Most people, on a daily basis, go to work to earn just enough to support their lifestyle: What comes over and above that is for fun. I’ve heard the “going to work” part referred to as one’s “rice bowl” while the other I like to refer to as pie.
Don’t just work for the rice, strive for the pie!
The wonderful, the famous: Code Monkey!
It's a song. It's an affectionate term for a programmer. It's a cultural icon of monkey-loving geeks everywhere!
“A lost horizon in an ocean of flames.”
—Def Leppard, “Desert Song”
Remember back to when you were younger, playing with your friends. When you were in constant contact or communication with them your bonds strengthened and you grew closer. In a sense, you became second nature to each other. The same could, perhaps, be applied to your first girlfriend or boyfriend or such. On the other hand, when you were out of contact for enough time things had a tendency to decay: You were not so much as in-sync as you were before; what was second nature now becomes a glimmer of a sense of what once was. You grow out of touch, what synergies existed because of what you had now lack the true functionality of what could be.
Physics is the study of the relationship between matter and energy. Thermodynamics is the study of energetic interactions or the lack thereof. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that, over time, a system will gradually grow more into disarray. When a system is being formed if there are any chaotic elements involved, those chaotic elements will only grow more prevalent throughout the life of that system. The only way to avoid complete systemic entropy is for the addition of energy to take place.
Energy, to the physicist, is anything ranging the continuum from heat to electricity; from the grand force of gravity to the strong nuclear force that holds the stuff that comprises us together. Energy, to you and I can be anything from effort to affection. Remarks that build confidence to those that seek malice. There are multiple types and factors involved with these kinds of energies that we use to interact with the world in everyday life. We could do something evolutionary: A task performed with a degree of competence, confidence, etc. We could, on the other hand, do something revolutionary: Not something that is a simple degree of effort and task-oriented, but seeks to be transformational to the end being sought. Additionally, this can be positive or negative. Things that are positive in nature will add positive energy to the system at hand; while negative things done will add to the chaos of the system in the same way that entropy seeks the complete disruption of it.
This Law of Thermodynamics applies to closed systems: A sense of the Galilean approach to physics shining through—simplification for the sake of simplification. The lives we live are rarely in a closed system unto themselves, rather they are open to the context of the environment surrounding it. Energy can be exchanged or events and situations otherwise influenced by the goings-on of the systems surrounding it. In other words, our lives are often directly influenced by our environment and indirectly influenced by those situations and environments around us. This is why context is always very important in, well, anything.
Now, for the bigger picture: Laziness and apathy are things that breed chaos. Have you ever wondered why Patton was such a great general? His famous adage that “something done now is better than something perfect tomorrow” goes to this end. By doing nothing in this moment and waiting for another for your plan or execution to be perfect you risk the system growing more entropic than you could handle or that could fit into your plan’s parameters.
Consider this a multi-part entry. More to follow.
“Play the game—You know you can't quit until it's won,
Soldier on—Only you can do what must be done”
—John Parr, “St. Elmo’s Fire”
When you are confronted with a task, what is your paradigm: Do you view a potentially difficult task as something to avoid or something to be overcome? How you have learned and continue to learn new tasks is not solely done through the effects of your own actions: Instead, humans being the social creatures that they are, we learn through coding information that we see modeled in our everyday lives. New information has greatly become democratized in the world of today: Much more so than it was 5, 10, or 20 years ago. Our ability to take in this information and apply it towards our success has not increased along with the availability of the information, however.
Social learning has pre-requisites: Many of them being tied closely to the communication model of sender-message-receiver with their associated barriers. While many environmental factors can cause a person to be less apt to take in new information en route to success, there is—as is nearly always the case—at least one thing able to overcome any barrier to success.
Mental states are a vital part of the learning process: Intrinsic factors such as self-motivation, self-discipline, and a sense of—you guessed it—self efficacy all contribute to a person being in the proper paradigm to take away ample return from their learning activities.
