Seeking Coastal Utopia

Wait, wait. This is all wrong. It is supposed to be ”…all work and no play…” and in the reality of life, I would agree with you. I would much rather spend my day mountain biking, running, swimming, climbing, playing sports, SCUBA diving, you name it — if I could be outside, sweating bullets, that is where I would rather be.  Yet unfortunately, it is a choice. I can choose to do those things I just described without receiving income, or I can choose to work and earn money to afford those things I want to do. The balance struggle begins. But I digress…. “why are you all swimming in circles? get to work!” photo by Pascal van de Vendel on  Unsplash We work because most of us need to. When we work, we are expected to carry out tasks and activities to be remunerated for our efforts through cash, stocks, bonds, or horse trading. So how do we complete those activities? Good old-fashioned labor. Nose to the grindstone . Get. Stuff. Done. Humans are social be...

What happened? You just looked at the clock and it is the end of the day, and you did not do what you intended to do. Although it was on your list of things to do, you talked about it, you made the plans, yet you never got to it. How is that possible? Retrace your steps during a typical working day. “what the hell happened?” by Jonathan Rados on  Unsplash Email. Facebook. Instant messaging Meeting Email Phone call. Meeting Another phone call. More (a metric buttload more) instant messages. Meeting. Email. . . . Huh, look at that at, the end of the day. And you did not do a single thing on your list. “person distracted by their stupid smartphone” by Erik Lucatero on  Unsplash Now let’s look at the weekend. The intent is to work on Halloween costumes or carve pumpkins, or . Coffee Email Web searches News Exercise Xbox Chores Grocery shopping. XBox Cleaning Dinner prep. Dinner Movie or TV Bedtime. Well...

Maybe we should even restate it by saying that simple is always better. “eyeglasses with black frames” by Jess Watters on  Unsplash Simple. The word itself is simple. The opposite of complex, the opposite of making it so confusing that it requires three people to work on it. It is as simple as one element, one piece. Simple is elegant in its scarcity. When you say “ wow, that was simple, ” you say it with a smile. When you say “ wow, that was complex ” it is usually prefaced or closed with expletives. Now, this is not a treatise against technology, even though technology is taking over. It is adding more complexity to our cars (e.g. self-driving vehicles) or that our appliances are now connected to the web and have browsers and screens built into them, enabled to determine where you are short on foodstuffs. There are (lots of) times when you want simple. It is recognized that self-driving vehicles are required to be complex because of the daunting task for eng...

“six person walking on train rail surrounded by tall trees at daytime” by Anthony Intraversato on  Unsplash Relationships matter. They help you can get more things done. Having learned this many years ago while in the military, I was quick to realize that knowing the right people was very beneficial. Using just the chain of command was not always the most effective way of getting things done when needed. These were not nefarious relationships like Hollywood tries to show — the ones where the hero or heroine happens to know somebody who knows somebody that provides the much-needed thing or has the inside scoop that they need to be successful. Yet, it is still relationships that allow them to be successful. These are the relationships that are built on trust, on respect. Even the relationships that are built on blood, sweat, and tears. From those deep experiences that you know that you can trust the other person implicitly. Relationships and politics are aligned. Even w...

Sleep is a good thing. We need more of it. We want more of it. But we ignore it. Why are we fighting it? “person sleeping near window” by Maeghan Smulders on  Unsplash We are damaging our brains and we are destroying our health. Do we do these things in pursuit of fame, fortune, and ego, potentially leading to money? I believe we are driving to an unknown need. Sleep is one of the most important things you can do right next to eating . Sleep is the elixir of life and it allows us to accomplish the things that we need to do every day — physically and mentally. If sleep is so important, why are we choosing to forgo it? In pursuit of — one more web page, one more text, one more post on Facebook, one more video on YouTube, one more something? People, people, please turn off your phone and leave it in the kitchen. Turn off your tablet and leave it in the living room. Turn off your laptop. Turn off the TV. Go. To. Bed. And. Go. To. Sleep. Do not say you have insomnia....

Check your ego at the door!  Or better yet, bring your ego with you, only if you can keep it in check! Why do we think that we have to do everything? Perfectly, every time? Do we honestly believe we have answers for everything that is presented to us? That we have to answer every person that comes to us with a deep, meaningful response, solving their problem for them — because we can (or think we can)? Is it because of ego? Is it because we do not want to be seen in a position of weakness? Or do we want to be seen as superior to others around us? Ego? Check! “woman carrying sack of hay on back while holding stick” by Graham Covington on  Unsplash When you are struggling under a heavy load, what do you do? Do you continue to struggle under the heavy load slogging through it trying to complete it yourself? Killing yourself to get the work finished? Then running out of energy and not getting it complete? Do you think that it would be faster for you to do the w...

We have all heard the adage there is an elephant in the room. Heck, we are probably all sick of hearing about the elephant in the room, even when we try to ignore it. The elephant in the room is the biggest thing in the room that everyone wants to ignore, but someone invariably brings it up. “elephant during daytime” by James Hammond on  Unsplash …ahem, excuse me. I want to bring up the elephant in the room… Dude, shut up! I really do not want to ignore elephants anymore, I think we should eat them! And then the following adage is how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! I think I am going to vomit, not because of too many elephants, but because of too many euphemisms. Stop it already. People freak out when they are presented with a massive undertaking, the large jobs, the elephant size jobs. The ones with a seemingly impossible action (note — there is no such thing as impossible) and the mountain of work looming in front of you is massive. You ca...

O.K., this has to be qualified that this is not an instruction of what note style to use, the way to write notes, or even how you should format them. It is merely going to give you guidance to use ANY method possible to capture notes so you can be more successful in your work or home life. (not the same sort of notes I am talking about) rawpixel on  Unsplash Aging sucks. I remember (or imagine) the days when I did not have to take notes for anything. The mind was a steel trap. Everything that went in was burned in; nothing forgotten — or so I thought. I was able to stumble through the early days of my career by not taking prodigious notes, but I do not suggest it becoming a habit for those coming into their working lives. Let me make it easy for you: Get a pen or a pencil and a notebook — any. Steno pad . Legal pad . Engineering graph paper . Composition book (they are $0.50US). Mini Memo Pad . Black n’ Red . Rocketbook . Post-it Notes . Napkins. The palm of your ha...

“Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”―  Mark Twain Photo by  David Clode  on  Unsplash Meaning — you really need to do the hardest thing first. Period. End of story. Stop arguing. Just shut up and get to work. It’s hard. It’s difficult to  get motivated  to do something that is challenging. You are afraid of trying to do something hard.  You are afraid that you will fail .  There are different schools of thought about what should be done first, on what sequence you should do certain tasks, but realistically you need to do the hardest things first. Why? Because I said so. Now with that, I don’t mean just jumping right in, tearing it open, trying to get it completed haphazardly. Sound and fury mean nothing. You still need to plan and understand the steps that are necessary to do those hard things. You would not just walk into the gym and deadlift 500 pounds, you would hurt...