It's a threefer. (Three is almost always better than two!)
[Pre-post Edit/Clarification: I was upset because I thought I ruined the parallel vertical updates and the subject originally reflected this with "Coloured Boxes Be @$%#ed"] Right?
Maybe. Parallel vertical updates are all well and dandy when I happen to have things to say only on those days.
Today breaks that pattern for the month.
No! Wait! It's still Monday! Nevermind. Pattern not broken. I forgot I wrote after midnight. And didn't get to sleep until after two o'clock in the morning when I had to wake up around six-something. Snooze button definitely maximized this morning. Most of this doesn't matter. These are just facts.
Lately my co-workers have been emailing a lot of positive quotes. I don't feel the need because all it proves is that I can type "motivational quotes" in to Google and copy and paste in to an email. Where's the benefit?
It's curious because some of them I just dismiss out of hand because, well, they don't provide any insight or value/meaning. Others I look at and go, "Huh, interesting. I already do that."
Friday someone sent:
When you consistently maintain a positive frame of mind, you'll become known as a problem-solver rather than a complainer. People avoid complainers. They seek out problem-solvers. --Joseph Sommerville
I remember a time in my life when I felt very much like a complainer. I did not like it. I hated the negative mindset I found myself in. I remember that from my theater days and my retail days. I remember writing about that here and calling myself out on being negative. That would have to be entries from approximately six or seven years ago or thereabout. It was just so...ug and eww. Which, I realize are totally effective--more like ineffective (Okay, sarcasm, you can go away now.)--at conveying a sense of just how icky I found that place of mind to be.
I remember feeling...I don't know, bad or guilty that I was writing things where it sounded to me like I was complaining. All that matters was that I felt a negative emotion regardless of the name you give it. It made me unhappy in my head and that was enough for me to want to find a way to focus on something better.
I made a very focused effort to not continue the habit by not allowing myself to do things like write about it when I was in that kind of mood, mind you there were exceptions but overall I could have done a bunch of really negative writing instead of none or writing about something neutral--or if really lucky--something positive.
Yes, I may still write negative things from time to time but my goodness it's like night and day compared to how it used to be. The frequent negative mindset is gone. Occasionally I'll be negative but, honestly I'm only human and how many people can say they don't have any negative thoughts? If you don't have any at all ever I'd have to ask you why. I realize dwelling on the negative is not going to help me. It's going to result in my drowning in the past or in bad memories.
Does that help me?
Does that help anyone else?
What is the benefit?
I remember my youngest brother saying something to me not all that long ago, I forget what it was about but it seems like he was apologizing about something I didn't care about anymore. Something that was still fairly recent at the time (less than a month, possibly only a week or so before at the time of the apology?) and I told him I wasn't going to fret about it now, it was water under the bridge. The past is the past, sort of a thing.
I put it behind me, there's no reason for him to be concerned about it either. Let's just go forward.
I may not have explained myself to him as well as would have benefitted him (I'm not always so inclined to be verbose) to understand my meaning.
I don't put a lot of conscious thought in to the meaning of the words I use. My head is primarily a place of words, either visual letters strung in to words in to sentences in to...so on, or dialogue, or something which is neither of those. Others it's more visual, pictures or like video clips as I play out scenes in my head. Others, could I describe them as explosive where it's not about the image of an explosion (that'd be too literal) but more about a means of using the term to capture how much is going on--think of the shrapnel flying everywhere and how much of it there is--along with the sheer amount of energy at which those ideas/thoughts are being flung, as the force powered the flight of the shrapnel, and while explosions tend to conjure everything flying away from a central location that's not to say that's how it works in my head. There things can be flying around in any direction toward or away from other ideas at considerable force, bouncing off of them perhaps unscathed or changing the course and thus the nature of the collided thought or idea.
That paragraph makes me feel that minds really are a terrible place to waste. How could you let a place where fireworks like that can happen just...go unused? How can you not encourage fireworks displays?
Aren't fireworks a joyous celebration?
How many people use fireworks as a means of, say, mourning? Maybe I will, but because I want people to be distracted by the beauty of them instead of the dreary nature of the fact someone they cared for has died and will never have an active role in the rest of their life.
You know, unless I leave future-dated journal entries that continue to post long after I die. Which while it would require great effort would be an amazing..."going away" gift, if you will, that could provide...it would be amazing knowing that I've secretly plotted to keep myself alive in the minds of loved ones by writing to them from beyond the grave in a sense and providing them years of smiles as they read each "new" entry that appears. They will be like time-traveling entries.
