Searching for Meaning

God Gets No Press

Why is it that God gets no press?  He (she, it) does not dominate the headlines.  He (she, it, unfathomable force) isn't really the topic of much conversation.  God isn't the subject of one single blog in the top 100 blogs.  Not a Christian God or a Jewish God or a Muslim God or a Spiritual but not Religious God. 

I don't know the answer to this.  But I think it's a pretty big question.

Because it's out there.  God as a focal point of thought, I mean.  Many popular books have God references.  People still go to Church and Shul and the Mosque.  Babies still get Christened and young men still get Bar Mitzvahed.  But no one talks about it.

One mention of God and it's like you're walking around with a racist kid with terets.  Don't look at him.  He'll pass in a minute. 

And the old admonition not to talk about religion or politics isn't even true anymore.  I hear people talk politics all the time.  But not religion.  Not God.

Yet the questions of how we got here, what we're supposed to be doing here, and where we're going after here, all of which involve God or a lack thereof, are big deals to most people.  "Am I making the right decisions?"  "Why did my brother die young?"  "How should I raise my kid?"  "Is DirectTV really a better option than cable?"

Anyone of these questions can and does involve God to some degree.  And even though I always know exactly what's up with Jennifer Aniston's love life, I don't get too much feedback on how other people answer these big questions of life and how much, if at all, they involve God.

Why?

Unions, Capitalism, and Exploitation

I just watched an interesting documentary on HBO called Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags.  It was about the garment district in New York and about the clothing industry in general.  What I thought was really interesting:

• 1965 - 90% of American clothes made in USA
• 1975 - 80%
• 1985 - 70%
• 1995 - 50%
• 2009 - 5%

There were complaints about this has become a ME society and about how no one wants to pay more for union made clothing.  No kidding.  Not that I support it.  I don't.  I think the ME nature of society will be the downfall of society, probably more quickly than most people think.  However, of course it's a ME society.  Willing that fact to change will not change it.  We made bad choices. 

But it leaves me with a thought.  The increased standard of living in the United States over the years simply made clothes made here cost more.  Unions had something to do with that.  A lot to do with that.  Now, we are exploiting labor internationally.  Much the same way capitalists exploited labor here 100 years ago.

Exploited foreign workers are going to unionize.  There is a business opportunity in aiding in this process.  I'm sure it's underway already.  It will become common though.  But that's not the thought. 

The thought is who is going to get exploited after they unionize.  Without someone being exploited, does capitalism survive?  I really don't know.  And I took a number of economics classes.  I should have taken more.

Authentic Advice

A few days ago I wrote a post with a quote by Art Williams.  The quote is about how to succeed in America.  I found the quote in a book I was reading.  I googled "Art Williams" to learn about the guy who would say such a thing.  I found a life coach named Art Williams and a billionaire businessman named Art Williams.  My immediate reaction was, "I sure hope the quote I like is by the successful businessman."  Then I immediately started to think about why.

Why should it matter?  I liked the quote.  It shouldn't have mattered who said it.  But I want to take advice from those who have walked the path I'm going down.  I want to take advice from who can say, "I know the road and here are the big bumps and sharp turns." 

But why?

It's ironic because a good friend of mine, and one of my most trusted advisors, is a "life coach."  He's said countless things over the years that have meant a lot to me.  Many of them should be published.  I take advice from him because he is authentic.  He isn't trying to push an agenda.  If he hasn't walked down a path, but has some thoughts about the path anyway, he tells you.  He is, above all, honest.  Authentic.

What all this tells me is that I prejudge situations.  Maybe Art Williams the billionaire businessman is some first class piece of shit who has never given good advice in his life and maybe Art Williams the life coach is the Dalai Lama's right hand man.  What the fuck do I know?

It is right to try to follow authentic advice.  It helps you get through the world.  Just don't be too quick to judge how authentic the advice really is. 

Of course, that may not be good advice.

God Told Me

If you have read the last few posts, you know that I have been struggling with quitting smoking.  I stopped again on Tuesday at about 1am.  Last night, I desperately wanted a cigarette.  At about midnight I almost went to the gas station and bought a pack.  I don't know how or why I didn't.  A moment of providence perhaps.

Today I ran about 6.5 miles.  At about mile 4 a voice from somewhere way down deep said, "You wouldn't have made this run if you'd have smoked that cigarette last night."  It didn't feel like my sub-conscious.

