Live [Simply] Free

• Home
• About
• Twitter
• Contact

03-20-13

exposing the lie of careers

Amer­ica is the land of oppor­tu­nity. If you work hard enough, you can be any­thing you want to be. There’s a lot of truth to that. When we boil it down, our soci­ety has 3 gen­eral cat­e­gories of suc­cess­ful careers. You have lawyers, doc­tors, and busi­ness exec­u­tives. I hap­pen to per­son­ally know one such person…it’s my dad.

Ya, he worked his way all the way up from low­est man on the totem pole, to a suit-​​wearing exec­u­tive who was president/​VP of mul­ti­ple com­pa­nies, trav­elled the world, went to fancy par­ties in tuxe­dos, and made six fig­ures. He had it made. He had arrived to a spot only most dream about. Well, he doesn’t do that any­more. Now he owns his own win­dow clean­ing com­pany and offers his ser­vices as a quad-​​lingual interpreter.

I was on the path to busi­ness exec­u­tive. I’m very early in the jour­ney but it was clear to many that I’d attain it. It didn’t take me long to real­ize that with advance­ment came a lot of respon­si­bil­ity and worst of all, STRESS! I work for the best and biggest com­pany in my field, and even then there’s a lot of flaws. I began ask­ing around to see what oth­ers thought who were climb­ing the lad­der and all at dif­fer­ent lev­els. The answers were all pretty much the same. “Yes, it’s a lot respon­si­bil­ity.“
“Yes, there’s more stress.” “If I can only reach a cer­tain rung, then it’ll be smooth sail­ing.” “It’s just busy for this sea­son, things will slow down in such and such time.”

Those answers might be ok if these peo­ple were just get­ting started with their careers, but the real­ity is they’ve been at it for 10, 15, 20yr and they’re all at dif­fer­ent rungs and all say­ing the same thing. So what am I to think? That my cir­cum­stance is going to turn out dif­fer­ently? That every­one with­out excep­tion is say­ing the same thing, but I’m going to be the excep­tion!? I’m not naïve, my fate will be no different.

So, back to my dad. We talked about how careers are over­rated and my idea of start­ing my own com­pany. Here’s what my dad had to say. “You’re right.” Being a busi­ness exec­u­tive, my dad had lots of busi­ness exec­u­tive friends. He told me that most of them finally fig­ured out the same thing I had, and now they all run their own busi­nesses. Do they all have the same lux­u­ries they use to? Not all of them, but they’re all a lot happier.

Careers give us a false sense of secu­rity. It’s no more secure than run­ning your own busi­ness. If any­thing, you have more con­trol over your secu­rity when you run the show. Life is a lot sim­pler. Careers are over­rated. If you know some­one that can prove me oth­er­wise, let me know.

03-01-13

God Is Our Fortress [Psalm 46 Personalized]

“God is my refuge and strength,
a very present help in trou­ble.“
There­fore I will not fear though my life crum­bles before my eyes,
though I lose every­thing I once held dear.
whether it’s my fam­ily or friends,
or my job and all my possessions.

“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habi­ta­tion of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;
God will help her when morn­ing dawns.“
Friends may mock, they may try to shake my foun­da­tions;
“he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Come behold the works of the Lord,
how he has brought des­o­la­tions on the earth;“
He fights for me, and gives me the strength of 10,000;
He will silence my ene­mies tongues and deaden their actions;
He will destroy what they hold onto for strength.

“‘Be still and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!‘
The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress”

02-24-13

the power of a touch

Touch is a pow­er­ful thing. As an Ital­ian, touch is woven into my DNA. Not every­one is so inclined. Here’s a few exam­ples of the power of a sim­ple touch, and how it can change the very essence of who you are and how peo­ple per­ceive you.

Encour­ages — A sim­ple hi-​​five or pat on the back. You know’ve got­ten one and it felt good.

Com­forts — An arm around your shoul­der, or a hand on your arm. With­out say­ing any­thing, it can say a lot.

Cor­rects — The firm grip of a father’s hand on your shoul­der. It strikes fear in every young, and not so young, man’s heart.

Calms — The ten­der rest­ing of a hand on your knee or the reas­sur­ing grip of your hand. It gives peace to those with a rag­ing storm within.

Romances — Those early stages in a bud­ding rela­tion­ship where ever so slight and dis­creet touches are made. Whether touch­ing a shoul­der while laugh­ing or brush­ing some­thing off someone’s face. Seem­ingly minus­cule, yet core to our species’ way of courtship.

Iden­ti­fies — A bold hand­shake, a slap on the back. Often sub­lim­i­nal, but com­mu­ni­cates a level of sta­tus via confidence.

