Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Is your phone just a phone?

My phone is a lot more than just a phone. It's essentially my personal computer when I'm out and about. It's there to keep me connected with the things that are important to me.

Anything I might need to know, I can just Google it. Whether it's in a cafe, on the bus (not that I ever take the bus these days), walking by a lake, or driving through mountain ranges in my car. Whatever I need to know - in the moment - is there for me.

It provides reminders to important events that I've set. It allows me to communicate with people - not just by texting them, but also with instant messaging (IM) like Google Talk, etc. I can keep up with emails.

Photography is an important element of my life, and my phone also takes photos. With an app I use called Snapseed, it processes the photos to look just amazing. With an 8MP camera and fancy (but easy) processing, the photos can look really impressive. (Like the photo at the beginning of this post that I took of the sunset last night).

I keep up to date with what my friends are doing on Facebook, or what certain people or organisations are doing or sharing on Google+. They provide interesting bits of information to help flesh out my day, and sometimes it's interesting enough to share out with my own followers on those same sites.

I also use my phone occasionally to write blog posts, or keep up with various blogs I follow in Google Reader. And I use the Kindle app to read books that I've purchased from Amazon.

All these things are done on my phone. Only a few years ago there's no way I could have done them all on anything other than my desktop computer or laptop, so it's pretty amazing how far technology has come.

My phone's a Samsung Galaxy Note I. I'll be upgrading soon to the Note II, and looking forward to more of the same, but faster.

I'm not sure what the future will bring. Smartphones are our portable computers, and I'm not sure they can get smaller while still being practical. Google is working on Google Glasses, which will provide 'augmented reality' holographically projected in front of your eyes. This will apparently allow you to receive a lot of the information you get on your phone, but projected in front of your eyes instead. Voice controls will allow interactivity. Instead of texting, I can imagine we'll be using it for voice and video calls.

I'm looking forward to the future. I always have, it just keeps on getting more and more interesting.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Sleepwalkers

Sleepwalkers are everywhere. They're all around us. You might even be one of them! Sleepwalkers are those people who are just sleepwalking through life, on autopilot, being reactive instead of proactive. Some people call them zombies.

They're victims of their life, at the mercy of its ebbs and flows. They don't take control, they just exist. They sit in front of TVs and waste their life away. They get caught up in drama in their life, or they create drama, just so they can feel alive.

As I sit here in this shopping centre, writing this article, I see them walking past. You can do it too, if you sat down somewhere and took the time.

How many of them do you think are drifting through their life and not even aware of their own potential? How many of them don't even realise there's more to this life than what they're experiencing right now?

Many of them are too afraid to step outside of their routine, or outside of their comfort zones. They prefer to stick with the familiar than explore the unfamiliar.

Over Christmas and the New Year, I drove 5,000 km in two weeks. I visited and experienced amazing locations and activities across a large area of Australia that most people never will. I drove on beautiful beaches stretching over the horizon, and drove up and down 100 foot sand dunes. I experienced parts of this beautiful country that I've never been to before, but always wanted to.

Returning to civilisation, I look at the cars on the road, and the people all around me, and I know that most people will never get out of their home city, let alone their state. I feel like I've seen more of this world that most of them never will.

I know that's true for anything, and I know that there are still many people in this world who see and experience things that I never will.

The unfamiliar is attractive to me. I seek it out. I'm aware that there is more in this world than what we take for granted, and I want to get our there and find it and experience it.

As a result, I don't feel like a sleepwalker. I feel like I'm awake. Even though I'm doing a lot of the things most people are, I'm aware of myself in this world, and I'm seeking a lot more than to just keep on existing with no change.

I'm seeking to explore this world, but to explore my inner world as well. I'm wanting to open my eyes and see much more than what I currently do.

I feel like I take control of my life in a way that improves it, and that's what's important to me, and what makes me think in not a sleepwalker.

Do you know any sleepwalkers in your life? Or do you think you're one of them

Friday, January 25, 2013

I'm writing for me, not you

This time last year I was writing an article a day, and kept it up for 4 months before I let it fade away. But I was writing on one topic, and targeting a specific audience. I couldn't sustain it.

This year, I'm doing it again. I seem to be writing an article a day - or more - and I'm writing on multiple topics, and I'm writing for me.

I'm not targeting a specific audience, I'm just writing what I feel like writing, when I feel like writing it.

Right now I'm in the toilet. Hey, some people read books, I just happen to be writing.

Don't worry, I'll wash my hands.

This feels a lot more comfortable for me. The writing, I mean.

I've got freedom to write what I want, rather than what I think my audience wants.

I'm sure that, over time, I'll get an audience here, interested in some of the topics I'll be writing about. But this time around, it's not my intention to build an audience, but to just write.

I'm enjoying this.

What about you? Is there anything you're doing in your life that's being done for other people rather than for yourself?

You can't choose your family

There's this social requirement that says no matter how bad family members are, you need to remain connected with them.

I call bullshit on that.

What about those family members who are completely toxic to your life? Who do their best to drag you down, demotivate you, destroy your self esteem, crush your identity, abuse you or assault you? Should you remain connected with them?

I think not.

We're always told you can choose your friends and your partners, but you can't choose your family, and that "Some things you can choose, but others you can't, so you have to try to make the best of what you have where you have no choice."

Rubbish. You've always got a choice to disconnect from people that are taking from you without giving back to you, who are completely toxic to your life.

You don't owe them anything, no matter what they try to tell you, so you can't let any feelings of obligation keep you connected with family members that aren't helping you in your life, but are instead demanding you help them.

Let them go. Move on.

I'm in the process of letting go of my family.

