This is post 11 for the year. Unfortunately this is week 16 so I'm behind a bit. I'll see what kind of plan is the best for catching up, I imagine doubling up every other week is the best plan.
Visual progress is important. It inspires me. Carving my first carving (a rabbit made from a carrot) was quick and easy. The whole thing probably took an hour at most. As I made each cut large features of the rabbit quickly came into focus. This was his head. These were his forepaws and his haunches. The rough outline took very little time and a lot fewer cuts than I would have thought.
Then I decided to work on a bird. My first attempt was going to be from a block of basswood. The block was way too big. So I took a branch pruning saw and cut a small subsection off. It was still way too big. I started working on the project but after an hour of work I had barely rounded off the edges of the block. I hadn't made any appreciable progress towards the shape of the bird in my head.
Luckily I went to hang out with some friends of mine. One of them has a very nice woodworking shop and he cut some small blocks out of a piece of scrap wood for me. I remember distinctly he kept asking me if the pieces were small enough. He really pressed me and I'm glad he did because I wanted much smaller blocks than what he had originally cut.
But I felt like I was cheating. The progress was huge and it was taking a matter of a minute rather than the painstaking hours I thought it would take. I felt like the carving wouldn't count. It wouldn't be the product of hours of work (it ended up taking quite a few don't worry) and so I felt like I wasn't really 'learning to carve'. Throw in the use of power tools and I start to feel like this bird was going to be cheap and tawdry.
When I went back to work on my new smaller pieces it was still rough going. It took me probably around four to five hours to carve the bird. I still need to sand and finish it and I estimate that will take another hour or so. This time though I could start to see the progress I was making. Even after an hour I could see the block starting to move vaguely toward the shape of the bird. The closer I got the more excited I became. I started wanting to spend more and more time on the carving.
After I 'finished' the bird I realized I wasn't happy with the shape. Staring at it I realized not only what I wanted to do but what kind of cut I needed to use to get it done. In the span of a few hours spent working I had started to learn how to look at the problems in carving. Seeing that progress in my ability to evaluate a particular piece was even more exciting than seeing the progress in the shape of the bird.
I ended up talking to my wife about the idea of hand made goods versus mass produced goods over our vacation and she pointed out that we as a society value time very highly. If someone puts a lot of their time into crafting something we value it more highly even if it is physically indistinguishable from a mass produced version.
But I don't want to make things needlessly difficult. I don't feel more productive or accomplished if I add busy work to a project to pad out the hours it takes to complete. So I think it's a finer distinction of time spent in careful crafting and consideration of the task at hand.
Ultimately visual progress in both forms (progressing projects and improving skill set) are important motivators for me. Both inspire me to put in more time and increase my enjoyment from the task at hand. People are intended to create. Each us, no matter how deeply buried, have an instinct to create. One of the most saddening things to me about living in a consumption based culture is that so many people don't take the time to cultivate our ability to create.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Year 2: Thought 10: What effect does brain pre-caching have?
How you approach someone in a conversation can drastically change the
way they respond. But can it also drastically change the way they
think?
I think it is common knowledge that the way you phrase a question in a survey or even on a voting ballot has a tremendous impact on the way people answer. I remember reading through the questions on the primary ballot I filled out last year. Some seemed reasonably neutral (which makes sense as the political party is trying to find out what its constituents think on certain issues) but others were obviously biased. "Should we vote to stop wasting money on X?" is clearly trying to get a specific response.
Why bother? If you're going to phrase your questions in such a way as to get the answer you want what is the point? I guess it's useful to try and convince people that your constituents are on your side, but that seems to defeat the point of what you're trying to do. You're eventually going to have to deal with your constituents complaining that you didn't really do what they wanted. Unless repeatedly asking the question in that form lets you control the narrative around the story. Then you can convince people that they want what you want even when presented the same argument in a different light they wouldn't want it.
This is one thing I really don't like about people. When I say people I include myself. It is too easy to use our brain's natural tendencies against us. If you prime people with certain words their brain kind of pre-caches related words and ideas. You have to lean heavily on the rational deliberate part of your brain to cut through the spin. The hard thing is letting the cruise-control part of your brain know to alert the rational deliberate part of your brain that now is the time to kick in. If you don't have a reflexive push-back against the idea being presented you aren't terribly likely to say "Let me make sure there is no trickery going on here".
