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Article-Making Our Lives Golden

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."
Groucho Marx

Making Our Lives Golden

I have always been a strong opponent of television. But, as I told you on Friday, K and I recently started watching it together. Just a little bit here and there, but enough to get me thinking about the way people spend their recreational time… and make me wonder if the kind of activities we engage in during our down time really make a difference.

On Friday, I pointed out that the more time you spend working, the more successful you’re likely to be - but acknowledged that even the most ambitious and hardest workers need to take at least a few hours out of the day to do something that gives them pleasure. Something that isn’t work.

The question then becomes, "What should that ’something’ be?"

As I said, just about any activity we choose to do can fit into one of three categories. It can:

1. damage us in some way
2. improve us somehow
3. leave us more or less the same

Think of the best choices - the ones that improve you - as Golden. Think of the neutral choices - the ones that just help you pass the time - as Vaporous. And think of the worst choices - the ones that hurt you - as Acidic.

It’s up to you how much Gold, Vapor, and Acid you are going to have in your life.

When I think of my own choices - good, bad, and neutral - I notice that they have the following characteristics:

Golden Choices

My best experiences tend to be with activities that are intellectually challenging and emotionally engaging. Because they demand a lot from me, I shy away from them when I am low in energy. But when I do get into them, they build my energy and thus make it easier to continue. When I am through with such an activity, I feel good about myself and content with how I have spent my time.

Vaporous Choices

These activities are easy to slip into and easier, too, to stay involved with. They are the choices we make when we don’t feel like making choices. The time we spend when we don’t much care how we spend our time. Welcome to the Vapor zone, the neutral, happy world of poker and sitcoms and gossip.

When I’m ready for some relaxation, my first impulse is always to choose a Vaporous activity. Having "worked hard all day," I want something simple and mindless so I can gear down. And most people would probably say the same thing. Getting into the Vapor zone is easy - and staying there is easier still.

The big problem with Vaporous activities - and this is a very big problem for me - is that they leave me feeling enervated instead of energized. And empty. Vaporous activities do for me what Vaporous foods (i.e., comfort foods) do: They fill me up but tire me out.

Acidic Choices

Everybody has vices. At one time or another, I’ve had just about all of them. I have never smoked crack, but I’ve done plenty of other things to destroy, reduce, or disable myself.

Why I do these things, I can only guess. Sometimes I think I need the challenge of surviving self-imposed obstacles. Whatever my reasons, the result of making those choices is generally the same. I get a dull pleasure that is mixed with a barely discernable level of pain. Even when the pleasure is intense, it is clouded by a foggy brain. It feels like I’m having a great time … but I am not sure. And if the actual experience of Acidic activities is mixed, the feeling afterward is not at all ambivalent. It is bad.

The interesting thing about Acidic options is how attractive they can be. Nobody would argue that they are good choices. We pick them because we are too weak to pick anything else, and we use what little mind we have left to rationalize our self-destruction.

Let’s Take a Closer Look at These 3 Categories

When we are at our best - confident and full of energy - we can easily choose Golden activities over all the rest. When we are feeling just okay, we can usually reject Acidic choices but find it hard to opt for Golden moments over Vaporous ones. And when we are at our worst - low in energy and full of doubt - that is when we are most susceptible to making Acidic choices.

Golden activities include:

• Meditation
• Yoga
• Watching an educational and inspiring documentary
• Listening to complex, uplifting music
• Appreciating art
• Watching a really, really good movie
• Reading a very good book
• Making love
• Tasting a really good wine

Vaporous activities include:

• Getting a massage
• Going to a sporting event
• Watching most "entertaining" TV like Friends, CSI, The Tonight Show, etc.
• Reading "beach" novels and page-turners
• Listening to most mood music, including most rock ‘n’ roll
• Having sex
• Drinking beer or whiskey

Acidic activities include:

• Getting drunk
• Listening to rap music
• Watching stupid/degrading TV shows like Jerry Springer, Cops, and The Bachelor
• Doing things you’d be ashamed to talk about

You may not agree with some of these designations. Not to worry. You can (and should) make up your own list. But in creating that list, consider the following:

When Choosing Gold…

• The activity/experience is intellectually challenging. It teaches you something worth knowing or develops a skill worth having.