My brothers have been on unemployment benefits since they were both 15 years old. They're in their 40's now. The only time they talk to me is when they want to ask for money. Then they're silent until the next time they want some money. The only reason they talk to our mum is to ask her for money.

My mum is racist. She thinks anyone who's not white should be shot with extreme prejudice. She's told me that if I marry an Asian woman that she'll disown me.

You know what? Let me make it easy for you and I'll disown you first.

You've given me nothing but grief throughout my life, with the constant abuse from as early as I can remember. You've engaged in continuous derogatory and hateful comments about your own children for as long as they've been alive. Your determination to tell everyone that will talk to you that you wish you drowned all your kids when they were born, then you wouldn't have had the shitty life that you've had is disgusting. Your attempt to create an illusion of blissful romance between you and dad after he died, when all you did was nag and berate him and wish you never got married in the first place, is evidence of your inability to cope with your own guilt. I can imagine that to him, his dying was a blissful release from being married to you.

I'm over it. I'm over these social obligations that say no matter what, we should stay connected with our families. There's nothing that makes me think remaining connected with my family is a worthwhile obligation for me.

Now that I've had my 'dummy spit', what about you? Do you have any family members that you think you'd be better off disconnecting from, or disowning? Do you think you need to stay connected to people that are bad for you, simply because you're related?

Maybe it's time to change your mind about that.

Are you an introvert?

I'm an introvert. I've been introverted for as long as I can remember, always preferring solitary activities, or activities with select friends or small groups. I never had any interest in attending parties, but often did because I was invited and it was 'the normal thing to do'.

But I hated it, found them boring and a complete waste of time.

After discovering only six years ago that I was an introvert and what that actually meant, I embraced the 'ownership' of it. I decided to be an introvert and be happy with it, rather than try to fit in with extroverted 'social obligations'.

I stopped going to parties filled with people I don't know, and just went to the smaller dinner parties where I knew most people there. I enjoyed time to myself, doing my own things, without feeling guilty about it because extroverts were telling me it wasn't 'normal'.

I also started breaking away from the extroverts in my life, choosing to avoid them instead of hanging around them. At least those who just made me uncomfortable with their judgements about what was and wasn't normal.

We're all people with individual and unique personality types. I don't need to spend time with people who can't accept me for who I am, whatever my personality type might be.

Of course, I'd understand if they thought my psychopathic, sociopathic desires to murder people just wasn't normal, but since I don't talk out loud about those, they've really got nothing to complain about.

I know someone who's an extrovert. One of the recent visits to see her (with my partner coming along as well) ended up making me very, very angry. As a highly judgemental extrovert, she thinks anyone that doesn't want to be with people all the time has something terribly wrong with them. She urged me and my partner to seek medical help so that we could become normal and want to spend time with other people instead of with ourselves.

The look of sadness on her face as she looked at us, shaking her head in disbelief that anyone could possibly not want to be with other people all the time was really infuriating. I had to leave before I said something I might regret.

Many extroverts think that they're normal, and anyone who's not like them is abnormal, ill, deranged, unstable. They encourage counselling or medical assistance to help you get over your introversion and become more normal.

Honestly, I'm over it. Sure, I understand that their judgements make them that way, but I don't need to be around someone that considers me deserving of medical attention so that I can be more like what they prefer me to be. I don't need them in my life at all.

It's a much better activity to spend time with people who appreciate your unique individuality, than to spend it with people who want to change you to be more like what they think is normal.

People who accept you and encourage your individuality without needing to change you are the people you need more of in your life.

Do you have anyone in your life that doesn't accept you for who you are? Do you really need their disapproval for your life to continue?

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

You're where you are for a reason

Everything that you've done in your past has led you to where you are right now.

All the choices you've made have resulted in the experiences you've had.

As an adult, there's nothing that has happened to you that hasn't ultimately been a result of the choices you've made about where you are, where you're going, or what you decide to do.

When you look at everything that's happened in your life, you can see you have ultimately chosen everything that has happened to you.

This is a very powerful understanding!

You can make choices in your future that will allow you to take complete and absolute control of your life, in every way.

So why don't you start now?

What would you like to do now, that you're hesitant to do? Let's discuss it in the comments below.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Experiment to find what works

I know that I want to write. I've been writing for a long time now. I've experimented with different ways of writing over the years, and to be honest with you, I'm still experimenting. I'm still trying to find what works for me.

The trail of blogs I've left in my wake over the years is evidence of that!

When you're trying to work out what you really want to do, and even how you want to do it, you might have to experiment. You might have to explore different methods and techniques and styles until you find the method or technique or style that works for you.

There are many who are lucky enough to just know what works for them, and they try something the first time and it works for them beyond their wildest dreams! And then there's the rest of us that are still trying to find it.

How will I know when I've found it?

For me, when I get a level of engagement from people who read my words that tells me I'm hitting the mark with them, then I'll know. When people tell me they want more of my writing, I'll know I've found a style that works for me.

If there's something you really want to do, that you're passionate about, then just do it. Keep on doing it. Don't let anyone stop you. Don't even let yourself stop you!

If you want to achieve a level of success with it, you'll just need to keep doing it. Try different ways of doing it, and don't be afraid to change the way you're doing it if you're not getting the results you want from it.

Too many people get stuck with just one way of doing things, and they keep doing that until they get burnt out and they leave it behind. It didn't work, why bother continuing with it?
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein

If you want a different result with what you're doing, then do it a different way.

And remember - the only way you'll fail is if you give up and quit.  Keep doing what you enjoy doing, and eventually you'll find the way that gives you the results you're looking for.