Everything we experience has an effect on us. What do you choose?

I've watched two things today that affected me profoundly and brought me to shaking tears. One was a movie, the other a you-tube video. One was a terrifying trip into the darkest parts of society, and the other was a 5 minute message from the future.

Right now, walking away from The Purge, I still feel sick to the stomach, trembling and crying at the violence of it. The movie was fine - but knowing the reality behind it is what scares me. That if it were to be a part of our reality, human nature would assert itself and we would fall to evil.

Watching Life vs Entropy earlier today, I felt my heart swell with what we could achieve. So I offer it up in the hopes that the good in us can drown the evil. We may be creatures born of darkness and violence, but we can make a choice. We can choose to fall to the dark, or we can rise above to the light, accepting who we are and working to change it. Let there be light.

Beating 'Second-Best Syndrome'

You know that feeling where you're prepared and confident, walking into a job you know you will be perfect for, and you go through the interview, make what you think is a great connection and walk away thinking it's a done deal? It's a pretty familiar feeling for me now. I have plenty of natural talent and experience, I'm excellent at what I do, and I have the sort of personality that seems to fit well with most team environments.

On the flip side, the feeling that I am most familiar with from that point in my job search is disappointment. When I don't hear by the pre-agreed time, I call to check up on the progress, and this what the answer I receive boils down to; "Unfortunately, we've gone with someone with more specific experience than you."

Sometimes I want to rail and shout and scream that just because I haven't worked in their industry doesn't mean anything. I know my own value, and I know that I would be perfect. Why can't you give me a chance to prove myself?

After that I'm tempted to get despondent about my abilities. What am I doing wrong that you would hire someone else, even with that little bit more experience? Is it because I'm support and not sales? Is it because I want to give instead of receive? Is it that I don't sell myself well enough?

Finally, I call up my 'sour-grapes' attitude, telling myself that if they couldn't see my value then they didn't deserve me. Best of luck to them, they missed out on someone who would have swept them off their feet with efficiency and competency.

After a lot of soul-searching, I realized the truth. It's not about me at all. Duh, you might be saying... And you'd be right. Sometimes, there are just other people out there who are better in one way or another. And since they're applying for the same jobs that I am, it makes sense that I'd miss out. It's not that I'm doing something wrong. It's not even luck. It's just part of the job-search.

So I'm picking myself up and dusting myself off. It's time to pull up my big girl socks and keep going. It's not over until it's over, and failure is not final until we admit defeat. It's time to reconnect with my internal optimist to make my career dreams come true. Having said that, it is definitely time to find other avenues to my dream career - rather than applying through job-sites and recruiters.

So I'm exploring all of my options, evaluating my key skills, my passions and what I'm looking for. My Hedgehog Plan is coming together slowly, and while creating my (extensive and super-detailed) Sumry page, I am discovering exactly what my strengths are and what makes me unique and eminently hire-able.

In summary: In order to beat 'Second-Best Syndrome', I pledge to follow and clarify my dream until it becomes a burning desire, and persist through all obstacles until I achieve my clearly defined goals.

Scents of a dying industry

A rich and exotic scent drifts out of a doorway, carrying with it hints of the warmth of jungles and bustling cities, and conjuring up images of mouth-watering curries. This is what I smell almost every day, as I pass the little Indian corner store on my way to the train station.

We’re a small suburb, and though it’s nice, people aren’t queuing up to buy spices. Over the last year, there has been a trend of small stores in our area closing due to lack of business. The food stores have held on up to this point, but as our expenses go up, we spend less, just trying to make ends meet, and slowly these stores can’t break even.

More and more, the cheapest prices are in the big grocery stores, who can afford to make price cuts, and soon enough, unless they’re lucky enough to buy into a business that has outside backing, such as food store franchises like 7 Eleven and IGA, these little corner stores will go the way of the dinosaur.

And what a shame that will be. In a world where value and convenience are at our fingertips, with nothing more than a click of a button or a swipe of a card away, where do we go for that real interaction that used to be a part of every small store? Some of my best experiences of customer service have been in corner stores. Where they greet you by name and know your usual orders as soon as they see you.

