Maintenance Guy: How’s it going?
Me: Same ol’, same ol’.
Maintenance Guy: That’s your whole life flashing in front of you.

yikes!

I swear I didn’t yank the title from the Will Smith movie of the same name (great movie, by the way).

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As a warning, this post is a bit nerdy:

I’ve started taking a liking to flash/note cards, but they’re not for everyone. And you can also really screw up making flash cards. One blanket statement that I’ve heard in the past is that you have to limit the content on each card to one question. And if you try to load up too much information into one card, then you’re doing it wrong.

Well, that’s wrong. It depends completely on the information that you’re putting on the flash cards.
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Sadly, visiting the dentist is an often hated event in people’s lives. I’ll admit, the idea of sticking dangerous-looking metallic objects into my mouth isn’t appealing. And there’s that awkwardness about what to do when the dentist asks you a question. You want to answer, and in any normal situation, you would. But at the dentist, all speech is made impossible by the tools shoved in your mouth.

Anyways.

The reason I go to the dentist is to get my teeth cleaned and the dentist ALSO gets rid of the junk in between my teeth. In other words, I’m a bad flosser. My friend said something funny, though, about that.

He said something like, “I haven’t been to the dentist in over a year, and normally I am horrible about flossing. But lately, I’ve been flossing more consistently than ever now that it’s been so long since I’ve been.” It’s like he had been scared into flossing. He had been using the dentist as a crutch. I suspect I’m the same way. Because I go to the dentist regularly, I get the idea that “oh, the dentist will get that, I don’t need to floss quite as much.” Well that’s not true, I’m supposed to floss regularly, not once a week.

Now, this isn’t a post suggesting to stop going to the dentist, but my friend’s comment is useful. Are there things in your life that you use as crutches in lieu of doing things that you should be doing anyway? I know that I have a couple of “dentists” that take the place of me getting better at “flossing.”

When I tell people that I’m moving to Cincinnati, Ohio, it’s usually followed by a blank stare. After regaining composure, the next question is whether I have any family in Ohio. It’s as if there needs to be some extremely compelling reason to set foot into the state. It’s clear that people aren’t too impressed by my decision to move to Ohio, but I chalk it up to ignorance. They don’t know what they’re missing.

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image: tico24

A friend of mine and I were waiting for class to start, and we decided to wait outside. The morning air was slightly damp with a crisp breeze. The sun was a gentle reminder that with every day comes some much needed light.

It’s easy to bury your head in books and work and obligations and commitments. But when it’s a nice day, spend some time outside. Even if it’s 15 minutes, you’ll be glad you did. You don’t have to do anything in particular either. Just sitting and soaking up the day is worth it.

Image: woodleywonderworks

I love a good board game, playing guitar, and cooking. If I had all the time in the world, then I’d try every hobby out there.

Reality check: We don’t have an endless supply of time, but many of us still have a lot of hobbies. So what do we do? How can we find the time to pursue the things we love and make the most out of our time? Two words: Synergistic Hobbies.
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I’ve been packing all my junk to move across the country, so updates will be a bit sporadic for the next few weeks. Apologies in advance for slow updates.

I’ve developed a rule for reducing the amount of stuff that I’ll have to move. I call it the “3 Year Rule.” It’s pretty simple. I ask myself, “have I used this in the past 3 years?” If the answer is no, then I give it away or throw it out.

And for stuff that I have used over the past 3 years, the next question is “do I really need to hold onto this?”

I can’t wait to live a minimalist lifestyle where I only have the things that I need.

I’m a huge fan of the Office. And though I mainly watch it for its witty comedy, I think there’s a lot to learn from the characters in Scranton, Pa. For example, here’s a blurb of what Pam says to Jim when she decides to leave graphic design school:

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Have you ever felt like you’ve reached a turning point in your life? No one can predict the future; we can only prepare for it. That’s a bit of a generalization though. Some futures seem more predictable than others. For example, I’ve got a few exams to take over the next few weeks, so I can pretty much imagine what that’s going to be like. I’ll go to school, take my exams, come home, study more, etc.

