“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” -Thomas Edison

Just like everyone else in the world, I’m “celebrating” the end of the year by reflecting on the ups and downs of the past twelve months. Unlike everyone else, however, I’m not sugarcoating anything — in the realm my own life, 2007 was a failure of catastrophic proportions. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?

Projects:

• Dream Machine

Of the five projects on which I made any headway this year, the Dream Machine was probably the most successful… though that’s not a major feat given the competition. Beyond my original prediction that the project would take two weeks (it took six), I’ve also failed to attempt any sort of virtualization. Nowadays, I pretty much just stick with OS X. The laptop runs beautifully, but I’m simply not using it to its full potential. Lesson learned — Tweaking doesn’t need a purpose; it’s fun for its own sake. I’m itching to try out the latest versions of Ubuntu and Fedora, though…

• Fitness

Though the Fitness project admittedly wasn’t the extent of my focus on health (more on that in a moment), it’s safe to say that I bombed it. I didn’t exactly get off to a “running” start (get it?), and I eventually got bored and stopped recording my progress. In the weeks following, I noticed a slowdown in improvement (and even some slight deterioration), to the point where I eventually decided that it wasn’t worth my time and I would have to re-work the project. Lesson learned — Health isn’t a project that can be tackled half-heartedly.

• Polyphasic Sleep

This project was a failure only in the sense that I didn’t achieve what I set out to achieve — two hours of sleep, every night, for an indefinite period of time. I did, however, master such feats as napping around the clock (for varying lengths, averaging about 90 minutes), waking up drenched, and making my roommates think that I escaped from an asylum. Lesson learned — People have no idea what to do about others who don’t share their sleep habits.

• Resolutions 2007

Last year, I claimed that I would score 20 “productive” hours (whatever that means) each and every day. No, I wasn’t under the influence or playing a prank. In some aspects, I’ve achieved that, but what I’ve truly failed at doing is documenting my time or using any form of accountability. I definitely feel better about myself in this regard than I did a year ago, but I don’t really have anything to show for it. Lesson learned — When it comes to productivity, choose quality over quantity.

• Write, Write, Write!

Write, Write, Write! was never an “all-year” project, but it’s worth mentioning. I wasn’t at all frequent or consistent with publishing (especially during this fall); not usually for a lack of writing material, but for a (perceived ;)) lack of time. I wish to carve out a certain amount of time every day for Don’tASQ instead of waiting until I have “a free minute.” Lesson learned — A great thing about writing is that it can be done any hour of the day.

Areas of Focus:

• Finance

Despite having worked a full-time job for seven months (instead of taking classes), I’m arguably not much better off financially now than I was last year. However, there’s no question that I’ve learned a lot about finance from all of the little things — savvy co-workers and roommates studying business, and even the process of finding the right credit card. Lesson learned — Debt in America is bad news!

• Fitness

In addition to the Fitness project (briefly reviewed above), I’ve made some serious attempts to change my diet. While I’ve had a bit of success, my biggest problem is, once again, not documenting that progress. Lesson learned — Fitness and Finance are mutually exclusive (healthy food can be expensive!)

• Relationships

Compared to a year ago, when I lived alone, this year has been incredible from a social standpoint (living with several good friends). Hermitization is on the decline and procrastination is on the rise! On the romantic side, I decided earlier in the fall that the timing wasn’t right to pursue any romantic relationship; surprisingly enough, I’m glad I made this choice, and it’s actually been kind of a stress relief. Lesson learned — Okay, so maybe not everything in 2007 failed.

Happy New Year! 2008 will be your best one yet!

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Those of you who have been following the Resolutions 2007 project know that I made a New Year’s Resolution that, by the end of the year, I would be spending 20 out of 24 hours of every day doing “productive” activities. At the time I made the resolution, I issued a challenge to readers to try it themselves. I don’t think many of you took me up on it. But I’m here to convince you that it’s not only possible, but easier (and more fun) than you may think.
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At some point during my pre-teen or early teenage years, I became aware. Astutely aware. I became aware that I was on this planet for a reason, and that my life had a purpose (beyond being an example for others not to follow). I had no idea what that reason was, how the purpose had been assigned, or how I was supposed to go about fulfilling it.

