I was looking for free video for a web-based novel I am about to launch when I stumbled on this:
American Housing crisis affects renters.
This story sounds so familiar to me. We are seeing this more and more in Australia. In the city people are living in tents for goodness sake.
No magic bullet for this one. I wonder what’s going to happen next? Anyone care to speculate?
As the society has become more individualist and less community driven we have seen the mass introduction of suburbs. This is not a recent trend… it’s been happening since the 40′s and 50′s. One of the most annoying side-effects of the increased decentralisation of society are neighbours. These are the people that we in the city are forced to live next to. In my many years of renting I have seen it all. So here are my tips on how you can know your neighbours are evil.
Years ago I lived in a house in sunny Kawana Waters. It was fantastic. The people next door, God bless them, where just strange. They never said hello, never feigned a smile or a wave, they just where always inside. Like the penguin says, ‘smile and wave boys, smile and wave.’ The first time I spoke to the man was when I was leaving. He asked if the house was for sale. I said no and he walked off without saying another word… in short EVIL! The neighbour that never says even the smallest word to you … not even out of courtesy is evil.
I have had a neighbour who came into my yard and said, ‘I just want to trim some of my trees that are overhanging,’ only to have them begin to cut down my plants! Now I am all for letting people do my work for me (I am not a workaholic – thank you very much) but cutting down my trees? I felt like slapping that person and I don’t even garden! If a neighbour comes into your yard to trim your trees – they are EVIL!
My wife had this beautiful Persian called, ‘Terry’ who she had since she was a kid. One day the dog next door attacked the cat and left it in a critical condition. The neighbour at the time thought nothing of it and never paid a single bill towards the vet treatment that ultimately failed to save the cat’s life. That was the second cat the dog had eaten as well. Can I suggest if you have a bullish ‘macho’ neighbour who doesn’t take care of his pets properly that you do what my uncle does when he has problems with his neighbour? He sits on the back deck polishing his gun. Put down your rocks I am joking.
In my 31 years I have lived in a lot of places. More than I would care to remember. I once lived upstairs in a two story apartment complex in Mooloolaba in the 80′s. Every Saturday they would get on the sauce and belt out rock music much to the chagrin of my parents. Eventually they left and peace was restored. Our lease was cancelled by the owner soon after and we moved to a new house in Mountain Creek. So guess who was living next door to us? THE EXACT SAME PEOPLE! Needless to say, we didn’t stay there very long. If you neighbours constantly party without considering people around them… they’re evil!
One time I was living in a townhouse with my wife and two chihuahuas. We had a string of neighbours, one who died whilst mowing the lawn and the other who often vocally ‘pleasured’ her man friends on the front deck… both right outside our bedroom window. They were happy times. Oh yes and the neighbour before that died as well. I used to call it the townhouse of death. But I digress. The woman that lived there after the screamer used to talk to her friends in the United States really REALLY loud at 3am in the morning. This was despite me slamming the window and let out hints like saying, ‘I wish she would shut up.’ The thing is, if you live in an apartment and you begin to talk to people on the phone at 3am keep it down. If you don’t then you are evil.
When I am phone I like to walk. I have a cool portable phone so I walk outside, around the yard and so on. One day when I was on the phone talking to a friend of mine, I walked outside. What did I see? I saw a giant frickin’ pile of palm fronds the neighbour had generously donated to me over the fence. If you are reading this (probably not) up yours! I may be a renter but what gives you the right to dump your crap in my yard? I would suggest two courses of action. 1. Throw it back or number 2. Turn the other cheek. I am not mature enough to try number 2 yet though my wife is. Thank God she is not evil.
I once lived in East Brisbane in an apartment complex. One morning I heard a knock at the door and I was surprised because I don’t have any friends! I open up and there are the two Australian Federal Police waving their guns and badges in my face. They showed me a warrant and then came into my house and raided it. My draws were emptied and the place ransacked. I was wondering why was this happening? I wasn’t on drugs (at the time – been clean for years) so I thought what the hell is going on. Then he checked his warrant. Oops it was my neighbour! I politely told them to get out of my flat and thanked them kindly for intruding on my personal liberties without my prior consent or permission and showed them the door. At least that’s the way I would like to remember it. The funniest part of this whole story is that the cops in question found a toy gun and looked at me and said, ‘you’re bloody lucky it’s a toy gun.’ I will not repeat what I said to the cops except to say this… if your neighbours are involved in drugs, crime or anything suss they are evil. Make sure you get the cops who WILL eventually come to collect them to double check the warrant. To be fair to the cops – I have made worse mistakes. But you will have to read my other posts to learn about that.
In the final analysis you can’t really know when you move in that your neighbours will be the spawn of the dark one. My guess is that you find out a month or so into living there. This however is hard to determine in advance. You may be fortunate like me and have great neighbours. They are lovely in my new place. I can’t complain. I have seen the odd police car and sure there have been parties. But they are a few doors down… just out of shouting distance. If you are stuck with evil neighbours the one thing you can take comfort with is this… so are thousands of other people!
