I’m happy. I’m mad. I’m ready.

August 29, 2010 – 4:25 pm

I’m happy

I’m happy with my life right now. As I enter the fall, I am excited about what I have accomplished this summer. I did not do everything I wanted to do, I miss deadlines, and I pushed off certain things, but I have without a doubt become a better person.

I’m happy that I have an opportunity to work and live with great friends who have helped become the person I am today. I am excited that we have the possibility to do amazing things, and will have fun in everything we do.

I’m mad

I’m mad that this world is so fucked up. I’m mad that I can be happy with my life, but so many other people in this country and in this world are not. I’m mad that this world is so random, and there is nothing I can do to change that fact.

I’m mad because it feels like only a fraction of the people who have the power to change this reality, try to do it.

I’m mad because people don’t give themselves enough credit. I’m mad at people who have the ability to do great things but settle when faced with obstacles. I’m mad that people with “power” try to knock down others want to change the status quo.

I’m ready

I’m ready to change the world. This will be the focus for the rest of my life, and the only way I can be stopped is if I die. I have so much energy balled up inside of me that is painful to operate every day. I need others to feel the way I feel. I need people to understand that their lives have value, and that they have just as much power as I do to make this world I better place.

I’m ready to start asking “Why?” to everyone. Why do we do what we do? Why do we settle for what is given to us? Why don’t we fight for what we believe in? Why don’t we care more about the people and the world around us?

I’m ready but I need help. I am willing to be a tired, depressed, and lonely person trying to fight for what is right if that’s what I have to do. But whatever I am working will not be as successful if I do it alone. When we are connected to others we care more about others. We are more friends than strangers. We are brothers and sisters. We need to work together to make this world a better place. We are the only ones that can improve our own lives.

We believe that people with passion can change the world for the better… And that those people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones that actually do. – Steve Jobs

As I finish this post today, I’m asking for a couple favors. First, I want you to watch these two youtube videos: one from the movie Network, and one from Steve Jobs.  The second favor is for you to give yourself more credit. You have value, so start spreading it.

Network – I want you to get MAD!

Steve Jobs Oldie but Goodie

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What Is Your Brick Wall?

August 21, 2010 – 1:44 am

"Brick Walls"

Last month I finished a custom design for this blog and I was excited to get up in on WordPress. The problem was I didn’t exactly know how to get it up on WordPress. Another problem was that by the time I realized that I didn’t know how to do it, I had already screwed myself over two months before.

In May when I started this blog, I had a lot of trouble getting the blog online. I didn’t know anything about web hosting, installing blog software, domain name servers, etc.; all I wanted to do was to get my blog up and be done with it. So normally when I am faced with a situation that I want to get out of as soon as possible, I find the easy way out. For the hosting company we were using, they had this very helpful youtube video showing you exactly how to get your domain name (currencyofhappiness.com) onto WordPress. Of course even with this easy video, I still needed to email my friends to figure it out. Once I get the blog up I was so excited that I didn’t care about what shape it was in, I just wanted to start writing posts and be done with it.

However, there was one conversation that I had with Neal that is still in my mind to this day. “Hey Neal, I finally got my blog up! I even installed a new theme from WordPress.” Neal responds, “Yeah I downloaded and installed WordPress locally, so I could make changes from my desktop.” I was like whatever Neal always has to do it the hard way, and just went on with my day. Now if I would have spent an extra hour trying to figure out how to get a local version of my blog setup instead of just jumping to the web. I could have saved a month’s worth of pain.

So how did I try to solve this problem? Well, by not actually solving the problem. For three weeks I tried easy fixes which didn’t make any sense, because I was the one who caused the problem in the first place! After this I tried tutorial after tutorial, believing that “this is the tutorial” to fix all my problems. But when I thought that I would finally have a breakthrough, I hit the wall again and fell deeper and deeper into despair.

When I was at my lowest point, I decided to use a coping mechanism that I had developed over the past two months: I watched a TED talk. Whenever I am down, I like to get inspired hoping that this intelligent person on TED will find a way to get my creative juices flowing or solve my problems.

I came across this man named Randy Paulsen, a Carnegie Mellon professor who in 2007 was giving a “last lecture.” Now this is not the current last lectures of the day that we college kids know of, this was an actual “last lecture” because he only had a few months live due to rapidly advancing pancreatic cancer. However, this did not deter him from giving a riveting hour long talk about “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” But after this inspiring talk, the one concept that stood out the most was not about achieving you childhood dreams, it about how he described “brick walls.”

“Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things.”

It was at that moment that I realized I had been staring at a brick wall for the past month. All the quick fix remedies I tried to get my blog design up was me just avoiding the real problem and not putting enough energy into solving it. And while I had just finished up my latest blog post a day before, I knew what I would be talking about this week. But it was all contingent on me breaking through the “brick wall” I was facing.

So each of day of this week I focused on a different aspect of the problem. I research FTP setups the first day, the next day I looked through web hosting documentation and learned what username and password I needed. On Wednesday I learned about “get” “put” and what port to use. And finally on Thursday I started attacking. But I got a little too greedy and messed up my blog to the point that it said, “error with the database connection.”

Uh oh. It was at this point that I realized another mistake. I am stubborn. All this time I should have just asked someone who knew what they were doing for help, so today that is what I did. I spent two hours emailing back and forth with the web hosting support staff trying to figure out this problem. I would send them my issues, they would respond rapidly with an answer. When that answer didn’t work, I didn’t give up, I just kept responding with the issues I was having in as much detail as possible. After about five different email exchanges, and some finger crossing, I found the local folder I was looking for.

One of the greatest feelings of the summer.

I raised my arms in the air as far as I could in my depressing cubicle, signaling to the world of my great achievement. A month of hell had been solved in two hours. In a summer of accomplishment, this was my first major brick wall. Once I smashed through it, I felt as if I could do anything.

