of credibility or have the same kind of feeling as when you’re there in real life when something is happening live. Your observations when writing should be experienced firsthand as much as possible. I’ve found that my own writing about things, places, or events I’ve been to is not as sharp when I wait a few days or a week after to recap what happened and the accuracy is not the same as when you are writing about it as it happens.

If you are looking to improve your writing skills, I recommend sitting yourself somewhere quiet and peaceful where you can make your live observations and develop them if you would like to into poems, stories, or essays to use your imagination. You can really develop your vocabulary, your prose, and your own form of storytelling through making live observations. Good writing tends to come from being a good observer. The more time you can spend in different places observing the world and its inhabitants, your writing is going to improve and will also help you develop your own narratives, settings, and plotlines. Be sure to use your observations to further your writing skills and to take your compilation observational notes to make yourself a better and more complete writer.

Tempering The Ego

“Ego, to me, is a holistic sense of our abilities, capabilities, and our possibilities. For the ego to not go out of control, it has to be tamed and to be done so repeatedly.”

The Ego can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. It can drive us forward to make progress in different areas of your lives, but it can also detract from us by setting our expectations too high and in not actually challenging ourselves to see if our ego is being realistic. Ego, to me, is a holistic sense of our abilities, capabilities, and our possibilities. For the ego to not go out of control, it has to be tamed and to be done so repeatedly.

When the Ego is not tamed, it has an unhealthy tendency to run wild. Your Ego can grow, often unhealthily, when you leave it to be unchallenged. I have found that those people with the biggest Egos in life are the ones who never challenge themselves to back it up in a real way. The Ego can inflate our sense of self to the point where we are actively deluding ourselves with who we want to be without taking account of who we really are.

Everyone has an ‘Ego’ or Latin for ‘I’ and as world-renowned psychologist Sigmund Freud pointed out1, we each have a perception of our ‘self’ that will differ often from how others would perceive us. Our ‘Ego’ or our ‘I’ is often about our physical self, the sum of our experiences, our innate abilities, and our drive to get ahead in life. The ego can grow, or it can shrink, often based on how we alone view ourselves, but it also is reflective of how others see us and what they expect of us. The Ego must be kept in check because it can inflate or deflate based on what we tell ourselves about who we are and how others tell us who we are. The Ego is malleable and can be different on the day based on what we experience or what happens to us.

You can have an excellent day one day where you win a sports competition, gain a promotion at work, or overcome a challenge that you previously thought was impossible. One good day can massively inflate our Egos and while it is good to boost one’s Ego and be proud of what you accomplished and how hard you worked, you should still have that sense of humility and understand that one good day does not mean that you are suddenly God’s gift to Earth.

The same can be said of when you have a terrible day such as perhaps you failed an important test or exam, a work presentation you gave wasn’t received well, or you had someone insult you or talk down to you. These kinds of events, especially in the same day, can really wound your Ego and your self-worth. While bad events can hurt you, you should not totally give up your Ego or sense of ‘self’ from them as that would be disastrous. One bad day does not have to be a referendum on the sum of your entire life. Your Ego has to be resilient, when it is both humbled and challenged, and this should happen on a daily basis.

My firm belief is that you should never get too low or get too high when it comes to the self or your Ego. You have to constantly remind yourself of what you do well on, what you need to work on, and what you have no experience or ability with. For example, I like to think that I’m a good writer at this point, but some articles have turned out better than I expected, and some have been worse than I thought. Despite how I perceive my written work and how others do so, I can continue to work on my style, syntax, and substance, and I can expand my writing focus to challenge myself that I may have previously avoided on different topics that are new to me.

I also think of how one’s Ego needs to be challenged especially in a new activity or hobby that you have picked up. A good way to think about the Ego is to challenge it in different ways by putting yourself out there physically for yourself to be tested in that manner. One example of this is to train in the martial arts where your body is being challenged. You may weightlift, run, or consider yourself athletic, but it’s a good way to measure yourself against others when you are training against other people who have been doing it for a while and who could be bigger or stronger than you.

It does not mean that you won’t become better as a martial artist, but you should temper the Ego by challenging those practitioners who know more, can teach you new skills and abilities, and who you can face off with even when you are getting beaten for a while by them. Whether it’s’ boxing, jiu jitsu, krav maga, or kickboxing, I think any martial arts, whichever one(s) you choose, are a great way to temper one’s Ego. This is because you’ll see just how exactly you measure up against other fighters, especially if you’re new to the sport, and while you may think you are strong, fast, or have great stamina, you won’t truly know if that is the case or not until you step on the mat or into the ring.

