A Star is Bright because its light is focused: Simplify, and Reduce Distraction

 

If you're anything like me, you are our natural problem solver who loves to figure things out 😀.

You will probably also have figured out, that you are a rather rare breed. People keep coming to you with various requests or asking you how to fix this or that... Or the most intoxicating, almost irresistible, situation occurs when you overhear someone talking about a problem and your brain instantaneously goes "I know how to fix that!" and you absolutely must help them out. This goes marvellously at first, and your ego is riding high on the knowledge that you have made a minor mark in the world and helped improve things.

This is great, but…

You have just run out of time in the day to do all the things you want or need to do. You have inadvertently signed yourself up for every repair job and are on a bunch of committees. To top it off you're also involved in a few projects in which you will also taken the lead and are in no position to hand it off to someone else in order to give yourself a break.-Your control freak has just introduced himself to you.

If that's you in a nutshell, fear not because that's also me. I have a feeling it describes a lot of people in the world whose goal it is to improve life in general. We just love to play and inadvertently become the repair shop, the support of friend, the problem solver etc. This isn't just ego either, we really do have a knack for understanding situations. The worst part is you (and I) know what to do, we just disdained the thought of doing it, and that is, it is necessary in order to do the best work possible, to stop trying to do everything. One must "Simplify, and Reduce Distraction" which means in practical terms something must be let go.

This sure is a difficult thing to do. To choose one of the many things we are doing and let someone else actually do it. Don't worry the world will live on. But one must make a commitment to oneself also do not take anything new up. Trading projects is not an option, it is necessary to give oneself some free time. You do remember what free time is don't you? -I'm not sure this moment if I do- Here it is 8:30 in the morning and I have to resist the urge to follow another idea for an article. I have to face the fact that I can't put out multiple articles and do the work that is expected of me later in the day as well as doing all the artwork and publicizing necessary in the time allotted. ...(Yes, believe it or not folks, blogs and websites do need publicizing. The traffic and visitors don't grow on trees and just show up. Internet myth busting fact #1: "A Website is not a substitute for an advertisement. It is the destination a visitor ends up at after seeing an ad about the site.")...

So I'm on a quest to reduce and simplify things. I can already feel my subconscious going nuts at just the thought... I think one of the first things to go will be a committee or two... To give myself a little more breathing room.  Because quantity is no substitute for quality and if you and I want to do good in the world we must become focused and allow other creative souls to take over certain things. The world has done well without us before head and will do well after us.

It is really necessary to focus on the quality of the goal and doing all you can do to assure that it comes out well. As I can older I really believe that the other people we see in our lives who appear to be doing everything so well have to face the same issues and the lessons they have learned is to focus and simplify. This also means using tools like delegating and allowing people to grow into positions.

The brightest stars in the heavens are bright because their light is focused.

Have a great day everyone.
Take care Patrick

Are You an Opportunity Hunter?

 

Opportunities always exist, but you need a few items in your mental toolkit to obtain them:

 (PS: After thinking about it I decided to make a video because this individual reaction to their situation does really get conveyed in written text.)

• You must be open to new experiences. This point is the most important and if you look through this site there are many articles that speak about this. This is all about welcoming change.
  
  
• You have to be proactive and engage in the hunt. Opportunities usually don't come to you, at least not often. Some clues that an opportunity may be lurking about are:

• If you're really lucky someone has just told you about a new event, program or some other activity that may make you feel a little uncertain as to whether you can accomplish what is being offered. Newsflash-This Is How Growth Occurs!
  
  
• You become aware of a project or some other activity which is going to require you to increase your knowledge level about something. You may have to take a course or do study. This is a really good indicator that what yours are seeking, that "opportunity". is nearby.

Once again life shows us a practical example:

This morning I was having breakfast with someone who because of a workplace injury was permanently in a wheelchair. Their condition is unique enough that during the initial convalescence the doctors asked them, "Would you mind participating in a study?" And this person's reply was absolutely inspiring, when they replied "Sign me up for everything!"

Now think about this for a moment. This person's life just drastically changed and yet they have the motivation and insight to take on something new and indicate that you want to do it on an ongoing basis even though they don't know what the other adventures will be. Talk about a great mindset.

Yes I am sure they went through a period of morning and adjustment, but they already knew intuitively or perhaps consciously that the true way to keep going is to keep working at it. To reach out. Most importantly to adopt and change as necessary as their life progresses. This person isn't someone who would stick out of a crowd but they have a great big dose of common sense. They are also quite curious. Willing to do whatever it takes for as long as they can.

These are the skills of an Opportunity Hunter.

