Learn to Howl (2)

On the flip side of the last post, if you surround yourself with people whose attributes you like, they will rub off on you, too. Birds of a feather and all that. Negativity can rub off on you, and so can positivity, though a lot fewer people have heard about that.

Your friends and co-workers can be a positive influence on you, and you can choose to do this. You can choose your friends and co-workers in such a way that you become a better person by having them in your life. There are a lot of people out there who have good attitudes, great work ethics, and who enjoy living.

Negativity isn’t easier than positivity. It’s just more wide spread in our culture, easier to learn at birth since you see so much of it. But once you get the hang of positive thinking and attitudes, they become just as easy as all those negative ones you used to have.

Learn to Howl

He who goes with the wolf will learn to howl. - Anonymous

Have you ever heard the old adage ‘birds of a feather flock together’? That’s basically what this quote means. Who you spend time with influences you, whether you like it or not. To what degree they influence you is up to you, but it’s a question of what you want to do.

Do you want to spend your time fighting off the negative influences of the people around you? Their negativity, their greed, their prejudices, their violence, their whatever it is that they have that you don’t want? You have better uses for your energy – if you aren’t around them, that is.

If you remove yourself from these people, or if you remove these people from your life, then you don’t have to spend so much time and energy making sure you stay being yourself. You can spend it on other things, like becoming the best self you can be, or anything else you want to do.

Your life is too precious to bother with negative people. Unless you have perfected your “anti-negativity shield” or unless your purpose in life is to help these people or they have skills that you absolutely cannot get elsewhere, leave them be. Find someone else to share your life with. You deserve fantastic friends.

Thoughts

Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right. - Henry Ford

It’s amazing how much your attitude can affect the outcome of something. You’ve seen those people with tons of confidence and a history of winning. Do you think that they got the confidence first or the winning? For a rare few, they won, were right, got ahead, or whatever first, and then gained the confidence afterwards. Most of the “winners”, though, were confident that they would be right, would win, would get ahead, and then went out and did it.

Your attitude is driven by your thoughts, and you can control them. Just as you can psych yourself out of something, you can psych yourself into something. You can be a winner, an achiever, a doer, someone others look at and say “Wow, how did that happen? How did you do that?” And when they do, just smile and say, “Attitude and confidence,” and go on to create and inspire some more.

Intelligence and Ability

Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended. - Dialogues by Alfred North Whitehead

To act without knowing what’s going on doesn’t always help. To know what’s going on without acting usually doesn’t help. It’s best when the two go together. Intelligence can give you plenty of information. Ability can give you plenty of suggestions.

We’re all different. Not all of us have both intelligence and ability. Some of us have intelligence in abundance. Some of us have amazing abilities. Some of us have a little of each. Or any mix and match of amounts you can think of. That’s okay. We don’t all have to have plenty of both.

What’s great about the world is that you don’t have to be all things at all times. That’s what friends, colleagues, and co-workers are for. You share your intelligence and abilities with them, and they share theirs with you, and together you make wonderful and amazing things happen, things that none of you could have done on your own.

When you’re making your Future, you don’t have to do it on your own. You can get help from others, and in turn give help to others, and this way the Future will be brighter for everyone.

What You Can

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. - Theodore Roosevelt

This fluctuates, and that’s okay. Sometimes you can do more. Sometimes you can do less. Sometimes everything’s going your way, you have energy you don’t know what to do with, and very few commitments knocking at your door. Sometimes, everything sucks, you’re sick or you’re depressed or you have a thousand things to do on top of the stuff that gets shoved aside like eating and sitting. That’s okay.

Do what you can, and if that’s less than yesterday or a year ago, that’s okay. If it’s more, that’s okay, too. Don’t beat yourself up over the whims of life, the changes that seem to come out of nowhere about which you can do nothing. Do what you can, and take care of yourself while you’re doing it. And if taking care of yourself is all that you can do with what you have, where you are, then do that, because there are very few things more important than taking care of yourself. If you don’t, there won’t be a you later on to do even more things. Take care of yourself and do what you can.

Bird by Bird

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott. I was a little leery of reading this, despite the recommendation by SARK, due to the title, but it connects to a very telling story and makes complete sense once you read it. I very much enjoyed this book, and I recommend it to any writer and to some non-writers as well. It’s very different from other writing books. It deals much more with being a writer than with writing, and it is honest, brutally so in some places. I’ll probably end up reading it again at some point.

