There is much to be said about living overseas or in new areas. For someone who has never traveled, it may seem uncomfortable to leave behind all of the things which you are familiar with and try to adopt new ideas and principles. It is hard for me to imagine that there are people who have never left the city that they were born in. I feel that it is necessary, at least for some time in your life, to leave an area for a lengthy amount of time to gain some perspective.
Some people think that it would be nice to travel, but it isn't necessary. I've heard people tell me that and also say that with the internet, you can get just as much out of staying home and just studying. Having lived in both Asia and Europe for some time, let me tell you that there is nothing better than experiencing these things for yourself, to interact with the culture rather than looking at it.
One of the problems that I have seen in conversing with people is a limited scope. Even when I've been traveling with people, they sometimes expect that people will have the same mannerisms that they have grown up with. This culture shock can be sometimes embarrassing to watch. But there are times when it is nice to see people helping each other.
One time I was traveling to Belgium with a group of guys that I had learned Dutch with. We felt pretty confident with the language in general, but there was still room for a lot of improvement. When we left from Atlanta to Brussels, we were filled with excitement, and having a background in french I was able to interpret the intercom announcement; however, when the dutch intercom came on all of us looked at each other with no idea what was being said. The Flemish dialect was so different that we couldn't catch a single word except "Good day" and that was it. We laughed a little to ourselves and began to relax. After a little while, we heard one of the guys that we studied with trying to talk to the people around him. We kept hearing the word "Vacuum" over and over again and we were trying to figure out what was going on. When we looked over, there was a large group of people helping him with pronunciation and just having a good time.
There are so many things to experience within a culture that you can't get elsewhere. Traveling allows you to expand your vision and re-experience the process of adaptation. This is a real-life lesson which we should all experience and if you have the time, I would recommend taking the opportunity to go just about anywhere. You never know what kind of experiences that you can have.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Friday, April 19, 2013
Languages you speak!
When I was younger, I thought it was fun to learn new languages. I remember that when I was still living in Virginia, my oldest brother taught me the french alphabet and I could recite this even when I entered into the first grade. When I was getting into the fifth grade, I started learning Japanese and eventually I started learning all sorts of languages including Farsi, Hebrew, and Dutch. I could never understand why people have such a hard time learning languages because it has always been something that seems to come naturally to me, but then again, I enjoy doing it.
It seems like one of the problems that people have is the dedication which people have when it comes to learning a new language. People always are asking me how I am able to learn so many languages and keep them straight. The first key is this. LOVE THE LANGUAGE YOU ARE LEARNING! I don't mean just love the language in general, you have to want to learn the language almost more than speaking English. It has to be something that you want to keep up every day for the rest of your life, and believe me, if you don't, you'll lose it.
This is easier said then done. I know people that try month by month to learn a new language and never get past the present tense, which is easy if you are speaking Chinese, but generally you'll want to know more than that. This is because they get discouraged along the way and don't have much incentive. People mention that you need to immerse yourself in the language, but that's not what does it, it's the fact that your mind registers that you need to learn this new language to survive. Sometimes it's not that extreme, in fact, most of the time it's not. Regardless, you need that urgency. It has to be something that you wake up thinking about in order to really learn it.
It seems easy to just talk about, and perhaps you can even feel the desire growing inside you to learn a new language because you have the desire, but how are going to go about learning it? This is normally where people stumble. There are so many ways to go out and learn a language that it can be confusing. Are you going to buy those little books, Rosetta Stone, or some other random method? Most likely you'll run through many of these before you get to one that suits your need.
Let me say this, the first, new language is always the hardest. Learning your mother tongue is easy because it's how you were raised and you didn't really think about it. A new language requires you to adopt a new process of thinking, especially if the grammar and structure is different entirely. This is the main point that people struggle with. You need to realize that it's not English and there isn't a good reason why the language is spoken like that. It might be intuitive, but generally a language will not be intuitive.
So, people ask me my process because it's just easy for me to learn a language. Most commonly, I give the same answer that people should find out their own method, but they don't like this answer. My method starts out with what we do when we're younger. You need things, but you don't know what items are called. So, two ways to start. Learn the verbs, or learn the nouns. Don't worry about the grammar. You'll get so confused by grammatical structures that you'll give up. Simple things like food items is a good place to start because they are things that you see every day. If you can make connections, it will be easier.