• It is emotionally deepening. It helps you understand something you hadn’t understood before and/or makes you sympathetic to experiences and/or situations you were closed to.

• It is energizing. The experience itself charges you up spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually. You have greater strength and more endurance because of it.

• It leaves you happy with your choice. During the experience and afterward, you have a strong sense that you are doing the right thing.

• It builds confidence. Because you know that you are improving yourself, choosing Gold makes you feel better able to make wise choices in the future.

When Choosing Vapor…

• The activity/experience is intellectually and emotionally easy. It feels comfortable and comfortably enjoyable. You have done it before and it amused you, so you are sure that if you do it again you will be equally amused.

• It is usually passive rather than active. It is watching TV rather than going to a stage play.

• It is getting a massage rather than practicing yoga. It is chugging a brewsky rather than savoring a good wine.

• It tends to be habit forming. Because it feels good (in a medium-energy sort of way) and is so easy to do, you find yourself doing it over and over again.

• Doing too much of it is not good for you. Whether it’s eating starch and fat or sitting on the couch and staring at the TV screen, a little bit doesn’t hurt. But too much leaves you with of the unpleasant feeling that you’ve wasted your time.

When Choosing Acid…

• The activity/experience is physically or mentally damaging. Often, it kills brain cells. Sometimes, it gives you cancer.
  
• Although it is bad for you, it is alluring. There is something about the way the experience takes you out of yourself that you find attractive.
  
• It attracts bad company. Since most healthy people don’t approve of it, you find yourself doing it with another set of friends. Eventually, you reject the friends and family members who don’t "get it." They are too straight-laced or lame to understand, so you figure you don’t need them in your life.
  
• It disables you intellectually, emotionally, and physically. During the moment, you are less capable of performing complex skills or dealing with complex emotional or intellectual issues. If you engage in Acidic activities a lot, you become less capable of peak performance generally.
  

Acidic experiences have ever-extending thresholds. What gets you off in the beginning is never enough to get you off later on. You have the mistaken notion that more is always better.

Will This Make a Change in the Choices You Make?

Once you’ve drawn up your own list of Golden, Vaporous, and Acidic activities, use it to keep track of the way you’re choosing to spend your time. (A good way to do that is to make notes in your journal.) You may be surprised - and disappointed - by what you discover.
Make your own list. Track your own life. Ask yourself what you could become if - starting right now - you began making better choices.

In the meantime, I am going to have to talk to K about our plans for installing cable TV in our house. I will tell her my fears:

• that I will become addicted to it
• that I will begin to watch the worst kind of shows
• that in watching more and more Vaporous TV, I will spend less time on Gold activities

She will point out that she is content watching her three or four favorite shows on video while she is on her Stairmaster. She will tell me, "Do what you want. It makes no difference to me" - and she will mean it. Which will make me entirely responsible for figuring out how much of my free time will be Golden or Vaporous or Acidic.

What about you?

- Michael Masterson

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

Article-Concentrate on Concentrating

"Concentration is the ability to think about absolutely nothing when it is absolutely necessary."
Ray Knight

Concentrate on Concentrating

By Robert Ringer

When I finished rewriting Winning Through Intimidation, I felt pretty confident that there were no glaring errors in the new edition (re-titled To Be or Not to Be Intimidated?). After all, I had done about 25 drafts of the rewrite.

Nevertheless, I thought to myself, "Hmm … seems I’ve been here before." Meaning, every time I’ve finished a book, I believed my editor and I had caught every mistake. Such a naive belief stems from not remembering the lessons of history.

What I’m saying is that I don’t believe there has ever been a book that didn’t have at least one typo or missing word or other obvious mistake in it. And, to my chagrin, To Be or Not to Be Intimidated? was no exception.