The same could be said when you challenge your Ego mentally such as when you try to learn something new or adapt a new skillset that you know nothing about. I find that learning a new language is a way to temper my Ego in a healthy manner because every language, while they have some similarities, are also quite different and cause me to adapt how I learn that language, and the kinds of difficulties I’ll have when learning it based on how the language is written or spoken.

While I may be great at learning Spanish and am comfortable there, I can throw my Ego for a loop by learning a non-romance language such as German. I can brag that I can speak one or two foreign languages well after a lot of practice and that fuels my Ego but so that it doesn’t get too fragile, I temper it by learning a different language or trying to advance my Spanish or other learned language with more advanced material.

The Ego is constantly changing and evolving because our sense of self is different daily. The key is to not let it grow too big without putting yourself out there and being challenged or by deluding yourself by not ever trying anything new by putting your mental or physical abilities to the test. The best way to temper the Ego is to constantly challenge it both physically and mentally to have a more accurate measure of yourself against other peers in your field(s) or area(s) of expertise.

You should not ever ignore your Ego as it is your sense of ‘self’ and how you fit into the world, but rather you should not think of yourself as either the best or the worst in anything without going out into the world and seeing where exactly you fit in. As the popular expression goes, “you’ll never know until you try” and when it comes to the Ego or self, you must be testing yourself and by extension, testing your Ego to temper it or and keep it in check. The worst thing to do to yourself when it comes to the Ego is to continue to delude yourself by not trying, never challenging yourself, or not trying to go beyond the standards that you have set for yourself.

Source:

1.) https://www.britannica.com/topic/ego-philosophy-and-psychology

Putting Yourself in Natural Environments

“Man or woman was not meant to spend all day under fluorescent lighting in an indoor place without windows, natural light, or sun.”

Man or woman was not meant to spend all day under fluorescent lighting in an indoor place without windows, natural light, or sun. While modern life often forces us to work and live in less-than-ideal conditions, we often have to spend our time away from nature and where we feel most comfortable. Whether it is a factory, an office, a clothing store, a mall, or a movie theater, we spend somewhere between 80% – 90% of our lives indoors. While many people consider this to be a normal part of life, I would argue that while it may be ‘normal’ in our modern age, it is far from healthy for all of us.

While we do have limited choice on where we live, where we work, where we eat, etc., I would encourage everyone reading this to remember that we as human being are most comfortable, free, and healthy when we are in a natural environment. In nature whether it is a beach, a jungle, a mountainside, or a forest, while intimidating at first, once you get used to being in the great outdoors, it is hard to get used to being inside or routinely indoors again. You never lose that yearning to be breathing fresh air, swimming in fresh air, and cooking fresh food over an open flame.

I truly believe that this is kind of environment is what is best for our health and well-being. When we are in a natural environment, the stress is less for all involved, we tend to be more social especially if we must cooperate to fish, to hunt, or to cook food together, and there is a great sense of satisfaction achieved from climbing, hiking, fishing, swimming, or starting a fire that you can’t get in other environments.

If you do not have the great outdoors near you, at least make the effort to get outside on your balcony, your rooftop, or even your garden if you have one. I promise that you will feel refreshed from getting out of the florescent light and into real sunlight. While being indoors is not a bad thing, I do think that we have overindulged in modern life in an effort to keep ourselves comfortable rather than challenging ourselves by dealing with the outdoor elements.

No matter where we come from, all our ancient ancestors had to deal with the elements. That is why being out in nature is most rewarding because that is what our ancestors had to deal with for thousands of years. Modern agriculture and industry have been around for maybe a few hundred years in terms of its adoption by most of humanity. We are still more accustomed to being out in the jungle, savannah, or forest rather than inside a city or a factory farm. It is unfortunate that most of our time at work or at home is indoors because there is a lot that can be done outdoors and for which we can socialize with each other in different ways.

If you cannot get outdoors as much as you want, try to at least take 10-15 minutes out of your day to go for a walk or to get lunch and sit outside. If you are having a bad day, I can guarantee that having the sun shining down and the breeze hitting you can really improve how you feel, if only for a short while. Instead of going to a bar or a movie on a warm, spring day, encourage your friends to go hiking or to go hang out at the park instead. You can also make use in some places of an outdoor gym where you can lift weights, do calisthenics, or even practice Yoga with the wind at your back.

When you’re at work, see if you can’t encourage your colleagues to do a working lunch outdoors one day a week when the weather’s nice or to do an event outdoors if possible. A team building event, as cliché as it sounds, can be a good idea to spend more time outdoors if you can ask your boss to do a retreat somewhere where you can be outdoors part of the time or to maybe go hiking, try out kayaking, or walk around the city together to boost your comradery or teamwork.

