Managing myself
There is probably no other area of my life where I have made the most significant changes, than in the area of managing myself. What that means sometimes is that I have to fire my wife. I had to fire her again yesterday. Taking on her drama's (she works with women, lots and lots of women! = estrogen hell), taking on her challenges, is very poor management of me. Especially when she so rarely does what I suggest! I fire every client who wastes my time in such a manner. Now don't get me wrong, I love her. I just don't want to put her or myself into a client - developer relationship. It ruins our marriage. I want her to be my wife, and I will be her husband, and we will enjoy the kids and the grandkids together. Our business lives must stay separate in order for me to manage myself well. Your mileage may vary. I know couples who are attached at the hip in work on top of everything else, and it seems functional for them. Not for me. So I mentally fire my wife as a client - that is good management of me and my limited resources.
Good management of me is the power of saying no. Perhaps you just survived (barely!) another Thanksgiving holiday, where you over-ate, and then you ate some more, followed by pies you could barely taste since you were so full it hurt already, followed by more sitting and more eating as the football afternoon wore on. Regret (and pain) is mostly what you felt that evening, and the next day. You managed yourself poorly. I had that precise experience for probably 48 of my 53 Thanksgiving holidays in my life. Well that is no longer my experience. I can and did say no. No to overeating, no to stuffing myself instead of the turkey, no to excess, no to anything that would harm me or leave me with regret or pain. I survived the whole Thanksgiving four day holiday without overeating at any meal. Managing myself never felt so good. Of course, this is not a merit badge that you win and then forevermore never have to concern yourself with these issues again, no, this is the every single day of your life variety which requires a measure of big-picture awareness, and a good dollop of common sense, sprinkled with some "do I really want to do this to myself?" questions along the way. You can also apply this to the whole shopping gig too (Black Friday/Cyber Monday), they both are just complete deceptions and fake constructs to get you to do what is bad for you, and good for the stores and markets, to eat what you don't need and to purchase what you need even less, to buy for people you don't even like! However, I was very very very thankful during thanksgiving, I just said no to excess.
Good management of me is most definitely denying the forces of disruption, which in the modern world would be TV and the Internet. They are both designed to interrupt our lives, and not only that but to dictate what we learn, see, do, investigate, pursue, purchase, wear, reach for, want, question, doubt, find important, research, and know. I categorically want to deny any force that much power. I started strangling the power of these two about eight years ago and it was the best direction change I have made in my life in a very long time. I now willingly watch about zero hours of TV annually (I can't control what happens in other people's homes unfortunately), and I have watched a grand total of three movies in 2015 (even while logging over 80,000 miles of flying), can you imagine how many hours of my life just those two actions give me back in a year?!?
Instead I read and read and read. I discover, I learn, and retool, I develop, I exercise to be fit, I exercise mentally to be mentally fit, I manage myself in such a way that I embrace the responsibility of becoming who I am. As Dan Rockwell said in a blog this morning, "You are the reason you life is the way it is." Yes. You. Are. Yes. I. Am.
