Baby Boomers,
I am going to be brutally honest with everyone today.
Not that I make it a point to lie to everyone, but today I am going to cut a little deeper and open up the door to my personal life a little wider giving you a chance to make fun of my vulnerabilities if you want.
You wouldn’t do that would you?
I’ll start by saying that last night I was having a hard time sleeping.
After I got up from my first late night “piss” (told you I was going there) I had trouble getting back to sleep because my mind started racing about the chance to celebrate another “Fervid Friday” on my blog.
I couldn’t decide where I was going to go with it today.
Actually, it’s like that quite often.
Most days, I really never know what I am going to write about until I begin writing. Even that doesn’t insure that what you finally read as my daily blog was what I started out with in the first place. I’ll change my topic before I begin and at times the subject I am writing about veers off course and becomes something completely different.
It’s not writer’s block it’s more like writer’s “drift.”
I do have a file of “ideas” that I have constantly at hand ready to write about. Currently, there are 84 different topics/notes/concepts/hypotheses/thoughts (I just cleaned out the file from over 150 ideas) that I will eventually blog about.
They range from discussions on CFL light bulbs to tips on getting better service at a bar to whether or not folks our age are becoming more sexually liberal as we get older.
Do you want to hear about any of these?
So anyway, I guess I have a serious focus problem on what I want to share with you every day. That’s probably why I am always asking for your suggestions on what you would like me to write about. This is especially difficult for me on “Fervid Fridays” because my message is meant to be inspirational and uplifting.
I’ve made it a point recently to spend the first 30 minutes after waking up every morning becoming a better blogger.
I read other blogs, search out the best of the best, study the websites that teach you how to blog, and research what makes a blog more attractive to you my followers. Sometimes I feel like I am really getting a grip on what I am trying to do with Survive55.com but most times, like this morning, I feel like a kid driving a car. I know enough to get the car started and into drive but what happens when I hit the open road is a dangerous and mysterious ride to me.
That doesn’t mean I’m not excited about every blog I attempt.
I'm just not always focused.
Like the kid in a car, it’s everything I can do to keep from pissing my pants when I write (I told you earlier I was going deep) my blogs. I write fast and furious seldom stopping to eat or take piss (OK, potty) breaks. If you could see me I am actually sitting on the edge of my seat many times and I tense up trying to get everything I want to say down as fast as possible.
There is something wrong with that isn’t there?
So this morning I am reading a blog by Steve Pavlina that I had saved months earlier. As I am reviewing the great knowledge he is sharing to the world (for free I might add) I click on several of the links in his blog (us professional bloggers do that quite often you know!) to check out other topics he is touching on.
This takes me to a blog he wrote called “Conserving Mental Energy.”
It talks about developing a habit of reducing the time wasted and anxiety involved in trying to execute your mundane daily decisions.
He asks:
“How much mental energy do you squander on low-priority decisions each day?"
"Could you make those decisions once and put them on autopilot?”
I reply: “Way too much and yes."
Somewhere deep in my memory banks I had heard that Albert Einstein, in order to be more efficient in his work, bought multiple versions of the same grey suit and had a closet full of the same shirts, ties and shoes that he wore everyday because he didn’t want to waste brainpower on choosing an outfit each morning.
Albert Einstein wore the exact same thing every day. Is that true?
Unfortunately, this report is highly exaggerated but there is a little basis in reality concerning how he dressed later in life.
When Einstein's second wife, Elsa, was alive she took a firm hand when it came to her husband's appearance, and pictures of the two of them touring everything from Japan to the American Southwest show Einstein in beautiful silk vests, and dapper neck wear .
But after Elsa passed away and Einstein spent his last 20 years as a professor emeritus at Princeton, his clothing did become more irregular. He openly disliked wearing a suit and while already legendary for often going sock-less, now he wore sandals. Perhaps the most common pictures of Einstein from that time show him constantly shuffling around his Princeton study wearing a big gray sweatshirt.
Now I am thinking to myself is this something I should consider? Should I put the routine day-to-day decisions of my life on autopilot?
I decided to research this idea a little further and I now have my answer.
It appears that our own President Obama is a huge advocate of this behavior. Obama was quote in a Vanity Fair article:
“You also need to remove from your life the day-to-day problems that absorb most people for meaningful parts of their day. You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” [Obama] said. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing because I have too many other decisions to make.”
He mentioned research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one’s ability to make further decisions. Huh, it appears that President Obama reacted the exact same way as I did to this subject and researched it further to find out if it was the right behavior to adapt.
Great minds think alike right?
It gets better.
Not only have Albert Einstein and Barrack Obama adopted this decision making simplicity but other famous and I might add incredibly wealthy public figures have done so as well.
Mark Zuckerberg, it appears, is proud that he wears the same outfit every day, and he doesn't care if everyone knows it. The Facebook CEO's style, or lack thereof, was a major theme of Zuckerberg's first interview after the Facebook IPO. In the interview, Zuckerberg told Today Show host Matt Lauer that he really does wear the same kind of T-shirt day after day after day.
"I mean, I wear the same thing every day, right?
I mean, it's literally, if you could see my closet," Zuckerberg said, adding that he owns "maybe about 20" of the gray, scoop neck shirts he's become somewhat famous for.
How about the late, great Steve Jobs?
Here’s a man that built a worldwide financial empire while choosing to wear a black mock turtleneck, blue jeans and New Balance sneakers everyday. Simplicity at its finest.
Einstein, Zuckerberg and Jobs weren’t the first to go their own unusual yet unchanging way, and they certainly won't be the last.
Others include fashion designer Michael Kors, Segway inventor Dean Kamen, singer Johnny Cash and even our favorite comic actor Pee-wee Herman.
William Arruda, a personal branding guru and author of Career Distinction says this practice is "not only critical to simplifying their lives but can be part of personal branding."
“They wear what they wear because that’s what they feel comfortable wearing,” he says. “When you wear something that just feels right, you are confident." "And it is also great to have a trademark look." "It makes you memorable and distinctive.”
Hey, it’s not about what you wear, but what you accomplish.
So, if you see me, from now on, walking down the street in a pair of khaki shorts and a dayglo lime green "Survive55" t-shirt you will know the reason why.
OK, so that’s what I am going to write about today in my “Fervid Friday” blog.
It is my decision going forward to reduce the anxiety and time lost in making mundane decisions in my life. My time is more important than my clothing. I am more important than my clothing.
Let’s all start focusing our decision-making energy on what’s most important.
Hhhhhhmmmmmm………I wonder what I’ll write about tomorrow.
Let me know what decisions you are going to put on "autopilot" in the comments section below.
If you found today’s blog helpful, interesting, or even funny, I bet your friends would too.
It's easy to tell them about it.
Forward it on to them or just email them my blog link at www.survive55.com.
The more Baby Boomers we can help, the better place we make this world !!!
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