Impact over Interest Archives - Page 10 of 13

What Interests Me Most?

March 27, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

The social network revolution is in full force these days.

It’s common on these social network sites to be asked to reveal your interests.

That is, what interests me most?

And we’re advised to connect with other people and to feign a genuine interest in what is going on in their lives.

But in reality the underlying motive in all this is really self-interest, isn’t it?

We have something to sell so we try to connect with as many people as possible, under the guise of being “interested”, in order to subtly suggest that they buy.

I guess it just goes against human nature to be more interested in others than one is in him or herself.

The realization that people really don’t give a rat’s behind about anything but themselves is a lesson that often comes later in life.

As a general matter, they don’t care about, nor are they interested in, you or anything about you.

It kinda hurts…

Don’t believe it? Just try to start a blog and then get someone to actually pay attention to it…

It is the dawning of the realization that “survival of the fittest” means that you better look out for number one because nobody else is going to.

But is that the way it was meant to be?

Do you really think the creator of all that is, or god (if you believe in that sort of concept), really designed us to be little bastions of self-interest?

Have you ever met someone who is genuinely un-self-interested?

That is a rare person to come across.

I can’t say that I have, at least not in person.

I mean people like Mother Teresa and Gandhi come to mind, or Jesus.

People who really didn’t care about what was in it for them and worked hard and sacrificed even to the point of death to make life better for others.

How was life for them I wonder?

What is it like to be completely un-self-interested?

Is it liberating, or confining?

Does it bring joy, or misery, hardship and disappointment?

I wouldn’t know, being a person who has lived his 53 years relatively, say 90%, self-interested.

It seems to me that although the aforementioned suffered in life, they certainly left a remarkable legacy. They accomplished great things despite their apparent disdain or indifference towards power, prestige or promotion.

Take politicians for example. What is it that they’re really after?

Is it to serve the people, or just to get re-elected?

And why is getting re-elected so important?

What is it about Washington, D.C. that’s so enticing to them? I lived there for a year and it wasn’t all that.

I would venture a guess that 99.99% of them are more concerned about “what’s in this for me” than they are about “what’s in this for us”…

wouldn’t you agree?

But what if we really weren’t created to be so self-interested.

Maybe we were designed to be more like Mother Teresa, Gandhi, or even like Christ.

Maybe real success, fulfillment, joy and even abundance is found in being genuinely un-self-interested.

Maybe the right way to view this social network revolution is not in finding out how to harness its power for me, but in harnessing its power to do something to improve the lives of others.

Just a thought.

Let’s face it, the correct answer to that frequent question about what interests me most is…

ME.

But maybe real “success” can be found in having the capacity to answer that question, truthfully, with a simple…

Y-O-U.

I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?

Mother Teresa

Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.

Mohandas Gandhi

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Jesus Christ in John 10:10

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The Elusivity of Happiness

March 9, 2014 by costaricaguy 2 Comments

Self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.

Victor Frankl

Just re-read Victor Frankl’s amazing book, Man’s Search for Meaning.

Frankl’s revolutionary premise, which inspired a new branch of psychotherapy, which he called logotherapy, was in suggesting that one’s meaning is not found in the asking, but in the answering.

That is, we are not to ask, “oh life, what meaning might thou findeth in thee?”…

But, rather, life asks us…

and we alone have the responsibility to answer with our own unique purpose.

In that sense, one’s meaning is unconditional…that is, it doesn’t depend on any circumstance…it transcends circumstances…

as Frankl’s own dramatic Nazi concentration camp examples demonstrate.

I find myself asking, again, rather than taking the responsibility that Frankl suggests is key.

So, I started rummaging around for past examples of correct thinking on this matter…to help re-convince myself and mend the error of my latest wrong-headed relapse…

This one on the elusivity of happiness stood out…

Where is happiness located?

Our Declaration of Independence speaks of the “pursuit” of happiness, an expression that lends credence to its elusiveness.

Happiness must be pursued because it is indeed an elusive and often ephemeral thing.

A deeply religious person will tell you that happiness is found in God, in your faith and in conforming all your actions to be consistent with what you believe from a religious standpoint. That we stumble onto happiness on the road of religious obedience.

Our secular and highly commercialized society conveys the idea that happiness is found in things, that it resides “out there” in the world and it is your responsibility to go out and grab as much of it as you can.

Much of the literature that we read, great novels and poems that move us emotionally, express that happiness is found in romance. That romantic love is the location where happiness resides.

But I can tell you from my own experience that true and lasting happiness is not located in any of these places, as I have visited each and experienced just as much misery there as anywhere else.

Happiness is an emotion and in that sense it occupies the small amount of space located between the ears.

But if happiness is found in such an obvious and easily accessible location, why does it remain so elusive?

