I’ve many faults. Some I’ve eradicated over time and some remain. One of the biggest? I have a hard time accepting credit. If I do something really good or noteworthy, if I do a great job on a project, make a big sale, or in any way do something superlative and someone congratulates me or thanks me I don’t really know how to react.
I mean it seems rather bizarre to me that anyone would praise me for doing what is essentially my job. Why? Doesn’t anyone else do the same? I mean I get that you would be criticized or chastised for screwing up, but why would you get praised? I found it rather confusing for a long time and I never knew how to react to it.
Not a huge deal right? But along with this I wasn’t praising others for doing a good job either. I guess I was taking it for granted that everyone else just did a superlative job anyways, so why praise them? I eventually realized that my attitude is somewhat off-putting and it makes it difficult for people around me to relate to me on all but the most basic of levels.
So I’ve had to learn to praise and to accept praise. Weird I know, but true. Like I said a huge and somewhat basic fault in me. One that I’ve had to work hard at trying to correct for many years.
About Thursday afternoon I reach my limit. I barely limp into the end of the work day with nothing left in me. I get that drained tired feeling that I know all too well.
But this time it’s not the same feeling I used to get near the end of the week. Not the “I’m tired because I’m just going through the motions” type of tired. This time it’s tired because I’ve been doing meaningful work and seeing results.
The type of tired you get after a good solid workout. You know you did your best and your body performed the way you expect it to. Well this is similar but instead I did my work as best as I could and my clients responded by trusting me with new contracts.
An acquaintance of mine is starting to take his health seriously. This takes me about 4 years ago and to my decision to get fit. Oh how clueless I was about it all.
So many things to learn, so many things to decide and to actually start doing. I don’t envy him the learning curve that he’s going to have to go through. Learning the ropes was a nightmare to me. But I have to admit that I’m glad I took the plunge and committed myself to a healthier lifestyle. Without that radical change in my habits I think I would be in serious jeopardy right now as far as my health goes.
The food portion of my plan was and still is the hardest part. I can get a handle on the exercise portion. Even though I may complain from time to time I keep to my fitness regimen. The food though…
Finding something that my system would be satisfied with was a huge hurdle but I was finally able to find something that I could eat on a regular basis and keep my palette from getting bored or feeling empty. Still, all it takes is one over indulgence to ruin an entire day’s work.
But from time to time you do have to give yourself that indulgence. Your body is a bit of a child and will rebel if you don’t give in every once in a while. A couple of cookies here, a slice of pizza there, something from the naughty side of the menu.
The trick is to keep a check on those indulgences. My acquaintance related how he plans to cut his alcohol intake and only drink a few nights a week. Hopefully he will learn how quickly calories from alcohol can add up and how slowly they burn off and how long it takes to burn them off on the jogging trails. Time and effort will teach him. It taught me.
I was talking with an acquaintance the other day about various money-making schemes (and lets face it, who doesn’t need a little more extra money these days). We were bouncing ideas off each other and she told me about the latest thing she was thinking about doing. A friend wanted her to invest in his start-up manufacturing venture. She showed me a video and a presentation that her friend put together.
After hearing the details I was not impressed. The risk was high and the return on her investment wasn’t all that great and would take a couple of years to materialize. So I told her so. She wasn’t dissuaded and said she would probably invest in this.
But it was her decision. All I could do is give my honest opinion. Fingers crossed that I was wrong.
The thing is though that ultimately it was her money and her decision to make. I’ve run into similar situations in the past where people try to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do and don’t offer any material support. Back in college one of my friends had a rich relative that told him not to go to engineering college but instead apply to business school. This relative didn’t offer any financial support of any kind but insisted business school was the best option. My friend financed himself through engineering school and now works for a large corporation.
Opinions and advice are all great and always welcome but you need to keep in mind that when it comes down to it, that’s all that they are. You have to do what you think is right and of course either reap the benefits or consequences.
I wish my friend all the best luck in the world and I hope I was wrong. But I also applaud her for following her convictions.
I was driving home on a rainy Monday afternoon. It was the last day of Comicpalooza 2014 and the rain seemed to have held off till the end of the convention but now it was full on raining. As I hit the Montrose/Westheimer intersection traffic slowed to a crawl and it gave me plenty of time to reflect on not just this but all the conventions I had attended over the years.