To talk about connections for a moment, you need them. It helps you to form a process in your mind for your brain to trace. If you learn a whole bunch of random words, you'll most likely forget a majority of them once you stop studying, unless it stands out for some reason. One of the key things that I do when I'm first starting to learn a language is to find someone who is able to speak the language. This is how I learned Spanish while living in Amsterdam! There are hundreds of people walking around who speak Spanish willing to talk to you just because they're bored. I would ask them how to pronounce something and during these conversations a friendship would develop. This is a great life resource.
After you learn verbs and nouns, start to learn some tenses. Start with the present tense of course, then the past tense for story telling, then the future tense to what your plans are. If you can make the connections with your life, the language will come all the easier. You just need to speak.
Which brings me to the most important parts of learning a language. SPEAK! Nothing bothers me more than when people want to learn and don't speak. Your tongue will never get used to the motion and you'll sound ridiculous. Even if it's to yourself, you need to speak. What I do is I read books in other languages out-loud in order to practice. It's good practice and if you're familiar with the book, it's simple.
That's my advice for learning a language. Once you get comfortable and start finding people who speak the language, it will develop itself.
Why Personal Economics?
Economics can be seen as the study of choices given scarce resources. Every day we have to make choices which govern our lives and sometimes even the lives of others. From economics we can find many different studies, such as Game Theory, Finance, or Behavior. Many people think of economics only in the financial aspects, but they lose out on the other benefits.
We utilize economics every day. In fact, once you start learning economics you see it everywhere. The reason is that you are making choices and you are weighing the benefits which the choice is giving you. Sometimes this is seen as utility, the uncountable product which lives in us all. Some people may be aware of the theory of utilitarianism, and this is basically the essence of the theory. Utility is how be index our choices, but the problem is actually knowing our own index. We may not even be aware of all of the choices available to us, and that is why I argue with my professors. The study of economics is based on rational choices. Besides the initial argument that every one acts irrationally, think a little further and realize that there is a rationality in what we do.
The general argument against irrational behavior can be that of the all-encompassing idea of utility. If love has some impact on your personal utility, then some actions under the "love" category in your mind will yield an influence in your decision making. It is a large, expansive tree of decision making that is nearly impossible to categorize, but we may assume it exists.
Game theory is how we interact with others based on our perceptions of what the other will do. The most basic example available is the prisoner's dilemma which can be found using Google as I do not care to discuss it's whole concept here, but here is a snippet from Principia Cybernetica Web:
Cooperation is usually analysed in game theory by means of a non-zero-sum game called the "Prisoner's Dilemma" (Axelrod, 1984). The two players in the game can choose between two moves, either "cooperate" or "defect". The idea is that each player gains when both cooperate, but if only one of them cooperates, the other one, who defects, will gain more. If both defect, both lose (or gain very little) but not as much as the "cheated" cooperator whose cooperation is not returned. The whole game situation and its different outcomes can be summarized by table 1, where hypothetical "points" are given as an example of how the differences in result might be quantified.
In other words, the whole purpose of what I am trying to do is put my two cents in on choices which are possible which relate to ourselves and why they may be beneficial or harmful to ourselves. Many of my posts so far have been to describe this relationship, and sometimes they are little things which I find interesting. These are chapters in my personal economics.
Is Technology Getting Away From You?
When computers were first available, there was a definite learning curve. This hasn't necessarily gone away as our comfort with the programs we work with limits the scope of our abilities. I've heard dozens of complaints as a SharePoint administrator with people who finally get comfortable with a new system in the program and then have to change. It is these moments when we find that the technology is getting away from us.
Technology is something that is always going to be around as long as there is intelligent life. Sometimes it's not in the general form which we think of as "technology". For some people, new technology is the latest gadgets which have come out for the contemporaneous soul, but for others it's something as simple as a new refrigerator or hand-held tool. Think back to the first use of the back-hoe. This enabled individuals to improve their farming exponentially, but farmers who were resistant found themselves obsolete.
With programming, there is a different dynamic. COBOL is one of the oldest languages and pervades the IT world more than we would think. As an entry-level programmer, you begin to use languages such as C++ or PHP, which to non-programmers doesn't mean a thing, but COBOL gets neglected. COBOL will always be around, but it will soon be a specialist ability which exists only by those perceptible enough to realize its use, just like the back-hoe for farming.
Sometimes it isn't the newest technology which is the most important, and in fact, the newest gadgets are probably based off of the oldest systems, but we shouldn't let technology get away from us moving ahead or falling behind. So how to we do both?
