While having lunch with a good friend the other day (this lunch was probably the opposite of last week's - read last week's "Not Having All the Answers..." to know to what I'm referring), we were discussing his 20 year-old son and all the different things he was planning for the summer in the way of volunteer efforts to help others in under privileged locations. While listening to this, I actually began to feel somewhat ashamed of my lack of volunteering up to this point in my life. As with most simple, ordinary, everyday events in my life (tongue-in-cheek pause), this caused me to take a minute to reflect on an age-old question that often pops into our heads from time to time: What is the meaning of life? I thought of the impact that this 20 year-old will have on the individuals he interacts this summer and how their lives would be improved by the efforts of him and his group. And while these efforts may not seem to "matter" in the course of improving the world "per-say," it will matter to them. For this reason, I surmised that the true meaning in life is pretty simple: Leave the world a better place than when you arrived. While there are many ways to accomplish this, one of the simplest that I felt I could commit to was to volunteer my time and money to help others. There are many reasons you should do so as well:
There are SO many people in need
We often feel that this is not our responsibility and someone else "has it." It has been estimated that out of the 2.2 billion children who live in the world, about 1 billion of them live in poverty. There are people every day (many in your own backyard) who could use a helping hand. While we may not be able to buy someone a car like Oprah or build them a house like Ty Pennington, we can identify the different ways in which we can help people around us. Whether it is volunteering time at your local homeless shelter to distribute food or just giving your old clothes to Goodwill for the less fortunate to use, there are so many ways in which you can make a contribution and work to make the world better.
It doesn't take THAT much time or money
With such a large number of people in need, people often think they are way too busy to make any time to give to others. This is very much not true. While there are some events that do require a large commitment of your time and energy, there are a number of things that you could do that would be very helpful to others without taking too much away from your normal commitments. One sure fire way to help, while only giving up little to no time, would be to just donate to a charity of your choice. Charities are not picky when it comes to taking donations and will allow you to make donations as small as $1 at a time. While this may not seem like much to you, that is an extra dollar that they didn't have before and will help. It has been estimated that about 10% of the world's population lives on less than a dollar per day. Every cent helps.
It will give you a better perception of the qualify of your life
One of the best by-products of giving of your time and money to help others may be the greatest reason to do it. Not only will your efforts and actions improve the world "piece by piece," it will also help give you a reality check from time to time and keep your perspective on life in focus. Often, we feel sad at our circumstances in life and desire to have a "pity party" when things don't go our way. By consistently giving of our time and money in relation to helping those less fortunate, we will be reminded of how fortunate we actually are for the positive things we have in life and how things could be worse. This will help keep us positive and appreciative when things don't go our way and focus on identifying a solution rather than moping in our sorrow...which NEVER helps.
While there are still many other things that can create a purpose-driven life, volunteering your time and money to help organizations, charities, or just people you know is a great way to truly make an impact on others. Even though you may think you don't have much and could only give a little, to those who have absolutely nothing, you will be giving a lot.
Ken Middleton is an Account Executive at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech.
You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Not Having All the Answers...
Yesterday, I had a very personal situation that I went into thinking one thing and came out with a totally different perspective. I have often been accused of being maniacal about controlling my life. This is very true. I have my life planned out until I'm 80 for crying out loud (I figured 80 is a good life. Anything after that is pure gravy), but when I was in this particular situation, I truly was not sure how to proceed. There were times that I wanted to get up and just walk away. Other times when I wanted to just scream at the other person and tell them they were wrong and being ridiculous for their attitude and perception. In the end, however, I didn't do either. I thought through the conversation logically and made the responses that I thought were best warranted for the time. I'm not sure if what I said was right or completely wrong, but what I did come out of that conversation with was a sense of IT'S OKAY sometimes when you don't have all the answers. Actually, by being comfortable with not always feeling as if we have all the answers, we are able to approach situations with a purity and clarity that often allows us to come out of the situation the best way possible. I believe this is true for several reasons.
