Category: Uncategorized

I don’t know how, if you can or if that’s even good for you…

Have you ever observed another person doing some dumb shit? The type of shit they will think to themselves “wow, I regret that decision” or ” oh man, I would have handled that totally different”. Having an objective perspective to all situations is nearly impossible. We see life through a lot of different lenses, each lense is personal as well as unique. Each lens provides its own unique perspective and not every person has the same set of lenses or same method of trying to achieve their desired results. This can cause them to view the world very different from each other. Not only does this cause a variation in perception but also in reaction.

I see the world through a set of lenses that are unique to me. Sometimes it’s hard to remember this when dealing with others. I think it’s also important to remember that an individual’s unique perspective is also shaped by their personal universe, in other words their routine or daily life. I have met folks that seem content, well adjusted, even dare I say it- happy! But the moment life throws them a curve ball they crumble.. as I’ve gotten older I tend to pay more attention to the curveballs; how people handle them and more importantly how I handle them. I also tend to try to remember that what may seem really important to me, may not be very important to anyone else… My emotional connection to a situation is unique to me and possibly a small subset of people. I’ve always admired people that were able to stay calm in chaos, when they weren’t ready for the chaos… that is very different than people that are just able to operate in chaos. I think, those are two very distinct and different ways of being.

I know people that are able to operate in conditions that I have never experienced before and sometimes confuse that with handling chaotic conditions or juggling variables, when in fact they have just experienced more things than I have. The appreciation for experience, is one only appreciated by experience.

I love sports.  I love competition.  I love the feeling of accomplishment.  I love seeing hard work materialize into something wonderful that is shared with a select few people that experienced the same journey together.  Competing athletically (definitely not professionally, very amateur) and sports in general, have always been very present in my life.  There have been stretches of time that I drifted away from competition or stopped competing as hard and blamed it on day to day responsibilities, getting older, body aches, not enough time, etc….Somehow I’ve always found a way back from that and focused on getting better, putting the work back in, training for “something” like a charity run, beer league championship, weight loss goal, pulling myself out of a “funk” or just personal satisfaction.

Training towards a goal, has been  the only way I can trick my brain into allowing me to find “another gear”.  Any person that has competed in anything, physical or mental, knows what I mean by finding “another gear”.  Its that place your brain goes, where it literally says ” fuck you body, I know your out of gas and you want to drop, but we are gonna turn this up a notch because we ain’t done yet!!”.  In a competition/game setting, its when your instincts just take over and propel you into a place where time slows down, you can do no wrong, you’re in the zone.  I’ve found it hard to locate this gear as I get older, its not because its lost or its gone,  its because I usually misplace it.  Its always there, but needs to be used often or it goes dormant and hides somewhere deep inside my mind.  Sometimes it plays tricks and acts like its found, but its just a false sense of accomplishment due to only a small amount of work done.  You need a lot of work to locate that gear.  As a good friend says “it ain’t easy, they think it is, but it takes work to be good”.  I’ve always believed that a master makes the impossible look simple.  Its takes thousands of hours of preparation, tons of sweat, tears, no fear of injuries and perseverance to make playing any sport look easy.

The next gear is also a competitive edge in life, outside sports.  People that know this gear exists are more equipped to understand they can always endure more pain than they think they can.  By pain, I mean discomfort of any kind in the pursuit of excellence.  They know that not only physically but mentally the only way to get better is to push their bodies and their minds to the point of breaking, heal up and do it all over again.  People that have never experienced this might find it odd, strange, even awful but once you find it you know its the only way to really improve a skill. People that have never experienced this also don’t know what this point is.  They think its easy, but it ain’t.  It ain’t easy….