Most of these conventions (cons) follow a pretty standard format. They are usually 3 days long and tend to take place over a weekend when not much else is going on in the local area. Comicpalooza is an exception in that this year it was a 4 day convention and it always takes place on the Memorial day weekend. The scheduling couldn’t be helped. Other conventions take place before and after in Dallas and these conventions try to not book on the same weekend if possible.
On the first day the die-hard fans, the professionals, and the artists prefer to show up. Casual fans usually don’t show up on the first day or if they do they will come in limited numbers. The crowds are light and those of us that are interested in getting to know the artists, performers, and to see all the merchandise on sale in the dealer’s room will usually make it a point to come in on that day. I see old friends and go in to listen to the small professional panels.
The big stars that were invited to the con are usually out on Friday night touring the town with the convention committee or recovering from their trip. In some ways this is the best part of the convention for me.
Saturday is almost always the big day. If you ever do more than one convention you quickly learn how invaluable parking is. You arrive early at the convention hall and pretty much stay all day long if possible otherwise you are forced to endlessly circle a parking lot or park miles away.
Long lines and waiting are the rule. Lines for popular panels, lines for autographs, lines for food, lines for the bathroom. Of course you can get VIP or privileged tickets to avoid lines but even these end up having lines.
In the smaller meeting rooms the real panels take place. These panels are the professional panels. Authors explain their writing process, artists discuss the current market and how best to network, people discuss the future of genres like comics, anime, books, and film. They don’t have wide appeal but they are very important to small groups of creative types that want to know about these things.
In the main hallways little kids run around trying to see and do everything that they can. Teenagers and young adults sit on the floor in corners looking over an autographed picture or discussing some TV show or movie or game that they all know. Older people like me act like kids.
Some time around the middle of Saturday afternoon a real sense of community descends down upon the convention. Attendees are more comfortable around all of these fellow conventioneers. People in costume readily pose for pictures, impromptu debates erupt with everyone giving their opinions, someone in the crowd breaks out a guitar and starts singing the theme song to some TV show and complete strangers around him join along.
On Saturday evening come the big events. Usually a local band will play, some sort of costume ball will take place, and some big movie will be screened later in the evening. By this time in the night most of the kids have gone home and the hardcore party people will be out in force. The bigger conventions will sell alcohol or someone might suggest the local hotel bar or nearby drinking establishment and people in costume will be wandering round the convention neighborhood, possibly inebriated but everyone is having a good time. The really die-hard fans will camp out in the 24 hour a day anime TV room and basically fall asleep there.
Sunday and things are quickly winding down. Everyone involved in the con from the fans, to the dealers, to the stars, to the volunteers (most of these conventions are run by volunteers) has given their all by this time and the enthusiasm that they had is pretty much gone. The last few panels and sessions occur but no one is really into it. You have a last chance to pick up some items in the dealer’s room and maybe hook up with that new friend you made while standing in line on Saturday but basically it’s all over.
By the early afternoon everyone is earnestly packing up and getting ready to leave.
I feel a slight wave of melancholy wash over me as things wind down. Here is this wonderful bunch of folks that like all the stuff that I like and we’ve spent a couple of great days together and although you hope that it will continue on, it has to end.
So here we are stuck in traffic where things began. It’s not all sad of course. Overall I feel re-energized. I’ve shared all the latest ideas, thoughts, concepts in fantasy, science fiction, pop culture, and general fiction. I’ve gotten to talk to people with different perspectives, with radically different ideas. People that have their own dreams and ambitions. My mind courses with ideas, with new ambitions, and I find some things that have slept within me for a while begin to re-awaken.
I suppose that the main thing that these conventions give me is life. They revive the youthful enthusiasm for my fiction writing. They remind me of more carefree days. They let me know that I am not alone and that my ideas may not be so odd after all.
I recently attended a sci-fi convention over the memorial day weekend. Comicpalooza took place last weekend and it was a major success. My next blog post will be partly a summary about that and about conventions in general but I wanted to address a side issue about this last convention before that.
I posted a lot of my activities and a lot of the sights and sounds from the convention to my social circle on Facebook. At one point I thought to myself that I was posting too much. I have seen people become obnoxious on social media and post every passing thought and every event that takes place in their lives. One of my peeves about Twitter is that it seems to encourage that sort of thing. Not so much on Facebook but it still happens.
Apart from this I have noticed that some people really don’t like it when you post good news or life events. They tend to feel sadder and find their lives less satisfying. I have a couple of friends that always detail the latest tragedies in their lives and how much worse that they are doing in comparison to everyone else.