Of course, I don’t read my books after they’ve been printed, so these "catches" have to come from someone else. In this case, it was a good friend who called my attention to a place in the book where I stated:

"Show Victor Vermin the agreement that spelled out my commission? Are you kidding? Victor ate little kids for breakfast and didn’t bother to spit out the bones. He rooted for the Pacific Ocean in Titanic."

Brilliant … funny … well written. I couldn’t stop mentally patting myself on the back when I came up with those dazzling words. And, as I did with the entire book, I went over them draft … after draft … after draft.

Only one problem. As my friend pointed out, the Titanic didn’t sink in the Pacific Ocean; it sank in the Atlantic! (Will Leonardo DiCaprio ever forgive me?) Getting hold of myself, I quickly checked to make sure my socks matched. (Both black. Good sign.)

It really irritates me that Homer Simpson is so much more famous than I am. After all, I say "Doh!" more often than he does. I’m telling you, it’s an unfair world.

Yes, my mistake was corrected in subsequent printings, but the question remains: How does a perfectionist like me make such a dumb blunder? The answer, I believe, is a lack of concentration. But there’s a bit more to it than that. Let me explain.

Some time ago, a wise old sage said to me, "You know what I do to cut down on mistakes? I concentrate on concentrating."

What simplistic brilliance! It had never occurred to me that in order to concentrate, you have to concentrate on concentrating.

Thinking about this life-changing insight prompted me to hearken back to the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the only team in NFL history to go through an entire season undefeated and untied.
I vividly recall the legendary coach of the Dolphins, Don Shula, explaining why a "no name" team like his was able to go through 17 games without a loss. Shula said that though his team wasn’t that much better than most of the other teams in the league, they did excel at one thing: concentrating.

Specifically, Shula said that his players didn’t make silly mistakes at crucial moments. They concentrated on not jumping offside or getting called for unnecessary roughness. The Dolphins running backs concentrated on hanging onto the football when getting tackled, and the receivers concentrated on locking the pass into their hands before turning on the afterburners.
Concentrating on concentrating penetrates down to the simplest aspects of our lives.

Have you ever bumped your hip on the corner of a table and ended up with a three-month bruise?

Or accidentally sent an e-mail to the wrong person?

Or not heard a word of something your spouse just told you?

Or checked two or three times to see if a door was locked?

Or reread a paragraph more than once because you had no idea what you just read?

I’m sure you know what I’m getting at. In each example, the problem was that you weren’t concentrating. I don’t know any other way to reduce the number of such mental lapses but to make a conscious effort to concentrate.

Through the years, I’ve repeatedly stated that the difference between success and failure is much smaller than most people might suspect. As with any other aspect of success, concentrating on concentrating, of and by itself, doesn’t guarantee positive results. But I find it amazing how much of an edge it gives me when I consciously focus on this fascinating mental skill.

Make a commitment in 2007 to concentrate on concentrating, and I think you’ll quickly see what I’m talking about. At the very least, you’re sure to notice a significant decrease in Titanic-type mistakes in your life.

Gotta cut it short here, because I have to check the front door again. I think I locked it, but …

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

Article-"The Choices We Have"

"Every choice moves us closer to or farther away from something. Where are your choices taking your life? What do your behaviors demonstrate that you are saying yes or no to in life?"
Eric Allenbaugh

Notes From Michael Masterson’s Blog: The Choices We Have

Now that our last child is about to leave home, K and I are talking about getting television service. For about 20 years, we have been without TV. The idea was that our children would become better readers without the distraction - and that objective was achieved. All three of our boys are voracious and skillful readers.

So now, as empty nesters, we are thinking that it would be kind of fun to watch some shows together - to spend an hour after dinner, sitting next to one another, laughing at the same things.

To test this hypothesis, we jimmy-rigged an antenna connection for the set that used to play only DVDs, and we spent a few evenings watching it.