Adults, for the most part, are experiential learners: We learn with a kinesthetic approach as opposed to visual or auditory. In most adults this not only contributes to the usefulness of a skill set, it also helps with retention and continued motivation: When you are successful at something, your proclivity at being successful increases: Success begets success.
Success is all about the behaviors that we have and how they converge with our environment. The relationship between individual, behavior, and environment are all intertwined in an interdependent yet causal interaction with one another: Each can have a bearing on any of the others in the triad. The individual can affect the behavior can affect the environment can affect the individual or the environment can affect the behavior or any other combination therein, for example.
The trick is to take charge and make the individual have more bearing on all else instead of allowing the individual to be controlled by all else.
So, the next time you see that task that you’ve been dreading think of it in terms of personal growth and having a high amount of internal drive with the end in sight.
“He said look behind your own soul And the person that you’ll see
Just might remind you of me”
—Collin Raye, “Not That Different”
Sometimes the bonds that tie people together and simultaneously separate them aren’t that much at all. While logic dictates the metrics of our relationships, emotions will offer an additional valuation or devaluation to the mix; said another way: We may size a person up…but our hearts determine the risk we’re willing to take.
Look back over the years at interpersonal relationships you’ve had with others: Friends, acquaintances, loved ones, so on and so forth. What has made them tick? Which things made stronger the bonds of friendship and love or otherwise weakened the ties that bind us together?
I travel much for my work. This allows me to listen to many podcasts and music, and to do much thinking. Often a particular song or notion will bring to forefront a thought of the past: A person, a feeling, an episodic extent of my past which lingers much like the pain of a broken heart. Lately my thoughts have been in many places ranging from my previous successes and failures to the relationships that I have had with people. By contrast, those that I have today are much fewer than I’ve had in the past, for one reason or another. They’ve said that a tree that moves much lacks deep roots: Perhaps my roots in my current community haven’t grown too deep. I made new acquaintances rarely, friends even less these days. This is more an issue with lack of opportunity, less lack of ability.
Psychologists have a chapter in text books about the struggles that one will face in different decades, different stages, of their life. In the twenties the grand struggle seems to be between acceptance and aversion. How does this fit in with the risk that a person will take?
Risk is a function weighed by metrics but decided by the heart…certainly this is some sort of oddity. Risk management is a science of numbers, not feelings. Feelings, also, can lead to irrational decisions: Impulsive and maladaptive. Impulsive decisions can rely on faulty intelligence received or bad assumptions made.
One of my current areas of study is decision-making theory: What is the “just the right” amount of intelligence and/or assumptions that need to be made in order to make a decision that is the right one? Diminishing returns are quickly realized when trying to receive perfect information to make the perfect decision, and the practical making of decisions “in the field” requires less time than is allowable for perceptually sufficient intelligence in order to make a sufficient decision. I feel that, in the end, conditioning will need to be done to the individual wanting to learn the method for expedient decision making because the most efficient way for it to work will be in an instinctual basis.
On another note, perhaps the person that doesn’t perceive risk properly, it could be said, likes to feel the pain of poor decisions or maladaptive practices in decision making. All other explanations escape me at this time.
“One dream…one soul…one prize one goal
…One golden glance of what should be
Its a kind of magic
One shaft of light that shows the way, no mortal man can win this day
It’s a kind of magic”
—Queen, “A Kind of Magic”
In the ebb and flow of everyday life, people can often lose sight of the goal. A study I recall seeing some years back indicated that the most successful leaders in the business world believed that they had a distinct calling, a destined purpose, and that drove them to succeed in a world where others could not.
