Focus on Life™

We all know people who are constantly late. Likewise we can point people who are always too busy or ‘doing it later’, which seldom occurs. Funnily enough we still all have the same 24 hours per day. That’s something we have in common—no exceptions.

Busyness is an excuse. There is always the same amount of time for everyone. It is just a matter how we use the time available to us. When someone tells you that they don’t have the time right now or they are ‘too busy’ what they really are saying is that they have other priorities that are more important at that moment. It is always about priorities and never about the time itself. When you understand this point it can improve your life significantly. Are you appreciating your current moment the best possible way for you and for others? If not then you better consider more carefully your time management.

How much time do you spend talking about doing things—instead of doing them? Explaining and describing your tasks and future undertakings will not get them done. If you are truly occupied you do not have the time to talk about doing something, you simply are carrying them out. Multitasking is also often a good time waster. What might seem to be an efficient way to do things may in actuality result many things done poorly. A focused and intensive effort often enables you to get things swiftly over with and to move on for your other priorities. Don’t take a short concentration span and efficiency as interchangeable terms—they are not. Starting lots of things and finishing only a few is not a good track record for getting things done. You also are wasting a lot of energy for the unfinished business that keeps you occupied until you give them up as wasted efforts.

How to avoid piling up plenty of work for later days that never seem to arrive? Act at once. When you read your email do something about it immediately. Don’t postpone and read it twice or even a third time before doing the required actions, even if it just means simply deleting the mail. When you learn to do things properly at once you save a lot of time for your other things. Also carrying out tasks as they arrive makes it is easier to handle your workload. Seldom we expect to have ‘more time’ available for us in the future than currently.

And the most important time saver is a very simple but difficult concept called: “no”. If you don’t like something indicate it straight away. Delaying the moment of truth does not help anyone. It gets the easier the more accustomed you become to signal early on your opinions about something. Is there any better way to save time than by refusing to engage in something that is not for you in the first place? Time management is easy, learning the lessons may take some time. It is all about how we appreciate and value our efforts and of others—by prioritising.

Why is politics often associated with corruption, dishonesty, and shallowness? You may be surprised to notice that there is a common denominator underneath that we have often forgotten or just haven’t bothered to think about at all.

Franz Oppenheimer once described the only two ways to work in a society. The first is based on voluntary cooperation among people where everyone is dependent on the contribution of others for creating a greater wealth in the society. This is called the economic means. You are cooperating with other people and exchanging the products and goods based on your own free will and judgement. Those concepts (i.e. products and services) will be successful that many people individually decide to favour by using them. In other words the society is ever changing and finding new ways to satisfy each individual’s needs and wants. People are trusted with the responsibility to choose for themselves and to let them to decide and know what works for them in increasing their personal happiness. Or actually there is no one to “trust” the people their choice but each individual is aware that everyone is responsible for their own life and they are the only ones who can make the right choices for them. Therefore there is no ‘people’ but only persons that are acting together by free will of choice and are aware of their responsibility for everyone else as well. Society works only when everyone contributes something positive and creative, no matter how little that is—destructive behaviour provides only havoc. If everyone is just taking, soon there is very little to take from.

The only way any society will flourish is that there are people who are producing goods and services that are innovative and demanded by other people. Production enables the wealth and sophistication in any high culture. However, people will not create or produce if they are not able to trust that they are sufficiently compensated for their efforts. In addition they need to be assured that the circumstances in the society are not expected to change in a manner that jeopardized their work that often may require significant amount of resources for extended periods of time, even years, to finish the production. New innovations and creative solutions require free will and a joy of creation. Seldom anyone bothers to go for great lengths of trouble if they are not appreciated or, even worse, if they are brutally being used or stolen of their efforts.

