Tag Archives: focus

Occupy Floundering via Misdirection

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I want the Occupy Movement to make a difference. Whether they are the 99% or Occupy Wall Street, they have earned a tenuous positive momentum. Now they need to keep it going. At present it does not look like anything of note is taking place. This cause is starting to look like a collection of diverse people with nothing better to do than waste time and resources to accomplish nothing of note on a daily basis.

When this economic slide began, I believe it was covered up, or ignored. We went on as if nothing was happening because it was not us who were effected. A few people were losing their jobs, a few others were losing their homes. Bad financial choices were banner-ed as the cause, nothing more. Happened every day, and like any other news story, after a while stories like these take on a numbing effect.

People graduating college were finding it hard to find work equaling the cost of their education. They obviously picked the wrong fields to earn a degree in, it happened. We have seen this happen before of course, everything would work itself out as it always did. As if we asleep in Dream Land, the true state of our economy did not show itself for what it really was.

It was not a few people being laid off. It was not a few families losing their homes due to bad financial decisions. More than a few college graduates were not able to find any reasonable employment. People were being effected on scale almost none of us have ever seen before. Not in the seventies, not in the eighties, and not in the nineties.

We became so accustomed to problems working themselves out, we were numb to reality. Our idea of the good life was rapidly crumbling around us and we were ambivalent. Life was crumbling for everyone except the upper 1%. The One-Percent were making money faster than any proverbial money tree could grow it.

Those who voiced the idea there was something wrong were shouted down. Fear of losing the American way of life was subtly introduced to silence people who were cognizant enough to see what was really happening. The American way of life was disappearing. The stance was it is the fault of the unemployed and the college graduates who were not willing to do work for a living. That was the crux of what I heard being peddled on the street.

Then came Occupy Wall Street, and the 99%! They had a voice, they were the focal point of for problems in our economy. They were the people who went from have to have not. They started talking and demonstrating, and they were being heard. They were people who were not able to find their slice of the pie.

Rallies and sit-ins gained the worlds attention. Occupy movements were receiving positive air time on the evening news. These groups were being heard. America and the world stopped long enough to notice, and actually understand the real social and economic problems we created for our neighbors and ourselves.

Occupy groups were not outsiders trying to cause trouble. Nor were they tainted college radicals from within. They were Parents and Children of Parents who like all Parents wanted a life for their children as good or better than they have achieved. Occupy Groups were the brunt of what life had been until recently, when suddenly life was no longer being lived in wonderland.

Truthfully, it feels as if these sit-ins and camp-outs are becoming more of a nuisance than focal point for any real cause. The Occupy Groups are mobile, they can a force to be reckoned with. They are in the face of America, and the World. What they do not appear to have is sound Leadership and Vision.

Jumping from cause to cause lacking cohesion between causes is indicative of children who easily lose their focus for the newest bauble across the plaza. Making a stand for this today, and that tomorrow is wasting valuable air time. Acting out silly illegal gestures against private property is not the correct way of keeping focus on the cause and sympathy of the public.

Where is the Occupy Movement going? Are they to become nothing more than mobile Shanty Towns in City Plaza’s and Squares? Hawking the cry of the day for the newest cause? Are the Occupy Movements allowing themselves to be reduced to a mix of people perceived as having nothing better to do? People out for some excitement and a warm meal? People perceived as holding no real interest in making a difference? Are the Occupy Movements and the 99% going to allow themselves to be caught in the net of Public Nuisance?

Any Army no matter how strong, can only fight effectively on so many fronts. Castles are built for defense, not for aggression. The Occupy Movement needs to take steps to keep itself focused, lean, and mobile. Sticking with a few major issues, instead of trying to umbrella every problem that bubbles to the surface daily.

Reasonable People should want the Occupy Movements to succeed and make a difference. We are all the 99% like it or not. We all feel the unhealthy state of our economy. It is more important than ever for the Occupy Movement to stick to a few solvable issues and not disintegrate into promoting the cause of the day.

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Stretch Gooder With a Simple Mind Trick

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If you are like me, stretching is not one of those areas you can excel in. I will never make to the level of a Yoga Master, Exercise Training Specialist, and no where close to the rubber like flexibility of a baby.

Stretching has always been work for me. Touching my toes after my Teens was moved to a personal olympic event. It was too painful on the backs of my knees. Almost every doctor I have seen has told me I am way too tense. If this sounds like you, help is on the way.

