Showing posts with label folly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label folly. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
The follies of our lives - part II
Folly #2
Adopting a lifestyle that kills
Not too long ago we were dying from infectious diseases. Today we die mostly from chronic diseases. Why? Because we have adopted a lifestyle that kills. Even if we do not smoke and/or drink alcohol, we eat food that kills, we sit instead of walk, we do not sleep enough, we stress too much.
Change
We have heard it all: habits are hard to break. And yet, I am not sure that most of us realize that the actual choice is “Your habits or your freedom”, and may be even “Your habits or your life”.
Changing habits may feel like you are trying to walk against a crowd running in the opposite direction (i.e., the “killer lifestyle” direction). There will be problems: you will be pushed, cursed at, shoveled in one direction or another, swayed from your determination, but you have to remember that healthy lifestyle equals freedom. Also remember that no one else cares more than you about your health, and you cannot trust a sick health care to take care of you when you are in need.
The same way you accumulate and track your money, you should track your health.
If you are smoking, stop. There are ways to do it.
If you feel depressed, gorging on junk food is not the answer.
If you are overweight/obese, take small steps to improve your diet. There are many self-help websites, and no one else but you is most interested in your health.
If your children are becoming overweight or obese, take measures since you do not want to blame yourself for killing your own children by instilling unhealthy habits. Encourage your children to move more and become their prime example to follow.
Stop consuming any soft drinks and fruit juice.
Challenge yourself and try to get your vitals in shape with intermittent fasting and with this advice.
Wean yourself from processed foods, and learn how to cook at home, it could be fun and it would be very beneficial for you. Learn how to cook soups, for example.
If you can, eliminate as much stress from your life as possible. Here are a few stress busters. Speaking about stress, free yourself from consumerism. The less you need, the less you will work from 9 to 5 and the more likely is that one beautiful spring day you will be able to go out and enjoy the sun instead of subjecting yourself to physically and psychologically toxic work conditions.
Face your anxieties and try to work out a plan of your life. Gain a new perspective on your life and its meaning.
Make time for your family and dinners that bring you together with the most loved people.
Stop watching TV: this is how you will block the confusion generated by the media, and you will have to put up with less “noise”.
Advance your knowledge on how to protect yourself from the worst diseases: prevention does not take a medication, all it takes is your good will.
In brief, be good to yourself and your loved ones.
Have I been good to myself and my loved ones? Today I am doing my best to live by my advice. It is just that sometimes life is so stressful that I move through the days like a zombie. I am still unable to effectively deal with stress.
Anyway, have I always observed the advice I give now? No, seven years ago you could find me biting on a salami sandwich and sipping orange juice. What is worst, I gave the same food to my child. However, once I found what was good and bad, it was not difficult to give up processed meats, orange juice and sugary treats. I had no problem decreasing to a minimum red meat consumption.
It is a struggle to convince other people to adopt these dietary habits. The only thing I can do is inform people how to live a healthy life, and hope that I am not labeled as the most annoying busybody.
To be continued...
Folly #3
Monday, March 7, 2016
The follies of our lives - part I
I had decided to share some of the mistakes in my life and how and whether I can address them. However, once I started writing, the post turned into a dissection of unresolved issues, and reflections on how I can face and overcome these. The time of reckoning has come…
Mr. Money Mustache had a post on making our goals public; once they are public, we are more likely to stick to our plans and feel accountable. Since mistakes, unresolved issues, and goals are interconnected, I decided to proceed with the post, and make it public :).
Folly #1
Not having a life plan
LIFE EXPECTANCY
>80 77.5-80 75-77.5 72.5-75 70-72.5 67.5-70 65-67.5 60-65 55-60 50-55 45-50 40-45 <40
Currently in the U.S. the life expectancy for females is 81.2 years and for males is 76.4 years. How many years do you have left, assuming that your lifespan fits the statistics? What if you have much less left? What if it is just a day?