Oppenheimer’s second way is called the political means. This concept cannot work if nothing has been produced. It is relaying and based on other people’s efforts and work. In other words it does not produce anything new and thus increase the wealth of the society but focuses on distributing the existing wealth by arbitrary decisions. And how do those people that are working and creating things that are demanded by other people allow this to happen? They do not—they are forced by violence or a threat of violence to subdue. There is a proper word for this type of behaviour and it is called stealing. In the economic means there is no problem of distribution since people cooperate voluntarily and agree upon the terms how to trade and utilise products and services between themselves. Just visit your local supermarket and buy an apple. You did not force the supermarket to give you the apple nor did they force you to buy it, and even better—there is no third party telling you what to do or not to do. Only thieves have a problem of distribution of confiscated goods. And since the objects are already alienated from their rightful owners there are infinite amount of ways to divide the stolen wealth, and none of them any more rightful than any other and all of them are just arbitrary decisions made by third parties that have no credit for the wealth in the first place. If you approve to take by force in the first place you have very little saying about your noble or great causes for justifying your actions: you steal or you do not—there is no middle ground and a thief is a thief no matter the cause.

And what has all this to do with politics? Everything, the whole discussion in politics is about from whom to steal by force and how and to whom to share the confiscated wealth. A crime is no less crime if you use a middleman to do your dirty job. And ‘legalisation’ of stealing is no less stealing—it’s only legal stealing. The only difference between organised crime and legal stealing is that only the latter is protected by a greater use of power and force in the society. The basic idea of brutal use of force is still the same dating back thousands of years in history; only the tools and the camouflage are different. The modern lexicon is based on terms like taxation, rules and regulations, laws, and executive orders. They all are just different names for forcing people to unilateral transactions that they would not do voluntarily. Only the political means is a zero-sum game since there is only so much of confiscated wealth in any given moment. The economic means is based on freedom of choice where people are cooperating voluntarily. And implicitly it also means that both parties are willing to interact with each other and thus are content with the outcomes as well: you are happy with your fresh apple and the supermarket is happy with the amount of money you exchanged the apple for.

Next time you hear terms like trade tariffs, subsidies, welfare benefits, taxation laws or any other favourite sweet talk of the politicians see the real game underneath and ask yourself: who is forced to act/non-act and who are the ones to gain from this? Nowadays stealing is a fine art and therefore there are many ways to conduct the job. Inflation is one of them but surely not the only game in town. Many of the legislations are based on the principal where someone is restricted of access to some part of the market or to act freely among any other member of the society. For example, governments are masters of creating monopolies or oligopolies for some members of the society and forcing all the rest to interact with those specially selected members only. Often, protectionism is labelled as something beneficial: consumer protection laws, safety and health laws, approval processes and licenses, and so on. Special interest privileges delivered by your favourite politician: someone will gain and someone else will lose. Surely enough there are still those that have needs and are happy to receive more without giving anything back. They vote for politicians to solve their problems. This is the formula of politics—it is based on violence.

Equality means that both parties are in the same level, respected and treated according to the same standards. This is the theory, but in practise we seldom face it in reality. Unfortunately we have created this system ourselves and thus are responsible of the results as well. We are living among double standards.

Some rules and principals are necessary to coordinate and enable voluntary cooperation between people. Predefined terms direct what is tolerated and what is not. If everyone is aware of the rules later no one can get excused of ignorance. But this is only half of the issue. The rest is based on the fact that everybody is treated in a similar manner and according to those predetermined terms. Today our societies are not working this way.

We have created an artificial system that is above the level of individuals. In practise we have made people a sub-class to a system that everybody is forced to subdue. Sadly enough this system is run and abused by the very same people. There is no one to blame but us. Still we feel helpless and little against this monstrous structure. It is inhuman, not responsible to any single individual, and disregards any personal circumstances. We call it the common or public good. It goes over any person or group of people. Public good is more important than the individual members of the society that are supposed to be part of and create this concept called ‘greater good’.