All my life, free choice aside, I have felt that I’ve a purpose about me: A destiny. Life is a story that unfolds at whichever pace that you allow it, complete with chapters and climaxes. If you are willing to take the time to step back from the everyday monotony that is life you may find the opportunity to read between the lines, in the absence of life just coming out and telling you things. Sometimes life will come right out and tell you something, sometimes it will be more subtle. Once upon a time, while on a tour in Honduras, I had a chaplain—a lieutenant colonel that was a Vietnam-era medic in the Special Forces—approach me (although he was my superior, we was very friendly and we had become good acquaintances) and inform me that I was destined for great things. At the ripe age of 18 I was partly naïve to the full depth of what he was saying, partly stupefied with the notion of what he was saying, and partly feeling happy because it affirmed something deep inside of me.
Have you ever asked yourself what kind of story your life will be? Could it be a tragedy, a love story, or an epic? Will stories be told about your ill exploits, or will people recall your good repute that you have with the community? One thing I’ve learned lately is that it is never too late in your life to make yours the story that you’ve always longed it would be. Focus and effort will beget competence, further begetting confidence in your abilities in shaping the environment around you. The trick: Work on those things that are directly within your influence and that area of influence will grow, given time.
Life is the content that fills the chapters of our lives. Some sentences are simple prose, some dialogue can be profound, and there may be plot twists that boggle the mind: But in the end it is the story that we have woven to fit our personality and how we interact with the world around us is ultimately the one that we’ve chosen to live, the one that we’ve approved to be published, and the one that we’ve written.
Let tomorrow be the first day of the rest of your life written however you’d like it.
A monkey, a ball, and a tropical island. A fun little Flash game to help you pass the time by.
“Once the world was new our bodies felt the morning dew
That greets the brand new day, we couldn't tear ourselves away
I wonder if you care, I wonder if you still remember
Once upon a time in your wildest dreams”
—The Moody Blues, “Your Wildest Dreams”
Last weekend I had a long talk with a good friend. I came to the realization that my sporadic social aversion comes from people letting me down. When calculating an interaction with someone, I become more apt to decline or cut short the interaction because that person or people, in general, have let me down either in a particular instance or as a pattern.
Perhaps my standards are unrealistic, but a detached analysis of situations past indicates otherwise. I want for someone close to me to have a warrior spirit: To value their relationship with me enough to not just give up at the first or second signs of distress: To feel that I’m valued more than less significant things in their life. I’ve had an opportunity at this kind of relationship on a few occasions, but the opportunity passed me by for one reason or another. When I wasn’t letting myself down, other people let me down. Over time, the pattern made me cynical. Now I just wait for people to let me down.
Romance was abundant when I was young. Emotions flowed freely between individuals and the barriers to expression were much less rampant than they are today. It has been said that love is often clouded with fear and doubt, and I feel that is the only dynamic that I may know anymore when it comes to romantic love in interpersonal relationships. I’ve not found the fact that there are any out there anymore that will go over, above, and beyond to express their feelings for me; instead I feel there to be definite differentials in my life where I’ve found myself expressing my emotions for someone and not feel them properly reciprocated. At best, it’s frustrating; at worst, it adds to my fear of having and cultivating real, true love once again in my life.
I keep asking myself whether this was manifested my professionalism and workaholic persona within me, or if it was manifest because of it. Perhaps it even qualifies as an example of the ergo hoc post proctor hoc fallacy: Coincidental correlation. Regardless, the more I go through it with the fine-tooth comb of logic, I can’t seem to reason a way out.
Wednesdays will be for wisdom found on T-shirts, bumper stickers, signs, and the like.
Today:
“Mean people breed little mean people.”
Just think of the ramifications: Kids, just like their parents. Scary as hell, if you ask me.
“Live life like the owner of a heart of stone
No one touches, touch no one
But the road gets weary when you’re all alone
I’ve spent too many nights looking over my shoulder
And the ways of the world make a heart grow colder”
—Richard Marx, “Wait for the Sunrise”
A good friend once enlightened me with the bit of wisdom that “people do things, ultimately, to find entertainment value.” You go to work so that you can afford to be entertained. You spend money on the best tickets for such-and-such an event to be entertained. Entertainment begets positive emotions, and people ultimately do things to lead to delight, happiness, satisfaction. Call it the pursuit of happiness, if you will. With all this talk of emotion, where does it fit into things? Yes, people condition their actions to sway away from negative feelings and to sway towards big things. Look in the news and you’ll find stories that are likely manifestations of people with hurt feelings.
