Buying new running shoes doesn’t make you a runner, and buying $200 running shoes definitely doesn’t make you a great runner: Spend on who you are, not who you want to be.

Happiness is just 13 easy steps away.

I am really fast in offering unsolicited advice, lightning-quick in forming a critical opinion, and speedy to point out when people are wrong. In other words, I’m an older brother to 7 siblings.

For the last 25 years or so, I’ve been rushing to judgment, and making decisions on the fly. When there’s a crowd of 7 kids to be controlled, it doesn’t matter what the call is, as long as it’s made fast and enacted even faster. Fight broke out over the remote? Take it away, and pick what you want to watch. Chores being done poorly? Explain that they can do it your way, or their way and then your way. Everyone wants ice cream? Pick the best “sad puppy eyes”-looking one to lobby the parents.

Not being under the same roof any more, the power of my influence has diminished a bit. Thankfully, though, everyone’s plugged in. I can monitor Facebook profiles, send emails, call or text. School/work/relationship advice is hard to argue against, when it comes with supporting links. Approval or correction is now carried out via comments. No one is too far or too busy to get a piece of my mind.

I can only imagine how much more effective my brothering could become with HTC EVO 4G. 4G-speed, HTC’s Sense UI, front-facing camera?! Finally, I won’t have to rely on emoticons to convey my disapproval of whatever silly thing they decided to do now!

10 things a child should see his/her father do, via Art of Manliness.  Whether or not you grew up with a father who demonstrated these actions/habits, it’s clear they play an important role in how you view him.

Another great list, by Flexo of Consumerism Commentary, talks about the 10 things that children (and adults) need to understand about money.

How would you go about removing the air out of this jar, if you wanted to change its ‘natural’ state?  Skipping right past the low-tech solution of using an actual scoop, you could place a high-powered fan right above the jar, turn it on and hope that the stream of forced air takes some of the jar air with it.  And this works, somewhat: the air pressure in the jar will be reduced, there will be less actual air in there.  Trouble is, though, not all of the air is removed and the air will go back to its original volume as soon as the fan is shut off.

People tend to do this, when they get fed up with their natural state: they stir up a storm of complaints, possible solutions, and grandiose promises.  Phrases like “Enough!”, “Starting today, things are going to change around here!”, and “From now on, no more [...]!” are used.  But what is the end result?  Just a lot of hot air moving around.  The winds of change die down, and we get back to our usual way of being.  Sure, course of history has been changed when proclamations like that have been backed up by actions, but in an overwhelming majority of the cases, this just does not happen.

Another way to get the air out of our jar is to attach a funnel of the same width as the jar’s opening, and attach a vacuum hose to the funnel.  Then just turn on the vacuum, suck all the air out, and seal the jar off.  Done deal, right?  Not quite.  Firstly, the vacuum is at the mercy of even the smallest leak in the seal, and if the jar is mishandled in any way, the seal threatens to fly off, letting all the air back in.  Then we’re back to square one.  Secondly, to make sure the air doesn’t get back in, the jar probably gets put away and out of reach.  Thirdly, the jar is no longer serving its true purpose – it contains nothing!

Isn’t this another way we try to change our natural state?  We start saying ‘No’ to things like certain foods, TV, bad spending habits, etc.  And when it gets harder, we grit our teeth and say ‘No!’ louder.  Eventually, the pressure of resisting gets to be so much (a leak develops) that we cave in, and with a bang!  There are a few who are strong enough to keep saying ‘No’ for years, but those are the kinds of people who don’t have the time to enjoy life – most of their energy goes to controlling the vacuum.

By now you probably realize what the easiest way to scoop the air out of the jar is – and if you’ve had the answer all along, kudos!  You fill the jar up with water, all the way to the top.  Instead of blowing or sucking the air out, all the while worrying about it sneaking or rushing back in, you simply replace it.  Except for the occasional tiny bubble here and there, there’s no air anywhere in the jar.  It can’t come back  – the space is occupied by something heavier and thicker.  And the kicker is that the jar is now serving it’s true purpose – holding something!

Anything that you want to achieve – financial independence or just living within your means, becoming an athlete or just getting to a healthy body-fat percentage, achieving success in public or private sector, or just being the go-to person in personal or professional life – all of that can be done by replacing the bad habits or poor practices with good and effective ones.  Resisting and being on the defensive – not doing – is always harder than taking action and being proactive – doing something.

Open up the faucet, and start filling up your jar, even if a drop at a time. Start being more active, set up automatic contributions to a savings account, show up a little earlier to work, say yes to socializing, implement just one of the Scrooge Strategy tips!  Before you know it, the negative things in your life will fall by the wayside, because doing the good things will be keeping you busy.

The first link is from The Simple Dollar, a blog I’ve been reading for at least 2 years. Trent zeros in on a poignant truth – a tendency to treat sports equipment purchases as winning ‘half the battle.’ In reality, the battle hasn’t even started – you’re just out of a chunk of cash, and there’s less space in your residence.

Second link, also from The Simple Dollar, talks about how trying to be rich, just like trying to be famous or wise, is a loosing game. You might even wind up looking like a buffoon – there aren’t many more funny/sad images than somebody who only thinks they are rich or famous or wise. Do what you do, do it well, and fame and/or fortune might follow.