 

Have a great day everyone!
Patrick 

To truly experience something, you must change.

 If the goal is to really understand another person or condition or even a perspective, you cannot remain the person you are right now. This is particularly important if the experience involves being overwhelmed or another extreme situation. In order to truly understand it you must become overwhelmed your self.

Many people when they are trying to grapple with a new situation especially if it's profound, don't understand that the business of living is to change and sometimes by holding on doggedly to who you are will only increase the distress. Mother nature does not believe in the concept of "noninvolvement". Changing and adapting are really one of the few things we all share in common. Think about it, are you today, the person you were 30 years ago? If all is gone right then the answer is "no". On the other hand if you're absolutely certain that you are the same person you were then I suggest evaluating whether that's working for you. I am quite certain you will find that it is not.

There are tons of positives you can experience when you understand that change on a fundamental level is necessary. It is the very heart of exploration and growth. It forces you to live in the world, not just alongside it. It is been my experience from dealing with many people in my volunteer work over the years that those who refused to change their perceptions often become frustrated and angry. Because they are putting all their energy into staying the same. This is not to say that you should always change, but what I am saying is that you need to be aware and accept decisions that you need to make. Then you are truly the master of your destiny. At least as much as is humanly possible.

So get out there and truly change!. Have a great day.
Patrick

A Simple List of All the Things That Have Gone Right in Your Life.

Sometimes you just have to go against the trend, and in this particular article which marks the 100th posting on this blog we are going to list some of the things which are right with the world and/or society in general.

In no particular order because this is coming to me randomly as I do other things… 😀

• We have more ways to communicate than ever before in human history.
  
  
• There are unbelievable research tools available to everyone. In their pocket.

People are beginning to wake up to the fact that we are all on one planet and perhaps the lines on the map are not what defines us. Come to think of it is the classic idea of culture even necessary at this point?… Talent and creativity really exist outside of frameworks. Finding out who you are, for yourself I think is the real point of life and the value you put on those discoveries is also up to you.

However, people and societies must be wary not to let automation do their work for them. You get the most out of life when you discover something for yourself and understand fundamentally the concept you are considering.

100 years is not very long at all. The world is at a place were enough people have sufficient resources to solve the large problems. Even Covid has a positive lesson. People who can now have the choice of working from home and that industry has moved forward at remarkable speed.

The potential to change the world is now really available. And like all things it's up to the individual which way you uniquely will go. I spent some time this morning looking through Wikipedia at photographs from 100 years ago. It was an unrecognizable world. So imagine if you can 100 years from this date whenever you are reading this article. All one has to do is undertake consistent effort and be sincere and clear about your goals.

Ultimately no one is truly disabled. If you see a disability or a handicap only. That is an indication that you need to change your perspective and your goal in life right now is to figure out how to do that. Many things can change one's perspective the trick is to realize when that change occurs and to benefit from it.

An example would be caffeine which many people used to wake up in the morning. Caffeine changes perspective and so does pretty much everything else. If you notice what changes you, the insights gained ultimately will be huge. But you will have to put energy into it. This also means that down the road your viewpoints may change and if you accept that word "change" itself becomes a synonym for opportunity.

Every situation can be looked upon as a chance to do something different. You are ultimately unique and were thinking and abilities belong only to you. The challenge is to utilize them. This may require some effort if the trajectory you are on is not particularly appealing. One of the things people often forget is that at any moment they can stop their current status quo existence and alter it. Indeed there is no such thing as a problem, it is only an interpretation inside your head and what and how that is is completely up to you. This can be pretty powerful stuff.

For a different perspective, try changing yourself for a few moments mentally into the exact opposite of who you are and consider for a little while how the world would appear different. What would you feel?… If you can do that then you have the tools necessary to begin finding what is going on right with your life and if it isn't at the moment what things you can make right. These don't have to be physical attributes, changing your mental perspectives only is often even more powerful. There is no need to change physical things, only your relationship to them.

This seems to be an appropriate article to Mark the 100th entry on this blog. Have a great day!

Patrick

Oh, for the Love of Manuals!

Photo by: Todd Ehlers License:  CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

First I must apologize for those of you that have noticed the site hasn't been updated in a few days. This was due to a software problem, and yes also to due to a lack of clearly written manuals. So this particular topic is very pertinent.

I won't mention any brand names but suffice to say two things conspired to keep me busy for the last 48 hours.

1. An error in one of my accounts cost of shutdown of some of my software, right after I paid a not a substantial amount of money to renew a subscription.
   
   
2. A good deal of my software is bought and paid for, and that act of buying something used to mean that you got a decent instruction manual. Well those days are long gone. It is one thing to abridge something is it is another thing to completely miss large chunks of information.