Society may be pulling you to go from your car to your office to your home and to do it all over again each day but that is no way to live. Try to find the time to get out of unnatural environments and be in nature again, whatever kind of nature that is. You are not meant to be indoors for 90% of your life. Instead of being in your car, walk or bike to work if you can or try to have a work meeting outdoors if you’re remote or can ask your colleagues to do it there.

Taking a trip or vacation where you’re mostly outdoors, exploring new environments, and trying different activities like snorkeling, scuba diving, bungee jumping, skydiving, etc. are ways that you can broaden your horizons and enjoy what the wide world has to offer. Life will get very boring and repetitive if you are constantly going from one indoor environment to another indoor environment without mixing it up. You should remember that it is no way to live and especially no way to live healthily.

Remember to get yourself outside at least 30 minutes to an hour each day. You owe it to your mind and body to put yourself in a natural environment, whichever one is most comfortable to you. A change of scenery can do a world of good. If you’re feeling like you have no energy, are going through the motions, and are just plain bored, getting outdoors and into nature may be the closest thing to a cure. Try to encourage others to do the same as it is healthier, and you’ll feel better from having involved others to be in nature with you. Man or woman was not meant to be indoors for most of our lives and I hope that you all will spend more of your lives outdoors in natural environments and less time indoors under fluorescent lighting.

‘Everything In Moderation’

“My philosophy on enjoying what life has to offer and its libations such as food, drink, or gambling is ‘Everything in Moderation.’”

I find that it is very important to find balance in life whenever possible whether that’s between work and play, relaxation, and exertion, and even abstaining and indulging. My philosophy on enjoying what life has to offer and its libations such as food, drink, or gambling is ‘Everything in Moderation.’ I mean that kind of balance for adults who I usually write for when it comes to being of the legal age for these types of indulgence and regarding what is legally allowed to put as a disclaimer up front. Life should be enjoyed responsibly especially if you’re hoping to find pleasure out of it.

Still though, it can be hard to find a balance of enjoying something too much or not at all. I have nothing against people who abstain entirely from food, drink, gambling, or other risky yet fun activities nor do I think it’s harmful to indulge a bit too much on the rare occasion where someone can go a bit overboard as long as they’re not hurting themselves or others from that kind of overindulgence. However, I don’t think it’s right to deny someone entirely when they would like to enjoy something in moderation nor is it right to indulge their vices so much that they end up either getting addicted to the vice or abusing it when those around them know that it’s become a problem.

You have to be looking out for your own health and well-being especially as you get older and age out of certain pleasures. However, if you have the self-awareness to realize which vice(s) you should stay away from or be extra cautious about, you should work to make sure you don’t indulge as much as you want to. Self-control around different pleasures can be difficult so if you need help from people around you to temper your indulgences or need to stay away from it entirely, there is no shame in doing so. Certain people can enjoy something moderately like a glass of wine or a cigar every now and then without becoming dependent on it. There are those people who are unable to do so at the same time when they play poker, go to the dinner buffet, or bet on a sporting event though.

Certain indulgences hold sway over the individual person more than others, so you must be aware of which vices or pleasures you really enjoy and learn to temper your use or consumption of them. It’s good to be self-aware and exercise self-control so that one glass of wine each night doesn’t become three or four glasses each night or that when you bet money on Fantasy Football once a year with friends, you don’t end up betting multiple times on different Fantasy Sports leagues where you’re losing a lot more money without controlling how much you’re betting.

If an obsession becomes an unhealthy addiction, I think that is cause enough to abstain entirely from that vice or indulgence. If you are being harmed by it or others around you are hurting cause of the addiction, you need to abstain entirely because moderation won’t be able to cut it then. Now, that doesn’t mean you need to give up a cigar or some wine because of you have a gambling or betting addiction, but you just need to recognize what pleasurable activities you can take too far and which moderation does not work. If you like to gamble too much, it doesn’t mean you need to give up alcohol or fast food entirely too as a result.

Part of being a healthy, mature, and responsible adult is recognizing that life is to be enjoyed but to do so responsibly by knowing your own limits both mentally and physically. If your health, money, or relationships are being affected by the fact that you’re indulging too much or abstaining entirely, you may need to rethink your relationship to that pleasurable activity that you enjoy. I do believe that ‘everything in moderation’ can be done for most people who know their limits, who understand what they are doing is legal yet must be consumed or done responsibly and legally and are able to recognize when others are going too far or may need to tone it back a lot.

