Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”
- Albert Einstein
Feb 082010
One of the reasons anyway. Warm weather, warm people. I don’t miss snow.
I have a sort of tradition for Superbowl Sunday. I don’t watch the Superbowl.
I like Superbowl day – the rest of the country is holed up somewhere doing what they’re supposed to do when something especially important is happening on TV. Its like a day off from half the population.
The time between my retirement from the Navy in November 2008 and now has been the best in my life. I just read Steve Pavlina’s 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job and while I am still digesting it all, one point resonated soundly right out of the gate.
Social conditioning. I’m not so sure having a job is as bad as he says – for each “con” I bet I can come up with some “pros” while at the same time, he certainly isn’t wrong with any of it. I just don’t feel enslaved by my job. In fact, I’m pretty stoked about the way I look forward to going to work every day and I enjoy the people I work with.
Here I am at my job. Rep. Shimabukuro helped us out with our Open House by giving the key note speech. She's a very cool person.
Anyway, social conditioning: Steve makes a great point when he describes how risky depending on one job or income stream is…
Many employees believe getting a job is the safest and most secure way to support themselves.
Morons.
Social conditioning is amazing. It’s so good it can even make people believe the exact opposite of the truth.
Does putting yourself in a position where someone else can turn off all your income just by saying two words (”You’re fired”) sound like a safe and secure situation to you? Does having only one income stream honestly sound more secure than having 10?
I remember a time around spring of 2009 when I had been off work – funemployed – for months. I wasn’t sweating it. I didn’t really need to in terms of keeping a roof over my head, paying the bills, or putting food in my family’s mouths. I was talking to this guy who I’m sure is the type who’d tell you to “trust God” about everything. However this cat doesn’t seem to trust God for the big stuff like arranging happy abundant lives.
I mentioned that I wasn’t sweating the load over finding a job and letting it play out. I can honestly say I was expecting the Universe to take care of it. I kept an eye on jobs coming up here and there, applied for a few that looked fun, but left out the worrying. I sure as hell wasn’t going to struggle into the first job that would hire me.
When I related this plan he got all uncomfortable like I’d just told him I was going to try some eye surgery on myself. His message was basically “don’t trust anything but having a job – do whatever it takes to get a paycheck coming in.”
As it turns out my faith was well placed, or my plan worked, or however you want to look at it. I have a really cool job that I like a lot. I started at a wage higher than I was willing to work for and higher than other jobs I’d applied to hoping to get – twice the pay of some of them to start and I’ve had over a 10% raise since!
Another thing about this job I like is that it is temporary. I used to be addicted to the “security” of a permanent job like the military. These days I’m happy with taking life one bite at a time. When it is over next September I get to take time off and try something new.
It’s all about perceptions.
It has been a year ago I began doing what I had to do. Here are some pics of where I was at just over a year ago:
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And here I am a few days ago, minus 120 pounds:
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Jan 242010
Got this pic at Lagoon 4 at Ko Olina. Japanese tourists get married at a chapel nearby and come to the beach for photos.
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- a pic of me
More:
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Not just any paper either – the Filipino Chronicle. We had an open house at the Census Office a while back. Good times.
Jan 092010
No applause please. It wasn’t like I went from the typical 3 – 4 hour per day average to zero all at once. I had been steadily losing interest in it while growing more and more tired of the commercials for a long time.
If anyone were to ask me how I did it, I guess that’s the answer. Get tired of it. Ask yourself if you really like what you are watching and failing that, watch less and do other stuff.
As to why I have no plans to return to the tube I like what being without it has done for my mind and soul. I also like the extra time and constructive things I’m doing that filled the vacuum created by less TV.
I read a lot more. And “reading more” is something I’ve been saying I want to do most of my life. There’s more time where I’m actually tuned into what is going on with my family. I taste the food I eat now that I’m not washing it down with cable news.
One thing that occured to me once I had already began my TV fast is that all the news and other information (think conditioning) that is piped at me when they aren’t showing commercials can be intended for little else other than making me stay in front of the TV and watch the commercials.
The same people who decide what is important enough to transmit into your brain also want you to buy the “male enhancement” pills, the antidepressants, the viagra. Then the beer, candy, fast food, junk food, soda – and oh yeah, the weight loss and exercise stuff.
I’m just done with it.
Happiness is an empty Starbucks.