So what are your brick walls? What problems are you currently facing that you want to solve? I have learned that brick walls are opportunities to grow as a person, not excuses to procrastinate or work on side issues. If you devote enough energy and ask for help from people who have experienced the problems you are currently facing, you can break through your brick walls with ease.

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The Randomness of Connection

August 14, 2010 – 8:22 am

Yesterday was Friday the 13th, and it definitely lived up to its expectations. All I envisioned was a nice stop in Chicago for lunch, but life always gives you more.

1. At the Howard L station, I ran into a friend who I had rode the L with four times in the past week, so it was funny to get in the same car with him again, even though this time we were going different places.

2. I went to lunch with a guy who I met through this crazy person, and we had a fun time. I found out that he ran track & field, which was awesome because I ran track & field for eight years, even though I didn’t get a chance to run in college. I also found out that we shared a twisted NFL history because I am a Green Bay Packers fan, and he hates the Packers because they beat his beloved Patriots in the Super Bowl haha. While we were basically strangers before this meeting, we found a lot of commonalities that I bet we didn’t expect.

3. The only thing I had planned today was lunch, so this is where the weirdness started to kick in. After lunch, I had a lot of options. I didn’t want to head right back to Evanston because it takes so long to get down to Chicago, I wanted to at least stay for another hour or so before I made the trek back up there. At the same time, I didn’t want to spend money that I desperately needed to save. So I begrudgingly decided to head back up to Evanston.

4. But thanks to Foursquare, my adventure in Chicago was not over. Since I checked-in to two places downtown, my good ol’ roommate from PARC texted me to see if I wanted to hangout downtown. Unfortunately I got this text while I was on the L, but that didn’t stop me from getting off the Red Line to Howard and turning back around to the Loop. I met up with him and we just walked around Chicago for the next few hours. While I usually would have spent this time doing a number of tasks I felt I needed to get done, it was nice to spend some quality time with a friend that I don’t get to hangout with that much anymore.

5. Even though I had initially resisted to go to the Apple Store after lunch, I ended up going there with my friend. However, I didn’t buy anything which I chalked up to a great victory. At this time it was around 3:45pm, so I wanted to head up to the NU law school to catch the Intercampus Shuttle. So we walked up there and had a fun conversation about LeBron James.

Side note on this subject: Love the decision he made, but absolutely hated ‘The Decision.’

6. The Intercampus Shuttle is something that I have used ever since freshman year. It’s an amazing service because it’s quick, it’s always on time, and I get to ride on Lake Shore Drive which is one of my highlights the greatest city in the world. But this time my experience was controversial.

Since I an now an alum of Northwestern, my undergraduate Wildcard aka ID is expired. However, there are certain services you can use with an expired Wildcard – granted only for a short period of time – so I thought I might be able to use the shuttle. This was not the case. This bus driver was strict in checking Wildcards, so I knew this would be trouble. Once he got to me he looked at my Wildcard and promptly took it away from me and put the card in his shirt pocket. He did it with such joy on his face that I thought he was joking. I was shocked at this action that I just asked him, “Why did you take my Wildcard?” He proudly hand me the Intercampus Shuttle brochure and said that drivers will confiscate expired Wildcards. Once I learned this, I kindly asked the driver if I could have my Wildcard back and just not ride the shuttle. I had money to get on the L, and even though it would take longer to get back up to Chicago, I was ok with that. He didn’t budge, he just pointed to the video camera as to indicate that if he gave me my Wildcard back he would get in trouble. Wow, I didn’t know Northwestern was such a tough employer!

6a. Since the driver was so kind to tell me about the number to call if I had an issue with his decision, I decided to call the number and talk with someone about this problem. The representative I talked to was extremely nice, in direct contrast with this unfortunate bus driver. I explained to her that I understand the policy of the intercampus shuttle, but I would appreciate if I could get my Wildcard back because I still use it for other services. I have no issue of getting off this bus and not using this service, but I thought that the decision to take my Wildcard from me was unfair. She then told me that the driver was supposed to give me the option of not riding the shuttle instead of just taking my Wildcard. Once I heard this good news, I thought this unfortunate situation was over.

6b. Not! I went up to the bus driver and told him that the woman said he should have given me the option to ride or not ride the bus, and he responded with, “They didn’t tell me that.” So first he tells me to call this number if I have any problems, and then once I call this number and tell him what the representative says he decides not to listen. So he just refuses to look at me and respond to my questions for thirty seconds. When he finally decides to open his mouth, it’s only to tell me to move because other people are getting on.  With him not responding, I have to tell the woman on the phone that he is not answering my questions and that all I want is to get my Wildcard back and get off the shuttle. To my delight, she tells me to tell him to give me my Wildcard back so I could get off the shuttle. Once I tell him this, he still refuses to answer me!

6c. So I have now just entered the Twilight Zone. I couldn’t believe that he was just going to stare into the window without answering me. Is this real life? I told the woman again that he was refusing to give me my Wildcard back and she told me to give his name to her, so I gladly walked up to him again and read his name out loud right in front of his face. Finally after 30 seconds or so – which felt like an eternity – he gave me my Wildcard back. After this ugly experience, I ended up hanging out with my friend again for another two hours, and that turned out to be a lot of fun. Around 6pm we parted ways and I headed to the Red Line to finally make it back up to Evanston five hours after I had originally planned to.

