Primarily in my life, I am in constant competition with myself. Sometimes to a fault, I compete against myself in an effort to achieve perfection. As a result, there are certain competitions that I will never undertake and/or complete because I know perfection cannot be achieved and therefore I am left in a state of paralysis. I also have the mentality that if I am going to do something, I am going to do it right. Half right is an utter failure of competition for me. Competing against my own self rules my senses in almost everything I do… I attempt to win at everything I do.

I am a very sports oriented person too. That means that I am also very competitive against groups of people. It doesn’t have to be sports though. Any group that I interact with, I want our group to be perceived as the winner. Winning brings the stamp of approval amongst your peers does it not? Nobody ever crowns the losers do they?

I do not compete with possession. In my young adult life, that statement would not have been true… but these days, the more mature and self confident version of me doesn’t need worldly possession to tell me I’ve won the world’s possession competition. What do you actually win anyway? More bills, more stress, more stuff… great, can you take that with you when you die? Well, nobody really wants the ancillary issues that come along with possession competition… they only want the “stuff.”

Do you compete with your spouse? Sometimes I do, but only in a loving and friendly way. If I do compete with my wife, in actuality, it’s a competition that I want us both to win. I’m not looking to beat her or dominate her and win some hidden achievement. I’m looking to enter into a competition that we both will win. This is what I call a friendly competition.

Other things and people we all have a competition with involve our job, our families, and even inanimate objects. Competition is everywhere in our lives and sometimes we completely miss the point and focus on the wrong things while trying to achieve success. If we simply focus upon winning, then our attention isn’t necessarily in the right place. Focusing upon winning can lead to a win at all costs attitude and will inevitably create issues along the way.

Sometimes, we forget that while on the path to achieving success, others are on that same path. We cannot simply brush them to the side or crush them on the way and assume that it’s ok. We must compete with a fair and friendly attitude. Remember, nobody wants to be associated with a jerk. A winner who competes to win at all costs is in fact, a jerk. Ask their “friends.”

Now that I’ve told you who I compete against, are you much different than me? I think we are all competing amongst ourselves. The only difference is how we go about it and what we truly view as success. I used to compete with the mentality of crushing all opponents, a sports mentality. But in the real world, competing in such a way will not work and in the end, it will leave you as the loser in life. As the new year begins, I have entered into many new competitions. I intend to be successful, but my focus will be upon achieving success without destroying those around me. Competition done fairly and effectively can help everyone and not just the so-called “winner.” So, go compete, but be fair and friendly.

Lose weight/Get in better shape/Become healthier…

This seems to be the standard resolution for the majority of society for a variety of reasons. I’m right there with you. We can always strive to become healthier in how we eat, exercise, and live our lives. We must set goals that are attainable so that we do not become discouraged… nothing happens overnight. Remember, it took a long time to get into the state we are in and it will take time to reverse it. Focus on small battles on the way to the overall victory. Think about things in terms of weeks and months, not days and never allow a minor setback destroy your resolve or momentum in your journey.

Save money/Get out of debt

Everyone always wants to make that nest egg a little bit bigger. We also want to reduce the stress in our life that debt creates. Managing our money better during the new year is also a very important battle we wage each and every paycheck. Again, we must focus on the small victories in the course of our war on debt and savings. This particular battle may be a multi-year war and thus there are many opportunities to stray off course and allow the pitfalls of the war disintegrate our willpower. We must focus on the small victories and remember that things take time to right the wrongs of the past.

Be nicer or more caring/Volunteer more

As human beings, most of us have the born in need of wanting to help others. Giving our time freely by volunteering and helping others in need is a prime opportunity to satisfy this need. However, we all know how strained our current time allocations are. We can’t arbitrarily state that we will join several volunteer groups in our community or church and believe that we can sustain a drastic change in lifestyle. As with our other resolutions, we must think small first, and move to bigger and better things.

