If we can move the world along, we'll follow closely behind

"An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind".
-Mohandas Gandhi

Okay, so I feel inspired today.  My fight is coming up soon in the Golden Gloves and I’ve been doing a lot of training so I haven’t had much time to write.  Today however, I feel like I need to rest a bit after digging out my car from the snow storm last night.  So let’s talk about some inspiring things! 

Today we’ll talk a little about adaptability.  Many mammals, human especially are extremely good at adapting.  We are constantly influenced by our surroundings and the way society moves, we tag along.  We cling to the values that are around us and make judgments based on our experiences in that society.  For example, people who grow up in a starving nation in Africa may feel the world is a terrible place, but a child who grows up in Middle America might see the world as a wonderful place full of exciting experiences.  The Poor African child may be concerned with getting the necessities of life like food, water, shelter, etc while the child growing up in Middle America has other concerns like entertainment and identity issues. 

Neither is right or wrong, both children have adapted to their environment and the society that are being bought up in.  There is no problem with different views of the world. After all, they come from different backgrounds.  Now when values get deeper and more ingrained, that’s when problems begin to happen.  Take religion for example.  So many wars and so many countless deaths have come from disagreement over religion.  Religion is like any deeply ingrained value such as politics, patriotism, social structures, culture, and race.  People begin to form an identity based on these valued that they have developed over time, fearing that their belief systems might be wrong, so they fight to protect it without ever trying to understand it or even consider themselves ever being wrong.  We all have certain values that we are ignorant and highly defensive about, even if we don’t know it or would not acknowledge it. 

To be truly open minded will open so many different doors in our lives that we had no idea existed.  We begin to understand each other’s needs and concerns and being to see the world as a whole instead of the separation, labeling,  profiling we see today.  Once we can overcome all the separation and understand that we are one, then we will really start moving the world in a better direction.  It starts from within. 

Love comes with the burden of hate.  Think about it.  If someone you love gets hurt or someone hurts them, how will you feel?  Will you hate that person?  Would you want that person to pay for what he did?  What will this give you?  Being able to control yourself in situations like this is the foundation of being proactive.  Is there justice in vengeance?  If there is, then we will live in this cyclical phenomena of fear, hate, vengeance, and greed.  Think about short term versus long term.  Vengeance is a short term solution for a long term problem.  Maybe a little short term emotional satisfaction, but then what? What did you solve?  Now there are people on the other side of the coin with just as much hate.  To be able to think when the time is right and to act for the better of all with feeling and charisma, then we will begin to move towards the right direction.  We have what it takes. Let’s weed through all the clutter, ignore all the noise and focus on what’s really important.

Leadership means working well with others

“Individual commitment to a group effort -- that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” Vince Lombardi



          Welcome.  Another Monday and another challenge.  Now if you already haven't done so, I suggest you pick up the book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey.  It's an amazing book.  I have both the book and audio file and I recommend both.  This book will go much deeper into habits and the principles that govern them.
Today we're going to talk a little about working with others.  Too many times people neglect using two heads or teaming up with someone to accomplish something much larger.  This happens largely due to, of course, fear.  When we're not confident in ourselves, ego trips tend to happen more often than not.  People begin to think "he's not doing his part" or "he thinks he's slick, I see what's happening" and get side tracked and caught up in all sorts of nonsense.  Of course, sometimes there are legit reasons to break off a partnership.  This can happen effectively by simply agreeing to disagree and move on.  Human are social creatures.  As humans, we tend to create together, for each other. This can be broken down from the UN cooperating to a simple husband and wife or business partners.  Einstein didn't come up with everything himself and neither did Thomas Edison with his "inventions".  Before Einstein there was Issac Newton and others who Einstein took ideas from and expanded them, as did Edison. People don't just "invent" stuff suddenly out of thin air, they get the idea from somewhere, it's just the tread of time.  The reason people work together is because like the saying goes, two heads are really better than one and the more, the better.
        Don't get all excited yet.  While it is great to work together or with a group, you have to know how.  Being social, being able to function within a group and being able to perform and work together with others requires confidence.  This means being able to let small meaningless things go, asking questions instead of judging someone, being open minded, and showing the next person the same respect you have for yourself.  These things sound very easy especially when reading them, but next time you're out with your friends or you're having a conversation about something, stop and think about how you're going about it.  Are you just waiting for your turn to speak or are you genuinely listening to what they have to say?  Do you want them to only listen to you or are you interested in listening to them?  See, already there's a lot to think about.  I won't go into anymore details on that, but I will say one thing......Try to pay attention to your feelings when interacting with others because we all live in subjective worlds and hold that as reality and anytime something goes against that, we quickly dismiss it and get emotional.
          Of course like any habit, it's difficult to form and rid yourself of your own, self absorbed habit that comes from insecurity, which most of us have anyway.  I mean look at the society we live in?  It's easy to become insecure and feel like we're lacking.  When that happens, people become detached from society and think others are out to get them so they fall victim to wasteful habits and end up in a defensive slump.  Of course the best way to get out of this slump is to take initiative and put ourselves in uncomfortable situations to gain experience and confidence from.