"Huh," I thought to myself.

Then God said to me, "I'm proud of you."  Now, he might have said "I'm soo proud of you," but I don't want to overstate it.  Plus, it's not like I solved world hunger or anything.  It was God.  I am certain.  We chat every so often. 

Then "End of the Line" by The Traveling Wilburys came on, followed by "Work" by Gang Starr.  It was a good run.

Success is a Moving Target

A lot gets made of, and I have made a lot of, what defines success.  I think about career, family, friends, money, comfort, prestige and self-satisfaction.

And ultimately, I hope my life includes a pretty wife and some children and a successful business and a feeling that I have done my best.  I hope to do work that is meaningful.  I hope to have good friends.  I hope I find my life's purpose.  I hope I help others.

But if I try to define success by the above, I will go nowhere.  I don't know how to meet a soulmate.  I don't know how to have kids.  (That's a lie.)  I don't know how to build something I can look back on in 30 years and be proud of.  I don't even know how to be a friend in the abstract sense of the word.

But I know what it means to be a success this week.  I know what I need to do that's right in front of me.  I know what it means to lend a hand and reach out.  I simply need to remember that success is a moving target.  I only need to know what I'm shooting for today or tomorrow or this week.

I'm Getting Close to Being Able to Define Success

I think a lot.  And when I'm not working, I think more than that.  The aim of my thoughts lately, as this blog may reveal, is ultimately to determine what I'm supposed to be doing with my time.  I gave myself a month to determine exactly what it is I default to as an indication of what I'm supposed to be doing.  If I have nothing scheduled, I will simply do what I want to do whenever I want to do it.  And in this, I will find what I'm supposed to do.

I don't need a month.  I default to nothing worthwhile.  I default to nothing that I want to be. 

It's a nice theory.  But in reality it doesn't work.  At least not for me.  I can only compare it to this.  I often don't want to run.  But I feel phenomenal after five miles.  I usually don't want to do the last 20 push-ups, but knowing I pushed myself just a little bit further feels good.  (Pun intended.)

I also thought that in figuring out what I default to doing, I'd figure out what I want my longer term goals to be.  Well, I defaulted to sleeping.  However, I don't want to be the guy who slept the most in one lifetime. 

But it's not so complicated.  It's right in front of me.  I know what I need to do.  I need to succeed in contributing to and growing a company.  I need to help a man who worked hard with a purpose his whole life get to do the things he wants to do.  I need to do my part to take care of the people around me.

I just read two quotes I like a lot.

"It's so simple that it's revolutionary.  The fact is, this formula or principle is misunderstood enough, or overlooked enough, that it can truly be called magic by those who understand it.  Ready?  Here it is.  You beat 50% of the people in America by working hard.  You beat another 40% by being a person of honesty and integrity and standing for something.  The last 10% is a dogfight in the free enterprise system."  -Art Williams

The second is a Chinese Proverb.

If you want happiness for an hour - take a nap.

If you want happiness for a day - go fishing.

If you want happiness for a month - get married.

If you want happiness for a year - inherit a fortune.

If you want happiness for a lifetime - help others.

Both quotes came from Success One Day at a Time by John Maxwell.

To Do List - Figure It Out

My Week To-Do List

• Compose email recapping last eight hours of law firm structuring work and include next steps.
• Arrange follow-up conversation and conference call.
• Prepare contract. (by Friday)
• Compose and Package Proposal. (by Friday)
• Go Through Remaining Bills and Compose Question List.
• Checking on Status of my $19K in fantasy baseball winnings.
• Update my invoices.
• Go Through Blog Reader.
• Book Flight to Baltimore.
• Read The Shack
• Quit Smoking (again).

Isn't it amazing how much more you get accomplished when you're busy?  Coming off a period of doing only slightly more than nothing, I realized that I don't get anything done when I'm doing nothing.  A huge revelation.  We'll see if the above is five days worth of stuff.

And some of the things above I actually want to do.  But do I want to do them because I get to cross them off my list and get money for doing them, or because I actually want to do them.  And by that definition, does that mean the things I actually want to do are the things I'd do if money and accomplishment checklists meant nothing?  Because I'm starting to wonder if make money and check things off lists is what I actually want to spend a life doing?

