I spent this past weekend recovering from our last college drop-off. You would think the experience of having done this a few times before would make it easier, but it doesn’t. There’s a certain emptiness when you return home after finishing the drop-off. Sure, there’s the missing physical presence around the house, but it’s a lot more than that.

When you are in the arena, in the middle of the battle, in the thick of life, it seems as though time stands still. It feels like the day will never end, that tomorrow will never come. You fret. You worry. You waste precious time.

Yet, when you elevate and look at the big picture, you see just how small those past problems were in the bigger picture of life. Instead of living in the present and enjoying the moment, our human nature is to complain and wish for things to be different, whether it’s to be somewhere else, to be with someone else, or to just be someone else. Instead of embracing who we are, where we are, who we are with, and what we are doing, we ruin the moment by chasing that which isn’t real. We rob ourselves of making memories that will last a lifetime.

I can’t take credit for the title of this post, that goes to Gretchen Rubin. But no truer words have been written. I have seen them play out in my own life. I’ve seen them play out in Lisa’s, my children’s, my mother’s, and my friend’s lives. And if there is one thing I know for certain, I know they will continue to play out in all of our lives.

Thanks to an SCGA Member Outing, Brad and I had the opportunity to enjoy some high quality golf on the Monterey Peninsula over the Fourth of July weekend. It was an incredible trip. The golf surpassed expectations. Even better, I got to spend some quality time with Brad both on and off the golf course.

I started meditating regularly at the beginning of 2019. It took some getting used to, but it’s become a part of my daily routine. Taking some time out to be alone with my thoughts has been peaceful, relaxing, and enlightening.

I’ve found it to be especially important given how busy and frantic day to day life has become. We are bombarded incessantly with ads. The news cycle never ends. Our devices make us constantly available. The distraction of the internet is only a click away. Our personal and professional responsibilities are always pulling at us. It makes taking time out for one’s self more important than ever.

If you’ve been thinking about starting a meditation practice but aren’t sure where to start, here are a few suggestions that helped me.

It’s easy to live life looking back and telling ourselves a story that life would be different if ‘this’ or ‘that’ would have happened. Likewise, it’s easy to live life looking into the future and thinking that we’ll be happy when we do ‘this’ or when ‘that’ happens.

I know. I’ve been there – in both places, sometimes at the same time. And what I’ve found is that neither one of those places, ruminating on the past or worrying about the future are fun places to be.

Wouldn’t it be great if life had an easy button? Something you could press when you wanted to take the shortcut to success. Instead of putting in the time and effort to learn, to do the hard work, you could simply wish what you want into existence.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t seem like it from what you see on the internet, but what you read isn’t reality. These stories can generally be broken down into the following categories:

1. The lies
   Yes, whether you want to believe it or not, fake news is real. The story of the person who put in the hours is not interesting. People like to hear about the instant rags-to-riches stories. Unfortunately, most of these aren’t real.
2. The glamorized success story
   While not a lie, some success stories are made to look like they happened overnight when they were actually years in the making. Following someone who’s plodding along isn’t interesting. What’s interesting is taking years of hard work and boiling down into the 5 minutes of fame YouTube video, which seems to be the limit of our attention span these days.
3. The long and winding road
   While not popular, these stories are out there. They’re not fun because it shows that real success takes time, a lot of time. They take work, a lot of work. Not only is the reward worth the effort but so is the journey to get there.
4. Getting rich quick
   Rare, but they do exist. They’re like the searching for Moby Dick. You can spend you’re entire life chasing the short path to success and miss out on the rewards that are part of the long journey.

So what’s my point? Life is a journey, and our reward is that journey. Instead of looking for the easy button, life is about putting in the time and effort, learning and growing every day, and committing to the hard work it takes to achieve lasting success. It’s both more rewarding and more fulfilling.

Don’t fall into the trap of searching for the easy button. It’s easy to do, and even if you do find it, you might be surprised that it’s not all that’s it cracked up to be.

Inspired by Seth Godin’s post, Chasing the cool kids. It’s worth the read, and some of the best advice I’ve seen on searching for shortcuts on the internet.

Our lives right now are built around consumption.

A Learning a Day – February 12, 2018

Read it again. Slowly. Let it sink in.

I’m a big fan of Rohan’s Learning A Day blog. He does a great job synthesizing complex topics into powerful statements. In this case, his point is that “media companies have somehow convinced us that there are few things that matter more than staying up to date.” We are bombarded by content from emails, news articles, blogs, podcasts, social media, and television. There is so much coming at us that it’s impossible to stay up to date. As he would say, it’s a “fool’s errand.”

Believe me, there was a point in time where I bought into what the media companies were selling. I tried to stay up to date, and I failed. And out of the failure came a valuable lesson. Life is not about the amount of content you consume, it’s about the quality.

This is a follow-up, or unofficial part 2 if you will, to my earlier post – We must do better before it’s too late.

Even if you haven’t watched the movie The Social Dilemma, which I would highly recommend by the way, you know that users are being exploited on the internet. It’s no secret that social media, news, and many other types of websites and mobile apps make money selling their users’ data. If we know this, why do we keep giving it to them?

Yes, the website owners, app developers, and software engineers bear a lot of the responsibility, but it’s not all their fault. We, as users, bear a lot of the responsibility by enabling them. So long as we are willing to trade our data for “free” software, the owners and producers will continue exploiting us for their gain. It’s like a person addicted to smoking blaming the cigarette makers for their poor health. Yes, the cigarette makers are responsible. But, if one knows smoking is bad for you, why would one keep doing it?

Giving away our data and engaging in questionable online behaviors are bad for us. It’s time for us to “just say no” and change our internet and overall software habits.