This is what caused my conundrum for the last two days. Instruction manuals have now been shortened and abridged to such a point that they give nope your understanding of what is going on. Nor do they provide the author of the document a clear understanding of what is going on or how to accomplish a task. This is a recipe for disaster and very time wasteful.

If I see one more book indicating that I should "click on a tiny icon" (not even bothering to give it a name) I made last go insane. The other thing that is sadly missing now days is detailed descriptions of features or if the information is included it is so broken up with hyperlinks and options as to make the text completely unreadable.

Then of course there is the most common problem. The software update you just received completely changes how the program operates and thereby makes the manual null and void.

The photo at the top of this post is of a 1973 Heathkit (Wikipedia article) manual, which while being brief were incredibly well written. They had to be, because you were assembling electronic kits. This just goes to prove that it is possible to be brief and get give sufficient information. Even the books in my elementary school gave more information about a given topic and what you find in most periodicals today.

Each morning I am rather astounded by what passes for newsworthy material. One problem I see is that in order to keep companies visible on the Internet they must produce material every day and unless you've got a staff of thousands, okay that was a bit of an overstatement, the quality will inevitably go down. This blog is a perfect example each day I miss publishing usually results in the loss of 50 views.

Still there must be some way to maintain quality. Because quality really is the cornerstone of knowledge. It is what enables you to go beyond the written or spoken word because the concept has been fully conveyed. To do that takes time and effort.

Anyway this is just very quick blurb. Just to get things back on track.

 I'll write more tomorrow. Patrick

PS:  It looks like Heathkit store is back in business! I don't know if they ship to Canada yet but I see they have the next generation of their famous "digital clock" which I built when I was a teenager. I have to find out if they ship the Canada and if they do. Well how can I not build another one.

Telephone adventures: What are you going to do today?

 

On the phone again😀

My volunteer job is rather unique in that because it deals with serving the public from an IT perspective (Information Technology) one never knows quite what issues are going to be faced during the day. It can go all the way from simply explaining how do basic tasks on the computer all the way to rather bizarre situations:

There was one person who called in which ultimately had the whole team scratching our heads. There laptop it started rebooting itself and getting stuck in a loop. That is, they would turn it on it would start up, in this particular case they would get the Microsoft windows logo then it would flash and restart over and over again. Every person on the team went through the appropriate list of culprits to no avail. Because we would doing this over the phone at one point it was arranged to use a second laptop with the camera to view the first that was stuck in the reboot cycle. Everyone at the office tried their best to solve this mystery… And then the answer casually was revealed by the owner… The investigation it reached the point where we ask the person to remove the hard drive from the laptop and were about to give them the appropriate instructions when they said: "Oh, I know how to do that, I do it all the time." What ultimately was revealed was that the owner of the laptop removed the hard drive any time there was any problem with the machine. Where normally someone would just unplug the machine this person had gone the extra step of taking the hard disk out. Most importantly, they had dropped the hard drive on the floor three times in total and this was a physical spinning hard drive. The problem had started soon after the third incident.

In the video on this page I talk a bit about this incident, feel free to watch it.

 

The owner of the laptop knew this wasn't a good thing to do under any circumstances and that is probably why they resisted telling us for such a long time. Anyway, we informed them that they needed to do hard drive and that they would need to reinstall the operating system. Unfortunately all the data was lost as the poor old drive had completely packed it in. Lesson learned, the hard way.

One of the trickiest things to do when you're working with people over the phone or remotely is to determine their level of competency with the equipment they're using. This can be a very tricky thing to do because different people uses vastly different terminologies and the configuration of their machines can be very different. Add to that the fact that there are many different ways to proceed with a computer and the Internet. Not everybody understands that the Internet is a truly two-way medium, that it is reacting to what you are doing with it. Many elderly people see the entire computer as a TV set essentially and they don't understand that there is actually much more going on. They can be very bright and aware but there are cultural upbringing started with the radio and later television and that is how they view things.

Other people don't differentiate between the various parts of a computer if you asked them about their monitor they get confused because they see the machine as a singular device. Some even referred to their machines as a brand name: "My Lenovo is acting up." If you get a phone call like this you know it's going to take some time to figure things out. People that are more comfortable with technology tend to have much for specific requests, like: "My USB ports are dead." These are "usually" relatively quick fixes. ( Personally, these fast ones aren't that much fun. I do like a challenge :-))

Then lastly, you get requests from what I will class as the "People that think they know more than you do and who won't tell you what they've done. But want you to fix it anyway." This group drives us all crazy, especially because they are set ups are usually complicated, overly so, and there is a tendency for them to do things on impulse. For example, one person we work with had USB hubs (Think a USB splitter, one chord in many connections out.) plugged into other USB hubs, it was a real rats nest and all from different brands. The main problem for them was everything was slow. The answer to the problem was that they just had too much plugged in and expected everything to run at full speed. They didn't like hearing that they had to simplify.