NO RULE BOOK
For someone like me who knows what he wants to do when he's 50, not having a plan is hard. Approaching situations with this philosophy will take a great deal of pressure off. We all have to realize that LIFE DOES NOT HAVE A RULE BOOK. While there may be certain principles or guidelines one can use to guide his/her life, at the end of the day, no one has EVER lived the exact same life as yours or gone through the exact same situations as you. Therefore, you cannot take rules and regulations that were created by someone hundreds of years ago and allow them to dogmatically make decisions for you. One of the many great things about being Man is that we were given the ability to think for ourselves. When faced with a situation, we should take time to truly digest everything and go with the best decision for that moment, not trying to live up to some creed or code that has been passed down to us that isn't truly applicable to today's times. Each of us has the freedom to make our own rule book up as we go along. Don't allow others to take this freedom from you. The freedom that we can have by allowing the world to flow as it does and making the best decision for the time will give us great leverage to do what is inherently natural for us. While this may not ALWAYS lead to the best decision, our natural inclinations are very strong indicators of the course of action that we should take.
WE MAKE MORE "NATURAL" DECISIONS
Often we try to "out think" the situation and are, therefore, somewhat paralyzed to make a decision. By going into a situation without preconceived answers, we allow ourselves the opportunity to let the moment help guide us into the best course of action. By approaching situations with an open mind, we will more quickly make the decision that we feel is more natural and often more decisive. We are all hardwired a certain way for whatever reason. In Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink," he writes about how our past has shaped us so holistically that often our "spur of the moment" decisions are really the result of years and years of inculcation of our character based on our past experiences. For this reason, often the decision/reaction that comes most naturally to us is the one that is best, based on who we all are individually. By approaching situations with an open mind and without the "answers to the test", we allow this to happen more naturally.
IT MAKE IT EASIER TO NOT SECOND GUESS
In combination with feeling more natural when making a decision, our openness in our approach to a situation will often make it easier for us to accept our decision once it is made. How many times have you felt instinctively that you should do or say something, but you hold back because of societal norms or regulations telling you what you should do? Afterwards, however, we often regret our inability to act and feel that we missed our opportunity. By focusing on what seems to come natural, we will more quickly react to the situation at hand and feel more comfortable with our decision afterwards, as we will know what we did was best for us at the time.
I have often felt that if I don't know the answer to how to approach something in life with a single philosophy, then I was doing something wrong and needed to figure it out. What yesterday taught me, however, is that life is very complicated. There are truly very few "full cover" philosophies that will give us the answer to approach every problem or situation. What we do have to do in each situation, however, is to think through it logically and make the best decision at the time. That's it. At the end of the day, we're all trying to do the best we can...
Ken Middleton is an Account Executive at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech.
You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
NO RULE BOOK
For someone like me who knows what he wants to do when he's 50, not having a plan is hard. Approaching situations with this philosophy will take a great deal of pressure off. We all have to realize that LIFE DOES NOT HAVE A RULE BOOK. While there may be certain principles or guidelines one can use to guide his/her life, at the end of the day, no one has EVER lived the exact same life as yours or gone through the exact same situations as you. Therefore, you cannot take rules and regulations that were created by someone hundreds of years ago and allow them to dogmatically make decisions for you. One of the many great things about being Man is that we were given the ability to think for ourselves. When faced with a situation, we should take time to truly digest everything and go with the best decision for that moment, not trying to live up to some creed or code that has been passed down to us that isn't truly applicable to today's times. Each of us has the freedom to make our own rule book up as we go along. Don't allow others to take this freedom from you. The freedom that we can have by allowing the world to flow as it does and making the best decision for the time will give us great leverage to do what is inherently natural for us. While this may not ALWAYS lead to the best decision, our natural inclinations are very strong indicators of the course of action that we should take.
WE MAKE MORE "NATURAL" DECISIONS
Often we try to "out think" the situation and are, therefore, somewhat paralyzed to make a decision. By going into a situation without preconceived answers, we allow ourselves the opportunity to let the moment help guide us into the best course of action. By approaching situations with an open mind, we will more quickly make the decision that we feel is more natural and often more decisive. We are all hardwired a certain way for whatever reason. In Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink," he writes about how our past has shaped us so holistically that often our "spur of the moment" decisions are really the result of years and years of inculcation of our character based on our past experiences. For this reason, often the decision/reaction that comes most naturally to us is the one that is best, based on who we all are individually. By approaching situations with an open mind and without the "answers to the test", we allow this to happen more naturally.