This Week's Challenge:  Call an old buddy or meet someone new and hang out with them in an unfamiliar place and try to meet at least two new people. 

Have fun out there and please comment with questions and experiences!

Take risks, or risk your security…….

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
-Helen Keller

First off, let me apologize for writing this a little late and for my lack of blogging lately.  I’ve had a lot on my plate recently, from the Golden Gloves to some personal goals that needed attention.  Now, let me start by saying this is a Monday posting, so I will have a new challenge for this week!

Let’s talk a little about “security” and why people seek it so much.  To start off, we all feel vulnerable out in the world sometimes.  We look for something to hold on to that we think will make that vulnerability go away and keep us safe from what we dread.  The problem with the idea of looking for ways to be “secure” is that it’s a very limiting idea, in a general sense.  Now I’m not saying don’t lock your doors, but even that can be said at an extreme level.

There is emotional security and physical security.  Most of the time, security is built on false fears that are unrealistic.  This is usually because the person hasn’t used much logic behind it; taking the lazy way out, so to speak.  For the sake of this example, I’ll use job security.  People assume that getting a job with benefits, etc is safe.  Now let’s look at this and break it down.  Why is it safe?  If we DON’T get a job, what will happen to us?  Will we die?  Now most people usually spill out worst case scenarios at this point.  But at the end of the day, there’s no real threat to a person’s survival if they lose a job of fail a business, there are always more chances to take up out there.  It usually works like this: More risk = More reward. 

Now let’s use another example, this time dealing more on the emotional side.   Let’s say a guy who ONLY goes after women that he considers are a perfect 10 and another guy sort of settles for a woman he’s sort of attracted to, but won’t kill himself for.  People like guy #2 are usually afraid of rejection and look for the “safer” way out.  Is this fear justified?  Well, let’s look at it in long term versus short term.  Chances are that guy #1 will fail more often than guy #2 (although certainly this isn’t always the case) and he might get disappointed and feel rejected.  Guy #2 will succeed at a higher rate and feels less of that rejection, but will be less happy in the long run because he didn’t get exactly what he wanted.  This goes back to fear, habits, and our rule of “short term comfort – long term discomfort/ short term discomfort – long term success”.  Although there is some discomfort, guy #1 gets what he wants 100% of the time and is rewarded more in the long run for his risks.

Risk is a big part of life.  There’s no such thing as 100% security.  Our minds always blow things out of proportion and make them seem bigger than they are.  Once we get into a habit of ignoring that urge to chase after the wild goose called “security”, we will find ourselves taking more risks out there.  One problem is thinking about something too much.  If we spend too much time thinking about an action or a process we have to go through, often times it breeds negative thoughts like doubt, fear, and different biased, absurd scenarios.  One thing is not to think about it and just go through with it.  More often than not, the result will be less of a problem than imagined, even positive!  One thing to keep in mind is to think logically about what the risks are.  The fear of ending up somewhere uncomfortable is not to be feared at all.  Humans can adapt and they can do it well.  If you can’t find an answer for an assumed failure, you DEFINITELY will if you ever send up there.  We always do what we have to in order to survive and new ideas based on the situations we are in will arise.  True security is solving problems, not anticipating them..

This Weeks Challenge:   Try to go through an entire day with no talking at all.  Go out like a normal day, but do not speak to anyone in person, on the phone, etc.  

Please post your experiences and opinions!

How to be a Super Hero

  A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.
-Joseph Campbell

As children, we’ve all had dreams of one day becoming Batman or joining the X-Men, but as we grow up, we soon learn these are pretty impractical lifestyles and move on.  So life goes on, our experiences begin to shape our reality and self-interest far exceeds the interest of society.  After all, this does make sense. We do need to compete in order to survive, right?  Well, let’s take a look at that again.  If the world is a better place, who does that benefit?  Society as a whole, and guess what, you’re part of society too.  So doing your part to help in ANY little way you can is enough to move society an inch forward. 

