Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

“Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.” Edward Sandford Martin

Removing Negativity

I’m going through a phase where I feel like there is too much negativity in my life. It’s not even really that there are bad things going on to me specifically, but to the people around me and I often times get chosen to hear about and participate in the negative aspects of their lives along with them.

I know that if I were an enlightened being I would be content still to be involved in everyone’s negative lives and feel compelled to help them. I do that, or at least I try to, but you know that old saying that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink? Yeah… these are the people that all talk to me about their problems.

My problem is that I don’t want to be in the middle of their problems. I’m not that enlightened being. I’m not a bodhisattva, though dammit I’m trying. Right now I don’t have the time or the patience to deal with people who’s worlds are collapsing around them.

What really gets me however is that most of the people who are having these problems can make the conscious decision to get out of them. My best friend for instance, who is going through a divorce, often falls into fits of hysterical crying over his situation. He has been going through the separation of his wife for 9 months now. I understand that it was a terrible betrayal of trust between the two of them and that her  unfaithfulness caused him to question a lot about his life and himself, but he always asks me how to make it stop hurting so much.

I tell him only he has the power to do that. His response? That he can’t just turn off his emotions like I can*.

I never asked him to stop being emotional. He comes from a hyper-emotional family… on a day-to-day basis he is either in love with his family or despises them. I can’t even keep up with what it is these days… I think he despises them. But instead what I tried to convey to him is that while he may or may not have any control over the circumstances of his life, he will not progress beyond the pain he is feeling until he decides he wants to. Right now he wants to be miserable, whether he realizes it or not, and wants others to pity him. He’s looking for that approval from everyone, that he wasn’t wrong in everything that happened, and despite receiving it he isn’t moving forward. I try to tell him that he has to want to be happy, but he doesn’t believe me.

After 9 months of telling him that, I think he has to make that step by himself…. I can’t help him, just like I can’t help anyone else with their problems. My family has a saying… if you want a helping hand, look at the end of your arm.

So the only real thing I can do is to take those people that bring nothing to the table but negativity and remove them from my life. I’m not going to eliminate my best friend, obviously, but I’m not going to pander to him when all he wants to do is feel sorry for himself, that’s what his therapist is for. To everyone else, they need to find someone else to unload their problems on, because I simply don’t have the time.

* Note: My buddy believes me to be the most emotional distant and cold person in the world. Its not true… at all.

AoM – The Secret of Great Men: Deliberate Practice

First off, I’d like to take a moment to recognize the 38 unique site visits received so far on this site THIS WEEK ALONE. Here at Don’t Suck at Life, we are all about turning that next corner on the journey to excellence and that landmark count of visitors proves exactly what its all about. Watch out Google, I’m coming for you (not really).

For today’s post I’m reposting an article entitled, “The Secret of Great Men: Deliberate Practice” from one of my favorite blogs that I read called “The Art of Manliness“.

If you aren’t a regular reader of AoM then you should be, regardless of your gender. Enjoy!

Dear Dad

Hi Dad… I hope all is well in the hereafter. I wanted to say thanks for all of the times in the 4 years since you passed away from cancer that you were looking out for me, particularly that car crash a couple years ago where my Mazada3 crumpled up like a soda can and I walked away without a scratch. That’s some good lookin’ out for your youngest son.

More than a few people have said to me over the past week as today approached, that being  the anniversary of your death that things must be really hard for me. You’d be happy to know that my smart-ass attitude hasn’t faded at all because I simply replied to them that I miss you every day, and that today is no different.

It’s the truth though… I miss you a lot. I don’t think a day has gone by since you died that I didn’t wish you were here. Its funny too because sometimes I still think it’s a bit surreal that you’re not, like I’m going to wake up from some bad dream and you’ll be calling me to tell me one of your corny, off-color jokes. Damn I miss those jokes.

I’m trying my best to make things right in my world. I’m working to turn a new leaf on the way I live, with both the world around me and myself. I’ve been humbled many times since as you, grandma, grandpa, and aunt Nancy have all passed on. I’ve had the unyielding support of family and friends through all of it, and the hubris of my earlier life is a memory. No one is untouchable and this life catches up with us all… I learned that from your bedside in the hospital, useless and unable to help.

I like to think that I make you proud. I’ve done the school thing, the career thing, soon I’ll be buying a house and I have a swath of experiences from my travels already that I could probably fill a book with. I want to do more though… I want to give back to a world from which I’ve taken so much.  I know that I’ve been given ability and opportunities throughout my life to excel when others weren’t and I feel like I owe something back to the world in return. I’ve often thought that too many of my generation live meaningless lives, only to realize I’ve been guilty of doing the same. I’m going to work on that, I promise.

Sorry this isn’t eloquent or poetic, or anything close for that matter. But knowing you as my dad, I know that doesn’t really matter much to you anyway, so long as it’s from the heart. I miss you dad and I always will. Even now at 30 years old, every time I think of you, I remember playing catch in the back yard as a kid and the smell of the sawdust from your shop on your clothes as you’d pick me up from school. Those are my thoughts of my childhood and of you, and I will never forget either.

Love always,
Your son.

In a Flurry of Activity

Yesterday, in the span of about 2 hours, the housing process moved ahead by leaps in bounds. Where I had heard nothing from ANYONE on my team for the house purchase, I sudden had the signed and returned contracts, the application and disclosures for the loan, title search information and a 49 page document to review and sign several times, scan back into my computer and send to the lender. And you know what? I got it all done, though admittingly with a lot of help from friends of the family who happen to be land surveyors, attorneys, and my dear mother who used to be a residential mortgage officer herself.

Bottom line… it pays to know people.

