Archive for the ‘Christmas’ tag
The Free World: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
I couldn’t help but read Dena’s guest post from yesterday and not want to put in my own two cents!
This past year has seen me discover that 6 years of study, work and all that jazz has amounted to me not particularly wanting to pursue my set career path (or a career path at all), income stream experiments, starting a company to launch a software product (coming very soon!) and also starting to write.
I’d like to look back on 2009 and say ‘that was the year that the penny dropped’ and the ball got set into motion.
We’re all leaders of the free world, but our own free world. You might enjoy your job, but each and every one of us ARE self employed, whether you like it or not you’re always going to have to look out for number one.
In taking your own baby steps into the free world you’re definitely doing the right thing! What have you got to lose? If you try and fail you’ll just be right back here, having been to yet another end of year work Christmas party, talking to the same people, about the same things. Alternatively you could be in an insane Christmas rush to get your latest product that you’ve created out the door to fill all of your Christmas orders, freelancing your arse off to meet your client’s deadlines or travelling around managing your own affairs? If your free world experiments don’t work you will always have the safety net of returning to work in early January to start it all again..
Focus is the Key
Focus is the derivative, having a goal or a purpose is the backbone. What do you want? What do you want to do? Travel? Run your own business? Get stinking rich? Why do you want to be rich? Keep asking yourself questions on your questions to find what you really want and strive for it. Focus on exactly what you want. In experimenting with new income streams and trial & error in general there are two theories out there: focus on each one individually, one at a time and give each experiment your full attention, or go hell for leather at everything all at once, see what you excel at and then target towards that. This year I’ve found that I’m the former: I’ve got a hundred ideas but a short attention span meaning I’m easily side-tracked, I’m adopting a more focused approach to one thing at a time.
Your Purpose
I’ve made a point of reading whatever I could on the work life balance, running your own show and escaping the 9-5. The one point that has stuck with me was by Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind, paraphrased: “Are you waking up and eating your three meals a day, not achieving anything in particular, floating through life?” and a follow up of “Finding your purpose & defining your goals is easy, what can’t you not do?” These two points infuriated me, they stuck with me and won’t go away, I can’t get rid of them or get them out of my head. When I’ve had a lazy week I do think “Well, time to get dinner ready, the third meal of the day…”
So what are you waking up for each & everyday?
Patience
I recently found out that most of America’s self made millionaires hit the ‘big time’ at the ripe old age of 57. 57 years old? The book I was reading went on to say that during the 20’s a person is busy experimenting (guilty) and switching from job to job, in the 30’s there’s the obligation to settle down and focus on a career, the 40’s is where the real ‘work experience’ kicks in and it’s not until the late forties and early 50’s that you have a break through that can provide real value. The point the author was trying to make was that you need life experience before you can add any real value to people’s day to day lives.
With this in mind I am going to take my foot of the pedal (only a bit!) in the coming year, keep reading & researching and be a bit more patient, here’s hoping my idea is just around the corner.
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
I read Dena’s guest post and it struck a chord with me. It also reminded me that yesterday I found myself on a phone call with an Engineering Manager to follow up a job interview! We all want to lead our own Free World but I’ve learnt this year that it’s a process, until your lotto numbers come up you’re going to have to work, whether it’s for someone else or yourself, tickets to the Free World aren’t easy!
Only Three Sleeps Left!
So I started the Twelve Days of Christmas by questioning the whole commercialisation, religious factor and the massive amount of consumerism that engulfs the holiday.
Nine days later, a guest post from a fellow cynic about how it was the silly season and the festivities should be embraced; I’ve ticked off the shopping list, wrapped the presents and sent the cards off. So who would have thought, even I’ve started to warm to the idea of Christmas this year!
We should forget altogether about religion, consumerism, buying too much junk and over indulging.