The Bystander Effect: (The more people present in a time of crisis, the less likely someone is to intervene.)  Now we’ve all heard of this phenomena and we all have mixed views about it from “It’s not my business” to “I would have helped if I was there!”.   The reality of it is that we’ll never know exactly how we will act until we are actually in a situation like that.  That being said, humans are social, creative creatures who have the power to think critically.  If everyone is out for themselves, society will not be able to function optimally and lots of unnecessary problems are created and a lot of existing problems are left unsolved.  As I mentioned in an earlier blog entry, the fear of standing out is so great that it’s probably the biggest cause of inaction, that’s why we have to put ourselves in those uncomfortable situations and form positive habits like critical thinking and individual problem solving.  If we can pass all of these lazy habits and tendencies and develop habits based on the developing and carrying society forward, it will benefit us in the long run.  Remember, short term discomfort: long term success.  So if you see a bag of trash on the floor, pick it up or if someone looks like they need a hand, offer your service.  Kind gestures are contagious, but it has to start with you!  If more people become encouraged to help, others will join in too from the fear of being the only one who isn’t helping at that point.  We can use that fear of standing out to our advantage. 

This is our world and we’re in it together, we got this far together, not through competition, but through creation.  If we begin to see ourselves as individuals, not as a whole community, a single organism, then we will begin spiraling away from the natural order of things and our society will become more and more chaotic.  In real life, the real super heroes are the ones who contribute to society and move us all forward.   It’s nice that Superman saves the damsel in distress, but an idea, a passion started by ONE person and spread, can save the world.

The Security Box

Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them
-Henry Ford 

Another Monday and another challenge, but before we get to that, let’s talk about the importance of critical thinking.  What is critical thinking?  It’s something that I feel the school system neglects a little too often.  In my opinion our current school system conditions children to think being wrong is a terrible thing and doesn’t encouraging questioning and voicing opinions/concerns.  There is no teacher-student bonding, it’s more like just accepting being told what to do.

                Too often problems are just swept under the rug.  People tend to neglect the most important thing in solving a problem, and never really dig too deep down to the roots of the cause.  For examples, doctors will give a patient with allergies antihistamines for their allergy symptoms and usually neglect the actual cause of the allergies.  The same can be said about crime, war, poverty, etc.  Too many people don’t dig deep enough into a problem and just look at the surface.  Sometimes it’s the way we think that is the problem in solving an outside problem, not the initial problem itself. Critical thinking is hard, but if one trains and develops it well, it can become a habit.  Acquiring habits isn’t that hard, but it takes persistence.  Some habit’s (mainly bad habits) come rather quickly, depending on the nature of our environment. 

                It’s true what they say, sometimes people really are too afraid to learn the truth.  Most people form an identity based what they know and what their current lifestyle is.  Their paradigm is set in stone and takes anything that challenges its integrity as a threat or an attack.  Let’s face it, it’s uncomfortable to realize that all those years we’ve been wrong about something or question a deep value of ours.  Its part of keeping an open mind and using critical thinking skills that keeps us growing and continuing to create for ourselves and others.  Keeping an open mind means being humble to embarrassment.  Embarrassment doesn’t exist; it’s only in the mind.  The more you feel comfortable in your own shoes and the more you can ignore public ostracism, the easier it will be to look for answers and know your true self.   

                Thoughts and perceptions become so ingrained that people begin to form an identity based on them.  Our ideas of how the world is shape our reality.  So let me stress this again, anything that is counter to that identity becomes a threat.  That’s when defense mechanisms come into play and people begin attacking back when questioned.  So how can we fix this?  One way is to be self aware.  We need to know that we are all victims to it in some degree.  The next habit should be to constantly question our thoughts and beliefs.  That might be uncomfortable at first because most of the time, we will find flaws, but over time we will develop more complete ideas and have a better understanding of our lives, society, and the close people around us.

 

This Week’s Comfort Challenge:  This one is simple for some and a nightmare for most.  Try to spend a week without any use of your cell phone or internet!  Comments and experience-sharing are encouraged!!

