finding your core.

i have read several business books throughout the years, for college, in college, and beyond. it is so funny how focused we are on obtaining ‘it’ ($) but have you ever stepped back to figure out why we as a people want it.


being ‘rich’ to me is far more than obtaining wealth, for me there are things equivalent or even greater than simply having financial freedom. what about health, happiness, joy, relationships, adventure. etc.


possessions are the great salve. they cover, but they are not responsible for the healing. it seems we have been trained by handsome women and pretty women in the advertising that everyone seems happier when they are holding a bottle of _________. so year after year we begin to accumulate, and after awhile they have bought themselves into poverty with their hurt and pain still following them every turn they make.


i think this is why there are so many men and women who have quarter/mid life crisis, and changing of jobs, and spouses. they are hurting children/teens that never quite healed the hurt through the proper anecdote of communication, counseling, forgiveness etc. and instead turned to the american dream thinking that it was also the american reconciler.


why do we focus on the superfluous (money) when its really the ‘core values’ that we are after. i’m sure with very little hesitancy we could all name ‘things’ we wanted right off the top of our head, (new car, appliance, clothes, cell phone, etc.) but i think it is going to take you longer to find what values you hold.


david bach wrote a book in which i am going to paraphrase a section, he believes in a life-planning process. so what were going to do is to create a ‘core value circle’. what i want you to do is to find the top 5 values that are most important to you, that ‘drives you in the decisions you make everyday.’ select the 5 values based on what your instincts tell you and not what looks good on paper. DO NOT confuse goals for values, ‘being rich would be a goal, but wanting security would be the value.’ write these five values in a circle on a piece of paper, in the middle write “my core values”.


(‘here are some words to help you identify some core values: security, freedom, happiness, peace of mind, fun, excitement, power, family, marriage, friends, making a difference, spirituality, independence, growth, creativity, adventure, fulfillment, confidence, balance, love, health…’)


why do we focus on the superfluous (money) when its really the ‘core values’ that we are after. i’m sure with very little hesitancy we could all name ‘things’ we wanted right off the top of our head, (new car, appliance, clothes, cell phone, etc.) but i think it is going to take you longer to find what values you hold.


from now on when you are making decisions with your time, money, energy, etc. just compare it to your new values. why are you buying a new jacket when what makes you happy is your value of ‘adventure’? go on a road trip, go get lost in the woods somewhere. why are you trying to salve your way through creativity? why are you medicating yourself through independence?


stick to your core.

never remain.

'if you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. for where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing.'


~saint augustine

lord of the flies.

i sat in church a few weeks back.
it was a really archetectually asthetic structure, with wood beams, sterling silver, and large windows. honestly it felt more like a loft than a church. i wanted to live in it, not practice my faith there.

as the service went on i noticed something so very peculiar. basically everyone that went to church there looked like they were from silver lake, california or williamsburg, nyc... basically 'hipsters'. not that i have anything against that at all, but upon further observation i saw that there was not one old person in the building, then i realized that there was not even one older person there, then i realized that there was not one person over 40 years old!

in the book 'lord of the flies' a group of boys get stranded on an island and end up having to fend for themselves, before long one by one a group of the boys began to kill the other. it is a fascinating read, and short, and is one of my favorite books because it shows the shear barbaric state we digress to when not held accountable.

in this country, because this is not a global phenominon, we value youth or the apperance of such. i am not sure why or how we 'digressed' to this state but i feel we are doing ourselves and our communities a disservice by alienating those who have more wisdom, knowledge, and years to share.

have we so segregated ourselves from those who have time on their side, thus limiting our knowledge of things to come? in essence, if there is 'nothing new under the sun', then aren't people older than us basically time travelers, how much can we learn from those who can see into our future?

we may all go through different experiences, travel to different locations, have different friends; but in this life there are much more that we share in common with our fellow man than we have different. in the same way i feel that our grandparents, people we may work with that are older, our elders, etc. may have an insight into our lives that the people closest to us our age may not have.

what happen to the word 'mentor'? i feel that it is a lost art and life left to the past. i admit that besides my father i do not have one, its not that i am not open to it, i just feel that this current culture does not extend its hand to such. my challenge is to somehow come up with ideas on how to incorporate people 20 years older than you, or more, into your life.

now i digress... are we not slowly creating an island of age in our little world? are we not simply the shipwrecked boys on an island slowly eliminating each other due to our lack of wisdom, knowledge, foresight, and accountablility?

to progress we must incorporate all to learn,
we must learn so that one day we might teach,
-stephen

sense of an accomplished day.