If I fit the statistics, I have lived though more than half of my life, and yet, I have never had a life plan.
Looking back at my strange past, I could never had planned what happened to me. Years ago, if I had delineated my future the way it unfolded in real life, everyone would had qualified me as crazy, and in serious need of mental rehabilitation. One day, I will tell my story. It is suffice to say that my life has surprised me, and I admit, it has not been boring.
However, it is nice to have some structure and control over future life, especially when old age approaches and one compulsively starts accounting for what has been accomplished and hopefully, savoring what the lifetime effort has produced.
In Mr. Money Mustache’s post that discusses the book Your Money or Your Life there are three questions that everyone should ask. Here are the re-phrased questions:
1. Is your fulfillment proportional to the amount of time/life years spent?
2. Is this expenditure aligned with my life goals?
3. Would you change your work life routine, if you did not have to work for a living?
It is disheartening that simple questions like these stopped me in my tracks. I am a PhD - level educator and researcher, probably I should be able to breeze through these questions?
Question #1
Is there any fulfillment in my everyday work? The past years and even present days are a blurry of hours spent in the labs and on desks. I have published scientific papers, I have received a bit of research grant money; however, I doubt that anything I have accomplished would impact the field I work in.
Recently, I realized that the only usefulness in my work might be measured by how successful I am in instilling intellectual curiosity in my students. Asking the right questions is the most powerful driving force in human progress. Reading an encyclopedia composed of questions is far more beneficial than reading an encyclopedia filled with facts. However, our students are not given the time and chance to stop, assimilate the basic facts, and ask questions. They are constantly bombarded by a torrent of information and facts, and all of these need to be regurgitated at tests. The students do not need to be inquisitive and ask questions, as we do not measure their progress by how well they identify problems and formulate questions.
The first question brings the concern of whether I can make a difference at my job. Since at present I have not seen any evidence for my impact on anything or anyone, the answer to the first question is, no, I have not found my fulfillment to be proportional to my effort (measured in life years/life energy).
Question #2
The second question of whether the expenditure is aligned with the life goals is impossible to answer, as I have no goals. Embarrassingly, I have none. Yes, I have to meet certain expectations at work in order to have my contract renewed, but these petty and rather meaningless “metrics” evaluating my effort are not equivalent to life goals. Life goals should be broad, comprehensive, and true to my identity. I have no such because I do not dare to plan. And I do not dare, because (a) my previous attempts to plan have miserably failed, and (b) sometimes my plans are dependent upon other people and circumstances that I have no control over.
Here I have to re-phrase Kurt Vonnegut, “Higher power/God grant me serenity to accept the time spent working to bring bread on the table, courage to purge the meaningless activities that clutter my daily life, and wisdom to always tell the difference (between the two types of activities).”
The best scenario is when our life goals coincide with our work life goals; this requires the alignment of my moral and philosophical values with the mission of my institution. Not all of us a lucky to work for a great institution with lofty ideas and a well-defined (or any) mission.
The alternative is to create a job that aligns with my values. But before that, to define my goals I need to establish my own mission in life. This idea came from a Radical Personal Finance podcast by Joshua Sheats (unfortunately, I am not sure which episode). Joshua pours his heart and soul in these podcasts and talks not only about finances, but also about life in general. At first, it was surprising to think that a person, rather than a company/institution/corporation should have a mission. The more I thought about it however, the more convinced I became that having a mission would help me define my goals and put everything in a logical perspective.
The brief answer to question two is that I am in a process of awakening, and I hope to re-align expenditure and life goals somehow. It is also possible that this blog is a manifestation of this effort: I have been accumulating knowledge that could improve other people’s quality of life, and I would like to share it.
Question #3
The third question is easy compared to the first two. Would I change my work life routine, if I did not have to work for a living? Yes, I would, as some of my current required work activities are such a waste of time! If I were financially independent, I would distill the most meaningful job activities and probably work only 20 hours or less a week. The rest of my hours would be dedicated to exploring new impactful venues of development: a novel business, a volunteer stint, a few creative projects.