There would admittedly be some difficulty in setting up when each entry would post and how to keep the entire cache on standby until the event of your death. You don't want to have to be like, "So...I didn't die this year. Well, now that it's been five years let me just update the future-date for these thousands of entries to be in another five years time...this shouldn't take more than two months to do." Even if you do manage to defer it until after death it would also require setting up accounts that would be pre-paid in the event of your death and even then I've heard of companies that agreed to service up-front for pre-paid accounts to continue in the event of death for someone planning ahead like this (Is my MBTI type showing? ;) ) which were not honored. They took the money then closed the account(s). (Why is the girl across the hall yelling?)
Having a mechanism at work to help improve things and seeing things change I believe helps. I don't have to feel like it's me against the machine.
At work in our improvement system I seek to find ways to make things better. If something is broken and I know it I don't harp on it being broken. I'll make it clear why I think it needs to be better (it's confusing, time consuming, etc.), what would be better, and possible ways we could do that. I've been in meetings where something will set somebody off and it triggers a chain reaction where I watch a complaint chain reaction. I want nothing more than to be absent from the meeting when that happens. It brings me down, emotionally. I can't stand watching it because it doesn't change anything and talking about it doesn't make it better. I wish others realized that would would be more constructive would be figuring out why it's broken by boiling those complains to their very root cause, and then determining what would make things better. Don't be the mud the wagon is trying to roll through sucking it further in, instead be the wooden planks laid down so the wagon can cross without sinking in and becoming engulfed in mud, trapped for a long period.
As someone who loves ideas and appreciates positive change I can appreciate the depth of this quote. Plus the whole, "I was doing that already before I saw this quote," bit certainly didn't hurt.
That was a very worthwhile change for me, speaking from my own experience. It makes it easier to live in my head. Maybe that didn't sound quite right, that makes me sound antisocial, eh? Spending so much time thinking and mulling stuff over in my head it's important to not feel down about what's going on in my head. The more negative the thoughts are the more depressed and down I feel. Well that's no good. So why dwell on the negative? I get that I'm making this sound simple and it's not like this for everyone. I would totally agree.
I don't know how other minds work, I can't get inside them and crawl around and study them, I can't observe them from the inside and write a guide book or a rulebook on how they operate. But if I could that would be fascinating! I can't watch them at their most honest, or observe their most intimate thoughts, or see/experience their unfiltered emotional responses (that would be different). Why can't I be in someone's mind like during the most fragile moments, picking up new perspective along the way? In the way you might go for a barefoot stroll along the beach picking up twigs, or rocks you like, or clamshells. There would be lots of interesting things to observe I'm sure. I bet this sounds like I'd be building a white tower (And why are they always white? Are towers not made in other colours?) within the mind to watch from my perch high within it but that's not what I want. The point is to be observing from ground level, right where the action is happening. Of course some of the happy and more titilating moments would be cool too.
This morning this quote arrived via email:
A great way to show yourself what is possible is to help someone else to learn to grow and do more than they ever thought they could. --Unattributed/Unknown
Well, gee golly willicker, Batman!
I may not worry so much about the first part, it's the rest of it that interests me. When I see potential in people I...like to see it realized. (I know I have a lot of unrealized potential but this isn't about me.)
Maybe my motivation is a combination of being more selfish and selfless. I know what you're thinking. Those are opposite things, how I could I be more of both of them? Selfish because I want to see them grow, I want to see them become better. Okay, that's a selfish desire, I want to see them better even if that person isn't currently on-board with that idea. What kind of jerk am I? Wanting things other people don't want for themselves? Uh...is this where I say half-seriously half-joking that I can see your future? Nah, that would sound ludicrous! What am I, some kind of fortune teller?
I want to see people get better. I want to see them overcome things they consider challenges, I want to see them overcome what they perceive as weaknesses. Ultimately I want to see them grow but I don't know if I'd be so crass as to tell them that, point-blank like that. "Hey, Randy, I want to see you grow." "WT#, mate?! You don't think I'm fine the way I am?!" "Oh, I do, but I think you have potential to be better!" "That's it, we're done mate, we're quits."
