Happiness

Of course, I want to teach my kids everything I know: especially the knowledge I gained the hard way. But what if you could only teach them one thing? [Don't focus on why you can only teach them one thing, just humor the exercise and isolate the most important thing you know.

I found this aphorism from Michel de Montaigne that captures the one thing I think my offspring need to know:

The man who is happy is not he who is believed to be so but he who believes he is so. (Geary's Guide to the World's Greatest Aphorisms by James Geary, page 128.)

If I had known this principle as a younger man, I could have wasted less time and focused more on lasting happiness. The quick-fix happiness I sought in booze, girls, games, food, TV, and many other trivial pursuits did not return anything over time.

Imagine your happiness is measurable. Your happiness starts at zero, and you have a beer to push it up to a "1". After six beers, are you at a happiness level of "6"? Maybe, but there is a law of diminishing returns that applies here. At some point, you have one too many beers. The hangover itself will sap your happiness level, and that is in addition to any errors of judgement you may have committed while intoxicated. No matter what, you always lose the happiness that each beer brought. Beer/Food/Drugs/etc do not leave a residual happiness, they wear off.

Reset your happiness meter and lets try another exaple. Starting at "0" you turn on TV and find a new episode of your favorite TV show. Happiness level soars to a "10" while the show is on, drops to a "5" immediately after, and then registers a zero once it has left your short-term memory. If you were supposed to be doing something else instead of watching TV at that time, then the drop off will be steeper and deeper. TV does not produce a residual happiness.

Now a better way, in my opinion: Do something for a relationship that you don't feel like doing. Give a back rub, cook something that you don't like but that person does, listen to a boring story enthusiastically, or let them control the TV remote tonight. The happiness meter starts at zero, plunges into negative numbers for a brief time, and then slowly climbs to about a "2". Two years later, you recall a time when you did this selfless act and find that it still provides a residual level "2" happiness. If you can amass an impressive history of selfless acts, you will notice two things. First, they add up to a higher level of residual happiness (which means they cause your happiness to sit at a constant level "10" or higher, even in the darkest of times. Second, the object of your selfless acts will probably reciprocate, which both spikes your happiness and raises the residual happiness level.

My young kids can't really learn it yet. They have a lot of living to do before they know how true this aphorism is. Therefore, the best way for me to teach them now is by my example. I hope they see me working on my happiness, and actively choosing happiness. I hope that they intuitively choose happiness, regardless of what their friends say or what conventional wisdom has decided. I hope that they see the difference between short-term happiness and long-term happiness.

2009 may be a really hard year. If it is, I think I am ready to be happy anyway. I am hoping that everyone is surprised by how well 2009 treats us, and that happiness comes easily. If not, I plan to keep investing in those long-term happiness builders that I find with my kids, wife, extended family, charity, and self-improvement.

I hope your 2009 is filled happiness! Thanks for reading my blog.

A Word and an Aphorism: Ubiquity

While reading a white paper regarding the Microsoft operating system Windows, I ran accross a word I needed to look up. As it turns out, the word describes Windows well, and is a good word to use casually in conversation to make people scratch their heads:

Ubiquitous [adj.] existing everywhere; inescapable.
(The New American Webster Handy College Dictionary, 3rd ed.)

That got me wondering what I may find in my Geary's Guide to the World's Greatest Aphorists. Ubiquity, as luck would have it, was indexed to Seneca's thought:

"To be everywhere is to be nowhere." -Seneca (4 B.C. -65 A.D.) [via James Geary]

I am reading up on PC and server virtualization. I started by doing research for a case study due tomorrow night in an MBA class. However, PC virtualization is something I have been thinking about for several weeks as a means to branch out as an entreprenuer. Alternatively, it is a means by which my company could provide much more value to our clients. Unfortunately, it may be easier for me to start my own business and build it to profitability than it would be to convince my company to implement a good idea.

To put it in a nutshell, Virtualization in this case means that you do not have to buy a PC for every single person that needs one. You could buy a smaller, low-cost appliance, which would use the internet to act like a PC. Not only would you not lose anything in the process, you could gain so much in value, security, administration, application, and performance.

The white paper used the word ubiquitous to describe the current state of affairs in computing. If you wish to change anything about how people and businesses use computers, you have to deal with the fact that we expect Windows to be everywhere. If you want to make it cheaper through virtualization, you will have to virtualize the Windows environment because consumers will not adopt anything else.

