Take Time

I live in a country where patience is a precious commodity - the USA.  Most people want to get the best thing and get it right away.  This can be seen on car lots, in the department stores, and in the job market.  As someone not very far removed from college, I can give personal accounts of how it is when you are needing to get that first job and all subsequent jobs.  Hardly any company cares about your potential.  They simply want to know they have a completely proven product without losing time while someone develops.


Many families have bills that are disproportionate to their true income level and this is not because their salary was lowered but because they purchased items before they were financially ready.  There are millions of dollars being made by companies who have the public sold on claims that anyone will get rich overnight if they just try their "systems".  And there will be millions of people in their 50s who realize that they spent their whole life up to that point chasing the next best thing instead of spending more time enjoying the good things they had already.

Life is not about reaching every finish line before starting the race.  It is about creating memories and having experiences that make us and those whom we interact with better.  It is about experiencing the low points so the high points can have even greater meaning.  Enjoy your life and do not worry if things are not exactly as you planned them right now.  Take the time to appreciate what you have already.  Take the time to enjoy family and friends.  Take the time to realize that where you ultimately finish might be much greater than you ever expected.  Be patient and take the time to LIVE.

Image:  "Time Running" via fluidwebworks.co.uk
Image: "Peace" via pernici.net

Prioritizing Health Update

Friday I had my numbers re-checked at work.  I am happy to report that I had lost 6 pounds and my blood pressure numbers had gone down.  It's amazing what can happen in less than 3 weeks when one really focuses.  Was I perfect with eating and exercising these past weeks?  No. Did I do vastly better than usual though?  Absolutely.

I did what I said I would do in my original blog post.  I made healthier eating choices and skipped fast food eateries.  In the few times where it was extremely hard to skip a fast food place, I tried to get a single entree with NO FRIES and NO SOFT DRINK (not even diet).



I drank a LOT OF water.  Water will keep you hydrated, eliminate those sweet drink cravings, and it's calorie free.  If you are having problems with soft drink consumption, you don't need the government to protect you from yourself.  Try this simple trick when you are heading to the fridge.  Get just a tiny cup of water and drink it.  It doesn't have to be much, maybe 2-4 oz.  What you will find is that with that little bit of water your craving for the sweet drink will go down dramatically (possibly completely).  As time goes on, you will find that water does as advertised and really quenches your thirst in ways sugary drinks cannot and your water consumption will increase while your soda consumption and gut will decrease.

I also made a conscious effort to get more rest and worked out at least 3 times a week.  I was honest with myself with the workouts I had and I realized that I am not a kid in college anymore.  I, personally, do not have hours to spend in the gym and I can't nap throughout the day to recover from spending hours in the gym (or doing P90X).  Most of my workouts were only 20 minutes on average but they were workouts designed to do a lot in a little time.  Only once did I do a workout that exceeded 30 minutes.  I'm not endorsing them or anything but if you have Xfinity (formerly Comcast) On Demand , you have a whole collection of short workout videos at your disposal that really do work.

Now, it is important that you don't hold yourself on a super tight leash and find some fun.  I did make sure that I had an occasional meal where I indulged a bit.  And I also made sure that I enjoyed the workouts that I did whether it was the movements themselves or finding joy in knowing that I was going to be looking and feeling better afterward.

I hope to report back with more good news in the coming weeks and I hope any struggling with health issues can start to clear out a good path as well.

Image:  via lifefitness.com
Image:  via cdn.ientry.com

The Will

Sometimes....hold on...correction....most of the time, we are our own worse enemies. How many times have you wanted to try something fun or strive for a higher level in life and you were convinced not to do so without anyone else saying a word to you? How many times have you called yourself a failure when everyone else around you has told you repeatedly that your mistake was not a big deal? If you are like me, this may have happened more times than you could count.


But let me share a little secret to this self-doubt that you may already know - if something is valuable and highly desired, you should NEVER give up. Of all the countless advice my grandma ever shared with me, one of them in particular probably shaped the man I am more than anything else. Her advice is simply "Give out but never give up". To me, what this means is in this life you can expect to fall down several times. No one on God's green earth is exempt from it. But the thing that ultimately separates the winners from the losers is the will to get back up each time until getting up either is impossible, no longer aligns with other goals, or completely becomes destructive to oneself. Will you let fairness and misfortune direct your life or will you keep standing up and achieve greatness?

Image: Sun Behind the Clouds via jasondelph.com

Prioritizing Health

So I went to have my blood pressure, weight, and body mass index taken at work today.  Before I walked in I had an idea of what the situation would be because I had already knew I was going to make this post to my blog.  The reason I did go in is because I needed concrete numbers and I needed to face reality.  The reality is that I have not been taking care of myself properly - improper diet, lack of exercise, and lack of proper rest. 

My weight is about 60 lbs above what it was in high school.  Anyone who knew me in high school knows that I needed at least 30 of those lbs. to fill in my rather skinny frame (lol).  But now according to my body mass index (BMI), my weight is in the overweight range.  Anyone who knows about this number knows that it can be very inaccurate because it doesn't take into account different body types. But in my case, I know that it was dead on because of my aforementioned habits and the area of fat around my abdominen where a very visible 6 pack formerly resided.  As far as blood pressure, I had done a few things just before I came in for my reading that would negatively influence the numbers but it had been a little high during a previous check and my habits had not changed much.

I cannot hide from my reflection in the mirror. I cannot hide from the effects of being overweight which can negatively affect some things that no man ever wants to hear.  And I cannot hide from the deadly effects of high blood pressure which can lead to 2 of the top 3 causes of death in the US, heart disease and stroke.  And it doesn't  discriminate based on age as evidenced by some of the deaths of popular young celebrities.