I read an article recently that suggested that the experience of shopping could be enhanced by personalised service based on data collection – what you buy, where, when and how. It immediately conjured images in my head of robot servers in a future supermarket who greet us by name and comment on our food choices. “Good morning Bob, I see the diet’s not going so well today.” “Good afternoon Sally, I see you’re having a party for Billy’s 5^th birthday today. Would you like to buy some balloons with that?”

Which is great. As long as there’s also a centre where you can visit for a real human interaction.  Come to think of it, isn’t that what we have psychologists for nowadays? I can’t interact on a human level with my friends because I only ever see them through my technology, so I’m stressed and unhappy and need to pay someone to listen to me for an hour to compensate.

There are a lot of good things that come with a growing economy and developing technology, but we seem to be leaving the old world behind. And in the years to come, when I look back and wonder what happened to the human race, I will remember the whiff of spice from the now-extinct corner store, and think of the welcoming smile of the girl behind the counter.

On creativity and old dreams

A cute puppy just for you...

I've been going through the writing I did at the end of last year as writing exercises. The exercise was to wake up early and write for half an hour. I thought I'd post an extract of one of my better entries. It’s a little bit loopy - the early mornings didn't agree with me - but there are a few ideas I thought were interesting.

2/12/2013

Creativity is a strange idea. Who can tell what fathomless ideas will spring fully formed from our minds like we are giving birth to the collective’s child, or what idea we will drag kicking and screaming into the world and bully into a semblance of creativity. There are so many expressions and various turns of phrase that will allow us to reach across the gap between people and shove our ideas down their throats, but who knows which are the right ones? What do we do when we can’t express ourselves and the block is marrow-deep, with no end in sight?

I had a dream last night that I found fascinating. The elusive tendrils of my dream are fragmenting like mist in the sunlight, but I remember thinking - while I was experiencing the dream - that it would be fascinating to write about, as it was a shocking and tragic event. I also remember thinking that it was a good opportunity to remember that writing requires depth and … What’s the word. Despair? No – more like adversity. We need to deal with ideas bigger than ourselves and overcome the tragedy to come out triumphant. Every good story that I’ve gotten drawn into has been vivid and tragic. Bad things happen to the characters, and they grow stronger from the events, overcoming the adversities.

I feel that my mind is trying to help me now, with the vivid and chaotic morass of dreams in my head, but I have trouble recalling these dreams when I wake up. I aim to remember these in greater detail as I continue my project, so we will see what changes, and how I go from here. The dream this morning was enough to wake me into a panic attack, but the dream itself was not that scary. It was tragic, like a car crash might be, but I have already forgotten the details, after swearing to myself that I would remember. It was one of those dreams where you think you’re awake, and that it’s real, until you finally wake up and breathe a sigh of relief that it’s all over and that you’re still here and safe.

On Solar Roadways

I'd just like to bring something to your attention - in case you haven't already heard of it. I've only just discovered this website through social media, and I'm so impressed that I want to share it with as many people as I can reach. Please, please please don't just dismiss this. I believe with all my heart that this project can make a huge impact on our world.

It's a project called Solar Roadways - the website can probably explain it better than I can, but I'll give you a brief summary. Basically, they are solar panels with in-built processors and LED lights covered by a super-strong glass in a tile that can be laid on the road. It's a US invention, and they're trying to raise funding for the next phase of development. They've already done tests of all sorts on them to see how well they work, and they've passed all test with flying colours.

I really think this could revolutionize the way our world works. On the website, they talk about how these panels, if laid over the whole road system of the US, could produce 3 times the current power demands of the country. Imagine what we could do with that. The road signalling systems could potentially reduce accidents on the road by making the road lines easier to see. The LEDs that are part of the roads allow the possibility of turning the road into a sign - imagine driving along the road to work and you see a message on the road that warns you of an accident up ahead and directs you to a detour - reducing traffic and congestion. And because it's all linked, you could immediately see when there was an issue with a section of road and dispatch a team to simply replace the plates - no more massive roadworks. The road system could also act as a delivery system for electricity, internet (via fiber-optic cables), even provide coverage for mobile networks. We could do away with telegraph poles and city cell phone towers, and make our planet prettier. It could eventually reduce fossil fuel consumption by powering electric cars on the go. This could be the next big thing since the mobile phone.