One thing I have changed my mind (slightly) about is gun control. I'm not for mass gun restrictions but I am definitely in favor of ending the ability to buy a weapon with no waiting period from a gun show or on the internet. Having any kind of 'don't have to register it' loophole is also incredibly bad. I was reading an opinion piece today by a Senator who was against this happening. A few years ago I probably would've read his article (without really understanding the piece of legislation it was referring to) and agreed with what he said. We do need to defend the right of the populace to bear arms.
But when I knew what the piece of legislation was about it changed my reading of the entire article. I wasn't pre-disposed to agree with him. The "we need to make sure we keep the right to arm ourselves" argument had no relevance to the legislation. I do agree that people should be able to own weapons (even guns). I do agree that this legislation wouldn't have stopped a majority of the mass shootings (we in fact as a society really need to improve our views of and access to mental health care). But his entire premise that it's ok to have an unregistered gun I don't agree with. However if I hadn't already had some thoughts in my head about the gun legislation I could easily see myself reading that article and agreeing with everything he said, because my brain wouldn't have loaded all the necessary context in.
So it's important to watch this trait in myself. I'm very glad my brain tries to be efficient and pre-load information it thinks is relevant to the discussion at hand. But it doesn't always pick right and if those assumptions I'm running on aren't clearly stated I can waste a lot of time arguing with someone I don't necessarily disagree with.
I think it is common knowledge that the way you phrase a question in a survey or even on a voting ballot has a tremendous impact on the way people answer. I remember reading through the questions on the primary ballot I filled out last year. Some seemed reasonably neutral (which makes sense as the political party is trying to find out what its constituents think on certain issues) but others were obviously biased. "Should we vote to stop wasting money on X?" is clearly trying to get a specific response.
Why bother? If you're going to phrase your questions in such a way as to get the answer you want what is the point? I guess it's useful to try and convince people that your constituents are on your side, but that seems to defeat the point of what you're trying to do. You're eventually going to have to deal with your constituents complaining that you didn't really do what they wanted. Unless repeatedly asking the question in that form lets you control the narrative around the story. Then you can convince people that they want what you want even when presented the same argument in a different light they wouldn't want it.
This is one thing I really don't like about people. When I say people I include myself. It is too easy to use our brain's natural tendencies against us. If you prime people with certain words their brain kind of pre-caches related words and ideas. You have to lean heavily on the rational deliberate part of your brain to cut through the spin. The hard thing is letting the cruise-control part of your brain know to alert the rational deliberate part of your brain that now is the time to kick in. If you don't have a reflexive push-back against the idea being presented you aren't terribly likely to say "Let me make sure there is no trickery going on here".
One thing I have changed my mind (slightly) about is gun control. I'm not for mass gun restrictions but I am definitely in favor of ending the ability to buy a weapon with no waiting period from a gun show or on the internet. Having any kind of 'don't have to register it' loophole is also incredibly bad. I was reading an opinion piece today by a Senator who was against this happening. A few years ago I probably would've read his article (without really understanding the piece of legislation it was referring to) and agreed with what he said. We do need to defend the right of the populace to bear arms.
But when I knew what the piece of legislation was about it changed my reading of the entire article. I wasn't pre-disposed to agree with him. The "we need to make sure we keep the right to arm ourselves" argument had no relevance to the legislation. I do agree that people should be able to own weapons (even guns). I do agree that this legislation wouldn't have stopped a majority of the mass shootings (we in fact as a society really need to improve our views of and access to mental health care). But his entire premise that it's ok to have an unregistered gun I don't agree with. However if I hadn't already had some thoughts in my head about the gun legislation I could easily see myself reading that article and agreeing with everything he said, because my brain wouldn't have loaded all the necessary context in.
So it's important to watch this trait in myself. I'm very glad my brain tries to be efficient and pre-load information it thinks is relevant to the discussion at hand. But it doesn't always pick right and if those assumptions I'm running on aren't clearly stated I can waste a lot of time arguing with someone I don't necessarily disagree with.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Year 2: Thought 9: Intentional Eating
I have never really paid attention to what I eat. I've started tracking calories of everything I eat lately. It's been an interesting experience. I'm not particularly concerned with being overweight, but I am interested in losing some weight to try and take pressure off of my knee. I had my ACL replaced about 6 months ago and have been paying more attention to what impacts my knee since then.
My brother got a weighted vest for Christmas. He runs a lot and being able to add 18 pounds (the max weight for the vest) will help him train in a different way than just running for a longer time. I tried it on around Christmas and realized how much of a difference such a relatively small change in weight makes to your knees and legs.
