Focus on Life™

Constant pace and action are not natural. One needs to relax and wind down as well. You cannot have music without silence. It takes a fine-tuned instrument to recognise when it is the time to blow hard and loud and when it is the time to give away and be quiet.

Peak performance is possible only when one is prepared for it, even unconsciously. Creative ideas and innovations seldom happen in the office environment. It is too predictable and ‘dull’. It is all in the mind but still the man-made landscape is often too ‘square’. Nature does not repeat itself. It creates variance and improvises over the theme.

Dynamics is possible only when you have enough variation. Mechanical performance will kick back in the long run. Getting used to the pattern and repeating oneself may sound like safe and secure, but they are also the way to become stuck and shut down from the unpredictable.

New is always something unknown. Therefore it is also uncomfortable for many. Even though you may not decide to explore and discover new boundaries you can always create variance within the familiar daily life and routines. Take a new route back to home. Do things in a different order or just stop and stare the night sky under the moonlight. Life is about living and living is about creating. You draw you canvas everyday by your actions. Each day is a fresh new start, and a new story to tell. If you are not happy about today’s story, try something else tomorrow. Don’t come up with the same old picture if it did not work out well yesterday. Routines are for machines—people do not have to live like robots. We are artists that create by living.

It is assumed to be noble to live for others. This nobility can take many forms and some of them can be very difficult to identify. Still, in most of the cases the underlying motive is not benevolent even though the appearance tells a different story. Selfishness has many disguises.

No doubt serving and helping others is the highest cause there is, but not always. It is worthwhile to consider the motive for the help. In many cases the true motive is not pure and noble, on the contrary, it is an ego trip and boost without any limits. Hard to believe? Well, if it were really about the others there shouldn’t be any need for anybody else to know about the aid. Also the compassionate act should not direct any unnecessary attention to the helper. Any expectation of reciprocity is not an act of compassion. And this means anything, including the little word ‘thanks’ from the one you supported. Helping others can also be a way to reduce one’s guilt of something else in which case the issue has really nothing to do with helping others. It is just a means to deal with one’s own conscience.

What about the target of the help, is it far away and somehow exotic? People in the next block might as well need your help but is it somehow better if you focus on greater distance to give your aid? Often it would make more sense to help people close to you since you can make a larger impact—in addition of being a practical example for others.

Often taking care of one’s own business is quickly condemned as selfishness—having only a negative connotation nowadays. But this is a great fallacy as well. If everyone was supposed to pay attention only for others without caring for one’s own needs there wouldn’t be anyone feeling good and balanced anymore. The reality is exactly the opposite. In order to help others one needs to be in a solid position to give a helping hand. The only way to give a lot is to have plenty as well. This does not apply just to material things but basically every quality and virtue there is. If supporting others is an act of compassion then it should be carried out with the upmost care and the best possible way. Giving the best you have is not a light-hearted issue, is it? This is the test you most likely fail provided that you are not doing it solely for the compassion and love for others.

Titles, categories, and labels—that’s how the life is often perceived. There are different functions, tasks, and roles to accomplish and carry out. Often those names deceive us to believe and do things that we do not like. In actuality we even may do exactly the opposites in a hope of brighter days.

Work, holiday, retirement, hobbies, spare time, and weekend are not real. They are labels or symbols. You give them the meaning and special connotation. Those words often embody many expectations, hopes, wishes, and desires. And they are not real either.

Most of the titles have also their opposite counterpart. Work is considered as an opposite of pleasure or holiday. One needs to ‘work’ in order to have fun, later. This labelling is an excuse to delay or deceive oneself from the current moment. Categories are necessary as long as one needs the counterpart as well. This fragmentation is entirely useless in reality—unless you are living under its spell.

Replace the counterparts with their opposite adjectives and you start to see the absurdity. It may not be any big surprise to realise that most of the daily activities are filled with those more or less negative connotations. Wouldn’t this mean that you’re spending most of your time doing something you rather not like to do at all? If that’s the case maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your priorities. We can only live now and it happens 24 hours a day, every single day. No holidays or exceptions.