Many resolutions are dead and buried by the 2^nd week of the new year and some may only last into the 2^nd month. Overall, our resolutions are made in good faith because we all want to become the person we envision ourselves to be, but it’s very easy to become discouraged and migrate back to our previous way of life. If we make too many changes, we simply cannot stay on track and our resolutions become nothing more than pipe dreams. Stay small and focused and true change can happen.

With the economy, housing market, and job market in the dire states they are currently in, what kind of new resolutions make sense to make this year?

Work harder/Be more efficient

With jobs becoming scarce, we all need to work harder at the jobs we do have and also become more efficient at them. Society is spending less money and as a result, there is less money in corporate pockets. Production decreases and job slashing will continue to erode the job market. If we can make ourselves more valuable while decreasing overall costs by becoming more efficient, we can help protect our jobs.

Rebuild family/friend relationships

As the overall economy deteriorates, we all need help at some point. That help comes from our family and friends for the most because the government is not our support system. If there are issues that currently are keeping family or friend relationships broken, they should be worked through because these relationships with loved ones can make the difference between a lifestyle of depression versus one with hope. We all need loving relationships in our lives. Repair those that are broken.

Find your faith/Become active in church

America was born upon the Christian philosophy and faith. The vast majority of Americans still consider themselves Christians. However, church attendance is down. Our church family is another relationship we must rebuild and refocus our attention on. If we can come together again and put away our selfish and greedy differences and focus on living our lives through our faith, we can overcome the trials and tribulations the world continually tries to punish us with.

The new year can be a great year. Focus on each day by doing whatever you can to achieve your overall goals. Remember that winning the battles will not be easy and they will take time… some will take years. However, if we truly work on them, we can make a major difference in our lives and also those around us by simply trying to become better people. Our individual attention to ourselves will translate to everyone around us and we can make an immeasurable positive impact on society.

The eyes of the American public have been pried open by what some may equate to how an experienced torturer may open the eyes of his victim. People are losing their retirement savings in an instant, many families are being forced from their homes, and individuals are losing their jobs that they once thought were safe in a hustling and bustling economy. Nothing is safe at this point. The news reports the demise of the big three automakers in Detroit and their pleas for Congress to help bail them out. We hear daily reports of financial institutions going under with their only hope to survive being federal takeover or submitting to a takeover from a rival company. Employees are finding out that their jobs are not safe each and every day as companies are cutting their costs by sacrificing jobs. Home values have declined to the point where more people have no equity in their home than ever before in our history.

All of these things have combined to generate a horrific downward spiral of events that cause the next major collapse or economic downshift. The net effect is that there is less money to be spent by both the individual and the business. Less money in the economy at all levels – national, state, and local – means that people are going to face even worse times in the future. Things may appear bleak at the moment, but we are only riding the first wave of issues that are pounding our economic beaches. However, right now is the time of giving, the time of holiday shopping, the ultimate time to spend money… the Christmas shopping season is upon us and Black Friday opened our eyes to the “necessary” products we must have for ourselves and to give to others.

Forecasts for the holiday shopping season are generally conservative and if people do not spend as they have in the past, the economic fallout will be felt in the coming year. But, given that jobs are becoming more scarce, corporate profits are down, and the stock market isn’t generating instant millionaires at the rate is has in our recent past, where is this holiday shopping money going to come from? Do people have hundreds or thousands of dollars in cash stuffed under their mattress? Do they have a savings account or trust fund to dip into to satisfy their Christmas “giving” needs? Where exactly is the money going to come from?

Initial reports from Black Friday estimated that Americans spent $41 billion during the Thanksgiving shopping period. That was up several percentage points when compared to last year. Forecasters have turned in their estimates and believe that even though they expect the lowest increase in spending in six years, they fully expect Americans to spend upwards of $470 billion during the Christmas shopping season. That is up from $460 billion last year…

In four days, Americans spent an estimated $41 billion shopping and are expected to spend over 10 times that in the next 25 days or so. How is that possible? Where is the money coming from? I can tell you where the money is coming from. It’s coming from the last remaining amounts left on consumers’ credit cards. People are willing to spend what they have when they have it because let’s face it, Christmas is important and everyone wants to have a good Christmas.