People that compete in athletics think differently than those that do not.  I believe it depends less  on the sport they choose to play, rather than their mentality toward achieving goals.  I like to categorize them into Team athletes, vs individuals. The team athlete knows how to work with others, appreciates their teammates for the roles they play and understand what role everyone on the team plays including themselves.  The individual SHOULD play a sport that is an individual one, like singles tennis, figure skating, sprinting, etc…BUT in reality there are alot of individual athletes that compete in team sports but really do not integrate well into a team setting.  These different types of athletes can be differentiated by the style of play they possess as well as their attitude toward preparation and in game play.  In my opinion even in individual competition you still have a team system that helps the athlete achieve his or her goals, so I don’t think you can ever really consider any sport and individual effort.

Sports and competition have been and hopefully always will be present in my life.  I attribute a lot of my personality to lessons I learned while training, competing and being part of a team.  I also attribute a lot of my philosophy regarding life, perseverance and finding a personal limit (or lack of one), both physical and mental, to lessons I learned playing sports.  Its important to always push yourself, the human psyche is designed to feel good when it achieves some sort of accomplishment.  For a dummy like me, I find accomplishment in its most purest form, being better at something today than I was yesterday, beating last years time in a 5K, getting to an ideal weight, skating faster, scoring more goals than last season, putting together the best beer league team and kicking some ass on the ice!  It ain’t easy, people think it is, but it ain’t…

 

Iv’e always heard people talk about moving “up”or “forward”, the term progress always had a positive connotation and if you went backward it was negative. Forward movement terms were categorized as “good” and any term that signified backwards motions were categorized as “bad”.

Words and terms like-

• advance, progress
• move forward
• upward mobility
• climb the ladder
• shatter the ceiling
• trail blaze

All these forward terms have a positive connotation and are considered “good”. The fact that we associate direction or movement in conjunction with “good” or “bad” signifies there is a hierarchy as well as a road map to life and happiness. If there is a hierarchy in place, does everyone subscribe to the same description of levels or places within this hierarchy?  In my opinion hierarchies are only effective when everyone is playing the game by the same set of rules, following the same map and speaking in the same vernacular.  As we know, this is not how the world works today.  Maybe back in Pre internet days when the world was a huge scary place and we had limited information about the rest of the world this worked, but it also prohibited free thought and prohibited perspective from other far away communities.  The group think or tribal mentality of everyone following the same life path can be effective but fosters ignorance, alnd tends to use terms like “this is the way we have always done it”…which is a term I personally hate.

Many people believe that “bad” is the opposite of “good”.  Those same people also believe that the opposite direction of up, is down and the opposite direction of forward is backward, all logical… But what if we did not associate the man-made term “good” with the movement of “forward”?  What if we did not associate the movement of “backwards” with “bad”?  What if they were just directions? What if they were simply necessary directions that each person uses during their life journey (assuming that there is a journey). If we take away the good and bad connotations from these terms, they are just terms of motion.  The opposite of motion is being without motion, stagnancy.  So by disassociating the terms good or bad from these terms of motion you also eradicate the construct of a hierarchy in which people navigate, the mental picture would look slightly different (assuming you prescribe to the “road map” ideology of life). The opposite of movement is actually NO movement at all.  Being stationary or stagnant is the opposite of moving anywhere.

Removing negative or positive meaning from these movements would change the dialogue when people speak about their life journey.  Imagine a journey where moving backwards may be necessary in order to move forward.  Moving laterally may be necessary in order to move around an immovable object. Moving forward may not be the best move depending on where you ultimately desire to be.  Everyones map is different.  Some may be similar, but lets not confuse similarity with being exactly the same.

 

I like lists. They help me think.  Below is a simple list I’ve compiled on things I don’t care about and things I do care about.  Keep in mind the word “care” was carefully used.  It means I am not interesting in hearing anyone talk about it.  It doesn’t mean its not important.  It can be very important to you, it doesn’t have to be important to me.