It’s good to learn about moderation when you’re first in college or in your 20s so as you get older, you form those healthy habits around vices, indulgences, or fun activities that you know require you to be responsible and mature about them but for which you know what is moderate and what is excessive.

Regarding prohibition or having people forced to be abstinent, banning alcohol and making it illegal to obtain, buy, or sell liquor in the United States during that 1920s era failed miserably. Partly as a result, bootlegging and organized crime came about to help fill the supply for alcohol because demand did not go away even when alcohol was illegal. Responsible adults of legal drinking age had to go to ‘speakeasies’ and ‘backroom bars’ to drink, dance, and enjoy their free time after work.

I would argue that during prohibition, the average adult American wasn’t looking to abuse alcohol even when it was illegal, but that they enjoyed having a drink or two with work colleagues, friends, or family after a hard day’s work and were denied that pleasure. It didn’t work for long as that amendment was repealed, and people were trusted by the larger society and government again to drink alcohol moderately and responsibly without issue.

 When it comes to alcohol, gambling, and even smoking, adults should be allowed to make their own decisions about their consumption or taking part in those activities. Of course, it is vital to be aware of the negative health consequences or issues that come as a result, but to forcibly make abstaining the only way forward would not make it go away. Rather, it’s important to educate about how to enjoy these ‘vices or pleasures’ moderately and responsibly, while helping those people who overindulge or get addicted to these pleasures, and may need help, support, rehabilitation, instead of judgment, neglect, and punishment.

At the end of the day, adulthood comes with responsibilities in our society including gaining wisdom, judgment, and acting responsibly. Acting responsibly includes enjoying life’s pleasures but to do so in moderation because abstaining or overindulging should be avoided as much as possible, and we should do well to know our own limits and know what a vice is, how to manage it, and what to do when we need to rethink our relationship around one. ‘Everything In Moderation’ is a good start in terms of that relationship but if you want to abstain entirely, you should also be free to do so but be careful as well to avoid overindulgence but if it is to happen once or twice, it is not the end of the world as they say. Be careful, be safe, be responsible, and remember to enjoy life, because we only get one life to live.

They Know, They Just Don’t Care

“A lot of personal and professional issues that are unaddressed or dealt with will not go away and will need to be handled. In most cases, the problem or issue will metastasize and becomes even more difficult to resolve.”

The popular adage that goes “the first step to solving a problem is to realize that there is one” is key to recognize in life even if it involves admitting an inconvenient truth. A lot of personal and professional issues that are unaddressed or dealt with will not go away and will need to be handled. In most cases, the problem or issue will metastasize and becomes even more difficult to resolve. On top of that, you’ll often need more manpower, resources, or funds to solve the growing problem when it could have been tackled days, weeks, months, or years ago.

I truly believe that knowing a problem exists and refusing to solve it or letting it fester is worse than when a person is unaware that there is a problem to deal with in the first place. Pleading ignorance when you know the truth but lie to yourself and to other affected problem will lead to a lot of stress and turmoil in the long run. There are numerous ways to describe this kind of mentality but to me, it’s about someone or a group of people knowing that a situation is unsustainable or untenable and refusing to fix it even when it would be the right thing to do.

Acting or admitting fault or an error is never easy but doing so is the first step in actively solving the problem instead of letting it continue. Standing by and not admitting what’s going on is not right or not sustainable will put you on a collision course with a rough ending in most cases. This kind of mentality of “knowing but not caring” can erode trust, relationships, and even ruin people’s lives if it is allowed to go on. In this case, knowledge of a problem and not acting to resolve it can cause a lot of damage in various areas of life. To make this ‘knowing and not caring’ examples of hypothetical professional or personal situations where this kind of attitude would lead to negative consequences, let me discuss two instances where ‘knowing and not acting’ can lead to regrettable events:

Let’s say that someone worked hard to be trained as a lifeguard and was paid to do so by the local city by the beach for the summer season. Many people were trained, funds were spent, and chairs / stations were built. The foundation is strong so that people’s lives can be saved if something bad were to happen and each of the lifeguards were trained in CPR and other first aid tactics in case it is necessary.

Not only are the lifeguards trained in first aid, but they also need to pass swimming tests to qualify for the city’s public beaches as employees. However, since the city’s budget is running a deficit because of improper management and cost overruns, the city council must decide where to cut funding to balance the budget. The folks in charge of the budget knew that the deficit would cause problems when they projected in in the previous years, but nothing was done about it.                                                                                                      

As a result, costs need to be cut by the city so difficult decisions will need to be met. The city needs to keep schools open for some students to receive summer school and must pay the public-school teachers to do so. They also can’t reduce the police or firefighter budget given that the summer season tends to be the busiest for them and they also are guaranteed pensions that are negotiated by the unions.