First, don't get discouraged. Each of my classes in college seem to require some new gadget, such as MatLab, Mathematica, or R. Each time there are new scripts, processes and problems which arise and it takes time to learn. The best method is to learn how to explore each programs functionality.
There are thousands of new programs which people have probably never heard of. In an earlier post, I mentioned all of the capabilities of Google that you've probably never looked at on the top of the screen. Many of us are so used to the old system that it hardly phases us, but what abilities are we missing out on?
In terms of the old tricks, new dogs can learn them too. Business professionals thrive on their leadership abilities which they've acquired over the years. The general practices that come with conversation and sometimes the formalities which accompany them. Most of the time it shouldn't be the excel spreadsheets that you try to dazzle people with, but the framework of the project at hand.
There will be programs that become outdated. This is inevitable. Some people relish in the older video games and styles of the past, but in reality, the systems have expanded. We need to be aware of all of the things which are coming so that we are best able to use our talents which we have developed. In order to allow yourself to grow, you need to explore what is out there. You'll find solutions which simplify your life, but it is always smart to remember the basics.
Technology is something that is always going to be around as long as there is intelligent life. Sometimes it's not in the general form which we think of as "technology". For some people, new technology is the latest gadgets which have come out for the contemporaneous soul, but for others it's something as simple as a new refrigerator or hand-held tool. Think back to the first use of the back-hoe. This enabled individuals to improve their farming exponentially, but farmers who were resistant found themselves obsolete.
With programming, there is a different dynamic. COBOL is one of the oldest languages and pervades the IT world more than we would think. As an entry-level programmer, you begin to use languages such as C++ or PHP, which to non-programmers doesn't mean a thing, but COBOL gets neglected. COBOL will always be around, but it will soon be a specialist ability which exists only by those perceptible enough to realize its use, just like the back-hoe for farming.
Sometimes it isn't the newest technology which is the most important, and in fact, the newest gadgets are probably based off of the oldest systems, but we shouldn't let technology get away from us moving ahead or falling behind. So how to we do both?
First, don't get discouraged. Each of my classes in college seem to require some new gadget, such as MatLab, Mathematica, or R. Each time there are new scripts, processes and problems which arise and it takes time to learn. The best method is to learn how to explore each programs functionality.
There are thousands of new programs which people have probably never heard of. In an earlier post, I mentioned all of the capabilities of Google that you've probably never looked at on the top of the screen. Many of us are so used to the old system that it hardly phases us, but what abilities are we missing out on?
In terms of the old tricks, new dogs can learn them too. Business professionals thrive on their leadership abilities which they've acquired over the years. The general practices that come with conversation and sometimes the formalities which accompany them. Most of the time it shouldn't be the excel spreadsheets that you try to dazzle people with, but the framework of the project at hand.
There will be programs that become outdated. This is inevitable. Some people relish in the older video games and styles of the past, but in reality, the systems have expanded. We need to be aware of all of the things which are coming so that we are best able to use our talents which we have developed. In order to allow yourself to grow, you need to explore what is out there. You'll find solutions which simplify your life, but it is always smart to remember the basics.
Your Life and You
Life is an adventure and you don't need someone to tell you that, but sometimes you just need to realize it. The problem that most people are having is that the life that they are leading isn't the life which they expected when they were younger. So what happened exactly along the way to bring you to the point you are?
Let's look at my life. When I was a child, I was fascinated with the Marines and wanted to join the military. This was probably because I was always around military bases and saw the tanks, planes, and ordinances. I remember telling my teachers when they asked what I wanted to be when I grow up that I wanted to be a reconnaissance sniper for the Marines! Some of us have interesting childhoods. So what happened to me? When I was about seventeen I realized that I wanted a family, or at least was going to give it a chance before I decided to join. This meant that I was going to college. So, planning ahead for a job which I might consider if I weren't going to join the Marines, I set off to study Business Administration. Well, my school's program wasn't what I wanted so I changed to Economics and found a love for it. In planning for graduate school, I decided to take more mathematics courses. As fate would have it, I met my wife and got married. Now the plan is to go to graduate school in Mathematics.
What I'm trying to say is that I knew exactly what I was doing when I made the choices. They were rational decisions along the way that brought me to some place that I enjoy. Granted, the difference between a recon sniper in the Marines is a lot different than a mathematician, but that's because we're looking at this the wrong way. You can't look at an alternative future from the future and wonder what happened and why you're where you're at. You have to look at each monumental decision you've made and decide whether it was worth it.
