Pages

May 24, 2011

The Art of Non-Conformity » Hello, My Name Is…

"I don’t think that any of these ideological constructs are bad—in fact, they’ve clearly done good things for the world and helped a lot of people live more intentionally. But I do think it’s a mistake to group yourself into someone else’s idea of identity."

From Hello, My Name Is… by Chris Guillebeau

This post is one of the most clearly laid-out arguments against labels. The most difficult part about fighting labels is becoming another label during the process. You become anti-label and the cycle is never-endless from there.

I like the way Chris links labels back to defining your personal identity. So many of us gain from dressing up, looking a certain way, having a higher-sounding title, living in a swanky neighborhood, working at that awesome company because of the way people look of us. Their perception of us makes us feel better. We become what others admire in that era - that specific moment in time when dark jeans or ties or hats or geekiness or tech work or working at Apple or McMansions or Beverly Hills or whatever are the in thing. We're social animals and we climb that hierarchy set for us by our social structures. Memes.

If we step out of that moment - or rather mement - and dig down deep for what we care about, we might find something different. Something dissimilar to the current social norm. We can never avoid labels, but going through the "know thyself" exercises lets us create our own or more solidly become part of a mission that we consciously agree with.

What mement are you a part of or do you want to create?

May 23, 2011

Money, Happiness and Personality

"Life, except for the obvious physical needs, is not so much defined by the external situation as by the inner one. Having money won’t change your internal makeup. If you’re an anxious sonofabitch without money, you’re going to be an anxious sonofabitch with a lot of money."
From Delayed Echoes

Money, or the lack thereof, brings out the real you. Stickler, freewheeler, bragger, hoarder, hider, straggler, whatever your personality might be is what personality you have with money. The link between money and happiness is much more uncertain than with money and personality. It's the not the personal earning, but the personal growing, changing and evolving that will change someone's relationship with money.

I've been learning a lot about my personal relationship with money and how closely it's associated with my philosophy of life. I don't much like what I'm discovering. The strong correlation just means I guide my life around its accumulation. It's not just currency, it's my value system. And I'm working on changing that.

The strongest influences are people who's value systems define their currency. For example, some people believe strongly in the value of relationships. We all might think we do, but we mostly hang out with similar socio-economic groups, lots of us make friends up the ladder, and marriage-wise, misunderstanding about financial issues is always among the top 3 reasons for divorce. People who truly value relationships deal in a different currency. For them, social capital may be important; how many friends you know that you can rely on, the level of trust you've garnered with your partner, etc. They're trading and bartering on a social exchange rate.

Other people have value systems surrounding creativity. They deal in the currency of art, originality and aesthetic.  Regardless of money or power or social capital, they're motivated and drawn to what moves them visually or musically. It's something unseen, but felt at their core.

I'm learning these different currencies, which seem so new to me, but have been around forever. Everything is intrinsically linked to money, but it doesn't have to be the guiding force or value system that drives us. It's the byproduct that lets us be more ourselves, whatever that personality might be. In a capitalist system, all of us are susceptible to being caught in an accumulation cycle and it's when we stop and assess our personality, values and motivations that we can truly begin to grow and change our relationship with money, and happiness.

May 6, 2011

How to Be Unremarkably Average

"Use your credit card as your primary means of spending. Get the largest mortgage you can qualify for. Fill it with plasma TVs and expensive furniture. Buy a big, new car and complain about the cost of gas. Spend all you earn, or maybe even more than you earn. The government will help you if there’s a recession. Spend money on things you don’t want but will help you impress others."

The scary thing was how much of this artfully satirical diatribe related to me and how much I bet it relates to a lot of those who read it. It does describe "average" after all.

The recurring theme is personal security; doing what's safe, sticking to what you know and understand. There's nothing bad in that. We are all trying to achieve some form of security, but when we reach it we slow down. And we certainly reach it when we hit the average mark.

The key word is "trying". We should never stop. There is no achieving "security", only the sense that we have. The revolutions going on around us wake us up to that fact. Security is an aim, not a reality. There's nothing disconcerting in that. Rather, it keeps us alive! 

May 2, 2011

The Upside of Irritation

"No matter how good we are at controlling our circumstances, there will always be factors and people that we cannot control. How we respond to these experiences to a great degree determines the quality of our lives. The goal of spiritual development is not to learn to control our environment—which is more of an ego-driven desire. And while having some measure of control over our external reality is important, it is when we are confronted with a person or situation that irritates us and we can choose not to react that we know have made progress spiritually. It is when we have mastered our internal reality that we will have become the masters of our lives."