Sadly, the only way to start to balance the budget is to cut recreational programs including the lifeguards at the beach even after they did the training, and the city spent the money to train them for these jobs. Other recreational programs will need to be cut along with reducing hours for access to public parks and sports courts. Most regrettably, the city council will have to cut access to the public beaches there because they don’t want to take the risk of having liabilities involved of having its citizens swim without lifeguards present. It causes a lot of anger, disappointment with the city’s residents as well as students who were looking forward to swimming, playing on the beach, and seeing friends but since the city can’t afford lifeguards, the public beaches will have to be closed the whole summer season.

While many individuals or one individual in city government would be responsible for seeing where the budget deficit would start to harm the city’s services, but because no one looked hard at how to prevent the deficit from affecting the public recreational programs or saw that cuts would need to be made in a year or two years’ time in other less important areas, the problem was unaddressed. It’s about knowing the problem exists in this case, but doing little or nothing, or ‘passing the buck’ onto someone else in the city’s government rather than working in advance to fixing this issue before people’s lives were affected.

Another potential issue is that it is difficult to keep watch over public beaches 24 hours, 7 days a week. Chances are increasingly high then for an accident to happen where college or high school kids come to the beach even when it’s closed or limited to swim or have a bonfire. Because of their anger, they may end up swimming in defiance or doing something that could put themselves in harm’s way. Not only will the city not have lifeguards there to prevent that from happening, but it’s possible that the city will be blamed or liable for any possible accident or issue with people using the beach illegally because they did not balance the budget in advance.

A potential tragic loss of a life, an accident, or the loss of trust in the city’s government are all regrettable consequences that could be avoided if a group of people or person(s) would do something about the problem when they knew of it rather than letting it grow out of control later. While this is a fictional instance, this kind of regrettable story or event happens a lot in our world and the issue at hand could often be avoided with due diligence, foresight, and good work.

More generally, regarding possible examples of this kind of ‘knowing and not caring’ regarding someone’s personal relations, I believe this could apply to situations when it comes to family members or close friends not helping someone out when they know their beloved family member or friend is going through a tough time. They may know of a problem that person has like an addiction to gambling, drugs, alcohol, or other substances, and believe that only they can help them rather than taking them to a licensed professional or a doctor.

This can also be applied when that person’s addiction is harming their relationships, is getting worse, and tends to cost that personal financially, morally, and in other ways. If the family member(s) or friend(s) don’t address their beloved one’s problems head on and let them continue, that affected person in a personal situation will be more likely to hit ‘rock bottom’ and may not be able to be saved from themselves. When that person is not reigned in and told that they have that problem the family member or friend knows about, then they are doing a real disservice by not helping them get better actively. Letting the addiction or mental health problem continue even when that other person in the relationship or friendship knows it must not go on but won’t take action to resolve it, then that’s a prime example of where ‘knowing and not caring’ enough to solve the problem can really backfire.

Sadly, in most cases, the friend or family member affected may suffer even more from the problem not being fixed or aided by the significant other. They can lose themselves fully to the addiction, end up losing their job, their home, or even their life as a result. Part of being a friend or a family member is to be there when that person needs you the most. They don’t want you to sugar coat things and sometimes, you must give them the ‘tough love’ by telling them the absolute truth and letting them know that they have a problem, but that they are not beyond saving, and that you can go ahead and help them get better. That is the mark of a true friendship and relationship when you know about the other person but also care enough to help them be and get better if necessary.

The world can be a messy and complicated place but the concept of knowing when a problem exists in your personal or professional life and not doing anything about it and trying to find a solution to it is disheartening to me when it does happen. It does happen a lot in life, and I hope that you will be different to act on the problem rather than letting it fester. You may change someone’s life or people’s lives for the better when you know about the problem and address it so the solution can improve lives and make the world a better place through your actions to find solutions rather than let the problems you know about to multiply and grow.

Why You Should Maintain A Solid Frame

“Life will throw an innumerable number of challenges at you. It will test you day in and day out and create obstacles and problems that you will have to solve. You will be challenged both mentally and physically to make it through while preserving your calm and your resiliency.”

