Do it

Do it.
Do it for you.
Do it for your own happiness.
Do it so your life has meaning.
Do it so you can be.

“Do it. Do it for you. Do it for your own happiness. Do it so your life has meaning. Do it so you can be.” / SML Philosophy / SML.20121212.PHIL.Life.Do.It

Countless humans I have interfaced with in the past have mentioned to me that they want to do something but they don't because they don't know what other people would think about them when they do it.

In his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” author Stephen R. Covey suggests that moving from dependence to independence (i.e. self-mastery) is key to one’s happiness and sanity. In other words, caring about what other people think is a self-destruction act.

The happiness of others is not your concern—especially if you have not yet mastered self-happiness. You are however responsible for your own happiness. Everything that I do, I do it for myself. I don’t do anything because it makes other people happy. I do it because it makes me happy. The same philosophy applies for what I do for work. Work should be 100% fun. Work should be play and play only.

Once you learn to let go and not mind about other people‘s business, you can move on with your life. Opinionated people who “thoughtfully” offer suggestions to others are everywhere. They will continue to “care” about you and proceed to drive you nuts. In these scenarios, I find it best to initiate a dialog with them. Make sure that they understand that what they are suggesting is not helpful. Ask them to stop. Have the ability to “agree to disagree.”

Unfortunately some of these “caring people” will not stop even after prolonged discussions. In my experience, some humans—for reasons which escapes me—simply do not have a logic unit in their CPUs. These types of humans will continue to send negative waves in the form of opinions and comments as “suggestions” about what you do. When these are constantly present and leeching into your sanity, terminate relationships with them right away. If you can't cut them loose then just move as far away as possible.

Remember: be independent. Be yourself. Be happy. Be responsible for you and yourself only.

Disclaimer: Brainhacking results vary. What works for SML might not work for you.

/ SML Philosophy / SML.20121212.PHIL.Life.Do.It / #smlphil #ccby #smluniverse / #生 #life #思想 #philosophy #opinions #mind #brain #做 #do #人 #people #humans #開心 #happiness #hacks #brainhacks #lifehacks #mindhacks

Delete Perfection + Zero expectations / Happiness Life Hacks

Perfection does not exist. You might as well remove the word from your dictionary right now before it turns you into absolute demise. If perfection existed, I certainly have never seen it, nor have I ever experienced it.

The beauty of imperfection. Abstract in C minor / 20090825.10D.51822 / SML

For a large part of my life, I had been a perfectionist, and I expected perfection from others. Since perfection does not exist, you can imagine how unhappy I used to be. I put in 200% of my effort to the point of exhaustion and all I was left with was depression of failing to reach the impossible goal of being perfect. All I was able to see was flaws in myself, and flaws in others. I got upset when things were not perfect, and it drove me nuts.

I believe that there are certain things in life which you cannot learn no matter how intelligent you are. There are things which you can only learn only when you have lived long enough. Older people have the leg up here. I often tell people that I aspire to attain things which could only be gained through time, and this is one of those things. It took me more than three decades to realize that perfection does not exist. I now embrace imperfection fully. I embrace it through these methods:

1. Zero expectations. I have found that expecting nothing from others is a good way to maintain happiness. When someone promise me that they would complete a task by a certain date, I expect that they would complete nothing. When they do, I get happy. When I order food from a restaurant, I expect them to never show up. So when they do, I get happy. When I decided to meet someone I found on an online personal, I expect that they will look nothing like what they describe to be. When they in fact are somewhat decent, I am happy. It may sound absolutely crazy to live life this way, but I have found this to be a very good life hack to maintain happiness. In the worst case scenario I will just be indifferent. Indifferent is ok because I will at least not feel upset about it. Feeling upset is hazardous to the soul.
2. Ensure that people know that I am imperfect. After I was diagnosed with ADHD + Bipolar, I made sure that everyone knows about it. I identify what I am not good at: time management, organization of physical space, “people skills,” etc, and I make sure that when I do anything which require those specific skill sets that I work with someone who can cover those. I will not work on any project which does not have a good project manager. I am thankful that I have worked with many excellent project managers / personal assistants who know how to work with crazy people like me while not trying to micro-manage everything. I report progress through daily and if necessarily through hourly reports because I cannot estimate time it takes to complete anything. Though I've also wised up somewhat—by following the principle of “under promise, over deliver”, when I think that things will take 1 week to do, I tell them that it would take 4 weeks to complete. Usually it works out to be around 3 weeks. Knowing this is helpful. By working in an agile fashion, it is good for me and it is good for others. This is also my preference when working in teams.
3. Say no to things which are unrealistic. I have a tendency to over-commit. When clients ask me if I can do something within an unrealistically short period of time, I used to agree to them and as a result also drove myself to death—literally. The stress was so high that I had contemplated killing myself. The crazy thing was that since I was a perfectionist then, I decided to postpone suicide because I could not see myself having a tomb with something like “SML, the one who did not finish an XYZ project.” I also considered the possibility that no one would show up to my funeral because I somehow messed up their project. Yes I know that this is all very funny but somehow crazies have their crazy ways to cope with life. These days I just say no. I tell people to go find someone else for things which I think will kill me. Interestingly they usually stay with me because usually when I was given unrealistic requests like that it was because they could not find any humans to do it and I am usually their last hope. Wishful thinking is a common attribute among humans. Humans are just weird.
4. Be thankful. A lot of people that I have met feel “entitled” to things because they have done something else. I promote the idea of “zero expectations” and so I am thankful to those who have done anything—no matter how small—for me. A lot of people have the philosophy that just because someone work at their company, they can slave-drive their employees as bots. Don't do that. Humans are not capable of sustaining high levels of pressure. Since I maintain zero-expectations from others, I am thankful when people have completed the tasks as requested and as promised. It works out ok.
5. Be independent. Zero expectations require that I be independent, so I utilize every opportunity to learn new things and skills. I also spend much time researching productivity tools which would help me cope with my deficiencies better. I utilize hashtags e.g. #sml2do for things I need to do. Using unique but consistent hashtags allow me to then use Google to then track things which are not yet completed. I make sure that there are always multiple point of entries of the same todo lists.
6. Be forgiving. Mastership of zero expectations remove the need to forgive because I will never be upset. But although I don't seem human to most, I am in fact human. Attaining zero expectations has been a difficult journey, and I suspect that it will be a life long journey. So until I am able to reach my goal (which is probably never because perfection does not exist), I remind myself to be forgiving. If I wish that others be more understanding to my own imperfection then I need to be forgiving.

I am writing these thoughts down because Mr James Reeves suggested to me that I should write more. SML Thank You for the suggestion. It does seem that writing it out eases the pain somewhat.

Good designs make you happy

Three sets of Cubitec units unpacked and shipped from New York in 2012

At first it might seem a lot to splurge $245 USD x3 on these puppies, but once you realized how durable and configurable they are, you will fall in love with them.

I bought 3 sets of Cubitec shelving units (designed by Tel Aviv designer Doron Lachisch b.1948) from Design Within Reach back in 2009 when I was still in New York. Now that I am in Hong Kong and the space is smaller, I am reconfiguring then into something else.

Well designed products appear simple at first and they make you ponder over the price-value ratio. But like a fine wine, good designs demonstrate through their beauty of functionality that they simply get better and better every year.

Cubitec shelves as configured in New York apartment. Pardon that mess!

The shelves are constructed with highly durable plastic. And as you can see, all three units fits perfectly inside my MeBox (another fine design example) – which is unfortunately no longer available for sale. Sure you can go to Ikea for some knock-offs, but what did those shelves you bought form 5 years ago look like now? My Cubitec looks brand new like the first day I bought it, and it continues to bring me joy everyday.

Highly recommended.

How to unGoogle yourself

In order to protect those who might feel comfortable sharing information with fellow Yalies but not the entire Interwebz, I’ll be ensuring that none of the names included are Google-able.—Annitah Patrick (LinkedIn) / Yale Alumni Magazine > July / August 2007 Class Notes / xoxoANP!

