You may be reading this thinking that you are in fact the epitome of normalcy… everyone should persevere to be more like you and things would be better right? I’m not even going to say you’re wrong because you may in fact be right. But, what I do have to say is that while I don’t think I’m any worse than anyone else, I am most definitely not normal in the sense of the world’s definition of normal today.

Number one, I believe that Christianity deserves a more prominent role in our society… Let me restate that… I believe the role of Christianity in the United States should be returned to its rightful place our forefathers intended for it to be. Our current society and governmental policy has desecrated the spiritual relationship our country was built upon in an effort to satisfy the liberal elitists and minority segments of society with unending rivers of cash.

Number two, I believe that the people should run our country, not the government running the people. Our government is not working for the people at this stage of our country’s existence… it is feeding upon the power that it has been given in an effort to rule our people thinking that it can make better decisions for us than we can for ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure I can make my own decisions without some politician telling me what to do and how to live.

Number three, I don’t believe in being politically correct. We can be congenial and friendly without having to succumb to the mind numbing actions being politically correct involve. If we can’t coexist amongst one another without offending each other, maybe we should have classes on being tactful and respectful rather than being force-fed something that only covers up people’s true feelings. Being politically correct doesn’t solve anything, it simply sugar coats the situation and makes for very fake conversations and relationships.

Number four, I don’t think the government is here to solve all of our problems. I believe the American citizen owns the power to change our world. We can’t rely upon or depend upon government handouts, stimulus packages, or interventions to solve our issues. Do you still have your mom and dad bail you out of trouble when you have issues? Does your dad come and change your tire if it’s flat? Does your mom still do your laundry and make you supper? We need to outgrow our dependence on government and relearn how to govern ourselves.

And finally number five, I believe every single person in our country, male and female, should be required to complete a full year of military service before turning 18. No, I’m not talking about joining the National Guard or Army… I’m talking about a year long (not school year, a full 365 days) course providing every young person a sample of discipline, structure, and military training that will lay the foundation for a strong young mind preparing to enter adulthood and the real world.

Do you think this sounds very normal in today’s society of religious decline, government handouts, and decreasing military recruitment? Our society is all about getting things because of some sense of entitlement. Where did the concept of earning what you deserve go? We have been trained to rely upon our government for sustenance and we have allowed our spirituality be gutted simply because an elite few has decided they don’t agree. We don’t respect our military the way we should and we do things right only if we are recognized and rewarded in some manner. I’m glad that I’m not normal in the eyes of our world. If I were called normal by the “normal” people of this world, I would be ashamed of myself.

To me, asking people for help involves getting people truly involved with the task you are asking them to help you on. It means giving them important tasks associated with the current issue and it also means that you must still play the integral role. You are the one asking for help right? That inherently means that the helpers are there to facilitate accomplishing goals and not running the task or project.

I must admit, I’m not very good at asking for help. But when I do, I expect people that accept the challenge, to undertake important roles within the project. Given that I don’t like to ask for help, I like to do most things myself, according to my rules… and the project is completed only when I believe that all goals are satisfied over their original expectations. However, as I stated, there are times when asking for help is the only true way to complete a project or task. That’s when I have to recognize that not everyone is going to treat their work the same way I do. Their version of effort may not be equal to mine. Their version of complete or satisfaction may not equal what I believe to be a finished project.

This simple ideology can lead to a very bad thing… micro managing. In my college years, I was involved in several group projects that accounted for a major portion of our grades. I would ask for help as the project depended upon teamwork and group effort, but in the end, I would end up having to oversee every aspect of the project to achieve a satisfactory completion. This happened on more than one occasion… but my grades always came back high so the results justified the means right? But, did the success of securing a high grade do me any good in the arena of utilizing my team and asking for help? Looking back, I can say no it didn’t.

I see many people in the world living this way in both their personal and work lives. They ask for help, but they don’t truly mean it. They either want to oversee every single thing and make sure it complies with their version of excellence or they want to simply disappear from the project all together. In my case, I was always wary of the capabilities of others. I always thought I could do it better so I needed to be involved. In the end, I limited myself and the people within the group. I basically stunted all of our growth in an effort to get a better grade.