• I don’t care about your politics. 
• I don’t care about your religion. 
• I don’t care what company you work for.
• I don’t care if you work for yourself. 
• I don’t care how much money you make
• I don’t care if you don’t work.
• I don’t care if you pay taxes.
• I don’t care if you don’t pay taxes.
• I don’t care if you hate hypocrites.
• I don’t care if you hate liars.
• I don’t care if you are vegan.
• I don’t care if you eat meat.
• I don’t care if you only eat free range, non GMO, nut free stuff..
• I don’t care if you juice cleanse all day er day..
• I don’t care if you get ripped on malt liquor frequently.
• I don’t care if you get high.
• I don’t care if your high right now.
• I don’t care if your straight edge and your body is a temple. 
• I don’t care what kind of car(s) you have.
• I don’t care if you don’t have a car
• I don’t care about what zip code you live in.  
• I don’t care about what YOU SAY your philosophy on life is.
• I don’t care about who you know.

 

• I care about how you treat babies, children, animals and the elderly.  
• I care about how you react when faced with adversity.
• I care about what you celebrate. ( I would like to celebrate with you)
• I care about challenging beliefs.
• I care about debating topics.
• I care about if you concede to never knowing all the facts and always try to look at a bigger picture.
• I care about experiences not things.
• I care about seeing the beauty in nature, people and all forms of art.
• I care about your health.
• I care about my health.
• I care about Hockey… talking about it, watching it and playing it.

Not too long ago I was very skeptical about the current generation.. Their work ethic, demeanor, how they interact with other people, and their overall sensitivity to other’s commentary.  As I have tried to delve into the human experience, history, and a greater understanding of myself my views have begun to change.

Below are some views I used to have  as well as reasons why my perception has changed…

People have become dumber, previous generations were smarter  

I’ve spent a fair amount of time researching this statement and its validity. From a perspective of how society functions it’s not that hard to quantify due to the amount of available data points, but there are so many categories that CAN be quantified its hard to know which one makes the most impact regarding what constitutes “smart”.

Our world has become more complicated, due primarily due to the amount of variables that have been introduced into the life equation.  What’s the life equation?  I just made it up… but take a math equation- 1+1=2, simple right?  Take a more complex equation- 1+(1*A)=4, one variable, also only one answer… so not that complex.  The life equation is not constrained to one form of math, it uses addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, fractions, exponents, logic, addition by subtraction, long division, extremely long division, etc… you get the point.   The more variables, the more complex the equation. Now apply that to your life.  The amount of variables is astounding.  They also vary from one person to another.  The end of the equation is usually a variable as well.  Probably isn’t even static.  Its  dynamic equation, that is constantly evolving and this is due to the amount of information we are able to process during our lifetime.

Oh yea, I forgot to mention that just as information is more easily available, so is misinformation as well.  Not only do you have all this additional data to process, variables to add to your equation, you also need to be able to filter out the stuff that doesn’t matter, is incorrect or malicious.

People have become more sensitive.

The way we communicate today is vastly different than it was 10 years ago, even more different than it was 20 years ago.  People’s voices have become more easily heard through the internet, social media, online gaming and different group/text apps.  With these types of communication forums the voiceless, meek, quiet can have a very loud voice.  They can reach a lot of people and raise awareness to issues that otherwise would have gone ignored.

Thoughts have changed on how we approach social issues and how we deal with them.

It is more socially acceptable to speak up instead of stay quiet.

People have become more disrespectful.

I have a lot of thoughts on this one.. many theories and assumptions.  I have been struggling which one is correct, or maybe they all are correct or maybe none of them are.  Could it be that once again, society has just been able to place a stronger magnifying glass on itself and we are able to see these warts in HD instead of suppressing them with silence?

But there is no respect for elders today!  Anyone that was worth respecting never expected it (in my opinion)

People have become more lazy.

Working/doing a job-  in relation to how we gain income has changed. We do not “work” the same way as previous generations due to technological advances. Career paths are far different today than they were in previous generations.  In fact career paths today are not straight any more.  They are actually not even clearly defined in some cases. Trade school or hard skill jobs are still around and will never go away, but their entire industries have changed a bit.  There are even new industries that have emerged.