The military thickened my skin, hardened my heart. I don’t feel that people are born with the capability to withstand a lot of negative emotion: Instead, it is a conditioned response to their environment. In a more technical description, emotional coldness is not necessarily a genetic function, but more a manifestation of environmental factors. By the time that I was out I was ready to put my game face on in a matter of micro-seconds: A stern-looking Patton, of sorts. I developed a single, multi-purpose emotion. I was the epitome of a warrior: I could withstand great bouts of the cold, cold world and deal with a given mission however it was called to be dealt with: I could present a warm and kind persona or a firm, mission-oriented one.
Before the military, I wasn’t this person. Often withdrawing into my introversion at the sign of the feeling of failure, I spent this time in deep reflection and constant learning. I came equipped with a warm heart and a mid-western attitude of giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. Years after being out of the military the warmth came back to my heart. The process to master is the balancing act of detachment from emotion while not losing your humanity. I still get hurt from things that I need to be detached from. I take things too personally sometimes; on the other hand, I still have the warrior in me that serves more a functional purpose.
The form of emotion or the function of fight: Herein lies the art to developing yourself. Image is everything, and people expect a leader to be simultaneously compassionate and strong. Indeed, it’s not easy.
Emotion can be a force multiplier, but it needs to be the right kind: It needs to match the purpose at hand. Self-loathing will not benefit you when the mode you need to be in is confidence. A healthy dose of ego might do the trick there, however. Be mindful not to allow the irrationality of emotion to enter the stage, though. Irrationality can be coupled with panic in some cases, and panic is caused by the sudden onset of fear or similar emotions that will otherwise cloud your better judgment.
The chimp from the original Tarzan movies celebrated his 75th birthday recently.
I wonder if there were bananas served with the cake?
“So good on paper, so romantic, but so bewildering…
…I know nothing stays the same
But if you're willing to play the game
It's coming around again.”
Carly Simon, “Coming Around Again”
My mantra has been to always “go forward,” no matter what else is going on personally or with an organization. Bureaucracy, management theories, and whatever else aside, one should always be moving in a direction towards the goal. However, sometimes one can inadvertently lose sight of their progress towards this goal.
Comfort is that thing which dulls optimum effectiveness. If you get too comfortable, you’re prone to laziness. You’re prone to foolishness. A lesson from the military: When you step outside your comfort zone, only then can you experience true growth, whatever venue in your life that might be. “It builds character,” is what people say of those things that are generally unpleasant: This is why. Character is defined as someone with good repute. Perhaps doing tasks that others see as unseemly give you a good reputation? I personally think the direct meaning behind this word, in this case, isn’t necessarily…correct. Rather good reputation is built around those individuals that have shown effectiveness and efficiency in the completion of their tasks. Performing above the call of duty offers a qualitative essence to an easily quantifiable task. In other words, people notice extra effort: People notice moving forward.
Everything in life can be deduced to a game. Not the manipulative sort that will inevitably come to many a mind, but a game in the auspices of economics: An interaction between multiple intelligent agents with their own agendas, motives, and rationales. Outcomes and scenarios can reasonably be deduced with previously known, currently gathered, and assumed information regarding the other intelligent agents in said game. With this methodology one can often control their own actions to control the desired outcome of the situation.
Mind you, this is not manipulation: It is control. The difference is intent. Manipulation is a principle of the unprincipled, whereas control is a principle of the science of management. One is maladaptive while the other is required in business.