What I haven’t yet made progress on is going through all 5 years of my crap thats sitting around in my apartment, throwing out what I don’t want or use, and begin packing up the rest. Initially I thought this wouldn’t take much time to do since I believe I lived a pretty minimalist lifestyle. Turns out I just stuffed all the junk in my closets. This is going to take longer than I thought.

The facebook-less world is… still strange. Though two of my friends, including fellow blogger Nicole have jumped on board with the experiment since I went running for the hills on Sunday. Maybe this will catch on? Maybe the next big thing to participate in is NOT participating? Stranger things have happened. What I have found though is that if you are going to try and break the facebook addiction you NEED to stay busy. Yesterday for instance I was reviewing mortgage documents until 10:30 pm, so I didn’t have much time to sit and wonder what people are doing. Nicole is planning on trying to make a dent in her pile of unread books, and when I have the time to do so I think I’ll give that a crack as well.

One thing is for sure, you’ve got to find something to take the information edge off… like methadone to a heroin addict.

Also, sooner or later I will definitely post a new instructional article on the subject of one of my big pet peeves, how to write an intelligent email. Granted I’m by no means qualified other than the fact that I’ve been doing it personally and/or professionally for 20 years, but some things just need to be said… ’nuff said.

Day 2

Ugh… This seriously sucks. I really had no clue how much of an addiction information can be, especially when it comes to the juicy,  “I’m with the in-crowd” kind of information from facebook. I honestly think I’m having withdrawal symptoms. Aside from the sudden feelings of despair when I look on my phone and the place where the facebook app used to be is now for the weather, and when people in real life talk about whats going on facebook, I suddenly developed a terrible sore throat that just won’t quit. Is this really happening? Is such a thing possible? Could it be that you can be addicted to a social network just like you can be addicted to a substance?

Maybe its not so strange though… it occurred to me that while I often make commentary in some circles about my complete disdain for the instant availability of information and how we are constantly bombarded by it, I hypocritically can’t be without it. If the information isn’t there at my finger tips as a safety net I just can’t function. The facebook adventure being what it is, I’m also having a very hard time dealing with the process of me buying a house, mostly because at the moment I have no idea what is going on.

A week ago today I signed the contract for the purchase of the house I found, a nice well-maintained ranch with a full basement on the outskirts of town on a peaceful cul de sac. Its perfect for me and I want nothing more right now than to move into it. When I left my attorney’s office I shot an email back to him and to the lender I’ve been working with that the contracts were signed on my end and for my attorney to email an electronic copy of everything to the lender once the seller signed their contract. The lender even went so far as to reach out to my attorney and try and get the ball moving. A week later there has been no movement. I asked the lender if he had gotten what he needed. He didn’t. I asked my attorney for an update, and I got none. I’m not an impatient person, but I have deadlines to meet and I expect others to do their part. These people are working for me and I get very upset when people I’ve hired don’t live up to expectations. For all I know though, there could be a lot going on that I just don’t know about because my attorney hasn’t copied me on any emails.

And that’s the problem… I can’t unplug and worse still I rely on others to deliver the information to me. Even when I’m on vacation I’m constantly looking for the next email, the next text message, the next update from facebook or twitter or myspace or whatever.

Is there any hope for recovery though? I think so… At least, I hope so. I’m hoping that if I can hold on for two weeks and keep myself with distracted with all of the other things I need to do that I can break the cycle. As mentioned in my last post I’ve got a lot of cleaning, sorting, de-cluttering to do in preparation for my impending move out of my apartment at the end of the month. I don’t have a choice in this, I sent the letter back to the management that I wouldn’t be renewing my contract. The clock is ticking.

I also decided that, because I hate myself, I was going to learn Objective-C so that I can better develop applications for Apple products, like Mac OSX and iOS devices. That’s no small task in itself. While I technically know six different programming languages already, for the past 8 years I’ve primarily coded in VB, since it suited my work life. However, that’s the only place I use a Windows PC, everywhere else it’s all Mac OSX and Linux. Time to get real about that too.

I could also spend more time on this blog… you never know, stranger things have happened.

I feel  little better after letting all of that out. Maybe life without facebook won’t be so bad after all.

A Life Without Facebook

I deactivated my facebook account today. I have been spending too much time on the site and with all of the things I really need to do, like going through all of my junk and moving out of my apartment in preparation for getting into my house, and all of the things I want to do, like read more and work on some of my software projects, I just wasn’t getting any of it done. The reason for that was because instead of doing those things I would sit for literally hours in front of my computer or on my iPhone on facebook, checking out what everyone else was doing. I can’t afford that kind of productivity lapse any longer, so I bit the bullet and turned my account off.

For what its worth, I do intend to go back there one day. I’m hoping that when I do that I’ll be able to balance the onslaught of social networking more evenly with what I need to do in the real world. And maybe in a perfect world I wouldn’t feel the need to go back to facebook at all… and I am ever hopeful for that.

I won’t lie, it’s been tough already. Going to check in to facebook and see what’s going on with the world has become second nature. Every time I open an instance of my web browser I immediately went to facebook, only to sit there at the login screen and remember that I turned it off. When I took the iPhone app off of my phone, I went for the empty space on the screen where the icon was within 5 minutes of deleting it. It was at that point that I determined that this is going to be extremely difficult to keep on doing, but also probably one of the best things I could do for myself.

Facebook itself is nothing special. The social aspect of it is what brings people and myself back to it. That kind of thing, the acceptance and approval of peers can be as addictive a thing as any drug, and facebook interaction is an addiction for me. Up until today I felt like I couldn’t live without facebook, but after today I’m going to try my hardest to do exactly that.