When a piece of your support structure breaks down, do you have other aspects of your life you can fall back on? You probably have more than you even know.

This moment of panic taught me volumes about my situation in life. I had come to completely rely emotionally on a single piece of equipment without realizing I had brought about methods of recovery completely by accident. On top of this, I had diversified my passions to a high degree without realizing my entire life weaved gorgeous interconnections.

When life fails, maybe the problem’s solution lies in the retreat and recovery.

I am going out on a limb here, but one hundred percent security in life is almost impossible. Markets crash and relationships end. When the unthinkable happens, it’s difficult to perceive any alternatives besides the avenue that’s been taken away from you. With this, you can get stuck in a downward spiral Havisham style.

Instead of freaking out and going ballistic on your psyche; circle the wagons. Stop for a moment and consider your other talents and possibilities. What are your hobbies? What do you delight in? What passions do you have ouside of your career?

Once you’ve answered these questions then ask yourself about those passions. Do they have any connections to your current situation? Do the lessons you’ve learned from them help you in ways you haven’t yet thought of? Maybe that love for making pasta from scratch has taught you the patience you need when dealing with stubborn children or castled business cronies.

Maybe you’re life is better without that faulty support system. Any thoughts?

Where do you draw the line between creating a system of productivity and going over the edge into a producti-crack obsession?

I wish I could answer that, my days would be so much easier. Here’s my attempt: Maybe creating a system that works for itself in the same way financial advisors recommend bringing your money to the point of self-sufficiency… So, maybe a todo list that automates itself in the simplest manner possible. I’ll work on this idea and get back to you. Until then, I pose the question to the masses: How do you deal with a Producti-Crack Obsession?

Where do you draw the line between your professional and personal life? Take a moment and think about it. What part of you do you keep a secret? As a blogger this line blurs and doesn’t have exact distinction however we all have secrets. Revealing segments of this eccentricity is the road less traveled… but just think of how original you’d be.

I mean it when I suggest a moment to sit and think. I have many hours to do so personally being without a job, sitting in coffee shops, surrounded by corporate chaos. The line is a very delicate one, and I’m not one to advocate destroying it completely. I do believe you need a distinct personal life outside of your profession. However, ponder with me: What if you were to scoot the line over just a little? Just enough to show just a little more.

Leave a comment with a little taste for the world…

I’ll start: I secretly wait for people to spill drinks so I can exercise saving the day.

Sometimes you just need a victory. Find a dream to grasp towards. Create a milestone. Put faith in your ability. Focus. Achieve the impossible, and never give up.

It sounds way too simple to me. In these situations I generally freak. Full of anxiety, I write endless todo lists and lie listlessly awake at night. The suggestion forays against this hardcore.

Simply Focus

That’s all. My only suggestion. It is important to recognize what went wrong, learn from mistakes, and evaluate your position. The importance of budgeting can’t be ignored nor can any other reconcillatory step should be accounted for. However worrying about all of these things destroys my ability to even remember what I was trying to achieve. So! The goal now is to simply focus.

Focus on a Dream No Matter How Crazy

I will extend my earlier point. A goal at the end of the tunnel makes the craving for it easier to grasp and amplifies the intensity. Decide on your dream and focus on it. And don’t just pick any dream, pick your dream.

Personally, I’ve been looking for a job because I want to pay off my debts and live comfortably. That’s not a dream. My dream is to sustain a life of learning alongside providing support and love to everyone around me.

Now, take that dream and create a milestone, something that’ll show progress. Make it small at first. Once you’ve achieved this make it bigger until it matches your dream. My first milestone is simple: Apply for five more jobs and make a stranger smile. I know it’s not big, but it’s a step and a simple one at that.

Victory

With time, you’ll reach that Dream. It doesn’t even matter if you reach your dream. By reaching for it you’ll achieve wonders. Every milestone you reach, you’ve made a victory. Everything will fall into place. Try it for thirty days and if it fails on you, e-mail me and I’ll formally apologize.

Maybe you’re cool with just beating the game - you like the storyline. I mean zombies, right? What about those aspects of your life where bonus rewards would be seriously awesome? A shield of intuition and sword of counter-intuition protects you from common pitfalls and provides the ability to change yourself and the world.

In honor of Bill Gates’ departure from Microsoft, I want you to think for a moment about Bill and two other computer figureheads: Steve Jobs and Linus Torvalds. These three individuals are very different yet yield a few commonalities. Just think how counter-intuitive the idea of a computer in every home was, the importance of aesthetics in personal computers, or the ability of the millions to work towards a singular goal synergistically. Now we take these things for granted; My grandmother has a computer, I went to school to make pretty things with computers, and collaborative software like Firefox far exceeds Internet Explorer and Safari. From a present point of view, my intuition tells me I should know how to use these concepts.

The Shield of Intuition

Like an insurance policy, intuition parallels education. Schools, certification programs, and apprenticeships provide you with the knowledge of the past. The phrase ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’ describes this very well. For any adventure in life, an understanding of what those before you have done is always helpful. It’ll win points with employers, contractors, and works so much better than any pickup line. Unlike formal education, intuition is not rational. Instead it relies on your instinct, or what feels right. As with any defense, if honed it can definitely serve your goals in life. Intuitively you may know who to make friends with for that high paying job, where the best coffee shops are, and the most attractive quality (read: confidence).

Intuition can be scathingly wrong as many gamblers could attest to. However intuition is a tool like any other ability, it should be used with caution. I recommend using it as a defense, strategically. Taking in a feeling of ‘this doesn’t feel right’ and processing it is very different then simply acting on it.

