Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Obligation to Learn

Once again I am enthralled with Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist blog post today, 5 Reasons to stop trying to be happy.

Her logic boils down to either you can be interested in the world around you, constantly questioning it and its values or you can be happy. The two do not coexist nor mix with each other.

Interesting to me even more so because I finished reading an article, "What Would Jack Do?" in the December issue of FAST COMPANY. The article is about Willow Creek, a large Evangelical church leading through learning from the business world's best teachers.

One of the speakers at their Global Leadership Summit, Jim Collins, not to be confused with me, told an anecdote about a college professor who told Collins that "instead of spending so much time trying to being interesting, he should try being interested." in what he was talking about.

Today I am interested in so many different subjects I realize I will not live long enough to explore then all. My zealousness for happiness though never ceases. Maybe the reason I am so unsuccessful in following my dreams to fruition is I expect the two to intersect creating happiness and joy because at last I have succeeded in some endeavor that actually supports me financially. 

In my mind anything that supports my need for food, clothing and shelter
would instantly make me happy. I am very interested in finding out where the two ideas intersect and support the reason both can exist at the same time.

My days are filled with exciting ideas. I can hardly stay in my chair because of the possibilities of any number of projects materializing in my mind at any given time of day or night. I reach a certain number of ideas, overload kicks in, then I slide back into pitifully unhappy and uninteresting reality. Unable to finish any of the projects I selected for the day, most always because the big three, (food, clothing, shelter) require attention instead of me expending
valuable funds in the direction of feeding an idea or dream.

Since I am an undiscovered blogger, it seems to matter little what subject I attack here now or even later. I discovered a writing web site posting writing opportunities for those close to starvation. Such as, write 100 blog articles in 2 weeks and receive $1.50 for each one, after they have determined you are a not a plagiarizer. The person keeps your piddly piece of pay in an escrow account in case they actually decide to transfer it to you. The 21st century's version of slave labor has arrived.

Have you seen any of these writing sites?

I don't want to plug any of them for fear someone might actually agree to their terms for submissions, not that anyone might actually be reading this. There was indication that writers had actually signed on for past projects. They had received $30, $40 some as high as $50 for writing an entire week for
some foreign entity trying to appear as if they were a state side blogger.

Maybe writing a blog for a foreign readership has possibilities? I have a feeling I will be hanging sheet rock soon.

The one listing appealing to my own needs asked for someone to periodically post something positive to a blog site using a different moniker each time. You would be paid of course, another $1.50 to $5.00 depending upon your skill to attract other readers to the blog. You might not be paid if this backdoor SEO is not effective in drawing masses of new visitors through higher search engine rankings because of your comment writing effort.

I was once a restaurateur in the 90's in a very small town. I asked my employees to move their cars to the front of the building to make it look as if we were busy with customers. It made sense because who would want to patronize an empty restaurant? Who wants to be the first to take the risk of eating in an establishment apparently with no loyal clientele. Red flags go up everywhere especially if it is the dinner hour and the parking lot is empty.

Who wants to read a blog appearing to have no readers? No one, that's who. Brazen Careerist has over 57,000 readers. You think Penelope might have something valuable to say to her readers? You dang Skippy she does! Even if she doesn't the numbers are high enough to warrant her penning an off-beat article occasionally even if it alienates a portion of those big number of readers she has corralled. 


They will forgive her and come back to see what outrageousness she is into now. Those liking the off beat nature of her blog will tell others about it and Voila, new recruits show up even if she sent some running for the hills.

I write everyday, well almost everyday to keep my juices flowing. If only every few days a comment would come my way to validate my existence, my creative juices would flow like the River Jordan, at least for a few days more.
 

Happiness is only in love stories experienced for the first time. Today I will settle for being interesting.










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