Thanks Baby

Ten Things I Would Ask God When I Die

When I die and go to heaven, I would love to ask God the following questions.

1. Did Led Zeppelin really sell their souls to the devil and encode backwards messages in Stairway to Heaven?
2. Was Abraham Lincoln gay?
3. Did Michael Jackson really touch those kids?
4. Is the Shroud of Turin a hoax or the real deal?
5. Is Earth the only planet with intelligent life?
6. Is time travel possible? If so, can we go forward and backward, or just one or the other?
7. Was the big bang a means of creation?
8. If 99.999% of an atom is empty space, where does mass come from?
9. Is there a New World Order?
10. Did Jesus’s farts smell?

Leave a comment if there are any questions you would ask Him. I’m sure I forgot a ton of good ones.

Goals

I’ve decided to set some goals. Most of these goals I’ve had for a while, but they only do so much good swimming around in my head. I realized that if I present them more concretely, I am far more likely to achieve them. The goals are separated between three categories, three goals apiece. I’m sure I’ll think of more later, but I think this is a good start.

My goals for the next 5 years:

Career:

1. Graduate with my MBA
2. Take and pass the CPA exam
3. Acheive supervisor level at the firm

Financial:

1. Buy a house
2. Have only “good debt”
3. Establish a healthy start for my child(ren)’s college savings

Personal:

1. Brew my own beer successfully
2. Write and record at least an EP’s worth of original songs
3. Travel outside of the U.S.

Who knows if this blog will even exist in five years? Knowing me, probably not. But I’ll make a promise to myself to transfer this list to a new home should this blog go the way of the dinosaur (just like my MySpace profile is destined to do).

Giving Up

I came across an inspiring essay today. Well, the essay itself wasn’t entirely inspiring, but the story that opens the essay was. Here is the excerpt:

“One winter night, one of the few Japanese friends I had in my early 20s was playing a guitar at his company Christmas party. He was an architect and was about 10 years older than I was. Before he decided to study architecture, he was making a living as a guitarist in Japan. This was not the first time I heard him play, but I was still stunned by how good he was. After his performance, I told him that it was a shame that he was no longer pursuing his musical career. He then shared with me his recent realization that life is a process of giving up. At the time, I didn’t think much of what he said. I think I remembered it only because of its unusual reversal of the popularly held beliefs. Especially on this land of dreams, “giving up” is seen almost as sacrilegious. Everyone’s livelihood seems to precariously hinge on holding big, albeit distant dreams. For some people, the more dreams, the better. So, what did my friend mean when he said that life is a process of giving up?”

The article goes on to examine the issue from a perspective consisting of philosophies I don’t subscribe to. Regardless, you may wonder why I found this story inspiring. Who actually relishes the idea of giving up the dreams of youth? I’ve been travelling down a path of life since birth that has involved many dreams, many of which I’ve given up. That sure doesn’t sound like a good thing, does it?

To paraphrase the author’s initial assessment, the root of the issue is the concept of attachments. When you “give up” a dream, you are detaching yourself from it. This process of detachment can actually help you enjoy things more. Alcohol isn’t much fun if you’re addicted (attached) to it, but when you detach yourself, you allow yourself to enjoy it safely and at a distance. Giving up dreams is really just detaching yourself from your own ego. Being attached to a dream is, in essence, being addicted to it. It’s all or nothing. Success or failure. Distancing yourself from that addiction can mean true success in your life. The author of the essay goes on to examine the concept of attachments and their roots, but I will continue with examining what the issue means to me and my life.

I used to be in a band, and the band’s collective dream was to be successful. The attachment to that dream caused a lot of the band’s emotional peaks and valleys. At the height of our peaks, we all worked together toward our common goal. We wrote the music, played the shows, and maintained the relationships that would, in our belief, ensure our success. In our valleys, we fought, didn’t collaborate well on the music, wrote angry lyrics about each other, and the band even tried to replace me at least once. The scenario was a typical attachment (addiction). We felt like we needed to dedicate ourselves 100% to the dream or we would fail. We would otherwise feel like we were selling ourselves short. All this was at the expense of true and long-lasting enjoyment. Only when I decided to “give up” the dream did I realize how horribly detrimental that sort of attachment can be.

Since the disintegration of the band, I’ve distanced myself from the dream of music paying my bills. That isn’t to say that I’ve given up on music. I still play my guitar regularly, write music, and hope to someday find musicians to play with who are not psychotic. The attachment to the dream was just hurting too many things in my life. It kept me from being productive in my more meaningful pursuits, like school and a real career, and ruined many friendships. The probability of achieving success in the music industry (success being defined as the ability to support oneself and family without supplemental employment) is dreadfully low. All of these factors intertwine and present themselves as solid proof that, at least for me, it’s just a bad idea.

The attachment distancing has effects in other areas of my life. Because of the fact that I can detach myself from my ego and enjoy my hobbies as hobbies, I can commit to the interests of my family. Many people fear the prospect of having kids based on the idea that they’ll have to give up a part of themselves to raise them. While this is true, it certainly is no reason to fear having kids. Because of the detachment effect, I find that I enjoy every aspect of my life that much more. I relish the time I can spend dancing with my daughter in the living room as much as I relish the time I sit by myself and play guitar. Because my ego is not being controlled by an “all-or-nothing” dream, there is no sense of risking failure. Success to me is realizing that distance from those dreams isn’t only more enjoyable, it’s absolutely necessary. Many people also get obsessed with their careers. Now that I have something I can actually call a career, I know how that can happen. The detachment effect applies just the same. If you know when to distance yourself from the attachment of your work, you can enjoy it, your family, your hobbies, and your relationships that much more.

So, life is most certainly a process of giving up. The last five years of my life have brought the most significant changes to my life to date, and many of those changes involved giving up something. Detachment is necessary and, as I’ve found out, bliss.