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We’ve had a streak of rainy weather here (You know, that whole “April showers” saying). It can put a damper on your day’s plans. But I decided that I wouldn’t let a little rain ruin my fun. So here’s a list of stuff to do on a rainy day:

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Since I moved the Blog to this new host, the RSS Feed link has also been updated. The old one will no longer work. So if you want the latest updates, use this link: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/Lifecatchernet. Thanks! You can also subscribe to get updates via email. The right sidebar has the link. Or for the lazy, here’s the link: Subscribe for email updates!.

*Brilliant! I wish I thought of that.

Changes are coming, so apologizes in advance for any downtime.

Today, I just wasn’t in the mood to do work. That’s okay. I did something else instead. Rather than miserably forcing myself to do something that I thought I wanted to get done today, I did something different. I can’t do it too often, especially if a deadline is approaching (ahem, April 15th is coming, whether you like it or not). But usually it’s no big deal. Shifting gears is part of life. So if you find that you’re stuck, try something else.

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired . . . was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.” -Steve Jobs

Photo courtesy of Refracted Moments

Reality

These are hard times. Optimistic projections predict a rebound in the economy by the end of 2009. Pessimistic ones predict the self destruction of the United States. Lovely, right? The bad predictions wouldn’t be so scary if they weren’t supplemented with statistics showing a drastic rise in gun and ammunition sales. What are people thinking? Are people planning to threaten their way into a job with something like: “Give me a job or I’ll shoot you”? Weird.

For most of us, a wage earning job is our primary source of income. We never give much thought to it because it puts food on the table, puts clothes over our backs, and sends our kids to school. Why should we question financial stability?

Truth is, even qualified people are getting laid off. And we’ve learned that not only is the unemployment rate scarily high, but the overall sense of job security is ridiculously low. Loyal employees are terrified of the companies where they’ve devoted years of service. For those of you that select a career solely for the purpose of job stability, your most fundamental reason for working has been violently uprooted. It is now time to ask yourself: why do you work where you work?

Three Lessons from an Unemployed Man

A good friend of mine recently quit his job as a programmer. His parents and friends – myself included – thought this was a terrible idea. We told him, “at the very least, make sure you have something lined up so when you quit this job, so you can begin work right away.” He didn’t listen. He quit his job, and we all thought he was an idiot.

But is he an idiot? No. I learned a couple lessons from his willingness to quit.

First, he saved a lot of money over the past few years. Instead of living beyond his means, he lived within his means and put the rest of his money into a savings account. As a result, he knew that he could last a long time (over a year) without a source of income. How many of us can say that we can last over a year with no income? Not many. I read some survey that said most Americans can’t go more than 2 months without pay. Considering how rough the job market is, that’s plain scary. It means that even a short term disruption in work can drastically change your life.

So lesson 1 : Don’t live beyond your means and save money so you can go for a while without a job.

Additionally, he’s frugal. He buys stuff that he needs from pawn shops and looks for good deals when he can. If he can’t find a good price on something, he just waits. He doesn’t cave in and buy it, he waits until he can get it for a good deal, or he decides that it’s not something he needs.

Consumers today take a different, more expensive approach. We want everything to be new, and when we want something, we want it NOW. This approach is perfectly fine if you’re a millionaire, but for normal folks concerned about their jobs, it’s silly. It whittles away at your savings and makes you more and more reliant on the fact that you need a job.

A great example is the iPod. I ride a bus to school everyday, and I’m always surprised by how many people have iPods. Everyone has one. It’s a great device, but it’s strange that the iPods I see are always the newest model. As new models come out, people are constantly upgrading. Maybe the old ones are breaking, but if they are, we need to rethink the habit of buying this $200 toy every year, especially if you have concerns about job security.

If I want something, I usually do some comparison shopping online at http://pricegrabber.com or I check for a deal at http://slickdeals.net. Often, I can save quite a lot of money by doing some quick research at these sites.

Sure, everyone needs a job because everyone needs to make money, but in a time of economic uncertainty, the more we reduce our dependency on money, the better.

