As many of you may be aware, I started at my new job a few weeks ago. It was in the week between when I had gotten the job and before I started that I decided to see if I could be more productive. I started reading some of these productivity blogs like lifehacker and 43folders. It turned out that they had something in common. Namely, they all seemed to recommend one book in particular. Getting Things Done by David Allen. Desiring to become more productive and having a little more time than usual in the week before starting work, I decided to give the system a shot. I had no idea what I was in for.
Before I continue, let me expound on some problems I have. First, I have a huge procrastination problem. It started as far back as I can remember and it related closely to becoming addicted to one thing or another. Whether it was video games or blogs or sports, the one thing that remained the same was that I would pretty much drop everything to do whatever it was that I was addicted to. There would be some lingering guilt about the things I wasn't doing, but they were things I did regardless.
Second, I have a horrible track-record for remembering things. My poor mother, for example, hadn't gotten a call from me in years... at least without another member of my family reminding me to do so. But it's not just calls to family members. It's birthdays, meetings, preparation for meetings, agreements, etc. At times I would look at myself and go, why the heck would anyone trust me?
Third, I have a habit of half-finishing things. Not in all things, but certainly things that are carried on sheer willpower alone. If there's no fun in it, there's a good chance the job's half finished in my life.
These are all problems I've wanted to handle, haven't been able to handle and had, to some extent, given up hope of handling. If you look at these things, they may seem like separate things, but they're all related. I would even go as far to say that they're all symptoms of the same problem. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Allow me to continue. Getting Things Done has a cult following on the web. I actually Googled GTD and saw many references to the book turn up. I soon discovered, there's a very good reason why.
The book's premise is fairly simple. We all have tons of unresolved things, or "open loops" as the author calls them, in our lives, often unconscious. These things can be anything from not having organized the garage to not having taken steps to accomplish some life goal. The result of not having dealt with these things leads to anxiety and general unproductivity. Resolving these things amounts to reducing anxiety, improving productivity and general overall satisfaction with life. The main way to do this is to actually define what it is that's unresolved and then to actually take a step toward doing something about it. That's really the main point of the book. It sounds simple, and it is, but the effects of doing it are truly profound. I won't bore you with details, but let's just say that I'm the least lazy I've been and I've gotten more done in the past month than in the past year before that.
As a Christian, reading this reminded me of something else. Namely, the effect of sin, or even guilt, in our lives. Unresolved things are essentially agreements made with yourself that have somehow been broken. In Christian thinking, this is a promise that's been broken, just that it's not to anyone else, but to yourself. It's a form of sin that's rarely discussed or thought about, but the concept that sin such as this could have a debilitating effect on the rest of our lives is hardly new or surprising. I was reminded of the book of Acts where tons of people cried out "What must I do to be saved?" When I read that in the past, I thought, who does this? Who has this much guilty feelings that they shout something like this?
Yet in thinking about the main concepts of this book, I realized, people have the same problems today. They're just dealt with differently. All addicting things are really things to numb the gnawing effects of sin. Sin really does destroy, it's just so well numbed now that nobody shouts "What must I do to be saved?" anymore. The need is still there, that is, to actually deal with the sin underneath, it's just that the symptoms are vastly different due to all the numbing agents that society has at its disposal. So what's the unmet need here? It's a very practical question, if you think about it. It's about getting released from the guilt and shame of sin. In modern day terms, it might be getting out from under the worries of life.
One of the things I noticed about people who do become Christian is that it often doesn't come as a result of some argument. In fact, I've met very few who have been argued into Christianity or any other philosophy/life-view for that matter. In my observation, most of the time, people tend to become Christian (or any other philosophy/life-view) as the result of a relationship with someone else. And that, I don't think is necessarily inferior to being argued into something. It's a very practical and bottom-up approach to things. There's an unmet need and it gets filled by something. If the thing doing the filling (Christianity) works, there's trust built and more stuff is tried. This goes on until, before you know it, the person is a full-fledged Christian (or Libertarian or Fraternity Brother or whatever). It's a practical approach as opposed to a theoretical approach that so many intellectuals find superior. But if the practical approach works, I question some of the theoretical wisdom.