It could be a solution to most of the ills facing the developed world. It could solve environment issues like carbon emissions, global warming, as well as provide power, better internet service, better phone coverage, better road surfaces, better road safety, and probably even help economies by creating a whole new infrastructure. I've never seen anything that could make such a huge impact on our world. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to have a project the whole community could get behind? We could be on the forefront of the next stage of a world phenomenon.

Male vs Female?

A friend of mine shared this on Facebook, and after I read it, I just had to say something. This is something that has been brewing for a long while, and after certain recent events, I'm starting to see that it's not just me that feels this way. Our society needs to be taught to think correctly. And sometimes I have days where I can't see how we can change these things - I feel like we need to wipe the slate and start afresh with a whole new community. And other days, I feel like all we need is a push. All we need is enough voices trying to change the way we think. These changes are slowly happening, like the sun peeking over the horizon. All we need to do now is keep pushing, keep the movement going, and maybe one day, we can live in a society where we are all equals, regardless of gender or race or earnings.

It's a nice thought, and one I'm sure I will return to again. Anyway, here is my response to the above picture:

"We raise boys to be strong and protective. We teach them that being vulnerable is only for girls, that they have to be emotionless otherwise they're not a man. We tell them they have to be successful. They have to be the bread-winner, they have to be better than the girls, otherwise they are less.

We teach men shame - close your mouth if you have something bothering you, just suffer in silence. We teach them that they are a danger to girls, that they are the enemy. We make them feel as though by being born male they are committing a crime. And so boys grow up into men who cannot allow themselves to be human, to make mistakes. They grow up to be men who silence themselves. They grow up to be men who cannot say what they truly feel. And they grow up - and this is the worst thing we do to our children - girls and boys alike - they grow up to be adults who turn pretence into an art form.

We have founded our society on this - it abounds in our advertising, in our jobs, in our government, in our schools and in our homes. We are teaching ourselves again and again that we are different - when we are not. Male or female, every person should have the chance to choose for themselves who they want to be."

The Choice... Between Good & Evil

We make a lot of choices and decisions every day. Whether to get up and go to work, what clothes we are going to wear to work, what we’re going to have for breakfast, etc etc. But how many times do we wake up and say “I’m going to be ‘Good’ today.” Or even “Today feels like a day to be ‘Bad’.” What do you think when you walk past a homeless person on the street. Would you ignore them and walk on?

Watching Anakin grow up in the Star Wars movies, I realised that it was a choice that we need to make every day. And the trouble is, it is so much easier to be bad. Doing ‘Good’ is really hard work. Actively doing ‘Bad’ is pretty hard work too, but when we take the easy way out and refuse to make a decision, we are effectively casting our vote towards the bad. Our indifference is enough to tip the scales. Martin Luther King said – “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Albert Einstein also commented on this – “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”

That’s not to say that I think we should all be out there protesting in the rain, trying to end poverty – although I still think it’s a good cause – but I am interested in trying to shift the alignment back towards good. It’s a hard issue to tackle for most people, because 1. There are so many differing definitions of Good and Bad, and 2. It’s too much effort.

All I can say is that my goal (as of a few days ago) is to make the choice for Good a part of my morning routine. It will be a slow start, but I am going to focus on projecting love and compassion and a sincere desire for positive change out into the world. I know how easy it is to say when I’m already in a good mood, and that the test will be when I am in a bad mood, but my aim is to eventually phase out the negative thinking that causes the bad moods.

I’ve had pretty good success so far, managing to calm myself completely before an interview, managing to keep little things that would normally ruin my mood from getting to me, and above all – managing to keep on top of my thinking when I start to circle in negative space. So here’s to keeping our thinking positive and actively choosing Good every day.