Also, the sense of spending it while you have it has entered many minds. Credit companies and financial institutions have been cutting the amounts they are allowing their customers to borrow. Rather than watch the credit line disappear, many people are using every last cent available to them to offset the current shortage of cash in their lives. Eventually, the credit lines will be tapped out and many consumers will be faced with very tough decisions. Without available credit and bills coming due, something has to give.

An easy way to make ourselves feel good when things are bad is to buy something. We fill a depressing need with a new possession. We spend some “future” money today in an effort to satisfy our decaying lifestyle only to see that we’ve made things worse. I believe that next year, if our economy isn’t treated to some kind of miraculous turnaround or unforeseeable bubble akin to the internet boom, bankruptcies will be the next statistic we hear about on a daily basis. Today, it’s bailouts… next year, it could be bankruptcies. There is only so much bailout money to go around and eventually, people and corporations will be allowed to fail. The economic fallout will be horrific. It could be our generation’s Great Depression. No, we likely won’t face 25% unemployment, but our standard of living could in fact be comparable to how our forefathers lived… day to day, worrying about the necessities of life being fulfilled.

Yes, we are/were in an age of excess, you cannot deny it. While your particular purchasing habits may not have been of epic proportions, society as a whole focused upon possession and more of everything. After so many years of living beyond our means (I’m at fault here myself), we are all paying the price of our past mistakes. We were all blindly led to believe that the future offered everything that would satisfy our monetary needs because our equity continued to build as we bought more and more stuff. We kept expanding and living upon the faith that a dollar spent today would turn into more than a dollar in the future. However, that future was expected to be the VERY NEAR future.

In between the buildup and that seemingly promised future, we have experienced a major issue, our economy buckled under the constant pressure of excess living. No longer do we have that “guarantee” of future monetary reward for our past greed. I say greed because what other term can you logically apply to how we were living? We were ALL at fault for living greedily. Blame who you like, but we are all responsible for our own decisions in the end.

Now that we are experiencing the cyclical nature of the free markets and the dire consequences of our actions, we are left with a very important decision to make. Are we going to try and persevere through these “tough” times and continue our previous way of life or are we going to change how we live and change our purchasing habits? I for one am going to enter what I call an Age Of Minimalism. My purchasing habits will be directed by a set of strict guidelines that focus upon need and not greed.

Do I actually need what I currently own? Of course I need a house and a vehicle, but do I need a huge house and an SUV to satisfy those requirements? Outside of food, shelter, and other life necessities, what do we truly need? Do we need multiple televisions? Do we need a library of books and DVDs? Do we need new furniture and all the knick knacks that make our home cluttered? You get the idea. Sure, there are some things that we do need, but there is a very clear line between things we truly need and those which we don’t. There is also a clear line between satisfying your need and EXCESSIVELY satisfying your need.

We have been inundated with the big box stores promoting greater savings by buying larger packages of stuff. Do you need a gallon of ketchup? Do you need 36 cans of Spaghettios? Do you need 48 rolls of toilet paper? If we are buying these things, we have to have a place to put them right? So, we need more of everything… more stuff that we “need” and more space to store this “stuff.”

Our nation is facing a turning point and I believe that either by choice or by economic force, our citizens are going to each have to make the choice and choose to live in an Age Of Minimalism. Our President Elect Barack Obama rode the winds of change to the White House based upon his promises for a better economy. However, his latest speeches have been ENTIRELY focused upon the need to temper our expectations about what can be done. He says things will likely get worse before they get better. He says it will take time to fix what years (a generation) have broken. Really… and here I thought his election was a magic pill for our economy and people would somehow wake up with thousands of dollars in their bank account so they could go about their business and merrily spend their money…

The choice we face could determine the long term existence of our country. If we fail to change our lives of excess, our economy could disintegrate and we would no longer be a relevant nation in the global economy. We must change from being greedy to being focused upon our needs. If we satisfy our needs and save our money, we will return our nation to economic prosperity and our lives will in turn become more satisfying. We are worried about our economy because we chose to live excessively. We are now paying that price and that price may destroy our nation’s long term economic success if we fail to recognize our ignorance. Change from greed to need and happiness will return, along with economic stability.

