Sometimes, I have something to write on the blog.
And it’s not like it’s “Oh, I can write this today or two years after”.
Most of the time, if I don’t write about that idea within a short timeframe, it’s completely gone.
And, what’s even more surprising is the fact that ideas keep popping up.
I burn ideas, and they come back from the ashes.
The desire to write is high.
“I don’t have any time for easy and repetitive tasks” I once told while living in student hostels a friend of mine.
He replied that I’d better become someone really important, to really prove that I don’t have any time.
I thought, back then, that if I skip easy and repetitive tasks, that this proves I’m paying attention to my time.
Sometimes in the past one or two months, I’ve read a thought – “If you want to give someone a task, choose someone who’s really important and busy, it’s more likely that the person will do it”.
And I think this is the real thing.
I previously wrote that the most important thing for working efficiently is passion.
The same logic applies to time management – it’s not that important if you have 6 hours of work in a day or 10 hours, for a lot of creative and non-repetitive tasks.
A busy person is more likely to have accomplished lots of things and to know the value of a job done correctly.
Some jokes can be annoying.
Some people like hearing jokes.
What’s the middle path?
There isn’t one. You can make very soft jokes, not offending anyone, you can be smiling, you can be serene, but the real jokes, the ones that make people laugh, are offensive – to some degree.
It’s part of the job description.
“I will not annoy anyone, so I will never tell a joke” is not a solution.
Choose your battles, learn when to joke and when not to, learn some people who enjoy the jokes, find out what hurts people.
But don’t stop joking because some people don’t like the jokes.
As much as some people would prefer to stop, there are some people who would prefer to continue.
“Do no evil”. Yes, that’s true.
Don’t make over-the-board jokes, don’t attack people, don’t use curse words.
But, within some limits, there are actually no boundaries.
Within some walls, there is liberty.
Get it, and accept the fact that some people would like some stricter laws and more enclosed walls.
In “Chris Voss Teaches The Art of Negotiation”, the speaker sometimes refers to “calibrated question” – these help put things into context.
I have this problem – it’s difficult for me, sometimes, to give the general context.
I tend to focus on the small detail, on the little aspect, on the minor things.
Seeing the overall story is difficult.
Even when I think of future plans, it’s hard for me to say an overall conclusion. I tend to say “If all goes well, then …”.
It’s rare of me to say “we’ll do so-and-so”, because you can’t be 100% sure, and I don’t feel like making a promise I can’t keep.
How can I solve this?
Coming back to the phrase which opened this article, I once asked a person “So, what’s up with that?”. It was a long-thought question, I prepared for it. It helped defuse a situation, and it took both me and the receiver by surprise.
A question to help equalize the things is surely helpful.
The word “passion” comes from suffering.
So, passion for work implies suffering.
What’s, to me, the most important criteria in evaluating work?
The passion.
It takes passion, willingness to sacrifice, and ability to focus on the long-term, persistence in order to be successful in work.
If you have passion, you’ll be able to:
No passion – no results, quite simple.
In “Salman Rushdie Teaches Storytelling and Writing | MasterClass” there was, at some point, a focus on how people talk – if you write something, it will help imagining a real person talking.
To me, that’s rather difficult. I tend to talk like I write, and this empathetic exercise is rather difficult.
But it would be a nice thing to try, in the future.
It might look to you that whenever you say “Freedom of choice”, it’s about the last moment: “Should I eat, right now, this unhealthy but tasty food?”, or “Should I stay late and have fun, or be a party pooper, but have a good night’s sleep?”. Things like that – the last moment, when you make the final decision.
“Oh, if only at time X I had chosen a different path …”.
But, to me, the freedom of choice is mostly not on short-term, but on long-term acts.
If at the end of the day you make a poor decision, there were some factors leading to that decision:
The most important observation of this blog post is that long-term decisions affect a lot of short-term decisions. If you’re aware of a poor habit and ignore it, you take some risks. Whenever the risks happen to actually lead to a bad situation, the problem is not only that at that specific moment you took a poor decision, but the fact that you had a long-term habit, which you kept on ignoring.
Most of the time, when people analyze a situation, they focus on just the last bit. If I take a poor grade on an exam, I’ll look at the time of the exam – “Oh, I took a C because I missed just the part which was chosen for the test”. How about you look at a more situation: “I could have slept better in the last year; I could have focused on reading more on the courses; I could have joined a learning group; I could have read extra materials on the subject; I could have written on the matter, so I would have made more associations”.
Why is focusing on the long-term helpful? Because it leads to better habits, and, to me, these are more important than sprints. You can sprint for one good grade on an exam, but it matters more if you can commit to a marathon of lifelong learning.
În analiza unor CV-uri, apare unor un îndemn de tipul “Sunt niște cuvinte care ar trebui evitate, precum spirit de echipă, care ar trebui evitate”.
O căutare la Google » e edificatoare în această direcție.
Încep să am o alergie la cuvântul “profund/profunzime”.
Dacă intenționezi să lauzi pe cineva, spui că textul lui este profund, iar dacă vrei să critici, e superficial.
Problema e că sunt unele situații în care nu se aplică corect atributul.
Pe scurt, dacă îți place articolul, înseamnă că e un articol “profund”, iar dacă nu – “superficial”.
Repetați asta constant, și cuvântul își pierde din substanță (era să zic profunzime).
Ajunge, de la un punct, ca termenul “profunzime” să producă aceleași iritări ca un “spirit de echipă” în CV.
I got at least one idea by listening to Despre relațiile din copilărie și cum să menții pacea în cuplu, cu Paul Olteanu și Alexandra Irod – YouTube (RO):
It happens to me a lot. I used to reply to pretty much all emails/comments. Now, I do so but to a lesser degree.
I used to be very upset when someone wrote something bad online about me. Now, I tend to control it better.
I used to post a lot of things on social media, now – I still do so, but on other means (blog, Google groups).
What’s the solution? Posting fewer things? No, I do it for multiple reasons, not only for personal satisfaction.
Not caring about a message someone sends to me? I don’t think that’s very OK. Sure, if it’s a SPAM/very aggressive message, I can choose to ignore it. But for a general message – I will generally choose to reply, even though now I understand there are some underlying reasons.
What I need to work on is the general image I make in my mind whenever I get an aggressive message. Right now, it’s not that pleasant.
More than this, I need to place myself in the world better. I wrote about this in the past (1, 2, 3). I still need to fix some things in there.
You can’t be fearless. Avoiding fear 100% is, in my opinion, not only impossible but also undesirable. But one can fear less.
The acronym “F.e.a.r.” (False Evidence/Expectations Appearing Real) comes to mind whenever I talk about fear.