Therefore… I am going to ramble on about…. NOTHING!

Heehee.

Okay, actually… Not nothing, more of the paperwork required when something as simple as getting married takes place.

I have to: Request my birth certificate so I can replace my Social Security Card, allowing me to go down, and take a copy of my Marriage License, to a DMV so that I may get a Texas ID, all with one thing… One tiny little Name changed.

That’s 4+ Forms I have to fill out, not to mention bank forms, and other official forms that I have to fill out, all because I changed my name from my Maiden Name, to Macarser’s last name…

Why doesn’t anyone ever warn you about these things? >.<

It’s long been said that “Money makes the world go round.” I personally think, whoever said that… Was both an idiot, and well… just an idiot, as it’s PAPERWORK that makes the world go round, because nowadays, you can’t even get money without filling out Triplicates of paperwork.

So many trees get kablammed in the face, just so we can fill out more, and more paperwork.

*sighs*

Stupid paperwork…

In the last decade it seems today’s work ethic has changed so much.  Everything ounce of effort has to be justified, scheduled, and ultimately compensated, assuming it was deemed worthy in the first place, and even then it may not come without balking.

I’ve personally witness people ranting for over an hour about work that would have taken under fifteen minutes to get accomplished if they did it without procrastinating.  Are we really that shallow now?  I have very rarely every gotten satisfaction out of ranting, even when I did not want to do something; I just do not see a benefit from it as it certainly doesn’t help you get the job done quicker.

In giving this some thought, it seems people have grown accustomed to frustration.

I don’t mean people crave frustration, but today’s model almost requires some form of frustration.  We, as a people, take on too much, so we get frustrated we can’t do it all.  Already being overworked in our mind, being asked to do more can be overwhelming.  Some of us do not like the process of delegation or asking for help, so that can cause some frustration, and some of that reluctance can come from knowing how much we don’t like being asked.  Getting even a simple thing accomplished can be a vicious circle.

Alot of the issues come from our own greed and selfishness when it comes to our time.  To us, our time is valuable.  We can easily spend ten minutes of our own time sitting around doing nothing and feel good about it, because it’s what we want to do, however when asked to give five minutes to a cause, well that’s too much, what’s in it for me?  Don’t mention the fact I wasn’t doing anything constructive anyway.

How can this mindset be changed?

When we realize just how little we are giving up of ourselves and our time when we’re asked to do something, I think things could start to change.

So how do we do this?

Documenting our wasted time is probably not the best solution.  Who wants to know just how much time we sit around being worthless.  I suggest documenting the time you are actually being constructive.  You would obviously need to include time spent eating, sleeping, driving and whatnot.  For most people I think it may just come as a shock as to how many hours short of 24 hours they have when only documenting hours of productivity!

I am going to start doing this myself and will post my findings on Twitter. It will definitely be interesting to see what I think I am going to see.

For all but a few of us, the battle for knowing oneself has become a harsh lifelong struggle, yet sometimes a life altering one as well.

All of us have to one degree or another the notion that something in their life isn’t “perfect”, something you wish was different, either in how you act, respond, speak, think, or feel about events in your life.  Whether that is that you wish you had the strength to turn down that last piece of fried chicken, the willpower to not skip the gym, the self-discipline to not yell at your children with harsh words, the self-denial that your life isn’t great and it’s not your fault, or any other number of events.

I know from experience, spending too much time thinking about what’s wrong with your life is counterproductive to actually getting it resolved, more than what most people would imagine.  But where do you draw the line?  If you don’t ponder your life’s story, how do the revalations on changing it come to you?  You’ve heard the phrases…when you die, who will actually come to your funeral?; what legacy will you leave behind and will you be proud of it?; what accomplishments did you do with your life?

I think expectations are too high in most people.  Someone who, in their own mind, says ‘If I change this about me, this will occur, and then all will be good.’, so they do said change, said occurence happens, yet not all is good, is bound to have resentment to any further notion of change, or at the very least resentment towards having a different outlook on things.  Yet this resentment remains as a nagging feeling in the back of their head as they do more and more pondering about their oneself as they can’t find peace with themselves and they know this process they are going through is where they will find what fixes the issues they have with themselves and their lives.  In their own mind anyway…

So what’s the answer?  Is there a single question that can be answered in all that?

To me it boils down to a single yet simple concept…confidence.

If you think about what are the real root of most issues we have with ourselves you can narrow down to a few basic issues, all in some way dealing with confidence.

We don’t think we’re capable of change.  We don’t think we’re able to implement change without help or without supervision.  We doubt the ideas in our head will actually work, ‘surely someone has a better idea that’ll work, I’ll keep looking’.  We’re afraid to fail.  We don’t think we can come up with an idea, causing us to not even try nor as much as ask for one.  We’re afraid to be judged by our actions.  We’re uncertain of the consequences.  We don’t think we could maintain the change for as long as would be required (some changes are a lifelong change, after all).

Put all that together, see someone else make even a small change successfully, and no wonder you instantly think you are out of their league, that your not as good as them and that you’ll amount to nothing in your own life, that you better move on.  I myself have friends I used to think were so much above me, I was lucky to even be considered a friend of theirs and to know them, as I had no talent to bring to that circle.

Ridiculous…

Everyone can think of one thing they’ve done in their life that they were proud of, that brought a smile to their face and a beat to their heart.  A feeling of accomplishment.  Whether that be volunteer work for a noble cause, giving of one’s time that proved fruitful, making a sacrifice that was not returned but you were knew that before you made it and still did it, or any number of things.  To us, those were shining moments in our lives.  Where did they all go?  Most people don’t have recent ones, just distant memory ones.