People generally resist change. People will find their optimal state of being and stay there. Sometimes this means being ahead of the curve, sometimes this means complacency. It is never too late to become the person that you want to become: If the benefit of the potential reward outweighs the discomfort that you have for putting the necessary effort and energy into the scenario, then you will find a way to make it happen. Internal motivation can overcome all.
Though I keep searching for an answer, I never seem to find what I’m looking for
Oh lord, I pray: You give me strength to carry on,
‘Cause I know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams.”
--Whitesnake, “Here I Go Again”
Each of my passions are merely an outgrowth from my first which came to me at a very young age; probably since the third grade, if not younger. The search for wisdom: Answers and truth.
In physics, the “holy grail” has been listed as the search for a grand unified theory, leading to a theory of everything. See, in physics there are four fundamental forces of nature: Electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. It is often said that this grand unification theory will be easy to recognize because it will, maybe, be about an inch long and mathematically elegant: Simplicity, elegance, boldness. These are the tenets of what wisdom truly is.
And so, I find myself along the path to seek answers and meaningfully relay them to the world while supporting my own needs. Along this journey of discovery, I’ve done much to discover myself and the ways the world works around me. Life is rarely a simple organism happening in small bubbles: Rather it is a large and complex system with multiple forces interacting on one another. We can, however, apply Galilean methods and only analyze discrete systems with little entropy involved. We can pick apart these systems and boil it down to a simple set of causal forces to determine how each element—and we—interact with the rest of the system.
However, I digress.
Business is the organization of resources to do commerce. Through commerce and open markets, great things can be had: Innovation, social change, and moving civilization forward. Necessity begets invention, which often leads to it being developed and marketed, especially in a free enterprise system. Take electricity, for example: Candles had their limitations. Two scientists, Edison and Tesla, vied for the top spot of whether to supply the civilized world with alternating or direct current. In the end, Edison won with his AC power, but DC power can still be found in many applications. They found a simple and elegant solution, applied the economic principle of economies of scale, and made it so that only the rich burned candles.
I write this on the eve of embarking fully on another adventure to seek wisdom, better society, and do commerce, going down the only road that I’ve ever known: Here I go again.
I've recently been working on my new website, so additions to the blog have not been as forthcoming as I would like. As I think I've finally developed a schedule for everything, next week things should be getting fairly regular again. At the very least, I plan on doing something once every other day if not more frequently.
"Researchers using nanotechnology have taken a step toward creating an "optical cloaking" device that could render objects invisible by guiding light around anything placed inside this "cloak.""
The design...would bend light around the object being cloaked."
A co-worker of mine and myself devised this very same theory in 1995...but the known limitations back then were very similar to this: Production of a current small enough to have the desired effect.
Why do today what can be put off until tomorrow? The arch-nemesis of productivity, procrastination is the act of avoiding something that should be completed. Whereas procrastination is the maladaptive form of the behavior of prioritizing, this behavior has been shown to be one of those things that separate the “haves” and the “have-nots” in society. Productivity is a trait commonly found in the affluent and often found missing in those on the opposite side of the wealth continuum.
George S. Patton was fond of drilling “boldness, speed, simplicity” into those in his charge. It was epitomized by his quote that “executing an imperfect plan today is better than executing a perfect plan tomorrow.” The search for perfection often has diminishing returns, especially when coupled with the adage coined by a general in the American Civil War about being there “the firstest with the mostest.”
So, why do people procrastinate?
| U = | E x V |
| I x D |
Whereas:
U is the desire to complete a task.
E is the expectation of success
V is the value of completion
I is the immediacy of the task
D is the personal sensitivity to delay.
Let’s take a quick look at how the variables relate to one another.
Expectation of success multiplied by the value of completion: What is the likelihood of task completion? What value does this task have once completed? If you believe that you have absolutely no probability at completing the task, it doesn’t matter what the value of completion is, because when zero is multiplied by anything the result is still zero. Likewise, if you have a high probability at success, but the task means nothing to you completed, then the result will be nothing. Both E and V are direct motivational factors: Expectancy is an internal variable and value is an external variable.