My first inclination was to think that a drama comedy movie couldn’t be done, that it would only result in a half hearted attempt at a true drama or a true comedy. I thought the competing opposites would pull at each other leaving nothing more than a tattered mess of a movie. Well, to be honest, the movie itself wasn’t good and I didn’t get any of the “comedy” in it but I was left thinking. No, I wasn’t thinking about the movie, but the genre. Something about it kept pulling at my thoughts.

As I kept pondering over the term “drama comedy” in my mind, I eventually came to a conclusion… an epiphany of sorts. While trying to reconcile how these two seemingly opposites were paired together, I came to realize that our real lives are in fact, a drama comedy. Real life equals drama comedy. My days come and go and each is filled with their own distinct moments. These moments can consist of absolute hilarity and at the exact same time, be ultra dramatic events.

Our individual lives are the human interest stories. Drama is our daily life and comedic interventions occur on a routine basis. What initially began as an idea to write an article about how a drama comedy story could not be a viable product, I was left facing the fact that our real lives are described exactly this way. I like it when things turn out differently than expected. It adds a sense of randomness, and even comedy, to our lives.

Comedy does not have to mean laughing out loud behavior or hilarious moments. Comedy can come in the form of a comedic intervention… an instant break from the drama which allows us to function under distress. Sometimes, the comedy in our lives can be nothing more than a thought, or a look on someone’s face, or an action we see or do… it can be anything that alters the situation and provides us relief.

Do you view your life as a drama comedy? Should we interchange the words and label our lives a comedy drama? One pairing assumes drama as the dominant factor and the other, comedy. I think our lives are being consumed by drama these days with too little comedy. Our society is wrapped up in our economic worries, our political worries, our educational worries, our financial worries… drama has all but overcome the comedy of our lives. Just as the movie, a drama comedy without the comedy isn’t any good. A life of drama without comedy is not fruitful. We must find a way to reverse the trend and start living the comedy drama lives we used to have.

Personally, I’ve found the drama overwhelming my life. It’s an easy thing to do when we are inundated with negativity in our lives. What we can focus upon though is our family, our relationships, and our spirituality to return the comedy back into our lives. Without comedy, is a life of drama worth what you are giving up? Find comedy in your life and reclaim the joy of living a comedy drama.

As our markets continue the downward spiral, more and more of us are falling over the cliff and joining those who are already experiencing ultimate hardships. Our media airwaves are dominated by fear and scare mongering. Guest speaker after guest speaker keeps telling us what the problems are but that there is no real answer to fix the situation. Yes, we all know what the problems are which we are facing… we have a handle on that. The problem is for every minutes of airtime being given to these problem speakers, there is no answer to soothe the fears of the citizens listening.

Our President has repeatedly gone on national television in an effort to quell the fears and anxiety we are facing. He is trying to restore the confidence in the markets in an effort to loosen up the grip fear has upon our collective psyche. It isn’t wishes or hopes to fix our fear, it’s is a must. If fear is allowed to roam free amongst us at an ever increasing rampage while destroying our confidence level, our financial markets will not only continue their freefall, they will ultimately collapse under the pressure being exerted by fear and anxiety speculation.

Along with fear and anxiety, comes volatility. It’s readily apparent as you watch our stock market tumble hundreds of points only to recover and then plummet minutes later. People are consumed with fear at this point in time. People are being told to pull their money from banks and store up cash because credit cards may become worthless in the near future. Cash is king and is the most liquid. It helps keep the demon of fear at bay. However, what if every American family heeded this “advice” and promptly removed $500 or $1,000 or more from their bank, or sold off their stocks to place into simple interest bearing accounts?