It kind of frightens me that that may be the be all and end all of my life.  Aren't we always told that the little things that come in between all that bullshit are the stuff that life is made of?  Like relationships and family and traveling and laughing and being entertained?

I don't think there's a concrete answer.  Or the constant quest to figure out the answer - knowing that you may never quite get there - is the answer.  Whatever.

Default to Self or Default to the Collective

So if the first week and half is any indication, what I want to do is be a lazy degenerate.  I have spent my time watching and betting on sports, playing poker, and watching tv.  Of course, not being too hard on myself, it's my first time off in years and I still worked about ten hours.

But it kind of upsets me that this is what I default to.  My quitting smoking attempt was foiled in part by the fact that I'm not really doing anything.  So much time on my hands made my quitting experience different than it had been in the past.  And more difficult.

I'm not really writing.  This blog is about the only thing I can muster.  But that's what tells me something.  I default to being a selfish, self seeking person.  Writing, to me, is about contributing to something larger.  I usually write to outline my view of the world.  I write to try to expose the beauty of the world to others.  At least, that's what I'd like to think about my writing.

But saddled with nothing to do, I don't write or do anything else that contributes to the stream of life.  I indulge in self.  And after a week and a half, I have discovered that I bore myself.  And money bores me.  And gambling on sports bores me.  And playing poker four hours a day bores me.

Each makes me focus on something other than myself, which is why I do it.  But each causes me to focus back on myself as much or more than I was before after it's over. 

There was a quote in my inbox this morning.  "The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have."  Norman Peale said it.  The commentator in the email said, "Have you ever noticed how much more alive you feel when you are helping someone else?"  This is the truth.  A truth I oft forget.

But I do not write this post to say, "Look at the error of my (your) ways.  I (you) must change."  This is merely observe and report.  I begin work January 15th.  There will be meetings and clients and problems and solutions.  There will be deadlines and responsibilities and people looking to me for the example.  I will meet the challenge.  Until then, I will not force myself to do things I'm not defaulting to doing.  I will tell you one thing - I will learn something.

Does anyone default to the collective?

In the hour since my last post

In the last hour I realized (or maybe remembered) the answers are not based in self.  My answers come only when I clear all away all the bullshit aspects of self.

I'm not going to quit smoking by scaring myself with diseases or by figuring out how much harder my three mile run is or by noting how much better my clothes and hair and breath will smell.  I'm going to quit smoking by realizing I don't need it and it really does nothing for me. 

Well, it does nothing for me that the world can't do for me.  Smoking makes me feel less alone.  It makes me feel comforted knowing that I have something when I feel empty.  I smoke because i have no idea what my purpose on this planet is.  But, of course, when I stop thinking about what I need and what my purpose is, then I can just do. 

Then I know that stopping smoking will be about making the list of all of the things that mean something to me and doing.  Being a friend.  Taking care of my dog.  Reading.  Seeing what I can contribute to the stream of life.  Listening to music.  Doing things for other people without any thought of what I might get in return.

It's an interesting observation for me that all the time thinking about smoking over the past couple of days or all the time thinking about what I needed to do to not smoke didn't produce shit.  Yet only tonight did I realize that my dog hadn't been getting the attention he needs, I still haven't called back a bunch of the people I wanted to, and I haven't really done much for anyone else besides myself.  The time I did spend doing for someone else was essentially the only time I wasn't consumed with smoking or a lack thereof.

That's It?

Maybe this is turning into a quitting smoking blog.  Or the trials and tribulations of quitting smoking blog.  It's 1 in the morning and I just went out and bought a pack of cigarettes.  I smoked one in my car in the gas station parking lot.  I got really depressed.  Not because the latest attempt at quitting was a failure, but because it was for that.  Fuck.

Seriously, I'm smoking the cigarette thinking, "This is it?  This is what fucking owns my thoughts?  It's not even that good.  There isn't relief.  I don't like the taste.  I'm not enjoying it.  And yet this is what I had to have."  Awful.

And because the physical withdrawl was complete - I was about 123 hours in - it begs the question "Why?"  It's becuase, in part, something is missing.  What is the something?  I really don't know.  But it's some measure of security or contentness or connection with something bigger than myself that isn't here.  But I'm going to need to put it here, becuase the only thing I like less than not smoking is smoking.  How fucked this leaves me would be funny if it weren't so unfunny.