Fight! Or fool yourself…

     Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth.
Mike Tyson

     Since the golden gloves are coming up this month in New York City (I’m in it!) I figured I’d write a little something about fighting and the intense challenge, physically and mentally.  To start off, fighting has become an art form in many different disciplines.  From karate to boxing to mixed martial arts, fighting has evolved tremendously over the years.  No matter how much we try to separate fighting and the real, practical world, the relevance to each other is present.  Bruce Lee once mentioned that to know one’s self is to observe our actions with other people.  Fighting may seem barbaric and stupid to some who don’t take the time out to understand it, but to us fighters, it’s a wonderful art.  Fighting is a lot more technical than it looks and more of a mental thing than a physical thing.  Of course I’m not talking about street fighting where two drunken guys start whaling at each other; I’m talking about training in certain (or multiple) disciplines of combat and competing.  Bruce Lee describes fighting by saying it’s free-forming, ever changing and adapting, no rules or routines set in stone.  If you are not able to adapt in a fight, you will lose. 

     The philosophies of fighting are much like those in real life, hence the strong link.  Bruce Lee also goes on to say that fighting is when someone expresses themselves honestly.  Now let me explain that.  In fighting, many emotions and quick reactions have to work for you.  There is not thought process.  If you have to stop and think about something, there’s a problem.  Fighters train to get the “feel” of fighting and react according to what’s happening out there.  If you are an asshole in reality, it will show in your fighting.  If you are a coward, it will show in your fighting.  Fighting brings about habitual reflexes that we’ve trained it to use.  For example, if an untrained people were to put on gloves and try to box, their basic instincts are not to get hit, so they will naturally, almost instinctively lean away from a punch throw or try to turn around.  This is a bad move because people can move faster going forward than going backwards, so if an untrained fighter leans back, all the other fighter has to do it step forward and throw another punch to hit them.  Flinching and backing away are really hard to get over because they are natural reactions for us.  Fighters need to stay close and attack to win, so backing away or turning around are completely unhelpful.  No matter how many times you tell yourself you won’t do it, your brain doesn’t listen.  You need to train it until YOU feel comfortable and develop that habit.  This is just like learning how to do a back flip.  The body doesn’t respond well to flipping over its own center of gravity, so if you try to back flip, assuming you’ve never done it before, your will naturally cause you to hold back on the motion.  You will hesitate and botch the motion the first few times until you destroy that old fear and replace it with a new habit, something you developed by “feel”. 

     There’s no way I or anyone else can tell someone how to conquer that fear of flipping or the fear of getting hit by coaching them, encouraging them, etc.  The fighter has to be consciously aware of his problem and try to fight the urges and continuously practice to curb that habit/reflex, which are really hard to do.  That’s why I say fighting is relative to real life situations.  People also should consider ways to recognize bad habits and consciously deal with them, work on them slowly and patiently until they are suppressed and new, positive habits are formed.  This blog is mainly about taking action and fighting is the ultimate form of action over talking, because everything that happens in fighting is honest.  Let me explain, talk is cheap! When someone enters the ring, cage, etc, without experience, even if they BELIEVE they will do well and were confident the whole time entering, all of the little variables will change a lot in what’s going on in the person’s mind.  Not necessarily how he thinks, but the FEELINGS that he or she starts to feel. 

      Feelings are reactive, we can’t really conquer them instantly, they’re subconscious so that takes time to fix, just like any habit.  No matter how simple or how quick something looks, unless we experience it, we can’t truly know how we will react or how we will feel.  In order to truly know ourselves, we need to put ourselves out there though and see what our reactions and feelings are.  This is why according to Bruce Lee, fighting mean to “honestly express one’s self.”


Thanks all and stay tuned for my next comfort challenge on Monday!!

Conformity is Deformity

  "A habit is something you can do without thinking - which is why most of us have so many of them."
Frank Howard Clark

     It’s another Monday; it’s time for this week’s comfort challenge.  But before we get to that, let me talk about a trend that’s been bugging me.  We’ve all been pretty much guilty of it.  “Just agreeing” happens all the time.  Why do we agree with something?  Most of the time we don’t care enough about it to look any further into it, sometimes it’s the most “desirable” answer and we like it, then there’s just agreeing or accepting because we think someone else is more qualified than we are.  Sometimes light conformity is good, like when its opinion based, but like I said light.  That doesn’t mean act like a passive-aggressive loser, just to respect understand (or at least try to…) other people’s difference.  I’m going to share a story with all of you that I received in an email from one of my uncles overseas.