My right leg is a lot weaker than it was before my ACL tore. It is drastically weaker. I've been talking to a guy about working on some exercises to strengthen it, but trying on that vest made me realize that one of the best things I could do would be to drop any excess weight I have. Now, I use the word excess very carefully. I'm not obese. I'm not really overweight. However I am above my body's expected weight (by about 15 pounds).
One interesting thing I've learned from my knee experience is how much I'm willing to do to keep the ability to run. It is something I've taken for granted for 30+ years, but it is something I'm willing to go to great lengths to preserve. So, I'm counting my calories now.
When I got married the first large scale dietary shift in my life happened. I started eating a lot more healthily, largely because my wife cooked the meals and she was used to (and liked having) a healthier diet than I was used to. I ended up losing about 15 pounds (most of it was probably fast food). However I hadn't at the time taken any kind of intentional steps about what I was eating. It just so happens that my wife started feeding me healthier food for dinner every day of the week and as a natural result I lost weight.
Last year the only resolution I kept was my resolution to not eat french fries. I did it for a specific reason and I enjoyed the results of my year long fry fast. This year I binged pretty hard (much harder than I had planned) on fries. I probably ate fries two or three times a week for the first two months of the year. Once I started tracking my calories I eventually ended up eating a medium sized order of fries when grabbing fast food on my way home one Friday night. I guesstimated they were 200-300 calories. They were in fact 500. That's as much as the sandwich I ate.
I think seeing the cold hard numbers of what I eat has been pretty enlightening. The first thing I ended up stopping was eating candy at work. Well I didn't completely stop, but I went from 3-5 pieces a day to 1. Those Reese's end up adding some calories to your diet if you eat 3-4 a day. I also cut down to 1 calorie drink a day. The rest of time it is 0 calorie hot tea or water. Those two things cut a surprising chunk of calories out of my day. Next was potato chips (replaced with pretzels).
So I haven't really given up any meal or the number of snacks I eat a day. But I've been working on substituting my high calorie items with slightly lower calorie items. It's been interesting to do the math every day and see where my largest sources of calories come from. I'm very blessed that my parents convinced me to love fruit as a kid because they provide a great lower calorie snack.
I still laugh a little in my head. I'm not a diet person. I'm not a calorie counter. I've always been a little confused by (and derisive of, if I'm being honest) people who were. But taking the time to really analyze what I'm eating and where my calories come from has made me more sympathetic to them. It's also showed me that I spent my entire life eating without thought. If it tasted good and I was hungry I ate it, with no thought to whether or not it was good for me or necessary.
I like seeing another part of my life fall under the sway of intentionality. After I drop the weight I want to drop I don't see myself continuing to track every calorie, but I do think I'll be more intentional with weighing what I'm eating with what I'm doing. It's easy to slowly gain weight over the course of years and then feel helpless to get rid of it.
And hey, if I ever run into a pub trivia where they want to know how many calories are in a peppermint I'll know. It's 20 calories.
My brother got a weighted vest for Christmas. He runs a lot and being able to add 18 pounds (the max weight for the vest) will help him train in a different way than just running for a longer time. I tried it on around Christmas and realized how much of a difference such a relatively small change in weight makes to your knees and legs.
My right leg is a lot weaker than it was before my ACL tore. It is drastically weaker. I've been talking to a guy about working on some exercises to strengthen it, but trying on that vest made me realize that one of the best things I could do would be to drop any excess weight I have. Now, I use the word excess very carefully. I'm not obese. I'm not really overweight. However I am above my body's expected weight (by about 15 pounds).
One interesting thing I've learned from my knee experience is how much I'm willing to do to keep the ability to run. It is something I've taken for granted for 30+ years, but it is something I'm willing to go to great lengths to preserve. So, I'm counting my calories now.
When I got married the first large scale dietary shift in my life happened. I started eating a lot more healthily, largely because my wife cooked the meals and she was used to (and liked having) a healthier diet than I was used to. I ended up losing about 15 pounds (most of it was probably fast food). However I hadn't at the time taken any kind of intentional steps about what I was eating. It just so happens that my wife started feeding me healthier food for dinner every day of the week and as a natural result I lost weight.
Last year the only resolution I kept was my resolution to not eat french fries. I did it for a specific reason and I enjoyed the results of my year long fry fast. This year I binged pretty hard (much harder than I had planned) on fries. I probably ate fries two or three times a week for the first two months of the year. Once I started tracking my calories I eventually ended up eating a medium sized order of fries when grabbing fast food on my way home one Friday night. I guesstimated they were 200-300 calories. They were in fact 500. That's as much as the sandwich I ate.