Apart of all these considerations, I need to be fair: my current job is the best one I have ever had, and probably the best I will ever have. The job includes a dose of creativity, and this is rare. Could my job be more fulfilling? Yes, but I am still searching for ways to impart more meaning to my everyday tasks.
What about you? Can you answer these questions:
1. Is your fulfillment proportional to the amount of time/life years spent?
2. Is this expenditure aligned with my life goals?
3. Would you change your work life routine, if you did not have to work for a living?
Folly #2
Adopting a lifestyle that kills
to be continued…
Recently, I realized that the only usefulness in my work might be measured by how successful I am in instilling intellectual curiosity in my students. Asking the right questions is the most powerful driving force in human progress. Reading an encyclopedia composed of questions is far more beneficial than reading an encyclopedia filled with facts. However, our students are not given the time and chance to stop, assimilate the basic facts, and ask questions. They are constantly bombarded by a torrent of information and facts, and all of these need to be regurgitated at tests. The students do not need to be inquisitive and ask questions, as we do not measure their progress by how well they identify problems and formulate questions.
The first question brings the concern of whether I can make a difference at my job. Since at present I have not seen any evidence for my impact on anything or anyone, the answer to the first question is, no, I have not found my fulfillment to be proportional to my effort (measured in life years/life energy).
Question #2
The second question of whether the expenditure is aligned with the life goals is impossible to answer, as I have no goals. Embarrassingly, I have none. Yes, I have to meet certain expectations at work in order to have my contract renewed, but these petty and rather meaningless “metrics” evaluating my effort are not equivalent to life goals. Life goals should be broad, comprehensive, and true to my identity. I have no such because I do not dare to plan. And I do not dare, because (a) my previous attempts to plan have miserably failed, and (b) sometimes my plans are dependent upon other people and circumstances that I have no control over.
Here I have to re-phrase Kurt Vonnegut, “Higher power/God grant me serenity to accept the time spent working to bring bread on the table, courage to purge the meaningless activities that clutter my daily life, and wisdom to always tell the difference (between the two types of activities).”
The best scenario is when our life goals coincide with our work life goals; this requires the alignment of my moral and philosophical values with the mission of my institution. Not all of us a lucky to work for a great institution with lofty ideas and a well-defined (or any) mission.
The alternative is to create a job that aligns with my values. But before that, to define my goals I need to establish my own mission in life. This idea came from a Radical Personal Finance podcast by Joshua Sheats (unfortunately, I am not sure which episode). Joshua pours his heart and soul in these podcasts and talks not only about finances, but also about life in general. At first, it was surprising to think that a person, rather than a company/institution/corporation should have a mission. The more I thought about it however, the more convinced I became that having a mission would help me define my goals and put everything in a logical perspective.
The brief answer to question two is that I am in a process of awakening, and I hope to re-align expenditure and life goals somehow. It is also possible that this blog is a manifestation of this effort: I have been accumulating knowledge that could improve other people’s quality of life, and I would like to share it.
Question #3
The third question is easy compared to the first two. Would I change my work life routine, if I did not have to work for a living? Yes, I would, as some of my current required work activities are such a waste of time! If I were financially independent, I would distill the most meaningful job activities and probably work only 20 hours or less a week. The rest of my hours would be dedicated to exploring new impactful venues of development: a novel business, a volunteer stint, a few creative projects.
Apart of all these considerations, I need to be fair: my current job is the best one I have ever had, and probably the best I will ever have. The job includes a dose of creativity, and this is rare. Could my job be more fulfilling? Yes, but I am still searching for ways to impart more meaning to my everyday tasks.
What about you? Can you answer these questions:
1. Is your fulfillment proportional to the amount of time/life years spent?
2. Is this expenditure aligned with my life goals?
3. Would you change your work life routine, if you did not have to work for a living?
Folly #2
Adopting a lifestyle that kills
to be continued…
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