I have recently discovered how to make stretching easier. Making stretching easier increases individual stretches to levels I never thought I could achieve. It does this painlessly to the point, I surprise myself with the new angles of stretch I am able to reach.

While each of us have our own built in limits to what we can do with our bodies, I can quickly explain how you too can stretch farther, easier, and with less effort than you could only a few minutes ago.

Here is a sample to get you started. Keep your personal safety in mind, and do not stretch any body part you normally do not stretch. Pick any simple stretch that you normally do, which you know you do not do as well as others. Read the next paragraphs before continuing and  be careful not to overstretch. You do not want to hurt yourself.

The idea of this first stretch is to set a median stretch for you to compare to after you try using the method I will explain to you when you stretch a second time.

Stop stretching where you normally stop, do not try to achieve a new personal best. The purpose of this first stretch is find your normal stretch or twist limit, not to set a personal record, or to prove me wrong. I do not want you to hurt yourself, and my feelings won’t be hurt if it does not work for you.

Notice your body position if you are twisting your torso in some manner for your stretch, if that is a common stretch for. Pause as you reach your stretch limit and notice your body position in relation to something you can use to measure against.
If you are doing a different type of stretch, notice where your fingers touch your body or other surface. If you are doing a more general stretch, say touching your toes, or bending sideways watch where your hands, fingers, or finger tips stop against your legs.

Do not hold the stretch or struggle to stretch a little bit farther.

Over stretch and you could hurt yourself, and we do not want that to happen. Slowly move back the position you started from.

If something does not feel right, stop now as what I am about to suggest is not for you.

If you feel the same as before you stretched, here is what I suggest you do, and see if it makes a difference.

The first time I tried stretching while focusing on other things the length of my stretch improved a lot and without tightness or pain.

When you begin to stretch think about doing the stretch safely. Think about some part of your body that is not involved in the stretch, say and ankle or elbow that is not part of what you are stretching. Concentrate on the body part you picked, and ignore the body parts and muscles being used in the stretch itself. It also helps if you direct your focus on something away from you, look at a pattern on the wall, ceiling, or floor. Keep as many of your senses focused on something besides the muscles you are using for the stretch.

I think what is happening is by thinking about safety, a part of your body not being used in the stretch, and keeping your eyes busy is this:

When we think about something, that thing has our focus. In the case of our body when we focus on some part of it, that part gets ready for action, it gets ready for a change in state. The muscle is no longer loose and relaxed.  Our awareness of that body part is heightened.

Think about going to your Dentist for dental work. If we know we are going to get a tooth drilled on, our complete focus is on that tooth. We wait tensely for the smallest sign of discomfort. In short we overcompensate instead of relaxing and ignoring.

So it is with our muscles. When we stretch and focus on our thigh for example, our thigh is not as relaxed as it would be when we think about our ankle while we stretch our thigh.

We can imitate a magician and use misdirection. Our mind is focused over there, but what is really happening (the stretch) is over here, and we are not paying attention. I discovered this during my own stretching a few months back. I have found it does make a difference having something else for my mind to focus on while I stretch, than if I place my focus on my stretching.

I have better results when my thoughts are other places than the muscles I am stretching. I hope you have the same experience and find more satisfaction in your stretching without pain or discomfort. Good exercise does not hurt.

* The misspell in the title is intentional.

 

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Loss of focus and intent meant less quality time for friends

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I had a call to go to a lunch from a friend I have not seen in quite a while. Of course I said yes. We set a date and time, and met for a meal at a coffee shop. I had not seen him in quite a while and I was excited to catch up on old times, and find out what has happened since the last time we met.

When I arrived, my friend was already seated at a table waiting for me to show up. We did the usual hello’s people do who have not seen each other in a while. As soon as we sat back down my friend said the table was not in a spot he wanted, but was told that the table he wanted was in an zone where the waitress was too busy.

We sat chatting and a waitress walked up to take our order. I told her what I wanted, and my friend did the same. The first thing my friend said was the woman did not look like a very good waitress. She looked too preoccupied about something else, and did not seem to be as focused as she should have been on us, her customers.

The meal finally arrived, and we had to ask for silver wear so we could eat what we had ordered. Neither meal looked that great, but it was a coffee shop, and my expectations were not that high. I was not disappointed looking at my choices. My friend found pickles in his sandwich. He had asked for his sandwich to be made without pickles, and he made a point of it. He called the waitress over and told her what was wrong with his plate, and asked that his sandwich be remade without any pickles in it, not even the flavor from the juice.

