I've lived in the modern world here now for, oh - let's say a good thirty some years, give or take.
Granted, there's a lot I like about this day and age, but I have to say, there's also a lot I really just do not like.
Don't worry - I'm not going to throw out blanket generalizations that we, as a culture, are totally headed in the wrong direction or espouse dogma declaring that I've found the true way to do, be, and live.
I am, however, drawing attention to the fact that in this day and age, we have much more responsibility to ourselves and to others in the way we live our lives. The very heavy burden of choice is upon each and every one of our shoulders, and many times uncovering what's right and wrong for us - individually - in a sea of infinite possibilities, is a long hard, winding road of self-discovery.
That journey - we all have to take alone.
I've lived the high life, the low life, the slow life, and everywhere in between at this point. And today - with my new-found every other Friday off (with my new job) - I've been reflecting on this myriad of perspectives I've collected across all of the people I've been in this one life - and thinking about what has worked better for me when it comes down to lifestyles choices.
I thought it would be fun to put together a list of ways I've reverted back to an "old school way of thinking" - simply because those choices ending up working better for me in the end.
So here are a few lifestyle choices I've settled on after much analysis and much contemplation in my own effort to live a more fruitful, fulfilling life:
Do work that other people understand.
I have a philosophy: if your grandmother doesn't understand what it is that you do every day to make money, it is usually a sign that either:
- What you do is incredibly complex (as in mechanical engineering) -or-
- What you do uses a lot of big words that sound smart, but are really defenses to people who could criticize you or poke holes in your story and therefore, you have a lot of status anxiety.
- What you do is a too idealistic or a hard sell and therefore, you aren't sure if its going to get off the ground or make money.
# 1 is simply a personal preference, but to # 2 and # 3 - business isn't that complicated and people aren't stupid. Its a simple formula: buy and sell. Rather than trying to create needs, its just easier to find
practical needs people already recognize and fill them.
Since I lack an ability in mechanical engineering or quantum physics, my general rule of thumb today is simple:
if people don't understand what it is I do, I'm better off not doing it.
Talk on the phone.
I have to be honest here: I feel like I've developed something of a phone phobia from all of those dropped calls in the early days of cell phone usage which has made me 'one of those millennials' who hides behind text messages. Never having full bars or moving in and out of blackout zones has created something in me that is always anticipating when the call will fail or if I was actually heard. But I do want to overcome this - and mobile connections have gotten infinitely better, so I'm working on making that happen because I want to stop hiding behind text and connect more with the people I love.
I had a friend who purposely got rid of his text messaging service on his phone for this very reason... could I get rid of text messaging? Hmm... maybe not just yet, but I can certainly pick up the phone more often - like back in the day, when people used to talk when they had something to say. This one is a work in progress, but hopefully you get my point.
Business will always be about people.
I'm all for technological advancement, but look - you're not going to get ahead by automating every process, outsourcing jobs overseas, doing mass layoffs and otherwise alienating your most valuable resource - the ones who make the whole ship sail: your people.
Business will always be about people because people aren't going away anytime soon. People need work, people need to to eat, people need to buy and sell things
to make this thing called Capitalism sustainable - so that its not a system that collapses like the Soviet Union's version of Communism.
And truly, in the world of social media, and always being connected, its the people who are still going to be there long after your job isn't. Your old co-workers, bosses, and colleagues are going to be your future references, you "ins" at a promising new company, the person who gives you a great review, the person who passes your name along...
No matter how much shifts and changes or advances in our modern economy, if Capitalism is to continue, it will always be about people simply because businesses, at their core, are nothing more than a group of people coming together to build livelihoods.
So I've learned this along the way:
put relationships before jobs, because the people are going to be there after the job isn't.
Slow and steady wins the race.
I stopped buying into the "crazy-busy" American lifestyle around 2010. Whew, child! Been there, done that. Not interested in going back.
In fact, when you run the numbers: health/quality of life vs. money, it literally does not make much business sense to run at full throttle in the end. And when you really sit down to break your salary and all of those nights and weekends you're working down to you actual dollar per hour rate, its really not worth it. You usually realize what you're
actually making is pretty close to minimum wage.