How do you ask people for help? Are you actually looking for people to provide you their expertise and effort or are you looking for a secretary or paper pusher to take over the rudimentary tasks? Are you looking for someone to unload a project on which you have deemed unworthy of your precious time? I will admit that I’ve done both… that doesn’t make it right by any means.

Next time you ask for help, make sure you allow those you have asked to help, actually HELP! Also, next time that you are asked to help, be aggressive and try and assume some responsibility within the project or task. Learning more and contributing is well worth the effort. If you have to spend the time anyway, you might as well get something out of it right?

I’ve had to spend a lot of time going against my natural instincts of doing it all and I’m still not very good at doing that. But I do try and hopefully, I will continue to get better at both asking for help, and providing it.

No, I’m not only talking about the supervisors or managers of us in our work lives, I am also talking about our own ability to manage ourselves. Our lives, both at work and at home, have simply become overwhelmed by too many multitasking opportunities. We are focused, but unfocused at the same time. We are trying to do too many things at once while accomplishing nothing. We are effectively in a constant state of paralysis. Our attention is being pulled in so many directions, we cannot move forward without pulling something else backwards in our lives.

Our single person isn’t enough to continually push the amount of stuff in our lives forward at once. So, we live a life of unfocused focus. At work, we are responsible for many things because as Americans, we pride ourselves on efficiency and hard work. At home, we over subscribe our time because we have so many irons in the fire. While we focus on one thing, something else is falling behind. We switch our focus to correct that and something else lags. We just cannot catch up. It eventually leads to an overwhelming situation where we feel that no matter what we do, we just cannot keep up, get out, or complete a project.

As we manage ourselves, we must decide what we can do. We must decide how thin to stretch our time, our resources, and our energy. Our managers at work must also do the same. If we are stretched beyond our capabilities, we end up where a lot of us are today… overwhelmed and paralyzed. So, we have meetings to have a meeting in an effort to fix a certain situation. We make a plan to have a plan so that we can push forward something that is dragging behind. We continually have the same conversations over and over again because our focus has been split into a hundred different directions. It seems as if we are reinventing the wheel over and over again.

At some point in time, we should put a stake into the ground and announce that we are pushed as far as we can go. There is a finite amount of energy and time in our everyday lives. We must recognize that as an individual and our supervisors must also realize that. If our lives are allowed to continue down this path, a breaking point will be discovered and over time, everything will come crashing down. Rather than living in a state of paralysis, we will enter a situation of freefalling disaster. The pressures of everything around us that we were capable of holding at bay will crush us and we will not be able to reverse the momentum.

We need to regain our focus and whittle down the amount of things we are undertaking in our lives. We should focus our efforts on returning to a more minimal state of living and recover some of our time at home. Our managers at work must realize that a “Jack of all trades” is not better than an expert… or king of the trade. We can still be efficient and not be responsible for umpteen different tasks at once. Focused worker attention is more efficient and also more productive. Focused home life allows for a more stable household and creates better relationships.

But, this is America… we are the “go go” society. We want to be number one and the price we pay to be number one may just not be worth it. If we sacrifice ourselves and our identity to achieve so-called prosperity aren’t we really the losers?

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.

In the past, New Years didn’t mean anything to me. Well, it did mean something to me if my favorite college football team was playing, but other than that, it was just another cold day in Missouri. However, now that I’m in my mid 30’s, New Years means a bit more to me. I’m not sure if it has something to do with my age, my mental outlook, or my continued growth as a husband and father. Maybe it has to do with all of the above.

Each January 1^st now brings a sense of hope for me. It gives me a fresh mental outlook at what can be and not what is or what has been. It’s a simple thing really, but the reality of the matter is, I can feel the difference, physically, emotionally, and even spiritually when the calendar shows January 1^st. Does that mean the day before was worse than the new day to come? Does that mean the past year wasn’t as good as I hope the upcoming year is going to be? No.