Greater Things

Men are often capable of greater things than they perform. They are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent. - Horace Walpole

This is true, but it is both a great promise and a heavy responsibility. It’s like being given a new lease on life, a time when you can go out and do great things, live the life you’ve always wanted to, etc., etc. For some people, jumping into that greatness is a little difficult. For some it’s incredibly easy, and really all they had been looking for in their life was permission to go and have and be incredible.

For now, for you, just realize that more is possible. You can do more. You can be more. You can have greater influence in the world than you do now. But don’t underestimate who you are, what you do, and what influence you have, but that’s pretty amazing, even if you can’t see it.

You are great and amazing, right now, as is.

The Winds and the Waves

The wind and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. - Edward Gibbon

Do you know some people who are always lucky? They’re always at the right place at the right time. Things just naturally come easy to them. Opportunity is constantly knocking at their door. It isn’t luck.

It’s skill, it’s preparation, it’s keeping your eyes open, and it’s being willing to take a risk. You can improve your skills through practice and training. You can prepare to the best of your ability as it is right now rather than waiting until a “better” time. You can scan your life for opportunities and let others know that you’re looking for opportunities. You can take a less-than-sure thing and make it work, or at least give it a try and get some valuable hands on experience out of it.

You can be the ablest navigator. You can always make opportunities where others see none. Your life and your Future are possible, however you envision them.

Happiness Contribution

Anything you're good at contributes to happiness. - Bertrand Russell

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1864519,00.html?cnn=yes

Researchers have determined that happiness is contagious, to a degree. If you’ve been denying your own happiness because you believe it to be selfish, now you know that you’ve been denying those around you a measure of happiness as well, because their own happiness would increase with your own, like ripples in a pond.

Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness, which means that even if your talent is something you consider frivolous or silly or of no importance to anyone, it could create happiness in the world by making you happy. What if your only talent was whistling (doubtful that you have only one thing you’re good at, but go with me on this). What if you consider whistling to be a waste of time because it doesn’t do anything constructive. You know you’re wrong now. You can make yourself happier by whistling which can increase the happiness of others around you. You can make those you don’t even know happier by seeing you happy as you walk down the street. Perhaps someone will hear your tune, and it will remind them of a happy time. Even something as simple as whistling can contribute to happiness.

Use your talents. You were given them for a reason.

And if you are around people who do not want you to be happy, who are happier themselves when you are miserable, leave them. Get out and find people who aren’t sadists.

Choose your life, your friends, and your happiness.

Career Tests

Here's a quick book review to make up for the lack of post on Monday.

Career Tests: 25 Revealing Self-Tests to Help You Find and Succeed at the Perfect Career by Louis Janda. Skip everything and read the epilogue, and only the first page of that.

Common Sense Economics

Here's a quick book review to make up for the lack of one on Saturday.

Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity by James Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, and Dwight R. Lee. If you’re a student of economics, read the book. If you think that personal finance self-help books are beneath you, read section 4 of this book. Everyone else can skip it.

Writing Some Blues

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues. - Duke Ellington

It doesn’t take more energy to read as it does to watch TV.
It doesn’t take more energy to inspire as it does to complain.
It doesn’t take more energy to eat an apple as it does to eat a candy bar.
It doesn’t take more energy to say something nice as it does to insult.

How much energy you have may be a product of your environment and your health, but what you do with it is up to you. Create, rather than destroy.

Secrets and Privacy

This is from an e-mail discussion I've had recently. I've edited it so that it makes sense even without the previous e-mails.

Some people are willing to share much more information about their lives than I am with mine, and with a wider variety of people. There are things in my past that I don't care to share. They're over and done with, why bring them up again? Some people will say that if I truly dealt with those issues that bringing them up again wouldn't cause me any discomfort. Those people have led very enlightened or very sheltered lives. It's a tricky discussion to have - what things do you think are secrets and what's general knowledge - because person A will think "well, duh" and not mention it, but person B will believe the opposite.

Then there is the issue of closets, whether they be about religion, sexual orientation, or what have you. While I may be free and open about my spiritual beliefs, I also know that I will get flak about them if I tell the wrong people or in the wrong way. If they ask, I'll tell them, but I'm not going to bring it up.

