Keep looking forward, not at your competition

Brands often face their competitors making advances or catching up to ones you've made.  The longer you spend analyzing what they are doing the less time you have to develop what makes your brand special.  You become homogeneous.  You become replaceable and not memorable.  As nice as it is to be new and improved with 8 million features, at some point we stop caring. 

The same could be said for people, as depressing as that is.  When you look around and see successful people and decide you want to be just like them, you've already lost.  Develop yourself instead of watching others move past.  Surround yourself with people who inspire you and bring out the best in yourself, no ones you want to ape.

What are you going to do with your degree/life?

Having a degree often prompts the question, "what do you want to do with that?" I have an answer, but it usually gets a laugh.

Change the world.

Is that so preposterous? Do they think me naive? Isn't that the purpose of being here? I've never been convinced that the problems we face are problems for future generations.

Dreams aren't suppose to be easy. That doesn't make them a joke.

Goal setting

When I graduated college I bought a book about where I wanted to be in 5 years. It made a comment about how the majority of people say they have zero goals. Others had some but didn't know really what they are. Most of the ones left knew their goals but seldom reviewed them. Less than 1 percent of people reviewed the goals they made and they were usually the most successful.

With all the time I can save not making plans and just living my life, it gives me great opportunity to set goals and review them. The closer I am with my goals the easier I can meet them.

Thoughts on yolo

I dislike the "you only live once" mentality. It encourages a lot of amazing things and really stupid ones too. We can do better.

Today I spent time with the man I love, cooked for a big party with lots of experimenting and had tea and lots of great conversations afterwards. I did what I loved all day. Ignoring going to the post office, but I loved the accomplished feeling I got after.

Anyways, life is short and precious. Yolo isn't about trying crazy stuff, it's about living every day to its fullest potential. Doing what you love and changing peoples' lives.

Go for it!

Sometimes you can't work a miracle. Dreams get postponed. That doesn't mean you give up. Keep making a difference. There is always more than one way.

Pick your battles well

There are times to be polite. To please others even if it isn't what you want. There are also times to stand your ground on what is right for you. It isn't necessarily rude to stand your ground. Just pick your battles and stay true to yourself.

Don't feel bad about doing nice things

We do lots of nice things and them beat ourselves up about any inconvenience we may have caused trying to be nice. Get over it. Be nice and enjoy it. Feeling guilty taints the while gesture.

Starting all over again

So I faded into nothingness on here.  Moved back in with my mom and then moved to Chicago a month later.  Been an exciting few months for sure.

I'm starting over and starting again.  To do that, especially for me, like any idea you let go of you need to forgive yourself and anyone who still gives you pain.  Forgive, accept and move on!  There is no point carrying the pain of failed projects, lost loves and dreams.

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you leave the guilt behind, accept the good, the bad and the choices you've made.

Being a loner.

I was once told if you were academically gifted or bright, chances were good you would be lonely most of your life.  You wouldn't be understood, you wouldn't fit in.  That being said, that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with you or the people who don't understand you.

If you are lucky there will be a handful of people in your life that will understand you.  A handful.  That is disturbingly few, but also a lot in a way.  That doesn't make much sense, but I am prone to ramble.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I'm okay with that.  The freedom that comes with knowing you will not be fully understood or accepted by almost everyone you ever meet really let me stop caring about pleasing everyone.  I am less prone to apologize to everyone.  Hide myself from everyone.   If I am really lucky 3-5 people will get me.  Then I have my monkeysphere.  Then every one else.

That knowledge, that I will be lonely for most of my life in one way or another was the most freeing thing I've heard in 23 years.

Cultural Lag

There is an idea that technological change supersedes cultural change by easily a decade right now.  We can see huge advances in technology but cultural values happens years later.  This poses an interesting question as technology advances faster than ever.  Is the cultural lag fairly constant?  When values change in a culture it is, arguably, seldom taken well.  We don't like change and a change in cultural identity is usually met with resentment and nostalgia.

This whole idea just makes me pensive. Can we adapt to change happening that fast?  So much of our culture is built on things happening slowly.  If things happen slowly and in a way we can predict we know how to respond to that. Any quick changes, good or bad are seldom handled well.  We need to be more adaptive.  Especially culturally.

The next few decades are going to get very interesting I think.  I strongly believe the most adaptive will be the most successful.  I hope we stop being stubborn and nostalgic long enough to pull our heads out of the dirt and get with the program and embrace change.