I now view January 1^st as a date in which I can reflect on my life up until that point and set goals around how I want my life to be so I can be the best version of me. It does offer a clean slate, an empty notebook, and a chance at excellence. It also offers redemption and a mentality focusing on new beginnings. Does the simple change of date really make any difference? Of course it doesn’t. But, we all know the absolute power our mind has over our body and some of us attach great importance to certain calendar dates.

Sometimes, my New Years goals are the exact same as the year before, they never change. I set goals that I strive to achieve. Some goals may not even be goals, but are actually standards to live by. Some goals may be easily tracked and accounted for. Other goals may just be simple goals that are entirely personal and cannot be qualified or understood by others. It doesn’t matter. Our goals we set allow us to view the new year as a path to a better version of ourselves.

As we get closer to January 1^st, I find myself thinking of goals I want to set and I’m beginning to work on them already. The date itself isn’t the important factor, the mental outlook is most important. Allowing your mental outlook to focus upon the hope and greatness of what may come in the new year can truly alter your daily life.

So, as I get older, I pay more attention to New Years Day. It makes me feel excited. It makes me focus upon how I can improve myself. It makes me live with hope and excitement that each and every day is a step towards achieving my goal of a better me.

We all need goals and January 1^st is the easiest date to set them on. If you’re not a New Years person, try and set some goals this year. Start small and honestly try and attain them. See how it can change your life and make you feel different inside as you near your accomplishments and eventually conquer your goals and even surpass them. It’s not about having lots of goals, it’s about making you the best you there is and working every day to achieve that. Will you join me and set goals that will make you a better person come January 1^st? I’m in, let’s do it!

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.

You can replace the term “bad parents” with the term socialists if you like. Our elected officials are in office to protect our citizens, not tell us how to live. Government is not a parental figure and should never be the answer to all of our issues. People complain about government being at the root of all evil and in their very next sentence expect the government to help them out of their current crisis. While I do agree that the government should help us out of any crisis they created, they are not responsible for helping us out of our own private issues.

Too many people are relying upon the crutch of government to satisfy their needs. There are too many rewards available which create reverse incentives for certain people deterring them from working hard and pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. Simple fact is that it is easier to rely upon the government to satisfy the problem rather than do something about it yourself. We do not like asking permission, but the vast majority of us have a very real aversion to working hard if there is an easier way out. A simple example would be the issue of steroids in athletics.

As we continue migrating toward asking “Government may I?” our current Presidential election has shown tendencies of increasing this very real evolution. In an interview of Barack Obama performed by Bill O’Reilly, Obama was asked point blank about income redistribution. Obama, as we know, supports taxing the wealthy to support those “who have it tough.” We’ve all seen Robin Hood and this is the basic theory behind being “neighborly.” Obama stated, “… if I am sitting pretty, and you have got a waitress who is making minimum wage plus tips, and I can afford it and she can’t, what’s the big deal for me to say ‘I am going to pay a little bit more?’” O’Reilly rightfully calls this a socialist tenet. Income redistribution from the rich to the poor is a cornerstone of socialism.

The issue I have with being “neighborly” is that Obama wants to make it law that EVERY so called wealthy person must redistribute their honestly earned wealth to someone who did not. The American Dream has always been to “make it.” Why should the people who realize their dream be penalized and forced to give up a portion of their dream to others who are not applying the same effort and heart to rise above their tough times? I would like free money from the government but I wouldn’t feel right in taking it from people who have rightfully earned it if I have the ability to do something about it myself. Sure, there are situations where the world is upside down and there are people who can’t win for losing but they are the exception to the rule.

Obama goes on to say that the government has “certain things we have got to do. And we have got to help people who have a tough time affording college, so they can benefit like we have benefitted from this great country. People who are having a tough time, they don’t have health care, people who are trying to figure out how they are going to pay the bills. And there are certain things we have got to do.” Most of America is in this boat as the economy is hurting, budgets are strained, saving money has become non-existent, and costs of living outpaces our earnings increases. Is Obama saying that he is going to cure the middle class angst and money issue by redistributing the wealth to those who need it in “tough times?” No, he is directly aiming his statements at a voter segment that will run to the ballot box in November if they are “promised” free money.