We were close to finishing our meal when the waitress appeared and asked my friend who still had about two bites of his sandwich in his hand, if he was done? Of course he was not, but he said yes, and she took away his plate leaving him nowhere to set down his sandwich. Of course this brought about further commentary from my friend which had elevated up the level of flat out complaining about the poor service this place was providing to its customers.

When I had eaten the last bite of my sandwich the waitress showed up as I was still chewing and asked if I was done…I shook my head yes, and she took my plate and disappeared. This interrupted my friend’s conversation, and started another round of complaining about how bad the service was.

Eventually as we talked, sitting there with no plates, no drinks, and no bill, the waitress did a drive by and dropped the bill. My friend looked it over as I reached for my wallet and pronounced that this was the worst meal and service he had experienced in a long time. I agreed and tried to get the conversation back to us, but he was distracted one to many times, and was fuming about how bad everything was. What could I do but agree?

What stuck out in my mind about a cheap lunch with my friend was I was there to talk to him and catch up on what has changed since we last had met. My friend started out with that intention, but became upset over a cheap meal, that took his focus from us, to everything going on around us in the coffee shop.

I left feeling we missed out on a lot of good conversation, and I am sure once he cooled down sometime later he did too. I thought we met with mixed intentions, and that created a less than good get together. I went there to celebrate my friendship and catch up on what went by, and he allowed himself to be distracted by things that really did not matter. Yes the food was less than good. Yes the service was less than satisfactory. The main point is we were there to see each other, not rate the coffee shop’s food and service.

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Vision, one for you, one for me

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Everywhere I look, I see someone who I know doesn’t have it going on like I think I do, yet they are doing it. They have arrived at a place I can not imagine, but I can see what they have once they get there. What is so odd is they are not brilliant, they are mostly average people. But they are at a point in their life when everything is going their way.

Like the woman who started making those trinkets that go on those nice spongy shoes, and later sold what became her company for an amazing amount of money. The immigrant families in the poorest part of my city, who now own their own business. They probably started selling in public places, struggling to keep their dream going.

Tunnel vision is my problem. It is tunnel vision that keeps me from seeing everything these people went through before success arrived at their doorstep. I never saw the times when they cried in frustration, or were harassed by the police, or slept in the cold because all their money was going into making their future. I never saw that part of their life back then, I just see where they are now.

I can not see what they saw a long time before. I never had that burning desire to run my own business no matter what obstacle got in my way. I was never interested in seeing if I could take something, add some value to it, and sell it to someone else who thinks they were getting a deal.

I was in Korea a number of years ago. There was a young couple there who made very pretty wooden boxes. They were not the most elegant, but they were made with care. They wanted fifty dollars for the one I wanted. I have no doubt it was worth fifty dollars, but it was not worth that much to me. I told the couple I would pay twenty dollars. I saw them at least once a week in the month I in Korea. Every time I saw them, they said fifty dollars. I said twenty, and they scoffed and spit as they said no. As I was getting on the bus for the last time before I left their country, they said twenty five. I said no, twenty was my offer, I would pay no more.

They cursed at me, spit, made faces at me, and sold me the box I had wanted for a month, for a mere twenty dollars. I almost felt guilty, because I knew the profit they would be making was not very large, perhaps only a dollar or two at most, and that would not cover their time in making it, polishing it, and making it look so pretty. Yet they sold that box to me. They knew if they did not sell it to me, they would have a very hard time finding another buyer with cash money. We only showed up in Korea in those numbers for one month out of the year.

That is a big difference between people who have their own business, and myself. I never would have sold that box to me. They knew they had too, to keep their business going another day. I would have lost my business to my ego, my pride, or my business ignorance. I bet they are wealthy store keepers by now. They are wealthy, savvy, and hard to do business with sort of people. They deserve it too, because all those years ago, they knew what they had to do to be survive another business day, and even though they hated me, and what they were forced into, they did it anyway.

They have business vision, and I have business myopia. If I met them again today, I would gladly give them the thirty more dollars they asked for all those years back. I understand now, and they helped me to understand that day at the bus stop. I really enjoy the homemade burritos, and specialties I come across now and then. I hope they are all successful with their vision, and I remain satisfied with mine.

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