In any case, I've digressed quite a bit here, but suffice it to say, that's what this book, Getting Things Done (GTD) is all about. It's a very practical way to organize your life and I suspect that there's a much deeper, spiritual reason why it works. If you have some of the problems I've listed above, this may very well be a good thing to try. As a way of putting my money where my mouth is, I will offer anyone that promises to read the book the actual book itself. I only ask that you invite me to dinner if it works. =)
Young-adulthood is fraught with many thought-provoking things... Starting a career, figuring out where to live, finding a community, there's enough worries once you graduate from college to make it a bit overwhelming for many, especially those that haven't seen much in the form of real-life experience. But more than any of these things, none compare to the general mindshare of choosing a mate.
One piece of advice I've given to singles at church ever since I've gotten married is this... Choose a mate that's
1. a Christian 2. a person that can keep promises
Really, I've distilled most criteria/standards/requirements to just those two. The usual reaction I get is, "that's it???" Most single people I know, even many married people I know seem to have an endless array of requirements from height to ethnicity to family background and even income. They are shocked to find that the list I've come up with is so short. I'm writing this post, in part, to explain my reasoning. But before I go to that, I must go into a short history on dating and relationships from eons past.
For most of human history, dating did not exist. Even the whole idea of marrying for love is a very new concept. Until about 150 years ago, most of the world had mates chosen by their parents. It was a very simple system. Mother and father choose a mate, you get married and that's it. Such an idea sounds horrifying to modern readers since it seems so void of what we've been conditioned to expect in marriage. Passionate, erotic love, butterflies in the stomach and the like. Basically, things that Hollywood has shoved down our collective throats again and again. It's quite easy to dismiss the idea of arranged marriage as a stupid anachronistic tradition, an affront to our personal freedom or worse. It's easy because we think we understand the idea behind an arranged marriage when we really don't and that goes back to the idea of love itself.
In modern usage, love is really a word for "passionately like". It's a feeling. It's something that you either have or you don't. Love, defined these days is really something almost out of a person's control. Something that has many dependencies, like circumstances, the other person's attributes and their behaviors. It's something that is either there or not there as a result of a conglomeration of disparate things. How many romantic dramas have the heroine decide not to marry a guy because she doesn't "love him"? It's not a choice and is instead something mysterious that either happens in the heart due to certain factors being there or not. Classical usage of the word love is much different. It's a choice one makes and doesn't have so many dependencies. Classically, unconditional love (that is, not dependent on any other factor) is really the highest form of love. It's what we all long for from others, but so seldom actually get.
Which brings us back to arranged marriage. Part of the idea behind it is that you can choose to love someone. Love can be more pure and not so dependent. You can love someone based on their relationship with you and not because you happen to like them already. Loving a person in this way is a real virtue. Anyone can treat someone they like nicely. It's a whole other thing to treat someone well when you don't know them or even when you don't like them.
Going back to the two systems of finding a mate from before, which seems better suited to prepare one for marriage? Which system seems better suited to prepare one for children? On the one hand, you have a system where one learns to love people one likes already and on the other hand, you have a system where one learns to love people that one doesn't know. One of the first things that Pastor Dave told me when my wife and I did marriage counseling is this. I will hate Julie more than anyone I've ever hated. This was a shocker to me at the time because it seemed ridiculous that I would hate my wife so much. Yet, in retrospect, that was exactly right. When you spend so much time with someone and get into as many conflicts as you get into, you're bound to hate each other a lot at some point in time.
It's obvious when you think of marriage in this way that dating is terrible practice for marriage. It's setting up a giant set of dependencies and expectations for marriage that are ultimately counter-productive. People change a tremendous amount after marriage. I would say the difference between pre-marriage and post-marriage is greater than the difference between pre-college and post-college. Think about how different you were when you were in high school, and you can get an idea of how different you'll be as a married person. And the change is continuous. There are more life-changing events ahead like the birth of children and their growth, their leaving, mid-life crises and even your retirement. The person you marry is not necessarily going to be similar to the person you're married to 5, 20 or 50 years from now. This is why when dependencies and expectations are set, there's a tendency for divorce. When you marry expecting your spouse to be a certain way, you're bound to be disappointed.
And thus, we come to my original point. Marriage is really a gigantic promise. One that lasts until death do you part. If your potential mate can't even keep smaller promises, what are the chances of keeping this really big one through all the changes and whatnot? The other criteria, that of learning to love unconditionally, even when you hate them, is the one thing that should come from being a Christian. It's not something that should be fully developed, but there should be some indication that it's going in that direction.