There have always been lazy, sensitive/insensitive, uninformed, ignorant and disrespectful people in this world.

If you take a random group of people and stick them in a room there will be a lazy person, disrespectful person and more likely than not, an asshole among them.

Today’s society is hyper focused on each others behavior, primarily due to the advent of social media, TV trying to keep up with social media as well as society trying to understand how to process this fire hose of information being sprayed at us.

Using them as examples to discredit entire groups of people as well as a generation of is not a logical thought process to defend your ignorance… life wasn’t better and we weren’t smarter, now go ask your kid how to download that app.

 

The English language has a bunch of words that when they were first born had great intentions, but through the course of time (and the almighty dollar) they have become bad!!! Almost scary!!  They are words that you do not want to hear when in the conference room or end of year meeting.  Words that can strike fear in your khaki pant, blue shirt and power tie wearing ass!

Efficiency– you hear this and you know people are gonna lose their jobs… if you are one of the “lucky” ones who still has a job, you get to do additional work for no extra pay!!!

Right size– another layoff term. See ya guy who struggles at talking infront of people.  Even though you are the only one on your team that knows how to actually do the job, your fired because you suck at giving presentations!

Re-organize– basically your getting another boss… so now all the equity you put into making your boss believe you know your shit is gone and you have to break a new one in..

Safety– yes, safety is super important.  We all want to work safe and come home in the same condition we left to go to work. So why is it evil?  It’s brutal…it’s a fucking circle jerk of job security and mitigating risk (from being sued).  It’s no secret that in America the countries favorite past time is NOT baseball, but it’s SUING!!  So what does corporate America do to prevent lawsuits? Corporations create safety departments that implement processes and procedures that sound great, but god forbid you forget to look both ways 4 times before crossing that street and get crushed by a car who blew 4 red lights.  It’s still your fault because you only looked three times, standard procedure is 4.  

Those are only a few words that I have encountered during my time in corporate America.  That’s part of the reason I left….it’s all bullshit.

Creativity usually thrives when emotions are felt at a level of high intensity. Times of fear, anger, sadness, joy, disgust and surprise are the general categories of emotions whose energy can be focused into creativity. Some people are able to harness the energy from these times and release it in various positive forms such as poems, story telling, dance, athletics, debate, business planning, cooking, fine arts, etc… When I am feeling down in dumps I immediately start exercising alot, I use this to kick my mood up a notch.  When I am filled with excessive energy, I tend to write more, draw more, my imagination tends to run wild with creative thoughts.  Some folks are able to harness sad energy to create art, it acts as almost a form of therapy for them.  This creative energy, no matter if it is born from a dark place or a place of light,  can be focused in a positive way.

There is also the possibility of a counterbalance at play. This counterbalance can be considered a negative effect to the positive release of creative energy. I consider this counterbalance to be any self destructive behavior (there are too many to list and they are different for everyone). This counterbalance can also overtake the positive creative energy or even replace it.

I believe it is a common misconception that depressive emotions can be the cause of a lack of creativity, but instead I feel that complacency is when the mind is at its least creative state. The lack of feeling real emotions, whether positive or negative robs the mind of its creative energy. Autopilot is the death of an interesting ride.

Moderation is a fatal thing.  nothing succeeds like excess– Oscar Wilde

 

“If your only tool is a hammer, all of your problems will be nails”.

Can we talk about his quote for a minute?  My interpretation of this quote has multiple layers.  The quote is so simple in its construction yet in my opinion has the ability to deliver layered cautionary suggestion on how to remain cognitively aware of the world around us, as well as provide a simple and meaningful suggestion on how we should utilize the proper “tools” for each situation instead of always relying on one.  In my interpretation, the use case as well as the “situation” can vary from a persons personal perspective, their background, one’s experience and knowledge on subject matter, utilization of coping skills, ones comfort level in new situations, as well as ones ability to empathize or adapt to new situations.

