The Young Owl Blog

I’m back. For now. It’s been quite a while since I’ve shared the inner workings of my brain with the world. That is not because I was “busy” or because I was not interested in writing. On the contrary, I transitioned a lot of my time and energy into the published posts on LinkedIn.

I missed writing about topics that I want to write about so I’ve decided I would come back here and publish work that helps me and all others that choose to read, improve a little bit, day by day.

It might be fitting that I’m writing this on one of the last days of the year or that I feel like I’m going through a very interesting time in my life. Nonetheless, Austin Kleon says it’s about showing up. That is the difference between those who ultimately become the person they want to be and those that let society dictate who they think they should be.

Confused yet? Don’t worry, we’re all confused. I think that is one of the biggest issues with our current outlook on things. We expect to have things all figured out. Truth is, no one has shit figured out. We’re all just as scared as the next person but we show up every day because life is a gift. We do what we can with what we have. I’ll be publishing a more personal post in the next coming days but for now, consider this the possible renaissance into my next step.

Remember – the brain is a muscle and if we don’t work it out, eventually, it will become flabby and useless.

She didn’t like it. I didn’t know what to say. Sorry wasn’t solving the issue and I didn’t see sincerity in her complaints. From where I stood she just wanted the attention. Maybe she lives alone.

Maybe shopping on the internet is her thing. Either way she’d made it a point to point out all of the things she didn’t enjoy about that product. I was in between hanging up and trying to keep the conversation going just so I could hear more from the lady who wanted to be heard. I wondered what her kitchen looked like or if she had 30 cats. She seemed like that type of person but then again I’m very good at making judgments.

Maybe that day my customer service skills were being tested. Maybe she was having a bad day but it seemed like either way here we were trying to figure out why the raisins were too clumped together and we put too much coconut in the bag and the shipping took too long and god knows what else. Either way what she didn’t know is that she wouldn’t be able to make me respond without anything other than a sincere apologetic response. She didn’t know the Mother Teresa of customer service was on the other end of the line.

I can’t change the challenges you have in your own life, but I’ll do my best to provide the little joys that take people away from those tough moments.

A bite isn’t just a bite in our world. I want the whole experience, the ritual, the routine to be memorable. When you’re sitting in the 2:30 meeting, I want you thinking about how good what you ate earlier was or checking your watch multiple times to see when it’s going to end so you can get to that sacred snack ground. And yet all this person saw was what she wanted to see, the finished product that she wasn’t happy with.

What she didn’t see was the days, weeks and months and constant grinding to get it right. The years that go into creating and refining processes and people to make sure these things stay on the rails. We take for granted what we use every single day. From the smallest items to the largest. We don’t think about who’s labor or manpower went into making that toilet we’re using we just use it. Like it’s our human right to have these things. Somehow these things just appear and we use them.

Call it a lack of appreciation or a failure to ask questions but we all are guilty of it from time to time. Today was her day. Nothing I was going to say would change her mind. We value feedback, we take food safety seriously, and we’ll do everything we can to make sure that her replacement product is as delicious as the one she was expecting to get – nothing was going to work this time around.

Sometimes people are just there to feel important but I wonder if she ever think about what goes into the things she uses. Even a hint of curiosity would be enough for anyone to stop and think maybe this was just a one off or something that happened in transit. Maybe someone left a box on the back of a mail truck for too long and the sun beating down had an impact on the final product. It’s not your fault, it’s not our fault either but we’ll fall on the sword because we stand behind it regardless of what happens in between. When you see a final product all you see is that at the end of it’s iteration. You don’t see the headaches, the arguments, the confusion and the persuasion needed to convince people to give you a shot at the table. Along with this they don’t see that at the end of the day we’re just one option, and they’re just one person – and maybe we’re just not that into you either.

Can you spot them? When you get together with friends are you aware of who it is?

Professionals know better.