The American Dream still exists and everyone has the same shot at it. Allowing government to become our adult parents thwarts the will to succeed and increases our dependence upon it. Of course, political parties will continue to follow an agenda based upon strengthening their power over the voting public. Until the public chooses to work for their rewards and refuses or stops expecting government handouts, our political parties and government will in fact become our adult parents. Parents which we must ask “Government may I? in the end.

Citation:  http://www.billoreilly.com/

Given the ability to easily obtain information, shouldn’t our society actually be well informed? Common sense would of course say yes, but are we? Are we actually utilizing the tools we have been given to become an informed citizen? The Internet has been widely available now for almost 20 years, cable television has been around for over 30 years, and CNN was established in 1980. Some of the tools have been around for 30 plus years. Our 2006 United States census data reports that over 50% of our nation’s 300 million citizens are age 39 or less. But, let’s give some credit to some of the older folk for being adept enough to learn new technology. Moving on up to 59 and younger, the percentage becomes almost 83%. To be safe, we’ll throw out the 14 and under group so that gives us a percentage of about 63% of Americans between the age of 15 and 59. Almost two-thirds of our society has had access and the ability to effectively utilize the new informational tools within our grasp.

Now that we have some concrete information to apply our common sense methodology to, we should expect to see an acceptable percentage reflecting an informed society shouldn’t we? Well, common sense is usually right, but we must never underestimate the apathy of our society. Recent surveys and reports display some alarming traits regarding how “informed” our society actually is. Since we are in the midst of a Presidential election campaign, we’ll focus on politics. A recent survey, done every two years recently released their latest results determining where people get their news and how much they are informed. The survey asked three simple questions, “Identify the party controlling Congress (Democratic Party), identify who the Secretary of State is (Condoleezza Rice), and identify the new Prime Minister of Great Britain (Gordon Brown).” I know, not everyone is intricately involved with politics, but these three questions aren’t like asking who the vice president of our 14^th President was.

The national average for their study resulted in an astounding 18% correct… yes, only 18%. The Colbert Report and The Daily Show, two political COMEDY programs, came in at 34% and 30% correct. Daily newspapers came in at a very unrespectable 22% while CNN respondents beat the national average by a whopping 1%, reaching 19% on the informed meter. What does this exactly say about our society? Are we informed at all? Does society now, with the ability to gain knowledge easier than any society or generation before us, use the tools available to us or do we simply plod along, with very little knowledge relating to our world? The survey seems to suggest that the vast majority of Americans fail to utilize the tools given to us and are simply moving along, quite happily, without knowing much. 18%, seriously… On top of that, two comedy shows obliterate several serious news avenues?

Another survey displays similarly alarming trends regarding news and information our society is receiving. This particular study reported 19% of people are “going newsless.” That percentage is up 5% since 2008. That is a trend very much proceeding in the wrong direction. Also within the report, newspaper readership has declined by 24% since 1993 including a drop of 13% since 2000. Radio, local network news, and nightly news have shown similar declines. Online news readership has increased from 2% to 37% in the meantime. However, don’t get too excited, the reports says that online gains are being outpaced by the declines in print readership so there is actually a net loss of about 3%. Digging into the demographics of the report, it shows the younger generations are going “newsless.” Between 1998 and 2008, the age group 18-24 saw a 9% increase in “newsless” responders. The age group 25-29 increased by 4% and 30-34 by 7%. The very people being raised with every information tool imaginable are choosing NOT to use them. We wonder why the national average above was only 18%…

Our society has long been characterized by apathy. Not only concerning voting habits, but every single life habit. We have become a society that has become satisfied in our current position. We are not effectively utilizing the greatest tools we have ever known to advance our knowledge and position. Our nation has become a society of settlers. Everyone likes to tout the idea that America is number one, but is anyone putting any action behind that sentiment? A few do and they succeed with hard work and determination. The rest of us seem to be complacent and willing to ride the coattails of those who drive our nation forward. The amount of coattails to ride is decreasing rapidly. Without individuals pushing our country forward, we will continue to stagnate and become more apathetic until everyone pays the price. These surveys are just a few sets of data displaying our country’s apathy. We must turn the tide and begin to use the tools available to us to move our country forward. Information is king and it is the key to success but if we do not use the tools, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Citation: Pew Survey on News Consumption & Government Census Data & http://people-press.org/

