David was made by stripping away the unnecessary...

Happy Labor Day! What was I doing today? Laboring of course. I had an interesting week. I've been so overwhelmed with stuff lately and everything hit me all at once that I really felt run down. Okay was that me whining? Pretty much. If I ever needed a control-alt-delete it would be now.

Before I rant on, let's talk about the past couple of week challenges.







Week 35:


Look me in the eye!

The weeks challenge consisted of me working on my eye contact. It was influenced by a book called "The Power Of Eye Contact" by Michael Ellsberg. It was actually a very interesting experiment. I really do need a longer period of time before it becomes completely life changing but as such... I noticed also that wearing headphones  in the city along with lack of eye contact really made me withdraw into myself. I became aware of me isolating myself from life. Too deep.

Week 36:


I spent a week working on and researching Internet Businesses. I was reading some profiles on some people and I guess I was really intrigued with people able to make a living doing something on the internet.

It was also somewhat something of a small fear in me. A fear of putting things out there. I guess this blog could somewhat count in terms of putting things out there but I guess I reason it as no one really looks at this blog and it seems more self serving for me as a sort of journal for this past year. That being said, I am completely overwhelmed with great ideas. I am actually in the process of taking "actionable steps" towards several ideas that I had last week.

This weeks challenge is actually going to really embrace "Networking". I have a few books that I will mention in the next post that have actually influenced me. As for the stripping away.  I am embracing the fun quotient for this week. It may lead to other issues but I feel that "well it isn't working this way anyhow". What does this mean? I am going to try using fun as the gauge for if I am doing the right thing.

Anyhow, a really cool remake of a song that I have been enjoying lately...enjoy

Learning from the Stoics

This past week was spent reading books from "The Stoics". It was more of learning of a philosophy then any particular challenges. Unfortunately I only had a week but I did learn some interesting lessons.

I guess I was jaded a little bit from the self help movement. I was noticing the past few years that I started to lean towards business books then my usual litany of self help books. Actually let me go back a little bit here.


When I was younger I guess I believed in whatever I was raised to believe. I guess if I had to choose something that I believed in back then I guess it was in the basics of religion I was raised to believe in. I then slowly moved to the Occult. I remember finding a book of mantras and remember thinking it was really cool. It kind of lead to a few other books but I guess it wasn't too crazy. I mean I didn't have any voodoo dolls or anything, but on a surface level it was "the occult". After that I kind of moved into super religion, almost evangelistic. It kind of was what I did until a few people that I thought were good turned out to not be so. After that I kind of went towards there is no God deal. I pretty much just figured it was all useless and just do what you do. And thatttttt (wow this is kind of a long evolution)moved towards the Self Help  do it, take action kind of philosophy. I set goals and just took a lot of action. That slowly shifted to a "Law of Attraction" kind of philosophy. Now where do I stand at this point in my life. I think it is kind of complicated. I do believe in something more out there. I also think that the law of attraction is fine but you also have to get out there and fail. You have to be willing to try out things. Leading to Stoicism.

I learned about these philosophers who preached a very practical approach to living over two thousand years ago. They were known as Stoics. I especially enjoyed the works of Seneca. A typical idea of the philosophy would be for example, if you are afraid of losing your job and poverty, actually spend a week having no money. Or making 20 dollars last all week. After going through this type of process you realize that it isn't going to kill you and that you are able to survive something like this. It might not be easy but I did learn a lot from this approach to life. If you are interested in the philosophy definitely check out the works of Seneca. I kind of jump around from the different letters that he wrote and pick up something everytime I read him.

Anyhow somethings to check out:

So distracted....hmmmmm

What makes for a year challenge leads to much distraction. I can't say that makes for a good excuse to not keeping 100 percent current with this blog but then again, I wish I had more time in the day.

I have been into so many cool things lately and reading and learning a lot. I really wish I had more time. I realize there are so many cool things in this world if I only had the time. I also realize that who we are as people are pretty much determined by our thoughts and beliefs about who we are. Trying out so many different things has a way of causing you to evaluate the many different perspectives about what is really possible (in a non self help guru kind of way).



I have been trying to maintain my personal focus as well as trying out different weekly challenges and also maintaining the basics of everyday  living (job, friends, family and such). I can't say that there are some things that haven't suffered and maybe at this time in my life that's okay.

So what did I do these past few weeks:

Week 31:


Baby Steps. Or to be more precise the concept of Kaizen. It was a process of thinking smaller and doing smaller. I got pretty much the entire philosophy from a book entitled "One Small Step Can Change Your Life" by Robert Maurer. I guess the lack of focus got to me and I was getting overwhelmed so I really kind of took to this book.

Much of the philosophy concerned making changes in such small incremental steps that it bypassed any internal resistance to change. One of the examples being going from a Venti (large)coffee drink to a Grande (medium) if I want to slowly end an addiction to coffee. If I have some project, I would do the smallest possible step. For example doing laundry, I might just take out the laundry bag. Those are small examples but I have to admit, it definitely made a difference and you should definitely check out the book.