This is easy for someone to admit when they like where they are at. Many people, unfortunately, are not happy with where they've ended up. For some people, it's not so much the decisions that they made, but the decisions which they did not make; and even the decisions that others made for them. When we play auto-pilot in our lives, we have no idea where we are going to end up. This is because we are not playing an active role in our lives, we aren't perceiving the choices, and we are not giving valid input. It then becomes a lottery. There is no trace back to the decisions you've made, but some random selection which occurred which placed you where you are.
Life is the process of letting choices happen to you, it's taking advantage of the opportunities as they come. We breathe opportunities in and out every day. The question is which ones are you holding on to. It isn't some vain phrase to say that you can be whatever you want to be, but it requires you to be aware of your decisions. That is the first step. Become aware. After this, the choices are truly yours.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Jobs, Interviews and Attitudes
One of the things which we deal with most of our lives is filling or finding a job. I've gotten a lot of advice from professionals about what to do when you're looking for a job and I've summarized what they've said. I also include a few examples which have happened to me recently.
When we're looking for a job and when employers are looking to hire a new employee, the perfect fit should be based, not only on job experience, but your personality as well. Whenever you read postings about how to get a job, normally they talk about having a good resume in order to get the interview. Though this is important, it is only a single step that you take in the application process. I find it strange that many people have to go through this process as I've hardly ever had to submit a resume and more generally my employers have only wanted a resume to see what kinds of things I've done in the past. Whenever I've been set on getting a job, I've taken a similar approach my entire life.
My process of looking for work does not entail putting out hundreds of resumes, contrary to what my father wants me to do, but to look specifically at the jobs that I want and study the specific qualifications which are needed to fill the position. A bit of advice, if you don't have the "general" qualifications, it may not be the best idea to apply. There are certain factors which employers demand in order to employ people in a position, though there are others where this is not the case. If I fit the general requirements, such as having a degree in the position, or experience in the field, I'll take the other aspects of the position and begin to study up on the details in order to be ready to fill the position when I get the job.
A few months ago I decided that I wanted a new job in programming. Though I'd only taken a course or two in programming at the time, I thought that it would be beneficial to learn other programming languages. There was a job posting that requested someone who knew HTML, CSS, JavaScript and some others which I didn't know. When the semester got out for the Christmas break, I studied those topics everyday. When I came back to school, I decided that I wasn't going to get a job for the semester and focus on my studies. My loving fiancee saw a job posting that fit my personality and told me to apply. Skeptical, I looked at the job posting and sent a request asking if I could make my own hours if I got the job, and briefly described my abilities in each of the items listed. When I went in to talk to him, I was offerred the job within minutes and started that day all without sending a resume.
Recently, we conducted interviews for a position where I was working and my boss thought it might be beneficial for me to sit-in and ask questions as well. It shocked me what kind of people were trying to get a job in the position which was posted. People with little experience in the field; unkempt appearances; and people who generally seemed to lack the motivation necessary to keep up with the demands which come with the job. When we looked over the resumes, I was astounded at how poorly the resumes were structured.
My bosses were nice and accommodating with the questions, asking the usual questions a student would already know off hand like what they study in school, why they wanted the job, and where they expected to go with their careers. They each had pretty flexible answers which let me step in and ask important questions which I think about when looking for a job.
"What was the last thing that you taught yourself?"
I've never seen people stumble over the questions like that. Many of them had no answer and that they were just focusing on school and didn't have the time to teach themselves. That is definitely not a good answer, even for a student. If you want a job, you have to be ready for the responsibilities and what that says is that you don't have time for much else.
"How did you prepare for the job once you saw the job description?"
Another stumbling block. Many of them said that they hadn't, that they'd prepared their resumes better, or tried to make a joke about getting dressed that morning. They had no background to go off of these questions and left little weight in their presentation when we conversed about the position. When it came time to hire, we found the person that we thought had the most teachable personality rather than the background or experience which we were originally looking for.
Attitude is a wonderful thing and needs to be full of ambition and confidence. You need to study for the position and add insight to the goals which are being set. If you're not able to do that, you have no business applying for that position.