Life will throw an innumerable number of challenges at you. It will test you day in and day out and create obstacles and problems that you will have to solve. You will be challenged both mentally and physically to make it through while preserving your calm and your resiliency. When you think of what ‘frame’ is in the psychological sense, think about what makes up your personality. Are you cool under pressure? Are you able to maintain your calm when things are unraveling or getting out of hand? Can you persevere when faced with both known and unknown problems?

If you answered ‘yes’ to those rhetorical questions, then your frame is solid and on a good foundation. Having a solid frame is not just about housing or for a building’s physical structure, but it can be extended to people and our emotional makeup. When your frame is solid, you will be able to meet challenges head on and even if you fail or fall short, you will have met the challenge with resiliency and perseverance. Having solid frame is primarily not what happens to you but how do you deal with what happens to you, especially when things are not going your way.

An example of a person with a solid frame does not get discouraged easily, does not overreact, and keeps their emotions under control even when internally, they may be struggling or dealing with the multiple emotions bubbling under the surface. That does not mean to not show emotion at all but to hold it in control and be able to hold them in check to not let your emotions get to you and cause you to crumble under pressure. In an emergency or a life-threatening situation, that is where having a solid frame will come most in handy and could mean the difference between life or death.

For example, when you are on a flooded road in pitch black darkness and there’s no one around and your car isn’t starting, what do you do? Do you shake the wheel in anger, punch it in frustration because the car won’t start, and let the waters consume you while you lash out? Or do you take advantage of the minute or less available to unhook your seatbelt, crack the window wide open, and create enough physical space so you can get your body out fast before you are unable to get out with the water filling up to your head leaving you vulnerable to drowning?

Being able to maintain your emotional state even under intense pressure will set you apart from others and help solidify that frame so that when the time comes and something terrible happens, you will be able to handle it without losing emotional control when you need it the most. You never think about your emotional state until it is being engaged by outside pressures and when it’s being challenged by internal or external factors, sometimes both at once. Think about those jobs where your frame needs to be solid almost 100% of the time whether you are a firefighter, police officer, soldier, paramedic, etc. Having a solid frame is key to making it through the day without an error or issue that could be fatal if serious enough.

Now, even if your day job or school life is not as engaging to your emotional state, you still need to be able to handle tasks under pressure or stress whether you are driving in ‘rush hour’ traffic or attempting to make your way out of a rambunctious crowd at the end of a rowdy concert with thousands of people fumbling to the exit together. Your solid frame needs to be engaged as much as possible even when you don’t think you’ll need to use it. A disaster or an emergency or a problem can sprout up when you least expect it so it is important to be consistently practicing how to strengthen your frame of mind when it will be tested.

Having a solid frame also extends to your friendships and relationships so that you will be able to handle any potential issues or conflicts that will need to be worked out. This is especially the case when there’s years of past relations or friendship at stake. You must be able to not let your emotions get the best of you when it comes to how you feel about the person(s) but rather to handle the issue rationally as much as possible with your best interest in mind. It is important to not lose your temper or get distraught because of the issue when you’ve been through a lot together with that person over the years, but you should treat the problem you’re having with them as separate from how you feel about them to deal with it logically.

Being able to process and control your emotions in a healthy manner is the main part of having a solid frame. Being primarily concerned with the problem or issue rationally and how to figure it out logically without the issue becoming too emotional will save you a lot of grief, heartache, and even your life. I do recommend trying to plot out how you feel about stressful situations in retrospect and if you were able to maintain a solid frame or not. Think about if you were able to keep your emotions in check or did you lash out which caused the situation to spiral negatively?

If you are in a pattern of personal behavior when your consistent responses to stressful or anxious or tense situations leave you emotionally drained, and you were not able to solve the problem(s) effectively as a result, you will need to work on solidifying your frame and working on your overall emotional state. Sometimes, changing your emotional state involves writing out how you would react to hypothetical situations. You may also need to act out such situations with a trusted friend or family member or even a psychologist.

Any of these examples would be able to see where you went wrong or how the stressful situation could have been handled better. Above all else, a solid frame involves thinking before you act, deep breathing, and evaluating as quickly as possible a course of action rather than lamenting or despairing on why you are in the situation to begin with. Without establishing a solid frame, you may not be able to handle what is thrown at you in life. Your emotions may continue to get the better of you when you do not have them under control to begin with leaving you vulnerable to a more stressful and chaotic life.

Why You Should Take The Initiative

“A lot of times in life, things won’t be handed to you, opportunities won’t just present themselves to you, and relationships or friendships don’t just form out of thin air.”