I think seeing the cold hard numbers of what I eat has been pretty enlightening. The first thing I ended up stopping was eating candy at work. Well I didn't completely stop, but I went from 3-5 pieces a day to 1. Those Reese's end up adding some calories to your diet if you eat 3-4 a day. I also cut down to 1 calorie drink a day. The rest of time it is 0 calorie hot tea or water. Those two things cut a surprising chunk of calories out of my day. Next was potato chips (replaced with pretzels).
So I haven't really given up any meal or the number of snacks I eat a day. But I've been working on substituting my high calorie items with slightly lower calorie items. It's been interesting to do the math every day and see where my largest sources of calories come from. I'm very blessed that my parents convinced me to love fruit as a kid because they provide a great lower calorie snack.
I still laugh a little in my head. I'm not a diet person. I'm not a calorie counter. I've always been a little confused by (and derisive of, if I'm being honest) people who were. But taking the time to really analyze what I'm eating and where my calories come from has made me more sympathetic to them. It's also showed me that I spent my entire life eating without thought. If it tasted good and I was hungry I ate it, with no thought to whether or not it was good for me or necessary.
I like seeing another part of my life fall under the sway of intentionality. After I drop the weight I want to drop I don't see myself continuing to track every calorie, but I do think I'll be more intentional with weighing what I'm eating with what I'm doing. It's easy to slowly gain weight over the course of years and then feel helpless to get rid of it.
And hey, if I ever run into a pub trivia where they want to know how many calories are in a peppermint I'll know. It's 20 calories.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Year 2: Thought 8: Anger
Vengeance is mine says the Lord.
What a mouthful. There is a lot packed in there. One of the more enthralling passages of the Bible for me has always been Jesus cleansing the temple of thieves. He very carefully and purposefully builds a whip. He goes in an cleans house. Along with whippings he delivers a scathing accusation that they had turned the house of God into a house of thieves.
I hate to see the bad guys win and I love to see justice done. A part of me wonders if this is part of being made in the image of God. Another part of me remembers the story of the forgiven debtor who goes out and strangles a guy over a little bit of money.
So if we're supposed to love the things God loves and hate the things God hates (check out Revelation 2:6) where does this leave us. We see Jesus coming back to tread out the winepress of his wrath. We see judging of the goats and the sheep. We see quite a few instances where justice is done. We can read Psalm 73 and see the struggle the Psalmist has with seeing the reality of evil people going unpunished.
It is very hard to not get angry. It is hard to see people destroying innocents or hurting people in the name of my God and not want them to feel pain. This is what makes me think this anger isn't a good thing. Being angry at injustice is ok, but wanting people to feel pain because they have hurt others isn't the end. Wanting people to feel pain because it will bring them to the right path leads to a different place. We should want the pain to be the pain of empathy not the pain of the lash. We should want people to see how their actions have caused destruction for others and themselves.
So how do we get to this place? How can we put aside the desire to see the proud humbled so they'll know they aren't as special as they think? How can we put aside the desire to see brutes hurt so they'll how much we hurt? Well I think the first step is that moment of introspection. Why do I want them to hurt?
If I want people to hurt so then they'll know how they hurt me then I'm being selfish. I just want people to think I'm awesome because of what I endured or to feel pity for my pain.
If I want people to hurt so they'll stop doing bad things, then I'm ignoring the redemption God offers. I just want to control people so they'll do what I want, instead of wanting them to experience change in their lives.
If I want people to hurt so they'll grow and understand and change then we're making progress. Luckily in that case I don't have to do anything. God has already set the world up to have natural consequences for bad actions. I can rest contently knowing that God will deliver whatever pain is necessary when it will do good.
Scratch that. I can go out and do my part which is helping the people who have been hurt. I can bandage wounds. I can tell truth where lies have come in. I can comfort those who are in pain. I can remind those who think no one loves them that there are many people who love them.
Pain is an unfortunate part of life but for most of us a necessary one. We need the incentive to change. We blind ourselves to the pain we cause others so we need to experience it to open our eyes to what we're really doing. But rather than trying to hurry someone else's 'enlightenment' along we need to leave that in the hands of God.
Let's try and channel that anger and passion into helping the victims rather than beating the brutes. I still really hate to see the bad guys win. But I need to be patient and let God turn the bad guys into good guys.