Immediacy of the task multiplied by personal sensitivity to delay: What is the priority of the task? How does delay play into your personal prioritizing skills? Immediacy and delay sensitivity are both subjective factors where your perception of the task might make it more important than I would. Likewise, I might be an impatient individual and have a high sensitivity to delay, and thus work diligently at task completion in order to ease my burden of having the task open. Someone else, on the other hand, might have a lower delay sensitivity which manifests itself as—yes—procrastination.
The numerator and denominators—that is the top and bottom results—must produce non-zero numbers. Having a numerator that is zero translates into “having zero parts of something,” while a zero denominator (bottom part of the formula) translates into “some parts of zero.” Certainly, if you have no parts of something or some parts of nothing, it still ends up being nothing.
Let’s take another step back: Presuming the top equation is the motivational function (internal and environmental), then motivation must come from the individual or the task must be enough to cause the motivation necessary for its completion. The bottom part of the formula are numbers that have subjective meanings—such that the perceived values can (and likely will) be different from person to person. Perception is the key word here: Have you ever heard the saying that “perception is reality?” The world is how each individual person sees it, not any differently. Your perception of utility or value of the immediacy of the task and how this fits into your priorities must be enough to complete the task.
Motivational factors divided by perceived value equals desire to complete the task. That’s straight enough. How can we harness this to get a better handle on our lives?
· Always maintain motivation: Internal motivation can be the single most important factor of all of this: Doing so can increase the value of the numerator in this equation such that if there is any value on the bottom—that is, there is any perception of value in the completion of the task alongside any non-zero delay—then the desire to complete the task will always be high.
· Quantify the value of the task: Is the task worth it? If it is worth doing, it is worth doing well and it is worth doing in a timely fashion. Keeping in mind this line of thought immediately can make the task at hand a priority and help to increase your delay sensitivity.
· Urgency: A sense of urgency is one of those traits that employers often look for but don’t often find. A healthy sense of urgency (not to be confused with the maladaptive form of urgency commonly known as impatience) can foster an environment in your life where procrastination is no longer a problem; and with procrastination no longer a problem, you no longer need to be studying the procrastination equation to get a better handle on a lack of urgency in your life!
Human Mechanics: Profiling and The Myers-Briggs Type Inventory
I’ve long used the MBTI, or Myers-Briggs Type Inventory, to help me quantify the various traits of people and establish a profile of them. With the negative connotation that profiling has received in the past several years: This term, often coupled with the word “racial” suggests that profiling is used by the nefarious in order to pigeonhole people that are different from the profiler and fit them into an agenda.
Or some such nonsense.
Rather, the way that I’ve always been familiar with profiling is that it isn’t tied to any particular set of race, although it could be tied to a particular culture: Cultures often promote certain values, whether they are good or bad, and behaviors will thus permeate throughout the culture and its various subsets. For example, eastern cultures are fond of tradition and honor whereas recent studies point at those currently of college age in the United States (by contrast, a western culture) as being narcissistic. Profiles can be as simple as patterns in an individual’s behavior that can be used to predict their future behaviors or correlate these patterns with other traits that may exist with them.
People are creatures of habit: On average, doing something 21 times makes something a habit; more or less depending on the individual. Changing behaviors requires energy, focus, and time: One method is continually modifying targeted behaviors to elicit the results for which you are aiming. This is analogous with the concept of inertia in physics: An object at rest will have a tendency to stay are rest, an object in motion will have a tendency to stay in motion—both are contingent upon energy being added to the system to put the object in motion or stop it from moving. We’ll come back to this.
