Happy Memorial Day!

I had a long Memorial day post all planned out, but honestly it was mostly negative. I basically just wanted to complain about all of the people out there who ignore Memorial Day, and have no idea why it's even a holiday. I just want to say to everyone out there who has shown support to the troops, past and present, thank you. And to all of the people who have served their country, thank you for your service, some people still get it, and appreciate it.

Mostly, I want to spend some time thinking about our fallen brothers in arms, no matter what people say, anytime a person gives the ultimate sacrifice in service to something greater than himself, it is not in vain.

Some fitting quotes for the day...

"It's Tommy this, and Tommy that, And chuck him out the brute,
But it's 'Savior of his Country,' When the guns begin to shoot!
- Rudyard Kipling

"For God and the soldier we adore, In time of danger, not before!
The danger passed, and all things righted, God is forgotten and the soldier slighted."
- Rudyard Kipling

"Si vis pacem, para bellum"
("If you want peace, prepare for war!")
- Flavius Vegetius Renatus (ca 390 AD),

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"
- Edmund Burke

Pay attention, or the lessons get harder

Today I learned a lot, so I can't really call it a bad day. Of course, I probably pulled one of the dumbest stupid human tricks of my life, so while it was happening, I couldn't call it a good day either. Basically, while at work, I did something very very dumb that resulted in an injury, and took me out of commission for about half the day. Those consequences pale in comparison though, to what this particular little incident did to my credibility. I went from being one of the top performers to making the leadership question whether or not I was a liability.

I'm not going to go into specifics about what I did, but let's just say that the last time I did anything remotely this dumb was the time I decided to walk up the banister of a friend's deck, and I fell off after reaching the hight of about 10 feet. What I did today was even more rediculous, but not quite as serious. The whole situation left everyone, including myself, wondering, "what the hell is wrong with that guy? He must be such an idiot." Little did I know, this incident would shine a bright light on a problem I've been encountering a lot lately, and that is putting far too much stock in what others think of me.

I believe that we are all here to learn and to grow, so in that vein, I've been trying to shine light on all of the dark parts of my self, and attempting to enlighten them. One aspect of myself that I thought I had done a great job on was fear. I am not afraid of a thing; war, been to a few; skydiving, awesome, lets do it again; public speaking, I rock it everytime; bugs, eat them raw, or cook them first?; snakes, much better cooked....I think you get the point. I grew up as a pretty fearful child; I didn't like the dark, the water, and a lot of other things really freaked me out, but I worked hard to overcome all of them. I suppose the fear never quite went away though, because now I have an insecurity that runs deep.

I usually mask it with a false bravado and a kind of "I don't care what you think" attitude. I would say that at least 75% of that attitude comes from the fact that I know most people will buy it, and that it will get me some of the respect that I'm insecure about not getting. This is really taking a lot to put this out on a public domain, but I think it is a big enough break through that it should be shared, just in case anyone else feels the same way. There are a lot of aspects of the way I act, and what I do that are influenced by what I think people will think of me. Also, if I don't think that I'll be any good at an activity, I won't try it, or if I do try it, I will make sure that I act like the clown, that way if I suck, people will say, "he wasn't really trying." I'm so afraid that I won't live up to some standard, that oftentimes I never even get in the arena. I've seen this problem in myself before, but I obviously haven't corrected it.

Even though I made the conscious decision to do what I did, that resulted in my injury, I believe that it served a higher purpose. Now, I'm not going to get into a debate about predestination, fate/freewill, because I don't know how that kind of thing works, but I do believe that God/the Universe/whatever presents opportunities to us for us to learn, but if we keep ignoring them, they get louder, and less ignorable. This lesson was pretty hard to ignore. I spent all of this time building a confident shell around the little insecure fat kid that I still carry around inside, but one stupid human trick cracked that right in half and showed the world just how thin my skin could be. Now I'm faced with more embarrassment than I could've really imagined, and I've realized something huge....It's not that bad.

I've got quite a few looks and chuckles, and a few better friends have said, "dude, you're a dumb-ass," but all in all, people are less worried about what I do than I had imagined. This leads to an even greater realization that really should have been a real "no brainer." I am not the center of anyone else's universe, probably not even my own. At the end of the day, everyone has their own concerns, their own fears, insecurities, problems, etc, and they don't really give a damn about what stupid stunt I pulled, or the 10 lbs. I put on during vacation, or how much weight I can move in the gym. In the end, the only person who has to be ok with who you are, is you. When looked at from a greater perspective, this life is a flash in the pan, a good 80 years or so is all anyone could ask for, there is absolutely no sense in wasting all of your energy and awareness on trivial matters that are beyond your control. You can barely control what you think, you could waste an entire lifetime trying to control what others think.

So, take to heart some of what I said and do some careful self analysis, because if you don't, the light might just keep getting brighter until eventually you burn yourself on it.

Big boy rules.

It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him.
- John Steinbeck

Have you ever had the kind of boss who constantly expected the worst out of everyone? I'm talking about the kind of guy who treats his employees like convicts, and acts as if he's the warden. The military is notorious for this kind of leadership; at times I would say it even promotes it. I couldn't even begin to recall the number of "leaders" I had who used this sort of fear based leadership style. To me, this is the lazy person's form of leadership; best suited for those too weak to be respected on their own merit, so instead they seek to tear others down.