Moreover, why are we told in our founding document that it is a thing to be “pursued” when all along we have the capacity to “conjure it up” with our own focused thought?

We often talk about happiness being fleeting…that just as soon as we have it, it tends to dissipate, dissolve or just disappear.

Why is that?

I submit to you it is because our general ideas about happiness are all wrong.

Happiness is a mysterious quality that tends to become more of a consistent experience in life when it is promoted than when it is pursued.

If you think about it, the happiest among us are those who tend to be more concerned about the happiness of others than of their own, wouldn’t you agree?

Happiness spreaders tend to be happier than happiness pursuers.

The reason is because the quality, or state, of happiness has a lot to do with our feelings about ourselves. If a person is focused solely on himself or herself, it is very easy to become discouraged and disillusioned.

That’s because the more laser-like we direct our focus on ourselves, i.e., the more self-interested we are, the more apparent our imperfections, or those related to our circumstances, become.

We begin to realize that we are not the perfect specimens of humanity that we may have deluded ourselves into believing.

We, or things, are really screwed up.

But as soon as we direct that focus to helping others find happiness, all those imperfections disappear, or at least cease to matter all that much.

Instead we discover that despite them we do have the capacity to make a difference…

to have a positive impact and influence on others.

We have the ability to spread happiness and in so doing, a magical thing happens…

we discover true and lasting happiness ourselves.

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Things We Take for Granted

February 27, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

We take a lot of things for granted…don’t we?

Things like clean water (the kind that fills our toilets), clean air, food on the table, a faithful and supportive spouse…etc.

I had to throw in that last one since I’ve had a bit of personal trouble with it.

The other day I returned home from a short trip and discovered something not all that pleasant.

I had forgotten to pay the water bill and it was cut. Not a drop could be coaxed out of the llave (or, spigot).

I did still have a bit of clean water in the john, but who wants to brush their teeth with that?

Well, I quickly paid the bill (online) and reported it, but then it proceeded to take almost two days for AyA to get the water flowing again.

Two days!

And during that time I suffered.

There is something degrading about not having access to water…right inside the comforts of your home. Even though all I had to do was walk a block to where I could purchase plenty of it for a nominal sum.

Woe is me right.

I know there might be someone who reads this and thinks to him or her self…that’s nothing, during hurricane what’s-her-name we were without water for a friggin week!

Yea, and how did it feel?

Food is one thing. Plenty of us could probably stand to go a bit of time without that.

Water is a whole nuther non-laughing matter.

You can go about 3 weeks without food. But only 3 days without water…or so I read this morning on the internet.

Oh, 3 minutes without air…in case you’re wondering.

Why it’s called the rule of 3’s.

Do you know that in some places on this earth, there is NO readily access to clean and safe water, whatsoever.

Just check out these water facts from the site charity:water.

I read a moving article today by charity:water founder (Scott Harrison) entitled The Last Walk for Water.

It is about a 13-year old girl sent out to get water, which entailed a long (10-mile), gruesome and dangerous walk in the blazing heat of Ethiopia. But the clay pot she was carrying fell and broke.

Her humiliation at failing at her task motivated her to hang herself from a nearby tree.

As the title to this post suggests, it’s easy for us to take things for granted.

When we have them readily available at our disposal. It is almost unimaginable that they wouldn’t be.

But for many not having water (or food, or shelter) is a daily experience.

I started this blog on the premise that a good life is an impactful one. I talk a lot about that.

But, as we all know, actions can speak louder than words.

So, I want this blog to not only talk about impact mindfulness, but practice it as well.

In that light I have launched a modest charity:water campaign.

The goal is a meager $1,000.

But once success is achieved with that, we will certainly “up the anty.”

The campaign is Don’t Take Water for Granted.

In fact, impact mindfulness suggests that we don’t take anything for granted.

But water is certainly a great place to start.

Please consider a donation.

How to Become Extraordinary

February 19, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

We live in a time when the quality of being extraordinary seems to be inextricably linked to degree of fame and fortune.

And of course not everyone can achieve fame and fortune.

But that’s what we really want…deep down. So we elevate those who do achieve it to that coveted status of…

extraordinary.

I’m going to suggest, however, that maybe there’s a better way…a more truthful how to become extraordinary.

I’ll explain with a story about a very young blogger.

It’s the story of a little girl in Pakistan. The village where she grew as a child was under the grip of an oppressive regime that refused to allow girls to go to school. In protest, she decided to blog about it. That did not make her popular with the regime, but it did quickly gain attention in other parts of the world.

The regime decided to put an end to the girl and her blog. A gunman boarded a school bus and fired a shot into her face. She survived.

And now she is doing more damage to that regime’s repressive ideology than that bullet could do to her body and will.

The little girl’s name was Malala Yousafzai. The regime, The Taliban.