What a mouthful. There is a lot packed in there. One of the more enthralling passages of the Bible for me has always been Jesus cleansing the temple of thieves. He very carefully and purposefully builds a whip. He goes in an cleans house. Along with whippings he delivers a scathing accusation that they had turned the house of God into a house of thieves.
I hate to see the bad guys win and I love to see justice done. A part of me wonders if this is part of being made in the image of God. Another part of me remembers the story of the forgiven debtor who goes out and strangles a guy over a little bit of money.
So if we're supposed to love the things God loves and hate the things God hates (check out Revelation 2:6) where does this leave us. We see Jesus coming back to tread out the winepress of his wrath. We see judging of the goats and the sheep. We see quite a few instances where justice is done. We can read Psalm 73 and see the struggle the Psalmist has with seeing the reality of evil people going unpunished.
It is very hard to not get angry. It is hard to see people destroying innocents or hurting people in the name of my God and not want them to feel pain. This is what makes me think this anger isn't a good thing. Being angry at injustice is ok, but wanting people to feel pain because they have hurt others isn't the end. Wanting people to feel pain because it will bring them to the right path leads to a different place. We should want the pain to be the pain of empathy not the pain of the lash. We should want people to see how their actions have caused destruction for others and themselves.
So how do we get to this place? How can we put aside the desire to see the proud humbled so they'll know they aren't as special as they think? How can we put aside the desire to see brutes hurt so they'll how much we hurt? Well I think the first step is that moment of introspection. Why do I want them to hurt?
If I want people to hurt so then they'll know how they hurt me then I'm being selfish. I just want people to think I'm awesome because of what I endured or to feel pity for my pain.
If I want people to hurt so they'll stop doing bad things, then I'm ignoring the redemption God offers. I just want to control people so they'll do what I want, instead of wanting them to experience change in their lives.
If I want people to hurt so they'll grow and understand and change then we're making progress. Luckily in that case I don't have to do anything. God has already set the world up to have natural consequences for bad actions. I can rest contently knowing that God will deliver whatever pain is necessary when it will do good.
Scratch that. I can go out and do my part which is helping the people who have been hurt. I can bandage wounds. I can tell truth where lies have come in. I can comfort those who are in pain. I can remind those who think no one loves them that there are many people who love them.
Pain is an unfortunate part of life but for most of us a necessary one. We need the incentive to change. We blind ourselves to the pain we cause others so we need to experience it to open our eyes to what we're really doing. But rather than trying to hurry someone else's 'enlightenment' along we need to leave that in the hands of God.
Let's try and channel that anger and passion into helping the victims rather than beating the brutes. I still really hate to see the bad guys win. But I need to be patient and let God turn the bad guys into good guys.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Year 2: Thought 7: Self Reward
Elephant in the room: Yes even in year 2 I have once again fallen off
the wagon after 6 weeks. Oh well. Back on the horse (to change
metaphors mid-stream).
So, sometimes I do things I don't want to do. Then afterwards I feel a strong desire to give myself a treat. Whether it is doing something I wouldn't normally do or buying myself something with money that isn't in the budget for that thing these treats are generally not trivial things.
For instance tonight I had to go back out to the store to get something that I forgot to get the first time. It was irritating and not something I wanted to do but it was necessary due to a commitment for the next day. I was at the store getting said thing when I thought "I should get a treat for going back out"! Now I was thinking of getting a Pepsi. I rarely buy soft drinks and most often I have to settle for Coke products even though I prefer Pepsi products. My office has free Coke drinks so it feels like a waste to spend money getting soft drinks when I can get them for free. (As an aside I'm drinking fewer soft drinks now because it turns out drinking lots of them is bad for you.) Back to my narrative my rational brain kicked in and said that drinking a 20 oz caffeinated beverage at 10 pm was perhaps not a smart thing to do. I decided to not get the Pepsi.
Then a few seconds later my brain produced another thought. Why in the world did I think of rewarding myself? Does driving out in the rain (which I admit I do hate) to get garbage bags really warrant a reward? If I had a child who did that would I reward them? Now again in the large scheme of things a Pepsi is not a large reward. They are $1.69 for a 20 oz drink. But if I give myself that kind of reward often enough it would start to add up. Cost isn't even really the point. I think that constantly rewarding myself for doing menial tasks that meet the bottom level of responsibility is a bad idea. It puts me in a mindset where doing what I am supposed to do is "being good".