Okay, maybe it wouldn't play out to that kind of disaster but all I was after it that I feel like depending on positioning--which can require a significant amount of calculating to know when and how to position it after much observing in order to set the stage for the optimum outcome--it could be a complete failure. Possible failure with a sky-high explosive cloud you could see from across the city.
It wouldn't be the first time I've been interested in seeing people grow. Maybe that's a great thing about the internet? I remember watching the Lumberjack when she was going through a really tough time. Recently she told me that there was a point in her own life that was very dark when she was going to university and she...used me as a sort of crutch, partly because of what I saw in her and that I would say positive things until the sun would come up. She needed to hear the nice things even if it meant she took advantage of my emotions. So, okay that sucked but ultimately she came out of it changed for the better. To my earlier point, I could hold it against her, but what's the point? The relationship is stable now and the past is the past. The past shapes who you are. If you're lucky it makes you wiser. If you're luckier still it helps you to grow, changing who you are to become stronger than who you were.
Which reminds me of a friend's mom that is engaged to...a guy that she's been friends with for a decade? Apparently it was all very quick once it crossed over in to dating country. They seem a bit more concerned about it, but being more like an adopted child (by both divorced parents - yay for having a place for holidays!) it's...I don't know. It's not my business to worry about. Some of my friends concerns I...think they are a little too worked up about? Like a background check...I'm on the fence about that one. I dislike the idea of running it before having a quality conversation with the man. It seems...dishonest? Or...I don't know, something about it leaves a bad taste in my mouth but I mentioned it because he was homeless for a time. I have no idea how long but they keep mentioning it! Why? I don't get it. It's like...do they see that as a concern? Even though the words coming out of their mouths tell me, "No, I'm not concerned about that. He got back on his feet. It wasn't for a long time."
But I keep hearing about it. I feel like the words they are telling me are no the same as what is in their head.
I consider it something that shapes your character. Understanding it and how it came to pass along with the subsequent return to...uh, home-dom? could be essential in understanding the personality and quality of the character you are dealing with. Also could shed light on how that came to pass, was it unfortunate circumstance? Was it poor decisions that were made? But again, it's not my relationship so while I might be curious for curiosity's sake--that might be more dangerous if I was a cat...or if I could morph into a cat--I'm not going to worry about it.
So...should I apologize? That was like three entries all rolled in to one. Plus the one from before I slept, so that's like four in one day. I bet your eyes are tired. ;)
Maybe. Parallel vertical updates are all well and dandy when I happen to have things to say only on those days.
Today breaks that pattern for the month.
No! Wait! It's still Monday! Nevermind. Pattern not broken. I forgot I wrote after midnight. And didn't get to sleep until after two o'clock in the morning when I had to wake up around six-something. Snooze button definitely maximized this morning. Most of this doesn't matter. These are just facts.
Lately my co-workers have been emailing a lot of positive quotes. I don't feel the need because all it proves is that I can type "motivational quotes" in to Google and copy and paste in to an email. Where's the benefit?
It's curious because some of them I just dismiss out of hand because, well, they don't provide any insight or value/meaning. Others I look at and go, "Huh, interesting. I already do that."
Friday someone sent:
When you consistently maintain a positive frame of mind, you'll become known as a problem-solver rather than a complainer. People avoid complainers. They seek out problem-solvers. --Joseph Sommerville
I remember a time in my life when I felt very much like a complainer. I did not like it. I hated the negative mindset I found myself in. I remember that from my theater days and my retail days. I remember writing about that here and calling myself out on being negative. That would have to be entries from approximately six or seven years ago or thereabout. It was just so...ug and eww. Which, I realize are totally effective--more like ineffective (Okay, sarcasm, you can go away now.)--at conveying a sense of just how icky I found that place of mind to be.
I remember feeling...I don't know, bad or guilty that I was writing things where it sounded to me like I was complaining. All that matters was that I felt a negative emotion regardless of the name you give it. It made me unhappy in my head and that was enough for me to want to find a way to focus on something better.
I made a very focused effort to not continue the habit by not allowing myself to do things like write about it when I was in that kind of mood, mind you there were exceptions but overall I could have done a bunch of really negative writing instead of none or writing about something neutral--or if really lucky--something positive.
Yes, I may still write negative things from time to time but my goodness it's like night and day compared to how it used to be. The frequent negative mindset is gone. Occasionally I'll be negative but, honestly I'm only human and how many people can say they don't have any negative thoughts? If you don't have any at all ever I'd have to ask you why. I realize dwelling on the negative is not going to help me. It's going to result in my drowning in the past or in bad memories.