7. The L ride I had going up to Evanston was in direct contrast to my experience on the intercampus shuttle. Even though it was hot as hell down there – you know like the hot they show in movies before some crazy person like John Travolta decides to hijack your train – the L conductor was one of the nicest people ever. At every stop along the Red Line, he said something nice to people leaving the train or gave a tip to help them get home. I mean seriously stop after stop, he would say, “have a great weekend” or “there is a bus transfer downstairs, you have a few minutes to catch it.” I just smiled the whole trip back. As we approached the Howard stop, I wondered if he had one more nice thing to say to his final customers. So right when I got off the Red Line he told all the exiting customers to “live long and prosper” and that “he was just trying to cheer us up, have a great night.” Absolutely epic.

For the time in two months, I didn’t have a very routine schedule, and in return, I didn’t get a very routine day.  Once I got to Chicago, I just made decisions of the fly.  Most of those decisions turned about to be good ones, and one decision turned into an ugly experience. But even with the good and ugly moments yesterday, I’m glad all of them happened. For one, it showed me the spectrum of how people in public service treat their customers.  While I technically broke a rule on the shuttle, the driver chose to handle the situation in a way that motivated to get my Wildcard back even more. On the other hand, the L conductor didn’t have to be that nice on my ride back to Evanston.  I’m pretty sure there was no directive from his boss telling him to do that, because that’s the first time in my numerous rides on the L that I heard a CTA employee be so nice. He chose to be nice.

This day made such an impact on me that I decided to email the head of University Services at NU to discuss the inconsistent policy of Wildcard usage after graduation. Since most seniors’ leases don’t until September, I believe the least Northwestern could do would be to grant seniors transitioning out of Evanston an extension to use SPAC AND ride the intercampus shuttle. Doesn’t seem like a hard thing to me.

But I also decided to email the CTA to tell them about the great time I had on the Red Line. If I wouldn’t have been in the middle of the train when I got off at Howard, I would have went up to the L conductor and told him personally. Hopefully my message gets to him or someone who works with him.

What an interesting day.

By Mike | Posted in Home | Tagged , | Comments (3)

Happiness Is A Battlefield

August 7, 2010 – 11:30 pm

Happiness is battling your own demons and knowing that you have the upper edge.

There will always be superheroes because there will always be villains. Your personal demons will never leave you (drinking, smoking, procrastinating, being selfish, etc.), they will always be present. But it is up to you to decide how present they will be. It is up to you to control how much effect these demons have on your life.  Throughout the past three months, I have talked about a number of problems I have and how I have attempted to overcome them. I have been successful in a few areas, and unsuccessful in others, but the point is to keep improving because I feel I have too much work to do to let self-created problems get in the way.

But this is not easy.

You know what’s easy? Failing. Procrastinating. Not doing something you said you were going to do. We fall into these traps so much every day that we have become comfortable with the lesser versions of ourselves.

Happiness does not mean “comfortable” to me.  I was comfortable for my four years at Northwestern. I was comfortable with procrastinating and waiting until the last day (or night) to work on a paper. I was comfortable with studying a day before an exam.  I was comfortable with not paying attention in class and not going to class altogether.  And I was comfortable with making excuses for my failure.  In fact, I was so comfortable with failure that I became numb to it! So why were these actions so comforting to me?

Because they were easy.

You know what wasn’t easy? Deciding to work on increasing minority enrollment at NU when I knew the odds were stacked against us. Deciding to run for Academic Vice President when I was scared out of my mind to lose and be embarrassed in front of thousands of students.  Deciding to run for student body president when I was taking five classes and in eight different student groups. These were hard decisions, but guess what made me the happiest?

All three of these decisions.

These decisions set off a trigger that could not be pulled back. Deciding to do something larger than yourself is the hardest and the easiest step you can take.

Hardest in the sense that the toughest decision you can ever make is whether you will actually do something.  Once you take that first step or make a firm commitment, it is more difficult to turn back than to go forward.  At the same time it is the easiest decision you can make because you haven’t really done anything yet. You have stated that you want to work on something, fix a problem, believe in a cause, but you haven’t actually worked on it.  This is where the process comes in.

To me, the process is a set of decisions you make everyday based of a decision that you have already made. Confused? If so, here is a personal example:

If you have read this blog before, you know my goal is to become a front-end web designer. That was a major decision I made. After making that decision, there was not some automatic process waiting to lead me down a path of success, I had to decide what to do next.

How do I learn this? Easy enough, I’ll go on the internet and search for tutorials, read books about design and apply those principles, the list goes on and on.  But another important question comes next: what steps will I take to commit myself to learning?  This is where the rubber meets the road. What will you do to back up the ultimate decision you made? Will you decide to procrastinate when faced with a difficult situation? Or will you decide to focus your energy on solving the problem? Procrastination is the easy choice and will leave you with short-term satisfaction, but what happens when that feeling leaves?

In order to succeed, I needed to build an army. The framework of that army was a routine that made me get up at 6am everyday, work before work at 9am, go to work from 9-5am, then work for 2-4 hours after work. The soldiers in my army were equipped with the Pomodoro technique, which maximizes my focus and efficiency to get things done.
Have there been roadblocks? Yes. Have I had to change deadlines for certain projects? Yes. Have I moved backwards at any point? No. When I have been faced with a problem, I either work on that problem until I fix it, or I move to another area of improvement.  Having a problem with HTML coding? I’ll reference a chapter out of Head First into HTML  to figure it out. Having a problem with a Photoshop design? I’ll read up on CSS tutorials to see how I can code design right into the stylesheet instead of banging my head against the wall. With every roadblock there is an exit to get onto another highway, but the beauty is each road is moving forward. There are so many areas that I want to improve in my life that there is no reason to fall backwards. With a mindset like this, it gets harder to feel sorry for yourself when you could actually spend that time improving yourself.