When we're looking for a job and when employers are looking to hire a new employee, the perfect fit should be based, not only on job experience, but your personality as well. Whenever you read postings about how to get a job, normally they talk about having a good resume in order to get the interview. Though this is important, it is only a single step that you take in the application process. I find it strange that many people have to go through this process as I've hardly ever had to submit a resume and more generally my employers have only wanted a resume to see what kinds of things I've done in the past. Whenever I've been set on getting a job, I've taken a similar approach my entire life.
My process of looking for work does not entail putting out hundreds of resumes, contrary to what my father wants me to do, but to look specifically at the jobs that I want and study the specific qualifications which are needed to fill the position. A bit of advice, if you don't have the "general" qualifications, it may not be the best idea to apply. There are certain factors which employers demand in order to employ people in a position, though there are others where this is not the case. If I fit the general requirements, such as having a degree in the position, or experience in the field, I'll take the other aspects of the position and begin to study up on the details in order to be ready to fill the position when I get the job.
A few months ago I decided that I wanted a new job in programming. Though I'd only taken a course or two in programming at the time, I thought that it would be beneficial to learn other programming languages. There was a job posting that requested someone who knew HTML, CSS, JavaScript and some others which I didn't know. When the semester got out for the Christmas break, I studied those topics everyday. When I came back to school, I decided that I wasn't going to get a job for the semester and focus on my studies. My loving fiancee saw a job posting that fit my personality and told me to apply. Skeptical, I looked at the job posting and sent a request asking if I could make my own hours if I got the job, and briefly described my abilities in each of the items listed. When I went in to talk to him, I was offerred the job within minutes and started that day all without sending a resume.
Recently, we conducted interviews for a position where I was working and my boss thought it might be beneficial for me to sit-in and ask questions as well. It shocked me what kind of people were trying to get a job in the position which was posted. People with little experience in the field; unkempt appearances; and people who generally seemed to lack the motivation necessary to keep up with the demands which come with the job. When we looked over the resumes, I was astounded at how poorly the resumes were structured.
My bosses were nice and accommodating with the questions, asking the usual questions a student would already know off hand like what they study in school, why they wanted the job, and where they expected to go with their careers. They each had pretty flexible answers which let me step in and ask important questions which I think about when looking for a job.
"What was the last thing that you taught yourself?"
I've never seen people stumble over the questions like that. Many of them had no answer and that they were just focusing on school and didn't have the time to teach themselves. That is definitely not a good answer, even for a student. If you want a job, you have to be ready for the responsibilities and what that says is that you don't have time for much else.
"How did you prepare for the job once you saw the job description?"
Another stumbling block. Many of them said that they hadn't, that they'd prepared their resumes better, or tried to make a joke about getting dressed that morning. They had no background to go off of these questions and left little weight in their presentation when we conversed about the position. When it came time to hire, we found the person that we thought had the most teachable personality rather than the background or experience which we were originally looking for.
Attitude is a wonderful thing and needs to be full of ambition and confidence. You need to study for the position and add insight to the goals which are being set. If you're not able to do that, you have no business applying for that position.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Is Facebook Working For or Against You?
The worldwide phenomena of facebook and other social networks have created a boost in the traffic which certain sites may experience. Businesses and stores often find that this is a resource which they may use to further their advertisements at a relatively low cost. In general, advertisements on these sites work the same as any other site on the internet. But what is Facebook doing for you?
The average day of facebook use involves hours of wondering whether or not people are viewing your site, whether your content is relevant or adding hundreds of photos online. Besides facebook, twitter and pinterest connect with facebook to create a web of communication which simplifies this process and expands on the abilities which came packaged in facebook years ago. Hours are spent just browsing the sites and pictures which others have posted. This has been one of the biggest commercial networks around where individuals show their products or interests in general at little to no cost.
This is all good, right? Well, for the most part. Did you know that sites collect the information that you browse in order to determine prices for you on their sites? That's right. With every picture that you click, every product you peruse, every moment you spend viewing certain content, you subject yourself to product placement and possibly higher prices. Though this may be a good thing for the avid shopper who delights in the advertisements which are specifically directed at them, you are allowing companies to discriminate against you.
In economics, price discrimination is the method which companies want to use in order to extract higher profits from you. The best way to defend price discrimination is to never allow information to be taken from you. When the companies are unable to identify individuals, they have to resort to other methods for extracting profits, which may render the individual better off in the end. With perfect information about the individual, you may inadvertently be making the wrong choice.
To defend the companies desire to know what consumers are searching for, it is necessary for marketing to know the direction which shoppers are going. Without this information, innovation would slow and development may as well.
