Having barely enough time to accomplish a simple feat isn’t American culture but rather worldwide. Our circles are blessed with open conversations based on the childhood dream “If only.”
If only I could locate the confidence to stop being a jack of all trades and put focus on one thing. If only we could move to a smaller town and worry less about keeping up with the Jones’.
Let’s examine the infamous “If only…” Being a jack of all trades isn’t anything new. Hobbies become job titles everyday. Benjamin Franklyn loved to do everything especially write! He wasn’t a newspaper reporter yet his daily desires to put pen to paper became an avenue for others to locate rhyme and reason in their personal efforts to succeed. Scholars are calling Ben Franklyn the world’s first blogger.
A passion to cook then teach her method of kitchen madness put Colleen on the Fox Broadcasting Networks Hells Kitchen. Although Gordon Ramsey brutally attacked her passion to create, it’s inspired a willingness to continue exploring every option available not only in her life but anyone who flat out loves to bring magic to the table.
Moving to a smaller town seems all too easy until you sit down and do the homework. Coming from Billings, Montana, a town of maybe 100,000…bolting out the back door to tinier gatherings was an expected occurrence. Leaping from Red Lodge to Cody, over the mountain to Sheridan, Casper or Cheyenne back over the mountain to Jackson Hole was a freedom I lost chasing a radio dream. If you try and get back now, it’ll cost you more per capita than it does to live in Hollywood.
It almost happened in 2005 until housing costs in my birth place Sheridan, Wyoming required me to hold down up to five different jobs.
Why? Because as a generation, on any continent, we want more and there’s always someone financially stable to pay more. Which basically means, the ancient idea of “less” is more no longer pertains to our state of being. Until the world banking system shook, gas prices shot up, jobs were lost and the six letter word “career” quickly became a relic at the science museum.
We’re not being asked to live a less is more lifestyle…survival depends on it.
We aren’t the first to face the facts. Depending on what calendar you live by, history has learned its most valuable lessons during times of less. The idea of holding less works in the world of poetic expressions. Take the Haiku…seventeen syllables are required…no more. Anyone can slap happily jot down rhythms that make up their nature but like all things in life, the ugliest weeds usually present the most beautiful flowers.
What makes Haiku work? Writers exercise their right to put trust and faith inside the rank and power of limitations. Everything you do, learn from limitations. Which many of us started to do until last fall when gas prices fell below two bucks…out came the giant SUV’s, Hummers and ear piercing fast lake boats and zoom zoom we were back to being normal!
Reality is like a parent who doesn’t understand your needs to constantly be with friends. Just when you’ve located enough space to spike up a weekend stay, along comes the bite that sends your Chutes and Ladder piece back to the beginning.
Spring has sprung and so have gas prices and the unemployment rate. It’s gotten so bad food pick up points have been set up across the Carolinas so pets don’t go hungry. Here we go again, back to the chapters labeled: Less is more.
But how?
Author Leo Babauta firmly strikes a chord when laying his fingers on the idea of choosing the essentials. Put effort in creating a greater impact with minimal resources. In his book The Power of Less, the Art of Limiting Yourself…Lou easily drops enough bread crumbs on a trail for you to better understand the importance of maximizing your time and energy in ways of learning to choose the essentials.
Employees are expected to multitask. But in what area of your job do you have the most impact? General Managers love hard working individuals who show up everyday to gain access to high levels of success but fall short of calling it their best team because those working haven’t located their greatest impact. The worker bee syndrome doesn’t payoff unless every black and yellow buzzer comes back to the office with enough pollen to make a larger supply of honey.
Without knowledge of impact, we bump into what Andrea Kaye describes as being the cause and effect of a slumping business world. Nobody comes to work expecting to have a bad day. Nobody enjoys labeling it as such. Cause is created by misunderstandings or lack of knowledge on how to better perform. One sip of the bad mood juice creates an effect that shoots through the office quicker than flu season. Have you ever walked through an office beat up badly by their self created bad attitude? Bring a knife, this jungle is thick!
Freshen up the air by staring in the mirror. If your cause can effect…then infect by injecting a better presentation. Don’t fake it to make it! Examine your personal tasks; locate the items you need to generate long term impact. Come clean with your goals, you aren’t going to be branded a walking ego if you let others see what you’d like to accomplish. Set three goals and with each passing day make it a point to get one step closer to each.
Learning to identify your places of impact will open avenues that feed “If only…” If only you would’ve learned this trick in your twenties. Not just anybody wins Yard of the Month. It’s a journey that requires preparation. The one thing most of us forgot to do at birth was read the owners manual. Inside those pages it clearly states…forever student.
Steal my art…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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