There is no magic to what I am doing. I’m just doing it. Happiness does not come right away, you have to decide that you want to be happy, and then you have to work at it. You have to have patience, determination, and resiliency to reach that constant state of happiness. With each small win, it gets easier to go for the next win, and the win after that,  and so on and so on.  Once this feeling becomes routine, it gets harder to fall backwards, it gets harder to procrastinate, because you begin to feel bad when you are not doing work.  Procrastination doesn’t feel “kinda” bad, it feels sickening, almost to the point that you can’t function unless you get the task that is nagging you done.

It is that this point that the feeling of achievement – both in quality and efficiency – becomes more powerful than the feeling of procrastination and failure.  Ultimately, it is up to you to decide which path you want to take.

By Mike | Posted in Home | Tagged , | Comments (0)

The impossible is happening…

July 31, 2010 – 1:44 pm

I will not be buying an iPhone 4.

Yes, Mike McGee, the Apple fanboy of all Apple fanboys, will not be buying a new iPhone.

As I was taking this picture to use in my blog post, I actually couldn’t believe I was voluntarily deciding not to buy it. I mean just look at this phone! It’s beautiful!  The voices in my head telling me to buy an iPhone 4 grew to a fever pitch at this moment, and I was in a full-out war. As the voices of good and evil were raging in my head, I noticed my iPhone 3G looking helpless by the side of my laptop. It’s almost like it wanted to say, “Mike, we’ve had a great run for two years. I have lost my shine, I have some scratches – but hey, I didn’t drop myself – and I am slower than I used to be. Whatever you decide, I respect you and will always cherish the memories we had together.”

But just when I started to second guess myself, I yelled to those voices in my head, “I WILL NOT BE BUYING AN IPHONE!” Now, I am writing a post about it.

Usually when unexpected things happen, our first action is to ask why it happened. So Mike, why are you not buying a new iPhone?

Because I don’t need it. There are material things in life we want so bad that we feel we need them. It’s a poison that affects almost every single human on this Earth, and I am no exception to that statement. Every new Apple product that came out, I found a reason to need it, even though I really just wanted it. When I got that new desktop, laptop, phone, peripheral device, I found a way to think that I needed it. “Oh man, I needed a faster computer! Look at how much better I feel now that have this new product.” But let me stop right here to discuss another important point:

My recent decision to not buy an iPhone does not mean I will never buy a new product. It also does not mean that I will never buy a new product that I just want. What I feel this decision represents is me changing what is important in my life.

I believe everyone needs some sort of catalyst to change the way they lead their lives. You could have an epiphany at the job you hate, you could be walking and stumble upon a major discovery, someone close to you could suddenly die, the examples go on and on. Whatever it is, the moment is so jarring that you feel you have no other choice but to improve the way you live. My catalyst was deciding to join four other crazy people and create a startup company. After this decision was made, I felt as if I had no other choice but to move forward and learn how to become a great web designer. Whatever reasons I had chose in the past not to learn web design didn’t matter anymore, because I had to learn it now or our dreams would die.

There are many areas in my life that I needed to improve this summer in order to be successful when we start our crazy venture. The first area was focusing on being productive and to see if I could finally get into a daily routine that would help me achieve what I wanted to do.  In the past two weeks I have focused on food. I have started to cook more than I ever have and I am shocked every time I look in my grocery cart and see more cucumbers, carrots, and potatoes than frozen pizzas and microwaveable 2-minute meals. I still have a long way to go, but I get more and more energized every day because of all the progress I have made.

The major area I am currently focusing on is financial. This has been a problem for the past two years, and theis summer was my chance to finally tackle the true green monster. While I could go into all the calculations and projections I have made for the next three months, there is a simple way to fix this problem: stop buying things just because I want them. I have a put a two-month spending freeze on my GAP card, I finally paid off the balance for my Macy’s card, and I have cleared 99% of my major debts to my friends. When I go out to eat for lunch during work days, I can’t spend over $6, and I make an effort to eat something healthy too. Unless there are special ocassions (i.e. birthdays) I only go out to eat once in any given day. All these decisions to not spend a lot of money have actually made me more happy than I would feel with a new pair of jeans or an overpriced meal.

But even with all these decisions, there was one area that I thought I could not cut: new Apple products. I mean it wasn’t a question of will I buy a new iPhone, it was when I was going to buy it. My plan went from buying an iPhone because my birthday is coming up in less than two weeks; to buying an iPhone if I completed the One Month Challenge on 750words.com; to buying an iPhone if I became a beast in web design and development by September 1st.

But as I stood in the Apple Store on Thursday, I couldn’t help but look at those reasons and laugh. I am just generally excited to turn 22, so I don’t need to buy an iPhone to celebrate that. Especially with the news of one of my friends dying yesterday at the age 22 puts that number in a new light, so I will just be thankful if I can make it to August 10th. As for the One Month Challenge, I am already on a 22-day streak so what’s another 31 days! Easy. And for the last goal of becoming an amazing front-end web designer, I WANT TO DO THAT ANYWAY! I WANT TO CHANGE THE FUCKIN WORLD! THAT’S MY INCENTIVE!

I think I got my point across there.

Yes, I still love Apple. I marvel at their design and innovation with each new product, but that doesn’t mean I need to buy all of them. I mean I have a great two-year old MacBook Pro that can last another year or so, I downgraded my iPhone 3G software to make it run faster and I still get to keep all the apps I love to use. And I have no one to thank but the old impulsive version of myself that bought a new iPad when he shouldn’t have, so I’m good on major new technology purchases for now.

But I am going a little further too.

When the new iPhone came out in June, AT&T decided to discontinue unlimited data plans. Now when AT&T came out with this news, everybody was beside themselves! But where others saw yet another AT&T blunder, I saw opportunity. The cheapest data plan is $15 a month and allows you to use 250MB per month, so I got online and checked out my monthly data usage and this is what I found:

It’s funny that the last month just went over 250mb, as if it was saying, “Mike be careful, you don’t really want to make this move do you?” But the only reason that number is so high is because I have listened to Pandora on my phone in July. All I have to do is use Pandora on my laptop and that number will go back down. So now I have saved $200+ from not buying an iPhone, and I will save an extra $15 a month by using less data.