IT MAKE IT EASIER TO NOT SECOND GUESS
In combination with feeling more natural when making a decision, our openness in our approach to a situation will often make it easier for us to accept our decision once it is made. How many times have you felt instinctively that you should do or say something, but you hold back because of societal norms or regulations telling you what you should do? Afterwards, however, we often regret our inability to act and feel that we missed our opportunity. By focusing on what seems to come natural, we will more quickly react to the situation at hand and feel more comfortable with our decision afterwards, as we will know what we did was best for us at the time.
I have often felt that if I don't know the answer to how to approach something in life with a single philosophy, then I was doing something wrong and needed to figure it out. What yesterday taught me, however, is that life is very complicated. There are truly very few "full cover" philosophies that will give us the answer to approach every problem or situation. What we do have to do in each situation, however, is to think through it logically and make the best decision at the time. That's it. At the end of the day, we're all trying to do the best we can...
Ken Middleton is an Account Executive at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech.
You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Simplicity, Simplicity, Simplicity...
Anyone
who has ever been to my home knows that I am a firm believer in "less is more".
Ever since the 11th grade, I remember being completely drawn to the
writings of the great transcendentalists, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David
Thoreau, for their beliefs in living a very simple life. However, as we get older, this becomes harder and harder due to societal pressure to try every new thing that comes on the market to make our lives "better". While I'm not saying that new technology, fashions trends, and other things are not, at times, helpful to life and should be adopted, I just suggest to take a little more time before always jumping on the latest train of complexity that is guaranteed to "improve" one's life. If possible, it is often better to keep your life as less complicated as possible by focusing on those few things that will make your life holistically fulfilled, rather than trying to be a part of ever new "opportunity" that presents itself. The reasons for this are simple:
IT CAN BE EXPENSIVE
Living a complex life of doing every social activity or trying to always be on top of new things can be very pricey. Trying to always be the person with the most cutting edge technology or in-house fashion design is not cheap. Since it is the "latest and greatest" out, most companies charge premium prices to those individuals who desire to be early adopters and are willing to pay top dollar to be the first to have something on the block. We often teach our kids when they are young that having something first is not important, but we often forget this lesson when we are adults and have to be the first with the new Iphone 5 or latest Samsung television. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's not cool to have new technology, but always desiring to purchase something solely because it's the latest thing out, and others will think you're "cool" for having it, is reminiscent of high school. We are all beyond that, aren't we?
IT CAN BE TIME CONSUMING
Keeping up with the latest fashion trends and trending topics can often be time consuming as well. Looking for that latest outfit or new toy will often take a lot of time away from other task that you could be spending your time on. Not that there is anything wrong with being on top of the hottest fashion tips, but some become so consumed with knowing these things that they often neglect more important things in their life (i.e. personal development, health, etc). By focusing on simple things in life, one is much more likely to stay committed to whatever things he/she has deemed important at that time. When we are pulled in too many different directions, it makes it hard to be successful at any one thing. By having less complexity in our lives and not trying to be a "jack of all," we are able to be way more effective on those items to which we dedicate the bulk of our time.
LIFE CAN ALREADY BE COMPLICATED ENOUGH
Everyday there appears to be more and more mandatory activities vying for our time that clutter our ability to focus. There are things at our jobs, school, or social activities that we have to commit to whether for ourselves, our significant other, or our children. When we continually look for more things to add to these complexities, we think we are making our lives more rich by adding different layers to it. However, often what we are really doing is just spreading ourselves so thin that we are not truly effective in any of the areas in which we participate. We try to be everything to everybody, which, in turn, make us not able to be anything to anybody.
Simplicity. It is more of an idea than an actual specific definition, but the essence of it is work hard to eliminate as many complexities from your life as possible and focus on the core things that make life worth living. Whether that is your family, religion, or job is your choice, but be careful to not clutter your daily "thinkbox" with so many "responsibilities" that you make it hard to truly be responsible for anything.
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