When we have kids, one of the things I’m eagerly looking forward to is teaching them life skills, so that they can take care of themseves.  It pretty sad to see a young person,  on their own for the first time in his/her life, not being able to do basic things like preparing food or doing laundry.  Boys seem to struggle with this more than girls.  In that spirit,  Prime magazine’s Six Supposedly Feminine Skills That Every Man Should Master is a great start.

To anyone who’s looking at a new beginning, like school, career, job change, marriage, first child, etc.: be confident in what you know, what you can do, and who you are. Assume you know next to nothing, can’t do much, and aren’t that big of a deal.

You can usually tell how effective a group is by how loudly the opposing group is complaining.  The most straightforward example of this is interaction between political parties.

If you’re a guy and you get roped in by your woman into watching the 6-hour Pride and Prejudice, and this gets mentioned at some later point, here’s what you say to save face: “I watched it for the language.” Works every time. You’re welcome.

image by obc

An immediate disclaimer: certain absolutes are excluded. I am not claiming, for example, that one needs to establish a balance between good and evil, or that balance is needed between believing in absolute truths and being a relativist. Rather, a discussion of balance can only be “built on” or added onto a worldview “foundation.” Although I can’t articulate the specific reasons for this, I’m sure the whole concept would disintegrate into nothingness, if a “worldview foundation” wasn’t stipulated.

Now that we’ve dodged that bullet, next order of business: instead of taking 3 pages to elaborate on all the examples, over the coming weeks, I will put up a series of smaller posts, each one dealing with 1-2 examples of how balance is important to achieve and maintain.

image by Heidi & Matt

What you do in life affects you more than anyone else. So, while it isn’t really all about you – see Biggie #3 – your actions don’t nearly have the same impact on others as they do on you.

Say there’s a classmate, a co-worker, or just somebody in your social circle whose words or actions make him or her not very popular.  The bad rap might be well deserved, that’s for sure.  But every time you ostracize that person – even if you’re fully justified – you are not being kind to another human being.

Say you roll through a stop sign at an empty intersection.  It’s largely a technicality, right?  Nobody was there, anyway.  Well, that’s true, but what happens is that now, you’re a tiny bit more desensitized to that stop sign and to all stop signs, in general.  So, when the same intersection is busy, will you brake hard enough and early enough to not cause other drivers to worry?

OK, what about something as harmless as filling our a survey?  The interviewer (or, alternatively, surverymonkey.com) is pestering you, and you’re in a rush, anyhow, and really, who cares?  They must know that half the results can be thrown out, because some people give random/false answers.  So, you decide that for today, you’re Pieter van den Hoogenband and make over $150,000, since you’re a big-wig at Vandelay Industries. The interviewer or surverymonkey still get paid, so nobody’s hurt, right? That’s true, and most people would categorize this as harmless fun.  But the fact remains that you were dishonest (even if comically), and now the needle between truth and lie has crept a bit towards the center.

These situations are harmless to others, but not so to you.  the classmate/co-worker and you will part ways, the intersection will get a traffic light, and the survey results will be forgotten.  The three choices that you made, however, will be added to the long list of choices that shape you as a person.  What kind of a person do you want to be?

Biggie #1: Life is about balance.

Biggie #2: Most important things in life are difficult.

Biggie #3: Most of life is about other people (but don’t forget about Biggie #1).

Slowly but surely, I will elaborate on each of the Biggies.  Stay tuned.

More seriously, though,  I had been thinking of starting a blog for quite some time (for reasons outlined in the first post and on the About page.  But for about a year, it seemed like a good idea, not something that I really wanted or even needed to do.

I have been reading blogs on self-improvement,  personal finance, and goals for almost three years now, took the first Men’s Fraternity course twice, and have generally been filling my head with thoughts and ideas that I wish I thought about much earlier.  The concepts of setting goals and living purposefully kept emerging as the front runners from all of these channels of information.  “What do you want to do, and how are you going to do it?” seemed to be the question everyone was asking.

I’d like to think that my mind is a shiny, lighting-fast Athlon X2, but it seems that many processes are being handled by a 486.  In other words, I needed to absorb a lot of information, and digested all of it very slowly.  But, one fine day, things finally clicked.

On a rainy, overcast Sunday morning, driving on mostly empty roads, I suddenly found myself facing a series of questions. “What am I passionate about?”, “What central idea does my life revolve around?”, “What brings me true satisfaction?”, and “What is my life’s purpose?”  Even six months earlier, I would have shrunk from questions like that, or wouldn’t have asked them in the first place.  But not that morning.  That morning, I was reminded of a quote by John MacArthur: “integrity is when every part of your life matches all the other parts.” So, as the question fluttered about in my head, I kept searching for something unifying or universal.  “How should my life be defined, and what do I want to be remembered for?”  Finally, it hit me: “helping people.”  This was my calling, my purpose and my livelihood.  The concept seemed to match well to all parts of my life, and it was a concept that I WANTED to be in every part of my life.

Helping my own family, by providing and taking care of it.  Helping my siblings and parents in their lives.  Helping people I work with, by doing my job well and making their’s easier.  Helping my friends and my church with my time and resources.  Helping random people, if I can.  Potentially helping people by putting down thoughts and observations about life and publishing it to whoever wants to read.  Pretty much helping in any way I can.  So, that’s what I’m going to do, and that’s why I’m hoping to regularly contribute to this blog.

Well, now that I’ve sucked all the air out of the room with my self-importance, this takes care of my “me” posts quota for the next 12 months.  See you in October 2009!