Lets start with a quick definition of the tool in question.  What is a hammer? A hammer is usually a tool with a heavy metal head mounted at right angles at the end of a handle, used for jobs such as breaking things and driving in nails. A hammer is a great tool to have in your tool kit.  Its even completely necessary for jobs involving nails.  You can drive nails using other objects, but the proper tool for the job is a hammer…it’s a tool that is specifically made for the purpose of breaking things and driving nails into objects.  Hammers are engineered to withstand the force necessary to do both jobs.  Using the back end of a screwdriver to Hammer a nail into a piece of wood may work, but eventually you will ruin the screwdriver and not to mention the amount of time it will take to perform the task.  The screwdriver is not the correct tool to use in that instance, but if you only had a hammer…  All those nails could be hit swiftly, precisely and your tool will stay in perfect working order because that is the job it is meant to do! I am not suggesting that tools cannot be repurposed and we can find other ways to utilize them (that is a different conversation all together).  Keep in mind that the tool used to drive nails into objects has evolved as well.  Construction itself has evolved to an extent.  This is not to say that hammers are no longer used, but there is a time and a place for them.  Not every nail driving job today requires the use of a hammer.  Humans have figured out ways to increase productivity through the use of advanced mechanical tools.  In a massive job requiring hammers and nails, some carpenters utilize nail guns instead of a trusty hammer.  This is not to suggest that this same carpenter doesn’t have a hammer in his/her tool box.  That carpenter probably has a hammer hanging on his/her tool belt at all times.  It’s still a useful, necessary tool, it just has a time and place to be used.

How ignorant of me to just talk about carpenters using hammers.  I apologize to any of the brain surgeons out there who use hammers on daily basis.  Well, that would be a silly apology.  Brain surgeons don’t use hammers, I don’t think.  I’m actually pretty sure that brain surgeons would be completely irresponsible if they fixed your noodle up with a hammer.  Talking about brains surgery and hammers just sounds kind of archaic.  I picture two cave men.  one laying down and the other standing over him with a hammer ready to hit his head.  as the hammer reaches its zenith before he starts the downward strike to the other cave-mans head, he yells out “this might hurt a bit”.  No shit it might hurt… wrong tool for that job buddy.  congrats you just gave the grave diggers more work.

But back to the original concept, think about the carpenter whose only tool is a hammer.  What tasks can he/she perform?  No matter what job site this carpenter is working on, the only job relegated to this young Thor is hitting nails.  The fact that he/she only has a hammer and is really only useful for one task, he/she might end up only relating TO that one task.  This carpenter has only experienced hitting nails.  All his/her conversations are all about hitting nails, with the occasional breaking stuff.  Try having a conversation with this carpenter about cutting lumber, measuring beams, or drawing plans for a structure.  with no experience in any of these field these conversations can go in a number of ways, I have 3 listed below:

1. I know nothing about doing those tasks, therefore I cant really talk intelligently about them.
2. I’ve seen and read about them done, so I have some knowledge and open to learning more.
3. I’ve seen and read about them so I am an expert.

You may or may not be wondering at this point, when is he going to relate this to something other than the obvious use of hammers… Lets imagine for a moment a young person who grows up in a household where the adults deal with any conflicts in a violent manner.  Person A does something that person B is upset/offended/doesn’t like.  Person B’s response is a double down on aggression to Person A.  Person A will either process the aggression as – I shouldn’t do this again because B doesn’t like it, but most likely the scenario will play out in a circular conflict where there is resentment and never an understanding, just aggression met with more aggression between both person A and person B.  The young person, lets call him/her Person C, has witnessed this form of conflict resolution its entire childhood and subsequently created certain coping skills to deal with these types of situations.  What type of conflict resolution or lack there of do you think Person C will use in his or her own life?  I know this example is tip toeing the line between a nature vs nurture debate….sort of but not really.  I understand that it is debatable regarding people forming their own personalities usually independent of their surrounding  and there are people that will react to situations differently based on their own personality.  Consider this example as one that is strictly a commentary on learned behavior.  Confrontation can become be a default coping mechanism for this person due to the environment in which he or her lived during his/her formative years.  Person C was only supplied with a “Hammer”, not any other tool.

