I read earlier this week that it’s harder to be kind than it is to be clever.

My girlfriend and I were cooking dinner for my parents over the weekend. It was supposed to be fun, we were trying out a couple of new recipes and I wanted to let my mom and dad take it easy as we prepared them a meal. But one of the switches on our stoves just wouldn’t turn.

I wanted to use another stove but my dad – ever the fixer-upper – wouldn’t let it go. He forced the switch and gas started hissing out. Then the switch stuck, and we couldn’t turn it back! Gas kept leaking into the kitchen as we scrambled to turn the switch back and cut the gas off, but no luck.

Amidst this rush, I snarled at my dad: “I told you to leave it alone already!”

I really regretted that.

We twisted the switch back with a wrench soon after, and on hindsight there really wasn’t any danger in our well-ventilated kitchen. But rather than having a good laugh of relief over a problem solved, I’d turned the situation into an even unhappier one, just because I had to insist on having been cleverer.

The truth is, I had been the dumbest one in that room.

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2. Photographing Tokyo, Autumn: Lessons Learned
3. The Sweetest Spot

Unless it’s horrible, I don’t sugar my coffee too much. Too sweet and it becomes sugar water. Too bitter and drinking becomes torturous. Just a little bitter, because it forces me to consider the drink each and every time I take a sip – instead of mindlessly consuming it, the coffee becomes meditation; asking me to focus and be aware of it as I’m drinking.

I hated the new U.S.S. Enterprise ever since I saw it in the Star Trek reboot. Its nacelles burgeoned, its lower hull jutted too much forward and tapered way too much back. Where the old Enterprise NCC-1701 was an elegant, white seagull, the new Enterprise was a fat, obnoxious pelican that looked like it couldn’t stand on two legs.

The original Enterprise, a beauty of design.

The new USS Enterprise.

And yet, something kept making me look, and look, and look at it again.

It was just bitter enough to force me to consider it every time I looked at it.

My brother bought me the new Enterprise toy for my birthday, not suspecting the geeky design angst I was having over the imaginary starship. At last, I thought, this incessant tug to look at the ugly pelican could be satisfied, as I placed the toy model on my work desk.

The Enterprise sat there innocuously, and I would glance over at it from time to time. Every time I did it challenged me to consider it. Why did I dislike it so? Could I articulate it? Was I sure? Was it beyond redemption? Why did so many people like it? Could I not see the beauty in it? Was there any at all?

As the days rolled by, something inexplicable happened – I began to appreciate the new Enterprise for what it was. I discovered elegance in its sweeping lines. I saw the strength in the large nacelles. I realized where the slants and tapers gave it a keen sense of speed. It was beautiful, it just hadn’t been beauty I was used to. A perception had shifted inside me, unbeknown to myself. By forcing me to think, really think about it, the Enterprise had helped me become more, to see what I couldn’t see before.

That’s why I like my coffee a little bitter.

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3. The Curious Case of the Missing Dragons

If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d seen. The truth is, you wouldn’t remember that a movie a week later, except you’d feel robbed and want your money back. Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.

But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to feel meaningful. The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either.

From A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life by Donald Miller. Re-reading it now and still loving it. My review here.

1. Purpose is an Attitude
2. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller
3. Fruits of Your Mind

Greatness is not always rewarded with parades, million dollar checks or the adoration of thousands.

Greatness is sometimes honored only by the love of a few. And that doesn’t diminish it in any way.

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2. Looking Back: 21 Dragons’ 2009
3. A Meaningful Story & A Meaningful Life

1. Never fuck someone you don’t admire.

2. Never fuck a friend to fuck a girl.

3. Never fuck yourself to fuck a girl.

4. It’s easy to find someone to fuck, harder to find someone to love.

5. The latter is infinitely more worthwhile.

1. Purpose is an Attitude
2. A Letter to a Young Colleague
3. The 2 Ultimate Secrets to Blogging Like a Rock Star (Hint: it’s Not What You Want to Hear)

One of the central themes in the book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life (my review here) is that of conflict versus comfort. The author Donald Miller admits to losing himself in daydreams, and I admit to doing the same. Daydreams in which I’m a leaner, stronger version of myself, living a more exciting life than I do now.

