Ebe'sWord

[ebe]

Hello everone. I thought I should try to be more enlightening, so I'll try to post a weekly comment on this thread, we'll say every Tuesday for at least a month or two.

[ebe]

Following Up:

When I was a kid, I thought of businesses as being something like a machine. You did what you were supposed to do and the expected result came out. I've grown to learn that's not how things work.

You may have noticed at some moments in life it feels like you're blundering about or making small mistakes that others have to fix. Pretty much everyone is like this. When you do what you need to do, check on the other party. They may have:

Lost your paperwork.
Forgotten your request.
Been totally sidetracked.
On vacation and not told anyone about your request.
Not finished your request because it was missing something from you but they didn't tell you.
Basically anything else that could possibly happen.

Remember that everyone you work with has flaws and lives and problems. Don't wait for someone else to fix everything for you, make sure (in a respectful way) that things you need done are done. Ultimately your stuff is your responsibility, and if you aren't caring for it, who will?

[xolta]

Jul 3, 2013 0:53:40 GMT ebe said:

Following Up:

When I was a kid, I thought of businesses as being something like a machine. You did what you were supposed to do and the expected result came out. I've grown to learn that's not how things work.

You may have noticed at some moments in life it feels like you're blundering about or making small mistakes that others have to fix. Pretty much everyone is like this. When you do what you need to do, check on the other party. They may have:

Lost your paperwork.
Forgotten your request.
Been totally sidetracked.
On vacation and not told anyone about your request.
Not finished your request because it was missing something from you but they didn't tell you.
Basically anything else that could possibly happen.

Remember that everyone you work with has flaws and lives and problems. Don't wait for someone else to fix everything for you, make sure (in a respectful way) that things you need done are done. Ultimately your stuff is your responsibility, and if you aren't caring for it, who will?

Truly some thing every one ( inculdeing me) should remeber.

[Albino Anti-Hero]

Since this is the bogleech-derived forum where members are able to admit they have non-anime flaws, hopefully THE TED and co. will make use of this topic. Looking forward to the next Ebe of the Week.

[outhouseinferno]

Why didn't you name this Ebe's Word

[ebe]

Can only a mod fix my mistake?

[xolta]

Jul 3, 2013 9:05:50 GMT ebe said:

Can only a mod fix my mistake?

No I edtied a topic name once all you go to do is edit the frist post you made.

[ebe]

The tragedy has been rectified.

[ebe]

Self Control:

Controlling yourself is tough, and sometimes it's helpful to limit something you have more control over.

Example: When food is readily available I snack way too much, but I'm pretty good about selecting things when buying groceries. My solution was to buy ingredients so it would be too much bother to make something edible every time I was hungry, or at least I'd be snacking on something healthy (raw vegetables.)

By making it harder for yourself to do whatever it is you're trying to cut back on, sticking with it becomes natural.

But what if you're trying to add a good habit?

Commitments are the best bet I've found. When I decided to get in shape I told two gym rats I wanted to get in shape. The idea was that I'd work out with them, albeit at a slower/lighter pace. When I didn't feel like going? Suddenly I have guys calling me asking me where I'm at. The need to make sure I didn't let someone down helped ensure I went even when I didn't feel like it, and eventually I began to enjoy it.

If you do both of these at the same time, eventually you'll replace time spent with bad habits with time spent doing things you wanted yourself to do. Fighting procrastination in a fair fight is hard, so see if you can't trick yourself into winning!

[KDarkness]

This is a good topic.

[wizzlbang]

Ebe is the best character on the show.

[ebe]

Self Evaluation:

It's easy to evaluate oneself based on things over which you have no control. People trying to explain why their name is cool, why their ancestors are awesome, why their eyes developed in some special way...

You shouldn't be ashamed of these things, but you should appreciate the fact that you didn't cause them to turn out the way they did. Instead look at the results of what you've done.

Are you super intelligent? That's cool, but who did you help with it? How did you make a difference with that? What have you given to others?

We grew up being told we were awesome because everyone was told that high self esteem resulted in better achievement...but it turns out that high achievement results in better self esteem. Giving low achievers high self esteem just results in entitlement, something you may have noticed anywhere on the internet and frequently in real life.

In school we're often not really any different achievement-wise than anyone else, so we latch onto those tiny things like "I'm tall" or "I have a neat laugh" or desperately tell ourselves we're smarter than everyone else. That's an unfortunate trick that makes it too easy for us to never really achieve anything. Think about what you can do that will have a RESULT. You don't need to save the world, just do something that counts every week.

You'll feel better.

[scutigeracoleoptrata]

I'm quite enjoying this thread, and I agree with all of your advice thus far.


I've always been highly critical of myself since a young age, and, while that has helped me to achieve scholastically and in employment, there are times when I get depressed about not being good enough or not having gone far enough. When these moods hit, I've learned to do as you suggest and try to accomplish something to shake the funk off.

[ebe]

Empathy:

Empathy can be tricky. Clearly WE'RE reasonable people trying to do our best while other people are "crazy" "thugs" "lazy." In fact when put into similar situations with similar backgrounds many of us might make the same choices as those we decry.

On a day-to-day basis this can come up whenever we're having an argument or whenever teams who don't communicate well run into problems. Eventually people can break off into partisan groups that will use any stretch of imagination to praise their group and demonize the other, seeing everything they say as reasonable or harmless and everything the other side says as hateful and bigoted.

On the flip side, some people try to excuse others' behavior because they feel like "they had a rough past" or such. There's certainly some room for leniency, but don't justify things based solely on the "reasons" someone may have had. There's always the odd psychopath that enjoyed killing people for no reason, but most villains are not masked figures who gloat "Mwahaha" as they kill the protagonist's best friend. They are people who because of *something* have chosen to do harm. We should always strive to understand the causes of evil, but not ignore the fact that those causes can result in people adopting a mindset that cannot be tolerated.

In the end, it's about not jumping to conclusions and trying to see the context behind someone's actions.

It's the only way to change anything.

[ebe]

Restraint:

"Why don't they do something?" "We need to do something!" "The time is now!"

Procrastination is a huge problem, but so is blundering into things you don't understand. Powerful people need to make decisions on things they aren't the experts on every day, and sometimes what their expert advise tells them is as simple as "We don't need to do anything, this is totally normal."

The real trick to restraint is the unforeseen consequences of our actions. Let's use the American Housing Bubble as an example. Many, many things led into this, but one factor was that the government forced banks to give out loans to individuals in poorer neighborhoods. The idea behind this was good, in order to give people with little access to forming a history of credit a method to purchase homes, but while the banks had to give loans, they didn't have to make them good loans...and that greediness helped ensure many lenders defaulted on their loans, and the banks collected the homes as collateral...except then no one was buying homes, and suddenly the banks themselves were in debt to the government.

Another good example involves the Shanghai tunnels. Initially China had many of it's subway tunnels put in by German engineers. Once China's infrastructure was built up they decided to go with local firms willing to do it quicker and cheaper (Germans basically take a long time to give you a perfect product, and they won't hurry up no matter how much you ask.) At first everything seemed great, the tunnels worked excellently and were done quicker and for less, plus that money was remaining in China. But then there was heavy rain and all the tunnels flooded...except the German tunnels which had special drainage measures to prevent flooding.

Sometimes the reason things take so long is because people are running through every possible thing that can go wrong, and figuring out how to mitigate or avoid that contingency. It's easier to wait a couple extra days to install your window than it is to keep replacing your window because it never fits in the frame right.

The next time you feel like passing judgment on someone for not having acted in a situation, think about what they may have been protecting you from.