In demanding, high-stress jobs, you're essentially being compensated for a tradeoff: your inability to set boundaries and say "no." You're also theoretically being compensated for the degradation of your health due to stress, and if you're really lucky - you're being compensated for the 6 months to 5 years it will take you to recover
from a full stage 12 burnout. And then again, when you look at the cold, hard facts of your per hour pay rate, you're actually not being compensated for that at all. You're kind of like an over-leveraged credit card really.
Crazy-busy American lifestyles are high-risk without a lot of gain in the end purely because the body was not designed to be a Super Man or a Super Woman. People are putting their bodies through an insane amount of stress with lifestyles that's will almost certainly attempt to correct and "realign" themselves through sheer burnout.
Not to mention that countless studies have shown that the true mark of "buying happiness" in terms of a salary caps out at $75,000 per year. Anything over and above that doesn't affect one's happiness.
What works better: slow, steady, gradual, paced, continual and sustainable growth and the character-building effects that come with living life at a moderate pace, which include patience, sacrifice, and endurance.
Get a wold view.
And by world view, I don't mean the vapid "think positive thoughts and good things will happen" or the "world peace is achievable" belief system. Will that really hold up when you ask yourself deeper questions like how could neighbors, who've known each other their whole lives massacre each other's children with machetes in Rwanda's genocide - or how could a pregnant women strap bombs to herself and hold a Moscow theatre hostage for days - or whether physician-assisted suicide is the best answer when cancer ravishes patient's bodies with excruciating, uncontrollable pain? Is it?
Its important to ask yourself these things - and find answers - long before you meet your maker. Because when you find those answers, it shapes your core: your value system that will guide you through the complexities of existence for the rest of your life.
It will tell you who you should date or marry to avoid making mistakes, how you will raise your children, how you will answer your children's questions about the world, how you conduct yourself in business and in life and the types of people you associate with. It will guide you in what kind of friend, sister, mother, daughter you will be, it will guide you in feeling compassion for other's struggles and having mercy on others and their shortcomings. It will guide you in finding significance in life... it will channel your energies towards what truly matters in your heart of hearts, it will ultimately define who you really are and what your legacy will be.
So get a world view - a real one with depth. Really, deeply look at the world around us - its beauty and elegance, its depravity and fallen nature - and ask yourself the very hard questions. And if you answers don't hold up, keep looking and don't stop until you find an answer.
Perhaps its time to stop being so dismissive of your aunt who talks so much about Jesus and maybe consider what it is that she's found that's so promising in that truth.
Get a world view through much research, prayer and contemplation. Its an essential part of becoming an adult because it will ultimately guide you at the core for the rest of your life.
Things take time.
Some things just take time - a lot of time. Its the antithesis to our world of instant gratification, but usually, most things work themselves out pretty well
given enough time. Its one of those beautiful things in life - the way it unfolds
over time.
I personally think that God works slowly. Very slowly. Its usually through much prayer and supplication that you find that things came together in a most eloquent way - a way you weren't expecting, and you really were given favor.
Having been through the whole New Age "woo woo" and superstitious phase of life, I'm always suspicious when things show up instantly wrapped in a pretty bow with the label of "synchronicity" - or by any means that could be explained by the Law of Attraction. I think a lot of times, in my own experiences, these "little breadcrumbs" were wrong directions or false starts that were cleverly deceptive in their ability to distract from something more enduring that is simply taking time in the background to come to fruition.
As a general rule now, I have to ask that if it came too fast or came too easily or too "coincidentally," was it really from God -- or should I
wait?
There is beauty in time. The way the seemingly impossible is shifted and chipped off little by little each day, untangling and working itself out with a soft, slow-moving, unfolding grace... We forget this.
Modern life places a lot of responsibility on us.
In a choice-laden, boundariless, crazy-busy modern world, its really up to us to find and carve out our own parameters for living. It takes courage to feel around in the dark, bumping up against those places within ourselves - our values, our beliefs, our personalities and nature - that define who we really are and what we will or will not stand for. Thank God that on occasion, we actually hit a light switch.
What light switches have you hit upon looking back at your life? Specifically, what "old school" ways of being have you found that just seemed to work better when you actually put them to the test?
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