Which brings me to something said in the post before mine. That person said that if someone asks them something, they'll tell them. Well, I don't agree with that philosophy. I knew a guy who when invited over to your place would go into any room that didn't have a closed door. He figured if you didn't want him in your bedroom, you would have closed the door. Doesn't matter that you're having dinner and the bedroom's in a different part of the house. If it's an open door, he'd go in. Likewise, there are people who will bring up topics of conversations at inappropriate times, like people who will start a discussion about politics in front of a rabid Republican, sometimes just to get a rise out of the person. If I'm having a conversation with A and B, I might be more than happy to talk to A about it, but I don't want B to know because it'd affect our relationship. However, A will bring it up in front of B, and I won't answer at that time, perhaps never if I don't think that A will screw up my relationship with B just because A doesn't think it's a big deal. For those of you who say, "Then don't deal with B", that's kinda hard when B is a coworker or a family member you like except for this one prejudice.

My Life, My Definition

More than having sexual relations with both genders, bisexuality is a mind frame, a reference point from which to view the world. Being bisexual has more to do with potential than actuality. – Amanda Yoshizaki

The other day, someone told me that he believed that bisexuals needed to have relationships with both genders to actually be bisexual. Huh. I asked him if that meant that all virgins were asexual since they weren’t having sexual relationships with anyone, or if someone is between relationships with someone that they were asexual. He didn’t really have an answer for that but just fell back onto his same argument.

After arguing with him for a little bit, I dropped it and shrugged him off. He doesn’t get to define me. He can go ahead with his singular definition of bisexual and insist that I’m not who I say I am, but that’s his problem, his issue. Me, I’m bisexual by my definition, and in my life, that’s the one that counts.

Don’t let anyone discount you or belittle you because you don’t live up or down to their narrow view of the world. If you believe you are something by your definition of it, then you go be it and be the best you can be. And if someone disagrees, shrug them off the best they can. Let them have their narrow world view. You’ll take reality.

How You Play The Game

In the game of life, heredity deals the hand, and society makes the rules; but you can still play your own cards. – Peter’s Almanac

Never forget that. There are too many “victims” in this world, people who insist that the world is out to get them, or that the world is holding them down or back, or that the world owes them something because of all that they’ve had to go through.

The world doesn’t owe you anything. You are alive in this world full of opportunities. That’s all it owes you, and that’s all its going to give you.

The world is not out to get you. You’re just not that important to the entire world. I assure you that there are billions of people on this planet that have no idea who you even are.

The world is not holding you down or back, not nearly as much as your own attitude is.

If you’re not getting what you want, then change the way you play. You can’t change your cards. You might be able to change the rules. But the only way you can do that is to play the game.

Manifest Abilities

A man must not deny his manifest abilities, for that is to evade his obligations. - The Treasure of Franchard by Robert Louis Stevenson

I believe that we were given our gifts and talents for a reason – for them to be used. Whether they are for our own entertainment or the betterment of life, that depends a lot of the talent, the amount of talent, and the opportunities in your life to use that talent. But if you choose to say “screw the God/dess” and refuse to use what you were given, that’s your choice. I personally think your choice is wrong, but it’s your talent and your life, so you get to do with it what you want.

Now, some of you are going to go to extremes. “What if the only thing I’m really good at is killing people?” Or some such thing. Let’s take a look at it. If I can figure out a way to make killing people into a talent that betters humanity, then surely you can figure out something to do with your talent.

First, what part of killing people are you good at? Are you good at stalking them until they’re alone? Are you good at assessing people’s weaknesses? Are you good at breaking into a place so you can attack them in their own homes? Are you good at killing quickly and silently? In what way are you good at killing people? And how can you turn that into something else?

Stalking people is also useful for private detectives, law enforcement, bounty hunters, and news reporters. Assessing people’s weaknesses is also useful for career counseling, professional trainers, body guards, and boot camp. Breaking into places is good for thieves, people who assess burglary systems, tomb robbers, and guards since they’ll know how to prevent others from doing the same. Being quick and silent in your killing can mean you’d make a good surgeon because you know anatomy well, or a good butcher because you slice quickly without waste, or a great soldier either for the nation or as a mercenary.

