Bonsall’s Laws

Posted: March 14, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Humor, Musings | Tags: , | Leave a comment

The following are a list of observations defining life.  Some are personal observations, while others are taken from outside sources.  Thus, you might recognize some.  Just because I didn’t notice it first doesn’t make it any less true.

 

  1. Hope was in Pandora’s box for a reason.
  2. No matter how good you think you are, there’s always someone faster, smarter, stronger and better.  Moral: Don’t get cocky.
  3. Lest thou tempt the Fates, keep thy big mouth shut.
  4. It’s good to want things.  It strengthens the soul.
  5. Anything is possible.  Probable is another matter entirely.
  6. Always expect the worst.  You’ll either be prepared or pleasantly surprised.
  7. There is no justice in the universe.  The best you can hope for is revenge.
  8. A bad habit, once acquired, can never be lost, only replaced.
  9. Bitterness is the wellspring of creativity.
  10. It is morally wrong to let a fool keep his money.
  11. And it harm none, cover thy own ass shall be the whole of the law.
  12. Always start your day with a smile.  Get it over with.
  13. If you never tried, you never failed.
  14. Be sure what you ask for is what you really want; you just might get it.
  15. There’s something to be said for ambiguity.
  16. The ease with which a man says “I love you” is inversely proportional to how much he means it.
  17. Violence is never the answer.  it does, however, give you time to think about the answer.
  18. Polite conversation is anything but.
  19. Always have a good publicist, but never believe your own hype.
  20. A person’s guilt in any given situation is inversely proportional to the speed with which they deny it.
  21. Platitudes to the contrary not withstanding, even a coward dies but once.
  22. If you can’t stop in time, smile as you go under.
  23. When in doubt, lie.  If you get caught, apologize.  Never admit to doing it.
  24. It is better to look good than to feel good, and it is far better to feel good than to be good.
  25. Every man has his good reasons.

On Achieving Work-Life Balance

Posted: March 4, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Musings | Tags: , , | 3 Comments

I was talking with a coworker not too long ago, and he asked me about how to achieve a better work-life balance. The truth is, there’s no silver bullet. There are some strategies and tactics that I’ve found useful, and I’ll share them with you here.

The first one (which I got from My Not So Humble Wife) is to make a list every day when you first get to work of three things you’re going to accomplish that day. Make sure it’s a realistic list; for example, don’t make “I’m going to finish Project X” one of those three things if you haven’t even started it yet and it’s a long-term project. Be aware of how long each list item will take, and set yourself up to succeed. If you accomplish all three things by 10 AM, great! You have the rest of the day to catch up on other things, or else get ahead on other work. If you have to stay until 8 PM to get them all done, then that’s what you need to do. If you find yourself staying until 8 PM on a regular basis, you either need to be more realistic about what you can accomplish in one day, or you need to figure out where all your time is going (usually it’s time thieves, which I address a little more later).

In terms of being able to accomplish those three tasks, honestly assess how long tasks take to finish and budget your time accordingly. Give yourself some leeway; if you think something is going to take 15 minutes, give yourself twenty minutes to do it. You never know when something is going to divert your attention or if something is going to go wrong, and if you always assume the best case scenario, you will constantly be running to catch up to a worst-case world. The extra time you budget will also help deal with those time thieves I mentioned earlier.

Those time thieves I mentioned? You all know who I’m talking about, mostly because we all do it to everyone else. Whether it’s the email that pops up and diverts our attention, the phone call we have to take, or even the person who pops by with “a quick question” or “just to chat”. Sometimes you can afford it, but other times you can’t. Be aware of where you stand on things, and if you’re in the middle of an important project where losing focus will cost you large amounts of productivity, politely but firmly let them know, “I’m sorry, I’m working on a very important project. Is this a critical issue or can I get back to you later?” In most cases it’s not a time sensitive matter, and as long as you follow up with them in a reasonable amount of time you’ll actually improve your reputation for professionalism. If you made sure to build in some extra time for your “three things”, you can also address anything that they believe is time sensitive without coming off as peevish or harried as well.