The bottom line is this:  I have to make conscious health changes in my life.  I owe it to my wife, my children, and most importantly MYSELF.  Someone once said "You can't do things the same way and expect different results".  So what will I do differently and what can you do differently if you are in a similar boat?  In my experience (from being in better shape at one point in time), the most important thing really is diet.  Diet is not a fad that lasts 2 weeks; it is a pattern of healthy eating that you intend to follow to promote a healthy lifestyle for the rest of your life and affects you both physically and mentally. The next important thing is physical exercise.  You don't need a lot of time really devoted to physical exercise.  You just need to make the time that you have count, meaning that you make sure your workout is challenging, and work out at least 3 times a week. Rest is something a lot of us need more of but it is typically undervalued.  However, it does affect you physically and mentally as well.

I plan to give an update and more details about every 3 weeks on the progress I have made as far as lowering my weight and blood pressure (when available).  If you like this post, please leave a comment below and you can always follow me @naivevoice.

Image: Nutty Professor via Chud.com

Drowning in Career Comfort

Are you happy with what you do to earn a living?  Before you quickly answer yes, I did not ask if you were comfortable with the amount of money that you make or if you felt comfortable in knowing you could do your job.  Those are the things that many people associate with happiness.    But you definitely won't see happiness on the shelves at Walmart or Target (although they would try to sell it if they could) and it will not fall from the sky and on your head as you sit in traffic during your commute each day.  Real career happiness cannot simply be achieved when one's income reaches a certain level or when one finds something that he can do well although both do factor into job satisfaction.

This is a question that I ask myself to determine whether or not I am REALLY happy with my job and career:  Do I enjoy going to work and being there at least 80% of the time (4 out of every 5 work days)?  If you want to find a career like this and be successful, it's almost a definite that you will have to endure a great deal of sacrifice or discomfort at the beginning and possibly on quite a few intervals throughout.  I am not at this point in my career but I am working toward it.

Too many times we approach our lives and careers with trepidation.  We seek conventional and familiar patterns so there are little to no unknowns.  We see it as one less thing to be concerned or worried about in this crazy, sometimes chaotic world.  The problem with getting too comfortable is all our potential goes to waste and we are stuck with woulda, coulda, and shouldas in old age.  I encourage everyone to seek out real career happiness and get out of your comfort zone for at least a little bit.  I'm not telling anyone to quit their day job immediately and attempt to start the next Google. But make a good plan to do something that you think will make you happy and carry it out properly.  You don't want to wake up one day and realize you've spent 25 years at a job that made you miserable because you were simply afraid or too lazy to reach for something greater.  That is my desire and I hope it is your desire as well.

Image: Drowning Hand via NationalMortgageProfessional.com

The Boundary of Competition

Competition is the basis of success for a capitalist nation such as the United States (assuming we ignore the past 5 or 6 years).  Competition allows us to find motivation when there is none.  Competition is fun and engaging when you aren't being pummeled by your opponent. But....is competition really healthy among friends?

When two or more friends enter competition, it starts off as exactly that "friendly" competition but things can quickly change when lines aren't drawn.  By this mean, everybody has to have their own hobby, talent, or goal that they covet and that is unique to them.  When someone tries to engage in competition in areas that they have previously shown no interest in just to outdo a friend, the relationship might start to enter into hostile territory.  Sometimes this behavior can be an accident and can be simply from the habit of competing but other times it is no accident and it can be done in an attempt to belittle another's accomplishments.  This can be a sign of low-self esteem.

While it may seem for the moment that belittling someone else might boost your self-esteem, it really doesn't.  It's just like when a woman retreats to Ben n Jerry after a bad breakup.  After the sugar high subsides, the pain will return like a bad check.  Not only will the self-esteem issues resurface, they will do so with a vengeance.  This is because happiness can only be found through one's own deep down desires and not the desires of someone else mimicked in competition.

Digital Relationships

This might seem like it is obvious already but Facebook does allow you to communicate with real people in virtually real time.  Many people, however, don't realize that it's real consequences to what they post on Facebook and also that real relationships affect online ones.

There's a ton of people on Facebook these days - over 800 million active users.  With the privacy options on Facebook, some might actually think that they have total control over who sees their posts on any given day.  This is simply not the truth.  What happens when you make a "drunken" post on FB where you post a picture of yourself half naked with a ridiculous sombrero on your head or you make some idiotic statement where you are using profanity on a close relative.  You think to yourself the next morning that it's not that bad because you are only set to share your posts and information with a small circle of FB friends.  There's one problem:  your friends have friends and those friends have friends and so on.  Because of the way FB is structured, information is indirectly passed around constantly whether someone in your FB friend circle volunteers it or not.  It's pretty easy to see how a post deemed as harmless can go just about viral.  Assuming they have FB accounts, you are more than likely indirectly connected to your parents, your college professors, your church pastor, and even potential employers.  So that random rant you went on where you called one of your FB friends everything except a child of God, your church pastor might have seen that.  That isn't too say that you should totally censor yourself but you have to post things as though a huge crowd can hear and/or see what you are doing and you have to be comfortable with that.

Then there's the people who think that they can be friends with anyone on Facebook.  If we aren't/weren't friends in the real world, what makes you think I want to be friends online?  I have personally received FB friend requests from people who were mean or ill-willed toward me when I've encountered them and I know of real life friends of mine who have also received such awkward friend requests.  Why in the word would anyone want to be your friend on FB if you are are/were one of the person's worst enemies and there were no attempts made at reconciliation?  The only reason why I see someone would even do this is to pry into the life of someone else by viewing Facebook posts.  They know that they could not just call the person up and say "How has your life been?" so they resort to such methods.  The only other reason I see is that they have a very bad or less impacted memory.  Somehow the memory of them punching you in the throat in high school was lost or from their perspective simply became water under the digital bridge.