That isn't a mindset that I want my children to have and it isn't a mindset I want myself to have. Don't get me wrong, rewarding good behavior is important. I just think that the bar needs to be set higher for the definition of good behavior. It is too easy to look for any excuse to treat myself. I am currently reading a book that talks a lot of incentives and behavior (Nurture Shock). Looking at it from an objective point of view it is hard to not think of myself as soft. I need a lot of positive reinforcement. While I can persevere I will probably complain quite a bit.
I find the more I over reward myself in certain areas of life the less resolve I tend to have to continue on in other. Of course sometimes getting burned out in one area (specifically work lately) of life leads to other parts having less resolve too. That doesn't feel entirely fair as it seems like one of those two things shouldn't be true. I think that what I'm working on now (a schedule of two 'burdensome' tasks that require perseverance a day) is ideal. It seems to have worked for me in the past, but once I start to slide it tends to tumble down quickly. The key is having at least one time per day where I take stock of what 'productive' things I have done that day and making sure that I apply my force of will to accomplishing something.
We'll see if that translates to more frequent blog postings. One of the nice things about this blog is that it does serve as an excellent barometer of my force of will. Once it starts slipping I rarely post to the blog anymore.
So, sometimes I do things I don't want to do. Then afterwards I feel a strong desire to give myself a treat. Whether it is doing something I wouldn't normally do or buying myself something with money that isn't in the budget for that thing these treats are generally not trivial things.
For instance tonight I had to go back out to the store to get something that I forgot to get the first time. It was irritating and not something I wanted to do but it was necessary due to a commitment for the next day. I was at the store getting said thing when I thought "I should get a treat for going back out"! Now I was thinking of getting a Pepsi. I rarely buy soft drinks and most often I have to settle for Coke products even though I prefer Pepsi products. My office has free Coke drinks so it feels like a waste to spend money getting soft drinks when I can get them for free. (As an aside I'm drinking fewer soft drinks now because it turns out drinking lots of them is bad for you.) Back to my narrative my rational brain kicked in and said that drinking a 20 oz caffeinated beverage at 10 pm was perhaps not a smart thing to do. I decided to not get the Pepsi.
Then a few seconds later my brain produced another thought. Why in the world did I think of rewarding myself? Does driving out in the rain (which I admit I do hate) to get garbage bags really warrant a reward? If I had a child who did that would I reward them? Now again in the large scheme of things a Pepsi is not a large reward. They are $1.69 for a 20 oz drink. But if I give myself that kind of reward often enough it would start to add up. Cost isn't even really the point. I think that constantly rewarding myself for doing menial tasks that meet the bottom level of responsibility is a bad idea. It puts me in a mindset where doing what I am supposed to do is "being good".
That isn't a mindset that I want my children to have and it isn't a mindset I want myself to have. Don't get me wrong, rewarding good behavior is important. I just think that the bar needs to be set higher for the definition of good behavior. It is too easy to look for any excuse to treat myself. I am currently reading a book that talks a lot of incentives and behavior (Nurture Shock). Looking at it from an objective point of view it is hard to not think of myself as soft. I need a lot of positive reinforcement. While I can persevere I will probably complain quite a bit.
I find the more I over reward myself in certain areas of life the less resolve I tend to have to continue on in other. Of course sometimes getting burned out in one area (specifically work lately) of life leads to other parts having less resolve too. That doesn't feel entirely fair as it seems like one of those two things shouldn't be true. I think that what I'm working on now (a schedule of two 'burdensome' tasks that require perseverance a day) is ideal. It seems to have worked for me in the past, but once I start to slide it tends to tumble down quickly. The key is having at least one time per day where I take stock of what 'productive' things I have done that day and making sure that I apply my force of will to accomplishing something.
We'll see if that translates to more frequent blog postings. One of the nice things about this blog is that it does serve as an excellent barometer of my force of will. Once it starts slipping I rarely post to the blog anymore.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Year 2: Thought 6: Paradox of House Fixin'
I really hate working on my house. Conversely I always feel an inordinate amount of pride any time I successfully work on my house. By work on my house I mean fix something related to the house. Recently I cleaned my gutters, diagnosed how some squirrels were getting into my attic, and have worked on cleaning out a clogged toilet.
All of those things are things I can hire someone to do. I'm not sure why I end up doing them. I hate thinking about doing those things, but when I finish them I am very proud of myself. I feel like I'm doing something that I shouldn't be able to do. That is bizarre. If I accomplish most things I don't feel like I've done something monumental. In fact it usually means I start to think the task must be easy and any idiot could accomplish it because I was able to.