Another good tactic is to make sure not to schedule out your entire day. Instead, try to schedule out no more than 80% of your day. You’ll need to take breaks, check email, and there will be unexpected issues that come up that will need to be addressed immediately. Schedule time for breaks, but don’t screw around. “I need to brainstorm this project” might sound reasonable, but is it necessary? With that in mind, having a schedule, at least a framework, will help give you structure and an idea of what’s coming. In fact, the further out you can schedule things (whether it be a day, a week, or even a month or more) the more awareness you’ll have of coming events and the less likely you are to be blindsided by something. In my experience most of “putting out fires” is a matter of dealing with things that were foreseeable issues; solving problems before they have a chance to become problems not only saves aggravation, it saves time and money.

You should always know what you priorities are, and know the difference between “want” and “need”. Something you “need” to get done has to happen, without question. Things you “want” to happen are the things you get done with the time you have left and should be the first things to go. Your “need” list is always your top priority. If you cut out all of your “want” list and still don’t have enough resources to accomplish everything that’s left, either reconsider what you believe is a need, or else delegate some tasks or (if that’s not an option) discuss the matter with your supervisor. That’s what their job is, to make sure you’re able to succeed.

If you do find yourself in a position where you are constantly putting out fires and you don’t have an opportunity to get on top of things, the first step is to re-prioritize. Again, your supervisor can be an excellent resource for this. You should always know what your priorities are and in some cases, particularly when you don’t have sufficient resources to cover all the tasks at hand, you need to accept that some things are going to need to fall by the wayside. If you don’t have time to accomplish everything on your plate, again either delegate some tasks to someone else or talk with your supervisor.

I’ve mentioned delegating a couple of times. When delegating tasks, the most important thing to remember is that the goal is important, not the process. Everyone approaches a project in a different way, and as long as the end result is satisfactory, how they got there is unimportant (within reason). Be honest with yourself about the goal; I have occasionally found myself saying “my goal is to have this task done in this way”, when the truth is I was focusing on the process rather than the product. This is likely to frustrate both you and the person you assign the task to, and result in a case where you waste more resources farming the project out than if you had just done it yourself. If having something done a certain way truly is the goal, what you likely have is multiple tasks that cumulatively roll up to a project. Separate the goal from the tasks, and trust people to accomplish the tasks in their own way. Feel free to verify that they accomplished their individual portion, but as long as the work got done right and well, don’t let your attention be devoured riding people while they do the work they were hired to do.

While this may seem like a lot, it’s actually not. What it comes down to is knowing your priorities, planning accordingly, and using your resources effectively. If you can accomplish that much, the rest should fall into place.

Kicking the Habit

Posted: February 22, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Musings | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

I don’t remember how old I was when I started drinking caffeine. I can’t remember being so young that I wasn’t sneaking Cokes every chance I got, even if it meant finishing off the half-flat cans my Dad would leave sitting half-empty on the coffee table from the night before. It was in high school I started drinking coffee, and just out of high school I started smoking. Of the two, I’ve actually found quitting caffeine harder, although not by much (and not that I’ve tried many times).

I’ve quit smoking three times in my life. Every time I quit I go through the same stages. First there’s what I think of as Queen High Bitch phase. I’m not a nice person to be around for a couple weeks (even more so than usual). Around the third week or so I just get a little jumpy and surly, but I’m at least a little tolerable. By week four I’ve calmed down enough that people can talk to me, and after that I start to slowly adjust to life without nicotine. It doesn’t sound like much, but trust me when I say it’s the longest month you’ll ever experience, and the next few aren’t stellar either. The patch doesn’t help (ironically, it has too much nicotine) and the pills make me jittery (I started smoking more to calm my nerves), so I just have to white knuckle my way through it.

The first time I went a month and a half. I had lost my license (I was a terrible leadfoot when I was younger) and couldn’t get out for cigarettes, so I just gave it up. As soon as my friends started taking pity on me and got me out of the house, that went the way of the dodo. The second time lasted a year and a half. I was doing fine until I lost my job, and even then I did okay for six months until boredom got the best of me. Smoking was at least something to do.