The answer to that question is complete financial market breakdown. You may think what we are going through is terrible at this juncture, but if people begin hording cash, the issues we face aren’t even the tip of the iceberg in that scenario. While we must live our lives prudently and rearrange our investments into those that will secure our financial stability, we must not let panic and fear rule our investing decisions. The fundamentals of many companies are still strong, but their prices have lowered due to the stock market instability and sell offs. The old adage of “buy low, sell high” applies here. Several dominant companies are well within affordability these days and they should be targets of the savvy investor.

Rather than feed the fear monster our media and country have allowed to grow into a giant sized financial hurricane within our markets, we must focus on how can we act rationally in this situation. Rational is not using your mattress as your bank account. Rational is not selling out of your investments and walking away with a pittance of your previous wealth. Rational is not seizing up your life as things get hard. Yes, we must make alternative choices and decisions, but we cannot allow the demon of fear rule our lives or we will only fuel its power.

No, we cannot live the way we were, we know that. But, we can live rationally well within our means while making rational choices. Our country is currently acting irrationally and allowing outside influences alter choices without understanding the overall consequences of the actions. Media must temper what they are saying because people are easily led to irrational decisions when fear is clouding judgment and decision making. The outlets telling people to pull their cash out and store it are perpetuating the disaster we are feeding. They are allowing it to grow. Be careful in your decision making and make sure you are doing things rationally because they are sound decisions based on rock solid information and not determined by fear and volatility. Rational thinking MUST return to our markets and until then, consumer confidence will continue to decline along with our markets.

For years, everyone has been taught that college is the only real way to give yourself a true advantage over your lifetime at earning an above average living. Study after study has shown college graduates on average earn more money over their lifetime. College graduates also receive various other benefits and gains over time. However, as we know, college isn’t free. Scholarships help, grants help, parental saving even helps, but over the last few decades, savings rates have declined to almost 0% and scholarships/grants can only help a certain percentage of students. Most students rely upon loans to pay for their necessary education. Yes, it is necessary for all intents and purposes.

Our “kidults” leave college and fully expect to land a high paying job which will offset their college tuition expenses. Their salaries are also expected to cover their newfound living expenses whether it be renting or owning. On top of that, vehicle expenses, insurances, and many other costs of being on your own add up to eat away at the young generation’s ability to leave the nest. It’s not impossible for our young adults to make it on their own, but it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to achieve a life “on their own.”

A recent study reports that since 1971, annual salaries for men age 25-34 has decreased by 20%. Everyone assumes our current generations are making more money than our previous ones but more dollars is not always more purchasing power. Inflation and general cost increases have usurped most, if not all and maybe even more than the increase in actual dollars in our wallets. Our “kidults” are facing tough times. They are exiting college with thousands of dollars in tuition loans, more than likely thousands of dollars in credit card debt, and then they are expected to leave the nest and make it on their own. In 1971 and before, the amount of people graduating college was much less than it is now. Young adults then, had much lower fixed costs placed upon them when reaching the age of adulthood.

Reality is beginning to show us that monetarily, our young adults cannot make it on their own without help. That help has come in the form of parents opening their homes for their “kidults” to return home and live less expensively before leaving the nest. Parents of course are placed under stresses previous parental generations never faced. Young adults are also placed under new stresses because they aren’t able to leave the nest as expected to.

Our country’s economic path has led us to the issues our kids are facing. Yes, our decisions as individuals have also created a major portion of the issue. But, no longer can we truly expect our children to grow up, graduate high school, get a good college education, and then enter the real world on their own two feet. Children are not a 16, 18, or 21 year investment. Parents have to be ready for what the real world has become and that is our children could be homebound for much longer than expected. A recent study has shown 20% of 26 year olds are living at home (compared to 11% in 1970). The reality is here and our kids are returning home because they have to. Financially, our young generation cannot make it without help. As loving parents, we will open our homes and doors and give our “kidults” what they need to succeed in life. But, where does it end? In 20 years are we going to see 30 year olds forced to live at home with their parents?