When faced with this ‘public good’ an individual can be considered sacrificial or ‘a liability’ that can be destroyed mentally, financially, or even physically. Collateral damage is a term used in other ‘public good’ missions. Nevertheless they are similar situations were individuals are insignificant in respect to some greater thought-forms or concepts facilitated by some others members of the human family. In our age ideas and ideologies are used as vehicles to rule and manipulate other members of the society.

This conceptual structure we have created is above any individual. In practise it means that an individual is alienated from her rights to self-defence, freedom, and equality among other members of the society. How can you make sure that you are treated fairly if you don’t have any practical means to make sure and follow-up your case as well? A very simple example is taxation laws. Tax authorities are not accountable to people or any individual. They are part of the structure that is above the people. They get their power and force from the very persons that tolerate and maintain the organisation in existence. Still these authorities are not responsible of their actions. There is no objective third party that can assess and mediate the disputes or matters at hand. International and domestic voluntary cooperation sectors have found ways to handle and resolute dispute and argument situations in a fair and objective manner. Chambers of Commerce offer business mediation (arbitration) services that are swift, final, and respected by both parties. And most of all they are selected by the parties themselves and thus trusted as well. None of this is available for individual members of the society. We are forced to subdue to the rules and laws of the stronger party that is not accountable to any single individual or party.

To make matters even worse it is worthwhile to consider the amount of members of our societies that are directly dependent of these arbitrary structures in form of a salary or employment. How objective do you regard the people that are paid by the public sector? Do you think that they are making decisions that are against their own or the organisation’s survival instinct? Seldom you see public organisations admitting their wrongdoings or making exceptions for any individual. They are not countable for their ‘customers’—they do not need to be—they are getting paid by taxes that are collected by force. Only voluntary cooperation is dependent on the other party, otherwise there would be no cooperation. Coercion is one-way communication that is based on violence or a threat of violence. Just think about it—how objective is any party that is using force as the final (or even as the first) argument? And on top of this you don’t have any choice.

We can do lots of things and also have plenty as well. Still we are often confused with our motives and purposes for the actions we do. Why am I having all these things around me? Are they boosting my ego, reducing insecurity, or even defining in a subtle way how I see and regard myself?

First of all, any action, item, or thing can be necessary or entirely useless. The real purpose and meaning is subjective and cannot be seen from the outset by any third party. Price, quality, or the amount of items is not relevant. The only thing that matters is your own point of view. Are you attached to your surroundings? Do they define who you are?

When you have a need for something you are not free. If you long for more things, shopping experiences, or just for the thrill of having always beautiful and new things to play around with all those are keeping you clung in the loop—you simply need more, and ever more. It might be exciting to travel a lot or switch a job once a year, but have you questioned why are you doing it? Are you sure that underneath there isn’t a pattern that you’re repeating? It might also be a fear. You need to feel important, useful, respected, admired, or busy. The common nominator is that you think that there is a need to window dress for something or someone. Funnily enough you might in reality only just try to fool yourself—no one else thinks anything of you nor is following your traces of thought. We all live in our subjective realities.

When you need to have in order to be it is time to reconsider your expectations and reasoning. How come you cannot be right now but only in the future after a certain activity or process? Owning something does not define who you are. They are simply the things that you happen to possess or have achieved like a title or education. Certainly you can communicate and express yourself with the things you have. But as long as you are not dependent on them you can enjoy them fully without being obsessed by their presence. A Ferrari does not need the driver—it tells its own story by its existence. However, many drivers use the car as a way to define who they are: I have this so I am like that—in their own mind. We buy peace of mind, for a very short time. Often the illusion disappears in a matter of minutes or days after we have gained something we have desired for. Then it is time to repeat the process and desire something else. We live by having. Still you can only live by being, but only after you have learned how to value your existence without any strings attached. Richness is about being, no matter what you have or do not have.