If you took out the pride, got rid of the ego boost it gave you, removed the beaming smile, and really thought about what you did most of us would find that a minor change, if not even a mediocre change in the long run.  Volunteer work never stops being needed, praise never stops being needed, people never run out of needs, and you can only do so much.  So what does this dreary news mean?

All things, all occurences of change, all actions that are positive, well…are positive.  A change, no matter how small, is a good thing and worth doing.  Even if the outcome is shortlived, it is worth doing.  As hopefully you showed yourself in the last paragraph, what wound up being a small change in retrospect really made an impact in your life, so why not do it again, do more of it, do things like it, things that will have similar outcomes.  What do you have to lose?

If only it were that easy.  Even when the answer is right in front of our faces and well without our grasp and capability, we sometimes fall flat.  What defines us is how we react to that.

For me personally, I am sure in that my life is not where I want it.  I am confident my life will be where I want it, one day.  I am confident that I am tackling the issues I can change slower than I am capable of doing, and so look forward to accomplishing more with each new day.  I accept that some things that could have been changed by now, aren’t.  But I am confident I will accomplish them one day.  I am sure a positive outlook accomplishes more than a negative outlook with a plan.  I am sure things will change, sometimes at a rate faster than I wanted or expected, but definitely slower too.  I am sure that will be ok.

In the long run…what more do you need than confidence?  The long run ends at death, that you can be confident of.

For instance years back I hated Chinese food, and if I was dragged to a Chinese restaurant, I always went with the “safe” route, the lemon chicken plate.  Today however, I love eating Chinese food.

The same goes with music.  I remember my first years listening to rock music (Mercyful Fate was the first rock band I remember ever hearing), finding new bands and changing favorites on an almost yearly basis.  Seems every new band I heard was better than the last.

What happened to those days?

Today I’m lost in a sea of nostalgia, because frankly, it’s all that’s good anymore.

The last time I heard a new band and thought, these guys are actually good was in 1996 with Linkin Park.  This is 2009!  Granted, LP is not the same as they were then, and sure, I can name some new groups from today’s era, and some are actually decent, but I remember the fan following (being said fan myself) of groups back in the day like early Queensryche, Metallica and Def Leppard and how devoted everyone was.  Being very familiar with vinyl records, the first time I saw Queensryche’s debut four song EP carried around at high school by someone else made me rush off to go buy it for myself, and then after I got it home and heard The Lady Wore Black…yeah, that was a day I still haven’t forgotten.

There are no such days like that anymore.

Sometimes I think classic rock lives on simply because those of us that have experienced situations like the above, miss them, and so in a way want to re-live it somehow and experience it in the now.  Sure I remember the first time I saw Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit video and sure it’s a great song, but it’s not a memory I cherish, nor do I think of it anytime I hear the song.  However you will catch me listening to Elvis and reminiscing over the days when I had Elvis and Molly Hatchet on 8 track tapes and loving it.

Maybe we’re more impressionable when we’re younger, and maybe that’s why memories are more vivid and stronger then over now, I don’t know.

I remember days when I was full of excitement over an albums release and would go to the midnight releases just to have it as early as possible.  Today I have very little emotions and wonder if it’s not a carryover effect of just not experiencing anything that’s any good anymore.  My marriage to my wife and the birth of my son aside, I can’t name the last real emotional thing I’ve experienced, where I thought that this was just amazing and where I was inspired, and that’s not just musically.

Years ago I remember leaving a friends house with another friend and hearing what we later found out was Metallica’s Harvester Of Sorrow’s debut playing on the airwaves for that station, which was immediately followed by a concert announcement, and despite that I didn’t hear the beginning of the song, me and my friend were amazed by the song and had to wait till it was over to hear who it was and what song it was.  I grant that I may not be exposed to enough new stuff of today to hear what’s really good, but I do know that when I turn on the radio to a program or station that plays recent hits, I am never awed anymore.

I like The Flaming Lips, I like The Editors, I like Death Cab For Cutie, I like Neutral Milk Hotel and Nickelback and tons of other bands, they are all good bands, decent talent, some good songs, but all in all, so many bands sound so much alike in today’s world, and I realize that maybe that is what sells today (but with the dwindling purchases, not taking into account increased piracy of course, of albums these days), but maybe not, maybe it’s more than that.

Having gone through a birthday yesterday, I find it not at all surprising that I only had two calls to wish me happy birthday, one call that called for something else but since I was on the phone wished me one, and one email, yet I received eight Facebook wall posts saying the same, three of which are people I have never met face to face.

To one degree you want to consider social networks as the greatest time sink yet with the highest level of feeling like you accomplished something, whether that be because you talked about something related to your job, made plans for the weekend or whatever.  To another, it detracts from the real value of the internet as far as it’s purchasing power, educational value and communication medium; after all, there are only so many quiz’s you can take and polls you can vote on before your down to the worthless end of them, taking polls on which book character you are most similar to and what is your most likely favorite alcoholic beverage.

I have recently come back in contact with high school buddies I probably would never have otherwise, as I no longer had a valid phone number, address or email (friend search ftw).  Chalk one up for social networking popularity.  At the same time however, I probably spend three or more hours a day playing MouseHunt, browsing books on LivingSocial, reading news on Mixx, stumbling along at StumbleUpon, Twittering, using Facebook, and via my iPhone in the restroom, watching YouTube videos.  Chalk one up in the loss column.  Are those really productive uses of time?

With the WhiteHouse blog, celebrity Twitter wars (go Britney), and everything else we find entertaining these days you can rest assured social networks are only on the rise and not decline.  My question is: is that a good thing or bad?