on taking a personal stake in your company

this essay is unfinished, last updated aug.10.1999

Right or wrong, most people define their lives by the work that they do. If you believe the mos recent surveys, you are going to spend more time at the office during your life than you will with your family. While this may be a sad commentary on the state of modern American society, it hammers home the point that if you are unhappy at work you are unhappy with your life. It doesn’t take a Mensa-level IQ to figure out that you need to take as active of a role in your company as you do in your personal life.

why stake a claim?

fun
meaning
$$$

how to stake a claim

attitude
listening
doing

claim-jumpers!

no one has a right to your claim
there is enough to go around

on ghosts

My wife and I recently went to see the movie Sixth Sense, the basic premise is that ghosts do really exist and that the general reason ghosts exist is because they left something undone/unsaid before their death.

We had an interesting discussion during the trip home about whether ghosts really exist.

My take on the whole thing is this:
If even part of what I was taught at Sunday school is true, then the existence of ghosts isn’t too far of a stretch–so ghosts probably do exist. If you believe in: God, Creation, saints, miracles, stigmata, or the Apocalypse, then it logically follows that you believe in the human soul. If the soul of a human is such a powerful thing that it can give meaning and purpose to a pile of organic chemicals, then that same soul could easily hang around for a while independently of the body it once animated.

If you believe the teachings of the Bible, the existence of ghosts is a forgone conclusion… just take a look at Lazarus and several others stories that describe the animation of the dead or visits from the deceased.

As to the why ghosts exist, whether or not they have a purpose that they are trying to fulfill….

I’ll just have to leave that as an open question until I meet a ghost and ask it.

on semi-sweet chocolate

I learned to enjoy semi-sweet chocolate when I stayed at Nana’s (my maternal grandmother) house as a child. She always had a bowl of candy out on the endtable in the living room, and most times it was filled with those Hershey’s chocolate miniatures. For some reason, people seem to leave the semi-sweet “Special Dark” chocolates for last because it is perceived as less than desirable. I didn’t like the semi-sweet chocolate at first either, but when there’s the only thing left you can learn to like anything.

A lesson I learned: if you can learn to enjoy the things in life that are less than perfect, you can often find some sweetness (even if only semi-sweet) when most other people think that all of the good things are gone.

on evaluation addiction

“I don’t care what you think.”

You hear people say that all the time, but do they really mean it? I don’t think so. There is something unique in our species, or maybe just to the average American citizen, that makes us aware of other people and how they judge us: as well desire that we be viewed in a favorable light.

What is it that makes us crave evaluation?

more things to come on this train of thought later
updated 08-04-1999