In general, it would be hard to expect that large personal loss can come from facebook. To put this into perspective, when we consider the time which goes into facebook or pinterest, may teenage girls spend more time browsing than their parents spend at their jobs, but it's fun for them. In fact, many of the things which we do on facebook generally amuse us at the least. But what are the losses which we experience?
Many of the losses to which I am references aren't those that parents often say, which is normally lack of exercise or loss of communication skills. I believe that the most significant losses are those of creativity. You are disabling the mind from expanding upon self-created ideas and you create a nest of dull thought. Another problem is the pitfall of centering your life upon someone else's. This may detract from self-esteem and actually prevent your self-development. It becomes necessary for us to know how things change and we limit our ability to focus on a single item. Though there are many people in the world who have the ability to multi-task, this is normally applied to instant messenging while using these tools.
In my opinion, I feel that more individual have facebook working against them than for them. This is compounded by the items which I have listed, but there are surely many other items which I have not covered which may change the direction which I have taken. It would be better for people to explore other things outside of facebook then wanton, sarcastic remarks which have little to no relavance on our lives.
The average day of facebook use involves hours of wondering whether or not people are viewing your site, whether your content is relevant or adding hundreds of photos online. Besides facebook, twitter and pinterest connect with facebook to create a web of communication which simplifies this process and expands on the abilities which came packaged in facebook years ago. Hours are spent just browsing the sites and pictures which others have posted. This has been one of the biggest commercial networks around where individuals show their products or interests in general at little to no cost.
Data Collection
This is all good, right? Well, for the most part. Did you know that sites collect the information that you browse in order to determine prices for you on their sites? That's right. With every picture that you click, every product you peruse, every moment you spend viewing certain content, you subject yourself to product placement and possibly higher prices. Though this may be a good thing for the avid shopper who delights in the advertisements which are specifically directed at them, you are allowing companies to discriminate against you.
In economics, price discrimination is the method which companies want to use in order to extract higher profits from you. The best way to defend price discrimination is to never allow information to be taken from you. When the companies are unable to identify individuals, they have to resort to other methods for extracting profits, which may render the individual better off in the end. With perfect information about the individual, you may inadvertently be making the wrong choice.
To defend the companies desire to know what consumers are searching for, it is necessary for marketing to know the direction which shoppers are going. Without this information, innovation would slow and development may as well.
Personal Loss
In general, it would be hard to expect that large personal loss can come from facebook. To put this into perspective, when we consider the time which goes into facebook or pinterest, may teenage girls spend more time browsing than their parents spend at their jobs, but it's fun for them. In fact, many of the things which we do on facebook generally amuse us at the least. But what are the losses which we experience?
Many of the losses to which I am references aren't those that parents often say, which is normally lack of exercise or loss of communication skills. I believe that the most significant losses are those of creativity. You are disabling the mind from expanding upon self-created ideas and you create a nest of dull thought. Another problem is the pitfall of centering your life upon someone else's. This may detract from self-esteem and actually prevent your self-development. It becomes necessary for us to know how things change and we limit our ability to focus on a single item. Though there are many people in the world who have the ability to multi-task, this is normally applied to instant messenging while using these tools.
In my opinion, I feel that more individual have facebook working against them than for them. This is compounded by the items which I have listed, but there are surely many other items which I have not covered which may change the direction which I have taken. It would be better for people to explore other things outside of facebook then wanton, sarcastic remarks which have little to no relavance on our lives.
How Is Ignorance and Arrogance in Media Influencing Us?
Besides the general misconception about which is which, we are generally aware of people around us who are arrogant and which of those are ignorant. These descriptions are normally aided with our own perspectives and prejudices which we keep embedded in our own minds. These thoughts are subconscious and manifest themselves in moments of weakness for the judgments of others.
To make a general statement, it is not good to be either arrogant or ignorant and it is surely not beneficial to be both. There is a problem growing in our society that finds humor in ignorance or creates a desire to foster arrogance. Unfortunately, many people, including children, do not see the distinction between a satirical comedy and a real-life situation. The principle of communication is taking the biggest toll. When communication breaks down, we are subjecting ourselves to the biggest concern in history, stagnation.