When I think about these two categories of people I get self-conscious posting about the good things in my life. I want to be sensitive to the fact that not everyone is having a good time like I am yet I don’t want to limit myself either. I thought about this a lot on the first day of the convention and decided I would go ahead and post my updates and here is my reasoning.
Firstly, I post the positive, the good and the interesting things that happen in my life. I very rarely post the bad. Now that doesn’t mean that bad things don’t happen in my life. They do. In fact bad things have happen to me all the time but they never get mentioned on Facebook. I don’t really see the point in posting these “micro tragedies”. Apart from people telling my how sorry they are, they really can’t do much to alleviate the situation. So I really don’t see the point in doing that. If it’s something big I will post about it but otherwise it doesn’t get mentioned.
Secondly, posting about things that I do, see, hear, experience lets people who might be far away share a little of that. If they were curious about a movie, or about steampunk, or rock climbing, or about night life in Houston then they might learn a bit from me. Maybe they wanted to ask about something but didn’t know how to broach the subject, or they might become emboldened to try something new. You can never tell what one little thing can lead to.
“There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you… As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
I know that people brag. I acknowledge that they sometimes get carried away. We should all strive to be a little more humble in our daily lives. But at the same time, being a shrinking violet and refusing to share is just as bad if not worse than being a braggart. In this life we should look to each other and support each other in whatever way we can.
I say that part of that is sharing your gifts, talents, interests, and even good news with each other.
It’s amazing how easy it is to slip back into old habits and how seductive it is to consider returning to the old patterns of life.
Last week I ran into some “friends” I knew from way back in the 90’s. These were some people who I knew from the clubs in the glory days of the Richmond strip area when it competed with Washington Avenue as the place to party in Houston.
Very friendly folk, they immediately began telling me about their lives since those days and about other people they we all knew. They said I should really check back in with the clubs and bars and see what was going on. I was half tempted to as I hadn’t been back to those haunts in ages. That’s when it happened.
They began with all the gossip, all the petty rivalries, all the “dirt” about people we mutually knew. Suddenly I remembered why I had left the club scene back then.
Bad habits are so easy to get back into. The temptation to let it go and fall back into them is so overwhelming at times. But it’s not just with people. Set a pack of cookies or donuts near me for a day and see what happens to them.
A little voice in the back of my head quietly and quite reasonably asks “What’s the harm? Why not just go back to what you know best? Why go through the regimented diet, the exercise, all the hassle?”
I think back to three years ago (no, nearly 4 now) and how I felt back then. The listless days of trying to fill in the hours between meals, the lack of useful purpose and the lack of direction that I had allowed myself to fall into. I was living exclusively for the moment. Don’t get me wrong, I got plenty of things done but it was all done without any plan or done on the spur of the moment.
But it’s more than just getting myself fit and getting my life in order. There’s an old Aggie poem (yes, they do exist) that in part goes:
Fond memories bring a sigh — but nothing more;
Now we are men and life’s a greater thrill,
Reliving those old moments is pleasurable, for a moment at least. But it’s not the type of life that I want for myself these days. Thinking about it, I would not feel that it would satisfy me and I would feel forever miserable now that I’ve experienced more.
The way back no longer exists. The path forward is the only way to go.
“My flaws define me. My mistakes teach me. My experiences mold me and my decisions build me.”
– Unknown
I have to be honest, I haven’t always had the best of relationships with myself over the years. I don’t know quite where it started. Possibly in junior high when I began to lag behind others physically. Possibly the day that I learned that my vision was shot and I would need glasses. Maybe when I realized that I wasn’t quite as smart as I thought I was.
Whenever it was, one day I decided consciously or subconsciously to let these flaws take over every aspect of my life. They determined what I would and would not do, what I could be or could not be.
If something didn’t turn out right then it was the fault of my flaws and in some ways I could take comfort in that. That was my excuse for not trying harder. I loaned my flaws too much power and allowed them to shape my existence.
About four or five years ago I decided to stop my general decline and to get my life back in order. Back to what I wanted it to be. One of the first things I had to do was to not blame my flaws but to reconcile myself with them. I had to accept my flaws for what they were but neither blame or empower them, just be at peace with them.
My flaws or rather my differences define who I am. They determine what I have to work with and give me a road map to see how I will accomplish things. These are the tools that I have to work with so I better make the most of them and learn to love them.
