I like these two word a lot. I especially like the first word (who doesn’t?), but I like Fuck It in particular when they join forces - oh and I love it when they come with the exclamation mark!
I like Fuck It! because amongst other things Fuck It! represents an almighty letting go of what we had previously been clinging on to so tightly - typically in the face of overwhelming evidence that we are wrong about the Way Things Are. Notice I capitalised that last phrase, and I did so deliberately. It deserve capitalisation because The Way Things Are is pretty fucking fundamental. You can’t argue with The Way Things Are, it just is that way. Sure, things will change and the Way Things Are right now will become the way things were (deliberately uncapitalised), but the Way Things Are will still be, well, The Way Things Are! You had better get used to it, because it’s all you have to work with. Fuck It! can help you to see that - actually Fuck It! is pretty much all you can say when you do see that!
We all have moments when we get inspired. Moments when we feel we can turn things around; really makes a change in our lives. In those moments we discover new goals that inspire and motivate us. We start planning how we can satisfy those goals and our future seems deliciously ripe with promise. Unfortunately, over time we tend to drift away from those goals. Something happens so that they just don’t seem to be as compelling anymore. They lose their shine and slowly, day-by-day we get pulled back to our everyday life and before we know it, the goals have died and we are back to the status quo. Why is this the case?
How to make the world a better place? You could form a charity, or dedicate your life to finding a cure for cancer. Perhaps, organise or attend rallies to world peace. Maybe you could lobby your political representative to get us out of Iraq. All of these are great steps you can take to make the world a better place. But there’s also a bunch of simpler stuff we can all do. Easy, spontaneous small actions that we can take to improve the day of the people around us. A wonderful little book by Danny Wallace called Random Acts of Kindness lists many many such things and I’d like to share them with you here. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Steve Munroe | Under problemsolving
Monday Jul 21, 2008
Though it’s been a little quieter around here on WLI lately, it’s not that I’ve been neglecting my posting duties. A few weeks ago, I was honoured to be offered a writing gig over at TastefullyDriven.com (TD). TD is a brand spanking new lifestyle site that offers quality products, unique blog articles and a community forum to provide a 360 degree lifestyle design experience. Set up by four 20 somethings from Albany, NY, the site also has a conscience - giving 5% pre-tax profits to charitable orangizations in Upstate New York.
My first post for TD talks about problem solving and how we can all improve it. Here’s a quick appetizer:
These are worrying times - apparently. You can’t go a day without hearing on the news or reading in the paper the latest shocking crime statistics. Only two days ago we heard that within a 24 hour period 5 people had been stabbed to death on the streets of Britain. Worrying indeed. Add to this the threat of suicidal terrorists, rampant, flesh eating hospital bugs, train crashes, hordes of child abductors and marauding gangs of feral youths, and you could be forgiven for refusing to set foot outside your door ever again.
But is this really the case? Just how dangerous is it to live in modern Britain? Is this really an epidemic of danger, or is it a media fuelled panic? Well, Lets take a different tack. Let’s suppose (in some weird, perverse way) you decided you had had enough of this dangerous and trauma intensive world, and you make the decision to end it all. But not in just any old, pop a skip load pills, throw yourself off a cliff way. No, you decide to go for a truly modern death. One that pays tribute, if you like, to the varied and many ways we are told we are likely to bite the bullet in modern day Britain. Read the rest of this entry »
Despite coming at happiness from many angles, one thing all these new books agree on is the difficulty in defining precisely what happiness is. One thing seems clear, they don’t mean pleasure. Pleasure seems too fleeting and too much linked to sensation and the physical body. Happiness on the other hand, while refusing to fit within a neat and concise definition, seems more related to a feeling of peace of mind and general wellbeing. More a kind of background emotion that can persist even in the face of physical discomfort or psychological or emotional strain. After all, people can report happiness in the most extreme places or situations, such as concentraton camps, or during severe illness.
The Gratitude Key
One thing appears to be key in being able to develop happiness as a steady and reliable feature of your life and not something that’s contingent on events: gratitude. But what do we have to be grateful for? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Steve Munroe | Under Life, Work, thought
Friday Jun 13, 2008
You hear a lot these days about work/life balance. About how it’s becoming more important for people to integrate their lives better with their work. It’s a big buzzword in corporate life, and many large companies stress their commitment to helping their employees pursue it.
Jazz Up Your Life
If you’ve been thinking about work/life balance lately, forget it! It’s wrong headed thinking. The balance analogy implies a win/lose relationship between the two - a pair of scales where as one goes up the other goes down. I prefer the approach of Dr. Stewart Friedman presented at T4HWW. He argues that a much better analogy is to think of our lives like a jazz band, where the aim is to be a tight, integrated musical masterclass - think Miles Davis and John Coltrane:
Fuck It!