Week 32:


Getting funky. I actually decided to try my hand at slap bass. That sort of funky, slapping popping type of bass sound. It was kind of fun. I mean, heck I sucked at it but it was definitely interesting. Once again a week made it kind of not enough time to get even half way decent but interesting none the less.


Week 33:


I actually got back to drawing. One of the earlier challenges was "Art Week". This week was strictly drawing. It's actually something I intend to do a little longer than a week. I am actually going through a book by Mark Kistler called Drawing in 30 days. I always loved Mark Kistler and his Kaizen approach to teaching drawing.

So anyhow, that should bring me up to date. For now. I am trying to be more forgiving with my situation and I have a bunch of habits that keep me sane but also take up much of my time. I am hoping to get my Jiu Jitsu back on track and just get myself focused again. Until then something else to try...

"The ends justify the means..."

So it's been awhile. I think I am going to use that as my opening phrase for the rest of these blogs lol. The past three weeks have been quite interesting. The challenges have revolved around some interesting issues in my life. The challenges from the past three weeks were:

-Negotiating
-Politics
-Economics

I know, not terribly exciting. But for whatever reason, the past few weeks started off with me reading about John Adams and Benjamin Franklin and then that became an off shoot of reading about the aforementioned topics.

The most interesting book of the bunch I read was "Winning at Office Politics" by Marie G McIntyre. What a great read. I also read Freakonomics  and a few books on Negotiating and Economics. A good one being "The Little Book of Economics" by Greg Ip.

Now I'm the type of guy who kind of just deals with life in a "go with the flow fashion". I never really paid attention to how the interplay and dynamics of people come together. I learned that I dealt with life from a small bubble of my consciousness and instead of dealing with life as it really was. Now I don't want to come off like I've become all paranoid and I really feel that I've only scratched the surface of what is possible with this newfound revelation. But like I've mentioned before, 7 days is not a long time.

Anyhow a few things inspiring me lately:

Latest Update

I am writing this on my iPhone at a Barnes and Nobles enjoying a green tea and almonds. I am currently listening to the film scores channel on Pandora. I had a couple of free hours to kill before work and I figured I really need to update the blog more often so I am trying my best to try different ways to do that.

First off some updates. Last weeks challenge for me was to take time and actually do some chores. Yes, like when I was 12 and had chores to do. Tasks such as everyday cleaning and scrubbing to paying bills and finishing projects around the house that needed tomget done. Tell you the truth, I found it kind of relaxing. In a sense it was almost grounding. From doing laundry to scrubbing my bathroom (which I realized I should do more often). I put on my headphones and pretty much got everything I wanted to get done. If I could only keep this up lol.

This weeks challenge is gonna lead to he next few challenges. I would consider myself a relatively creatI've person (lol), but with that comes certain tasks that I do not enjoy. Activities that are more left brained in theory. These are areas I have avoided in one way or another my whole life. The specific tasks being in no particular order:

-negotiating
-networking
-dealing with difficult people or situations
-social and political awareness

I realize this specific objectives and challenges are gonna be harder to quantify by I realized that these area will definitely help me out in some major areas of life. This week I have been reading negotiating books and hopefully in my line of work I will be able to practice some of these things. Otherwise I'm gonna have to get creative in how I approach these specific "arts". Anyhow my hands are cramping up. So for now i say adieu...

And so it goes...

I am posting a pic of the Green Lantern Emblem because one, he was my fave when I was a kid and two, I like the whole symbolism of creating anything from your imagination. Enuff said...

I've been doing private journals as of late which made this page a little bit less inspired. I am hoping to journal in this blog more and try to catch up with where I am now.

As for last weeks challenge and this week challenge. Last week I focused on passion. They do say follow your passions. I was doing a lot of little challenges as well. I failed one of the big ones. I didn't realize how big a task a 1000 piece puzzle was but I definitely was not able to finish it in a week. As for the passion part, I started thinking what I would do if no decisions could be made because of money but from straight passion. Almost as if passion were the new currency. I have to admit, it was tougher then I thought it was gonna be. I had to start thinking in different terms and after a while I would revert back to making money or at least how it could possibly turn into something lucrative. I also enjoyed a few books and a such. Had some new foods I haven't had and add to that it was my birthday led to me having more fun then I really should have lol.

This weeks challenge is about giving. Something in line of Random Acts of Kindness. I felt resistant  somewhat with this one. I thought I was more generous. I guess we are always more of something in our minds. It is the little things I guess, and in some ways I believe that some people may misinterpret some of these acts but I do think it is important to trod through. I still have a few days to on this one.

I have been busy in a lot of ways and somewhat scattered in my focus. It's been affecting me in little ways. I know that there is a benefit in doing these little challenges but I have to say that they are taxing on the "mental game". One of the things I have been looking at are some of the Buddhist types of beliefs of accepting what is. The total embracing of everything going on in ones life. I guess this lack of focus has something to teach me about focus ironically. I may be incredibly tired right now so much of this may not be making sense, but I accept that. I have to say that I learned a lot this week. It was a trying adventure but many lessons were gleaned. I will definitely have to post that story next time. Till then, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..........