We’ve all seen it and we always have that lingering doubt in the back of our minds whether anyone has accomplished their feats legally and honestly. We have been trained to question athletes because there have been some over the years who turned out to be just as skilled at lying to the public as they were at their sport. If “that one guy” was lying, maybe this one is too. How can we ever know? We can’t and that creates the never ending stares of suspicion when someone comes along and does the unthinkable.

Our nation just witnessed Michael Phelps complete his goal of winning 8 gold medals in a single Olympics. He has taken his sport and brought it to a new level. He is the Michael Jordan, the Tiger Woods, and the Wayne Gretzky of swimming. We look at him in complete amazement at how hard he trains, how he withstands the pressure, and how he deals with adversity to reach his goal. Phelps, knowing he would be subjected to massive amounts of suspicion, volunteered to be part of a stringent testing program featuring the latest tests for drugs in blood and in urine samples. Cheaters are usually ahead of the testing programs so he has gone one step farther. His blood samples will be stored for the next 8 years to be subjected to any new testing to help stamp his innocence.

None of this would be necessary if our sports were not so corrupt with money, power, and ego satisfaction. You have to give it to Phelps though. He wants to prove his innocence by physical evidence. Most athletes want you to believe them because they are nice people. Nice people can be cheaters too as we have fallen for that trap many times before. In the end, we are left with the opposite thinking we would like to have. No longer are the best athletes innocent until proven to be a cheater, they are thought of as cheaters until proven innocent.

Given that there is always a team or individual who stands out in any sport, competition committees are always on the lookout to level the playing field. It’s good for ratings. Nobody will watch a sport where the same people continually win, it gets boring and Las Vegas doesn’t make much money under such circumstances. Part of this leveling ideology actually created the news story about the NASCAR cheaters mentioned at the beginning of this article. In the Nationwide Series (1 step below Sprint Cup), the Toyota team of Gibbs Racing has been particularly dominant this year. They have won 14 of the 25 races. 14 of the 15 Toyota victories belong to Gibbs. In car racing, there are currently 4 manufacturers. Winning 60% of the races creates a “level playing field” issue.

NASCAR, seeing the recent Toyota dominance, informed the Toyota teams to cut their engine power so the rest of the field would have a competitive chance to win. Does that sound like a solution? Isn’t the goal in competition to build an advantage and then use that to win? Baseball players throw faster, hit farther, and run faster. Football players get stronger, get faster, and develop better playbooks. Race car owners build better engines and cars. Gibbs Racing created their advantage legally and now they are paying a penalty for it. However, Gibbs Racing decided they didn’t agree and illegally tried to manipulate their car’s performance when tested for compliance. They did not remove the advantage and tried to cover it up and were caught doing so.

In an effort to create competition equality, NASCAR has destroyed what true competition is. Gibbs Racing of course was wrong in their efforts to cheat, but why should they have to pay the penalty in the first place? If your baseball team was 20 games up on the field going into the playoffs, should they be required to sit their starters and play their bench to make the playoffs even? If your football team wins by passing the ball, should they be required to run every down to give the other team a chance? Should Michael Phelps have to swim with a 10 pound weight tied to his midsection to even the field? You get the idea. There is no equality in competition. If there were, we would not have competition at all, there would be no point. Parity is fine, as long as it is the product of the sport itself.

Competition committees who alter the playing field by placing individual limitations on specific teams or individuals have failed the integrity of the sport. The other car manufacturers should have been forced to deal with their lack of competiveness, not given a falsified level field to race on. NASCAR, trying to be equal, created a situation where Gibbs Racing felt cheating was better than sacrificing their advantage. Other sports have done what NASCAR has done so they aren’t the only bad guy here.