Stagnation, in my opinion, is the rot and corrosion which contaminates the personality. Just like a lake with no source, the water becomes stale. In order to improve the condition of the whole, there needs to be both an input and an output. The whole principle of business is to communicate effective ideas and collaborate to create new solutions. Teamwork is centered around leadership and mutual cooperation. When we disable this ability, when people start to believe that it is both appropriate and okay to be arrogant or ignorant, we begin the cycle of remediation. This is something which I have seen throughout my life.
This cycle is the process in which a mental framework struggles to correct itself. We develop habits and tendencies which are not consistent with the way we wish to live. We struggle to change, but because of our situation, we have a hard time adjusting. This is easy if we are able to identify that we have a problem and very simply can follow the seven steps for just about anything.
But what about arrogance? What about ignorance? I have met so many people who say,"It's just who I am." This is just an excuse for avoiding the true facts. "Arrogant" is simply what you have just said you are! Arrogant means having or revealing your own self-important, or, in other words, that you are a completed, finished product and cannot grow anymore. When you refuse to accept something as needing adjustment or revision, you refuse to progress towards a higher standard. The same with ignorance when you say,"I don't need to learn that." or "That's not for people like me." you are exemplifying exactly the mentality which will never progress.
I find that people get into a rut in their lives because they have stopped looking within themselves and have started watching the world. People complain about losing their jobs, and some people have the right to, but others are simply obsolete. They have stagnated for so long that their abilities can be easily replaced, or the amount of money which they cost the company isn't worth the employee. The generic complaint is,"People are more important than money." doesn't work at this point because you are complaining about losing the income that you need which you are demanding from someone else under the assumption that money isn't important.
My advice to you if you are reading this: Look inside yourself everyday, find a stone that needs to be polished, sharpen your senses, and if need be, take some time to yourself and learn something new. Both of these attributes can be eliminated with attainment of real, factual understanding and knowledge. Both are key in personal development and opening new, broader horizons.
To make a general statement, it is not good to be either arrogant or ignorant and it is surely not beneficial to be both. There is a problem growing in our society that finds humor in ignorance or creates a desire to foster arrogance. Unfortunately, many people, including children, do not see the distinction between a satirical comedy and a real-life situation. The principle of communication is taking the biggest toll. When communication breaks down, we are subjecting ourselves to the biggest concern in history, stagnation.
Stagnation, in my opinion, is the rot and corrosion which contaminates the personality. Just like a lake with no source, the water becomes stale. In order to improve the condition of the whole, there needs to be both an input and an output. The whole principle of business is to communicate effective ideas and collaborate to create new solutions. Teamwork is centered around leadership and mutual cooperation. When we disable this ability, when people start to believe that it is both appropriate and okay to be arrogant or ignorant, we begin the cycle of remediation. This is something which I have seen throughout my life.
This cycle is the process in which a mental framework struggles to correct itself. We develop habits and tendencies which are not consistent with the way we wish to live. We struggle to change, but because of our situation, we have a hard time adjusting. This is easy if we are able to identify that we have a problem and very simply can follow the seven steps for just about anything.
But what about arrogance? What about ignorance? I have met so many people who say,"It's just who I am." This is just an excuse for avoiding the true facts. "Arrogant" is simply what you have just said you are! Arrogant means having or revealing your own self-important, or, in other words, that you are a completed, finished product and cannot grow anymore. When you refuse to accept something as needing adjustment or revision, you refuse to progress towards a higher standard. The same with ignorance when you say,"I don't need to learn that." or "That's not for people like me." you are exemplifying exactly the mentality which will never progress.
I find that people get into a rut in their lives because they have stopped looking within themselves and have started watching the world. People complain about losing their jobs, and some people have the right to, but others are simply obsolete. They have stagnated for so long that their abilities can be easily replaced, or the amount of money which they cost the company isn't worth the employee. The generic complaint is,"People are more important than money." doesn't work at this point because you are complaining about losing the income that you need which you are demanding from someone else under the assumption that money isn't important.
My advice to you if you are reading this: Look inside yourself everyday, find a stone that needs to be polished, sharpen your senses, and if need be, take some time to yourself and learn something new. Both of these attributes can be eliminated with attainment of real, factual understanding and knowledge. Both are key in personal development and opening new, broader horizons.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Are the Odds Deceiving?
We're all aware of people who place their favor in the odds and those who attempt to be more realistic, but is there a distinction of what we should be giving people when considering the odds. Much of the scrutiny comes from previous experience when considering the options placed before us.