There are two ways to cope with the situation. Either you can take a new course and start to drop off the unpleasant things and replace them with the things you love to do or you can change your state of mind towards the various engagements and tasks in your life. Nevertheless the end result is that there is no need to have various labels in order to contrast things against each other. To say it more bluntly we are taking responsibility and control of our lives and this shows in the way we carry out our daily existence. Every moment we declare by our very presence who we are. We show it by our actions, possessions, social network, even by the way we treat total strangers. No labels needed—we simply are.

Integrated living means that one’s life is consistent and in balance. There is an overall harmony and ‘lightness’ without extreme fluctuations or sudden ’highs and lows’. If you need to ‘party hard’ in order to wash off the work stress are you really enjoying your work? Life is too short to do things we do not appreciate and enjoy doing. Even hard work is fun when you’re engaged with the activities that are close to your heart and bring fulfilment to your life. Compromising seldom brings good overall results in the long term.

Still not convinced? Check again the second paragraph. It’s all about your own expectations and assumptions. The catch-22 does not open if you do not reconsider your values and priorities. If you still need those lavish expensive holiday trips and you ‘work’ only to maintain your expensive ‘lifestyle’ aren’t you saying at the same time that most of your hours are sacrificial for the few moments you spend enjoying the ‘fruits’ of your labour. As long as you cannot enjoy your life now but later you’re living in dreams and illusions. Life happens now—never later. How can you appreciate the destination if you do not value the journey as well?

For a few centuries we have gotten used to a trend of centralisation in almost all aspects of our life. The centralisation of power, money, influence, businesses, professions, education, health-care, defence, and energy are only a few examples of the current way of the world. Fortunately things do not have to be this way in the future.

Clearly there are some advantages in large units and centralisation of functions. Larger production units are more feasible and can gain economies of scale, but there are also areas in which the accumulation is not based on a voluntary cooperation and freedom of expression. Coercion typically prefers to avoid free competition and transparency. It gets its power from the very subjects that are either by ignorance or by force (or a threat of violence) alienated from their powers (i.e. rights). In all the cases the structures are kept in place by the members of the society only as long as they are tolerated or the veil of ignorance has been lifted from the eyes of the many.

In the past centralisation has been relatively easy. Limited communication capabilities and high transaction costs for different members of the society to directly interact with each other supported this trend. So called middlemen were very lucrative and desirable positions to be. Still today we see many of these operational models around us: banks, traditional media, government monopolies such as post office, healthcare, education, central bank, defence, courts etc. Naturally these are also means to support the agendas of the ones who influence and prefer to have special privileges.

The technology development has changed many of the underlying paradigms in a very rapid pace. Below some examples:

Communications: Mobile phones, email, VOIP (e.g. Skype, Fring), text messages, hotspots, p2p-networks, location and instant messaging enable 24/7 communication that has a capability of reaching millions of people in a matter of seconds worldwide. Typically these means enable cheap multicast type of communication from one person to many that was previously very expensive and available to a few members of the society.

Media: Blogs and social networking, news sites, social bookmarking, multimedia services (e.g. YouTube, Flickr, podcasting, Current TV, Joost), self-publishing, search engines, and long-tail bookstores are among the ways to shape the future of the media and how it is used. New Paul Potts are discovered the minute they appear in to the radar and can gain millions of fans even from different continents. Similarly not so desirable news are brought in to the light that are kept off the main media and freedom of choice enables to pick those items that please and benefit the user.

Banking and finance: ebrokers, internet banks, p2p lending (e.g. Prosper, Zopa), fundraising (e.g. ChipIN, Fundable, GiveMeaning, EcoMiles), microfinancing , PayPal, barter, and egold makes it more cost-efficient and cheaper to obtain loans, select one’s preferred bank, investment or lending partner or even skip the middleman altogether.

Commerce: auction sites, ecommerce platforms, productivity tools, open-source software, and cheap IT solutions enable to reach new marginal customer segments that have not been available without a cost-efficient way of reaching geographically fragmented niches.

Travelling: low-cost airlines and online travel bookings have allowed mass-tourism to take a new form without arranged package-trips.

Information: free online books, databases, websites, ecourses & programmes, wikipedias, and portals have enabled the access for information sources that have previously either been physically isolated or otherwise out of reach for the many.

These were only a few examples how our society transforms and changes every minute. In some areas the changes are more gradual and the adaptation rate is slower but many sectors are realising the inevitable shift in the way people behave and interact with their environment. The choice is always with us.