We are all after happiness but seldom find it but only for a few glances or passing moments. Most of the time we are seeking to gain it via different things, people, or situations. We try to reproduce the moments and experiences we already had or we are just randomly trying to imitate someone else’s life with their choices. And all these methods fail to provide us anything but suffering and continuous seeking of happiness—they all are external to us.

Happiness is a state of mind that is independent of the circumstances or our surroundings. It is our natural state of being that we have learned to ignore while growing up. We have substituted the internal happiness for objects and desires external to us. They are conditional and related to some activities or specific points in time. What is common to all of these is that they are not present right now. They are projected to the future. This type of happiness is something that you’re always waiting for. Your constant mode is to achieve and ‘earn’ your happiness by actions or circumstances. In other words you are living in illusions filled by your expectations. Disappointments are a frequent visitor when you are dealing with your future projections based on your expected outcomes of the future situations or events. How much in control of your life you really are?

This ‘when..then’ -type of conditioning is very convincing but it is not really living. It’s about building dream castles and denying the moment. You are saying that I’m not happy right now and I’m substituting this moment for another one in the future. You are after the carrot that is always attached to the current moment—the stick stays in the future with the appealing prize as well. This takes many forms. We may prefer to work overtime and then compensate it back in the holidays. Or we are accumulating substantial wealth that we are hoping to spend after retirement. How can you enjoy your life later if you cannot do it now?

Happiness is not a destination—it is a journey. If you are not comfortable being in the journey you are suffering in the destination as well. Life is about experiencing and enjoying every moment you have. It requires that you are comfortable with uncertainty and change. We can only be happy when we have learned to accept the things that we cannot change and regard every passing moment as a gift that has some valuable lessons and experiences to give us. Only when being is enough you can be happy. As long as you need to achieve or become you are not going to find happiness. Life is about change and being in the moment—exploring the unknown.

Out of six billion one person may not sound like much. Still one person can make a tremendous impact on others and change the way things are perceived in the future. Our history is full of persons that have taken the first step and showed the way for others. Nothing gets done if we all wait someone else to make the first move.

You don’t need to be in the news or have a large sphere of influence to be powerful. We all have power but we decide to use it differently, or even ignore it almost completely. Power is not something external even though it may have different symbols and tangible ways visible to us. Power lies within and it is up to us to decide how we are using it. Environment or any external circumstances cannot change the fact that we are the only one making the decisions how to act and behave in any given situation. Only you can compromise your own integrity. Power is clarity of mind. And it is reflected in your thoughts, talk, and most of all in your actions.

Consistency, devotion, and dedication are qualities that increase your power. When you know what you’re doing and do it in a precise and accurate manner this is shown to the world around you as well. You are convincing. People value those that are capable of making their minds and being practical examples for others. Actions speak many times louder than pure promises or empty words. Often we only talk about things but in the end carry out very little if any of the grand ideas presented. Talking is a way to substitute action. A pro seldom needs to explain and use extravagant language to describe something that is already done. Deeds are louder than any words imaginable. What is the best way to silence a doubter? Try telling that you did it already.

So, how do you spend yourday? By your actions you define your power as well. If you are running around and talking a lot with very little substance don’t expect to get great results either. We all have 24 hours in a day. Some use it more wisely than others. Doing things is not talking about doing things. The difference is that you seldom need to broadcast your actions before actually carrying them out. And afterwards the results may obviously be available for anyone interested of seeing or hearing about them. Experience comes from first-hand actions. Your opinions are more valuable if you actually have done the task already. Our world is full of opinions—everyone having their own—resulting lots of talk and very little results. In the opposite case there would be more actions and results and less time to observe others and form useless opinions. When was the last time you preferred merely to talk instead of acting?

Complaining is easy. It’s destructive without giving anything back. There are always so many things that could be better, in our opinion. Focusing on the negative seldom builds any bridges or provides great insights. Still it is as easy to appreciate every moment we have.