Saying You’ve Been Good All Year = Presents
I’ve been shown this week (by a five year old) that Christmas is about a few things;
- Continuously reminding everyone how many sleeps there are until Christmas
- Knowing the fridge is FULL of chocolate
- Very sneakily peeling off the sticky tape of one end of the wrapped present, having a peak, folding the wrapping back over and positioning that present under the tree so that people will be none the wiser
- Eating ALL of the days in the chocolate advent calendar in one sitting
- Sitting on Santa’s lap at every shopping centre to tell him how good you’ve been and to tell him how many horses you want
Asking If They’ve Been Good All Year = Obedience
Children aside, Christmas isn’t purely about religion or consumerism; I’ve found it’s handy for;
- Being able to bribe children into being good, or else…
- Being able to unload some of your un-opened junk from last year (hello re-gifting)
- Realising that you’re the undisputed champion of present wrapping
- Getting some cool* new stuff that you had no idea about (*to be confirmed)
- STILL receiving Christmas presents from your family pets
And let’s face it, you can probably vouch for everything in the first list too…
Wish you were still young enough to REALLY enjoy Christmas? Let me know if there’s anything I missed from either lists!
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A Festive Guest Post – The Crispness of Christmas
When Andrew asked me if I fancied writing a festive guest post for his ‘12 days of Christmas’ (or is it ‘Crispness’?) series, I went back and re-read the first entry, to try and get down with the spirit of the thing. You know, extrapolate ideas, see if there was anything I could copy, make sure I didn’t re-use his jokes, that sort of thing.
I came away thinking a couple of deep thoughts. Firstly, “Why is that lettuce wearing a woolly hat? Didn’t he steal that from me?” Second, “I think Christmas probably gets a bit too much crap for being aggressively consumerist, doesn’t it?”
Don’t get me wrong, shopkeepers have far too towering an erection for festivity. If I wanted to buy Christmas lights in July, I’d expect society to section me, not encourage it. And I dread to think about the carbon footprint of some houses’ decorations. I hope they had the decency to assemble their own power station in the back garden.
Having said that: It’s nice, isn’t it? It’s happy in a really over the top way. It might be garish, but this is a garish season. The people who use only the most tasteful of wrapping paper and discrete fairy lights are few and far between. And even if you are those people, it’s hardly fair to deny others their Christmas. No-one is forcing you to look at it. (Unless you live across the road, I suppose.)
It’s easy to get down on the festive season for being tacky and somehow undeserving of time, when we think that time is better spent on side projects and escaping to Glorious Freedom. But if we don’t go out and have some fun occasionally, we will be boring, tired and just plain obsessed. Christmas is a gleeful combination of tacky entertainment and deeper meaning, why not embrace it for a few days a year?
I should probably be less enthusiastic about the bright-red, fur-trimmed dark side of Christmas, as I have my very own achingly cool cynic’s lifestyle blog and I can feel my credibility leaking away.
But to hell with it. It’s Christmas time, and that means time off questing for the almighty higher goal, for at least a few days. The New Year will be here soon enough, bringing hours to reflect upon the year gone by, plan for the future and get thoroughly drunk. But for now, let’s embrace buying stuff.
Remember: They would not sell life-size reindeer replicas made of elastic bands if there was not an audience for them. This is what the people want. We will not change the nature of Christmas celebrations by moaning about it.
Nick Bryan of Feeding the Black Dog and Behatted fame is a writer of all things humourous, snarky, educational and amusing. A frequent guest of the Free World, this is the second time he’s been kind enough to write an article for the site. I’d recommend you head over to Nick’s blog for a daily dose of the real world.
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Stocking Fillers & Christmas Present Re-Gifting
On the Fifth Day of Christmas, My True Love Gave to Me, A Present That I’m Pretty Sure That I Got You Last Year?
Did you get another BBQ set for Christmas? Perhaps the latest mundane crappy autobiography from your supposedly favourite sports star? ANOTHER salad bowl & tongs?
Let’s all give a warm welcome to the concept of re-gifting.
Now whether you’re for or against re-gifting will probably be determined by whether you’ve been on the receiving end of a suspect gift or have been able to save a few dollars by grabbing last years unused present out of the closet, dusting it off and having a small giggle while you gift wrap it.