I posted the other day that a star on the Walk of Fame takes talent and a man on the moon genius, but a blog that matters, only a sincere desire to make a difference.

That comment was discussed on the popular podcast, Unmistakable Creative.

But the idea that seemed to emanate from the discussion was that only extraordinary people can do extraordinary things.

No one would argue against the notion that Malala is an extraordinary little girl. At 16 she is currently in Syria in support of the inhumane conditions that refugees from the ongoing civil war are experiencing, especially the most vulnerable of those refugees, the children.

But before she was recognized, Malala was by all intents and purposes, an ordinary child from a remote village in a northwestern Pakistanian province.

No one would likely have acknowledged her had it not been for one important thing…

impact.

Her impact was to bring to the light of the world an almost unimaginable idea…that little girls like her would be denied the opportunity to go to school because of some radical religious-based ideology.

Who could have known that her blog would be picked up by the New York Times? That she would go one to be twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (the youngest person ever to receive such a nomination).

We all start out as ordinary. There are no exceptions. Some may have distinct advantages. But if you go back far enough, you will find that “they” were once quite ordinary.

Sure, we may erect mythologies that support the idea of our heroes being extraordinary from birth. But I’ll make a radical suggestion that those are exactly that…myths.

What truly makes us extraordinary is our impact upon the world…not fame and fortune.

Fame and fortune may be a byproduct of that impact…but it’s not what makes one extraordinary.

Not in my opinion at least.

There are quite a few in our society who have achieved fame and fortune for one reason or the other, not related to impact. And I wouldn’t consider any of them extraordinary.

How far-reaching does that impact need to be before the moniker of extraordinary can be bestowed?

I would suggest not very much at all.

One person, perhaps?

You see, I believe in this day and age where “going viral” and “15 minutes of fame” are considered more important than, well, everything, we tend to get mixed up about extraordinary.

It’s not the eBook that may have gotten noticed by the right person and thus “viralized” that makes the author extraordinary…it’s the impact of the author’s message.

And impact is more about motive than it is about talent, or luck (fame and fortune require a bit of both).

That is, if you have a heartfelt desire to change the world for the better, someone will notice…someone will be impacted, even if your prose contains a few typos and run-ons. Even if your blog was not designed by an all-star.

Even if you never “go viral.”

The truth of the matter is that….

we’re all ordinary by creation, but we become extraordinary by impact.

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Doing It Like Dylan

February 16, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more…

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan has been a force in my life for as long as I can remember. My earliest memories were sitting around listening to “Coach Taylor” strum his guitar and belt out old Dylan tunes in the living room of my childhood home on the west end of Holden Beach.

Dylan’s music and life define paradox.

Consider…

he wrote and sang as the leader of a movement, but loathed the very idea of being that leader…

he was worshiped by the masses as the god of folk, but then just up and decided one day to plug in and he got booed off the stage for it…

he was a revolutionary and a rebel, but then he “got religion” and again was booed off the stage for it…

What is it with this guy?

Dylan just doesn’t care what you nor I think. He follows his creative impulse, wherever it might lead him. And it has led him to diverse and sundry places.

I have to say that in many ways, I am similar (well, without the guitar, but I can do a pretty good nasal-twanged impression).

I am alarmingly paradoxical and all you have to do is go back and read through posts to my old Costa Rica Guy blog to see that very clearly.

Consider…

my earliest posts reflected my deep love for Costa Rica and that was the impetus behind my initial blogging efforts…

later on I shifted gears and started writing on topics like sustainability, anti-materialism and capitalism run amok…revolutionary stuff that could get me in trouble…

I went through troubled times in my marriage and wrote a lot about relationships (incidentally, back then I also started translating my posts to Spanish – why? – well, rationally to gain more Spanish-speaking readers, but deep down in hopes that it would get the attention of my wife and, hey, it worked!)…

then I just kind of stopped writing for a while (the creative genie was bottled by the lizard brain)…

I went through another relationship hiccup, moved to Perez Zeledon and started writing a lot about my faith (which, similar to Dylan, pissed off some of my readers)…

and lately I have looked deep inside to “find my voice” or what it is I really want to write about and for whom and that inspired me to launch the Revolutionary Misfit blog…

It is no wonder that my posting has betrayed my schizophrenia. After all, like Dylan, I am paradoxical. A person who wants to do good, but too often is quite “bad” (in self-destructive sorts of ways).

My recent struggle deciding on an ultimate direction for my blogging, or even if it should have one at all, is indicative.

Sure, I would love to “make a living” blogging. It is a passion and I love doing it…my way. But the idea of figuring out what an audience wants and pandering to them kind of makes me, well, queasy.

It certainly is not at all inspirational.

I also blog for my vacation site and those posts do pander quite a bit (and are always a chore for me to write). All the experts (those who incessantly write about the 10 ways to drive traffic to your blog) tell me to do that.