The last time I can clearly remember seriously giving up smoking was the hardest. I quit a little over a year ago, and I was doing pretty good. Then I found out my father was in the hospital, and things were looking bad. I’m not using that as an excuse, mind you, but it was what pushed me over the edge. I couldn’t take the stress. Ironic in a sad sort of way, but there it is. And here I am, a year later, smoking as much and drinking as much caffeine as I was before I quit a little over a year ago.

I was talking with my Mom on the phone the other day, and she asked me to write a blog post that would get her to go on a diet (sorry for outing you, Mom). Here’s the secret to quitting smoking, giving up caffeine, getting more exercise, or going on a diet: there is no secret. Despite what an entire industry of self-help books and many, many weight loss programs, gyms, and “experts” will try to sell you, there is no magic bullet. The only way to do it is to decide for yourself that this is a change you want in your own life, for you, and to stick with it, no matter what.

I know that sounds simple, and that’s because it is. Please do not make the mistake of confusing simple with easy. Rolling a two-ton boulder up a hill is a simple task; ask Sisyphus just how easy it is. Ultimately however there is no substitute; no matter how many pills, patches, or plans you use, it will always come back to that one simple thing, that one choice you have to make every day (and sometimes several times a day). As Master Yoda put it, “Do, or do not; there is no try.”

If you make that change for someone else, you are shifting the burden to them, and sooner or later they will do something that will make you want to “punish” them. If you do it for some reward, you will hold out until you get the reward, and then go back to your old habits. If you set a goal of “I just need to hold out until…” you’ll make it that long and maybe a bit longer, but then what? You have to acknowledge that what you are seeking is real change, and change is hard.

Is it worth it? That’s up to you to decide. But then, that’s the whole point.

The Meaning of Education

Posted: February 11, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: MNSHW, Musings | Tags: , | 4 Comments

She’s got a taste for it now. There’s no stopping her. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, My Not So Humble Wife.

No parent or educator is trying to teach kids that money will make you happy, but I think we are inadvertently doing just that. Early in elementary school children are inundated with the importance of going to college. In middle school, the grades where I teach math, kids worry about taking the right classes and getting good grades so they can take college credit advanced classes in high school and get into a good college.  It’s a huge focus of their little lives. The problem is when you ask them why college is such an important goal, their reasoning leads to an unhealthy place.

I’m nearing the end of my Master’s in Education and became interested in student motivation. I wanted to know why students felt education was important and what inspired them to succeed in school. So I conducted some simple interviews with a variety of students both officially and unofficially. I asked a simple question, “why is education important?”, and unfailingly it lead to the same basic discussion:

Me: Why is education important to you?

Student: It’s important so you can go to college.

Me: OK, Then why is going to college important?

Student: …<hesitation> So you can get a good job?

Me: And why is getting a good job important?

Student: …….<more hesitation> So you can make good money?

Me: Why is making good money important?

At this point most students became visible uncomfortable, shifting their weight, looking around, and fidgeting. While some students might eventually shrug and say they didn’t know, the majority said that making good money was important so they could have the things they want, some said that’s what it means to be successful, while others said it was important so they could be happy.

Truth be told, I was asking these kids some really hard questions. Questions that they had probably not even considered before and that many adults would struggle with. That said, I’m worried that kids are getting the point but missing the message.

Have you ever thought about why you want your kids or family to go to college? Hopefully, it’s not just about getting a job that pays enough for that McMansion in the burbs. I want my students to pursue a college education so they will have choices. Having an education means that you have the opportunity to find a vocation that you feel passionate about instead of having to take any job that presents itself. Yes, it’s important to be able to support yourself but a college education gives you a better chance at enjoying the process of earning a living.

So next time you’re talking to your kids about college make sure they know that getting a good job means getting a job they will enjoy or that is important to them. That college gives them the chance for expanding their choices for the life they want to live. That it’s not about the money, it’s about living a life they will find fulfilling.