We can always choose the way we take any situation we are faced with. We might not be able to change the circumstances but it is certainly in our powers to select our point of view. Resistance and denial are one way to cope with the issues but often we have to give away after a shorter or longer struggle. Observing and seeing the situations as they are is a great gift—and we all have it. Only a few are capable of utilising this gift but they are saved from many worries and troubles later on. If it is raining and you’re soaking wet how much does it help to be angry about it as well? The sooner you accept the reality the earlier you can even try to enjoy the situation since you’re already in the middle of it anyway.

Gratefulness has little to do with only those moments when we feel humbled or overwhelmed. On the contrary every moment is an opportunity to be grateful. Just think about it—if nothing else you can still experience and explore new things. You are free to do things differently in the next moment—change and experience something entirely unexpected. Life is never boring, only our thinking is. Therefore afresh new start is only a moment way from you. How thrilling is that?

You are surrounded by your past. All the tangible items and assets represent the earlier achievements. The same applies to your monetary wealth as well—it is only storage of your previous efforts and endeavours. The past is not the future; you need to create something new in between.

Basically everything goes through a cycle of creation, sustenance, and decay. It does not really matter whether we talk about knowledge, skills, physical goods, or even our thoughts. The only constant is change. It stays and forces everything else into movement. Effort is required to keep up with the changes in the world around us.

Tangible things are relatively easy to produce—if you only know how. And this is exactly the point. We need ideas, innovations, experience, knowledge, and the right skills to get something done. A beautiful house/car or any other physical good or product does not last forever. They need either be replaced or maintained. This information is always within people. Persons make everything happen.

Diversity and specialisation are the means that enable our society to have a wide variety of different tangible items and products available to us. There needs to be people who have the required skill set and the production tools to create the items. They do not come out of nowhere—they represent the existing expertise and knowledge.

We often take services and products as granted, and can only start to appreciate them when they have first demonstrated their non-functional nature. If your bathroom pipe is leaking then suddenly a plumber is a very valuable person for you. Actually your life becomes pretty unbearable without the necessary reparation skills!

The richness is not in the goods and things around you. They are only the presentation of the wealth in the society. The future success needs to be earned every day. No money can buy you food if you are in an isolated island. Similarly the wealth of any society can be measured only by the richness and the variety of experience, knowledge, and interaction among its members. Specialisation is only available when there are enough goods and services available to take care of the more general needs of the members of the society. If you need to grow your own food and prepare it as well there is less time available for other activities. In a similar manner any specialist is dependent on the work and expertise of the other people in the production chain. We all need each other. If you are not contributing or loving what you’re doing everybody is worst off. Do you see how personal freedom is very closely linked to the well-being and the wealth of the society?

Every moment we declare who we are. Our presence, posture, and the way we move, talk, and act expresses the way we think and feel. This can also be heard from our voice—even over the phone. But most of all we are measured by our actions. Are you aware of all of these, every moment?

We consume a lot of our energy in thinking and feeling. The result can be either positive or negative. Worrying, stress, sloppiness, and absentmindedness are just part of the end results. And all of these can be factors embedded in your actions. They are the signals you sent to others—-most likely without realising it yourself.

Talking without meaning is very common nowadays. People just talk without considering what they are saying or promising. This has consequences in your environment as well. Trust can be lost only once. Similarly your credibility is decreased every time there is a discrepancy in your behaviour. We all know persons who are always late. You have learned to know how much the person is late in average, so you are not upset about it anymore. You simply re-evaluate the information according to your own judgment. Getting too far off the tolerance area means that the person might be entirely out of the game.

Postponing decision-making is easy. Unfortunately there never seems to be more time available in the future than now. Just ask from busy business executives—do they consider having more time available for them in 3 months time or even a year from now? I bet the answer is exactly the opposite. For the same reason you should take care of the issues as they emerge. Delaying enables you to pile a nice archive that needs to be sorted out but nothing else. Is it more fun to do things later than just think them over straight away and act accordingly? Often the immediate action takes almost the same amount of time than postponing. The difference is that only in the first case you have saved time for something else and also considered your actions as well. Over a period of time and practise a fast response can become a second nature. People seldom complain for being too quick to respond.