I’m liking the new me already.

By Mike | Posted in Home | Tagged , | Comments (2)

Adversity to Happiness

July 25, 2010 – 9:17 am
My framework in life consists of two things:
  • 1. If you have opportunity to do what you set out to do, do it.
  • 2. If you do all the things you say will do, it will help you deal with external forces that you can’t control.

Now this seems pretty simple, you just focus on everything you have to do, and do it. If you can complete everything you set out to do, when something crazy happens that you can’t control, you will have the energy and time to handle that.  The major flaw with this framework is that it does not tell you how to handle adversity once it hits you. It’s easy to say you be able to “handle it” when something crazy punches you in the face, but if you had no training in how to handle that punch, you might not react in the most positive way.

I have gone out of my way to breakdown one self-control barrier after another, only to get hit with one from the outside. This was unexpected. And I was unprepared for it.

This week I was hit with adversity, and it seriously affected my work. I was designing a website for this project I was working on, and I put a lot of effort into it.  I put a lot of effort into the design because I knew that in order for this project to be successful, it needed a design that was bold and could easily represent the totally different direction our group was taking this project.  So after my two days of hard work, I was excited because I pushed myself to do something that I hadn’t done before. However, the people I work with weren’t as excited as I was about my design. Apparently, they were surprised that I was even working on a design, as they had already had a design that pretty much everyone else agreed on (which was to my surprise)!

So instead of meeting with them to work on next steps for making this design a reality, we instead spent two days arguing over email and in person about what mistakes both sides had made and why my design couldn’t be implemented. In the end, I wasn’t necessarily disappointed in the fact that my work over those two days were in vain, but I was more disappointed in the fact that the people I worked with decided to settle instead of working harder to achieve the highest goal possible. This realization has affected me more than I wanted to.

So for the past few days, I have been revisited by an old friend. This friend makes me feel comfortable with not doing all that I could do. Basically this friend makes me comfortable with losing.  You should know how this feels, we all have gone through at one point in our lives, and if you are human, probably multiple times… this week. It’s the feeling that it’s ok to not do all the things you said you were going to do, and that you will just do them tomorrow. It’s the feeling that it’s ok to watch that TV show or movie instead of putting one more hour into the work you that are you said you were going to get done. The reason why this is so hard to beat is because this enemy has an unfair advantage. It knows us just as well as we do. It’s knows what we like to do, but more importantly, it knows what we have to do in order to grow as a human being. Usually the things that we have to do in order to help become better individuals are not things that we don’t like to do either.  That’s why it’s so easy for this evil friend to say, “Hey Mike, watch Dexter instead of working on your website design. It’s ok, it’s only an hour long show, you can work on that other stuff later.”

I recently read an article by Dr. Paul G. Stoltz in the Harvard Business Review, titled “When Adversity Strikes, What Do You Do?“

Halfway through the article, he had a quote that as I like to say to my friends, “hit me like a brick.”

All our core stories are about what happens when human beings and adversity collide. From those moments tragedies unravel and greatness is spawned. Adversity both destroys and elevates. It both strangles and sparks life.

What I have realized is that my universe is not just about the things I have to do, it is also includes how other people and external forces affect me. I am getting much better on the first half, but if I do nothing to improve on the second half, then I will get destroyed altogether. Because as much as you can improve in one area, there are more areas to improve. I have been Mr. Productive in the past month, but I am still failing to eat healthy, work out, save money, and stay in touch with family and friends (although I made a major push this week). And in this past week, I let adversity in one area affect the progress I made in the other areas of my life.

I guess my point is that even those you may not be directly responsible for the external factors that enter your life, you are responsible for how you react to them. Will you let these forces break you down and set you back? Or will use this adversity as a catalyst to become a better person? I hope to choose the latter, and I hope you will too.
By Mike | Posted in Home | Tagged , | Comments (3)

Hey Procrastination! You're not cool!

July 16, 2010 – 9:44 pm

Slightly hypocritical preface: Yeah I know I said I would have a new design up for this blog, but that was obviously wasn’t the smartest deadline.  I have typed about 1,000 lines of HTML and CSS, but still have a ways to go. Feel free to judge me throughout this post. I’ll keep posting.

You’re STUPID!

I am so disappointed in myself that it took me this long to realize how stupid I was, but I’m glad that I have figured it out in time to make a substantial difference in my life.  Over the past four years I was a mindless follower in the Religion of Procrastination.  It became a preference – and a badge of honor – to start working on a paper with 2 hours left. I reveled in the adrenaline of only having 15 minutes to write the last two pages of an eight-page paper. Oh I didn’t care if the paper was bad, my only goal was to get the paper done at 11:59pm, and then post on Facebook “Finished one minute before the deadline, baller.”  Oh and I would feel ultimate gratification as I received tons of likes and comments saying how awesome my feat was, it just made me care even less about the C- grade I received on the paper.  Procrastination is loved by so many in our society that you are hardcore only if you stay up for two days straight and drink 4 Starbucks Doubleshots (yeah I did that freshman year, I’m cool).

Ok, if you don’t get my point just look at the dumb ass shirt at the top of my post. People actually buy t-shirts to show their love of procrastination! Well go ahead and be the leaders of tomorrow procrastinators, the only problem is that there will never be a tomorrow for you.

When I was a chronic procrastinator, there was no next day for me. If I pushed 5 tasks off on Monday, I had to deal with them on Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, and the next week after that. When I procrastinated, I was actually stuck in time. While others are progressing forward, you are stuck in time like a high school quarterback who is working at Popeye’s a decade later and still talking about the glory days to customers who don’t care.  Every time you settle for the short-term pleasure of not having to deal with a specific task, you are only prolonging your unhappiness.

