What’s Wrong With Failure?

{ August 27, 2009 @ 1:32 AM } · { General }
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There is no failure except in no longer trying. -Elbert Hubbard

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing. -George Bernard Shaw

If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down. -Mary Pickford

So anyway. We have all these quotes and adages…like my mother who likes to say, “Failure is only success turned inside out.” Apparently, this means that if you do the opposite you will have success? I don’t quite agree, but… “GO MOM!” We have all these things that let people know that “true” failure is not doing anything, that there is no shame in trying and failing but there is shame in never trying. Ok. So don’t be lazy. I could probably find thousands of quotes from thousands of successful people who tell all about their failures and how many more failures they have had than successes and they will all say basically the same thing…which is what I already said earlier.

So…then… Why do we have all these people still scared of failure or scared that people might know that they have failed at something? And another…why, even after all these hopeful and inspired quotes do those who have failed at something beat themselves up about it if failure is just another step to success? And how do people decide to rate their failures? What is an accepted failure and what is a completely unacceptable failure? Why do people set themselves up for failure rather than set themselves up for success?

I remember a dog training video I watched…and subsequently have seen this phrased used for dog training on many television shows of the same or similar topic. The trainer said the first step to training or retraining any dog is to set them up for success…to not make each step on the way too difficult or complex. And I experimented with this notion and it’s correct. The more I expected my dog to remember right away the worse he did. Once I broke down the task into three steps he was completing the complex task in about 30 minutes. That was three months ago…and now he still does it. Oh and the task was about being remained seated while someone fills the food bowl instead of trying to mow them down like they are going to take off with the food. :D That may not seem like a complex task but trust me…for a domesticated and spoiled dog that is very excited about food, it’s monumental.

All the time we get to see the “marketing guru’s” harp on us on 12 steps to this, 5 steps to that, ten steps to “real” wealth (whatever that is). The “gurus” break it down into small tasks (or at least that is the gist of their “ultimate” plan). Even people learning yoga…which is a monumental task if you ask me…(when I speak of yoga I do not just mean the physical part of it, I mean all limbs of it) teach students to go slowly, it’s not the goal at the end, it’s the journey that counts. But yet…even with all this, “failure is only success turned inside out” and all these people telling us to break things down into small tasks or attainable goals….we (people) STILL go right out there and set ourselves up for failure. Over and over and over and over and over again.

WHY?!?!

I have been working on this. I have huge big ideas, things I cannot do myself completely probably. Things I don’t have the money to do right now. Things that may take me years or decades to accomplish. For an amount of time I let these things just go by the wayside…they were too big. When I did try to go step by step, task by task, something always happened to deter me or got in the way of my flow. Circumstances drove those goals and dreams away.

Well… I say no more. I’m done with that. I’m done with being deterred. But I still don’t mind failure. I have learned a lot from my failures and without them I probably wouldn’t be where I’m headed. Which is…where, I’m not sure…but I have some ideas.

Economic Viscious Cycle

{ February 23, 2009 @ 7:38 PM } · { Money, Money, Money! }
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Thing is we have ourselves a domino effect going on and if you “fix” one thing, something else is going to go. I mean so far we have what…people losing jobs and their homes. Losing a home is ruining credit. If they get a job they still are going to have a foreclosure on the books for ten or more years making it so they cannot get credit to get a new home and in some cases they won’t be able to rent either.

And in even more cases, have a mark on your credit and you can’t get a job at certain places. This is a nasty effect. For example let’s say we have two college educated career people in a home, they are a bit overextended on credit (because this is apparently the American dream…to have everything on a payment plan). Then one loses their job. No problem, they can make it on one job in the family for a while…until that 26 weeks of unemployment runs out then the other one also gets downsized. Eventually because of the market neither have a job and they cannot make their payments. Soon everything is gone, credit ruined and they are living in a cheap apartment off of their savings wondering wtf they are going to do. Imagine then…they go to get a job and their disqualifying factor is that they have a foreclosure on their credit. Huh. Now they are highly unemployable. And this is happening by the hundreds if not thousands. So even if someone creates more jobs who is to say people are going to “qualify”.

Meanwhile you have other situations like happened to a family I have known for years. This couple has two children. They aren’t the brightest crayons in the box, but they are very honest very hard working people. He got laid off last year and has not been able to find another job in the area since.

They just got foreclosed on by Citibank, whom they have been trying to contact and work with for six months because they knew that soon they wouldn’t be able to make their mortgage payment which carried a huge 11% interest rate because they were high risk. One of their jobs for the entire month…an entire month’s salary went to make the mortgage payment.