I have been working steadily on next week’s lecture and thought I might just check if the 30 seconds Simpsons videos I was using in my lectures are still on youtube. No they are not. I got a message from the company in question saying for violation of copyright the videos have been shut down. Last time I checked copyright law this was fair use!
So what have I done instead. Well thankfully I have found a few De Bono videos and this one from shoemoney about yahoo and if it matters. The lecture is about policy and strategic assumptions – the satire of The Simpsons is picture perfect. Shoemoney is good too and a good replacement but C’MON why did you have to take those videos off the frickin’ internet! It made my otherwise BORING lectures somewhat interesting. I am really mad! Now I can’t entertain myself while I lecture anymore thanks to the overfed legal beast that sucks on the teats of the Fox Corporation. I hope whoever thought it was a GOOD idea to take the videos off the internet remembers the little guy (me) next time they pull them off the web.
I will leave you with some thoughts on piracy:
When I sat down to write the article on potential I felt the inner conviction of my spirit turning inside me. Those of us that walk according to the spirit know what that means. Here I am writing about potential when in fact my potential is not being used. Excuse me HYPOCRITE. After not sleeping for about a week and wondering about it I decided to do something about it then talk about it. There is at least one area of my life where I feel I haven’t allowed myself to reach my full potential. This is in the area of fiction.
I am no Stephen King or Hemmingway but I have the potential to be a great writer. How do I know this? It’s in me. You must know what you are good at. I have that potential. What I have in the writing area is a natural passion and the talent to do it. So, I am launching back into it this week and having a go. Then I will finish the article on potential. When I can say within myself that my potential as a writer is being developed.
I have heard it said that: those who can’t do teach. I prefer to do then teach. I am a pragmatist I can’t help it. Stay tuned.
Yesterday I spoke about the four stages of learning. Today, I want to point out the missing element of learning that often is overlooked by many people. This is the part of learning that refers to your natural talent.
People who excel in their area, such as Elvis, were not just hardworkers. They had a special something that made them different from everyone else around them. They had a natural inclination or gifting that guided them to the target. If you look into the history of successful people you will find somewhere in their story a natural desire to follow a certain path. You have this too and so do I.
I can’t answer this with a one line answer except to add this: what you don’t have to work hard to achieve and find very easy to learn could be your natural talent. For me, it’s writing. I don’t have to think beyond writing the next word to know what I am going to say. As a matter of fact as I am writing this… it’s just flowing out of me. No planning, no forward thinking, no nothing. Just a natural flow of creativity inside me. That’s God given. Finding it, is not as easy as simply letting it flow however and that’s where yesterdays post comes in handy. You have to develop your natural talent. You may find like I did as you were developing your natural talent in one area you discovered it was actually in another area! But that’s what makes life so interesting… we all have so much potential (that’s tomorrow’s topic…).
Say you like organising people. You love to file things away, be organised and structure things. That’s a natural talent. You may be creative and ideas are always flowing out of you… that’s a natural talent. You may be drawn to cooking, sailing, fishing, running or whatever. It’s that drawing you need to develop and master on the road of life.
There are many reasons why people never realise their natural talent… none of which are important right now. What is important is that you make a committment to begin looking for that talent and start developing it. In the next post in this bunch I am talking about what potential is and how to use it. You must come back and read that if you are stuggling with your own personal development.
When you start learning anything you begin from the standpoint of what I like to call the ‘jackass’. This means you know nothing about what you are doing and where you are going. I was like this the first time I can to Excel. Now I can teach it without thinking about it. So what are the four stages of learning?
When you start to learn anything knew… you don’t have a clue. You are confused, angry, annoyed, tired and alone. That’s the first stage and it’s sad to say most people will give up in this early phase. You are a complete dumbass at this level and you make mistake after mistake after mistake and just don’t seem to be learning.
This is when you begin to get a handle on things but you are still making big time mistakes. You fumble four times instead of five instead of five. You sort of get the hang of it, or at least think you have but ultimately you still fail. There can be no worse feeling that I have ever known then to be at this stage. One minute you are high as a kite the next you are wondering where it all went wrong.
This is when your skills begin to shine through. Now you are failing two times out of four tries and having more success than failure. If you have ever learned the guitar you know what this feels like. It’s that magic moent when you pick up the guitar and play that song you have been practicing for years. The stars align more often than not and you are there. You just do it. Tomorrow it may not come off but today you are the emerging champion.
This is where most mavens wind up. They are the champions of their area and almost always produce brilliance. They are the Stephen Kings, Speilbergs and so on who even on their worst day are still better than the next person. People at this level find it very hard to tell people how they got there. They use strange sayings like: “it just clicked” or “there comes a time when you just get it.” These are amongst the few people who have become so good at something that they have in tucked away in their unconscious. I am sure if you had the chance to ask Clapton or Hendrix: why are you so good… they might answer with, “I just know what works and what doesn’t.” This is where you want to be… this level of unconscious genius!