We should probably have a look at the broad definition of re-gifting, passing one of your unwanted presents onto someone else, putting that stocking filler your Mum got you straight onto eBay the following week, giving someone your Christmas present for their birthday or just trying to get an outright refund for your unwanted item of Christmas cheer?
The Life Cycle of a Pocket Sized Sport Towel
Each and every Christmas you might receive a few ‘stocking fillers’. Things that someone has no doubt walked past in the shop and thought “Ah, <your name here> would love that!” And that’s why on Christmas morning, you opened a small Christmas cracker shaped present and found a small white chamois that was about the size of a flannel but claimed to dry your whole body. Thanks for the sports towel Mum.
A year or two passed and a family friend had a stall at a swap meet (flea market/car boot sale), call it what you will, but it’s a bargain hunters paradise where people wake-up at a disgusting hour in the morning to walk laps around a car park and ogle other people’s junk.
That’s when the circle of life was complete, a middle aged stout mother wandered up to the stall, had a quick glance all over, honed in on the small white sports towel still in its packaging, asked how much, and then proclaimed “this’ll make a great stocking filler”.
And for a grand total of $2 the pocket sized sports towel was out of my life forever.
Lead Your Own Free World
Christmas morning is great, opening presents, watching people open what you got them, the whole thing has a nice vibe to it, it’s exciting and something to look forward to.
However in a push for leading a minimalist, de-cluttered and possibly location independent lifestyle think twice before you load up on stocking fillers! I’m sure eBay does a roaring trade every Boxing Day with all of the re-gifts people list, we can put a stop to this! 
Are you a re-gifter? Have you been on the receiving end and think that you’re a re-giftee? Leave a comment below the post!
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The Twelve Days of Crispness…
On the First Day of Crispness
No not the painful Christmas carol, my version of the twelve days of Christmas. Crispness you ask? Well I’ve concluded that the general public cares more about how fresh their Christmas Day salad is (Australia) than what the Christmas holiday actually represents.
So unless you’re Christian, Catholic, or have any other affiliation with ‘him’ then what are you dishing out presents for? I overheard a lady in the shops the other day, talking to someone on her cell phone and stressing out about whether she was getting the right present, if it was going to be what the recipient wanted, would they like it, was it the right colour. Too much stress!
My Twelve Days of Christmas
I’m going to attempt to write something everyday for the next twelve days with the overall theme focused on you, leading your own free world. The next twelve days you’re going to get a few free world updates, some results from my online income experiments that you can try yourself, how you can travel the world tomorrow and a look at social media.
Back to Crispness. I was recently invited to a Friday night Shabbat (Jewish dinner) by a friend. We washed up, didn’t speak, broke bread, drank wine, had three kosher courses, didn’t have milk in our tea and then they sang some Hebrew prayers. Everyone was well dressed, the conversation was polite and the table setting was rather fancy. I was impressed by the table setting and exclaimed “This is pretty flash, you must really turn it on for Christmas dinner!” when I realised to my own stupidity, that Jewish folk don’t celebrate Christmas as they’re not particularly down with the whole Jesus caper.
So when people frown upon religion, think its stupid, over-rated or not for them, they still ‘celebrate’ Christ’s Mass. That makes sense?
The Good
Christmas is good for a few things, religious or not. It gives working slaves a reason to take a break from the drudgery and it also encourages time for friends and family to get together.
The Christmas holiday shouldn’t be about trying to please everyone, running around like crazy trying to be at every family event under the sun, having to blow your budget on presents, over indulgence or consumerism.
Retail outlets prey on Christmas cheer. Think of buzzwords like ‘Stocking Fillers’ (useless crap), ‘Christmas Essentials’ (more useless crap) and ‘Last Minute Panic’ (hurry to buy our useless crap!). Retail outlets start the Christmas buzz earlier and earlier every year, this year we had it start in October and now we’re waiting for the Boxing Day/January sales because if we weren’t dumb enough to spend all our money on presents for Christmas now we can make up for it in the sales!
That’s enough Christmas cheer for the first day of the countdown. Stay Tuned.
Anything you’d like to read about in the Twelve Days of Crispness? Leave a comment or to receive all twelve days in your inbox sign up here.
