Take Action In Your Life!

Take Action In Your Life!

Life goes by fast. Complaining or blaming others for your circumstances is a fruitless endeavor. Suppose there is something in your life that you do not like. It is time for you to take action. Take all the time you are complaining and whining and use that energy to change your own life! 

During my life, I have heard individuals complain about this or that or this circumstance with that circumstance or this person or that person has kept them from doing the things they want to do. Dreams have been shattered because others did not believe in them or told them they could not achieve them.

Balderdash! Your life is your own! You make it the way you want regardless of what others say or do to keep you from your goals. Ultimately, if you are not successful in the things you want to do in your life, you need to look into the mirror and realize the blame is on you. 

The question you need to ask yourself is, what are you willing to give up to achieve these goals? Are you ready to give up hanging out with your friends? Would you give up watching streaming movies one after another? Will you devote time to reading and writing to pursue the dreams you have? Will you change your circumstances to make these goals achievable? Are you willing to move to an area to allow you the chance to achieve these goals? These questions can go on and on, and you know what questions you have to ask yourself. What you are willing to do to achieve success?

Goals are important for those that want to be successful in life. Short-term, midterm, and long-term goals need to be expressly clear for the individual to achieve them. Write them out, put them on your wall and read them daily, share them with others that will help you with them, and carry them on you and referred to them when times are difficult.

Success does not mean having money. Wealth does not mean success. Goals and dreams do not have a tangible price on them. However, they do come with significant time commitments and separation from activities that you currently enjoy. When time is a factor, decisions have to be made on what is truly important to you.

Reflecting upon my life, I knew I wanted to go to college. I wanted to learn as much as I could from as many different disciplines as possible. With this knowledge and experience, I knew my goals and dreams would be achievable. Looking back, this was not easy. However, I would not let anything get in my way of earning a college degree and the experiences that go along with it. This dream came true for me through long hours, hard work, sleepless nights, and challenging experiences. I am glad I started when I did. If I waited for the right circumstances, that degree might never have happened.

This was my path. Your path may be completely different. And it should be. Deep inside you right now, you know what you have to do to fulfill your desires for success.

Are you willing to take that step? If you are, stop what you are doing right now and begin. Waiting to start later means you never will. Start now!

Computed

Daily Photos of me from Feb 2020 until April 2021! https://youtu.be/8Lpf-O4o_bQ 

A Year Later

 A Year Later

It has been a year since the world went into pandemic lockdowns, masks, washing your hands over and over, and social distancing. Some years pass fast, and others drag on. A few seem to drag on and pass by fast at the same time. Last year, it dragged and went by fast. It is hard for us to think about the world not wearing masks.  

New words, such as social distancing, came into our vocabulary reluctantly. Everyone became experts on viruses and what is the best method of not getting ill. And meetings, school, and work could all be done online. 

Thinking about how last year's events went by, it was like we were watching a film. It seemed unimaginable. If this were a movie, it would seem impossible. We would walk out of the theater thinking that this film could never happen.
 

Well, it did. Sadly many jobs are gone. Many relationships ended. Other relationships became stronger with these trying events. Many learned new skills. Others binge-watch everything online over and over. Others got into their routine and repeated it over and over until it became rote. 

We all learned a lot about ourselves, others, and the world. May the future be bright soon. Hopefully, in a few years, we all will think back to this time period and share stories. One day, you will tell stories about last year to someone that was not born yet. The story will seem like a fantasy. To the storyteller, it will seem like those events never happened. Time can heal us.

Here is to the future. Normal will return, studying history, it always does. Humanity has always had the ability to adapt to anything. Life will return to the world and go to the stars.

Computed.

www.TheRobotFilm.com 

Why Write Papers In The Age Of YouTube

 Why Write Papers In The Age Of YouTube

I have been writing papers since I was in grade school. They were horrible. I did not want to write them, and the teachers did not want to read them. No one knew why we had to complete writing assignments. It was in the 1980s, so there was at least no internet to distract us, so there was not an excuse there. Even though no one wanted to read those papers or write them, they continued to be assigned in middle school, high school, undergraduate, and graduate degrees. No one was ever happy to write a paper or read them.

When you read, it is over subjects you enjoy, and probably from people that love to write and have the gift to write. Same with watching TV, you expect a good story and good acting. If the acting and storytelling were on the level of a first-grade written and acted play, you would not watch it. Not unless you were related to someone in that production, of course.

At some point, if you continue writing papers, you figure why you write them. Papers are not some chore that frustrates you, they are to help you put your thoughts in a clear and logical format. People that write papers on their own, yes this does happen, are working to figure out a problem and by writing their thoughts and research in a paper, they learn about that topic. 

This could have been expressed better to me when I was in grade school. I could have understood it. I may still not want to write a paper, however, I could understand why someone would want to learn a topic in that format. Putting your thoughts on paper is a method many people use even outside of writing a paper, many YouTubers make outlines of what they want to cover in their videos. 

With YouTube, do we even need papers? Could a writer just talk out loud about their thoughts live on the web? No. Writing focuses your thoughts. Writing can be challenging and intellectually painful. In some papers, you have to fight out all of your preconceptions to get to the truth. Once you have finished that paper, you feel good. A job well done. The battle is over, now you can rest until the next paper.

I would challenge you to write a paper, for many you have not written a paper since high school or college. You can use YouTube to learn how to write, for me, once I organize a paper, the paper is easy to finish. Pick APA or MLA as style, these will help you in your writing. You do not have to be in school to write academic papers. There is a pandemic going on, by now you have watched everything online. Right? Go write!

Computed

The Short Squeeze

 The Short Squeeze  

The Short Squeeze was all over the news this week. Before this week, if you heard the term 'The Short Squeeze', you would think it had something to do with orange juice. Now we all associate it with hedge funds and those Redditors working the system. 

What most people are failing to see, is that these young people are now learning how the stock market works. They may lose all of their money, however, what they are learning is beyond any book education. This education is hands on, or in the Redditor's talk 'diamond hands' instead of 'paper hands'.

In public education, money, finances, saving, and investing are rarely taught. A student may have an economic class or two, however, those courses do not deal with real life examples. High school students will not relate to some theoretical exercises that they have no way to associate with. 

Hopefully years after 'The Short Squeeze' is but a fading memory, these young people will continue to learn about money. Today, with the internet, any person can learn how to read stock charts and how to look for trends. The most important part for a person that wants to invest, it to just start. At first, you will lose money. That is fine because you are learning. Even if you lose it all, you will learn from your previous errors. 

At first, invest money only that you are willing to lose. Do not use your rent money, food money, car payment money, or any other money that you need. Risk only money that if you lose, you can still pay your bills. Especially at first do not use money that will make you ill at losing. If you drop ten bucks, that is easier than dropping a thousand! 

When a young person learns how to invest, it is like having a superpower. They have money they can access when they need it, have that money grow over time, and will become mindful about spending money foolishly. If they start investing when they are in their early twenties, when they are near retirement, they will have more to make their lives comfortable. Instead of worrying about finances, they have spent time enjoying their lives.

So this 'Short Squeeze' may turn out to be the greatest learning lesson in a generation! Invest in what you understand. Take risk with money you can lose. And think long term. Historically, money invested in the stock market will double every seven to ten years. 

The longer you are in, the more time you will have for that money to double. From age 20 to 70, your money could double five to seven times depending on the interest rate of the market.  If you start with $1000 the first year, the next seven years you would have $2000, then $4000, then $8000, then $16,000, $32,000, $64,000, $128,000! That is the power of investing! 

Computed!