You have to accept that learning is a process. There is a way you learn and a path that you have to follow to get to phase 4. It requires committment, determination, faith and courage. Now, there is another element… your natural ability. That is the subject of the follow up post which you will read if you come back tomorrow. 
I wish all of my blog subscribers a happy easter! Whatever you are doing for the break (if you live in a country where you get one that is) I hope it’s peaceful, fun and not work.
God bless you all.
Luke.
I work in a university teaching people about computers (mainly) and policy. The stuff dreams are made of. Every semester there is always one student that irks me more than most and the kind that just wants the answers. Their version of life is to simply have the “facts” and that is that. Well I can tell you that if you really want to learn about life there is a world outside the facts you need to consider.
My way of learning is not to just get the answers… it’s to work out how I can get to the answer. Say, for instance, you are into affiliate marketing. The information you need is not how do I get sales BUT how do I actually become a competent affiliate marketer. What’s the difference? The process of selling and learning how to market things will teach you how to get sales. If I tell you this is how I get sales there will be important information missing. Stuff like, what is your budget, demographic, what is the marketing environment and so on. If I just told you what to do without giving you the chance to learn… you would not remember a bloody thing.
Nothing gets under my skins faster than students who couldn’t be bothered to learn the skills I teach. I mean it’s really easy to show you the answer but the way there is lost on someone like that. That’s not teaching it’s programming robots. I am not into AI so I am dealing with humans. To rephrase a popular saying, “I can give you the fish or I can teach you how to catch them yourself.” If you are smart you will go through some pain to get there and build something with it. If not, you will be amongst the growing ant population that populate the cubes of the EVIL corporate beast. But I digress…
If this is you… don’t be an ass. Decide to begin learning the way by trying. I know your parents probably bailed you out up to this point or you are as lazy as I used to be. Don’t be like that! Once you know something you have power and you can use this power to dominate the world destroy the UN go back in time better yourself. If you don’t then you will be a GRADE A moron in my books.
* Note: the previous blog post may not resemble coherent thought.
As someone who is involved with a lot of people I am amazed at how people never really pay attention to themselves. We dream our way through the day, hoping for a better tomorrow yet we all find ourselves doing things that are against our natural inclinations. Do you know how many people I have met that are unfulfilled? LOTS!
All I have to do to know I am me is think about it. Really I don’t even have to do that. I know what I like and I know WHAT I am like. I know the things that turn me on and the things that turn me off. I know me. I know I don’t like administration, but have to do it and I love creativity. I like to build things and I hate to destroy anything. That’s me… you are completely different.
I hear it all the time. People know the direction they should be going in (i.e. away from their jobs) and yet continue to dig a deeper hole. At least dream about it and talk about it. Cultivate the seedbed of your heart with it. That’s another story. You must get to know what you like and spend time thinking about it. If you don’t then you can’t know your strengths or your weaknesses are. You will die inside as you get older and become a grumpy old ass like this man:
My sister in law has this saying, ‘Don’t squash my spirit!’ She has a bunch of other ones too. To me, this means don’t tell me what I should be doing, when you don’t know me. Don’t stop my creativity and brilliance because you think you know better. It is always helpful to take advice but don’t take advice that stops the real you from developing… that’s just crazy.
At the end of your life only one person is going to be responsible for you… YOU! You may have a long life or a very short one but at the end… did you do the best with what you had? I know people who lived for 22 years who lived as much as people who lived 44 years and died. Don’t let anyone squash your spirit!
* Thanks to Aunty Nikki for the title of this post.
Judging by the popularity of this blog you would think people find it acceptable to fail. Our society is so geared up to succeed that it often forgets that failure is a part of life. We fail in all kinds of areas regularly. We fail at work, we fail at home … we even fail in between work and home!
I think society needs to relax. We are so geed up about getting good success that we forget that failure is often a very big part of success. How do you know what works unless you fail first! I have handed over money more time that I have had hot dinners on ideas that I thought would make me money. Guess what… FAIL!
Failure is not the end but the beginning. A friend of mine puts it this way. If you fail… reflect on why and milk the fail for all it’s worth. Extract the lessons, reflect and say … when the next opportunity comes I will not fail in that area AT LEAST. Take a look at history there are FAILs galore. Lincoln is probably the most failed president in history… he missed out many, many times before he got the job.
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If nothing else failure should produce in you a great desire for success. If it doesn’t then you probably didn’t fail hard enough. I have failed hard. Sure, I spent six months in deep depression. And still at times I am plagued with self-doubt. Now however, I have a deep desire for success. I want to win and be a winner because failure has taught me the value of success. I will let you think about that. And if you are in the mood leave a comment on your experiences on failure to talk about and we can compare FAIL stories.