The above situation is just one example of how a persons learned traits and limited experience can trick them into thinking there is only tool for every job.  If person C happens to be exposed to other forms of conflict resolution he/she may be able to pick and choose which on works best in each situation rather than always relying on the default style of anger and aggression.  Can people be super creative and use the same tool for multiple jobs with success?  Of course, but also keep in mind, success is a relative term based on ones own perspective and objective.

Hammers are great and powerful tools, but if I were a carpenter I think I would want to have more than just one tool on my tool belt.  Especially if I was called on to perform brain surgery on the job site one day…

 

Work a job you love and you will never work a day in your life.  We’ve all heard this old adage, I personally think this statement couldn’t be more wrong. Well, maybe it just needs some refining.   I understand the utopian theory behind the statement but there should be a caveat added to it to make it relevant, or maybe even an entire rephrasing.  Lets try this phrase instead- If one performs a task with the intention of obtaining money then it is money that is the only objective.  Instead, perform tasks (work, job, chores) because you want to and figure out how to make money another way.  lets discuss…

A fair amount of people today work to obtain money to afford the lifestyle they want, need, or are accustom to (the idea of what shapes these lifestyles is an entirely different set of thoughts..)  Bottom line is we need money to survive if you want to participate in today’s societal norms.  I know there are outliers that are self sustainable and have figured out how operate outside of societal norms without (or with very little) money, but I am not talking about them.  The objective of this commentary is not how one obtains money or what they do with it, but the fact that it is a necessary evil today.

Once obtaining money is the objective of any task, that task becomes a job, a job with the sole purpose of obtaining money; and that is never truly fulfilling.  Some folks use a coping skill in which they convince themselves they are doing something they love, and the work they perform on a daily basis is challenging, rewarding and gratifying!  This may be the case for some, I am not disputing that.  When this coping skill is employed, in order for the job to remain a positive experience, the end user must experience those emotions at least 20% of the time.  Think of the song by Lady Ga Ga ” million reasons”  she talks about the majority of the time her boyfriend sucks, he’s given her a million reasons to leave him, but he just has to give her one reason to stay.  Same thing (kind of) with a job that kinda sucks (btw they all do)… why does a job that sucks 75% of the time retain people and those people hold on to the minimal redeeming qualities as reasons to stay?  Well, that job provides money in return for sucking out your soul.  Money that is needed to pay for stuff.  What stuff?  mortgage/rent, food, medical needs, material things (stuff you want or need), vacations (which are needed because your everyday life sucks due to your job most likely).  I know by now if you have read this far you are thinking, this does not accurately depict me (I mean you).  You might have a job you love, you work in a field you’re passionate about, its super rewarding, you even get paid a shit load of money to do it.  It doesn’t even feel like work because you’re so passionate about the work you do.  This commentary might not be about you… or maybe it is and you just haven’t gotten the point yet….

So being you have this amazeballs job that provides you with this sense of fulfillment and challenges your intellectual mind daily, hourly, fuck it every minute!!  This job also pays you stupid amounts of cash, so much that you work your balls off so hard (mental work, not physical) that you need serious R&R and vacations (lots of them).  These vacations are necessary to reground yourself and repurpose on the things that really make life worth living, like family, friends, activities you love, sunsets, sunrises, nature, etc…hold up.. you love the job, but need time away to focus on the really important things in life?  You find it hard to do both at the same time?  why because this job you love so much is paying you to shut them out and focus on the work.  secondly, what happens if you are replaced for some reason at this job or it goes away for some reason.  You created this life (that you are accustom to) that requires a decent amount of MONEY to sustain.  Think your really doing the work because you love it?