(A little girl was watching her mother prepare a fish for dinner. Her mother cut the head and tail off the fish and then placed it into a baking pan. The little girl asked her mother why she cut the head and tail off the fish. Her mother thought for a while and then said, "I've always done it that way - that's how grandma did it."

The girl was not satisfied with the answer, and went to visit her grandma to find out why she cut the head and tail off the fish before baking it.

Grandma thought for a while and replied, "I don't know. My mother always did it that way."
So the little girl and the grandma went to visit great grandma to find ask if she knew the answer.

Great grandma thought for a while and said, “Because my Grandma told once that the baking pan was too small to fit in the whole fish”.)

     I’m sure this isn’t the first time some of you have heard this story, it’s pretty popular around the net.  But let’s think about it for a second.  We shouldn’t let any belief system or assumption get the best of us.  We must keep search for answers, keep moving forward.  Otherwise, we’ll fall into lazy habits of thinking and neglect some important issues dealing with really important things that will have a dramatic effect on our life.  Even the little things that we neglect will add up over time.  There are times where we must question our parents, spouse, peers, teachers, or government to understand what will be affecting our lives, maybe not right away, but in the future.  Remember my formula in the last posting, “Short term discomfort for long term success/pleasure”.  I like to keep that in mind when I go about anything and get a little too impatient.  I made my own wallpaper in Photoshop and put that formula in the dead-center of it to remind myself whenever I catch the fear from discomfort creeping up on me. 

     No one likes to answer questions because they have to be responsible for their answer and if the question is promotes thought, watch out, up goes their security blanket and out comes their animosity.  The key is to ask with finesse, that’s the light “conformity I was talking about earlier.  Let’s call it adaptability for now.  If you come off as threatening or even attacking them, then you won’t get a desirable answer.  People don’t like to be thought of as “different” so they just go along with the crowd.  That’s the reason so many people fear public speaking.  Because public speaking causes you to stand out and be judged by others.  In order to get over that, we must get use to feeling uncomfortable.  We have to put embarrassment aside and move on.  Consider this for example.  You’re walking down the street and you see a neighbor that you haven’t seen in a while and you both make eye contact.  You both wave and now begin to move towards each other.  When you get close, you say “hi” and stick your hand out for a friendly handshake, but the neighbor keeps walking past you and completely ignores you.  At that point, some funky things might start going on in your head, like anger, confusion, rejection, and embarrassment.  The two things that us as human beings hate the most are confusion and rejection.  It slaps the Hell out of us!  Now you can either be a product of your emotions and end up reacting to the situation or you can give it a little thought and come to your own rational actions.  If you choose to let it affect you that much, then next time you might just ignore your neighbor all together and possible leave him as the victim of confusion and rejection.  Why?  Is it because YOU ARE the one afraid of rejection and embarrassment?  If you can think about it rationally, then you will probably realize that you have lost nothing by what has happened, your mind is playing tricks on you and you’re conforming to some lazy environmental conditioning.

     A good habit to get into is for us to use our heads more.  It may feel annoying to constantly brainstorm, but like any habit, it’s uncomfortable and takes some time getting use to, but once developed, it will help tremendously.  Remember “Short term discomfort for long term success/pleasure” Put forth the effort and you’ll get back desirable results.  Now please note that this doesn’t mean to disagree with everything you hear as well.  Mindlessly disagreeing is just as bad as mindlessly agreeing.  If you don’t know, say “I don’t know”, or ask some questions.

This week’s comfort challenge:  Try to talk to the most attractive person of the opposite sex that you can find everyday of this week, even if it’s small talk.  Try to get at least two phone numbers this week.  It’s fine if you don’t get them, as long as you asked, but DON’T half-ass it just to get it over with, or else it won’t count.  Good luck everyone!

The Fall of the Golden Age

 "As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge."
Henry Van Dyke

     First off let me say happy New Year to everyone.  With confidence, a little faith, and perseverance, we can make this the best year ever.  I have faith in all of you.  What can we say about the years that have passed us?  Where is our society standing in 2011 and where are we heading?  It’s not the first time this has been said, but we are long passed the golden ages, the age of information, the age of knowledge, we are now trapped in the age of entertainment.  Yes, that’s right.  Facebook, reality shows, FPS games (first person shooters), Persistent Online RPG’s (World of Warcraft) and all the new trends lead toward one thing, mind-numbing entertainment, nothing else.  