Don’t’ get deceived by the looks or even by the words, observe the underlying reality and the deeds. We are not living in freedom—actually we might never have. Only the forms of suppression and abuse have been changing along the centuries, sometimes with a figurehead and more recently only with symbolical representatives.

Oxford American Dictionary defines tyranny as “cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control”. The last definition already includes democracy provided that one is considering the issue from an individual’s perspective. Democracy is a system where a certain selection of the population is giving their power to a few elected representatives that use the power of force to apply their rules to the whole population. It is worthwhile to notice that not everybody in the population is even entitled to vote.

The much-embraced democratic process is only a form of tyranny where majority is entitled to enforce the minority under its regime. And what is the smallest minority? An individual. This system assumes a lot. It believes that it has the moral right and the obligation to suppress and use violence or threat of violence to force its decisions to the people under its regime. In other words freedom of expression and diversity are not allowed and individuals are sacrificed for the cause defined by someone else. Everybody is forced to do as they are told to do without any choice. Coercion is not cooperation, it is brutal and arrogant point of view that assumes and regards the right to tell others what they are supposed to do. Democracy tells us how we are allowed to live and carry out our lives. And if we do not fit to the predefined paradigm we are forced to underwrite the values, beliefs, and assumptions decided by the democratic process.

And like any system it is only as good as the people using it. It is fruitful to try to find an area of life into which this coercive process has yet not penetrated in our societies. Our freedom has been narrowed done to a very few choices, sometimes to plain one. Choice belongs to freedom but it also means that the one who makes the decisions is also responsible of one’s actions. Freedom is only valued by those who can appreciate it. It seems that we do not have many representatives of freedom left in this planet. It is easier to do what someone else has thought to be good for us and just follow the pattern no matter whether we speak about education, health, economy, arts, science, or any other area of the society.

Freedom expects a lot from us. Acceptance, tolerance, and the respect for others are among the qualities that are only nurtured under freedom. These are not so much tested when you agree with someone but when you do not. If you see something different from your own perspective, are you trying to suppress, deny and convert it to the traditional point of view or let it have its way provided that it is not violating your own rights to self-expression?

Voluntary cooperation is a friend of freedom. Coercion belongs to the category of violence. All this boils down to a basic question: are individuals trusted to live their lives without someone else’s forced intervention? Apparently still today we are living in a huge kindergarten.

We like to have our freedom. It is great and fun to explore and extend our boundaries. We love to take the credit for our actions, but only selectively. Positive consequences are naturally ours to claim but what about the not so desired effects?

Freedom and responsibility go hand-in-hand—the greater the freedom the greater the responsibility as well. Our current society does not encourage personal freedom. In practice we are sanctioned, monitored, and restrained in almost all aspects of life. We have learned to behave obediently and not to question the behaviour patterns or norms of the society. Like Goethe once said: “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”

We have created an artificial layer that is expected to protect individuals from harms and consequences of their personal actions. This has created a culture where people have become accustomed (or learned) to be passive and not to take action themselves. We expect someone else to tell us what to do or help us out of our own problems. This has come so far that we even regard we have the right and the others’ the moral obligation to unilaterally support us. We have isolated ourselves from the effects of our actions.

Our personal initiatives and responsibility are very limited, but so is our freedom as well. We have given up our rights in order to gain something for nothing. We prefer to have it easy and let others to bear the consequences for us. Unfortunately this is a zero-sum game in an aggregate level and as a result everybody is worse off. There are no free lunches—there is always someone paying the bill.

Isolating individuals from their actions’ consequences is a double-edged sword. It creates an illusion of safety and protection but at the same time it removes the control from the very person. And this creates uncertainty, fear, and self-esteem issues among others. Simply we do not feel anymore that the life is in our own hands: we are on top of the issues and have the solutions available for us. Confidence and security build from experience and the knowledge that we have the tools and the means to cope with our circumstances.

It requires practice and experience to become good at something. This means that we have learned something by experimenting and sometimes even making wrong choices that have guided us to do something differently in the future. In other words we have the motivation to keep going and get better. All this requires responsibility. Responsibility is the feedback mechanism that shows us how we are performing and the results of our pursuits. Mastery is only possible for those who are aware of their actions and their consequences.

Look around you—how much responsibility are we taking for our actions?