Constructing Identity

Posted: February 8, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Musings | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

The other night I was in my “Literature of the Asian Diaspora” class (it’s amazing what qualifies for an English degree these days) when we started discussing the origin of the term “Asian American”. Apparently the first academic use of the term was in the 1970s at UCLA (although it may have been in use colloquially among the civil rights movement in the 1960s before that) as an alternative to the arguably pejorative “Oriental” (I take no stance on the issue, but I understand the argument).

The point I raised in class, and my professor seemed to agree with me, is that “Asian American” is a constructed identity. Setting aside any flippant comments about there being no such place as “Asian America”, there is no “Asian” culture. There is Japanese culture, Korean culture, Chinese culture, Indian culture, and a host of others too numerous for me to name or even be aware of. Each individual named under this broad, constructed identity of “Asian American” does not partake of the same cultural background, any more than every person of European descent comes from the same cultural heritage.

I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit over the last few days, mostly because I find it something challenging to relate to. On the one hand, as I have mentioned before, I come from perhaps the most common of backgrounds, and face few of the challenges that an Asian American or other racial minority would face in America today (although from what I have read it’s a far different story in Japan or elsewhere in Asia, so at least it’s not a global phenomenon). On the other hand, the concept of trying to construct an identity for oneself is something I believe everyone struggles with, and as the world is changing perhaps faster than ever, it is something that we each continue to struggle with.

For myself, I can look back over my life and see how my own sense of self has changed drastically in just a short (or so it seems to me) twenty years. When I was 15, there was no doubt in my mind that I would be a world famous actor, working the stage with both grace and abandon on Broadway and beyond. Fast forward a decade, and after one of the worst years of my life I was burning almost every bridge I had, leaving Richmond and unsure of anything except that I would never, ever be a professional actor. I kept my hand in on a few amateur shows in school after that, but my heart wasn’t really in it anymore. Jump ahead another decade, and I had been married for three years to the love of my life, who I hadn’t even met when last we checked in, and working at the job I currently hold.

Each step of the way my sense of self changed, but it was a gradual change, with the occasional jarring moment of realization. At no point did I wake up and say “today I’m going to decide I no longer want to be an actor”; it was something that accumulated, just like the choices, opportunities, and yes, even the mistakes I have made all along the way have led me to the place and person I am today. Perhaps that is what we call the process of “growing up”, or perhaps it is something more. I don’t know if being a straight white male means that process has been easier or harder for me, because I have no basis for comparison. I can say almost unequivocally that having bipolar disorder (undiagnosed before I was in my mid-twenties) certainly provided its own unique challenges, but again I can’t speak to how my life would have been different otherwise, only that I do not doubt it would have been.

As I have reflected on my life and how it has changed, and as I have considered how I have constructed and re-constructed my own identity, I have only come to one certain conclusion. I do not want to be viewed as a heterosexual, or a Caucasian, or male, or as someone with a mental disorder, or as part of any other group. I only want to be viewed as me; unique, individual, hopefully ever-changing and evolving and yet always recognizably Bob.

Why 90% of Everything is Crap (And That’s OK)

Posted: February 6, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Culture, Musings | Tags: , | 8 Comments

The other day I made the mistake of listening to the radio. Not NPR, like I normally do, but an actual music station. I won’t call them out, but you can pretty much pick one at random and get the same experience I had. Half of the songs were absolutely terrible dreck released in the last year, another forty percent were absolutely terrible dreck released sometime in the preceding twenty years (really, how many times a day can you still play Metallica’s “The Unforgiven“?), and about one song in ten was actually worth listening to.

At first I thought this was just a sign of the times. Then I thought I was turning into the grouchy old man down the street (“when I was a kid…”). Then I got home and tried turning on the TV and was almost blinded by a commercial that included some monstrosity named “Honey BooBoo” and I thought the Apocalypse was nigh. After washing my eyes out with salt water and taking a glass of 100 proof consolation, I gave the matter some deep thought. Surely the world hasn’t changed so much from the heyday of my youth, the glorious and wonderful 80’s?

Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) I was unable to kid myself for long. The 80s were terrible. Sure, they brought us the death of disco (for which we should all be eternally grateful), but they also brought us parachute pants, breakdancing, MC Hammer, and closed out with Vanilla Ice. TV wasn’t a whole lot better: for every A-Team there was a Manimal; for every Remington Steele there was an After-M*A*S*H. Sure, we had the birth of MTV, but that just meant we were subjected to nonstop playing of hair metal icons like Ratt and Cinderella. And it all seemed like a good idea at the time.

The point I’m trying to make here is that 90% of everything is crap, and that’s okay. The good stuff survives, and the bad stuff is cast aside. Sure, everyone remembers classic albums like The Dark Side of the Moon, but how many people (outside of hardcore Pink Floyd fans) have even heard of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn? While there are those who would argue Piper is a great album, I’m not one of them, but history will decide. As a comparison point, I find it difficult to believe that Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms didn’t have a huge number of contemporaries. Why don’t we hear about more of their works, or know their names? And yet we hear so much about how great classical music is compared to so much of today’s music. The great work survived, and the less great work… didn’t.

And it’s like that in most fields of endeavor. The arts are the most easily recognized for this, but it’s the same way with technology or social movements as well. We try all sorts of things, and the truth is that most of it either doesn’t work or isn’t well-received. Sometimes it takes a while for things to catch on, and some things are slowly recovered from the past (people are notoriously slow to adapt to new ideas), but overall we do a decent job of filtering out the bad stuff from the good stuff; it just takes a while.

Now if I can just get that one station to stop playing Metallica.

I Will Choose a Path That’s Clear

Posted: January 18, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Culture, Musings, Politics | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Recently on Facebook I’ve been having a spirited (but civil!) debate with a friend of mine regarding gun control. Unsurprisingly at some point relatively early in the discussion my argument incorporated the issue of defense against tyranny, which is an argument that I stand by. He actually pivoted from there to a surprisingly apt and unusual comparison, one that I have not before seen, invoking the specter of 1984 before I could, but then he made the point that “Brave New World illustrates that humanity can be lulled into submission into serving the interest of a minority by luxuries and promoting self interest.”

It was a different tack, and one that at least took our discussion in a new direction, but it also got me thinking. One of my great loves is dystopian literature (although the sub-genre of cyberpunk is my favorite), and obviously I have given more than a little thought about what shape society takes both now and as we move into the future. So as we continue forward, which is the move likely totalitarian prospect: the iron hand or the velvet glove?

Historically I would say it’s both. Consider one of the most successful (if you can use the word without being offensive) totalitarian regimes in history, the Nazi regime. By combining a rule based on fear and oppression with strong economic growth that gave the “approved” majority of the populace not only the necessities they had been denied but the luxuries they craved, the Nazis turned Germany from a failed state into a powerhouse virtually overnight. I’d have to do a lot more research than I’m ready to right now to call this a thesis, but it does provide some (disturbing) food for thought, if anyone has a strong enough stomach for it.

The iron hand is easy to fear, and just as easy to dismiss. We always assume we’ll see it coming; after all, why would we allow someone or some government to drag people out of their homes in the middle of the night, lock them up for no reason, torture them, or execute them without good reason? We’re good people, we live in a good society, we’re better than that. But then, all it takes is one bad day; one evil act. Then the world changes.

On the other hand, the velvet glove seems far more likely. Stories of people giving in to addiction, vice, and other temptations are as old as… well, stories, and the idea of the guy who controls your hunger controlling you has a great deal of appeal. But consider the recent Occupy movement. Here is a case of rebellion against a system that tried to control the populace by controlling luxury, Big Business in cahoots with Big Government (and the system fought back). Keep in mind plenty of Occupy supporters were not the homeless, the starving, or folks who struggled their whole lives to make it day to day; they were college graduates, middle class and above, theoretically bought and paid for.

So what do they both have in common, and how is it that tyranny in any form finally does manage to take hold? If the neither the iron hand nor the velvet glove is sufficient unto itself, how do they succeed together? Is it simply that “one hand giveth, the other hand taketh away” is enough to confuse people? I wonder. Perhaps it’s more complex, or perhaps it is simpler than that.