It really is a worthy endeavor to find out who this person is. What’s more important than this pursuit though, is actually making sure it’s you. There are many books written about happiness and success and what it takes to get there but I find that this concept is often overlooked or understated completely. If we look at a quote from Epictetus that says – “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows” the fascination lies not in the truth and simplicity of these words but at the mere observation that the majority of society lives in direct contradiction to this thought. If we pull this apart further one could assume we find quite the opposite in today’s world. First, most people in today’s world are not actively seeking more education and do not really possess a burning desire to learn. Secondly, what is often found to be a more accurate representation of today’s world is the innate human nature to act as if they know everything there is to know about everything. Whether this stems from a fear or insecurity of looking dumb remains a mystery but most people would rather nod yes in agreement with the general statements made in group setting than set themselves apart from the pack by asking a question or better yet admitting they don’t really know what’s going on. It could be that maturity brings with it a higher perspective that allows oneself to realize the incredibly vast amount of information and technical knowledge in the world and admission that it would be humanly impossible for one to know everything BUT the only way to advance towards more is to accept and admit defeat and listen.
What’s also dumbfounding is the amount of individuals who, while in a conversation you can clearly see do not understand a word that you’re talking about but nod, agree and say ok. It’s almost as if they want to conversation to be over faster than you do because they don’t have a clue what’s going on. This is the true mark of an amateur.

Professionals do not care if they look stupid.

It’s an entirely different mindset for the professional who takes on the approach that reflects more of a worldview that an inquisitive 3 year old would take, than an esteemed and accomplished middle age man or woman. A professional asks the right questions and knows the difference between a dumb question and everything else. Yes – there are such a thing as dumb questions despite what your 2nd grade teacher taught you. Dumb questions are usually a direct reflection of one thing – that you weren’t listening to the person who was sharing the information. This is completely different from one who asks thought provoking, challenging or clarifying questions. A professional knows they could be wrong but asks the question anyway in any attempt towards a new discovery.
A professional seeks out the position of dumbest person in the room and knows when he or she is not yet does their best to lower their habitual thoughts in an attempt learn something from those less “enlightened” in the room.
One who can catch themselves in the middle of thought and reverse course has learned the power that openness has to their development and can continue to learn indefinitely. On the other hand the one who always thinks they know everything grows older and stupider because they’ve shut the door on all possible discoveries that others can bring. It is imperative that one seeks out the position of being the dumbest person in the room and changes course when they realize they are not anymore. The alternative is a life of certainty and stagnation which can creep up on us and show its cards after it’s too late.

This is the race that never ends. Thankfully too. If the race ends, you do too. I guess in that sense it’s more like a marathon.

What is it?

Life.

If you don’t stop and take a nice big step back you’ll wind up 75, wondering where all of the time went. You’ll probably think that the time has flown by so fast but in reality, every day is comprised of the same 24 hours as the last one. We’re surprised when the day seems to just get away from us.

On top of this, we’re also very good at searching for the next best thing. We’re always looking for the next best workout, diet program, tv-series, restaurant, etc. Perhaps more than any of those things above we’re searching for the keys to success but above all, most people seem to be on the endless quest for happiness.

We’ve got books on happiness, we’ve got courses on happiness, and plenty of marketing to support the messaging that happiness is only a purchase away or at a destination escape a few hours away. You hear it from both young people and old people. No one can escape the grips of the happiness quest.

Younger people say the elusive sentence of “I just want to be happy.” Old people say nothing is more important than living a life of happiness. Maybe it’s because they’ve squandered the majority of their own lives without finding it or maybe they were one of the lucky ones to understand where to find it?

Where is this happiness thing?

Why is it so difficult to find for some and yet others have no problem living a full life of happiness?

Ultimately, happiness is the collective make-up of your internal thoughts mixed with your external environment, and the feedback loop that connects the two. By understanding that happiness comes from within, through the decisions you’ve chosen to make mentally, you hold all of the keys. You are both the master locksmith and the lock itself.

If we consider it that way then you have both the ability to try different keys which represent the internal thoughts you have towards situations every time you’re presented with anything that challenges your happiness.

Additionally, you’re in control to the point that if your thoughts, no matter how positive or reassuring they are to yourself, fall short because of your environment, then as the locksmith you can change the environment (lock) in which you’re working with altogether. You can decide to paint a picture of what you want your happiness to look like. Sometimes people think they’re happy but over time realize they loaned out their happiness to external factors. In the end, sometimes all it takes is trusting yourself to

Fuck this new world. Yes, I said it, and I hope I offended you. And if I did offend you then you definitely need to keep reading what’s below. It makes me sick that things have changed so much in such a short window of time. We’re definitely a more progressive and advanced society now compared to 25 years ago but we’ve also lost touch with reality.