If you doubt that what you are good at could possibly enrich your own life or someone else’s, add a comment. Tell me what it is, and I’ll see if I can give you some ideas. But, you were given the ability for a reason. You just need to figure out what it is.

One Week

I understand the average American watches four hours of television a day. That’s twenty-eight hours a week. I also understand the average American reads two hundred and fifty words per minute. Therefore, if the average American would turn off the television set and spend those twenty-eight hours a week reading, he could read all the poems of T. S. Eliot, all the poems of Maya Angelou, two plays by Thornton Wilder, including Our Town, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and all one hundred fifty psalms in the Old Testament. That’s all in one week. – David McCullough

This just astonishes me. It also makes me wonder why I don’t get more books read. Then I remember how many computer games I play, how much television I watch, and how much stuff I read that isn’t in books.

You read a lot as well, I’m willing to bet. You’re reading this blog. You may read other blogs. You probably read the newspaper or the news on the web. You read e-mails and memos and instruction manuals at work. There are also comic strips, web strips, magazine articles, recipes, letters, post cards, insurance information, advertisements, ingredients lists, cereal boxes, etc. You do read. You are a reader.

But can you imagine how much more you or I could read if we would watch one fewer show a week? Just one? You know the one I mean. The one that you only watch because there’s nothing better on right now or because that’s what the gossipy woman at the water cooler insists on talking about every Wednesday morning and you want to be able to be in on the conversation or because it’s got that really good looking guy in it and you just want to turn the volume down and watch except he’s also got a really sexy voice so you don’t want to miss any of it. You know, that show, the one that if you had a gun to your head you’d give up first. One hour a week. That’d be an extra 15,000 words every week. Wow. I’ve already trimmed my TV watching, but my computer game playing could use a good pruning. I know where I’m getting my extra 15,000 words. How about you?

Bi Any Other Name

Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out edited by Loraine Hutchins and Lani Kaahumanu is a great book. It was written in 1991, and I would love to see another of its kind written on its 20th anniversary. It’s almost a Chicken Soup for the Bisexual Soul. It’s full of stories by bisexuals about their lives and experiences. Each of them have different views on and different definitions of bisexuality. It’s quite a read. They cover all kinds of topics as well – coming out, politics, biphobia, oppression from monosexuals, celebration, feminism, racism, and much more. Most people will find something in there to relate to. I recommend it to any bisexual and anyone who loves a bisexual. It’s not a “read in one sitting” book, but it’s worth finishing.

A Delicate Balance

To be successful you have to be dumb enough to think you can change the world and smart enough to know how. - Clint Borgen.

“I don’t know. Let’s find out.” These words have begun some great adventures, in travel, in science, in cooking, in many, many areas of life.

“That can’t be done.” These words have aborted a good number of adventures in life, especially when they aren’t true.

“They say it can’t be done, but let’s do it anyway.” These are some of the best words you can have. Think about how many things have been accomplished that were “impossible”. Flight, for example. Heart transplants. Telephones. Too many others to list.

You can change the world in ways that the nay-sayers and the doubters can’t even imagine. You can change the world, your life, yourself, and bring light into some “dark ages” mentalities that insist “don’t confuse me with facts, I know what’s right”. And even if you can’t change the mind of someone who insists that what you’re doing right in front of them is impossible, at least you’re doing the impossible, and you’re making yourself, your life, your world better.

You can do the amazing, the wonderful, the impossible. Don’t let anyone else tell you different.

Fiction and Inspiration

Fiction, because it is not about somebody who actually lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about ourselves. – Orson Scott Card

Some people find inspiration every where. Some people can see a part of themselves or something applicable to their lives in every story. Other people can see a thinly-veiled biography of themselves and just not get it.

Some of the snootier readers will only read non-fiction, and only the “proper” stuff at that. Well, if they’re so limited that they can’t find something enjoyable about a really good fiction story, that’s their problem. For the rest of us, let’s dive in.

I usually have more words to say what I want to say, a way to make it clearer to people who don’t want to believe the direct truth or who need to be persuaded that something has meaning to their own lives, but I don’t got it for this one other than the above, and the above is pretty awful. So, this once, here’s the short and dirty version, and then good night.

You can find inspiration and meaning anywhere you look or read, and that’s just fine.