I believe that we have more control over our lives than we think. When I procrastinated, I chose to do that. And it was fine, until a person known as “Shit Happens” knocked on my door.  As student body president last year this took different forms, from dealing with blackface to not getting a job lined up for next year.  But the only person I could blame was myself, because I did not put myself in a position of success.  The more you are unproductive, the more likely it is for the external force known as “Shit Happens” to affect you.

Sometimes I would mention to my friends if there would be a time when productivity was cool. I imagined some cool kid in a high school or college being like, “Hey man, procrastination is whack, I got all my work done, I’m cool.” And then everyone else would be like, “Yeah! procrastination is stupid! I like doing what I say I’m going to do!”

Now my transformation from procrastination cheerleader to productivity king did not happen overnight. It has taken – and continues to take – a lot of energy to accomplish, but there is no doubt that have improved my daily output, and most importantly my happiness.  I thought that procrastination would give me freedom, but what it really did was throw me in a 6×6 padded cell and throw away the key.  I am hooked on productivity now. I was cautious to say that four weeks ago, because I thought that this might be another spurt of productivity in a long line of failing, but now I feel comfortable in saying that I don’t plan on falling back into that trap. With this statement, I know that I have set a pretty high standard for myself, but like all the great athletes, CEOs, and performers of our time, the greatest pressure you feel is the pressure you put on yourself.

In 16 minutes I will have completed my 19th pomodoro (what’s a pomodoro?) of the day, which is about 9+ hours of productive work,  to reach 100 pomodoros for the week.  My goal was 90 pomodoros this week, and I reached that goal at noon today. I could have decided to stop and rest because I achieved the goal that I set for myself last Saturday. But I kept going. I decided to go for something higher, and by doing that I was able to finish this blog post two days ahead of schedule, sketch a mockup of  a new web design project, and begin to code another blog in a language I did not understand three days ago.  My desire for productivity stretched what I thought was possible, and most of all it was fun to do!

So Procrastination, you can continue to have the dream of tomorrow to save you from your lack of focus and control.  That is… until tomorrow stops coming.

By Mike | Posted in Home | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Point of No Return

July 11, 2010 – 6:32 pm

Preface: As you can see, my blog looks a little… plain.  I could just go and download one of the thousands of wordpress themes while I am working on my own design, but I view that as the easy way out. If I do that, I am more tempted to push off finishing my design because I have something that already looks good. So by not doing that, and having my blog look like this, it forces me to shape up and finish this thing. I won’t change this plain background until I have finished coding my design. So by not doing that, and having my blog look like this, it forces me to shape up and finish this thing. I look forward to having it up by next Sunday.

Point of No Return

“The point of no return is the point beyond which someone, or some group of people, must continue on their current course of action, either because turning back is physically impossible, or because to do so would be prohibitively expensive or dangerous.”

This is how I feel about designing my own blog theme. Becoming a better web designer, graphic designer, and programmer. There is no turning back. I learned so much over the past few weeks that most of the time I can’t even turn my head around to look backwards, because I feel that I am losing my focus. Even though I jumped on this crazy startup train in early May, I really started on June 21, and since then I have been more productive than ever.  Usually at the end of the week, we are tired and just thankful to have two days of peace away from our work. I’m the exact opposite. Especially in these past two weeks, I have made it to Friday with ease, and I have been happy about what I accomplished.  In fact, I have been so productive that I can’t even remember when I had a day that was full of inaction. That’s a first.

When I have talked to my friends this summer, they are shocked that the first thing I tell them is that I have been “productive.” I mean after all, summer is a time to relax, not to learn and be on a crazy productive streak right?  Well for me, these two points are not mutually exclusive. Because I have been productive over the past two weeks, I have been able to have more fun. Fun while working because I am learning things I never thought I would be able to learn, and having fun by going out in Evanston and Chicago with my friends and not having to worrying about what I didn’t do during the week.

Now you could also ask why I am patting myself on the back so much for my performance over the past few weeks, and I would respond by saying, “I HAVE DONE A GREAT JOB! AND I DO WHAT I WANT!” Ok, maybe not that forcefully but the point I am trying to get is that I am in a battle with myself.  There is still this evil part inside of me that wants me to fail, wants me to be lazy, and wants me to stay within the realm of reality.  Even when I am most productive, and I can still hear this voice trying to get me to stop.  But with each passing day of productivity, the evil voice inside of me gets harder and harder to hear, and that is left for me to do is to just… do.  And what is even more beautiful than that is the fact that I am nowhere near my capacity.  Where I was on June 21 and where I am now on July 11 feel almost like two different people.  I feel this confident because I am operating at a higher power level. I see what I can be in the future, so much so that whatever happened in the past doesn’t matter. It’s not even worth it to turn around and dwell on the fact that it took me 4 years to even start to learn web design. All I care about now is improving week after week, until I am confident to start building products.

With each new web language or web design technique I learn, the stakes just get that much larger. The first week I learned HTML/CSS, and I was like. “that’s nice, now I have to actually apply this to learn web design.”  The next week I learned the foundations of web design and responded with, “ok this is cool, now I have to start designing websites.” This past week I actually finished a bunch of tutorials and my design for this blog and was extremely excited but still said, “good job Mike, but now you have to code this to actually make it work on the web.”  I am so determined right now that I feel like next week is the most important week of my life. That is, until the week after next. And then the week after that, and the week after that.

The way I see “Point of No Return” isn’t so much of not looking in the past, it is just that I have decided that I have learned too much to go backwards. Each week I am building a new layer, and the current layer is only important enough to keep me moving to the next layer.  In the field of web design there is no stopping point. There is no point where you have done all you can do and decide to fly off to some exotic island to have Corona lime fights with your girlfriend. You keep grinding, you keep innovating, you keep solving problems.  Being productive feels great. Creating new web designs feel great, but this is not the end point. I am still in the early stages of my life, and these new skills I am learning only serve to help me help other people.