Here’s the one thing that really bothers me. His wife works for McDonald’s. She used to work 36 hours per week, she has worked there for 6 years. McDonald’s started this “wonderful” campaign to teach teens the value of money and a career so they hired about 15 high school students and cut her hours down to 10 per week.

This woman has two children, her husband got downsized and she gets to watch 16 year olds take her job because McDonald’s gets tax breaks and accolades for having some sort of junior mentor program. What is wrong with this picture?

So yay… yay to mcdonalds in creating “new jobs” so their loyal employees get reduced hours and get the chance to lose their home! Did I mention that the county these people live in has absolutely no program or help for the homeless? Do you want to know what the county social services told them when they went to file for benefits and let them know they were homeless? “You should move to X county, they help the homeless there.” Fantastic, isn’t it?

That Empty Girl

{ February 11, 2009 @ 9:21 AM } · { Musings }
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Here you are an empty girl
Fill me with light and love and sun she says
Then know what empty is
Empty is that wait
The suffering that is needed
Emptiness is the gate
Walk through the door and feed it

Cry and scream little sister
Get it out of your head
Be the empty girl that’s full of life instead

Have you not seen the sun yet?
It kisses you every day
Touching that part of you
Giving you waking life on your stay

So yell and weep little sister
Time is your friend
Comforting you in your need
Adjusting things in your head
So soon will things come right

All will be whole in light and love
Though do not forget the darkness
That holds the moon above
Sing with all your heart
Because no one can hear you
Except me inside and I believe you

How softly you think sometimes when it rains
How your bright eyes gleam when it snows
How tender is that touch when picking a rose

What gentleness did I bring into this world
What silence and sometimes rage
What dream is writ upon your page

When did time go by like that
When nothing else seems done
When will my world end as yours just begun

Where are we now my love
Where will go that youthful age
Where with your lavender and sage

As I am left standing on this stage.

The Plight of Humanity

{ February 11, 2009 @ 9:01 AM } · { Lifestyle }
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For centuries we contemplate.  For centuries we search, research, theorize.  The one thing that sets us apart from other animals is this cognitive brain of ours.  We wonder where we came from.  We wonder what our purpose.  If there is nothing greater than us… then we are the gods of earth. if they are doing right…they do what they do and that is it.  We postulate, we argue, we war….about things we have made.  And these things we have made mean nothing.

We use this power…this power of logic and thinking to construct things we argue about.  We use this power to wield it over others, to wield over earth.  We construct what is moral, what is right…what is wrong, jobs, money, games, suffering.

We make things to distract us from our essence.  An elk does not have the power or reason.  It though has the power of learning and conditioning.  Humans have conditioned themselves out of reason and learning.  We look outside for insights within.  We look elsewhere for what is inside.  We concentrate on what is not and not what is.

Any other animal is one with the universe. It does not have to think nor reason. It is.  They do not sit in contemplation wondering 

Man lived with sounds, not language.  Man did not so much wonder where he was from as he just was and did.  Man created reasons when he could to explain his actions of survival and then…one day…the concept of better happened and all hell broke loose.  Instead of communal sharing and security man broke out with power and deception…..I want what you have….because I do not have it.  Though if man never knew what the other had, he would never want it.

US Airways Flight 1549

{ January 16, 2009 @ 4:47 PM } · { Musings }
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A tragedy yet an inspiration.

I was driving when the ditching of this flight came on the radio as breaking news.  Like many, I waiting with anticipation and imatience until they announced that all passengers and crew were able to get off without numerous major injuries and everyone has their life.

A tear started when that was announced.

On the radio they had several pilots call in. Some were current and ex military pilots and some were retired commercial pilots that have flown the same make/model of airplane.  One thing they all said was how remarkable it was that it landed successfully in the water.  That the pilot on the flight did an outstanding and even miraculous thing.  From what they said it is not just difficult to do a water landing but there are several factors involved, especially airspeed at the time of engine failure.  I won’t get into relating all of it because I don’t want to mess up facts, as it was, I was driving at the time this came on and didn’t take notes.  The one thing that is extremely impressive to me is that the pilot was able to “east” the plane into the water and be steady and not touch a wing to the water.  I have seen videos of planes touching a wing to the water and it is not a pretty sight.

When sporadic comments were being related by survivors that were on the flight, one passenger had said that the passengers were all helping and encouraging others and most people were relatively calm and focused on simply getting out…no one seemed to panic.

