My Riffs

Our energy is limited.  Put it into things that are worth it.  Don’t let your energy be drained by things you can’t control or bring you down.  If it’s out of your control let it go.  Invest energy into things that bring a good return. 

What you want out of a situation will be tied to what you put into it. You can put minimal into something and get lots out. Great rewards come with great sacrifices. If you really want something in return you need to put something proportional in. 

All your investments come down to time. You can invest your money, your possessions but you paid time for all of those things. Even your skills take time. So your real investment is time. Being wise with your time is the best way to manage your investments. 

The only things that pay dividends are things you've invested in. To get a dividend you must invest some resource. The best dividend are paid in relational investments. What we invest in relationships and others pays the longest, best and more profitable dividends.

We can be overtaken by things that shouldn’t control us. News, fears, divisions and on the list goes. These things can consume us, our time and our energy. There’s great value in learning what should be able to have that much control over us. Energy being consumed by these things is energy that could have been invested into positive and appreciating assets. 

The thing with getting gains is there has to be a loss somewhere. Nothing is completely free. There’s always a cost associated with things.

Every investment or output reaches a point where you start seeing diminishing returns.  Exercise is a great example. It's good and makes perfect sense to stay in shape. But at some point if you start exercising a great deal, you start seeing diminishing returns.  Sometimes it's okay to see diminishing returns, but not always. Sometimes it's smart to pull back when you reach that point.

Is this worth my energy? Or is this worth my finite resources (time, money, energy)? This is a question worth asking ones’ self often. There are so many energy drains out there that aren’t worth it.  Life is too short to throw away your finite resources. Use them for things that appreciate. 

It’ so easy in our technological world to get tangled in things that don’t really matter. And you can get snared by them so easily. News, gossip and rumours, activism, trends, hashtags, followers, and on and on the list could go. These things can tangled you into a position where it’s hard to even think straight. Practice the art of letting things roll off and roll on by you. You don’t have to take up every cause you come across. You don’t have to worry about every single problem you hear about. Be wise with your recourses.

Not financial investments. Cause you don't always get what you put in there. But watch what you're investing into life. Bitterness, hatred, distrust will only reap the same. Love, mercy, kindness, gentleness will only reap the same in large. There may be some weeds pop up from time to time, but the harvest will be in large what you've planted.

Not financial investments either. I'm talking about time and talent investments. I've seen so many people invest in things that don't last long. I've seen people focus on such shallow and temporary things to the detriment of building something better for themselves. Oftentimes the brightest most alluring investments are the shallowest. Working hard is rarely attractive. But trying to look smart, rich, funny, successful, important so often occupies our resources and we are the real losers at the end.

As humans, it feels good to climb social or hierarchal ladders. But ladders are literally empty. The people at the top most often are unhappy. Search for purpose and meaning instead of status and position.

The seeds your planting today will be the crop to sustain you tomorrow. Make sure you're sowing nourishing seeds.

(I am borrowing this thought from Seth Godin) Are you a day trader or investor? Day traders want in and out quickly. They want to make a quick profit and divest. Some get good at this and make a living of it. Investors are in for the long term. They don't worry if the investment dips. Investors ride the waves and cash out when the investment is fully mature. Day traders don't really add the value investors do.

The energy it takes to prove someone wrong is quite something. Courts of law are busy and essentially exist in a large way for the purpose of proving someone wrong. We will go to extreme lengths to prove someone is wrong. But where does that leave us? Proving someone wrong doesn’t validate us. If someone is wrong, it seems the laws set forth in nature will take care of the wrongdoing more often than not. What if energy was instead focused on showing that what we’re doing is right. Not in a “I told you” kind of way, but in being a steadfast, self explanatory example? That energy is far better spent. Leave the proving of wrongness to someone. Invest your focus and energy on building what’s right.

Being intolerant of things in people around us seems to increasingly become the normal. What if we decided to give those around us the same allowance we have for ourselves? We all have our rough edges, but don't allow others the same. We all have our weaknesses, but don't allow others the same. We all have our bias, but don't allow other the same. Etc, etc. We can have a double standard in not allowing others the things we allow ourselves. The world would be a better place if we afforded other the things we allow ourselves.

Is safety defined by legislation, boards and governments? Or is it defined by real world tests and experiences? What is safety mean to each individual person? Safety is challenging to define and legislate. Because you're told something is safe, doesn't mean it is. Because you're told something is dangerous, doesn't mean it is. People have had bad accidents with things deemed safe. Some people make a career out of doing the dangerous. Nothing is truly safe. Understand safety for yourself to the best of your ability and don't just accept what is heralded as safe.

Helping other people is simply one of the most fulfilling and rewarding things one can do. In order to hep others, you have to be in a healthy enough state yourself. Thus, it is super important to take care of ones self. Healthiness should lead to reproduction. You cannot help/produce/develop others when you are unhealthy. A sure sign of healthiness is when there is that development happening. There should be no shame in tending to yourself. Investing in yourself. Helping yourself to the point where you can do the same for others. The reward isn't in doing it for yourself, the reward is making yourself healthy enough to where you can reach out and help others.

The balance is what can be withdrawn. In life there is no overdraft. You can only get out of something what's been out into it. We can't expect much out of relationships or things we're involved in without prior investment. We can often receive the benefits of others deposits, but there comes a point it's time to make your own investments if you want to continue making withdrawals. You get out what you put it, and maybe with some interest. When we expect good returns on weak investments were setting ourselves up for failure. Other times we invest in one area and get rewarded in another entirely different area. Life investments don't always reward in the exact same area they're invested in. You get out what you put in. When we try and go into overdraft is where there's problems.

What you consume will consume. A simple concept, but something worth being aware of. If we only consume the little and petty things in life, they will consume us. Which means, take all of our time and energy and prevent us from pursuing the bigger things. If we consume too much "junk", it will be "junk" that consumes us. Being aware of what were consuming can help us live healthier, in every aspect. We consume things through a variety of ways: - What we read - What we listen to - What we talk about - What we think about - What we spend time doing We become a slave to what we're consuming sort of speak. It is better to be a slave to the good and positive, uplifting and building things, rather than petty and negative. Investing in positive thinking, positive actions, good conversations is what we should be doing. We consume pettiness, we will be petty. We consume greatness, we will become great.