Chucky wrote:A wise point too but [perhaps] introspection isn't such a good thing to seek after all. The happiest people in life to me seem to be those who get on with their lives; never looking back.
First off, I love this thread. This is a great sequence of posts -- tremendous conversational variety in the sequence of the conversation! We start talking about praise for books, condemnation for movies, and it transitions into discussion of introspection and hobbies! Sweet.
Additionally, you mentioning the greenday biographies of rock bands was inspiring. I really want to try read up on some serious rock bios.
Now about introspection...
Here, here, I TOTALLY agree! I did a bout of enormous introspection and you end up discovering things that the masses don't even consider, which provides a cool little insight into your interworkings, but it can be very depressing. However, Twain said, "Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain" -- meaning, that if we step into our fear (say singing karaoke, or asking that special person out, or something) then the few dwindles, dies, and eventually we can tack a little R.I.P. sign to the fear -- good 'ol twain. But introspection rarely involves being active! (Although it can). I'm much more in favor of being active and learning about yourself through others (introspection and only introspection diminishes your balance -- you need to stay active and within that activity will most likely expeirence the most illuminatingly introspecive insights!)
Yeah, totally, good call. Get on with life, move forward and don't look back. The first person that popped into my mind when you mentioned that was this owner of a coffee shop I met in Hawaii. He said the same thing, he just visited hawaii, stayed, and never looked back. I'm not saying he was like "dalai lama" happiness, but he definitely appeared tremendously jovial and most people would say he had a lot of happiness in his life.
I'm stuck in a rut and ended up back in the city I grew up in after making some great connections on the west coast -- interpersonal connections -- my blithering idiot parents thought I'd thrive back here, kind of lured me back here, and I've been doing my best now to figure out what to do, to tryi to make the city I'm currently in work, or to get back out to the west coast. We'll see.
From personal experience, though Introspection can have dangerous and exciting consequences. My junior year in highschool I remember switching schools to try out a public school, I suddenly found myself spending hours in bookstores reading up everything I could on the world religions -- hinduism, buddhism, taoism, a bit of christianity, islam, and judaism, too -- trying to find "answers" and/or guidance and solutions and motivation. Now, that period had invaluable ramifications in providing me with a rich arsenal of religious "KNOWLEDGE". However, knowledge and ACTION do not branch out from similar roots.
From personal experience, knowledge entertains your spirit and your emotions, but activity truly takes you places.
In other words, plugging this exemplary tangent into introspection, the most self-knowledgeable and self-aware person may still have difficulties creating success. Self-awareness manufactures doorways to happiness, and action typically generates doorways to identity, but action allows those happinesses to actually manifest in the external world, which, ultimately, facilitates the success and joy we all desire. Self-awareness and introspection results in understanding how you as a unique, creative indivual operates, but the self-aware knowledge remains locked within you and can only be manifested through action. Conclusively, introspection creates fantastically interesting awareness, but is rendered useless without action (If you follow, great, if you don't you can ask questions. I've written, and introspectively pondered:) a lot about inner-external awareness and action)
It's the fact that I get up at 6AM for work, and then do not get home until about 6 or 7PM. Work itself is stressful because I'm working with a bunch of lazy people who don't care about what we do. There are two people that just never answer the phones and other people who are always away from their desk chatting to people.
You're right though; I have just realised that I do perform an introspection whilst jogging (I typically do 2 hours per week) or doing weight-lifting.
What about you?
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Okay, wow, so you live in an incredibly rapid-paced schedule. If you don't mind me asking, what activities are included in the 12-13-hour haul 6am-7pm? What exactly do you do? I've witnessed and have personal experienc with what you appear to endure each day at work. You don't experience "stress" (as in this is too much of a challenge), instead you appear to experience frustration from limited involvement from others. From what I've read, you sound like a High-energy, spirited (jogging, rowing, book-reading, etc.) adventuring person. Feeling forced to work with people who may embody your exact opposite type of energy temperment (lazy;) could be tremendously draining. These questions might provide insights:
What about the people seems lazy?
