I’ve know/n many folks who have/had a real hunger for knowledge. They want to feed their brains instead of their mouths. They watch learning and documentary channels, they follow the news proactively, they have their own informed opinions. They are super sizing their knowledge bank. Why not consider this alternative option?  It’s a much better one.

However many of us do not often recognize how this principle operates in all other areas of our lives and instead assume that if results are not immediate or no improvements are noted then there is no point in doing something.

What areas am I talking about?

I’m talking about literally all areas of your life and mine.

One example is to look at the notion of taking supplements for your health. Now you might be taking supplements for your health but because you don’t see an improvement or notice a difference when you quit, you conclude that they must not have a benefit for you.  However going back to the example of maintaining your car.  You could have a brand new car, and you might be doing the regular maintenace on it and you wouldn’t be looking for an improvement in performance because you realize that you are merely maintaining your vehicle.  Well why would this be any different with regard to your health or any other area of your life?

If you want to be an empowered or healthy person you must recognize that the benefits of doing things regularly might be more of a maintenance function but this does not diminish the importance of doing them.  I will leave this as a general post without more specific examples because I think that you as an individual can easily fill in the blanks, so to speak, with respect to looking at the areas of your own life.  I hope you do so and this will help you to stay on track but also to start doing maintenance in areas where it is not happening.

If one looks across the spectrum of examples in society, many successful ventures are the result of joint ventures in which contributors share resources, roles, etc.  It might be public and private partnerships.  It might be an interdisciplinary team that provides healthcare.  It could be the healthcare approach by a society which involves a public component and supplemental private coverage – sometimes a more even combination might be referred to as a hybrid system.

Similarly a hybrid approach is best whenever you read or watch a news story or are attempting to critically evaluate anything for that matter, an approach which honestly considers the good points as well as the bad points is the best path to follow.

Don’t get caught into the trap of trying to defend your own perspective instead of recognizing the good points of another.  This is what happens all too often with politics, for example.  Admittedly sometimes one perspective is better than the other but not usually to the complete abandonment of the other.  More precisely it’s probably a matter of looking at the conclusions that are being drawn from either argument.  Give this a shot the next time there’s an opportunity to critically evaluate something.

When I thought about this topic I initially was thinking about a variety of folks that I had met throughout the years, but then I realized who really can be the beneficiary of this question.  It’s me.  In your case, it’s you, and so on and so forth.

I’m suggesting that each of us likely spend time and energy trying to accomplish misdirected intentions – sometimes we are not even explicitly aware of these motivations – but if we could consciously redirect some of our efforts we could accomplish much more.

This suggestion is all fine and well, but at this point it’s simply words.  Actions speak more loudly!  This is very true and that’s why I’d like to share some suggestions for taking this principle, if you will, into your day-to-day life and becoming more empowered.

It’s actually quite simple.

You need to:

1. Spending some time brainstorming and actually writing down areas where you might be wasting your time and energy.

2. Next spend some time thinking about your own unique abilities and talents (you see we all have them) and writing them down,

3. Deciding how you can redirect your own unique abilities and talents into specific goals.  You will need to write this down too.  This does not necessarily mean that one has to change jobs or change all their goals – but it might – rather you can creatively come up with a variety of ways to integrate your own unique talents and abilities into your day to day life in a much more positive way.

I think if you spend some time reflecting on this that you will be amazed at the results.

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Best!

My question today is: what if these folks instead spent their energy on things that would actually help others? What if they focused on solving problems / challenges that we as a society share?

If I can make a suggestion, it would be to spend some time thinking about folks you know who might provide more benefit if they just applied themselves on towards different goals.  I will come back to this issue next post.

Some points to ponder:

If you’ve ever participated in volunteer organizations or other similar functions, you’ll likely have come across some folks in the group who don’t show up for a lot of meetings, they don’t contribute much; when they do have something to say it is negative, and so on.  The reason they often have such negative viewpoints or can be so critical is because they haven’t considered all the facts.  Sometimes a negative viewpoint is warranted but in this instance I am only referring to those who do little but criticize because they refuse to be informed on many of the issues.

A quick analogy:

If you know some competent lawyers you’ll know that when they are preparing for a case in court they will have considered the arguments of the other side, they are completely apprised of all the facts, and know the arguments and counterarguments.  Now in this instance they know all the facts and then they make their argument.  Now whether or not one agrees with their viewpoint, one must admit that at least they are informed.  This is what I’m getting at with respect to being informed with news stories.  Obtain as much information as you can before reaching an opinion.  At the very least you should always be reading the news and asking skeptical questions and then seeing if you seem to get reasonable answers.  Often you might get alternate viewpoints if you do so.  I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with having an opinion, but one should always try to be informed before forming one.

You know, in today’s busy and competitive world, being informed is not only valuable it is necessary.  That’s why I would recommend that you consider joining my free and continuous newsletter which deals specifically with how to be informed on a variety of important subject areas.  People often state that an activity is valuable if they can take away at least one actionable idea – with respect to improving the quality of their life physically, mentally, intellectually .  We’ll by joining my newsletter you will walk away with many actionable ideas on an ongoing basis.  To get started, simply enter your email in the sign-up box at the top or bottom of the blog.

Take care,

Matthew

What’s this have to do with anything?

Well it serves an example to anyone who truly wants to be informed: the lesson to take from this is that it’s not necessarily what is said in an article but what is not said. Although what was stated in the article was not actually false, it did not present all relevant facts in my opinion. The problem, though, is that the overall impression the reader may be left with is false – without having the additional information, that is. Fortunately I had obtained the additional information by having more than one source of information.

So it’s important to always consult more than one source of information and ask yourself whether all the important facts are likely included in a story whenever you read them.

This is yet another way of being informed and empowered in today’s world where much information is thrown at you. By doing this you put yourself ahead of many who will never take the time to be truly informed.

Happy Holidays!

Matthew

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