The everyone gets a trophy mentality is grooming armies of soft cancel culture kids who grow up to be soft e-mo adults incapable of accepting defeat or facing the slightest bit of adversity or anxiousness without folding like a cheap chair. How did we get here?

We could argue technology and one would be right to take that approach. How much of it is familial cyclicality versus new technologies would be impossible to quantify but one would probably be right to argue that technology has only exacerbated things even if those things weren’t good to begin with. Still with me? Good. Moving along.

Where we decided to honor “feelings” over truth is actually the point of divergence. We’ve managed to push reality as far away as possible through the use of current social platforms and lack of real social interaction. Accountability is now nonexistent. I can jump on a post, tell someone they’re a dumb fuckhead and their ideas all suck, and never be held accountable. I can even vanish and never come back. I can create a wake of destruction at someone’s core and I don’t have to explain shit.

It’s through these actions that we’ve created a knee jerk reaction to that destruction. We’ve chosen to overprotect instead of overemphasizing the importance of truly knowing oneself. Instead, we’ve chosen to throw a blanket over everything regardless of whether or not it is true. The long term ramifications of this and the need to value people’s feelings over what is true will almost, with absolute certainty, ruin many people’s viewpoint of themselves, the world, and reality itself.

It’s not only a distortion of the world we live in but a complete disservice to the individual themselves and the future of society. If you think that sentence was heavy and harsh it doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of all the issues that have been popping up as a result of the changes we’ve seen with how things are handled today at school, work and universities.

The everyone gets a trophy mentality that has been popping up for years in conversation. We should have known that tides were shifting then, but I’m sure the first humans exposed to this behavior thought to themselves, this is a little weird but ok. To the defense of the intention behind the everyone gets a trophy I get why they may have thought this was a good idea at the time but they were wrong. They thought it would be good to have the kids not question there rank or pecking order in the group. They thought it might not hurt someone’s feelings when they left the ballpark or soccer field if they at least left with some sort of prize. They were wrong.

These same kids grow up and are completely shocked when they’re fired from their first job or get an F for something they turned in at college their first year. The real world doesn’t care about your feelings. The real world cares about results. The longer we sugarcoat this shit and create these false environments the worse the self-esteem gets and the higher anxiety and depression grows. To clarify, this is not about being a dick and shoving it in a young child’s face the moment they fail – no it’s about calling a spade a spade, engaging people to self analyze and then welcome outside opinions of their work in order to continue push the boundaries of what is possible for human potential.

We seem to like to chase money. Maybe it’s an American culture thing, maybe it’s a habit picked up through our environment as kids. For whatever reason, we’ve come to value money as the ultimate resource. This could possibly be the biggest travesty in human existence. If you look around every day you see it unfolding everywhere. We’ve adopted a simple framework – get up, work for money, go home – repeat tomorrow. Live for Fridays and thank god it’s the weekend mentalities are considered the norm. You feel like the outcast when four people around the table go I fucking hate Monday because I have to go back to work.

Some, not all of us live this way. However – I would say that the majority of us here in America take on this mentality or love to pretend this is how it is for them but secretly inside really enjoy what they do. Why are we trading time for misery? Money. Yes everyone needs money to survive in this economically advanced society here but everyone’s “needs” are different so the pursuit or more and more money comes at higher and higher costs unless we understand the risks and are willing to admit that money is not your greatest resource – TIME is more valuable than money.

You can always figure out a way to get more money, but what we’ve been terrible at is figuring out a way to get more time in this life. Luckily, modern advancements in medicine and health have come a long way to prevent earlier than “normal” death but we still have yet to figure out how to extend life so we can buy more time. This is where the two worlds of money and time collide. If you think about it, essentially what we do every day is trade our time for money by working. Some people find ways to extract this time wisely and leverage it for the advancement of themselves, while others suffer the harsh reality of imprisonment as a “free” man/woman.

They unwilling get in their boxes and travel to a box only to sit in front of a box with people they don’t like for the majority of their day, hopeful that the weekend will come quicker and their bank accounts will have enough money in it from their dead man walking efforts so that they can piss it away on things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like only to find themselves stuck again on the hamster wheel come Monday morning. Exhausted yet? We do this because we think there’s no other way. We do this because we think money will get us the things we need but we’ve traded hours upon hours for that money. The traditional model of working for 45 years and living your life afterward has never been questioned and continues to be the status quo.