Citation: http://www.newsweek.com/

One simple example of this mindset involves our past history. Try as we might to wish things were different in our pasts, we cannot ever change the results. We can learn from our past, but other than experience and memory, they are set in stone. The past is the epitome of what cannot be changed. So why are so many of us wrapped up in the past? Wrapped up in the past of who we were? Wrapped up in the past of the wrong decisions we made? Wrapped up in the past decisions our government made? The list could go on forever. Everyone has a closet full of wishes that would result in changes of past history. Entire countries look back and wish about what might have been.

Nothing good can come out of all this. Yes, we can learn from our mistakes as we should analyze what went wrong so we can take the lessons forward. But, we cannot continually harp and worry about the past as it will destroy our present. As Twain suggests, we must forget and potentially ignore what cannot be changed. Our past is the example of “what.” Do you have anything in your present which is being affected by your holding on to the past? I’m sure most of us do. Human nature is to hold on to things. Letting go is one of the toughest decisions we must all make throughout our life. It could be something small in relation to everything around us, but major to the individual. It could also be something life changing which we hold on to that completely clouds our decision making and living in the present. Some things create such an impact in our lives that we cannot seem to release its hold from our present and future life.

What happens when such things happen and rule our present? We allow our past to define our present self along with our future. Our past is the single most unchanging event we can possibly know other than death. Once that fleeting moment of time has passed before our eyes, we can no longer alter the course of what has happened. Why should we allow the past to control our daily life and future? Let go, forget, and ignore. Allow the past to become the past and a part of who we are. Learn from it, but leave it behind.

It becomes a mindset. Live for the now and the future and leave your past as the part of your life which helped build you into the person you are now. At this very moment, you can choose to release your attention to what was and begin focusing on what will be. What will or can be in the future could possibly never happen if your eyes are looking the other direction. Our lives are going in a million different directions, but backwards shouldn’t be one of them. Too many of us are treading water with who we were as the definition of who we are. We are focusing on our past decisions without paying attention to our daily decisions. We have allowed past mistakes as individuals, society, and government destroy what happiness we could experience in the future.

Everyone likes to look at the facts of the present and apply them to the past. It’s easy because we all appear to be geniuses. We make mistakes because we never have complete information available to us. We are only making the best educated “guess” at any given time. Yes, most decisions are guesses as we hope our decision leads us to the best possible outcome given the circumstances and knowledge at hand. This simple standard of decision making applies to all of us as individuals, societies, and entire countries. We do the best we can.

Sometimes things don’t work out the way we wanted. Things go bad and decidedly in the wrong direction no matter how hard we try to steer it right. Should the past overwhelm us and destroy our ability to move forward? No. We must take the opportunity to remove focus from what went wrong and focus on what we can do right. We can all take this advice to heart and apply it to our lives, our jobs, and our country. Live life moving forward, forget about the unchangeable past. The past will always be a part of us and we can learn from it, but we must never allow it to define us.

How would our country’s society be affected if our political parties weren’t always focused upon the past of everyone else but themselves? Rather than looking backwards at a past which they cannot change, they should be focusing on leading our nation forward. The past plays too big of a role in our politics and government today. If something is wrong, fix it, move forward, and forget about it. But, if we as individuals fail to let go of the past, how can we expect our country to move forward?

It all starts with you, the person reading this. Each of us can choose to allow the past to be the past and move forward. The future and now contains happiness, the past is a memory. Remove the stranglehold your past has on you and let go. Our future awaits us… all of us.

Bill, our down and out “hero,” has a moment in the movie where he expounds to his student about how (and I’m paraphrasing here) “if you work for someone else your entire life, eventually, all you will care about in the end is the paycheck because work sucks.” I’m pretty sure every generation of our existence has come to believe that for the most part, work does suck. We are constantly told from a very young age, find something you love to do, figure out a way to make money doing that, and you will be happy. However, the real world exists and not fantasy island. As rational human beings, the great majority of us in this life are destined to work and make a living doing something we do not particularly love because we must support our life and/or family. Doing what we love doesn’t necessarily offer the best monetary rewards.

