I think we are all alone inside our own minds. Our job is to not only learn what is going on in there, but to also include people. The hard part is separating the two and working on both of them simultaneously, eh.
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People love to win. Whoever has the most stuff, free time, fastest car, smartest kids, hottest wife, etc. wins. Money is their path to all of these things. Or so they think. People who choose this path, put money above all. Their decisions are clouded and justified by the coin.
Financial institutions are the worst offenders of competition. They only are concerned about money. One of our societies favorite movies is It’s a wonderful life. It is the fight put up by a small towner who wants to help people make ends meet. He is driven by an angel to stay and help the people he loves. And this is what makes his life so wonderful. This rarely happens.
The story of the Doctor who cured polio is one of these stories. There are many about coders who donated their work for the good of others. Working in this arena I appreciate their efforts and am encouraged to do the same myself. And encourage other to do the same. It makes your life much more wonderful than any coin could.
This is long term thinking here. Of course a million dollars will make your days wonderful. But now you require the coin for happiness. Is that really what you want to rely on? I’d rather be backed up by a bunch of people who know me and understand what I like to do. They can inspire me to do things, learn things, and entertain. It seems people spend their money on ways to replace what other people could bring to your life for free. Why do people enjoy working in the arts so much?
The Financial institutions spend time figure out how to entertain you. They give you rewards for spending money with them. They now also will give you an advance on these rewards if you promise to spend money in the future. AMEX will notify you you have reward points when you have enough to spend them on something. Even if you don’t use your account very much, they want to remind you you have an account that gives you rewards when you use it.
When you cash in your rewards, they alert you by email and phone that you have redeemed your AMEX reward points.
When they ship the item, they call you and tell you it is on its way. At the end of the call, they ask how you prefer to be contacted.
All this customer support for what? For a reward I got for spending their money. Too bad I just paid off my bill. I bet if I forgot to make a payment, they wouldn’t give me these types of notices. Nope. That would lose them money.
I haven’t been keeping track of them, but 107 sounds about right. We have 2 girls (9 and 7). Through their raising, I’ve tried many different techniques for teaching and what not. Every day is another opportunity to try a new approach to connect with them. The goal, is have them grow up as confident, intelligent, thoughtful people. Wish us luck.
Last night our challenge was with home work. Our youngest can be downright sloth-like when doing things. Anything. Last night it was home work. She started as usual, on her own, doing her routine. But after a couple drop in checks, she wasn’t progressing very well. So, I talk to her about working quickly. She didn’t take it very well, with obvious tear welling up in her eyes. I gave her a couple parting words of encouragement, noted she was starting question #3, and went away to let her do her thing. After a half hour, I popped in again to see how she was doing. Well, she was still in tears and had not touch question #3. What is a dad to do?
A dad needs to be able to tap into his recent past and figure out what has worked and what has not. This dad keeps things simple. For instance, when we had babies, there were 4 possible things that could be wrong when they had a problem.
- Need to poop/burp
- Need to eat
- Need to sleep
- Need to play
From what I’ve learned with my kids, it doesn’t change. Most of their problems can come down to one of these 4. Last night was no different. I deduced that she needed sleep. I sent her to bed with the direction that in the morning, I’d wake up early and help her with her homework.
This is the hard part of parenting. The part where you make the decision and need to tell them the plan. You know it is the best, but convincing them is the hard part. Fortunately, my girls listen to me. Maybe it’s because I’m an intimidating ogre with bad breath and a quick temper. Maybe it’s because they remember all the other wisdom and smart things I have said in the past. Whichever, it was learned and she followed my directions willingly and went to bed.
This is the first time I’ve sent one off to bed while the other was still up. Which on one had is cool, because I can have time with just one kid. But on the other hand, I feel for the child in bed. Hearing laughter and what not is not the easiest thing to fall asleep to. When I finally tucked in the oldest, I retucked in the youngest and gave her much love. In return I got a smile from a very sleepy kid. This reaffirmed my decision to send her to bed early.
In the morning, I got up and went to her room. To my pleasant surprise, she was already wide awake with a huge grin on her face. We all are much better after getting rest. She sprung up and started getting ready for the day. Then she hunkered down to finish her homework. I just crawled into her bed and played on my phone. Found a app for tuning Elyse’s violin and a French Tutor app for helping me learn French. Periodically, Annika would pass up a sheet of her homework for me to review. It all looked awesome. The night of sleep really made a difference.
Laughing is a great part of life. Living life without laughter or love is not really living.
Love is another weed. My thought now is about life and laughter.
Controlling laughter is hard. Why do it?
When I die I plan to cry. Not all at once, but as I feel the need.
Same now in life with laughter. Let is out!
Remote working is like it sounds. Detached, withdrawn, separated. But with new technologies, we can simulate connectedness. It takes an understanding of technology to make it work quickly. But it isn’t the same.
There is body language, and subtle communication which cannot be duplicated online or on the phone. File sharing is difficult because of security concerns.
We may not be able to simulate what happens in real life, but we can do better. Why not? It will require people to develop new skills. Sounds hard. That’s where a good user interface helps.
If you have interest in developing these types of tools, contact me. I’m interested in the direction this is going.