Money is only a medium of exchange. It is not the wealth. It only presents the future wealth we believe it can provide us in form of goods and services from other people whom we hope to accept our money in an exchange for our desired goods and services.

Wealth is created by people who produce goods and services. We use money as a middle man to satisfy our current and future needs. What we do not consume immediately we can store for a later day (save (i.e. invest)).

Basically anything can be used as a medium of exchange. History knows many commodities used as money. Currently we have accepted printed-paper notes as money that has no other productive use.

The purchasing power is based on exchange of goods and services between individuals in any society. In another words in order to get something you have to give something. One can do this directly by bartering fish to bread or use a medium of exchange in between. For example buy ‘money’ by selling the fish and then sell the money and buy the bread.

Provided that the society is based on trust where no one is cheating (i.e. getting something for nothing—stealing) it does not really matter what is used as money. Ludwig Von Mises has theoretically proven that gold, silver etc. were evolved as the commonly accepted medium of exchange by having an alternative productive (i.e. economic = scarce) use first. Later they became the de facto standard ‘money’. For example gold can be used for jewelery, semiconductors etc. as well as a medium of exchange.

Our current fiat money is not backed by anything. This means that one can fabricate more money and thus steal/cheat from the society. By printing more paper notes one can exchange those notes to real goods and services (provided that people still believe in the money and are ignorant of the scam) without giving anything back. Thus getting something for nothing. In other words the overall wealth in the society has not increased as a result of printing more paper notes, ‘money’. There are no more goods or services for the members of the society to enjoy and consume.

This is a very compact but complete system of ethics. It is very simple, brief, and yet powerful based on the following:

The Guiding Principal

All (human) beings are born equal and remain equal every day of their lives.

The below Principals are only sub-principals for the first one

2) Person is the measure of all accounts.

3) Everyone is free to pursue their own happiness and the results of their pursuit and obliged to respect everyone else’s equal freedom without limiting anyone else’s freedom.

You can find the rest of it here.

I selected some books, movies, and music that might not be the most typical choices. Well, let me know if you have read, seen and heard all of them

We focus on growth—it’s everything. Our current economy is based on the ever-expanding growth paradigm. It does not work without it. Our monetary base grows every year. Valuations need to grow, as well as profits and revenues. The society is driven by this growth mania.

And how do we do this? By producing and consuming more, or should I say evermore, ever-expanding. And by consuming more we feed more needs to expand the business and acquire new resources to fulfil the needs of the growth. And so the cycle goes on and on—but not forever. Sole expansion is not natural, it pairs with contraction, in nature that is.

Seldom we start to question the basis of the assumptions and thinking underneath. What is the purpose of the growth and why is it needed? Some would say that it is because of money. And in many ways they are right. The fiat money system is built upon a hypothesis of ever-expanding promises of debt that are not paid back but rolled over. It requires more units of money to survive. As a result of this there are only raising prices and continuous inflation (expansion). For example US dollar has lost over 95% of its value since 1913 when the Federal Reserve was established. Does this create wealth for all the citizens using the legal tender?

But coming back to the question why the growth and what’s the purpose of it. More money does not answer the question; it only explains the way the current system is working. Actually money has nothing do with the real issue—it’s only a poor middleman that is often misunderstood to be the purpose when it can only be the means for something else. Money is used to obtain goods, services, or intangible needs such as security. We would not consume more simply because our monetary system requires so. There is something else underneath that feeds the requirements and keeps the wheels turning. And once again we are getting back to each and every one of us, individually. No company consume, buy, sell, manufacture, or invest—only people do. Structures are mere tools and vehicles for our purposes, ignore them long enough and they disappear. There is no one to blame but us. It’s not the economy, stupid—it’s us, the people!

We have bought the idea and assume that more is better. More money means something better, more consumption provides with something more and so on. Having more is the key and this having is the cause of the ever-expansion in our needs. But if you never consider why you need to have more you will never approach the real issue, you simply will act to gain more of something—forever and ever more.

Wanting is easy. Also having more is relatively easy, even though it takes its toll. But being happy has nothing to do with wanting or having. Confucius once said: “they must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.” It looks that buying happiness does not seem to work despite all the consumption and material well-being. Maybe it is time to reconsider our assumptions and beliefs that define our current growth paradigm, individually?