Conscious Savings

A habit is a choice made normal.

If you think about your life, past, current and projected future. What would the underlying rhythoms be? Is there a passion of yours that you’ve found and grown? What do you think will become of that expression of your intent?

Are you wondering why XYZ… keeps happening? “Same old same old”, as you decided to settle down and grow up? Have you decided that what you have now is as good as it will get and the need to pursue any further growth is simply too much work?

What is the pattern that has shaped your life? What is the pattern that your life has shaped? How much of that pattern mathes the ideal that you want to live? What do you want to change within it? How about a simple exercise: pull out a pad of paper and/or keyboard and start writing a descriptive paragraph about yourself, the things that are current true and will continue to be so? Doesn’t have to be incredibly long, just a start to your life story, the simplest ideas that have resonance within you.

Did you learn anything? What do you have that you are grateful for? Anything there that will present you an chance to learn? Something that you don’t wish to have influence upon you, how are you going to change that aspect of your life?

If this post seems like a random collection of questions, keep in mind that your brain is excellent and coming up with answers to questions. So if these questions don’t align with where you are then please create your own exercise, and perhaps describe it as a comment below.
What question do you want to ask yourself? Your brain will come up with answers on it’s own when provided with (big) questions.

What are you trying to build?

Where are you’re time and ther resouces going?
Are you building a team? career? brand? portal? dream? nightmare?
For who?

What are you building?
What are you creating right now?
Does this differ from what you want to be building?

What do you want to build?
Is it the very essence of what you are building now?
Why not?
What is stopping you?
Only myself.

Is this what you want to be building?
Are you proud of what you have created?
What will you do with it now?
What are you trying to build?

The opportunity for creation is growing. What is your creation, what do you create for you? Is it in your work, writing, performance, skills, connections with others, or many|some other place(s) entirely? Recently I started creating a web application to help teachers. This is one area I create, others are my own improvement, and helping others to improve their creations, and themselves.

If you are not creating for yourself I highly recommend it. If you don’t know what you want to create start looking in whatever way feels right to you. Most people I have met are creative, not in exactly the same way, individual mixes of skills and interests, allowing for wide ranges of expression. The great age we live in there are probably 10-100+ people talking about something you are interested in that are connected to the web right now. Care to start looking for the conversation? Perhaps start your own? Build a new way for people to have a conversation, in real time, and|or through shared current archives. The distance from you to me, one to many, and many to one is shrinking in many ways. The resistance to be able to find your passion and run with it is only as difficult to verge as you wish to make it.

Got to thinking about this while listening to Charles Leadbeater from a TED conference in 2005 below.

What do you think?

A man was lost while driving through the country. As he tried to reach for the map, he accidentally drove off the road into a ditch. Though he wasn’t injured, his car was stuck deep in the mud. So the man walked to a nearby farm to ask for help.

“Warwick can get you out of that ditch,” said the farmer, pointing to an old mule standing in a field. The man looked at the decrepit old mule and looked at the farmer who just stood there repeating, “Yep, old Warwick can do the job.” The man figured he had nothing to lose. The two men and the mule made their way back to the ditch. The farmer hitched the mule to the car. With a snap of the reins, he shouted,

“Pull, Fred! Pull, Jack! Pull, Ted! Pull, Warwick!” And the mule pulled that car right out of the ditch.

The man was amazed. He thanked the farmer, patted the mule, and asked, “Why did you call out all of those names before you called Warwick?”

The farmer grinned and said, “Old Warwick is just about blind. As long as he believes he’s part of a team, he doesn’t mind pulling.”

I recently noticed a short discussion on taxes, how there are far to many of them, and the common man is paying a growing percentage in relation to total income which is remaining relatively stagnant in comparison to real wages. While those in the upper income brackets have watched their yearly incomes soar to new heights. While I do not judge the circumstances, I do find myself thinking of news from abroad referring to Japanese CEO’s and executives averaging 15x an average workers salary, US CEO’s making 200x median average, and London banker execs threatening to sue if denied multi-billion dollar bonuses while their banks call out a need for “government ” assistance.

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This one strikes a cord that I see as a part of the natural evolution of the industrial model. Luckily we are in the beginning of a shift to an information based economy. Which means that new rules are sprouting up, and wealth does not require the old ones to be created. Still there are vast systems in place with long term momentum behind them that seem to value resources more than life. A method that that brought tremendous advances, primarily through competition.

The only certainty is that the rules are changing, 50 years ago the rules were completely different. 50 years before that the world was completely different. Pointing fingers is a simple method of focusing on poor models rather than imagining better ones. Examples of “taxes” on income, education, and water quality are easy to spot just to name a few. What is not so easy to see is the longterm wide view. This is also a trend that is seems to be changing.

Perhaps an early onset skeptic I have noticed that things are likely to become much worse before they get better. In the long run much happier lives with those able to adapt quickly thriving. In the mean time many are losing the ch[oi|an]ce, often not knowing/learning how.

Personally I feel this is a wonderful time to start and support businesses that resonate with your vision of a better world. Share thoughts and generate greater discussions on ways to improve, individually, culturally, and any other ways that are not in agreement.

So what is your big idea(s)?

Energy is required to change course, fighting momentum that would otherwise continue in it’s present direction. This can be observed in daily life as the effeciency of your fuzzy conscious guiding you through hundreds and thousands of choices using previous patterns. When you attempt to change a habit there is resistance to the change. If the resistance is overcome then the new habit becomes the governing momentum.

Ch[oose|ange] your habits ch[oose|ange] your life, ch[oose|ange] your direction.

To your brain following existing patterns of application requires less effort than trying something new. Imagine the difference between communicating with developed high speed networks, and a messanger carving their a pathway for the first time. This is highly effecient assuming your patterns are approaching desireable directions. The longer you have followed the same pattern the easier it seems to continue it’s application. This applies whether you are headed in a direction you are looking towards, or hiding from.

What is your direction?

Since your fuzzy conscious is just that your direct access is limited. One of the more effective methods I’ve experimented with is singletasking. Rather than change several habits at once, small incremental changes.  Over time these become large changes.  Have a habit that costs you [happiness, peace of mind, time, money, fill in what you value]? That is what this site is about, conscious changes to create value. 

Ch[oose|ange] your direction ch[oose|ange] your life.

We live within a finite world where progress revolves around improved effeciency. Do more with less. Wh[ere|at] can you add to your value account through small savings?