So that is what my volunteer days are like and that is what I'm going to do today most likely :-). It's a true adventure!

Patrick

Do you remember when… They said "Computers will make your life more efficient."

I'm running between tasks today and as I'm doing so the thought occurred to me from many years ago that it was touted by all the media: "Computers Will Make Your Life More Efficient!" And they even followed that statement with "it will be a paperless society." Boy if I could go back in time, would I have news for them....

Now don't get me wrong… Multitasking and technology can do wonderful things. But the one thing the daydreamers of yesteryear forgot was the concept of finite time and the tendency to fill everything up. The faster you can go, the more needs to be done, because essentially everything else is sped up as well.

I wonder if we could even handle going back 50 or 60 years. Think about it nothing you know would exist except for the very basic items. Cringe, if you went to the bank you would have to stand in line and wait as they tabulate the answer. Or be astonished by how quickly the representative could do the math in their head. The impulses we normally given to on an hourly basis to check our phones and do other things would drive us crazy, simply because there would be no way to do them. You would have to wait for that phone call or maybe drive all the way home to make it. And if you frequently now talk to your friends around the world, while you could do that you run the risk of one very nasty phone bill at the end of the month. No wonder our parents were terrified the moment they realized the children could reach the phone. In my case, thank goodness my grandmother lived in town because I do remember calling her rather frequently.

It would be the same thing for the news. Let me know in the comments if you've never read a physical newspaper. Top that off with the fact that the reading skills 60 years ago tended to be much higher. English was slightly different. I remember a few of my teachers who were rather tyrannical about the written word. Or at least I thought they were dictatorial. I live in Canada and I still remember in grade three and up having to put two spaces after a period before a sentence could start. The same rule applied to the start of paragraphs, you had to indent them.

The first time I visited a library card indexes were still in use. Years later I remember my joy of being able to log on to the bank were public library with the dial-up modem at 300 baud. That was so slow you could read faster. It was also very easy to overload the system with a complex search. Which I admit I love to do.

No doubt there is a ton of other things that happened which haven't occurred to me...

I was introduced to computers through work when I believe we were at Microsoft DOS 2.0, which came out in October 1983. That is when I heard that ultimately "Computers would make things more efficient". It became a mantra. There were no hard drives in site because they were expensive and very sensitive. When my boss did get one, I was read the riot act by the computer representative: "You must park the drive when you're done with the machine. Do not bump the table. This has a huge storage capacity of 20 MB." "Park" was an actual command you had to run when shutting down the machine. I think the drive itself cost around $600 that is without any of the cards you needed to run it. Well we also got a printer for the office the noisiest daisy wheel type machine I have ever heard. We used to do our printing at lunch while we were all out of the office.

Guess what, we ended up using tons of paper! I remember it was all fanfold and you had to take off the tractor holes on the side of the sheets. Here's an example of a Daisy wheel printer in action (I no doubt have found an example on YouTube )

Actually know that I think about it we probably have saved time and maybe even some paper. I do 90% of everything purchased wise online as well as bills etc. maybe we are getting there 😀.

Take care Patrick

Fractured Days

Photo by: Wenjie, Zhang License: CC BY 2.0

This article might turn into a rant.

Constant interruptions.

Yep, that's what I call the last few days. A collection of small, albeit not intended, disturbances. On a both personal and public level. I'm going to get a little X-Files here but I really am beginning to believe, at least a little bit, that my building and/or the inhabitants even though they are well intentioned go through cycles of disturbance. No sooner does one have a plan in place that there is something that happens. Could be a knock at the door or as it happened earlier today, one staff member ran in flew around my apartment counting of all things garbage cans. When I inquired with another staff member, because the first one it already flown the coop, as to what the heck was going on. The reply was "Last time we ordered garbage bags in masse the size was wrong. So this time, were going to fix that."  ... Yes indeed it was a garbage can audit. I'm guessing that it'd be dropped on the staff out of the blue because the "auditor" was running like mad.

The day went on like this with people running in and to checking the various things. Or wanting to make relatively small talk. Just important enough that I couldn't say "no" to them. There have been a few other days like this in the past week.

Minor chaos presides.

Something is going on with our flooring and painting redo of the building. It was started in a flourish of activity then all of a sudden it stopped before completion. About a week is gone by and I noticed the handyman is doing a lot of part on his own. No word as to what is going on when things will be completed.