Who specifically are the "lazy ones"? Can you identify a single person who you could depict as "not lazy"? How does that person differ from the others involvement with the group?
The reason why I ask those questions is because members of a group can sometimes engage in emotional groupthink where their energy levels bulk together and downwardly spiral towards "laziness" if only a few members of the group are lazy. Can you think of a way to shift the energy level of the group? What do think causes them to shift and gravitate towards laziness?
Interestingly, what about you, causes you to shift towards high energy levels?
If you understand that the choices people make about their energy temperment (hyper-activity or lethargic) evokes the actual energy levels they exhibit, you might be able to look at the people not as "lazy people", but as "people who have chosen to be lazy" -- a subtle, but incredibly essential distinction.
Okay, the telephone-neglectors. What about them causes them to not answer their phones (away from the desk, they just let it ring, they're always on another call..) I do not endorse you to take pity on those people but understanding the logic behind their actions can help you deal with the situation.
Which brings us to this question: What makes telephone-neglect, laziness, and desk-absence YOUR problem? Do you have a superior who evaluates all of the performances of those employees and if they aren't in tip-top, you get the brunt of it? You definitely seem like you have the stance of needing to not necessarily control, but "manage" the emotions of others. You'll go crazy doing that because of the inherent difficulty for one to manage his or own emotions. You seem like the type of person who has graduated from that -- you can motivate yourself -- and have stepped into the realm of motivating others, but appear to be experiencing frustration in that endeavor.
About me...I operate (atleast for now) on the total other end of the spectrum. I recently graduated from school and spend my days at my leisure writing (sometimes 2-10 hours a day). That's a LOT of writing and editting. I'd enjoy a jot more people interaction. In college I used to do marathon training and did one year of NCAA Div3 track, but wrote 4 books (about 500+ pages) during college along with all my class work. I finished school in three years, too. Something was just driving me to get out of school, earn the degree, and move on ASAP. Now, I've been trying to find out why I busted my ass through college!:) Music, health, life coaching, math, teaching -- all interests of mine. Alternatively, I can choose to have a very fast-paced insanely active day. When I do that, we're talking like 4am to 8pm and then meeting up at some bar for some nightlife -- enormous amounts of activity. I've discovered that when I get a solid morning workout in (it used to be biking 20 miles,beginning and ending with a sprint; now it's just a 15min-60min run) and I meet people during the day (friends, coworkers, etc.) my energy levels escalate and it's hard to "slow down" and chill out. I also have done a lot of web design work. I have an enormous eagarness now, for getting a solid, routine, "job". I've had so many different experiences though...studying spider monkeys in the yucutan jungle, a SEA semester boat sailing around the carribbean, lots of great travel, some truly wild stories. I've put a lot of energy into making my life adventurous. A lot of people ask where do you get the time to write? You have to make it a priority and you'll discover lots of time. The people who ask me that typically have watching 1 hour (7+ hours of TV/week) of tv rituals and other things that I've eliminated from my life. But you can spend a LOT of time mingling with people. That's bene a trade-off, you can't focus on friends and social life as much with doign a lot of writing -- their just different things. The former, cooperative, the latter, individualized. They both feed off of each other, though, because the more you write and learn about yourself, the more "your self" you can be in a group. For me, my writing forms and shapes who I want to become. I put myself into a group setting and afterwards I watch my "mental movie" of myself and say "dang, that didn't go so well!". Writing (along with running and exercise) focuses my capacity on being able to change my behavior so that I avoid certain people, connect with the right people, act in the way I wanted to behave, and get the outcome I desire etc. Writing/exercise has so far been the "programming" of my life and then interacting with others has been the "lab" (or the stage, if your shakespeare;) or the exectution of that program. So that's my deal. Even though I can't stand a strict regimen, I often feel incredibly out of place when so many people I know work defined 9-5 mon-fri work hours.
So back to you define your own hours? The gist of your message implied that (and most people would agree) your schedule has insanely frustrating hours. What could you do to change that if you choose?
Cool stuff, kevin!
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