     Now entertainment isn’t always a bad thing.  I’m in my 20’s and I love all that shi’t as well, but I try to stay conscious about it and not let entertainment consume me.  I try to stay discipline about it and avoid falling victim to the easily consuming habits.  Too often people fall victim to their own chemicals.  When people get that “like” on Facebook, that awesome headshot in Call of Duty, or even when Angelina breaks up with Jordan on Jersey Shore, their body releases endorphins, a chemical in the brain responsible for excitement.  Endorphins are released when a person is in intense pain, after exercise, eats spicy food, gets excited or anything of the sort.  So if we’re getting our daily dose of endorphins from that lucky headshot or a few surprise comments on your facebook status, then there’s something being neglected here.  People tend to only do as much as they have to most of the time.  You see, more often than not people are taking the lazy route and going after the short term, immediate effects, rather than building a foundation and experiencing a long term effect.  It’s simple; the return you get is in exact amount to what you put in.  Let me explain.  Say you build a website, half-ass it and then look for a big return, guess what, your return will be half-assed.  Same goes with weight loss.  Say you want to lose weight, but you want to do it quickly.  You might end up doing some drastic things like starving yourself and steady state cardio.  The outcome is you might lose weight quicker than improving your diet and doing proper resistance training, but you’re building on sand and it won’t last in the long run.  You end up losing weight quickly, but in return sacrificing a lot in health and often times than not, gaining most of that weight back and end up more miserable than before.  Now what’s the formula for this disaster?  Short term pleasure - Long term discomfort.  

     Let’s look at it the other way around.  Say you want to lose weight, you want to lose it quickly, but you’re looking to do it properly, you care about your body and go about it differently.  You change your diet, eat more frequently, add some resistance and keep a determined pace.  Now all that work will be uncomfortable in the beginning and you won’t notice anything immediately, but something great will happen over time.  Instead of being afraid of not having that quick fix and burst of endorphins, you always keep your goal in sight and end up with something greater, something more meaningful at the end.  You have pushed with hard work and discipline and persevered at the end.  Now not only do you have the biggest shot of endorphins ever, but you will continue to have it, you will continue to feel good about yourself.  What’s the formula for this success?  Short-term discomfort – long term pleasure.  You don’t like your job?  You feel miserable?  Don’t play 6 hours of Call of Duty when you get home or stay on Facebook until the early morning for some quick pleasure and then go to sleep depressed to wake up to yet another of the same old disaster the very next day.  Screw the quick fix, put down that Xbox controller or “X” out that Facebook window and open up Google, look for answers, attack your discomfort directly and build from the ground up.  

     Sooner or later, the building will crumble if you have a weak foundation.  You have to start at the bottom, look at the root of your stress, the primary cause of your agony, of all your problems.  Just like when you have a headache.  Do you take Tylenol to relieve it or do you drink some water, get some fresh air and rest to get rid of it?  Masking the pain is only a quick fix, a temporary, short term solution.  Sure it will get rid of the pain and yes if you’re at work or somewhere that requires your attention, you’ll have to mask the pain temporarily to do what you have to do, but as long as you understand that it’s not a fix, it’s just temporary relief.  You have to dig deep down and understand why you have the headache, do things to get rid of it, not hide it.  

     Mindless entertainment gets in the way of everything these days.  It’s so easy to get distracted.  Entertainment is good, but in moderation.  In 2011, we’re living in a world where entertainment is more readily available to us than information and knowledge.  This may seem harmless, but what will the future hold for us if we live in a world where it’s so easy to fall into lazy habits of thinking?  Just like any habit, it becomes an addiction and you’ll need more of it to feel that “buzz” of satisfaction, you’ll need more for your body to fire out the endorphins.  In the end, its short lived and we’re back in the same ongoing cycle, stuck in the box.  I can use examples for days, but the same formula always applies.  Short term pleasure : Long term discomfort or Short-term discomfort : long term pleasure.  In the long run, regret is worst than fear so choose wisely. Stay tuned for Monday’s new challenge.  For a mini challenge, put down your New Year resolutions in the comment section!  Take control people and have a happy new year. 

    

My New Year Resolutions

1. Become pro

2. Become lean 200lbs+ (currently 187lbs)

3. Become Strauss Master (with the ladies!)

4. Learn to Backflip

5. Find a Muse and be rich

6. Get Better, Bigger, Faster, Srtonger

7. Use internet much less

8. Be more productive with my time

9. Finish what I started

10. Become more involved in fixing the world

11. Sleep Early