While people may be creatures of habit, we are very adaptable. This can either be as a matter of survival or as a matter of preference. The classic example is the “fight or flight” reflex often told in textbooks as the early hunter encountering a much meaner predator—a lion, a tiger, or a bear (oh my)—and making the decision in that moment whether to fight with the beast or to run away. And analysis of risk aside, if you fought the animal the last time you encountered one and were successful, you’d have a propensity to fight it again—especially if winning gave you a good feeling. However, if you fought the beast before and it left you with a bad feeling, your tendency might instead be to not fight the beast and run away. The same two options can be added to the flight reflex: If you run and it is coupled with a good emotion then you’re likely to flight again; if you run and it results in a bad emotion, then you’re likely to fight. Lastly, the fifth option will be to do nothing and let nature take its course. Suffice it to say that the emotional elements in the scenario would probably be somewhat more complex; this analysis still demonstrates the fundamentals of the encounter and the decisions that could be made therein.
There is not necessarily a correct answer; there is not necessarily an incorrect answer: It all depends on your point of view. Is your preference to fight rather than run? Is there some utility to be had by fighting: Does killing the beast mean that you’ll have meat for your family? Is there utility to be had by running: Have you already killed your food for the day, headed back to cook it, and have exhausted your energy for hunting for the day? The end result, in some form, will result in an economic decision by you in terms that you and the predator are both “intelligent agents.” Which way will you maximize your satisfaction?
The decisions that we make on an everyday basis are formed within the construct of the “nature and nurture” of our past and influence the quantitative aspects of our profile. Furthermore, certain behaviors (differing with cultures) can indicate your tendency to act one way over another. Actions, if not entirely rational, deliberate, and reasoned, will almost always have a rational component—at least in the mind of the person partaking in said action. This extends itself to the notion that behaviors are not necessarily isolated in a person: Behaviors are often manifestations of other traits or behaviors such that people are very much a cause-and-effect mechanism. These manifestations can range from the simple biochemical to the devious and manipulative.
When September 11, 2001 happened, I was serving in the U.S. Army. Quickly rushed away to be trained for a forthcoming mission, I found myself being trained in the “quick and dirty” methods of spotting the out of the ordinary in the environment that I was in. To this day I cannot walk into a room without doing some level of threat assessment.
Profiles can be simple or complex things. You can rely solely on experience without being completely aware of the mechanics involved; or you can be a constant student of the human (mechanical) condition like I have become. Either way, you simply need to be mindful to look for patterns and not to rely on misplaced actions to establish a firm profile.
Psychological inertia: The tendency of someone to stick with certain personality traits without additional energy and effort being added to the formula. People will often form behavioral patterns because they have found that those behaviors are effective in dealing with the environment around them. This could be as simple as putting a smile on their face when they walk out the door in the morning or relaxing in a good book at the end of a stressful day. It could, however, mean that they have found that pouting means they can get what they want or some other maladaptive behavior can elicit an outcome favorable to them (albeit probably unhealthy).
The Myers Briggs Type Inventory offers a powerful insight into people, while minimizing the number of “paradoxes” of each personality type. Each individual possesses preferences in managing, coping, and dealing with their environment: The Myers Briggs Type Inventory identifies these preferences and, it is believed in some circles, treats them like skills that can be improved:
“According to Myers-Briggs Theory, while types and traits are both inborn, traits can be improved akin to skills, whereas types, if supported by a healthy environment, naturally differentiate over time. The indicator attempts to tell the order in which this occurs in each person, and it is that information, combined with interviews done with others who have indicated having the same preferences, that the complete descriptions are based on. The indicator then, is akin to an arrow which attempts to point in the direction of the proper description.”
Take the Myers-Briggs yourself and see how it works for you!
Of course, there is the “Knowledge is power,” contrasted with “ignorance is bliss.” I always think that a mediocre individual came up with that last saying. The first statement, however, holds some interesting ramifications with it…if we look a bit deeper.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics: In a closed system, unless energy is added to it, the amount of chaos will increase and eventually take over the system.