To hone such a skill, I recommend learning how to meditate. Meditation can act like a pit stop in the race of one’s busy day. It reconnects you to your body and serves to better understand internal neural responses. I always saw meditation as practicing how to understand emotions and intuitive feelings. The more these could be understood, the more awesome that shield becomes. There are many online resources on how to meditate. If you’ve never done it before I recommend reading a few of these guides… and jump in! Find a quite place to sit and focus for twenty minutes.

The Sword of Counter-Intuition

As noted earlier, those three individuals made conscious decisions of counter-intuition. How could you really believe every house would have a computer when they were simply large calculators? Why would it matter if such devices were aesthetically pleasing? How could you trust the world to make a singular piece of software? If you really think about these, they’re crazy. I could think of countless other examples of craziness throughout history that have shaped the way people think.

Counter-intuition goes against what you’ve learned in school. It’s the idea the earth may be round, the thought time may be a dimension, and the foresight wherein ‘emo’ would ever become popular. Just like intuition, counter-intuition can also backfire (read: Phlogiston). Impossible to regulate, but when used correctly it can change the world.

Thinking hard, and a lot breeds counter-intuition. Take note from Socrates. This man sat around and thought. He spoke after thinking, thought some more, and spoke again. His contributions to modern political theory are astounding, none of which would have occurred if he didn’t sit, and think.

My Recommendations

As elementary or new-age as it may sound, these two skills are paramount. If you’re looking to achieve more than those before you, a mastery of these skills could give you those mad knife slicing and evasive skills to defeat the zombie horde. The recommendations are simple:

Meditate and Think

That’s all, now go do it!

The internet won’t forget your past. Simplify your intentions with the internet and the rest will follow. Being honest, acknowledging the past and moving on does wonders.

Okay, so it may seen weird for me to bring this up, but look at my blog. I said I’d simplify fifty aspects about myself in sixty days. It clearly stops at Day 32. Unlike the rest of the internet I could erase the past on this blog (for future jobs), but that’d be wiping it under the rug.

Your best foot forward

Attitude and personality build from your past but on top of it. Acknowledging past mistakes shows future contacts you are both human and learn from your mistakes. I could bury this blog and restart it with intentions to blow everyone out of the water and cause them to forget my original intent, but that’d be lying. Plus, it’d get terribly complicated when asked what happened to the old blog. Instead I’m going the more simplified route of saying yes I dropped my blog, and I’m bringing it back.

The ancillary benefits

I have read many articles about managing your online identity and they are all very credible and quite informed. For me though, the steps would take too much energy I’d rather put towards my life and learning instead of spending it on systems. By making this decision to acknowledge the past and move on many of the results of those techniques fall into your lap. Your search engine status gets better, your online presence becomes more positive, your confidence becomes public, and your humanity shines.

Blow it out of the water!

Do learn from those mistakes though. Now that I’ve dropped a blog after thirty days, it’ll take double that to prove I’m in it for the long run. I have a feeling people will pay attention and take note.

Better yet, an entire bedroom in a single storage box.

Of course, this is not including the bed… although, that will be taken care of with a sleeping bag post-Santa Fe.  For the uninitiated, I currently reside in Santa Fe, New Mexico and plan to travel to New York City this may in an attempt to live my artistic and social dreams!  So, if you will allow me the caveat of a bed temporarily, I’ll attempt for everyone’s enjoyment to pack a single box of all possessions a bedroom would contain.

That was the goal at the beginning of this week, and will continue through next week.  So far I’ve been able to meet most of the goal running into snags with an external monitor I use for work.  As this continues I’ll post how it’s going and talk inventory in the end.  What would you do in an attempt to pack a bedroom into a box?  What’s necessary and what doesn’t need to weigh you down?

When planning for years of constant mobility, what would you keep on hand? and is there any quick access ways to keep that list to a minimum?

Personally…

I’m beginning to think I don’t need more than a thumbdrive + internet backup (for documents) and an external hard drive.  I don’t plan to have any printed paperwork, unless business requires it.

I am fearful though.

Any non solid state hard drive dies after time, and with the nature of travel, it’s difficult to decide on the right mass storage solution.  Most of my work and life don’t require high amounts of storage.  I’m a writer and editor honestly.  The difficult comes with the third facet of my life, filmmaking.  I edit independent films in DV and HD (DVCPRO).  These projects require massive amounts of storage.  Its looking like I’ll have to carry around HDDs for years to come.

Any ideas for the film-editor on the go when it comes to mass storage solutions?

Behind the Scenes!

The last seven days have been sporadic, simplification wise, however fruitful:

Day 20: Water on a Simple Saturday

Drink Water… simple.  Almost too simple.  Yet noteworthy - like my inability to write a full sentence right now. I should add though, in creating this habit I’ve realized it’s best to just carry around water wherever you go, for me that means bringing a camelback to new york (adding that to my bag of course).  I also heavily recommend Sigg bottles, or flasks <~ if that floats your boat.

Day 23: The expedition grows weak and hungry

Paraphrasing the three days after Day 20, I discussed Delicious, ToDo lists, and focusing your life goals!

Day 24: Mail, Snail Mail, and E-mail

Simple, cutting down on all bad mailings, opting out of everything I don’t use (while still trying to go paperless).  Pontification and longer google searches yielded a wonderful post from Unclutterer that helped immensely.

Day 25: The almighty pushup

Exercising is so important, and pushups are wonderful benchmarks when assessing physical ability.

FreeTalk

You may be wishing to ask me, where are the posts?  Where’s the media?  Well the easy answer is just life getting in the way, however this should not suffice as actual explanation.  Really, my day job has forced a slowdown…  Now I’m not going to ask you for money; how annoying requests for money from baby blogs can be. I’m not letting you off though.  I ask, fervently, and relentlessly… with no shame, that you continue reading this blog.  I may be updating slowly, but… I just don’t want to lose you, you know!