Gen­uine­ness — The hug that makes you feel like you are known. It’s what we all crave and imme­di­ately attracts us to the one who has given it.

Recalls — That sim­ple touch or kiss that floods our minds full of mem­o­ries. It brings us back to a place that can feel so real and just like yesterday.

The power of a sim­ple touch. How under­es­ti­mated it often is. Peo­ple cry for change in this world. Poverty, war, greed. Could not a touch be the cat­a­lyst for much of this needed change?

To add a spir­i­tual note, Chris­tian­ity should be pre­sented with a touch. It allows oth­ers a glimpse into our souls to see the truth of what we speak. Chris­tian­ity given at an arms length is not Chris­tian­ity at all.

02-12-13

What would you enjoy doing if money were no object?

I watched a video tonight that cut deep. The ques­tion was asked, “How would you enjoy spend­ing your life if money were no object?” Watch the video for yourself.

Peo­ple have dreams but get jobs to make money to live those dreams. Young peo­ple get a good career and get wrapped up in it, then buy a house, have a fam­ily, and become so depen­dent and com­fort­able with where they’re at. They never break the cycle to do what they really wanted.

Why do peo­ple get full time jobs and take pro­mo­tions? It’s for the money. Why not try liv­ing your dream even if you don’t think you’re ready? No one ever thinks they’re finan­cially or emo­tion­ally ready for mar­riage or kids but these are accepted “risks”. Could liv­ing your dream be one of those “risks” that end up turn­ing out alright? I read once that “Fears are often only paper thin. All you have to do is walk through it.”

Wouldn’t it be bet­ter to live life to the fullest for 5yr and have some­thing to remem­ber than live a mun­dane life for 50yr? And hon­estly, I’ve seen a few close fam­i­lies to me go through bank­ruptcy and some­how today they seem no worse off for it than me. Money holds far too strong of a grip on us.

Full time jobs pro­vide insur­ance, and it’s thought to be fool­ish not to have insur­ance espe­cially if we have kids. Well is it not just as wise to put away money each month for emer­gen­cies and scrap insur­ance? Besides, if some­thing cat­a­strophic hap­pens, insur­ance gives up and you’ll end up with some­thing you can’t pay anyway.

Insur­ance is so we can give our kids a bet­ter chance at a future. But what kind of future are they really going to have with us set­ting the exam­ple that they’ll fol­low of get­ting a job and work­ing our lives away doing some­thing we really don’t enjoy?

Take the plunge. Don’t set­tle for this society’s phe­sod of free­dom. Free­dom lies among a select few who are brave enough to go after it. I use to be one of them and I plan on join­ing the ranks again.

02-07-13

simple productivity tips

Some­times though we wish life were sim­pler, it just isn’t. For those of us with com­plex and busy lifestyles in the pro­longed process of sim­pli­fy­ing our lives, there’s a few pro­duc­tiv­ity tips to help.

• Take sup­ple­ments. Most of us don’t get all the nutri­ents we need, and nutri­ents play a big role in our energy level and sleep qual­ity. Here’s a few of the things I’ve been tak­ing that I’ve noticed mak­ing a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence. Juice Plus+, Opti­mum Nutri­tion, Omega 3 Fish Oils.
• Wake up early. I like to get up between 5–5:30am (I feel great now that I’m on those sup­ple­ments). There’s no sci­en­tific research, but I always seem to get more done when I wake up early. By 10am I can have most things done that would oth­er­wise usu­ally take all day.
• Use a to-​​do list. To-​​do lists aren’t just for peo­ple with bad mem­o­ries. When you have some­thing writ­ten down to accom­plish for the day, there’s an instinc­tive nature to want to check off those items. I use Things, but there’s plenty of other free appli­ca­tions out there. Try to find one that has a com­puter and phone app that sync.
• Exer­cise. This will help get the blood flow­ing, release those endor­phines, and make you more focused. 20min of ele­vated heart rate is all it takes. Swim, bike, run, yoga, hike, rock climb, lift weights, etc. You can’t say you don’t have options.
• Plan ahead. To-​​do lists are good for the daily details, but you also need to map out the big pic­ture. Take one day a week to jot out your next week’s sched­ule. I put down work appoint­ments, exer­cises and their times, recre­ational blocks of times, and per­sonal study times (because I always want to be learn­ing). Per­son­ally, cer­tain cat­e­gories I plan for the upcom­ing week and some I plan 2wk in advance due to my sched­ule fill­ing if I don’t plan far enough out. Once you make your sched­ule, decide to stick to your guns (like exer­cise) if some­thing else comes up (friend want­ing to get coffee)…there will be other days.