A tear came to my eye then as well.  I’m a woman so you know we get emotional but to me this was very heartwarming.  Being that a lot of the time it seems that everyone is just out for themselves…like people fighting over christmas toys at Toys R Us and shooting each other.  Here we had what was a disaster situation and people all helped each other.  No one was trampled or left behind.  When people started to panic, other passengers calmed them down enough to get everyone out safely.  I think that is very important as panicing never helps…and makes things worse.

It warms me that there was such a display of caring for others and we are not hearing a lot about people shoving others aside to save themselves and things like that.

I think in the case of US Airways Flight 1549, the crew was astounding and so were the passengers….and so were the rescue efforts.

Cellphone Salesman Vs. Mathematics

{ January 13, 2009 @ 8:10 AM } · { Technology }
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So here’s an interesting one.  Yesterday the clerk at the grocery store gave me an extra $1.00 in change and refused to believe she had.

Now, today I have met a cellphone salesman who cannot do math….I wonder how his sales are because this is a huge HUGE selling point he’s missing.

Today we went to an unnamed cellular provider’s store. My daughter has a cellphone that her paternal grandmother set her up with and so far it has been lost in the lake while on….we retrieved it, took it apart and it worked much to all of our amazement.  Now, it has been dropped numerous times and is basically a P.O.S…so we thought we would stop by the cellular dealer and ask what the options are about getting another one.

In otherwords….”Hi. We know the warranty is void and there is not insurance on the phone, what are our options for a new phone?”

You would think this would be easy.  As far as I could tell before going into the store…common sense tells me that we have to buy one, wait for the contract to be up and get a new one for free, or buy one from someone else or online and bring it in to have it programmed or whatever….right?  That is what you would think..and you would think that a salesperson….who ah, makes a living (assuming) selling phones and phone plans would be a crackerjack at supplying us with the needed information.  Right?  Right? heh.

So, first we were ignored for about 3 minutes until I spoke up and gave him the rundown.  Then he said, “Let me look at the phone.”   This is how it went for a while…..

SalesGuy (SG): This phone has gotten wet.
Me (M): Yes, I told you that.  Like I said, we know the warranty is void, we want to know what our options are about replacing the phone.

SG: You can’t replace the phone. It got wet.
M: So you are telling me we can’t buy a replacement?

SG: Oh, you want to buy one? I dunno…let’s see your plan.
M: You mean to tell me we can’t buy another one unless we have a certain plan?
SG: No. See here, you have 127 days left on your plan, you can’t get a replacement.

M: So…she is stuck with a malfunctioning phone for 127 days? You won’t let her buy another one?
SG: Oh…you could buy another one.
**Silence**  (I had expected him to go into a sales pitch…but instead he looked at us blankly)

M: Okayyyy….can you sell us a phone? What are all of our options to buy a phone?
SG: Well, you’ll want to upgrade to a smart phone, they are $474.99.

M: Okay. You see we have a phone here that is like $130.00.  What does that tell you? Do we have to buy a new one or …what are our options?
SG: Well we don’t sell used ones.
M: Okay…can I buy a used one somewhere and bring it in and have you do whatever until we can upgrade and renew our plan in 77 days?

SG: Yeah.
M: Ok. Well what are our other options? Are there any?  So far we have buy a four hundred dollar phone or buy a $100.00 phone.  Are there any deals going on or what?
SG: Well if she gets that smart phone AND redoes her plan, that will be a savings of $40.00 each month with the same features plus  more and there are rebates on the phone.

**This is like pulling teeth.  I have never met a salesman who was so bent on not selling anything**

So he takes us over to the phone that is $474.99.  While he is talking about stuff I don’t care about I look at the little tag.  It says there is an instore instant rebate of $405.00 if you redo your plan and sign up for two years.  Then it says there is another $100.00 mail in rebate.   So… That is $69.99 the day of purchase and then a $100.00 rebate that comes in the mail.

NOW.  I am not an accountant or a financial wiz.  But I do know that $69.99 minus $100.00 is $30.01 in my pocket.

SO-o-o-o-o…I promptly said to my daughter that she needs to talk this over with her grandmother because we cannot just change a plan in her name…but I would recommend getting this phone because they basically pay you thirty bucks to get it plus the cell bill will be less.  This illicits another interesting conversation with the salesman.

SG: No no…you don’t understand the rebates.  One is a mail in rebate. You have to pay $69.99 right away, the other one you mail in.
M: Right, I said…and 405.00 plus 100.00 is 505.00….which means they pay us 30.01 for getting the phone.

SG: No… *smirks* you don’t understand.  I don’t get that money.
M: I didn’t say anything about you getting any money.  I said that we pay $69.99 and get 100.00 back in the mail…which means we get paid 30 bucks for getting the phone. How do you not see that?