According to the Declaration of Independence, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”. It’s an interesting philosophy, but what if it goes further than that? Can it be posited that nobody can truly be governed without their consent? After all, you can put a gun to my head but that won’t make my body move; you will simply be putting me under duress. If it is sufficient duress, I will take action, but it is still my action, not yours. Your action was coercing me in the fist place. Coerce enough people and you have a tyrannical government, but it is by the consent of the governed, even if that consent is given under duress.

Viewed in that way, we are always standing between Scylla and Charybdis, between totalitarian oppression and totalitarian luxury. The only thing that prevents it is our exercise of free will, a refusal to allow ourselves to be ruled by others. So long as we view certain things as right and others as wrong, and we hold to those principles in the face of opposition (even unto death), we can and will stand against tyranny. That is the cost of freedom. The cost of society, of civilization, is learning to live with each other, to find the reasonable compromises between my ideals and principles and yours, such that we can live together without my bowing to your tyranny or you bowing to mine.

As soon as I get that one figured out, I’ll let you know.

Wasting My Rebellious Youth

Posted: December 26, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Musings | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

I think I wasted my rebellious youth.

It’s not that I didn’t rebel. I’m sure I rebelled against something, although if you ask me now exactly what it was I couldn’t really tell you. And if you asked me at the time if I was a rebel, I would have flatly denied it. Rebels are supposed to be cool, and cool I was not (I’m pretty sure my sister will back me up on this). Rebels are also supposed to have something they’re rebelling for, or at least something they’re rebelling against, even if it’s just the general ennui that comes from living in a post-modern society that leaves nothing in particular worthwhile to rebel against (see James Dean, Rebel, Cause Without).

It’s not that I didn’t do crazy things, which is the prerogative of youth. I had my goth phase (after goth was cool but before emo was cool), my punk phase (was punk ever cool?), and my drifter phase (which was blessedly short). I made plenty of mistakes, and paid for all of them. I even learned from one or two. I went away to college once or twice, came back, went away for work, came back, and eventually got my life into some semblance of order as much by happenstance as design.

Looking back on it now (as I occasionally do) I wonder what I thought I was accomplishing at the time. Not that I am judging my younger self, because I don’t think it’s fair to judge someone for a lack of knowledge or experience, which by definition I didn’t have then and I do have now. But in some ways I am the same person now that I was then (unless you want to get into levels of metaphysics that I am not comfortable exploring, no offense to the philosophers), and even though I vaguely recall my motivations, about the best I can usually come up with for motivations and explanations for almost everything I did before my mid-twenties or so is “it seemed like a good idea at the time”.

Not that I’m entirely opposed to this line of reasoning in my life even now when the situation calls for it, but I have to wonder if I was really that directionless, or if I had some deeper purpose I was pursuing that I have since lost sight of or forgotten. Was I really living in some quasi-Hobbsian state of nature, or have I simply lost sight of the dreams and goals of the young man I once was? And when I look back twenty years from now, will I be asking the same questions, or will I at least be able to say that I fulfilled some higher purpose, some greater goal in life?

I suppose it goes to the same question I used to wonder about, and still do from time to time. At what point are you “a grown-up”? When do you really become an adult? Is it when you turn eighteen? I sincerely hope not, because I’ve known too many eighteen year-olds, myself included. Twenty-one is also a clear line in the sand, and clearly a bad one. Is it when you get your first “real job”? When you move out of your parents’ house? What if you lose your job or have to move back in (both of which have happened to me more than once)? Do you stop being an adult?

I’m not quite sure why it’s on my mind of late; maybe it’s because, as a friend pointed out recently, I’ve become the patriarch of my family, by default if nothing else. As I said to him at the time I’d just as soon not have the honor, considering the price. Still, we don’t get a choice in these matters. And growing up is something else we don’t get a choice in, no matter how much we’d like to join Peter and Wendy and stave it off for all time.

Even still, I’d like to have back my rebellious youth. This time I’d do it right.

Newer Entries →