In this context, when I think energy, I think power. What do you want to do today? If you are a “blissfully ignorant” person, how much energy will you need to exert in order to accomplish said task? The larger the task and the less energy you have to devote to it, the more time it will take to apply the proper amount of energy to the task at hand.
Now, I’m using metaphors: Your competencies or talents; skills; level of awareness of yourself, your surroundings, and of others; those things that give you a unique differential advantage when compared to others in your environment. This is your power, this is from where your energy exudes. Power can simply mean commanding respect when you walk into a room. It can mean being able to reconcile an account better than anyone else. It can mean having the necessary components in yourself and your life to go into business.
Take, for example, a guy that works in construction. After a while he grows unhappy with his construction job and wants something in more of an office environment. Maybe only a college class or two in his personal portfolio but a high level of desire to see to the satisfaction of meeting his goal of getting out of construction and into an office: He plans, prepares, and produces. Plan how to get from where you are now to where you want to be: Have a goal in mind and plan with that end in mind. Prepare yourself to meet this goal. Produce the results necessary.
In physics there are two kinds of energy: Potential and kinetic. If kinetic energy is the energy of motion, then potential energy is the energy that might be there but hasn’t been realized yet. Traits such as desire and motivation are potential energy: The planning and preparation stages are when this potential energy begins to manifests itself as kinetic energy. By the time that you are producing what you want to happen there is likely enough momentum built up to help you get ahead.
Another physics principle there: Inertia. An object at rest will tend to stay at rest, an object in motion will tend to stay in motion. How do you change either? Exert energy!
Are you satisfied with where you are now? Perhaps you are or you know people that are, and this prohibits them from realizing their full potential. Their satisfaction has manifested itself as the maladaptive behavior of complacency.
In the past you or people you know may have reacted or behaved in certain ways that may have been destructive, unhealthy, or just plain bad. Because history has taught people who use maladaptive behaviors that they can often get away with them, they will have a tendency to use them over and over again—probably making them a habit. On the other hand, there are adaptive behaviors that are psychologically healthy alternatives that will often give better results to their users than their maladaptive equivalents.
Take, for example, the person that orders something and is delivered the wrong thing. Experience teaches us that most disagreements stem from misunderstandings. In this case, there was probably some barrier to communication or other flaw that caused the misunderstanding. The maladaptive way of dealing with this situation is probably to yell, scream, and otherwise berate the order-taker; the adaptive way of handling is in understanding that there was probably a misunderstanding and mutually searching for a way to remedy it.
Which kind of person would you rather day with?
Skipping directly from expecting your order to angry takes little energy and can couple the feelings which you’re presenting to those that witness your anger. The emotion that is going to be coupled with this dilemma is probably not going to be the one you want to have them take away about you. However, taking a deep breath and exerting a bit of energy into the situation will not only increase the quality for that interaction, but could also have spillover effects such that the order taker may be less likely to make such a mistake in the future.
Your power, therefore, is represented by your knowledge, skills, and abilities in relation to your environment. Recently decide that you like skim milk over two percent? It is likely inside your scope of influence, inside your power, to stop purchasing two percent milk for the lesser fat variety. Are you unhappy with a municipal ordinance that your town or city just passed? It could very well be within your power to get elected to your local governing body, increase your scope of influence by various means, and change the law.
I can’t emphasize it enough: Find ways to assimilate new knowledge, new data, into the context of your life and it will be more effective for you.
Think Macguyver: The guy that can take a set of seemingly mundane parts from a variety of sources that, in and of themselves, wouldn’t be able to accomplish a task outside of their primary area of expertise and make them into extraordinary devices: Take, for instance, when he disarms a bomb with hockey tickets or starts the truck in a recent commercial with a pocketful of things that he purchased at a local store, including a tube sock, a rubber band, and a tool to baste a turkey with.
Finding the place where you can make things relevant to you not only increases your ability to absorb new information, it also increases awareness. The ancillary effects of this could be countless.
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