Sure, there are those lucky individuals in our society who have hit their niche and uncovered a goldmine of riches because of their persistence and focus on their true talent and ability. For every one of those, there are hundreds if not thousands of us who never reach that point of perpetual bliss. What differentiates those who “succeed” and those who are left working in a less than ideal job for the rest of their lives? Not much. There are some key ingredients of course that must happen for the possibility to even exist. Among those are: timing, perseverance and persistence, sacrifice, faith, and of course, luck. Without these key ingredients, the opportunity cannot exist. While some people may be lucky enough to have their fortune seemingly “drop into their lap,” the rest of us must actually apply the above ingredients to change our way of life. You may be thinking I am missing the most important ingredient of all, money. Sometimes, money is the only factor keeping the dream from happening in the form of startup costs/etc. However, giving the right timing and focus on the other ingredients above, I believe money will come.

Have you ever seen the stories of the “stay at home mom” who has an idea and puts her entire focus on making it happen and she ends up turning a simple idea into a fortune? The mom has turned her life around without the money ingredient. She applied the other key factors and focused entirely on making something happen. Money eventually came. There are many stories such as this. People have found a way to change their lives, but only if they try. Not just try, but give everything they have to make it happen. They BELIEVE they will succeed. They truly believe that everything they do is working towards their goal of achieving the life in which they are working at something they love doing.

I’m not saying that you have to work for yourself to love what you do either. There are many jobs in the world that you can absolutely love what you are doing while working for someone else. However, even for these individuals who have found their calling working for others, I will bet you they can immediately give you a list of what they do not like in their current position. I would place a bet that management would appear on almost every list. The job is great, but management is not. But, it’s a tradeoff they are willing to make because of their love for what they are doing.

Even in the above situation, the individual worker would be better off working for himself because he is making a tradeoff. But you may say that we cannot all work for ourselves. We can’t have 250 million sole proprietorships. No, we can’t and I agree. That is where the statement from Bill comes into play. Work does suck. It sucks because you are doing something you don’t truly love and you are doing it for someone who likely does not reward you appropriately for your effort. If that isn’t the definition of work sucks I’d like to see a better one. Are the rest of us destined to work in these jobs while only a small fraction of us succeed at making a living doing what we love? Sad to say, but given our current and past job and market climates, I don’t think anything will change in our near future.

Our capitalist economy prides itself on one thing, profitability. To achieve profitability, most companies depend on workers being highly efficient and productive while at the same time, not being paid what they are worth. This tradeoff is where the company makes their money. Get more out of the worker, but trickle very small portions of the rewards down to them. Are you currently in such a job? More than likely, but so are the rest of us. Very few of us will realize what it’s like to live a life doing what it is we love doing. We are “forced” to spend the majority of our able years doing something for someone else to support our families. Yes, it is an honorable and necessary thing to do, but is it right that we are “throwing” the greatest portion of our lives away when our time could be better spent?

We know everyone cannot achieve the dream of doing whatever they love because like I said, there cannot be 250 sole proprietors and have a successful business market. Where does that leave us? It leaves us with the knowledge that for the greatest percentage of us, we are left to work in positions where we are likely to think that “work sucks.” This can be changed. Work, which you do not truly love, does not have to suck. To accomplish this, we need better management. We need better employee treatment. We need the wealth to be shared fairly within each business. While computer programming may not be your true love, if you are treated with respect and given your appropriate human and monetary rewards, you will not believe work sucks even though your true love may be farming. At that point, work is a means to an end, one that you are not throwing your life away at, one that does not remove your happiness and imposes stress during your hours off the job.

I will agree with Bill in the movie that for the majority of our society, work does suck. But, I place the blame on those we work for, not the job itself. Every job can be made satisfactory, it’s how we are treated that makes work suck. Some people are able to leave this world behind completely and move forward in a business they truly love, but they are the life lottery winners. We all have an opportunity at it, but the practical reality is everyone cannot win. Works sucks, but it doesn’t have to.