I am glad I thought of looking up ubiquity in the Geary Aphorism Guide. Seneca's wisdom actually applies here in a big way: To be everywhere is to be nowhere. I think that could be a vision of the future: your computer today is a specific, tangible device that you can point to, open up, move with you , whether it is a desktop, a laptop, or a PDA. You may have two or three computers, each with their own data, purpose, look, software, etcetera. So, when you say your work PC is on your desk in your office, you are saying your PC is somewhere.

Through virtualization, there may be a day when you have an appliance at home, a laptop, a PDA-Cellphone, and an appliance at work. All three may access the exact same virtual PC that looks the same, has the same software and data, and can do the same things. In fact, it is the same, no matter what appliance you use to access it. The PC that you access exists on a server "somewhere", but you can access it from anywhere. In fact, you can access it from everywhere, thanks to wireless technologies. Therefore, as long as you have an appliance and internet access, you have your PC.

With PC virtualization, your PC is everywhere. However, you can never get your hands on where your PC's data physically resides. The server that holds your data would be a trusted source, of course, and great steps would be taken to ensure privacy and security. However, the server that you access to use the appliance may be anywhere in the world, or two places at once. Therefore, the server is somewhere, but you don't know where. Your PC is available everywhere, but if I asked you where it was, you could say it was nowhere.

Update, Blog, Book

I am up to my eyeballs here. My job is maxing out my day, and school is maxing out my night. I am working on my MBA, and adding a concentration in Information Technology; hence, I am taking two accelerated graduate courses right now, both of which have to cram an entire semester into 6 weeks. I have to read several hundred pages a week and write upto to twenty pages or so, not to mention research, write presentations, and try to ponder the lessons. Amazingly, I think I am actually absorbing most of the material. Ask me again in six weeks though.

I am not complaining or bragging, I am just explaining why I can't write regularly on this blog. I am taking a small break from graduate studies through April and May, but that is only because I have projects at work scheduled that take me out of town or late into the night.

As I have stated in the past, I do not want this to be a "me too" blog that says nothing and simply wastes electrons. Even if I am not a profound or skilled writier, I want to make it apparent that I am striving for excellence and this blog can serve as an example of better blogging--eventually. Since I have not achieved that end yet and will not in the near future, I wish to point to someone else's blog that does.

Guy Kawasaki has a cool name. Anyone with a cool name can get my endorsement, unless they abuse children or are fans of the St. Louis Cardinals. Guy Kawasaki is more than a cool name, he is a great blogger. He is original, inspirational, and full of positive energy. I am reading his archive right now and loving every minute of it. The title says it all: How to Change the World.

Finally, the greatest book ever: I love to read and have an extensive library. I would be considered "well-read" by most people, I think. However, over the last few years I have had little choice about what I read due to school and work. Therefore, when I read for fun it has to be short and sweet, and either richly entertaining (belly-laughter) or deeply profound. While browsing for a book that I will need at work, I accidentally ran into the world's greatest book.

[sound of screeching tires...] Allow me to digress for a quick second. Why is it that all of my favorite books were stumbled onto accidentally? You will remember recently that I was floored by the philosophies of The Secret and Thank You Power, both of which I stumbled onto accidentally. One of my favorite novels is The Confessions of Max Tivoli which I stumbled onto by accident at the library while looking for something by Hemingway. "Max Tivoli" was written by Andrew Sean Greer, and "G" is near "H", and the word "Confessions" lept out at me.

Come to think of it, I have no idea how I stumbled on Guy Kawasaki's blog and it has become my favorite thing to read online. The lesson I take away is that despite my best efforts, the best things in my life are accidents. What do I do with this lesson? I have no idea, but perhaps my wife and I should review our birth control method.

[gravel flys, and this short-bus is back on the road...] Anyhow, I accidentally discovered a great book. Then, I accidentally carried it to the register, accidentally dropped my debit card on the counter with my Borders Reward card, and was forced to take it home with me. The book is Geary's Guide To The World's Greatest Aphorists by James Geary. It is educational, biographical, deeply profound, and occasionally so funny that my laughter endangers the book.

If all you have time for is 30 seconds to read and ponder, you can pick up this book, flip to any page, and be assured to find a sentence or two that speaks to you. You can re-read a page many times and, as your mood and experience changes, you will find a different sentence pops out. Conversely, the same pithy quote may take on a different meaning each time you return to it. This is the book that keeps on giving.

Perhaps I will share a little nugget occasionally when I need to blog and don't have time to really dig in. Here are two aphorisms from the book that I like:

"The course of every intellectual, if he pursue his journey long and unflinchingly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the non-intellectuals have never stirred." -Alduos Huxley

"Laziness is just the habit of resting before you get tired" -Jules Renard