But then the rebellious (revolutionary misfit) side of me says fuck no! I will write what’s on my mind (and in my heart) and if it pisses off the world (or just my mom) so be it.

Because in the long run, while I am many things, conformist doesn’t appear on the list. And I’m okay with that…even though I do suffer for it.

Dylan refused to conform. If his main concern was giving his audience what they wanted, then he would never have plugged his guitar into a wall socket (and we would never have received his gift of Like a Rolling Stone).

I listened to an interesting interview that Merlin Mann did of Seth Godin a few years back this morning. They talk a lot about Dylan and his nonconformity and paradoxical tendencies.

Seth is also one of my nonconformist heroes. He is a marketing non-conformist (now if that’s not paradoxical, I don’t know what could possibly be). He tells me that I must have the guts to create art and then to ship it and if the masses don’t approve, then screw the masses…you’re not writing for them anyway.

You’re writing for the weird ones. There may be less of them, but they can be far more loyal to your cause (because it’s theirs too).

There are many who hate Dylan and I am sure he is well aware of that. But, I doubt very seriously that he ever sat down to write a song and thought…now how can I make them love me.

So, I’ll take my own advice in this post on doing it like Dylan and refuse to do that as well.

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Socio-Economics and the Internet

February 8, 2014 by costaricaguy 1 Comment

My favorite podcast on the planet is The Unmistakable Creative (formerly, Blogcast FM), hosted by Srinivas Rao.

Srini is kind of like Raj on The Big Bang Theory…he may be afraid to talk to Penny, but whip-smart and he tells it like it is.

The show features interviews with internet superstars and others who are on that trajectory…

But every Friday, they have this episode called “Backstage” where Srini is joined by Greg Hartle (of Ten Dollars and a Laptop fame). Their talks used to focus on one of the previous week’s guests. Now they tend to choose controversial and thought provoking topics.

And this Friday’s was certainly no exception.

The title: The All or Nothing Internet

The Premise: Addressing the question of has the internet devolved (or is it devolving) into a sort of 3rd world country with a deep, dark and inseparable chasm between the haves (the successful internet entrepreneurs) and the have-nots (the rest of us schlubs).

Well the premise got my blood perilously close to the boiling point.

So, I grabbed my weapon (er, laptop) and hammered out violently the following comment on Srini’s Facebook Page.

begin comment

The conversation today in backstage troubled me. At first I couldn’t exactly put my finger on why, but I believe now I’ve got it.

The power of the internet driven connection economy is that it levels the playing field by allowing ordinary, or non-picked, people to do extraordinary things.

To compare it to a middle-class-less third-world country with a chasm that separates the haves and the have-nots is a faulty analogy.

Who is to judge who are the haves, the successful ones?

Successful in terms of what? Subscribers? Income?

Maybe those aren’t the only parameters that define success.

Aren’t we getting away from the “small army” concept a bit with this (rhetorical question for Srini…who did write the book)?

I believe the internet is a place where we should all consider ourselves haves…that is, we all “have” the opportunity to do and achieve something extraordinary.

In the so-called third-world that’s generally just NOT the case.

And NO I do not believe it’s about talent, nor genius…

desire, yes…having the heart in the right place, absolutely.

That’s what makes it so cool…you don’t have to be a superstar to shine.

To suggest an underlying feeling of class-warfare among the internet creative community is to me a bit ridiculous.

Like I often say, it’s all about impact and every one of us has the ability to achieve that, regardless of one’s social proof.

A star on the Walk of Fame takes talent and a man on the moon genius, but a blog that matters, only a sincere desire to make a difference.

(yea it’s tweetable)

end comment

You see I really believe it comes down to one’s motivation…I’ll call it MO (even though MO actually has a different connotation).

If fame and fortune’s your MO, you got a long roe to hoe, but if it’s impact, you got a better shot and the world a better chance.

(also tweetable)

And that’s exactly what Revolutionary Misfit is all about.

Which is why I thought it was important to turn that comment into this post on socio-economics and the internet.

I wrote long ago about the phenomenon of middle-class-less-ness being caused in the 3rd world largely due to the concentration of property in the hands of a small percentage of wealthy people (1%’ers, if you will).

But on the internet, even a poor schlub like me can be a property owner (hey, I’m practically a mogul already!).

It’s what you do with that property that matters…and the universe needs less internet property-holders seeking fame and fortune and more just trying to make an impact.

You can do that without much, if any, talent.

Look at Seth Godin…I’ve never seen him dance or sing, but I along with millions of others listen to what he has to say…

Because he says it honestly and with the right motive.

You and I can do that too.

And if Srini and Greg’s premise happens to be true…if the internet is becoming that socio-economically driven place of haves and have-nots…well…

then it’s high time for a revolution!

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