Efficiency means that you are good at what you’re doing. This means that you manage and are in control of the issues you’re dealing with. In other words you are supposed to be a professional that does not try, but simply acts. Therefore consider carefully your thoughts before speaking and carrying out your actions. By sending various signals you’re creating more chaos than clarity. Your credibility is only as good as your deeds. And if you are really engaged with your activities you do not have time to talk about doing something—just do it. Results are better than future promises. How much do you appreciate persons that only do maybe a half of what they have promised to do? Are you sure you’re not one of them?

Expecting to gain more than one is willing to put on the table is foolhardy. Forcing others to comply with it is stealing. The motives vary from jealousy, low self-esteem, laziness to greediness and everything between. In any case the idea is to get away with the scheme without being exposed. Current politics is based on this principal.

Voluntary cooperation between people does not need regulations and control. They are required to force something in place and to keep something out. Special privileges are based on structures where the gains are separated from the liabilities and the responsibilities—a free ride. The formula often works so that everybody pays (in form of coerced payments) and some selected few reap the benefits. There are also fancier names for all this: tariffs, tolls, trade restrictions, subsidies, protective laws and directives, sales and energy taxes, and so on. They are all too important to be left for the grown-up adults to decide upon themselves and be responsible of their actions and choices.

Our monetary system is based on the same principal. The current legal tender is nothing but a dictum that is backed by the government’s threat of using violence against its citizens. The only difference between you printing your own notes and the government is the amount of force you’re lacking. Currently the money system is based solely on the amount of money in circulation. Its value is dependent on its volume. Otherwise the paper (or digital) nominations are entirely useless. And the best part is that the government having the monopoly decides when and how much more money it will issue. This is stealing as well. Another name for it is inflation. And don’t get fooled by the consumer indexes or any other official measures of inflation. The sole source of inflation is the increase in the monetary base. Period. The rest is only a matter of time for the ripple effect to penetrate the entire economy and to adjust the prices for the new volume of money in form of price changes.

Government does not produce anything. It needs the politicians to steal from you. They can do it either by collecting more taxes or inflating the currency. The latter is easier and less disruptive for the public to accept. The end result is the same. Everybody pays and only a few gains. In the case of inflation those closest to the new money in circulation benefit the most in form of getting services and goods still with old (low) prices and in the reverse those are hurt the most that need to buy things with the new (high) prices but are not able to raise their own prices accordingly. The economy does not need controls and politicians, but your government and the beneficiaries of its special privileges need. Just follow the money.

Free competition is very disturbing for some. It’s ruthless for those that do not serve the society. And how do we know this? The law of the market is very simple. You vote by your free choice—those that serve you the best you favour and support, and the rest need to cope without you. This continuous change forces everyone to serve the interest of their customers with the utmost care. Unfortunately the political control over the markets is so dominating nowadays that basically everything is controlled and regulated by the government.

In addition, ‘public’ services do not need to listen to the customer. They get their money by stealing from you so they could not care less. The prime motive of any organisation is its self-survival no matter whether it is a ‘public’ or private entity. The only difference is that only the free market based organisation needs to be humble in front of the customer. It relies on the voluntary cooperation and interaction among its customers. It cannot survive without the customer in the long run. Organisations (even private) that rely on coercion are in a different position. They get something for nothing. Actually they are the healthier the more they gain stolen goods. No wonder lobbying and politics is the biggest business in town. That’s where the money is made in our ‘modern’ society. Everybody pays, only a few gains, and the overall society goes down the drain. Looting is never a long-term plan—someone needs to produce before it can be stolen. Currently it is more lucrative to steal than to create. How do you see the odds?