Does that help me?
Does that help anyone else?
What is the benefit?
I remember my youngest brother saying something to me not all that long ago, I forget what it was about but it seems like he was apologizing about something I didn't care about anymore. Something that was still fairly recent at the time (less than a month, possibly only a week or so before at the time of the apology?) and I told him I wasn't going to fret about it now, it was water under the bridge. The past is the past, sort of a thing.
I put it behind me, there's no reason for him to be concerned about it either. Let's just go forward.
I may not have explained myself to him as well as would have benefitted him (I'm not always so inclined to be verbose) to understand my meaning.
I don't put a lot of conscious thought in to the meaning of the words I use. My head is primarily a place of words, either visual letters strung in to words in to sentences in to...so on, or dialogue, or something which is neither of those. Others it's more visual, pictures or like video clips as I play out scenes in my head. Others, could I describe them as explosive where it's not about the image of an explosion (that'd be too literal) but more about a means of using the term to capture how much is going on--think of the shrapnel flying everywhere and how much of it there is--along with the sheer amount of energy at which those ideas/thoughts are being flung, as the force powered the flight of the shrapnel, and while explosions tend to conjure everything flying away from a central location that's not to say that's how it works in my head. There things can be flying around in any direction toward or away from other ideas at considerable force, bouncing off of them perhaps unscathed or changing the course and thus the nature of the collided thought or idea.
That paragraph makes me feel that minds really are a terrible place to waste. How could you let a place where fireworks like that can happen just...go unused? How can you not encourage fireworks displays?
Aren't fireworks a joyous celebration?
How many people use fireworks as a means of, say, mourning? Maybe I will, but because I want people to be distracted by the beauty of them instead of the dreary nature of the fact someone they cared for has died and will never have an active role in the rest of their life.
You know, unless I leave future-dated journal entries that continue to post long after I die. Which while it would require great effort would be an amazing..."going away" gift, if you will, that could provide...it would be amazing knowing that I've secretly plotted to keep myself alive in the minds of loved ones by writing to them from beyond the grave in a sense and providing them years of smiles as they read each "new" entry that appears. They will be like time-traveling entries.
There would admittedly be some difficulty in setting up when each entry would post and how to keep the entire cache on standby until the event of your death. You don't want to have to be like, "So...I didn't die this year. Well, now that it's been five years let me just update the future-date for these thousands of entries to be in another five years time...this shouldn't take more than two months to do." Even if you do manage to defer it until after death it would also require setting up accounts that would be pre-paid in the event of your death and even then I've heard of companies that agreed to service up-front for pre-paid accounts to continue in the event of death for someone planning ahead like this (Is my MBTI type showing? ;) ) which were not honored. They took the money then closed the account(s). (Why is the girl across the hall yelling?)
Having a mechanism at work to help improve things and seeing things change I believe helps. I don't have to feel like it's me against the machine.
At work in our improvement system I seek to find ways to make things better. If something is broken and I know it I don't harp on it being broken. I'll make it clear why I think it needs to be better (it's confusing, time consuming, etc.), what would be better, and possible ways we could do that. I've been in meetings where something will set somebody off and it triggers a chain reaction where I watch a complaint chain reaction. I want nothing more than to be absent from the meeting when that happens. It brings me down, emotionally. I can't stand watching it because it doesn't change anything and talking about it doesn't make it better. I wish others realized that would would be more constructive would be figuring out why it's broken by boiling those complains to their very root cause, and then determining what would make things better. Don't be the mud the wagon is trying to roll through sucking it further in, instead be the wooden planks laid down so the wagon can cross without sinking in and becoming engulfed in mud, trapped for a long period.
As someone who loves ideas and appreciates positive change I can appreciate the depth of this quote. Plus the whole, "I was doing that already before I saw this quote," bit certainly didn't hurt.
That was a very worthwhile change for me, speaking from my own experience. It makes it easier to live in my head. Maybe that didn't sound quite right, that makes me sound antisocial, eh? Spending so much time thinking and mulling stuff over in my head it's important to not feel down about what's going on in my head. The more negative the thoughts are the more depressed and down I feel. Well that's no good. So why dwell on the negative? I get that I'm making this sound simple and it's not like this for everyone. I would totally agree.