SG: No, it doesn’t work that way.  You see…I don’t get the 405.00 and the 100.00 comes in the mail.
M: You have a problem with math, don’t you?  How can you not see on this ticket here that the rebates add up to more than the cost of the telephone???

**The salesguy just keeps smirking and keeps saying, you just don’t understand.**

So..I told the kid we were leaving and said, “I believe you don’t understand.  Four hundred and one hundred is five hundred…the phone is less than five hundred dollars.  So they pay you to take the phone.  You should really learn how all this works because it’s a great selling point and now that I know that…when we talk to grandmother about buying a phone we are going down the street to the other dealer because you are really bad at this…I just sold myself a cell phone – I just did your job…that’s poor.”

Yesterday, Just a Minute Ago, Forever.

{ January 10, 2009 @ 1:11 AM } · { Musings }
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Yesterday he was fine.
Yesterday he was reading.
Yesterday he drove to the store.
Yesterday he gave a rose to his love.
Yesterday he knew my name.
And yesterday became today.

Just a minute ago he was laughing.
Just a minute ago he was smiling.
Just a minute ago he was talking.
Just a minute ago he said, “I love you.”
Just a minute ago he was here.
And in that minute he was gone.

Now he does not laugh.
Now he does not smile.
Now he does not talk.
Now he cannot drive to the store.
Now he does not know me.
And now has become forever.

Forever he is gone.
Forever he is in our hearts.
Forever he is on our minds.
Forever he lives on in our tears.
Forever, ever through the years.
Forever is forever and forever shall remain.

Time Goes On

{ January 10, 2009 @ 12:59 AM } · { Musings }
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*This is a poem I wrote some time ago.  Although the piece itself leaves you sort of wondering it is acutally based on traveling through the mountains on horseback in the winter, camping along the trail*

Time Goes On

Upon waking.
Wintry chill of November air I feel slowly breathing in
Wonderous white sky of morning
Dim figures lit by the bright fading sunlight
Shadowed by clouds.

Steam rising off pillow, day begins
Blankets stiff, frost crackling to fold
Moist breath from beasts
Leaves mists hanging in limbo.

Cold leather creaks
Metal soft sounds in the snow
Sighs, groans, sounds of morning coming to ear
Packed and awake the journey continues.

2009 Resolution

{ January 2, 2009 @ 10:04 PM } · { Lifestyle }
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I have never been good at declarations of resolutions.  Though I suppose since I am now a devout blogger I should have some, or at least one.  It seems “the thing” to do.

Though I will skip the tired standards which seem to be mostly along the lines of losing weight, eating healthy and exercising more.  We all say those things all year…and most of us don’t do them anyway.

Overall, I am happy with my weight now, especially since the thyroid issue was found.  It’s taking some time but I no longer specifically exercise now that my metabolism is getting sorted.  I do get plenty of exercise in most daily activities though so it seems to be all going fine.  No reason to make it a resolution.

I think my resolution will be to make sure I don’t lose sight of the big picture for myself.  I have this idea of how I would like my life to be and I have been working for that for the last few years.  It will take another 2-3 years to get there, I believe.

But, as like most people, life situations can prove to be task derailers.  You know what I mean, you get so absorbed in what is currently happening and forget to pay attention to the bigger picture.

My bigger picture includes more choices.  Ideally my life would be as efficient and low maintenance as possible with a broader range of options as far as income goes.  Thus, pursuing the final classes for my degree.  In a way though, I am sort of glad it had been put off.  I have a closer relationship to my family because of it, I appreciate more little things now…and some bigger things.

Normally I don’t have much of a problem staying on task.  Especially in my work, as sporadic as it is, but the life task thing seems to have been quite elusive so far.  Possibly because I wasn’t ready to have it figured out.  As if deep down I wasn’t sure if what I was originally working toward was the right thing for me.  Being unsure in a subconscious way.

I am no longer unsure, I know exactly what I want, where I want to be at the end of the next five years – though it may come sooner depending on how things go, not rushing it.  Not in a hurry.  I take the position of the turtle on this topic right now.  The freak-out-spastic jack rabbit way doesn’t work.  I should have realized this when I was 7.

Snow is Like a Ninja

{ January 1, 2009 @ 10:45 AM } · { Musings }
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Creeping in unnoticed

Silent stealth

Cover of darkness

Surrounding houses

Hiding paths

Disguising tracks

No sound

No breath

So silent

 

It comes

In the night

Like a ninja

 

Snow.

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