Recently there has been a lot of talks of unGoogling. The drive to unGoogle oneself is so persistent that:

1. My classmates from Yale have forced the class secretary for the alumni magazine, to write class notes in hacker alias ID’ing. In ANP hacker notation, my name will be rendered as S33-M1NG L33.
2. I was threatened advised by many of my friends to mark their photographs private and remove their names from my Flickr stream.
3. I was forwarded a Wikihow article on how to unGoogle yourself.

After a bit of digging, it appears that this craziness trace back to some article on the Wall Street Journal: You’re a nobody unless your name Googles well / Page One / 2007-05-27 / WSJ. It mysterfies me why unGoogling has become the number one extreme sports on the web, so I did a little bit of investigation.

Reasons for unGoogling

Some people confide to me that the reason they don’t want to be searchable is because they have been stalked before and wish to be untraceable. A few of the folks I talked to attribute it to the potential for identity theft, but after a few more rounds of questioning in typical SML fashion, it all boils down to their biggest fear that their social activites might harm their job search.

Silly rabbits. I don’t know what kind of employment you are seeking, but if it is a company that you plan to be spending some time with, for your the benefits of your own mental health, it had better be one who allows you to be who you are. If a company cannot accept that life celebrates diversity, then perhaps that company is not a good fit for you. As Steve Jobs once addressed an entire class of Standard graduates, your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life (You’ve got to find what you love / Steve Jobs). In other words, be who you are, and find that company who values you for who you are. I work for the company that I am at now precisely because it recognizes my multiple skills and encourages me to put my entire head into my work.

Some day, when I am ready to start my own company, I will want my employees to be diverse, varied and energetic. I will want them to be individuals with multiple skillsets who have the agility and versatility to take on any types of clients and industries. I will want them to get all adrenaline from their extreme activities to be able to work on their projects better.

If any task requires mono-dimensional 24-7 professional workaholics (SML Dictionary: boring, uncreative and uninspiring individuals), I think that I would prefer bots and spiders instead. Trust me, they are far more efficient and economical than you are.

If you don’t buy my job search advice and are still determined to create a one-dimension personality on the Web, such that you can fulfill your masochistic desire to be in a long-term relationship where your partner appreciates your helpfulness in doing the dishes but criticizes everything else which make you unique, I offer these advice:

How to unGoogle: Noise over signal

1. The best way to for you to remove your unwanted data from appearing into the public mainstream is to create more data for Google to index.
2. The best way to be most invisible to prowling eyes is to have the most visibility in the most public places.
3. You see this in movies all the time: if you need to do any form of "exchanges," you do it out in the open.

Why? It’s all mathematics:

1. The probability of someone finding something about you over 5 valid hits is very easy.
2. The probability of someone finging something about you over 50,000 valid hits is fairly hard.
3. Retrieving signals over noise (data which you cannot readily interpret) is much harder than retrieving signals over signals (data which you can comprehend readily).

How to unGoogle: SEO

1. Fact: Google’s Page Rank algorithm has largely to do with network theory. It ranks pages based on how times a page is linked to it by other pages, factoring their relevance (AboutUs: Google.com)
2. Fact: 91.63% of the users click on links on the first page of the result page (Leaked AOL data: the importance of top search engine rankings)
3. In other words, if you can generate enough relevant noise onto your first SERP (Wikipedia: Search Engine Results Page), you are fairly safe from being stalked.

How do you do that? Here’s one way to do it:

1. Create a fake persona for yourself with the same name with a quirky personality. For example: a 57yo-widow who enjoys knitting, playing with kittens, network-savvy, and reads Daily Candy every day to catchup on the latest fashion advice so she can make more friends at her local community center.
2. Register this identity with all the social networking sites you can scoop up. Need a place to start? Go to Mashable’s oh-so-useful social network grid.
3. Once you have registered, create profiles resembling your alter-ego and create relevant content and social-network with people that are relevant to your assumed identity.
4. Get all your profiles on these networks to link to each other so that you create a web of the Web.
5. Remember to social-network with people similar to your alter-ego so that you remain to be very relevant
6. Post photographs of cats on your Flickr stream, and link back to your cat blog; post videos of your cats on YouTube and blog about it; furiously digg and bookmark all the cute cats that you like on del.icio.us
7. In other words, use the knowledge you gained from your SEO (Wikipedia: Search Engine Optimization) research and optimise your alter-ego to be really popular. These should get your real identity way down the SERP. You should be fairly safe now.