While I feel that I have a long way to go in order to really make a difference in this world, I feel that it is a much shorter distance to get there than to turn around and do nothing.

By Mike | Posted in Home | Tagged , | Comments (0)

The Layers of Happiness

July 4, 2010 – 12:52 am

Complexity

Healthcare. Rocket science. HIV/AIDS. Super computers. Magnets. For many of us, these areas represent some level of complexity that we are unable to explain because we feel that we are not intelligent enough.  We often just cast off issues we can’t easily explain by saying, “oh it’s too complex” or “I don’t understand so I will just move on to something that’s easy.” I know that if Bill Nye wasn’t explaining how things worked when I was little, then I would have no understanding of anything related to science.

Throughout my life, I have tried to keep things as simple as possible. Even in coming to Northwestern, my goal was to keep everything I attempted to do as simple as possible and apply common sense first and foremost. The problem with my mental model is that I pushed out everything that I deemed as complex.  I discussed last week about how I didn’t want to practice Spanish, and that was mainly because I thought it was too complex for me to ever understand.  Because if you frame learning something as too complex to ever understand, then why would you practice to try to master it?

My False World of Complexity

What the hell is this? Do you know what this means? How does it work?!?

Before these past few weeks, I had spent the last four years never starting to learn how to code websites.  Each summer, I would make this master plan to finally master website coding and computer programming. As a graphic designer, I had become frustrated at the fact that did not have the ability to create my own websites and had to depend on someone with little or no graphic design knowledge to help me. This combination usually turned into disaster or, at best, not coming close to imitating the design I had created in Photoshop.  However, even these horrifying experiences were not enough motivation for me to learn these new web languages. Even though I had months and months of free time to learn, I came up with excuse after excuse of why I didn’t want to do it.  It was too hard, it was boring, maybe I don’t need to learn this, or maybe I can buy a program that can upload my designs for me! All the reasons I fed myself just prolonged my dissatisfaction of never cracking this very simple egg.

Three weeks ago I didn’t know any of that code in that picture! Ever since my first time on the internet using AOL dial-up, I have always seen the internet as a complex place to visit. When I first heard of HTML, I thought it just meant HTML, not hypertext markup language.  But now HTML is easy to understand, HTML is simple to understand.  In short, what <span> allows me  to do is to group certain elements together to add different styles. In this case I am grouping CD names and artist names to differentiate their styles. Once I create these groups, I can use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to add text styles (color, bold, italic, etc.) to specific names. In just three weeks, I have broken down the false world of complexity that has dominated my life for the last four years.

What’s the difference between now and then? Well, it’s simple. I have a greater purpose now. Before I just wanted to know website coding so I didn’t have to rely on someone else to do it. Now I want to learn these web languages so I can work with others to change the world. A creation of a website or a web-based service  is not the end goal, it is the tool that I wish to use to communicate with the rest of the world in the simplest way possible. With the internet, we have a platform that connects us with billions of people in a matter of seconds, and I believe that we have the responsibility to leverage this technology to create a world of happiness and well-being.

Complexity vs. Complex Systems

When we think of complexity, I feel as if there is a negative connotation that is goes with it. Healthcare is too complicated. Politics is too complicated to understand and the list goes on and on.

But do you think of a coffee cup in the same way?

Yesterday, I watched a TED talk entitled, “The Science of Simplicity” by world-renowned scientist George Whitesides. In this talk, he broke down complex systems into layers of simplicity.  For instance, he talked about the coffee cup as a device, which has a container and a handle. The handle enables you to hold the cup when it is filled with hot liquid. This device allows you to enjoy hot coffee, which is also sterile so you are less likely to get disease. The coffee cup is simple in function, but complex in design.

A sandwich is a complex system, because it has unique parts working together to form a whole. But do we fear making a sandwich the same way we fear learning rocket science? I assume the answer is no, because we understand the layers of simplicity that goes into the complex system known as a sandwich. The concept of “layering” is not new to any person that has used Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator to design art, so it’s funny that this concept was used in other contexts as well. I have designed pieces of art that have contained 75+ layers of unique parts. Yes it took a lot of time, energy, and patience, but it obviously wasn’t too hard to complete. I did not stop in the middle of the designing this art because it got too complicated, I just kept going.  So why can’t we take the time to understand other complex systems by breaking them down into layers of simplicity?  What is stopping us?

Stretching our Limits of Learning

What I have learned in the past few weeks is that I have the capacity to learn more than I ever thought possible.  I know I have learned an immense amount of knowledge over my entire life, but it honestly feels like I have learned more in the past three weeks than I ever have before. Even today my mental capacity was stretched a little further when I read about a budding superstar theoretical cosmologist named Emma King.  Emma recently received her Ph.D in theoretical cosmology, and was the first woman to win the Science, Engineering and Technology Student of the Year award at the University of Nottingham, despite tests at school which showed that Emma was not only slightly dyslexic, but had very poor arithmetic skills. Emma is is trying to use the laws of physics to determine what happened in the first few seconds of the universe, but here is a video (See 5:59) of her struggling to do simple arithmetic (12 x 13 anyone?).  She can deduce equations explaining particle physics in seconds, but has a hard time multiplying and dividing?