My mistakes have taught me not to use my differences as excuses for not doing things. I need to look back upon this hard-won wisdom and apply it to the present and future so I won’t have to repeat these lessons again.
My experiences have molded my life into its present shape. I have to accept that. I cannot go back and alter my experiences. All I can hope for is that my experiences from here on out will re-mold that life into what I want.
My decisions will build my life. I can decide to dwell on the past and not get things done, to hide within my flaws and use them as reasons to cower. Or I can decide to see each day as a new opportunity and to figure out ways to use my differences to my advantage. I can decide to build my life in the way that I want it to go.
If you were lucky enough to read the magazine Omni back in the late 70s or 80s you probably saw the ads in the back of the magazines for things like biofeedback monitors.
The basic idea was that if you were able to monitor things like your pulse, blood pressure, and breathing that you could consciously exert control on these and improve your health. So they sold all sorts of monitors for measuring these things.
Although biofeedback monitors had some real world benefits and did provide some help to some users, some of the other things advertised were somewhat dubious in nature. Ads for healing crystals, magnetic bracelets, courses on releasing your inner energies abounded in the back pages of the magazine. I never really paid them any mind and set them next to things like the x-ray specs of comic books.
But self-help or self-improvement is a huge field. if you go to any modern bookstore you will find isles full of books on topics such as improving your health, finances, relationships, and just making your life better on your own. As with the biofeedback monitor the idea is that if you are able to define the problem and becoming aware of what is causing it, then you can take steps to improve your situation by conscious effort.
In the last few years I’ve devoted my efforts towards self-improvement in several different directions and so far the results have been more than I’ve expected. In fact it’s ridiculously remarkable. It’s good to see the dividends from these efforts finally begin to roll in.
But at the same time I am aware that there are limits to what I can achieve. For example, I am never going to be a world-class marathon runner. I do have plans to run a marathon within the next 2 years (I’m actually hopeful for 2015, but 2016 is more likely) but I know that I will not have a world record time. Why do it then? Because preparing for a marathon gives me an excuse to run and improve my health.
Some might caution me about setting my goals too low. That I should make my expectations open-ended and go out and get as much as I can of any part of life. I suppose that there is something to be said for that.
Right now though I am taking on the goals that I know I can achieve. I want to build upon these small victories and then take bigger gambles. After being at a low ebb for several years my confidence is building and once again I am starting to feel like my old self.
I have friends who swear by a particular brand of computer or who won’t consider crossing over to another online search engine. They stick to their preferences with an almost religious fervor.
Although I’ve never seen it degenerate into physical altercations I have seen people raise their voices at each other over such differences of opinion. Just more proof that people don’t need any reason to feud.
I think humans like to have some level of conformity. Part of the human paradox I suppose. I know we say all the right things about individuality and ‘doing your own thing’ but we like to know that everyone else is doing the same thing and whatever their neighbor owns is similar to what we own.
It’ funny. Once upon a time one of the techno giants that we all know, and some of us love, once talked about setting people free and letting them do their own thing. Yet they’re one of the driving forces behind standardization. They were once the scrappy non-conformists brimming over with idealism and ‘new’ ideas. Now they’re ‘the man’.
I suppose I have my likes and dislikes in computers, programs, websites and so forth. But I don’t fully close my eyes to the realities of life and to the benefits that might be found in trying another way.
Back in college I used Macs to write up my reports and I did all my work on Macs. Why? Cause that’s what they had. When I left school my first computer was an HP PC desktop. Why? Cause it was cheap, had a giant library of software titles.
I live on Microsoft Outlook at work. I could not do my job without it nor without other Microsoft products such as Word and PowerPoint. But then I also use Adobe Acrobat and Photoshop as well. Mozilla Firefox is my browser and AVG is my anti-virus program.
I use a Dell desktop, a Lenovo Laptop and a Samsung tablet and phone. But for printing I turn to an HP printer and I have a Western Digital hard drive to back up my work.
Why? Well, because all of these work and they work well in their own functions. Today they do the work just fine for me and I’m satisfied with the results but maybe tomorrow someone else will come up with something better and I will probably switch.
Diversity means that these companies can work on what they do best and turn out a better product for the customers. Diversity also means competition and that drives each company to constantly try to top one another.
Don’t be satisfied with just one answer. Keep your mind open to all possibilities.
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