Archive for February, 2009
Follow Up of Going Cold Turkey: 2 Weeks….of No Internet!
It has been well over 2 weeks since I have written a blog post. For the past couple of weeks I have been offline doing other things. For instance, watching photography videos, taking random photos with the skills I learned, reading a couple of books (The Road and Shortcomings), starting my novel, spending more time with friends, family, and girlfriend, watching a couple of movies, getting myself better due to the flu or whatever it was I got a couple of weeks ago, finish writing my life business plan, and thinking of where my life is at the moment. To some what I have done doesn’t amount to much, but I have done all of this while not being online. Also, when I was at work I limited my internet use as much as possible.
Things Realized About Myself
I have come to realize with the observation of my girlfriend are that I am an extremist. Looking back at this challenge I could have done it with ease, whenever I do anything I don’t ever have a problem of not completing it. Whether it be me being on the internet as much as possible and checking my email 20 plus times a day, to putting an excess amount of nasal drops in my nose only to cause a headache, being able to workout 5 days a week without any problem, going vegetarian for two weeks, watching a very small amount of television, and this latest installment of extreme behaviors of being without the internet for 2 whole weeks. This is one thing I am going to work on and will have to bring balance to my life as much as possible in order to live a productive, but not to one-sided lifestyle.
So What Did I Really Give Up
I’m Back Online!
Photo Taken by: zappowbang
Hello all I’m back online! I will respond to comments and give an update of what I went through and learned during my the weeks I was offline tomorrow. Here is a quick poem I wrote a couple of weeks ago unedited, enjoy:
As I look at the leafs in the autumn sky I see a tree that was once full, but now almost bare. I try to record the life of a leaf through my small hand-held camcorder and it is hard as hell. I am zooming in to get all that the leaf is doing; spinning, diving down to the grass, being lifted up again by the wind, picks up speed when it is clear away from it’s mother tree and all of the other surrounding trees. As the I’m watching this leaf through the lense I back up, dock down, run after it as if I am taking the same journey. I get frustrated because I can’t really follow the travel of the leaf, I yell at the leaf to come back to me, and the leaf doesn’t listen. I come to realize that the leaf doesn’t have a mind of it’s own, the wind controls it; the ups and downs, spins, increase in speed and decrease in elevation, and once that damn leaf touches the ground it is over. There is no way possible for the leaf to pick itself up. Once the wind gets done with the leaf it continues on it’s way to do the same to all of the other leafs. I start to get pissed at the wind because of all that it has done to the leaf, but then realize that it isn’t the wind’s fault. It is the leaf’s fault for letting the wind determine it’s destiny of going and not making it’s own decisions of the direction of it’s own short and in this case meaningless life…
Going Cold Turkey: 2 Weeks….of No Internet! Can You Do It?
Realization…
It is hard to imagine this reality is about to take place for me. The longest I have been away from the internet is a weekend. One of my weakinesses is getting online to either waste time, check my email atleast 15-20 times per day, look at sports news, view current news I don’t even care about, read many blog post from others that I admire, and check out fact and interesting things whenever I listen to a podcast. I am at the point if I don’t do what I want to do I will be the person that has high hopes for himself and don’t do anything, because of this lingering obsession of the world wide web.
How I am going to eliminate the internet in my life
We all need to break away from the matrix from time to time. We have to see what we are actually doing to ourselves, by not doing what we always do. I will be eliminating anything that has to deal with the internet that is a part of me. I will be deleting my email account from my cell phone, not updating newsstand on my iphone to read blog post, hiding my air-card at my girlfriend’s apartment, if I have to use the internet at work just have a google search engine, checking work email 3 times per day, and delete whatever else that may allow me to be online.
How the internet has taken over my life
What I Have Been Up to Lately!
This year has started off great, I have changed some things in my life that has allowed me to do more, but not over stress myself when I go to sleep at night. I am thrilled with where I am going and will see if possible I can push myself into the direction and place I want to be. Here are a couple of things I have been up to lately this past month and what I plan to do for the month of Feburary.
Books and more books…
I have read 2 books last month and started a 3rd one. I will be doing book reviews this month on those books. The Power of Less and Drown were very important to a fresh start into the new year. The Power of Less got me to think of what I was over burdening myself with and to restructure what I was doing wrong or not doing correctly with the business of performing the essentials in my life. In the past month I have de-clutter my apartment, changed my sleeping pattern totally (working towards waking up at 4 a.m. to workout and write for the morning before work), and refocus what is important to me and doing those passion and purpose items in my life everyday. I will go into more detail later in the coming weeks when I write the book review on the site. Drown, was a short story written by Junot Diaz, which depicted his childhood life as he saw it in fictional form. I liked Junot writing style and as I was reading understood the importance of using all 5 senses that we as humans use everyday. The book also gave me a good starting point of what I will be doing this year for my writing career. I will be writing in the second half of the year a series of short stories. I will first write a novel that is so in my head and badly want to get out on paper. I am now focused in what I want to do novel wise to help establish myself as an author.
