How do you stop feeling lazy

I work a lot, but it seems to come in waves.  Right now, I am in a down crest.  I have a few things to do, but not as many as normal and I just don’t have motivation to do what needs to get done.  As a result, I just feel lazy.  It’s not as though my I don’t do anything, I just can’t seem to get over the hump to being productive.  Part of me wants to know how to fix that during down cycles, but most of me wants to know how to remove this sense of guilt of being lazy.  I truly believe I do enough to be a good employee and I shouldn’t feel guilty for these short periods of lower productivity, but alas I do.  I guess being lazy, feeling like a lazy person, and working through it is something I need to work on...if I find the energy.

Issue with unethical behavior

I am struggling with a fundamental question: how should I deal with unethical behavior?

Now, let me preface this by giving a bit of background information (though not too much as is my style).  I was recently the victim of unethical actions by my direct supervisor and, as numerous such situations do, involved money.  My supervisor twice promised me sums of money based on work I had done, then reneged on those promises without prior notice or explanation.  Of course, I made the mistake of not documenting these promises beyond my meeting notes.

In throes of these two parallel unethical situations, I find myself questioning actions I should take.  At the heart of all this is my fundamental disgust of immoral and unethical behavior juxtaposed with my sense of consequence.  I have several options in front of me: report to my supervisor’s superiors, talk to a lawyer, inform peers, write a letter of complaint to him and my HR department, amongst other things.  However, within nearly all of these is the inherent risk of damaging my future career potential by alienating a supervisor who will be on my employment applications for years to come.  Moreover, any petty attempts on my part to thwart the work I do would have direct consequences on my peers and clients, all of I which I have firm loyalty to.  I don’t think it would be fair to punish him for their actions merely because I have to deal with him wronging me.

But I keep coming back to being wronged.  I have been wronged in a bad way: by someone deliberately unethical and cowardly.  My respect for this person has plummeted and my desire to work with this person is diminished beyond repair.  This challenges my fundamental beliefs, my principles, and my values of fairness, honesty, and the indelible need of leaders to leader.

As you can see this is a fundamental internal struggle.  I have begun to talk to mentors, friends, and family members about it, but I will say none of them have satisfactory answers.  Interestingly, their answers are revealing more about them as people than this situation.  Some of them say turn the other cheek, others have laughed it off, some have said quit, others have said sabotage...and of course their are the rational people who said rest, think, and plan.

I am not sure this post has any real purpose for the reader beyond investigating fundamental ethical struggles in their own lives as I notice my writing here has turned into an exercise in catharsis more than a description of a problem or a seeking of answers.  I wonder how you would handle something like, or how you have handled things like this.  Do you side one way or the other?  Do you believe there is a safe middle ground that protects my ethics and my career...one where I can sleep at night and have a roof under which I can sleep (of course this is not a situation that is that dramatic.)

I guess I feel morally relativistic right now and that is something I don’t want.  My plans for career and professional growth are ones that focus on leadership, integrity, and clear, logical thought and I find myself struggling to reach those points in this instance.

Time to breath...thanks for listening.

Am I a good human being?

I have been thinking a bit about what is the measure of a good human being.  I am thinking about personality, morality, ethics, actions, reactions, and intentions.  And through all this I don’t know if I can call myself a good human being.  But, I won’t call myself a bad human being because I know I am not.

As I examine myself, I see someone who tries to be good.  I am someone who consciously seeks to do things that are right, just, and selfless.  But then is that the definition of good?  And as I see this and think about it, I notice that I am someone who intends to partake in actions and thoughts that are positive, but it doesn’t always happen.  Is this a personal fault or a fundamental human struggle?

If it is a personal fault, then there is area for improvement.  There are ways in which I can be a better person, ways that will move me closer to being a good human being.  I do know this to be true.  As a self-reflective (and a somewhat highly self-critical) person, I can tell you most of those area that need improvement.  My quickness to judge, my poor reactions, my times of moral or ethical weakness, and of course my relative cowardice to stand up to things I feel are wrong, but are just too much work or too laden with judgment and conflict to vehemently oppose.  And I do work to improve those areas, to make myself better, but the road is long and constant and never-ending.

Which makes me think there are some fundamental human struggles that we must all undertake as part of our journey through.  Most people, I suppose, wrestle with moral dilemmas and questions of faith in what is right and wrong all the time.  But how do others engage in those internal battles?  Are their struggles manifested externally like my own?  And of course there is the existential question of “why?”  What purpose is there in constant struggle to be a better person?  Perhaps it is to make you a better a person.  As Frederick Douglass said, “Without struggle, there is no progress.”  Yet, I question what end this means is moving towards.

Regardless of these fundamental questions, I must say that I am working and making daily progress towards being a good human being.  I believe a large number of my peers and friends are better at this than I am, but I doing alright.

I do know that if the Hindus are right and we keep returning to Earth until we get it “right,” I have at least one more trip ahead of me.  So now it’s my job to improve as much as I can while I have the opportunity of this life to live.

The crime that is pet fashion

I like dogs.  I like cats.  Rabbits are ok.  Rodents are nice when they are domesticated and not spreading disease (or living in my garage).  And fish are bit boring, but pretty.

What I do not advocate is pet fashion.  Dogs and cats do not need to be dressed up in outfits or costumes.  Let’s give them a bit more dignity folks.