But if the person who would fix my problem is a professional I feel like I've done something. The biggest example of this is probably the toilet fixing. The toilet is very thoroughly clogged. So far I've been able to (with my wife's assistance) get a large was of cloth out of it. That allowed it to drain faster than it had previously but it doesn't seem to be the main blockage. I shouldn't be so happy about that.
Figuring out how the plumbing snake worked was fun. Why? I've put off fixing this toilet for a long time because I didn't want to do it. But 5 minutes into the process I was having fun. I'm not sure if this is a bizarre idiosyncrasy or if this is universal among men.
At first looking into the attic was nerve-wracking. I had visions of crazed squirrels jumping on my face (my uncle was I kid you not attacked by a squirrel he was taunting once and that story is comedy gold) and me falling down the attic stairs and snapping my leg in half. Nothing of the sort happened of course because my attic isn't fully of combat prepared rabid squirrels. They heard me coming up (because I was banging on the walls) and hid and waited for me to leave.
Now that I know the problem (the mesh wire around an exhaust fan collapsed in and they're coming in through that area) I am confident I can fix it. I'll wait for it to stop raining and just climb up on the roof and get that mesh back in place. It will be awesome. Hopefully the squirrels will be out for the day. After that I'll see what I can do about getting the tree the squirrels are using to get on the roof out of the way. I feel like it is way too big for me to cut down myself but we'll see how long I can ride this wave of doing things I don't think I should be able to pull off.
Again, this is a small thing. I feel weird at the pride, but I can't stop feeling it. A lesson for us all. Doing something useful is addictive even if you hate working as much as I do.
All of those things are things I can hire someone to do. I'm not sure why I end up doing them. I hate thinking about doing those things, but when I finish them I am very proud of myself. I feel like I'm doing something that I shouldn't be able to do. That is bizarre. If I accomplish most things I don't feel like I've done something monumental. In fact it usually means I start to think the task must be easy and any idiot could accomplish it because I was able to.
But if the person who would fix my problem is a professional I feel like I've done something. The biggest example of this is probably the toilet fixing. The toilet is very thoroughly clogged. So far I've been able to (with my wife's assistance) get a large was of cloth out of it. That allowed it to drain faster than it had previously but it doesn't seem to be the main blockage. I shouldn't be so happy about that.
Figuring out how the plumbing snake worked was fun. Why? I've put off fixing this toilet for a long time because I didn't want to do it. But 5 minutes into the process I was having fun. I'm not sure if this is a bizarre idiosyncrasy or if this is universal among men.
At first looking into the attic was nerve-wracking. I had visions of crazed squirrels jumping on my face (my uncle was I kid you not attacked by a squirrel he was taunting once and that story is comedy gold) and me falling down the attic stairs and snapping my leg in half. Nothing of the sort happened of course because my attic isn't fully of combat prepared rabid squirrels. They heard me coming up (because I was banging on the walls) and hid and waited for me to leave.
Now that I know the problem (the mesh wire around an exhaust fan collapsed in and they're coming in through that area) I am confident I can fix it. I'll wait for it to stop raining and just climb up on the roof and get that mesh back in place. It will be awesome. Hopefully the squirrels will be out for the day. After that I'll see what I can do about getting the tree the squirrels are using to get on the roof out of the way. I feel like it is way too big for me to cut down myself but we'll see how long I can ride this wave of doing things I don't think I should be able to pull off.
Again, this is a small thing. I feel weird at the pride, but I can't stop feeling it. A lesson for us all. Doing something useful is addictive even if you hate working as much as I do.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Year 2: Thought 5: Getting in the Game
So I'm going to try to do some speculating this year. I've spent a good bit of time reading and thinking about my hobby. I thought I might as well see if I can make some money because of it. While I'm happy to play in tournaments and win prizes that isn't what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about trading. In my head I know there is no inherent value in the cards I play with. It is just ink on cardboard. But the use other people (and myself!) have for them is undeniable. There is only one real source that prints them so there is a stable second market for the cards.
I've toyed with trading in the past. I would try to make good trades but my mind was always focused on getting the cards I needed to build decks. Now I'm going to try something different. Trading for value. I just want to see how much I can grow my collection. Ideally without putting tons of cash into it.