On this Valentine's Day, this is my sincere hope that all of you who are single would think of these things in a different light and not one that's been shoved down your throats by Hollywood.
they say that the republican party is the party that falls in line and the democratic party is more like a dysfunctional family. if so, this whole burris mess is a good preview of what the next 2 years could be like.
to recap, we have Blagojevich who was caught on tape discussing numerous ways to make money illegally from his position as governor. so far, the only one the media seems interested in is the alleged sale to the highest bidder of the senate seat. of course, there was a TON of other stuff in that wiretap, much of which are even more damning, but that's the one that has the most national impact, so that's the one that's being pursued.
Blagojevich takes a gamble and appoints a black man to this seat. Burris is a former attorney general of illinois and has lost just about every election imaginable since he held that office in the 90's. that is, he's run twice for governor, once for senate, once for mayor of chicago. the guy basically has nothing to lose by accepting this appointment and get a little publicity in case he wants to run for something else. and lo and behold, the plan is starting to work. the congressional black caucus is starting to make some noise that he should be seated despite having been appointed by an allegedly corrupt governor. democrats like diane feinstein are starting to tell everyone that his appointment was legal. and starting now, you're going to have a big fight on your hands.
senate majority leader harry reid has told everyone that he wouldn't seat anyone appointed by the allegedly corrupt governor. he knows that this is going to be deeply unpopular nationwide and could have some serious consequences in 2010 if he doesn't handle it correctly here. yet he might just have to bow to the black wing of the democratic party and seat him. and here in lies the conflict. what's good for the democratic party is not what's good for the congressional black caucus and vice versa. republicans are generally a little better about doing what's good for their party, even if it hurts one of their constituent caucuses. can the old guy keep his guys in line? at least at this juncture, it doesn't look like it. in other words, a lot more fights like this to come. my guess is that republicans will sit these fights out and jab from the sidelines and win back a bunch of seats in 2010.
i was wondering the other day... why is it that there's so much war in africa? it's a continent of abundant resources and pretty good climate (at least in large parts). the continent should be an economic superpower, but due to all kinds of war and corruption, you have situations like sudan and zimbabwe which have dysfunctional governments, warring parties and lots and lots of violence. worse, this sort of violence only lead casual observers to feel that perhaps there's something inherently violent about Africans.
in giving this some more thought, i was reminded of a little section of barak obama's autobiography. he mentioned how when he went back to kenya, there was a tension in the country between "westernizing" and "preserving tradition". this is not an unfamiliar concept, as it's fairly prevalent in nearly every non-western country. however, the thing that he specifically mentioned was polygamy. many kenyan men, including his own father, justified their own polygamy through wanting to preserve tradition. obama rightly thought this idea ridiculous.
it led me to think... could polygamy be partially the source of war and violence? i had read somewhere before that 90% of violent crimes are committed by men. i also read somewhere that the abundance of single men with no marrigage prospects were the real reason behind the prevalence of suicide bombings.
logically, you can connect the dots. polygamy will lead to more single men. this is obvious since the supply of women will reduce when you allow men to marry more women. now which single men will this cause? it's certainly not the wealthy men, since they can and will have the option to marry one or multiple women, even if they opt not to. the men that will have no choice to marry will be the poor men. the ones that want to marry and can't will be in some sense, the most dangerous. they have literally nothing to lose (no wealth or family to protect) and have the most interest in seeing things change through violence or other means. gather enough of these men together and you have the beginnings of a violent opposition.
just as a cursory glance, i looked this idea up on google. i found that, for instance, polygamy was banned in japan following WWII. you'll note they had their own version of suicide bombers before then called kamikaze fighters. could their relative prosperity since WWII be a direct result of the ban on polygamy?
if you look at many hot-spots in the world, you'll find cultures that support polygamy. chechnya, sudan, most islamic countries, parts of bosnia, most of africa. it seems at least at first glance that this could be a good explanation. maybe there's a deeper truth to the genesis saying "it is not good for man to be alone".
i don't normally recommend movies, but if you're asian, and particularly if you're also male and love basketball, take a look at this movie:
it's not the greatest movie in the world, but there were tons of moments that represent much of the asian-american experience. after the bitter disappointment of the first asian-american movie, better luck tomorrow, this movie takes the asian-american narrative in a funnier and more palatable direction. some scenes were overdone, the plot was way too generic and honestly, it could have been made better... but it's still a fun movie to watch.
