It's My Final Answer!

Lately, I've been feeling like people don't listen to me. When asked if I want to do something, for which I reply negatively, I'm being asked again almost as if they're expecting my answer to change. What am doing that makes people think my original answer isn't my final answer?

Sometimes, these people will ask me "why I said no" in order to find a solution that would make both parties happy but these sales strategies rarely, if ever, work with me as I've read too many books related to selling that I know how to avoid these useless bargaining conversation starters. 

If you find yourself in a similar situation, you just need to say that you don't want to discuss the reason which is usually enough to stop the inquiry.

I hate having to repeat an answer or the bargaining period that follows an answer that they didn't like (some people won't ask you for a reason and go straight to the bargaining phase). While there will always be times when I'll have to do things that I don't want to be doing, there are also plenty more times when I get to choose and going against how I truly feel isn't being true to myself. Some may call this being difficult but they're only saying that because they don't like the answer they were given.

What ever answer is given to a question should be considered final.

"Be Yourself" (Who Ever That Is)

How can you "be yourself" when you don't know who you are? When you're young, you're just trying to find the best way to live your life and that pursuit has a lot of uncertainties which just adds to the insecurities. While those uncertainties doesn't go away, it does feel like time makes you more comfortable with them and perhaps that is when you truly find yourself.

I lived my life a long time trying to fit in with other people and that part of me started to change in my 30s.

I feel silly now for all the things I did for the sake of being accepted in my group of friends. I've listened to music I didn't really enjoy, partook in activities I didn't really liked or consumed substances I didn't really want to take - all for the sake of being part of "a" group.

Thankfully, I've had no long term effects for doing these things other than perhaps feeling a bit silly for having done them.

 

"You need to make yourself happy before you try to make others happy. Put yourself first, & do what you have to do for your own well being."

-Nisban Panwar

Try New Things

My sister is part of my Covid "Bubble" and whenever we hangout we always end up going to a, new to me, restaurant. We both live in the same city but she's definitely been more adventurous with her culinary escapades as I have and it made me re-examine my approach to life (at least as far as restaurants goes).

Growing up, the family wasn't really comfortable with change. That means that, most of the time, we ended up in the same fast food restaurants ordering the items we knew we were going to like. Now I realize that this is such a small way to live!

I recently brought my mom to a "new to us" restaurant and ordered something totally at random on the menu. When my mom saw what I had purchased she was in utter disrepair. She definitely had a look of "I'm going to hate whatever this is supposed to be" but guess what? We actually both enjoyed the meal and are planning to try something else from that restaurant in the coming days.

I didn't realize how much in a rut I was until my sister showed me what she was doing with her life. Sure, it may just have been a restaurant outing but it showed me that I'm a man that enjoys his comfort and I tend go towards what is comfortable when I stop paying attention. I made it a point to not only try new restaurants but also try some new things - one of which is trying to learn what Dungeons and Dragons is all about.

Try something new... you may end up enjoying it. If not, then that's something else you know that you don't like in this world.

Shame on YOU if You Need an Incentive to Vaccinate!

We're very fortunate to have a vaccine that help us on our fight against COVID-19 but it seems that some people are still reluctant on getting it. Some countries have offered incentives to get more people vaccinated and if you're one of those people that needed an incentive beyond the, you know, not dying and being a threat to your entourage - shame on you!

If you are one of those people, I know you think that those of us that got vaccinated are all brainwashed by taking our information by trusted sources and the media. I know you prefer listening to a youtuber, who's only goal is to get more views, than the facts of the experts. I know you think the vaccines contains a microchip designed to control and track you (like a cellphone). I know you think vaccine causes autism...

Some of you think that if everyone else gets vaccinated then you will be fine but the reality is that you will remain a risk to yourself and those around you. People going through chemo, for example, have a weakened immune system and can still get the disease even though they got vaccinated.

Unless you have a medical condition that prevents you from taking the vaccine, there's absolutely no reason for you not to take it. 

It's because of people like you that we need to isolate ourselves for longer than we should. We're all tired of this pandemic and want to move on with our lives but that won't happen until the numbers of new infections goes down and it will go down faster only if people keep lining up to get vaccinated.

Your Career Changes You

It wasn't uncommon to hear someone say "what are you going to do when you grow up?" when I was a teen and I rarely had an answer to that question. I've always been a person that goes with the flow which was still true when choosing a career path. I didn't know what I wanted to do but technology definitely was something I was interested in and seemed the most logical path for me to take at the time.

A few years after High School, I had a software programming college degree at hand and was about to embark on this adventure. While it's been a fantastic career path, I had no idea at the time that the career that I was choosing would also be defining who I would become.

When I was a teen, I was a social butterfly and this is a characteristic of me that changed, for the worse, due to my career. Spending most of my work days in front of a computer, I slowly became more and more comfortable alone with my thoughts than being around other people. 

It's a career path that very few understand, outside of the field, which means that it can't be easily discussed with other people. My parents, for example, often ask me how my day went and on the days where I do feel like sharing I need to dumb it down in order for them to understand. It's not like I can just tell my parents that I spent my day reviewing design/functional/requirement documentation, or spent my day automating a system, as they have no idea what these entail.

The funny thing about the Information Technology industry is that it's so vast that even if you work in it for years it doesn't necessarily mean that you could have a discussion with someone else because their experience with I.T. may be totally different than yours. This means that even people working in the same field sometime can't share their experience with each other. There's a person on our team with the sole responsibility to oversee the network side of things, which is a side of I.T. that I don't fully understand, and when we chat about what he does I'm completely lost.

The person I would become in my career isn't something that was at the forefront of my thoughts when I decided on this career and looking back it's something that should have definitely been included in the decision.