The results of that experiment were mixed. There was something wonderful about watching those programs together - the double pleasure of the experience itself and knowing that your mate is "getting it" too. But when it was over, we found ourselves feeling like we used to when we watched television - which is to say a little sad and empty inside. As if we were mourning the time we’d lost.

The other night, we watched a science program together, a documentary about insects. Suddenly, we were having the experience we had hoped to have - sharing something that was both entertaining and illuminating.

That got me thinking about how people spend their recreational time - how much time they devote to it, the things they do, and whether the time they spend is spent wisely.

Broadly speaking, there are four kinds of activities that we engage in: working, sleeping, eating, and relaxing. And it seems logical to assert that - up to a certain point of mental or physical exhaustion - the more hours you spend working, the more successful you will be.

That said, we must acknowledge that all work and no play makes Jack a dull… or cranky… boy. We do need some recreation. The question is: How much?

And the answer to that is pretty simple. Just ask yourself how far you want to go in life. How smart you want to be. How high you want to rise in your industry. How much money you want to make. What accomplishments you want to achieve.

Determine how ambitious you are… and then find out how many hours of work were done per day by people who have already done what you want to do. Unless you are exceptionally gifted (or exceptionally slow), chances are you will have to work about as hard (i.e., as many hours) as they did.

Take the number of hours you sleep and eat and add to that the number of hours that successful people in your industry typically work. Subtract that from 24, and you will be left with the number of hours you can safely devote to recreation.

But there is another question that must be asked: Does it make any difference what kind of recreational activities you engage in? During your down time, does it matter whether you are sitting in front of the boob tube watching Jerry Springer or lifting weights or playing a musical instrument?

Broadly speaking, there are three ways you can occupy yourself during down time. You can amuse yourself with activities that, though fun, are harmful (like getting drunk). You can busy yourself with mindless distractions (like junky novels). Or you can choose to do something that requires a bit more energy on your part but will give you both a high degree of pleasure and the knowledge that you have somehow improved yourself (like practicing yoga).

It seems to me that whether it is the work we do, the sports we play, the vacations we take… we have the same three choices. We can do something that:

1. Damages us in some way
2. Improves us somehow
3. Leaves us more or less the same

Look at almost any activity, and you will see what I’m talking about. In the books you read. In the friends you keep. In the jobs you take. You name it. Some choices will improve you and some will damage you… but most will fall somewhere in the neutral zone: They won’t harm you… but they won’t help you either.

If we fill our lives with mediocre experiences - does that make sense? Every day, we are given dozens of choices - from which foods to eat to which parts of the newspaper to read to which words to say in any given conversation. Many of those choices seem to be insignificant, but when you string them all together they determine the quality of our lives.

At the lowest end of the scale, there’s the person who spends his time using drugs, watching television, and prostituting himself or stealing to pay for his addiction. At the highest end of the scale - well, I don’t really know who that is. But when I think of rich guys in limos or holy men on mountains… that just doesn’t work.

Most of us live in the middle ground, mixing quality experiences with neutral ones while trying not to harm ourselves … but doing so anyway. We recognize that some of the choices we make are better than others, but we don’t always have the willpower to make the better ones.

It’s interesting, isn’t it? The best choices are often the hardest to choose… because they require more of our energy. The worst choices are usually the easiest to refuse… because we are frightened by them. But when we have experienced them and found them pleasurable, they have the greatest pull on us. The neutral choices - the actions that do little more than get the job done - are the most popular because they are relatively easy and benign. They don’t require much energy and they don’t leave us hurting.

If there is one thing that life gives us all in equal portion, it is the hours of the day. We can’t determine (with any certainty) how many hours will be allotted to us, but we can decide how to spend those that we have.

Think about it over the weekend. I’ll have more to say on this subject Monday.

- Michael Masterson

[Ed. Note: To read more of Michael’s unedited, uncensored (and sometimes unexpected) ruminations, check out his blog here.]

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.