Life

This week I was tasked with discovering what my core values are. The context around this was that I needed to understand what my core values are so that I can understand how they are being violated, in the hopes that I can understand how a disagreement was created with someone else. That got me thinking: what are core values? It’s nothing I’ve ever really thought about before. Sure, I know about honesty and timeliness, but I wasn’t aware of the full suite of core values. Where do I begin? ...

One of the common patterns in my life is to surround myself with people with whom I allow to abuse me. And one of the popular refrains of these people is to tell me this phrase: You need to stop taking things so personally. And I find that phrase interesting because it is really difficult not to take things personally when they are targeting me with their abusive words. But, as I said, this is a common refrain of abusers in my life. In fact, most of the people that have mistreated me in various ways have also found a way to abdicate any responsibility for their actions by using this phrase to place the blame squarely on me. ...

This post will be a living document that stores all my favourite quotes. At this point, I’m not going to comment on the quotes themselves, or why I find them good. I typically keep these in a private document, but I want to just share them with you and maybe you will think about how they fit into your mindset. Or maybe the quote means nothing to you and you move on. That’s fine too. ...

I’m learning how to relax for the first time in my life. It’s sounds crazy but no one, not even parents, taught me how to relax. And things that could be relaxing (videogames, reading, playing, talking) were given a negative value because they weren’t seen as productive. One of the symptoms of not relaxing is the inability to let go of things. Another is a mind that races when trying to fall asleep. ...

I purchased business cards awhile back but I never wrote anything about it. They are personal business cards, I needed them for situations where I am meeting new people. I am actually fairly shy about giving them out, it is surprising that some people think business cards show how outdated you are, yet they are still used quite a lot in other countries and non-tech industries. Here is what the cards look like: ...

I was reading a brilliant article titled “Post-Scarcity Economics” by Tom Streithorst and it resonated with me about our failing economy in Canada that I needed to write an article on it. Although the article is set against the US economy, much of what happens there also happens in Canada, albeit to a less extent 1. Please read the entire article (warning: it is lengthy) first, and I will be pulling sentences out and applying my experiences in Canada to them. ...

Continuing the theme from yesterday about burnout, it is important to identify the signs and symptoms of burnout. This Wikipedia article on burnout is chock full of good details, and I advise you to look there for reference as I talk about each symptom. As I go through each phase of burnout, I detail what I unknowingly did in that phase, in the hope that someone out there can recognize what they are currently doing and prevent it from happening further. I feel quite exposed writing about all of this, mainly because of the feeling that people will see me as fallible but it is all part of the process of learning and growing. ...

When I got married I wanted to wear a titanium ring, similar to the one here. The first thing you will notice is that the price of the ring is around $50, which means it’s basically worthless. However, this is exactly what I intended when I bought it. I had four requests for a wedding band: cheap, tough, light, and simple. I have never understood the urge for someone to purchase an expensive wedding band on their finger. I’ve heard people mention how much it costs, or was appraised for, but all of that tells me that these people have one foot out of the door in their marriage. The value of a ring should not be determined by someone outside of the family (i.e. an appraiser) because there is no way to quantify sentimental cost. Instead, a ring simply has replacement value and yet, if someone’s $1,000 platinum wedding band was lost and then replaced, it is still not the same wedding band that they were married in, so what is the point? The reason I wanted a ring that was virtually worthless is that the ring is purely a symbol for the marriage, and it is that symbol that adds value to the ring, not the particular type of atoms that make it up. ...