Can you think of an area outside of sports where a level field has been theorized? Taxes? Communism? Everyone who doesn’t have something wants equality, but if you place those same people on the other side, you would be “stealing” from them. The sooner we realize that we aren’t equal, the better off we’ll be. Life is a competition. It’s not about winning. It’s about being the absolute best you can be. If we have competition committees ruling our everyday life, then we are penalizing the people who do their absolute best and rewarding those who are not. Insane reverse incentives. Level the playing field by removing the competition “fairness” and we’ll all be better off. If we have something to reach for, we try harder in every aspect of our life, sports included.

Citation: http://www.time.com/

We make up our own minds right? Yes, of course, someone else cannot think and make decisions for us. But, our experiences learned via our interaction with our environment can create situations where the outcome can be predetermined by an individual successfully playing the game of body language, signaling, and inserting subliminal cues into the equation. A simple example of our environment training us is shown during a trip to the local cinema. Commercials run continuously displaying popcorn, soda, and treats prior to the flick and our mouths start to water. Most of us who have any experience going to movies know to buy the appropriate “meal” before entering the seating area because we have been taught that popcorn and soda complete the movie experience. Next time you go to the theater, watch the amount of waste that is thrown away as the customers leave. It is simply amazing. Did they really want it or were they cued and taught to purchase it?

It’s a pretty simple concept. Insert enough cues into the environment and over time, the wanted outcome will eventually happen at a high rate. We are still making the decisions, but our past experience is guiding and weighting the decision due to external factors. Simply put, we are being led to a decision expected by the entity inserting the environmental cues. People and businesses utilize these extremely effective maneuvers to gain an advantage in many situations. I recently read a report on MSNBC featuring two body language experts detailing how you can utilize signals and cues to get “what you want” in life, work, or even in romance. Subtle information at times, even if you’re on the lookout for decision altering cues, can be missed and results in our mind interpreting these signals and thus motivating our decision.

The body language experts provide a few examples of how signals can affect how people think and react. To be viewed as a team player at work, hang up a picture or two of a pet in your cubicle or office. They say people view a pet loving person as loyal. Another example they cite involves creating an aura of power at work. They suggest wearing black outfits because black has been shown to display dominance. Another point they make is to try not and smile as much as you would like. By keeping a neutral face, they say it indicates power and status in the work place. One last tidbit they offer is to offer your boss a hot cup of coffee and engage in a conversation while the boss happily drinks down his morning “wake me up.” Our body language experts inform us that the warm temperature of the drink permeating through the cup and through their body while drinking correlates to us being a warm and likeable person (I personally think this one is a little skewed by the kiss-butt factor).

As you can see, these are very subtle cues within our environment. Over time, we are trained to react to specific cues in a manner which can be predicted. No, it doesn’t work in every situation, but the frequency in which they do is worth the bother to incorporate some of the information body language “experts” suggest. Another simple example of body language carrying subliminal motivation is readily apparent in how our politicians gesture when they are speaking publicly. Next time you watch Obama or McCain speaking to a crowd, watch their hand gestures. Their mannerisms are specifically trained so the public feels “better” when listening to them. Similar to when you speak to someone, you want them to listen intently to you. You want them to be leaning towards you, hanging on your words, not leaning back in a bored state of mind. Our politicians move their arms and hands around while walking around the stage to generate a specific reaction from those who are listening. Anyone remember the Bill Clinton closed hand pump with his thumb over his index finger while speaking? Research that for some interesting homework.

Our environment plays a large part in our decision making, whether we are specifically cognizant of the fact or not. Our minds and bodies have been trained to assimilate data and our responses are generally the same and can be predicted over time. Yes, we are trained like puppies to a certain extent. We like to think we are in control of every single second of our decision making when it comes to our lives, but in reality, we have quite a bit of help. Some of that help comes from people who are intentionally manipulating the environment to create the outcome they wish. Beware of your surroundings and environment, you will begin to notice more and more how your decisions are being affected. You will also spot those who are playing the game for their best interests. Take some time and learn their tricks and turn the tables. Take back a portion of your decision making and throw a wrench into the plans of those who are trying to manipulate your decisions.

Citation: http://www.msnbc.com/