“When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.”
-anonymous

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anti-advocacy! pro-action!

check out this weeks modesty blog on relevant magazine's website
click here to check out 'your iron rusts' here
-stephen

*or just go to: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/community/blogs/YOUR-IRON-RUSTS.html

mankind gives life to machine!

before the sudden burst of technological advancements mankind had to communicate using old fashion methods of 'talking face to face' & interpreting the body language presented which are both now as we know a barbaric and primitive form of interpersonal communication.

now that we have deemed it obsolete we have to issue a new set of rules that go along with our newly formed communicational evolution. it seems to me you can NOT take the ‘old outdated ways of communication’ and apply it to the new way of computerized advancement.

for instance: my brother was giving me his honest opinion in an email of something i created. even though it was a negative opinion i appreciated it because i would much rather brutal honesty then yes men. because i didn’t email him back right away, because i was working on something else, he took lack of response as a sign that i was upset or mad.

tsk tsk paul for thinking that we live in the barbaric days where if i was silent after you said something negative in a face to face conversation that the ‘body language’ (as it was known to primates) would infer that i was upset. but that doesn’t apply to the computer age. if you email me back please wait no set amount of time as i may be on twitter, youtube, myspace, or facebook living ‘real life’ and i will get back to your email in due time.

cell phones: when having a face to face conversation with another human apparently texting/cell phone calls DO TAKE PRESEDENT. listen if the person your with in-person really cared about you they wouldn’t have monopolized your time by asking you to go to lunch or coffee, they would have befriended you on a social network and allow you to see 160 characters of their life in short doses.

to be honest though, technology is getting to me and i feel i am at the point where i want to rebel against the whole system and actually meet people. we have gone too far in many many ways. no joke, just this week a man killed his x for changing her facebook page from ‘in a relationship’ to ‘single’!!! really???? have we given our computers such life that it dictates our emotional responses?

we have given life & breath to machines, no longer to we engage people but tell our computer how we feel in hopes of hearing others feelings through there machine as well. people fall in love, break up, talk, respond, and engage without ever meeting the other person! does anyone else find this unnatural?

in the 50’s everyone was clean cut and their children in the 1960’s rebelled and were liberal and 'free'. the 90’s rebelled against the 80’s etc. its just a cycle of life. i wonder if our future children will rebel against us by actually walking outside and having personal contact with other humans. wouldn’t that be crazy????

-stephen

IRONY: here i just wrote this and am about to post this on my online journal (or blog as we call it), then go to twitter to make sure everyone knows about it. this ladies and gentlemen is the definition of hypocrite in case you didn’t know.

KEIRSEY

this is not your momma's facebook quiz, this is a test that most employers give to potential employees to see their value and potential hardships in the workplace. this quiz, for me, was rather right on.

go to:
http://www.keirsey.com/

'then click the keirsey temperament sorter-II' on the right hand side of the page.

go through the motions (make sure you don't click the box to receive emails).

take the test and lets talk about your results in the comments!
my test was about 95% dead on!
-stephen

i got: IDEALIST

Idealists, as a temperament, are passionately concerned with personal growth and development. Idealists strive to discover who they are and how they can become their best possible self -- always this quest for self-knowledge and self-improvement drives their imagination. And they want to help others make the journey. Idealists are naturally drawn to working with people, and whether in education or counseling, in social services or personnel work, in journalism or the ministry, they are gifted at helping others find their way in life, often inspiring them to grow as individuals and to fulfill their potentials.

Idealists are sure that friendly cooperation is the best way for people to achieve their goals. Conflict and confrontation upset them because they seem to put up angry barriers between people. Idealists dream of creating harmonious, even caring personal relations, and they have a unique talent for helping people get along with each other and work together for the good of all. Such interpersonal harmony might be a romantic ideal, but then Idealists are incurable romantics who prefer to focus on what might be, rather than what is. The real, practical world is only a starting place for Idealists; they believe that life is filled with possibilities waiting to be realized, rich with meanings calling out to be understood. This idea of a mystical or spiritual dimension to life, the "not visible" or the "not yet" that can only be known through intuition or by a leap of faith, is far more important to Idealists than the world of material things.

Highly ethical in their actions, Idealists hold themselves to a strict standard of personal integrity. They must be true to themselves and to others, and they can be quite hard on themselves when they are dishonest, or when they are false or insincere. More often, however, Idealists are the very soul of kindness. Particularly in their personal relationships, Idealists are without question filled with love and good will. They believe in giving of themselves to help others; they cherish a few warm, sensitive friendships; they strive for a special rapport with their children; and in marriage they wish to find a "soulmate," someone with whom they can bond emotionally and spiritually, sharing their deepest feelings and their complex inner worlds.

Idealists are relatively rare, making up no more than 15 to 20 percent of the population. But their ability to inspire people with their enthusiasm and their idealism has given them influence far beyond their numbers.

Idealists at Work
Idealists, as a temperament, are passionately concerned with personal growth and development. They are naturally drawn to working with people and are gifted with helping others find their way in life, often inspiring them to grow as individuals and to fulfill their potential both on, and off, the job.

Conscience looms large for you; in almost any situation, you feel compelled to measure yourself, other people, and the conditions of the environment against your personal morality. You have a tendency to perceive questions of meaning in even trivial matters and to worry about far-flung consequences of your actions. In your ideal job, you are free to pursue depth rather than breadth and quality rather than quantity. You feel rewarded when your projects and daily tasks allow you to immerse yourself in your process as deeply as you "need to" in order to satisfy your inner standards of quality. You are uncomfortable with the notion of authority per se and may avoid leading, as well as being led, either consciously or unconsciously. As you experience them, adhering to fixed roles and rules amounts to an abdication of your responsibility to exercise your conscience.