This will probably be the only time I publicly agree with Jay Leno.

Sorry for the short post...more interesting fair to come.

Moving sucks

I don’t remember if I mentioned that I am moving...if I haven’t, now I am.  I’m moving...and I am not looking forward to the process.

I don’t like packing.  Packing involves sorting and choosing and cleaning and putting into boxes.  Then there is moving and stacking and storing of those boxes.

I don’t like cleaning.  Cleaning involves sweeping and painting and wiping and mopping and spic and span.  

I don’t like the actual moving.  Put boxes here, putting furniture there, finding a storage location.

I don’t like unpacking.  After all is said and done you have to undo the whole process.

The only thing I like is the getting rid of.  There is something cleansing or cathartic about getting rid of stuff that clutters your space and your emotions.  Clearly living is clearer thinking...but even that takes a bunch of work.

I don’t like moving.

I have (limited) control over my dreams

Do you have control over your dreams or are you just a hapless spectator?  From what I understand from my friends, they are often just spectators with a first person view (as in a first person shooter type of thing), but the events of the dream are uncontrollable by them.

I am not tethered to same constraints...well, not to the same degree.  I have the ability to guide my dreams when I am in the middle of them.  For instance, if I am walking down a street and I think it would be interesting if a house were to show up on the left, there will be a house on the left.  It won’t be as if it appears out of nowhere, but rather that it was there the whole time and I had just then noticed it.  If I am truly deep in a dream and have been a part of it for a while, I recognize this connection and can use it to my advantage to alter the timeline of the dream.  I can make objects or events appear in the dream to make it more interesting or veer in the direction I want it to go.

Is this some sort of abnormal connection between my conscious and unconscious mind?  I often wonder this.

Sometimes, I suffer from deja vu. Now, I know that many people experience this on a regular basis, but I think my experiences are a bit different.  Mine are very real and totally mundane.  When I have deja vu I can remember back to dream I had in which the people, place, and events all line up.  Yet, since I don’t remember most of my dreams after I have them, there is little I can do ahead of time.  Nevertheless, these incidents are very vivid and strong to the point where, in the moment, I can predict what someone is going to say or do because of the dream I had and the deja vu I am experiencing.  Want to know the strangest piece?  The strength and intensity of these incidents is directly related to the amount of sleep I have had the night before.  I will get very strong incidents of deja vu on days following low sleep nights.  If I have to stay up late or sleep poorly where I am really tired I will most likely have one of these incidents.

Again, I tie back to that potential abnormal connection between my conscious and unconscious mind.

This leads me to wonder the connection of the subconscious mind to a great time continuum.  If my deja vu are that strong then my subconscious mind must know something or be privy to a stream of thought and events that I cannot perceive consciously.  This makes me believe that there is an even greater inconnectedness between all of us than I think we understand.  I am not talking about religious connection, but rather a metaphysical connection between the events, thoughts, people, and places in our lives.

Part of me wishes I understood more and, better yet, could control more.  However, these are things that perhaps I am just to experience and not influence.  And while many people may be further intrigued by these connections and possibilities, I am content just letting them be for the time being.  Maybe at some point in the future I will explore them further through some sort of Eastern philosophical exploration of mind and energy.  But for now I’ll just bask in the occasional feeling of knowing what is coming next. I mean, my deja vus and dreams are never of anything very interesting after all...it’s not like they giving insight into the next lottery numbers.

Do you ever feel guilty about money?

Money is one of those things that is so powerful that I don’t think anyone can really get a grip on it.  We could talk about the macroeconomic scale where money influences the course of history, politics, and culture more than any other force on Earth.  Or we could talk in a more local setting, where you relative social worth (in the eyes of many people) is tied to a) how much money you make, b) how much money you have, or c) how you much money you present yourself as having.

I feel guilty or queasy about money when I have to deal my lack of it or asking for it.  Seemingly every month during bill time, I have a minor ulcer of worry as I see the funds from my bank account (which look like a nice safety net) dwindle away as I meet my obligations to creditors and utilities.  I worry about catastrophe, about not having enough to make the next round of bill payments, or, even worse, not having enough money when I get past the working age.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t live paycheck to paycheck in reality, only in emotion.  I have enough socked away for rainy days or gray-haired retirement, but that flux of money still takes on the rollercoaster plunge of stomach discomfort.  And I don’t seem to have any remedy to stop it.

Even when I make more money, through a raise or a tax rebate or whatever, I maintain that level of guilt and agony.  In fact, the act of getting to that point of making more money is just as horrible.  I recently asked for and received a raise and some financial relieve from my employer.  Yet, it was not equitable based on the policies of the company or the agreements we had made.  Now, to my employer’s credit, he has been making things right piece by piece.  Yet, every time I broach the subject of “this is what’s fair” or “we talked about this amount” I feel the sharp tug of guilt and anger.  I just don’t feel like I should be asking for this, whether I deserve it or not.

Maybe this is something that will get easier as I move up the career ladder and my financial rewards are more regimented or in the hands of a broader group of people instead of a single boss.  Maybe I will be able to divorce my wayward and unpredictable emotions from my stalwart and well-honed objective look at what is right and wrong.  Maybe.

By the way, can I borrow a twenty?  On second thought, lending and borrowing money is even worse than asking for it...