Imagine a world that was the opposite. Imagine a world that revered time as the ultimate resource when you mention what you were doing, or where you were going and people didn’t think about the money it costs, they thought more about the time commitment of that outing. Everything was weighed against the time and the focus of the finite resource that is time was exponentially greater than it’s ever been. They say once you reach a certain age your growth stops and now it’s a race toward death and declining health. I would question that level of thinking and ask this question – what if growth was unlimited and time was actually valued more than money?

People walk around with purses and wallets every day. They hold them close. They protect them in “rough” neighborhoods and they watch them while at the beach or movie theater to make sure no one steals it from them. Yet, we let people steal from us every day. People ask us for things every day that rob us of our time. How often do we approach things with the mentality of defending our time like we defend our wallets?

The biggest deterioration of our time in the rat race is meeting requests. The dreaded three words – can we meet? These three words are almost as threatening as the man who runs into the bank with a gun and says these three words – gimme the money. Yet I can already tell that the first reaction of some of the people who have just finished reading the above sentence will go, “oh it’s not that serious.” Yes – yes it is. I see people every single day literally pissing time away. What are they doing with all this empty space? They stand in line at the grocery store, bank, school pick up line, and do nothing but scroll on their phones. You could definitely say – well you don’t know (you’re judging them, Yes, Yes I am) that maybe they’re reading something important or texting with someone they enjoy and having a meaningful conversation. Yes – they could be doing this but chances are they are not.

Maybe it’s time we watched time more closely. Track our budgets and our time. Maybe this approach will demonstrate that people can realize how much time they spend on meaningless shit, like bitching and complaining and focus their efforts in a more productive way so that they don’t turn around at 75 and go, where did all the time go?

Just my observation.

We’re influenced in so many more ways than we even realize it’s fucking scary. Today we make decisions based on a lot of other things that seem important but are very far removed from the internal thoughts and true decisions that would have been made if it were left solely up alone. These influences can come from anywhere but now with access to so many peoples opinions at the click of a button, it’s as if we removed part of our brain that we used to allow us to make decisions based on ourselves and our own thoughts against the evidence we know to be true.

Look no further than everything that’s taken place this year – infectious diseases, unwarranted killings of individuals by police, economies shut down, riots, etc. All of this has lead us into a false sense of community “we’re in this together” and a more uniformed approach of decision making. This removes any individualism whatsoever because the cancel-culture we’ve created makes it almost impossible to think rationally and objectively, while at the same time feel like we have the ability to speak freely. Today there is no room to be incorrect or unintentionally offensive and zero room to correct it and still contribute our thoughts with the intention of seeking the truth.

People today are so scared to think for themselves and it’s a disservice to everyone around them. Even if your thought is stupid, you should share it so we as a collective can evaluate it, test it and then report back to you that it is stupid. That’s not what has evolved over the last 8-9 months here in the US. We’ve shown how much we’re like sheep, how much we want to be lead – even if it’s by taking the wrong poster child, and we’ve also shown how ridiculously stupid we are because we’ve created an environment where we cannibalize our very own for saying anything that’s challenging or against the mass opinion at the moment.

If you stand up and say – All Lives Matter, now someone will jump in and say you’re a racist. Someone will say it’s not about YOU when in fact if you think about it long enough, shouldn’t the goal be that all lives do matter, and by approaching it with this mentality you really send the true message that is at the heart of this issue? Human life matters and what we want is equality yet we’ve once again, in the most twisted way, created more segregation because you didn’t “say it the right way.”

If you strike out on your own and provide a different vantage point in 2020 you’re shunned and typecasted into the shitty people group. We’ve become accustomed to the instalabeling -racist, bigot, Trump supporter etc, that will get you more than just “unfollowed” these days. We tend to do what the majority do because we don’t have the balls to speak up for us as individuals which is a tragedy of epic proportions when you think about it because this leads us to groupthink and kumbaya which doesn’t let the species progress in any fashion. We have no problem challenging leadership when it comes to the things we know instinctually i.e. on the matters of how one should handle relationships with females or what shouldn’t be said in a tweet. But when it comes to things out of our realm of understanding i.e. infectious diseases, biology, and the transmissions of those diseases, we leave our brain on the kitchen counter and follow along like good school children do when they’re told to.