A lot of times in life, things won’t be handed to you, opportunities won’t just present themselves to you, and relationships or friendships don’t just form out of thin air. You must be making the effort more often than not to take the initiative to do all those things I just mentioned. It is not easy and can cause you rejection, stress, and even heartache, but if you just expect your life to just progress on its own without putting in the work, you will be sorely mistaken.

Making that initial effort will make the difference as you devote 80-90 or even 100% to get the return you were looking for. You may expect others at work, at school, or in your personal life to meet your half-way or 50/50 after a while but you may find that it’s a running theme in that instead of finding it as being equal or meeting them halfway, it’s likely to be more 60-40 or 70-30 in terms of your effort versus theirs. Now, that does not mean you should be taking the initiative all the time to ask for that promotion, or be open to developing a friendship, or seeking a new relationship but you’ll be better off from driving the effort rather than by taking a backseat.

Having more of the effort initially won’t just make an impression on the person but it will also develop your abilities, your relationships, and your professional / educational future more so than if you had made less of the effort. You should be conscious that the initiative you are taking is worth it and that the time you are putting in gets the result(s) that you are looking for. Your hard work, effort, and perseverance should lead to the other party putting in some conscious effort after a while. If it is just a one-way street in terms of that effort months or years later, I think that relationship, job, or friendship is likely to be doomed to fail.

It would not be fair or just for you to be constantly taking the initiative especially when that person isn’t reciprocal at all or even 30-40% of the way in a friendship or relationship. If you are giving all of the effort and feel like you’re not getting anything back from it, you may be dealing with an ‘emotional vampire’, who you may enjoy their company and like them but the fact that you are putting in all the work to keep things going and them not doing anything to reciprocate is not only a form of manipulation but it is also a sign of someone who only wants to take advantage of you.

They may lack certain qualities including introspection or self-awareness so they may not think they are at fault but if you believe that nothing is going to change, your time and efforts aren’t being valued adequately, and you are not getting as much in return from them, you may need to cut them off or just take a break from being with them or working for them. I encourage proactivity, being extroverted, sociable, and wanting to take on new goals, but if it is draining you and the results professionally or the relations personally you get as a result are not satisfying from that 60-40 or 70-30 set up, it may be best to move on to another person or opportunity.

To cite some examples, if you are good at reaching out to friends or acquaintances and just checking in to see how they are doing or even making the effort to see them and spend time together, that’s a positive initiative to take and shows you care about keeping that relationship going even if it had fizzled out a bit. However, if you feel like you are constantly the one making the calls, setting up the plans, or checking in on them, and they are not doing the same to you on that 30-70 or 40-60 balance that I mentioned, then it may be best to cut back on making the initiative there. If they truly cared about you, they would seek to make plans to see you by their own initiative or they would call to check in every now and then to see how you have been doing. Again, you should not be doing that all the time and if you find that it is becoming a pattern with that person, it may be best to stop seeing them so much since it looks like more of a one-sided friendship or relationship rather than a balanced one.

Another example professionally would be if you’re looking to boost your career and would like to learn new skills, then you should take that initiative with a training or a workshop or a conference that can make you more valuable to your employer. Similarly, if you take it upon yourself at work to learn a new skill by taking courses or attending seminars or providing trainings to others, it should be recognized not only to develop your career but to also further yourself in your role with better compensation or to be promoted to a new role because of the skills / abilities you acquired. If you take the time to volunteer, to be trained, to train, and to become a better worker, your employer or company should realize that it is also not a one-way street so there should be a proper recognition of your having taken the initiative to be more valuable to the firm in question.

However, if you find that after multiple trainings, skills developed, or competencies improved upon, that you are not getting the desired career promotion or compensatory boost, it may be that your initiative, while recognized, is not being formally appreciated. You made the most of the opportunities given but the other party involved doesn’t seem to recognize the new value or abilities you can provide. In this kind of situation, it may be best to start looking elsewhere professionally with those new proficiencies in your work to find a firm, company, or organization who will do their best to meet you halfway or maybe 40-60 so that you know that they care about you staying with them into the future and that your presence is both valued and appreciated, which is actually shown in different ways, a promotion, a raise, or otherwise.

Personally or professionally, you should consistently be looking to take action or initiative to improve your life in either way. However, it should not give the other party free reign to not give anything back in return or to provide their own initiatives or actions for you to take part in after they start it up. If you invite your friend to a barbecue, hopefully they’ll reciprocate in the future by having you over for a birthday party. If you do a skills workshop for a week to improve your competency at work, maybe your company or firm can reward you with a promotion to apply those new skills you picked up. It’s not always 50-50 in life and you may have to do most of the work, especially at the beginning of a new job or friendship. However, if it is you who is giving 100% and them putting in 0% in return on a consistent basis without the other party realizing it, it’s a toxic kind of relationship and you should be cutting ties with that person or entity as soon as possible.

