Everything Nac

Chris Herrington, Contributing Writer

I hear this. The work is the same, regardless of the number or type. Anything that you can release by letting go of it, do so. Then, anything that is sticky and adhesive, give yourself an increasing level of diminishment schedule so that over time you evaporate it from your life. If you smoke, for example, erase one cigarette from your consumption every so many given days. Or……open the pack, take one out, cut one inch off, do the same to the others and then replace them….Smoke your first shorty. Same number of events, but less event. This weakens each event’s impact. Every time you open a new pack, cut off 1/2 inch more… Overtime, there will be nothing left to smoke.

The process of extracting yourself from an addiction, or addictive thinking, leads to increased time to become constructive somewhere else in your life….be fulfilling with your life. Do something worth doing. If you have had a problem area, find yourself a way to use that rehabbed information to help others. Drug addiction counselors are often ex-addicts. This keeps you near your rehab source. No one really wants to stop an addiction even though it is essentially not working…..they are usually forced to do so by circumstance…the point is to get in front of the curve. Mainly, we are addicted to continuing patterns that are unsuccessful. Why? It’s a downhill giving-in to our egos. The sub-conscious says, “Oh, no, you don’t…I’ll make you worry.” But the self-conscious says, “I need this pattern. I need poker chips.” Really? Is there anything you can obtain that will make you whole? Can’t we do without all this stress? We need some things, right?

Here’s an interesting way of looking at jobs. A job is, after all is said and done, a manifestation of a way you can get someone else to underpay you for your efforts. The larger picture is to learn that you are your own service provider, and you can ask others to pay what you are worth by your becoming your own boss. What tools and skills do you have that you can market? Gather what you need at whatever basic level and begin marketing yourself today. Create, or rather identify, a niche where you are the answer….That is how you will pay your own bills…by doing for others what they cannot do for themselves. Like anything else, this is easier to intellectualize than it is to do; that’s why we partner up with others to get things done….

Effectiveness is built on the asymptotic principle of inductive reasoning; things can always improve. Vices are built into the system of being human; shame, however, is not a given. Owning up to your humanity and taking responsibility for your own identity, you see yourself as becoming more aware.

Vices are lessons that have not revealed themselves, but our weaknesses, once integrated into our self-acceptance, become our greatest strengths. Those things I was naturally good at do not have the stability of those things I worked to own in myself. Your starter kit of talents are your second string talents. The real heat comes from honing weaknesses into battle scarred weapons. When something is old and beat up, we say it has character. Wisdom is seeing the character we have at hand and using it effectively. The new warrior makes all kinds of noise, but the old warrior makes it look effortless and is at least moderately secure that he has a vision of how to be effective. The trick is to become old while you’re young without having to be “rode hard and hung out wet.”

As we lose some functions over time, we gather other functions in terms of street credit in life. Before, when we were taking everything for granted, we had a full range of powers, but now that our focus has switched, we acquire other perceptions and wisdom that allow us to operate from another base. This process of loss and gain is a constructive destruction. Building on the ruble, we learn to operate more effectively. Everything becomes challenged, including our feelings. New feelings require new thinking. New thinking breeds new actions. We were safe and secure in our pattern, until the pattern did not work, and then it became a burden. This is the point of re-invention.

Essentially then, we live stressful lives until we learn to convert stress into hope filled living by our integrating our weaknesses into our daily lives at such a level that they become strengths that assist us in living more effective lives. “If I had known better, I would have done better,” we say of our lives. Isn’t that true of all of us?

runningturtle87

Chris Herrington, Contributing Writer

I think I’ll take all my change and put it into a bottle and then at the end of the year take it in and get myself a nifty something with my savings. I could bother to tote the two jugs of change I’ve got already stored up before the dollar drops into Monopoly money. Well, that was not where I was heading; let’s keep this positive for the new year.

Okay, let’s get down to it. After going to work, doing the family thing, and keeping the plates dancing on their sticks all said and done we have about 2 hours a day to work with if we are lucky….unless we are avoiding some things that need tending to, so that’s about 30 days a year to work on our own. We work 5 months for Uncle Sam, so what to do with our 30 days?

Well, it’s not enough time to become really good at anything. It takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at anything. That’s 5 years of usable time with on the job training. This 30 days is just enough time to get your feet wet. The trick is to narrow it down.

When I ask this next question of people, I sometimes get a dumbfounded response, “What are you working on on yourself these days?” Sometimes people will say they have never thought about it. What I mean by working on yourself is taking a good look at what you think and feel and making sure that your actions and insides match. We all have character flaws that need tweaking, and there is the need from time to time to put the car into service, the boat in dry dock, or the lawn mower in for a tune up…if you are a guy I guess. And ladies, you know when it is time to change purses…the entire ordeal can be like a major medical emergency. This is what I am talking about, except on the inside, on your heart, your mind, your sense of self and boundaries.

Well, that ought to stir the pot. So what’s to work on? Anger management, our weight, concentration skills, memory, attentiveness, vocabulary, hobbies, understanding, listening skills, tolerance, bias, insight, revenge, envy, there are a host of things. Now, I slipped in the word “hobbies” for a reason. They add to our collective understanding and expertise. The deeper we work on things, the more we can bear witness to them. Understanding anything deeply enough affects everything else we know because it gives us cause to think in terms of depth of knowledge, “quality,” as Pirsig put it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Pirsig). Everything has a deeper understanding, even simplicity. Have you ever seen how difficult it is to stay simple about anything? Fishing: pole, string, hook, worm, right? Purse: leather, pouch, handle, latch? People: eat, sleep, work, die, right?

What will you be working on this year in your 30 days of “free time?”

runningturtle87