It’s scary. Discussions look more like arguments these days than think tanks and you better watch out because if you say the wrong word or use something improperly that this coddled culture finds offensive, all of the work you’ve done to get to this point could be destroyed and you will be disposed of.

There used to be a time where it was shameful to be on unemployment or welfare. In fact, Franklin Roosevelt implemented a national welfare system to combat the uncertainties of life with the primary focus being on single mothers who didn’t have the ability to care for a young child and work. As a nation, it was looked at as a necessary support system for those who really needed it and there were people who needed it but worked tirelessly to come off of welfare because of the shame they felt not having the independence to care for themselves and their familes.

Fast forward to today – we’re in a much different world than we were 90 years ago. Our reliance on government aid has turned what was once looked at as a support system into a litany of con artists and lazy fucks. It’s become easier to evade the truth about your situation and lie to the government to get free money than it is to get a real job so we’ve now created a vicious cycle of individuals who’d rather abuse a system then be a contributing member of society.

The problem with this is what’s called creep. Creep can be defined here as the slow spreading of an idea that entices more and more seemingly regular people to adopt this new way of living. From there it wears off through the social systems in one way or another. It creates unmotivated individuals because nothing is at stake.

It creates resentful individuals who watch people in their peer group not have to work but still able to get money from the government and enjoy life as if nothing has changed all that much. From there it creeps into those in the working world who have a job but look at things from the perspective of how do I do the least amount of work and still stick around long enough to the point where I can ask the company for a raise as if longevity equals an increase in pay. Aside from the standard 2% annual raise that is suggested as a part of keeping up with inflation, the absurdity surrounding the discussions around raises makes me want to puke.

People act like they should get a raise because the post office says they pay workers 16 an hour. As if it matters that government-run operation pays entry-level wages at that rate. But in today’s society, it creates a completely subjective anchor in people’s minds. It’s not just entry-level workers who go through this, it’s also the supposedly sophisticated individuals with three letters after their name who demand more because they either A) feel like they need to keep up with the Joneses next door or B) saw that in Nashville Tennessee they’re paying people 1/3 more than you’re making. So what is everyone missing? Quite a bit.

First off this whole notion of push-pull in organizations is not new. As an employee, you have a very defined amount of room when it comes to your pay range. You get paid in direct proportion to the value you bring the organization. It’s simple as that. Do you make the organization money? Is your skillset easily replaceable? If so less wiggle room. Are you a cog in a wheel or a snowflake?

Could you negotiate your way up? Yes of course but only to a point. You’re not going to walk into a place and say you’re a secretary and expect to make 100K this year. It’s not going to happen unless you can clearly outline how much value you bring to the company and why it not only justifies them paying you that but how even at that rate you’re probably underpaid. Additionally, you have to clearly layout that your pay increase is easily affordable to the company based on the work you do. What ends up happening at most of the larger places is the short-sighted water cooler chats permeate the organization and individuals come to one conclusion – look at everything going on here, they could definitely pay me more and they’re greedy for not sharing or kicking back some of this money with the employees.

Let’s be clear – some organizations are greedy. Some organizations do take advantage of their workforce but for every place that does wrongfully take advantage of their workforce, there are probably 10 organizations where employees talk shit about wanting raises all on the basis of a “just because” theory or some other very limiting justification. We’ve allowed these hollow justifications to push up minimum wages in states across the country. The argument surrounding minimum wage is not a new one, the players in the game have just gotten better at manipulating their local governments to believe they’re really working hard and can’t survive off of the wages they are currently making. We’ve taken a system that was essentially a ladder, i.e. work hard, improve and learn = make more money = do it all over again and try to increase your skills along the way, and turned it into a bed. There’s no need to climb the ladder because the floor has been lifted and now you can get comfortable in your lower-tier bed with no incentive to do more.

So now what? What do we do? How must we resolve this issue? A few ways to get back on track include removing handouts, increasing competition, and emphasizing the importance of American manufacturing and true independence. We cannot begin to assess the playing field if we do not know what people are capable of on their own. This means WITHOUT the internet. How does one think? It never occurred to me 17 years ago when I was looking at Wall Street hedge funds and assuming I should be able to get a job there easily. Their version of critical thinking was way different and although it took me a long time, it’s a skill I’m glad I figured out.