Fast forward 7-10 years later to the current day. As I look around at the world and its most “advanced” inhabitants, I see an eyesore… to say the least. Here we humans stand, as the only species possessing a brain capable of studying itself, yet we haven’t even managed to live peacefully without dividing ourselves into territories (and even then, we still have our quarrels). People are murdered simply for being different; money is stolen not for a greater good, but for an addictive psychotic high. The rich grow richer, the poor grow poorer, the powerful stay on top (until a scandal sends them crashing to the bottom) and the oppressed remain so. We pollute our only home like it’s a dime a dozen, all in the name of “productivity.” Our societies are run not by love, joy and peace, but by greed, fear and anger.

And every bit of it pisses me off.

I still have no idea what exactly I’m doing on this weird planet known as Earth, but I’m slowly beginning to figure it out. My mission, should I choose to accept it (and believe me, I do), is to make it all work. Not necessarily “make it work” as in tangibly be a part of every effort to improve the world, but rather see to it that major changes take place. Whether I’m spearheading a given effort, working behind the scenes, or gazing in the audience doesn’t really matter to me — just as long as it happens. Although, admittedly, not many other people have the blind audacity needed to tackle a pursuit of this caliber!

I’m not trying to be God; that’s God’s job. On the contrary, I believe that God is the one responsible for sending me on this mission in the first place, and I have no intention of going about it without some divine assistance.

Delusional? I never claimed to be normal. Normal is for the weak.

A mission like this can only end in one of two ways — spectacular success or spectacular failure:
1) By the time I’m finished, this world (and this universe, if necessary) will be a place that anyone would be proud and honored to show his/her children. We will be united with each other, not against each other, and we will have learned how to live without decimating our homes and our bodies. (Success)
2) By the time I’m finished, I’ll have realized that my original perception of the world was completely flawed, and that the world we now live in is, as nearly as possible… perfect. (”Failure”)

I am fully willing to accept that we may be far better off than I imagine. But mark my words: If the world does indeed have problems, I’ll be damned if they aren’t going to get fixed. Failure in that respect is not an option.

But here’s the kicker: I can’t do it alone. Rest assured that someday, I will be asking for your help… or maybe it’s you that will be asking for mine. Maybe it’s not my mission after all…

Changing the world is no small task. Every day, many people engage in “world-changing” activities such as performing community service or preaching an inspirational message to a church — the little things. These things can have an immediate and powerful positive effect on those nearby. Unfortunately, “nearby” is the key word in that sentence. As much effort as you may put into organizing a community cleanup day or serving at a soup kitchen, and as beneficial as those projects may be to your area, they do little to help the oppressed citizens of China or the starving children of Africa.

Any truly world-changing movement would require some level of service to local communities — you can’t do everything from Washington, D.C., as some say. However, you certainly can’t do everything from the comfort of your own home, either. In short, the philanthropic activities in which we most commonly engage are necessary but not sufficient to achieve the goals to which we aspire… or at least those to which Don’tASQ aspires.

Thinking big requires more than just an expansion of our current thoughts into new real estate. We can’t use the same strategies to affect one million lives that we use to affect one life. Let’s say, for example, that we’re strolling through an African desert on a camel (call it a low-budget safari). We come across a starving homeless man who begs us for something to eat. There’s no sign of civilization anywhere (we decide not to ask how he got here in the first place). The first solution which comes to mind is probably to give him some food and wish him well, right? But upon further consideration, we realize that we don’t have enough food to keep him alive indefinitely, and it’s pretty unlikely that any other low-budget safari adventurers will be traveling this way anytime soon. We have no choice but to take him back to our camp and point him in the direction of the nearest town.

Looking at the real world, we see a similar scenario for millions of Africans as well as people on other continents. Logically, if we extend our solution to the one starving man, we come to the conclusion that we must migrate every starving family to a different part of the world. It doesn’t take much thought to point out the reasons why that would go terribly wrong.