Sleeping, the art of mind and body control.
Tags: life planning, passions, realization
Appreciation to Adam McFarland
These post are the hardest for me to write, but also some of the more rewarding ones.
I met Adam first through his blog and then by emailing him about how we had similarities with what we were going through, followed by his company doing my first ever redesigns of my blog and personal website, and now through his continue efforts to give the no-bullshit story of his ups and downs of running a successful business and a touch of his personal life sprinkled here and there through his blog. I still think our journeys are similar, but I have learned so much about him as a person through his writing. I think that his blog has given me the strength to continue to write because through his writings you can see very evidently that he is passionate about his business and more importantly about his life. Lately I have been on a cutting binge in everything in my life; either working out, eliminating my apartment clutter, loosing some mediocre friends, deleting time wasting podcast and blogs. Adam?s blog always is one that is there and look forward to reading whenever he releases a new post.
Some of the things that I have learned from Adam McFarland:
1. Don’t take bullshit from no one.
2. Find out what you are passionate about and give your all by dedication, hard work, and to always keep learning about your field of expertise.
3. It is important to have a work-life balance.
4. Gives thanks to people that he admires and learns from.
5. Through the art of routine find a better way to do task or implement solutions to existing problems (The million dollar idea doesn’t happen over night, but is refined over time).
6. Does not apologize for his decision to start his own business!
There are many more examples like these that show the real person of Adam. Sometimes I think of all the things that I have done for myself ever since I got out of college, almost 4 years ago. I think of all of the business courses that I wasted my money on, spending $10,000-15,000 dollars on my ?race car? that was worth $2700 bucks when I finally sold it, buying 2 cars in the span of 3 years, excess amount of spending on my credit cards for stupid shit I can?t put a finger on now, wasting time doing hobbies or suppose passions because it looked good to people around me, and many more things that I can?t take away from nearly 4 years. I always think of things that I could have eliminated out of my life, but I don?t think my life would be the same, if I never came across Adam?s blog in the very short time after college. Yes I am still at a 9-5, but now I have goals, dreams, desires, and am taking steps to get to where I want to go. I am very happy in what I am doing now in my life, partly because of watching someone else grow through his writings how ever many times per year he sits behind his computer to take some time to write his thoughts, insight, blowing off steam rants, and encouragement to live the life he ultimately wants to. I am so proud of myself searching for what I truly want out of life and I thank Adam for giving me the reason to continue the exploration of my journey.
Update:
Just this past week Adam helped me out in a big way. I was in the process of moving my websites over to a new hosting and registrar site and didn?t backup this website. I have worked nearly four years at my craft and was going crazy making sure I could do something in order to save the work that I have been doing. I emailed Adam and he had a link to my existing database and I was able to download my backup and my website is still alive. Just for that kind gesture of helping me out I am going to give the charity that he sponsored last year $100 bucks for helping me out. He isn?t looking for money, but I thought that would be a kind way to pay him back for the help that he gave me when I needed it most.
Challenge:
Adam, my challenge to you is to write an appreciation to someone that you admire. I would love to see how far it goes. Thanks again for all you have done for me!
Tags: appreciation, business, lifestyle
A year in Review After Moving Out of My Parent’s Place
It has been a year and a month since I moved since I moved out of my parent’s house. I was 26 when I moved out, at first wanted my freedom, but also felt that I was going to become distance from my parents. My brother and I moved out with great expectations and wanted to see if Houston gave us a different feel than living at home for most of our lives. Living under my parent’s roof doesn’t give a growing and maturing adult a true experience of how life on my own is compared to other another city or state than where they were born and raised.
The day of the move I woke up with excitement, ready and determined to start a new part of my life. There was no alarm needed to get me up. I started taking a part my bed, unhooking my television, getting crap ready to be thrown away, and looking around my room, my lifestyle, my identity, for such a long time for the last moment in that particular state. My brother was still sleeping and the friend who was helping us was with a lady friend and went to church the next morning. I went downstairs to say good morning to my parents and I saw their faces that they were happy for us, but sad that we were moving out of the house. My dad didn’t care much, he knew that we were planning this for some time and thought it was needed for out growth as men. My mother didn’t like the fact we were moving to a place which was 12 minutes away and were paying $500 bucks each in order to reach the destination of freedom. Still to this day she doesn’t understand why we would pay for a place that is 1/3 the size of her house.
The day was great and I am so glad that I got to experience it with my brother. Our relationship is not where it used to be and will probably never be the same. Throughout the first year on my own I have:
-Quit a shitty job which was driving me crazy.
Tags: freedom, growing up, new experience
- @YEAdamMcFarland The full screen editor are badass, I get plenty done, but there shouldn't be a reason for so many choices. 12:37:20 PM November 13, 2009
