Published April 30th, 2007
in Thoughts.
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Most people pursue their hobbies with a extreme passion. What is probably less common is how often they change hobbies. For example, I’ve always loved photography, I still do but I don’t study and take pictures as often as I once did. With my hobbies I go through periods of extreme study and dedication and then I get bored and move on to something different. Like me and competitive fighting.
This is probably why I find it hard to imagine myself working as a employee. Most people are perfectly happy working the same job for five years but I find myself getting bored doing the same thing after a year or two. There just aren’t many jobs that could keep me excited year after year. Maybe this is the cause of my career as a consultant or maybe my career as a consultant is a symptom of my personality?
Honestly its been a little frustrating to look at my cameras and gym gear sitting around. Yesterday I went and purchased a guitar. I wanted to spend about $600 but ended up paying about the same price I paid for my MacBook. Yikes. Will I repeat my photography hobby again? Will I be looking at my guitar a year from now dusty in its case wondering ‘why the hell did I spend that money?’
My camera was a special case because its a digital SLR and they become outdated. But my guitar is different. It made me see my hobbies in a less frustrating light. So what if I spend a year passionate about studying guitar and stop for two years? I would have still learned a new skill that will last me a lifetime. Actually, I know enough about photography to teach a class and that’s not bad. And I can still knock out people if I ever needed to get into a fight. As long as my guitar doesn’t become outdated, I don’t mind playing it three times a year for the rest of my life. In fact, I sort of like the idea of gradually adding hobbies to my repertoire.
By the time I’m 70 I should have some idea of what interest me and what doesn’t. Until then I can spend a year on each hobby exploring. That’s barely enough time.
Anyway, what’s most important is that your hobbies bring you pleasure. Can’t really put a price or time limit on that.
Published April 26th, 2007
in Thoughts.
Recently a friend introduced me to the concept of the emotional piggy bank. The idea is that everyone we interact with has a piggy bank. For good deeds we place a coin in their personal bank. For bad deeds we withdraw an equal amount from the bank. This continues until bad people overdraw from the emotional piggy bank and ultimately ruin the relationship.
Another concept I’ve thought of related to this is the relationship company. Every relationship is a company for which we invest in. When we have faith in the relationship and in the company we invest more because we believe that our investment is increasing in value. When our trust in the relationship company and our faith in its future are damaged we slowly begin to cash out of our investment. Ultimately a relationship company with no investors goes bankrupt, or at the very least dormant.
This isn’t scientific of course. And I don’t keep tabs of favors or good deeds. But on a unconscious level we remember those who invested in us.
Yesterday I gave a speech at a MOUSE event for teachers and educators. The topic of my speech was “the importance of teachers in my life.” Teachers invest for long term value. Sure there are some short term goals and returns such as test scores and graduations. But the true return on investment for teachers often doesn’t happen for 10 or even 20 years. That takes dedication.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for teachers because most people can only think of emotional investments in time line of a year or two. Myself included. But the reality is that our investments benefit the emotional piggy bank and relationship company over a lifetime. So I try to make investments and deposits with the mind of a value investor and not a day trader.
Published April 25th, 2007
in Japan and Travel.
I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to keep in touch with friends and associates. That was the motivation behind building gather.at but the site ended up becoming much too complex. I wish I had something like twitter that I could send a txt message to that would reach all of my friends in a city with info on where to meet me.
I feel like I’m close to the point where having a personal assistant would be very helpful. All she would have to do, and I prefer a she, is take my address book and travel schedule and when I’m in a given city, contact everyone I know there and make arrangements for me to see them. She should also prevent me from overbooking myself with business commitments.
When I travel, the best time for me to make plans are right before I arrive because once I land the jet lag controls me and I pretty much wing meetings and gather with anyone who makes the effort to reach out to me (telephone is best). I will be back in Tokyo the second week of May.
Published April 12th, 2007
in Japan and Thoughts.
I appreciate the heated apartment floors. I appreciate the automatic bath water heating system that ensures the water never goes cold. I appreciate the customer service even though I know its not authentic gratitude for my patronage I appreciate them for making the effort. I appreciate how Tokyo has managed to keep small hidden spots of old culture among the growing number of high-rise buildings and western imports.
I find amusing the little old ladies who remind me that regardless of the country, little old ladies are universally interesting people to have a conversation with. I find amusing the new hires who during the interview process are overly polite to everyone they see in the building. I find amusing that new hires during the interview process while being overly polite must also wear a black uniform and black hair which makes it obvious why they are being overly polite.
There are many things here that upset me but the joy of being in a country for a short period of time is that they don’t become annoyingly clear by the time I have to leave.
Published April 11th, 2007
in Politics and Thoughts.
I’m not a major politicker here but as you can see from my archives I do talk about politics when the time calls for it. Today I had a online discussion about what a Obama and Clinton campaign would look like and if it could work.
I think Clinton & Obama ticket could work out. In all likelihood the two would agree that the person with the most political experience should be the President. Clinton is much more of a moderate/conservative than Obama who has very progressive and populist ideas about how government should work. Bill Clinton was the founder of the DLC a moderate group of Democrats so its safe to assume Hillary Clinton has been strongly influenced by the groups thinking and policies. Hillary Clinton had no issue winning the Senate seat in NY, despite what most people think of NYC, New York State is a fairly conservative state.
My point is that Clinton has strong moderate credentials. Obama has a great grass roots, progressive following. This combination is really the best of both worlds. To clearly see the value in it you have to ignore the fact that one is a woman and one is black. That aside, politically speaking, this is the type of moderate-liberal combination usually needed to win national campaigns. They are also geographicly dispersed which helps.
The timing for a Clinton & Obama ticket is just right because people are looking for a dramatic change. After the last eight years both Republicans and Democrats alike want something new. Historically, leaving one extreme usually means leaning towards another extreme. I’m not predicting they will actually join or they will actually win since the election is still two years away and a lot of things can happen in two years. But all things considered, it could work.
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