I don't know how other minds work, I can't get inside them and crawl around and study them, I can't observe them from the inside and write a guide book or a rulebook on how they operate. But if I could that would be fascinating! I can't watch them at their most honest, or observe their most intimate thoughts, or see/experience their unfiltered emotional responses (that would be different). Why can't I be in someone's mind like during the most fragile moments, picking up new perspective along the way? In the way you might go for a barefoot stroll along the beach picking up twigs, or rocks you like, or clamshells. There would be lots of interesting things to observe I'm sure. I bet this sounds like I'd be building a white tower (And why are they always white? Are towers not made in other colours?) within the mind to watch from my perch high within it but that's not what I want. The point is to be observing from ground level, right where the action is happening. Of course some of the happy and more titilating moments would be cool too.
This morning this quote arrived via email:
A great way to show yourself what is possible is to help someone else to learn to grow and do more than they ever thought they could. --Unattributed/Unknown
Well, gee golly willicker, Batman!
I may not worry so much about the first part, it's the rest of it that interests me. When I see potential in people I...like to see it realized. (I know I have a lot of unrealized potential but this isn't about me.)
Maybe my motivation is a combination of being more selfish and selfless. I know what you're thinking. Those are opposite things, how I could I be more of both of them? Selfish because I want to see them grow, I want to see them become better. Okay, that's a selfish desire, I want to see them better even if that person isn't currently on-board with that idea. What kind of jerk am I? Wanting things other people don't want for themselves? Uh...is this where I say half-seriously half-joking that I can see your future? Nah, that would sound ludicrous! What am I, some kind of fortune teller?
I want to see people get better. I want to see them overcome things they consider challenges, I want to see them overcome what they perceive as weaknesses. Ultimately I want to see them grow but I don't know if I'd be so crass as to tell them that, point-blank like that. "Hey, Randy, I want to see you grow." "WT#, mate?! You don't think I'm fine the way I am?!" "Oh, I do, but I think you have potential to be better!" "That's it, we're done mate, we're quits."
Okay, maybe it wouldn't play out to that kind of disaster but all I was after it that I feel like depending on positioning--which can require a significant amount of calculating to know when and how to position it after much observing in order to set the stage for the optimum outcome--it could be a complete failure. Possible failure with a sky-high explosive cloud you could see from across the city.
It wouldn't be the first time I've been interested in seeing people grow. Maybe that's a great thing about the internet? I remember watching the Lumberjack when she was going through a really tough time. Recently she told me that there was a point in her own life that was very dark when she was going to university and she...used me as a sort of crutch, partly because of what I saw in her and that I would say positive things until the sun would come up. She needed to hear the nice things even if it meant she took advantage of my emotions. So, okay that sucked but ultimately she came out of it changed for the better. To my earlier point, I could hold it against her, but what's the point? The relationship is stable now and the past is the past. The past shapes who you are. If you're lucky it makes you wiser. If you're luckier still it helps you to grow, changing who you are to become stronger than who you were.
Which reminds me of a friend's mom that is engaged to...a guy that she's been friends with for a decade? Apparently it was all very quick once it crossed over in to dating country. They seem a bit more concerned about it, but being more like an adopted child (by both divorced parents - yay for having a place for holidays!) it's...I don't know. It's not my business to worry about. Some of my friends concerns I...think they are a little too worked up about? Like a background check...I'm on the fence about that one. I dislike the idea of running it before having a quality conversation with the man. It seems...dishonest? Or...I don't know, something about it leaves a bad taste in my mouth but I mentioned it because he was homeless for a time. I have no idea how long but they keep mentioning it! Why? I don't get it. It's like...do they see that as a concern? Even though the words coming out of their mouths tell me, "No, I'm not concerned about that. He got back on his feet. It wasn't for a long time."
But I keep hearing about it. I feel like the words they are telling me are no the same as what is in their head.
I consider it something that shapes your character. Understanding it and how it came to pass along with the subsequent return to...uh, home-dom? could be essential in understanding the personality and quality of the character you are dealing with. Also could shed light on how that came to pass, was it unfortunate circumstance? Was it poor decisions that were made? But again, it's not my relationship so while I might be curious for curiosity's sake--that might be more dangerous if I was a cat...or if I could morph into a cat--I'm not going to worry about it.
So...should I apologize? That was like three entries all rolled in to one. Plus the one from before I slept, so that's like four in one day. I bet your eyes are tired. ;)