Still not you?  another scenario- you have this fucktastic business, it pays you great, fulfills your needs, best part is you own it.. its your business!!  you can work when you want, you employ people, you are responsible for others making a living!!!  hold up, you’re responsible for other peoples reliance on money now.  That’s a lot of responsibility….I am not saying that responsibility is bad, quite the opposite, I think people should run toward responsibility not away from it. The point I am making is that money is still the objective even if you own a business that you are passionate about. The difference is that now you are responsible for you’re employees and their familes too..  this of course only holds true if you actually have a soul and care about people.  It’s funny how so many businesses make decisions about laying off, becoming efficient, downsizing, etc.. based on the bottom line (how much PROFIT/MONEY THEY MAKE!) , not taking into account the fact that people will ultimately lose their source of income.  yay for me (business owner) sucks for you (jobless worker).

let me get back on track, I started veering off in another direction…

I will rephrase the purpose statement again and read it slowly.  Perform a task with the intention of obtaining money and it is money that is the only objective.  Perform tasks (work, job, chores) because you want to, figure out how to make money another way.

I don’t have an answer on how to do this… its merely an observation.  not even sure if its accurate.  But its how I feel about doing work.  Please allow me to get personal for a moment.. I left a job where I worked for a very stable company.  Was there for about 14 years and held various positions.  The Job paid well, nice retirement plan (company match on IRA contributions) and decent amount of vacation time.  It checked a lot of boxes when evaluating job favorability by todays standards.  there was something missing though.  None of my coworkers were happy, I wasn’t happy.  the mission statement of the company put employee happiness and fulfillment at the center of the all its decisions!  how can this be?  as in most companies, that is not the case in reality.  Putting people at the center of all decisions is not possible when the goal of any corporation is profit.  its impossible, just cannot happen.  In truth it would be fiscally irresponsible to manage a business that way!  I am not condemning the company or corporate structure, I just made a decision one day to not be a part of it any more.  so what did I do next?  I went to work in a place I spend most of my time outside of working hours (and sometimes during working hours), at an ice rink!!  I play a lot of hockey and I’m crazy passionate about the sport, culture and the people I have met through the game.  I made my first decision to leave my last job (the good stable unfulfilling one) based on personal happiness, not monetary.  I made my next decision, to go work at an ice rink based on personal happiness, not monetary gains as well.  This was a lifestyle change.  A big one.  I cut my household income in HALF!  I consider myself a logical thinker as well as a planner, so before I made this decision I understood that in order to make this work I would have to be ok with modifying my lifestyle (spending habits).  I needed to be able to make spending decisions based on value to which it brought to my happiness not frivolous spending.  I have modified my expectations and have found I’m ok with eliminating the things I have ultimately done without!  The first observation I made when altering my spending habits is that money is a drug… a powerful one.  we feel we need to make more money so we can buy things, buying these things help fill a void in our life.  If your not happy, just buy something! it makes you feel better for a moment… this is a consumer culture.  this culture is engrained in the fabric of our society.  we are force fed it from birth!  we are also told that we should be a part of it.  Its normal, everyone is doing it!  I’m gonna put a bow on this commentary right here.  I’ll  pause for a moment and let this sink in, actually I need to get ready to go to the rink on my day off, I’m playing hockey.. I actually playeveryday now.  I also happen to get paid when I go to the rink, but that’s not why I go. I go to the rink because I love being around a place that brings me enjoyment.  Also  I get fulfillment through the job I do because I can elevate the quality of the rink itself through proper maintenance of the place.  The maintenance of the facility is a tangible thing that translates into enjoyment not only for me and my friends, but for the many people that use the place year round.  I do it because I enjoy it, they just happen to pay me…ill start to worry when I think to myself “I wish I got paid more…”