Our current solution to the large-scale case seems to be to throw food and money in their general direction and pat ourselves on the back for being altruistic. (Disclaimer: This is a very simplistic and only partially-realistic example. I have no idea how large the actual “feed the world” efforts are nor what methods are being undertaken.) This doesn’t work for the same reason why we wouldn’t have given our homeless man food and left him alone — we can’t give enough for an indefinite period of sustainability. Our starving beneficiaries will become dependent on our aid while we work doubly hard to generate enough food to feed them as well as ourselves.

As kind as that is for us to indefinitely provide for the rest of the world, it’s not exactly efficient. The best solution for long-term sustainability of any system is for that system to sustain itself with no reliance on outside effects. In other words, we need to teach these impoverished nations to fend for themselves.

In the case of our starving children in Africa, it may be difficult to teach desert agriculture if we ourselves don’t know anything about it. To solve this problem, we could invest more money into the research of arid-zone agriculture, and provide a solution to Africans once we’ve discovered something feasible. Hey, that’s simple enough, right? Just funnel millions of dollars into R&D, wait a few months, and watch the solution hatch!

Unfortunately, as we all know, it’s not nearly that trivial — hence providing us with another “opportunity” to think outside of the box. To feed Africa, we need research. To do research, we need money. To get money, we need a miracle- I mean, uhh… help from the government. To get help from the government, we need to convince some very stubborn people that our cause is worthwhile. And to do that requires a bit of charisma, a bit of word-twisting, and a lot of luck. Of course, any step in this process could be circumvented by a sufficiently altruistic person (e.g. the researchers could work for free), but then we’d still have to worry about convincing someone to personally invest in that manner. Who’d have thought that feeding a starving man could be so complicated?

Regardless of the specifics, any world-changing movement requires a fundamental shift of thought if it is to succeed. We cannot scale the solutions for a small region to the entire world, just as we cannot feed one million people in the same way that we can feed one. One of my reasons for launching Don’tASQ was to instigate major changes in thought, such as thinking from a global perspective rather than a local one. This will likely be a topic about which we write consistently (”we” meaning either myself or other writers), because I feel that it’s an important one.

Until next time… think big!

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…” - 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

You don’t need to be a Christian to appreciate the significance of this passage. Judaism teaches us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Atheistic humanism teaches us that if we love other people, they are more likely to love us in return (thus making survival easier). Love is beneficial to the world as a whole.

Saddam Hussein wrote a letter to Iraqis before his death. The message? Don’t hate. “I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking,” he wrote. Ironic though it is that Hussein, of all people, would preach a message of non-hatred, he made a valid point. Unfortunately, he didn’t take it far enough.

Too many of us substitute love for “non-hate” - they aren’t the same. Imagine that you see a homeless man playing a saxophone on an urban street. (If you live in a large city, this may be an everyday occurrence.) His case lies open, holding some scattered coins and a few dollar bills. You fiddle around with the extra change in your pocket as you pass near. What’s your reaction?

A) Kick the beggar and steal his money.
B) Walk on by, avoiding eye contact with the man.
C) Stop to listen for a moment and toss in some change.
D) Give the man enough money to eat for a year, help him work on his resume and take him to an employment agency.

I hope you didn’t choose A, which would obviously be an act of hatred! The most common reactions, by far, are B and C - neutrality. Everyone feels sorry for those living in poverty, but few people actually take the time to do anything about it. The most loving choice would be D; this response is closest to what Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi or Jesus Christ would have done.

Sound impractical? You may be right; even the United States government seems to take a “non-hate” approach toward poverty. Ever try to talk a Congressman into voting to reduce his $165,200 annual salary to help the poor folks? Good luck. But look again at those verses; nowhere does it mention anything about love being easy, or about love being simple, or even about love being common! (The USA’s 40% divorce rate suggests that people don’t really follow that “love never ends” thing anymore.) The next time you tell someone that you love them, make sure you really mean it.

Unconditional love is not a feeling that comes naturally to us; it’s rare enough to have genuine love for one person, much less every person… but that’s what we should strive for. (I, for one, have a lot of work to do!)

We all have the power to love. Let’s use it.