There are countless other Emma’s in this world, so I guess what I am trying to say is that if people with learning disabilities find a way to stretch their mental capabilities, why can’t I do it?  The answer is I can do it. We can all do it. If we just focus on each layer of

By Mike | Posted in Home | Tagged , | Comments (1)

Happiness is Moving Forward

June 26, 2010 – 11:54 pm

We all have major goals in life. There are people who want to lose a specific number of pounds to fit into that suit or dress they used to wear. Some of us want to create the next Fortune 500 company and be the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Others want to live an active lifestyle and travel the world. And I assume that most of us want to have financial stability to provide for ourselves and our families. While some of these goals are more ambitious than others, they all share one potentially fatal flaw: they are goals we want to achieve, not necessarily goals we know how to achieve.

If I were to ask you how much time you spend focusing on wanting to achieve your goal (the outcome) versus actually taking the baby steps towards achieving that goal (the process), which side of the spectrum would you land on? I know for most of my life I have been on the “wanting” side of goals, and not spending nearly enough time actually trying to achieve those goals. The reason I have been stuck in the quicksand of wanting to achieve goals is that I hated to practice (See 2:13 of this video to fully understand how I felt about practice). When I was seven I wanted to learn how to play the drums, but I didn’t want to practice. Before my senior of high school I wanted to make it to state in the 4 x 800 meter relay, but I didn’t practice over the summer and winter before track season, so guess what? I didn’t make it the state track meet in May. I also was in Spanish classes for five years, but since I never practiced, I never learned.

In all these examples, I focused on the outcome more than the process to achieve that outcome.

I did not achieve anything by daydreaming about drumming to a packed audience, standing on a podium wearing a gold medal, and yelling curse words in Spanish when I was pissed at someone. That is why the first step to improving yourself is believing that you can carry out and commit to the process. No matter how slow you move, move forward. When projects or goals get too big or complicated, break them down.

Before you figure how fast you can move forward, you have to learn how to move forward. Too many of us try to achieve a goal without working from start to finish to achieve it. We want to achieve a goal, without actually working to achieve it.

I am learning how to do this right now. And it is difficult. Here are the current battles I am facing:

Projects v. Tasks

I currently have a headache from remembering the pain of switching from project management app to project management app, each switch with the hope that this time around, things would be different. Yes, now that I have THIS app over this app, I will be productive FOREVERRRRRRRR!!!! I have learned that there are applications that do a better job of making me more productive, but there is nothing more sustainable and natural than your own focus and motivation to become better. That being said, in order for us to get to this point of self-control, we have to trick (or reprogram) ourselves to achieve more. I am currently doing this by breaking my projects into tasks. For instance, I have broken this blog post (project) that I am working on right now into small bite-size pieces (tasks). First, I focused on conceptualizing what point I wanted to get across (the title of my post), then I focused on typing what was in my head (word vomit), now I am working on organizing these thoughts into a full post (rough draft), and then I will edit and read over the post until I am satisfied (final draft). Now this full project might take me two hours, but I don’t care, because I am focused on the process (piece-by-piece) instead of just wanting a great outcome.

Learning v. Knowledge

Remember the example earlier when I wanted to know Spanish? Yeah, the problem was I didn’t want to learn Spanish. I didn’t want to practice definitions, translations, annunciations, etc., I just wanted to know it so I could be cool and say things that no one understood (but me of course). Well I am at this crossroads again in my life, but it is not with Spanish (ohhh but we shall meet again), it is with learning how to become a professional web designer. Every time I go onto the internet and see awesome websites, I envision my own designs on there.  I daydream about having an awesome website that gets tons of hits, wins international design awards, is featured in trendy magazines, and list goes on. What I have not focused on is the process of actually becoming a professional web designer. Learning the graphic design theory and color theory to understand what appeals to people. Learning how to conceptualize website design so that your creation is well-constructed and easy to digest. Learning the HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, Python, Ruby, etc., so I can actually translate my designs in Photoshop to the web for the world to see. These seemingly boring – or hard – tasks represent what has separated me from the current web designers of the world.

I now enjoy the process of learning these new languages and techniques. Not only do I want to learn these techniques, I want to master these techniques. And I know that once I master these techniques, I won’t have to worry about my future outcomes because I will have the knowledge to execute them.

Action v. Outcome

In this blog post, I have tried to separate the action from the outcome. And I assume that for many of you reading this, that is tough to do. Ha, even for me right now it is hard to do. Maybe it is hard for us because we are scared that if we don’t focus on the outcome, we have lost our purpose. By focusing on the outcome, we may feel as if the outcome – or goal – we are trying to reach is fueling our energy to achieve it. How can there be a process without always thinking about the outcome at the end of the journey?

The way I try to tackle this difficult question is by looking back on my experience at Northwestern for the past four years. In those four years, I have won two campus-wide elections, helped increase minority enrollment and undergraduate research opportunities, improve campus technologies and academic advising, and bring Northwestern community closer together. Now if I had focused solely on daydreaming about these outcomes or wanting to achieve these outcomes, they never would have happened. Instead I focused on the tasks in order to move forward. Knocking on doors and shaking hands to get to know fellow students. Working with passionate students, staff, faculty, and administrators to begin the process of increasing diversity on campus. Working with Northwestern’s IT staff to communicate the importance of technology in bringing our university community closer together. And continually trying advocate for the belief that while we come from different backgrounds and have different passions, we can still celebrate our differences AND our commonalities to become oNe Northwestern. This is where the process of moving forward is so important. Over the past four years I have understood that the value of the process is almost as sweet as the actualization of the outcome. By investing in the process, you learn so much about yourself and the people around you. And once you have done that, you then gain the knowledge of what is possible.

Yes, we have major goals in life, but we can not let these goals overshadow the process we must go through in order to get there. When we feel that our goals are too large to tackle, we must break them down until we are able to conquer one task at a time.  If you are able to focus on your tasks, you might find out that the goals you have set for yourself at the beginning of the process cannot even hold a candle to your achievements at the end of the process.

By Mike | Posted in Home | Tagged , | Comments (1)