Don’t Rely on Others for Your Happiness

“Happiness is fleeting, comes and goes, and can come from a variety of sources, sometimes unexpectedly. I want you to be sure, dear reader, that you can diversify your happiness as much as possible.”

It’s important that I give my readers a little bit of tough love every now and then. I don’t do it to be negative but to give some advice that may help you out in the future. You can think I am wrong on this one, but I’ll be sure to defend where I’m coming from here. ‘Don’t Rely on Others for Your Happiness’ is what I am wanting to get across to you if nothing else. Happiness is fleeting, comes and goes, and can come from a variety of sources, sometimes unexpectedly. I want you to be sure, dear reader, that you can diversify your happiness as much as possible.

To put it simply, you need to be always cultivating both your internal happiness as well as your external happiness. You cannot have one form of happiness without the other and you should be continually trying to exercise both forms of happiness when you can. Happiness must be experienced, and it can be a futile emotion to pursue. It comes naturally to us, often when we least expect it, and can come from both within us and from those around us. Being happy because someone made you smile, someone made you loved, or even someone made you laugh is just as important as being happy from your own accomplishment(s), your own spirituality, and by being around the right environment.

In my view, happiness should be experienced both internally and externally. It can also be a bit of a balancing act but to neglect your own internal happiness especially or the ability to create your own happiness without others’ input is a key trait that you should always have available to you. If other people can give you happiness and then take it away just as easily without you being able to create that happiness that they took away, then you’re going to be in trouble in terms of your emotional state. Depending on another person or even another thing for all your happiness is a recipe for disaster.

It can be invigorating at first for someone to add on to your happiness by leaps and bounds. You never knew perhaps that you could be that happy or feel as happy as often. You’re basically on ‘cloud nine’ and you owe it to someone else. This can be an emotional kind of apex that gives your life that much more enjoyment and contentedness. While this kind of life event whether it’s a new relationship, a new friendship, or even a new role in society that others rely on you before, it should not take away from your own way to generate happiness internally.

I don’t discourage you from maximizing your happiness but if you rely on someone else such as a lover, a friend, a family member, etc. for all your happiness to be generated then that can lead to a very negative place. You should remember that if someone can give you all your happiness and heighten it to a new level; they can easily take it away just as fast and leave you without any of that emotion left if you let yourself be wrapped up in their adoration, love, or friendship. What I encourage you to remember is that it is good to be happy from what others share with you and what they help you enjoy about life, but don’t let yourself be at the whim of their ability to give you happiness…or not at all.

Always keep some of your own happiness in a personal reserve that cannot be taken away from anyone else regardless of what they mean to you personally. While external validation, love, and warmth is beautiful to enjoy, you should let it be the end all be all your emotional state. It is vital to look within yourself to generate your own happiness even if it comes less often to you or is as not as intense or long-lasting as that external kind of happiness. Internal happiness tends to take discipline, patience, and even action on your own part. It is often not given to you like external happiness but must be done by your own self without any support or encouragement.

When it comes to creating your own happiness, look to yourself to find joy and pleasure in other ways whether it’s a stroll in nature, a goal you’re seeking to accomplish, a new place to travel to and enjoy, or even being able to manage your life well by cleaning your place or by eating healthy. The better you take care of yourself, the happier you’ll be as a result. It’s important to not neglect yourself in your pursuit of happiness externally. Some of the best gratification and contentedness can come from reaching your own goals, having your own unique experiences, or having your own accomplishments that you achieved through hard work and effort.

If you are not able to generate your own feelings of happiness, it is going to be much harder to have external happiness from others as well. If you are not able to laugh, to dance, to celebrate, to enjoy, etc. without it being done with another person by your side, then that is a slippery slope towards not having any happiness at all. While it is great to having both internal and external happiness come together, if you cannot have your own internal happiness first, there is no way in my view for you to have the external happiness to come next. Forming some internal happiness first is the key step to being able to share in being happy with others.

You also should not look to become a total hermit and only take in happiness internally. It is good to share moments of happiness with other people so make sure to get out there once you have that sense of your own happiness that can be generated on your own to seek that external validation within reason to make your life even more content and joyful. To conclude, it does no good for you to have one without the other when it comes to happiness so make sure you work on cultivating both internal and external happiness but if you can only choose one that comes first, make sure you don’t rely on others for your happiness alone and to start with your internal sense of what it means to be happy first.