Lesson 2 : Buy things cheaply or don’t decide that you don’t need them. (I know this is really a variation on “don’t live beyond your means,” but we’re talking about money here, so I’m just trying to hammer home the point that the less we depend on money, the more independently we can live from economic turbulance)

So why did my friend quit his day job? He was miserable. He could see the next 5 years of his life, and he wasn’t happy with that vision. He was ready for something else.

In the quote at the top of this post, Jobs says that getting fired was the best thing that happened to him. You’re probably thinking “well, that’s Steve Jobs, not Joe Blow from down the street.” But I can’t help but wonder if more Steve Jobses are out there. And maybe the only reason that they’re not coming forward is because they’re tied to a safe and secure job that they’re too afraid to live without.

Living without a job gives you some freedom to decide what you really want to do, and it also makes you fully vested in your pursuits. That is, if you try something new, you’re going to give it 110% because you know that all your eggs are in one basket. If you had a job at the same time, you’d probably take a more half-assed approach.

I won’t know the outcome for my friend for several years, but he’s reassessed his life and decided that something is missing that cannot be fulfilled by his current job. I can’t say that I would do the same thing in his shoes, but I respect that he didn’t like where his life was headed and did something about it.

Lesson 3 : Figure out what’s really important to you in a job and go after it with all your heart.

We need to admit that many of us take a job because it’s safe and secure, not because it’s really what we want to do with our lives. But we’re at a point in time where with many jobs, safety and security are rare perks, not expectations. Since job stability is at an all-time low, maybe we should re-evaluate our criteria in looking for a job. Maybe we should even explore creative ways to exploit our skills to make money outside the context of a 9-to-5 job. It is our skills that make us useful and valuable, not the fact that we show up every day at 9am.

A lousy job market is depressing. We are scared because foreclosure and drastic changes in our lives inch closer to us every day. Daily costs like groceries, gas, rent, mortgage payments, health insurance, and dental care are becoming financial poison. It’s getting harder and harder to sustain our standard of living. This just means that we need to (quickly) reconfigure our way of living to make ourselves more adaptable to a volatile economy. Because if you don’t swim, you’re going to sink.

When you wake up in the morning, why are you waking up? If you cannot answer this question for too many days in a row, then you are doing something wrong.

This is a tangent, but here goes. Do we need area codes anymore? When I get an incoming call, the main benefit of an area code is to tell me what state a call is coming from, but other than that, it just makes phone numbers longer. We could shorten area codes down to two digits that represent the state that the number resides in, something like: 31-123-4567. That way, we’d still get the useful state information, but won’t get confused by different area codes from the same state. Additionally, numbers will be shorter. With the number of people that dial numbers while driving, shorter numbers could have potential safety benefits. Heck, with the rise of smartphones, it’d be neat if the prefix was letters instead of numbers. Wouldn’t it be nice to see that you’re getting a call from NY-123-4567 for someone living in New York?

I suppose we need to keep area codes around for people who have land lines, but I haven’t had a land line in years. I only use a cell phone. From the experience of my friends, they never answer land lines anyway because it’s always a telemarketer. While the area code was (arguably) useful for determining long distance rates, it’s irrelevant for cell phone users or people that use VoIP (making phone calls through their internet connection).

I’d be in favor of truncating 1-3 digits off of all phone numbers.

photo courtesy of Miss Heidi B.

Have you ever said “yes” to something that you didn’t want to do? Were you worried that the other person would hate you if you said “no”? Did you stop and ask yourself whether this new request was really worth your time? Most of us have a limited amount of time on any given day, so we should carefully conserve our time instead of giving it away until we have none. We (myself included) are too willing to say “yes” when we need to get better at saying “no.”

Saying “Yes”

Let’s start with saying “yes.” This is not a post about saying “no” to everything. It’s really a post about saying “yes” to the things that really matter. So if you decide that something is worth your time, then by all means, say “yes” and commit to doing it.