I have set aside a small amount of my yearly budget for my hobbies and I'm going to see what I can do with it. The goal is to get enough value from this that I don't need to keep putting money into the game, but when I want to build a new deck I can trade away some of the stock I've built up into cards.
So why am I doing this? Part of the reasoning is just to cut down on the portion of my budget that gets spent on cards. The less I spend on cards the more I can spend on other things. But really when it comes to a hobby I expect to spend some money to participate in it. I play cards to relax, not to start up another job.
I like the idea of turning something small into something large. Hard work and intelligent planning are the keys. However it will ultimately end up taking up time. I could use that same time to make more money. In fact if I wanted to just be efficient I could do freelance programming and make more money (and therefore spend it on more hobbies!) than I could by grinding trades. So it comes back down to can I make money while doing something I enjoy. I don't particularly enjoy thinking about my full time job. It isn't something that has captured my imagination or my day dreams. But this game has.
I think this will be fun experiment. Hopefully I don't bust out early, but we'll see. I have a spreadsheet ready to track all my purchases and plot the changing values of my investments. I've watched a couple of other people do something similar (though with varying levels of dedication) and even seen a few challenges to see who could get the greatest value over time.
If anyone else is interested in comparing notes or trying a challenge I'd definitely be up for it. Hopefully I'll be able to learn enough from them to extrapolate about other trends or vice versa. It's interesting to be involved in something that isn't purely mechanical but depends on the decisions of other people as the driving force behind the changing values.
*Edit* 02/01/2013 I was able to attend my first event where I was really prepared for trading. I was able to increase my collection value from $450 to $550. I did shift a good bit of that value (a little over $100) into longer term investments. I expect them to double in price but it will take a little over 10 months for that to happen. Since that was roughly the 'profit' from last night I don't feel bad. I still have plenty of stuff in the binder that is worth trading. I did end up building a deck that carries about $200 of the collection in it so I want to put more thought into whether or not it is worth it. Luckily $100 of that $200 are the long term investments so it's not as big a portion of my trade stock as it looks like at first.
I'm talking about trading. In my head I know there is no inherent value in the cards I play with. It is just ink on cardboard. But the use other people (and myself!) have for them is undeniable. There is only one real source that prints them so there is a stable second market for the cards.
I've toyed with trading in the past. I would try to make good trades but my mind was always focused on getting the cards I needed to build decks. Now I'm going to try something different. Trading for value. I just want to see how much I can grow my collection. Ideally without putting tons of cash into it.
I have set aside a small amount of my yearly budget for my hobbies and I'm going to see what I can do with it. The goal is to get enough value from this that I don't need to keep putting money into the game, but when I want to build a new deck I can trade away some of the stock I've built up into cards.
So why am I doing this? Part of the reasoning is just to cut down on the portion of my budget that gets spent on cards. The less I spend on cards the more I can spend on other things. But really when it comes to a hobby I expect to spend some money to participate in it. I play cards to relax, not to start up another job.
I like the idea of turning something small into something large. Hard work and intelligent planning are the keys. However it will ultimately end up taking up time. I could use that same time to make more money. In fact if I wanted to just be efficient I could do freelance programming and make more money (and therefore spend it on more hobbies!) than I could by grinding trades. So it comes back down to can I make money while doing something I enjoy. I don't particularly enjoy thinking about my full time job. It isn't something that has captured my imagination or my day dreams. But this game has.
I think this will be fun experiment. Hopefully I don't bust out early, but we'll see. I have a spreadsheet ready to track all my purchases and plot the changing values of my investments. I've watched a couple of other people do something similar (though with varying levels of dedication) and even seen a few challenges to see who could get the greatest value over time.
If anyone else is interested in comparing notes or trying a challenge I'd definitely be up for it. Hopefully I'll be able to learn enough from them to extrapolate about other trends or vice versa. It's interesting to be involved in something that isn't purely mechanical but depends on the decisions of other people as the driving force behind the changing values.
*Edit* 02/01/2013 I was able to attend my first event where I was really prepared for trading. I was able to increase my collection value from $450 to $550. I did shift a good bit of that value (a little over $100) into longer term investments. I expect them to double in price but it will take a little over 10 months for that to happen. Since that was roughly the 'profit' from last night I don't feel bad. I still have plenty of stuff in the binder that is worth trading. I did end up building a deck that carries about $200 of the collection in it so I want to put more thought into whether or not it is worth it. Luckily $100 of that $200 are the long term investments so it's not as big a portion of my trade stock as it looks like at first.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)