But why do we do that? Why do we lose ourselves in front of the TV or computer, gazing and clicking our lives away, instead of going out there and living like the heroes we see on TV and the computer?

In the book, Miller writes that human beings don’t like to be uncomfortable and therefore they seek comfort. Yet, without conflict – not necessarily the kind of conflict that involves violence between people, but a general sort of conflict that goes against you getting your goals – there is no character. Great ambition introduces great conflict, which leads to great character.

At the same time, we don’t want to be uncomfortable, stressed and afraid. We imagine how great it would be to live through conflict, like the heroes we see on the TV, but the great truth is that when you’re in the middle of conflict, you don’t like it in there. You want to have lived through conflict, not to be in conflict. Nobody wants to be doing sit-ups, they just want to have great abs.

And yet, the experience of conflict, the push against odds to achieve your heart’s desire, is what builds your character in the end, not the actual heart’s desire itself. At the same time, you don’t want to be looking for conflict simply for the sake of experiencing conflict, you want to be looking for a goal worthy enough to inspire you to go on even through conflict.

What’s my worthy goal? No answers here, just wondering out loud.

1. A Meaningful Story & A Meaningful Life
2. If You Want to Get Creative, Get Bored
3. Against the Voice of Should

Haters gonna hate, but I don’t wanna go there.

In his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey writes that “one of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present. When you defend those who are absent, you retain the trust of those who are present.”

Suppose you and I were talking alone, and we were criticizing our supervisor in a way that we would not dare to do if he were present. Now what will happen when you and I have a falling out? You know I’m going to be discussing your weaknesses with someone else. That’s what you and I did behind our supervisor’s back. You know my nature. I’ll sweet-talk you to your face and bad-mouth you behind your back. You’ve seen me do it.

I can’t say I’ve been a saint since I read those words so many years ago. I’ve indulged in my fair share of gossip and behind-the-back complaints; it’s an easy way to let off steam and get a quick high at someone’s expense. But you know what? It’s empty calories.

So I do my best not to participate whenever I can hold myself back – not just because I want to build some integrity, but because I don’t want to be consumed by hate.

Negativity breeds negativity, and nothing good can come out of it. Once the beloved subject of negativity goes away, those who indulge don’t let it go. They simply find someone else to be negative about – their hate has caught them in a vicious loop, and they can’t find any other way to feel better about themselves anymore than to beat someone else down. I’ve seen it happen too many times, and it’s a real slippery slope from your first line of poison to a heart full of hate. But you know what? Don’t pick it up, and you won’t have to put it down.

It’s real easy to tear someone down, especially when he’s not there. It’s much harder to build someone up and affect real change. One takes from the table, one brings something to it. In the wise words of Will Smith in his song Just the Two of Us:

Throughout life people will make you mad
Disrespect you and treat you bad
Let God deal with the things they do
Cause hate in your heart will consume you too

Respect.

1. Words Build People
2. Fruits of Your Mind
3. Words Build Cultures

You know you’re in trouble when the life coaching you went to get over your issues and get things done only uncovers more issues, which unfortunately, requires even more life coaching sessions, but damn, lucky for you, there’s an upgrade package which will help you shave hundreds off the thousands of dollars extra you now need to cough up.

You know, so you can go get things done.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you What The Fuck Life Coaching™, a revolutionary breakthrough in recursive navel-gazing and vertical up-selling.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m good for meditative retreats, contemplative afternoons and friends telling me when I’m being a dumb-ass. (Did I say good? I navel-gazed for 10 days in meditative silence!)

But hey, if you’re spending more time in that life coaching office than actually out there doing the stuff you wanted to get done, you are so fucked up the vertical up-sell my friend. A good coach is like a good doctor, the less time you spend in that office, the better off you are. Wasn’t getting a life the reason you went in the first place?

Here’s a suggestion: Stop digging for and releasing every little issue you think you might have before you think you’ll be able to go do stuff. Then go and do some shit. And then you might find some ways to spend those thousands of dollars that are more fun than spending hours in an office figuring out why you’re so fucked up. Cue The Pavlina money quote:

Obsession with figuring out why you’re blocked is a block in itself, yet another way that procrastination manifests.

Ain’t that the truth.

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2. A Meaningful Story & A Meaningful Life
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