You don’t have faith in me? Try it, Google me and tell me who I am. Am I a professional in the field of design, technology and marketing strategy, or am I simply a very well-written artificial intelligence algorithm crafted by my creator, whose true identity is cleverly concealed as you attempt to look for the needle in the haystack?

How not to unGoogle: History removal

Removing history does not work. Public unsearchability creates a false sense of safety. Just because you are not searchable by the public domain does not equate unsearchability.

Put yourself in the shoe of Google: if you just spend a whole lot of resources to dig up all these information, are you really going to disposed them all that easily? Most likely not. If I were Google, I will be happy to remove your result from the public domain to keep peace with you.

Tada! Due to quesiontable actions committed by you to fulfill your very desire to remove data, I have just identified why I get into the search business at the first place: to mine important intelligence data that no one else has a copy of. Thanks to your help, I have just identified what you considered to be most damaging to your credibility. I’m sure that businesses will pay me tons of money just to get their hands onto my treasure chest.

Machine data vs Real intelligence

Google is not the only source of data available. The best data do not come from 1s and 0s mirrored across the universe. The best data (aka secrets) comes from human memory.

I used to work for Rumpus as an information designer when I was in college. For those who are unfamiliar with Rumpus, Rumpus is the oldest college tabloid in the United States. From what I remember, it takes approximately one day for us to make a few phone calls to get the list of tapped members of the tombs, including the list of very-soon-to-be infamous members of societies who were not fortunate to be recruited by those with a tomb. We publish them every year. (In case you are considering sending hate mails to me, I would like to remind you that I am not responsible for those undigging. I was the information designer. I was responsible for creating maps of showing all the numbers of the Blue Phones clearly and legibly over the campus for your daily prank indulgence.)

I also spent a long time in college being the photo editor for The Yale Herald, the weekly college paper with articles that people read and comic strips that are actually good. What I have learned from that experience, aside from the potential danger of caffeine overdose, is that when you are carrying an SLR and a Moleskine, people are more than willing to give you information. Try that yourself at your next Harry Potter launch party.

Conclusion

Once indexed, your data will be there forever. You cannot remove things. You can only add to it. If you wish to remove anything, just make it very difficult to search for. Your best policy, as such, is really very simple:

1. As long as you don’t do anything that you think is damaging to yourself, there will never be anything there to damage you.
2. Try to maintain the habit of being responsible for every action you make, every word you say, and every movement your body create.
3. When you have nothing to hide, you will be fearless.
4. When you are fearless, you will be happy.

The Science of Happiness

Tal Ben-Shahar teaches Positive Psychology (PSY1504) or "how to get happy" at Harvard University. He claims that you can be a "learned optimist" too. Just simplify.

His advice, as appears on NPR's Web site, are:

1. Give yourself permission to be human. When we accept emotions -- such as fear, sadness, or anxiety -- as natural, we are more likely to overcome them. Rejecting our emotions, positive or negative, leads to frustration and unhappiness.

2. Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Whether at work or at home, the goal is to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable. When this is not feasible, make sure you have happiness boosters, moments throughout the week that provide you with both pleasure and meaning.

3. Keep in mind that happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not on our status or the state of our bank account. Barring extreme circumstances, our level of well being is determined by what we choose to focus on (the full or the empty part of the glass) and by our interpretation of external events. For example, do we view failure as catastrophic, or do we see it as a learning opportunity?

4. Simplify! We are, generally, too busy, trying to squeeze in more and more activities into less and less time. Quantity influences quality, and we compromise on our happiness by trying to do too much.

5. Remember the mind-body connection. What we do -- or don't do -- with our bodies influences our mind. Regular exercise, adequate sleep, and healthy eating habits lead to both physical and mental health.

6. Express gratitude, whenever possible. We too often take our lives for granted. Learn to appreciate and savor the wonderful things in life, from people to food, from nature to a smile.

A related article called The Science of Happiness by Craig Lambert is published on Harvard Magazine (January-February 2007), where he discusses how psychology explores humans at their best.