Personally, I think the propensity for violence in our society is near 100%. I’m speaking about rational, functional individuals living amongst us. We are ALL born with the “genes” of violence within us, men and women alike. It’s in our nature, specific genes or not. Our current crop of scientists believes they can pinpoint each individual gene, or group of genes, responsible for everything. The Human Genome Project has shown great promise when working towards counteracting disease and trying to inhibit their impact on people but are we looking too deep into this equation? Maybe one day they can find the gene that makes men believe they are always going the right direction even without a map. Better yet, maybe we can find the gene and eliminate it from our children before birth that causes teenagers to think they know everything when in fact, they do not.

Given enough time, money, and human subjects, every “study” will produce results which can form some semblance of a “ground breaking” statement. Why exactly would we be looking for a “violence gene?” Are we looking to weed out the bad apples from society? Are we trying to find out who would be best suited for military careers? Are we trying to “correct” them before they become violent? Why do we believe we must fix everything? Finding a violence gene in humans is like finding out babies cry when they are hungry. To only assume that 1% of our nation has these genes is ludicrous. Every person has the ability to be violent. Most are able to say no to their nature because of some of the following: They are rational. They have moral and ethical values. They have religious faith deeming violence is wrong. They know right from wrong. They are mentally stable.

We live in a free society where most people are rewarded for being non-violent. However, that does not mean that 99% of us are born without the propensity for violence and have dormant “violent genes” residing within our genetic makeup. According to the study, some triggers which results in violence from these genetic anomalies are: stress, family problems, failing school, and low popularity. They cannot be serious can they? Studying 20,000 young men resulted in the profound findings you just read? Oh, and the study also found that if the family eats dinner together on a regular basis, the propensity for violence returned to almost zero. Yes, yet another groundbreaking insight into human behavior.

While I am all for studying people and how our genetics impact our lives and health, studies such as these are time fillers, money wasters, and gibberish. People who are prone to violence do not need a blood test to show the world they need help. They produce specific knowledge to those who know them. People who are more apt to “snap” display social characteristics throughout their life both during their younger years and during adulthood that differentiate them from the people who can readily control their violent nature within. I’m sure you know a few individuals who fit this bill, we all do. Personally, I know I am prone to violence as there are some people in my past who can attest to that fact. But, now that I’m older, more mature, and have a very good base of moral and ethical parameters differentiating what is right and wrong, I can control my violent nature and choose to do what’s right and be non-violent.

Right there, ever so subtle, the word “choose” comes into the equation. We, as thinking human beings, have choices to make. We choose to be violent or we do not. Even the most “crazy” individuals make choices. In the end, we are continually searching for reasons to blame our problems on. We, the individual or even society, are never the culprit in what has gone wrong in our lives. It must always be something or someone else’s fault for why we are the way we are and what we do. Accepting that we have choice and choose to do the wrong thing brings about accountability. And with accountability, you must have consequences for action and responsibility. These words carry great weight in our lives. Many people just cannot deal with the ramifications of their choices and return to their violent nature. We are all capable of doing what is wrong just as much as we are at doing what is right.

However, we want something other than ourselves to blame for when we choose to do what’s wrong. We take the accolades and compliments for when we make the right decisions as we have earned them right? But when we are wrong, low and behold, it was a genetic anomaly that was at fault. While I’m sure genetics plays a big part in the formation of who we are and creates “roadblocks” during our development, we become mature, rational adults at some point in our lives. Young people will always act out, some more than others, but trying to place the blame on a genetic sequence is beyond me when violence is in our human nature. Our environment around us also plays a large part in determining who we are. The study of course showed bad environments will “trigger” violence from people “afflicted” by these genes. However, aren’t we all?

I’m not convinced we are born to follow a certain destiny our genes have been imprinted with upon creation and then birth. If we believe our genetics and environment are to blame for every single thing we do, then are we actually thinking individuals or just products of pre-wired destiny? The one thing that separates us from everything else on this planet is that we are rational, thinking beings. When was it ok to start blaming everything else but the one thing at the root of the issue? We make our choices and we must accept the results from those choices. Genetics or not, we are still in control of our decisions, even if we are “pre-disposed” to violence (which we all are). I choose to be non-violent, so can everyone else.