What sorts of commitments are worth it? Everybody is different in this area, but I start by thinking about people that really matter to me. For example, when my mom asks me to help her with something, I help her. It’s because I’ve made the decision that helping my mom is important to me. So “family” goes in my “yes” category. Some people might not think that their family is that important, so then you have to adjust accordingly.

Another important category for me is “song writing.” I enjoy writing songs, so if I have a chance to write or play music with someone, I always say “yes.” Maybe you don’t care much for music, but find out what your passions are and mentally prepare yourself for accepting an opportunity to pursue those passions.

The point is: figure out which commitments are really worth your time, that way you won’t hesitate to say “yes” to them – you’ll be ready.

Saying “No”

So how do we say “no” effectively? If you’re used to saying “yes” to everything, then learning to say “no” can be a huge challenge. Here’s some pointers.

Start Small

As with all change, starting small is easier than jumping into the fire. Start with saying “no” to people and commitments that aren’t really that important to you. Obviously, if they’re on the bottom of the stack of things that aren’t important anyways, you should have no trouble with this. For example, if a co-worker asks you to join a work softball team, and frankly, you don’t want to, just say “no.” Saying “no” to commitments and people that aren’t that important to you can be a good stepping stone to saying “no” to bigger-yet-still-unnecessary commitments.

Saying “no” through email is also a lot easier than in person. So if you’re shy, then maybe a quick email is the best way to decline an offer. Of course, more important requests should be given the courtesy of a phone call or a face-to-face meeting, but email is good for the small stuff.

But what if someone important to you asks you for something small that you don’t want to do? This is tricky because you want to say “no,” but the identity of the person makes you more inclined to say “yes.” You have to balance the importance of the person with the task.

I don’t really have a good answer for how to deal with this situation, but saying “yes” or “no” shouldn’t be a big deal either way, and here’s why:

• “Yes” : If you’re doing something for someone you care about, then saying “yes” isn’t a big deal. Sure, I’d like to live a life where everything I do is meaningful and important, but we know that doesn’t always work out. Lawns need to get mowed, and bathrooms need to be cleaned. Filtering is a good idea, but realistically, some unimportant stuff will make it into our lives. And if it’s going to be there anyways, we might as well be doing it for people that we care about.
• “No” : On the other hand, if the person is really important to you, then saying “no” to something unimportant shouldn’t really affect your relationship. If it does, then you might need to rethink the nature of your relationship with him or her.

Don’t Delay

It’s a lot easier to say “no” to a potential commitment if you decline early. That way, the other person has time to find someone else to do it, and you don’t have to go about your day thinking about how to say “no.” You’ll be done quicker, and you can move on to bigger and more important things.

If you know right away that you’re not interested in doing something or that the request isn’t that important, then say “no” on the spot. Get it over with. If you need some time to think about it, then tell the person that you’ll get back to him or her by a specific date. That way, you set up a deadline for yourself, and the other person knows when you’ll reply. Set the deadline on the spot, so you won’t drag your feet about having to make that follow-up conversation.

Be Honest

Being sincere in saying “no” can go a long way. If you really wanted to take on that commitment, but you’re worried about doing an adequate job given everything else on your plate, then say that. People will respect that you only want to do your best work.

If you’re really not interested in something, then it’s okay to say that too. Making up an excuse can be a bad idea if the other person is willing to work around your schedule. Then you’re stuck either having to say “yes” to something that you don’t want to do or making up another excuse. Multiple excuses in a row are easy to spot. The other person will see through your excuses, which can hurt your credibility.

Be frank, but don’t be mean. Just because something isn’t important to you doesn’t mean that it’s not worth someone else’s time. Don’t be a jerk about it. Be courteous and take the time to quickly explain why you’re saying “no.” A little courtesy and respect is always appreciated.

And remember, sometimes saying “no” is going to be hard no matter how well you prepare. But it’s the bad tasting medicine for opening up our calendars for the things that we love. We might hate the experience, but later we’re glad that we did it. Would you rather live a life where you have the time to pursue the things you love or a life where meaningless tasks overwhelm your day-to-day existence?