What does 50/50 mean? Unfortunately, for some people this means that there are two choices so the odds of you picking one is 50%. Though this should be true in a genuinely random choice system where the two choices are invariable in character. This means that if you were to draw from a hat, it would be impossible to tell from mere physical characteristics you were picking. Optimistic odds which are overly generalized may leave us with a problem in life. Many people look at gambling with a mindset of chance and many of these people are prone to lose all their money; but, there's more. People I've met assume that odds increase the more that the game is played, but is this true? Well, bluntly, no. Many games are not dynamic in the least, or they don't change their properties over time. If you have a 25% of winning this time and you don't win, then your odds of winning next time are, you guessed it, 25%.
In order to make sound judgment, you have to know how the game is played. In general, people are VERY liberal with the odds that they give. Whether or not some comes or doesn't come to a party is, in their terms, 50/50. We have almost come to the point where it has almost become a phrase that we use to just affirm that we are aware that someone has the choice of coming or not. But are the odds really 50/50? Probably not.
There are so many things at our disposal which we could use to actually realise the probabilities in the world around us. Many of us are so quick with judgment that it spoils our abilities at predicting the changes in our lives and it limits our true potential.
By allowing ourselves to process the likelihood of events, we can more readily govern our lives. This allows us to consider the risk of any action which we might make in our lives. To do this, we just have to open our senses and our intellect in truely considering the options. One of the problems which we have is that we limit ourselves to situations in which there are only two options.
Let's look at the situation before about the party. If we are at a party and we are considering if someone is coming to a party, from our perspective, it may seem be 50/50 that someone will or will not come to the party because there are only two options, but what are the choices which affect the individual? First, we consider the odds of the event occurring. Does the person have a car? Is the person close by? These types of questions affect the odds of coming to the party in general. But what if there are more options than the party? Then the odds diminish rather quickly, even if the party is the favorable choice.
One of the best things that we can use is experience which we've gained throughout our lives. From here, the probabilities which we observe should change as we note certain events. We shouldn't just keep on saying that the odds are constant.
In other words, by letting ourselves explore more possibilities, we are more able to make sound decisions which may, in fact, change the game for many of us. The stock market is a complex system, it is not just up and downs unless you are looking with blinders on. Open your eyes to what is really going on.
What does 50/50 mean? Unfortunately, for some people this means that there are two choices so the odds of you picking one is 50%. Though this should be true in a genuinely random choice system where the two choices are invariable in character. This means that if you were to draw from a hat, it would be impossible to tell from mere physical characteristics you were picking. Optimistic odds which are overly generalized may leave us with a problem in life. Many people look at gambling with a mindset of chance and many of these people are prone to lose all their money; but, there's more. People I've met assume that odds increase the more that the game is played, but is this true? Well, bluntly, no. Many games are not dynamic in the least, or they don't change their properties over time. If you have a 25% of winning this time and you don't win, then your odds of winning next time are, you guessed it, 25%.
In order to make sound judgment, you have to know how the game is played. In general, people are VERY liberal with the odds that they give. Whether or not some comes or doesn't come to a party is, in their terms, 50/50. We have almost come to the point where it has almost become a phrase that we use to just affirm that we are aware that someone has the choice of coming or not. But are the odds really 50/50? Probably not.
There are so many things at our disposal which we could use to actually realise the probabilities in the world around us. Many of us are so quick with judgment that it spoils our abilities at predicting the changes in our lives and it limits our true potential.
By allowing ourselves to process the likelihood of events, we can more readily govern our lives. This allows us to consider the risk of any action which we might make in our lives. To do this, we just have to open our senses and our intellect in truely considering the options. One of the problems which we have is that we limit ourselves to situations in which there are only two options.
Let's look at the situation before about the party. If we are at a party and we are considering if someone is coming to a party, from our perspective, it may seem be 50/50 that someone will or will not come to the party because there are only two options, but what are the choices which affect the individual? First, we consider the odds of the event occurring. Does the person have a car? Is the person close by? These types of questions affect the odds of coming to the party in general. But what if there are more options than the party? Then the odds diminish rather quickly, even if the party is the favorable choice.
One of the best things that we can use is experience which we've gained throughout our lives. From here, the probabilities which we observe should change as we note certain events. We shouldn't just keep on saying that the odds are constant.
In other words, by letting ourselves explore more possibilities, we are more able to make sound decisions which may, in fact, change the game for many of us. The stock market is a complex system, it is not just up and downs unless you are looking with blinders on. Open your eyes to what is really going on.
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