I've been seeing this more and more lately, in a number of different environments, and I've noticed that the more a leader attempts to control his subordinates, the more supervision they require. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; when a boss treats all of his co-workers as if they are worthless, they in turn, stop doing any more than that which is absolutely required of them, and become essentially worthless. I think that the basis of this thinking goes back to the whole concept of personal accountability. A boss/leader who doesn't expect his subordinates to be responsible for themselves will soon find that they aren't.

There is a phrase that I really like which sums up the idea of personal accountability; "big boy rules." It is basically what it sounds like, act like an adult, take responsibility for your actions, weigh the consequences, make your own decisions, and most of all, handle your own shit! If only we could live by those rules. Unfortunately we will always have that 10% who are going to screw up, but that is no reason to treat everyone as if they are going to screw up.

The best leaders I ever had were the ones who I followed not because I was afraid of what they might do to me if I messed up, but because I was afraid of letting them down. I had leaders who gave me more than enough rope to hang myself and them, but they trusted me, and because of that, I rose to the occasion. Since then, I have endeavored to become a strong leader like that, to earn respect through my own actions, rather than demand it through the fear of punishment. So far it's worked, and if I'm ever in a situation where it doesn't, well, I probably shouldn't have been there anyway.

As usual, what is true on a micro level, is also true on a macro level, so I see these same issues within our political system as well. The Republicans believe in allowing people to play by big boy rules, but the Democrats think that they know what is best for us. I don't understand how anyone can look at Socialism and think that it is a fair and just system, of course, that is assuming that socialists actually care about what is fair and just. America was founded on the rights of "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...," that sounds like Capitalism to me, not Socialism.

That reminds me, Paul Zimmerman, from www.paulezimmerman.com, wrote a post recently discussing Capitalism, and I really like the way he explains the differences between Capitalism and other social systems. I couldn't sum it up as well as he does, so I really encourage you to go see what he has to say about it. Lets just hope that people start realizing what a wonderful system we have before it's too late, and we let the big boy rules go out the window, only to be replaced by big brother's rules.

I must not be paying attention...

...because I'm frigging bored! I don't have much to write about, but that's my own fault. I am pretty busy these days, but really, who isn't? I am going to start committing more time to blogging here, I really am, I just have to get focused and find some subjects that motivate me. Lately Forex has been the only thing I've spent much of my free time on, and that can definitely be time consuming when you don't know what you're doing. I'm slowly getting it figured out though, (thanks Paul!) and will try to start giving you all more updates once I get my real money account funded.

Well, I guess I'm off to bed soon, I missed my gym time this morning because I stayed up too late last night. Keep checking in, and eventually there will be some new content.

Quantity, not quality!

Ok, so I think some of my old blogs are pretty decent, but lately I haven't even been putting out crap, I haven't put out a thing. So, for right now, I think I'm just going to try to get on this damn thing and write something, anything, everyday. Keep reading, because there just might be a gem thrown in from time to time, but don't count on it!

Today I did get up and go to the gym, I didn't really hurt myself, but I did break a sweat. I've found that at least 90% of the battle is just getting out of bed, 5% is then getting to the gym, and then the last 5% is actually putting out while I'm there. In addition to my physical fitness, I need to also start giving more attention to my spiritual and mental fitness. I have become quite lazy with my meditation practice these days, and I need to get back to it. In order to meditate, you don't have to sit in the lotus position and contemplate your navel, you can make any activity a meditative practice, just look at the Japanese. Anything from drinking tea, to hacking people up with a sword is an art form for them, that is because they focus all their attention on it, and they are totally aware.

Awareness is what it all comes back to. Sometimes I lose entire months without realizing they have ever come. For instance, it is now the 18th of May, I have absolutely no idea where the rest of May went. I can remember certain events, but I don't remember what happened 4 days ago. "No Ordinary moments" is the way I would like to live, but it is a constant challenge. I get bored far too easily, I think that is just a matter of not paying attention. There is always something happening if I could just be more open to it. Well, I'm just rambling at this point. Take care my friends!

ok, I suck at blogging.

I haven't felt very compelled to write lately, which could be partly on account of my innate laziness. I swear, I've got the work ethic of...well, I can't think of anything with a work ethic like mine, so I'll just say I have a work ethic like no other, and it's damn near nonexistent. I guess that's not really true; if I care about something, then I really give it my all, but I have a hard time committing to activities that dont interest me.

One thing that has interested me lately is Forex trading, my practice account is going really well so I'm finally opening a real one. I have to really give a lot of credit to , I've learned a lot on Paul's site and he is the one who first turned me on to www.oanda.com as an online forex brokerage. I'm really optimistic about my future with it, and I'll keep you guys posted on how it goes.

As far as PT goes, that is an endeavor that always kicks my ass. I've been getting up early and going to the gym this past week, I took the past two days off, the weekend, but I'll be back in there early tomorrow morning. I'm really hoping to get back down to the weight I was at when I was in top shape, back in the Corps. It's a bit harder without people yelling at you, but I'll find the discipline.

It seems like the trait as of late has been to half ass things, and to avoid doing the things I need to do, that's definitely not going to fly, it's time to recommit yet again to all of my goals. Once again, I hope to use this blog as a way to keep myself honest, so feel free to call me a turd if I don't have any progress reports in the near future.