Even my computer has gotten into the chaos act. The software I use to create videos for this site and other projects has decided to become rather unstable. Quirky might be a better word to describe it. 20 minute projects turn into an hour-long at least. When I finally finished one project I went uploaded to YouTube and I gotta very ambiguous message saying that it on no one error had occurred. Now fortunately you can go to YouTube and drag-and-drop your material in a standard browser. But the automated system is much nicer because it compiles the video into a finished product and then uploads it. If you do it the manual way you have to check back several times to see if the movie is ready for uploading. The process of compiling and converting the video to the right format is rather lengthy. And so this automation feature is very handy.

Mind you I have a few odd issues to deal with myself and am feeling a little bedraggled. I get this way whenever things don't progress. Where I live, although I love the staff and a general environment it is all very segmented. I really do miss the days when I can get into it six-hour stretch and just work on a project. Over here two hours is kind of the average. The days go by a little too fast for my liking. A friend of mine said to me the other day "Well at least you're not bored." I laughed and said "I am working now more than I ever did when I was younger." And that is true.

Tomorrow will be better I hope, and I'll get more done. I had planned today to get a package out for a board meeting I'm having with another organization next week. That didn't quite happen. So tomorrow's going to be another lightning finish to get it out the door. Because one of our members does not do email. Yes you read that right. Because of their condition they can't look at a monitor. Or any screen for that matter. It gives them a relatively quick migraine.

Okay that's enough for now.
I shall report more tomorrow. Take care everyone and thanks for stopping by.
Patrick

Is an afterlife really necessary?

"Leave room in your life for flexibility."

I am very grateful to be alive, and for me the fact that it is limited the accident of even more value. Knowing that the "spark" will only last so long ensures that it is appreciated and not squandered.

The following is only my opinion, this needs to be made clear because this article might ruffle some feathers. I am an agnostic and while I'm very glad that the world has diverse systems of belief, culture, with an ever-growing diversity it is problematic that some need to know there is an afterlife. From a very simple perspective, nothing else last forever why should the human race be any different.

When something has a limited span there is a tendency to appreciate it more, to pay more attention and indeed learn more from the experience. If the universe (God) said "You are life, but only for a short time." I wonder how that would've changed the world? I don't think the human race would see it is a limiting factor, I think perhaps we might have a tendency to make the most out of what we have. We would still have many issues, but we would have a different perspective for sure. The concept of an afterlife turns the world into an introductory course, because you know the real one comes next, the one that really matters. This can put physical humanity into kind of a throwaway realm. That is a real disservice to all that this world is which is: "A tremendous opportunity to discover and do good." (The reader can make up their own minds as to what the values in that phrase to them.)

Humanity would be better served if we didn't expect an afterlife, but if there is one thing that will be a gift. We can still ponder the many mysteries and ideas out there. But globally for the earth today I don't think we should hang our hat on the idea of an afterlife.

Take care, let me know what you think Patrick

Never Assume Anything. Cherish Everything.

Let the sunshine in!

 Boy if this isn't the perfect article for a sunny Sunday

One of those serendipitous moments when you suddenly realize your place in the world and how lucky one is to be alive and able to appreciate and interact with the world. Indeed just a joy in the realization of the serendipity 😃.

Once again I'm going to say what I've said many times earlier on this blog [paraphrasing myself] "I have seen too many people take too many things for granted…" I am going to add to that statement "and not appreciate what they have." I had to go downstairs earlier this morning to return a phone to someone and noticed that the dining room was full of people munching on food well before the normal lunch hour. Where I live they officially only serve lunch and dinner as well as a midday snack. The unofficial breakfast is because of some additional funding founded during Covid to bring in someone to handle small tasks not related to health care. At the end of this month we lose that wonderful person and will no doubt be going back to a normal schedule. Now, I only eat lunch and dinner so was pretty much unaware of this routine, even though it is been going on for a few years. My only defence for not noticing this is that I am such a nerd I have a tendency to discard what isn't immediately pertinent to whatever project I am undertaking.

 However some of the tenants just don't get it. How lucky we all are that we are for the most part still functioning and have a support staff that the rest of the world should be jealous of. (And they probably are). Yet there are ongoing grumblings about this and that. It kind of pisses me off so pardon me will I choose to stay in a more positive frame of mind. I think that about does it for this short post. I'll include a little video so you can see my general enthusiasms. (by the way: I uploaded a full-size version of the flower at the top of this post in PNG format it is  huge about 26 MB in size but you are more than welcome to download it.)

Have a great day everyone.

Patrick