Refunds As Rights

I have been working weekends for an organization that charges to complete taxes for individuals. One thing that I have noticed while doing this work is that the charges are fairly crazy for how little effort I put into the task.

The other, more important thing I have noticed is that many people seem to think that they have a right to a tax return and become frustrated and angered when their return is smaller than they think they deserve. It’s almost as if they’ve come to expect some weird indirect extra hand out from the federal and state governments every spring. The idea that they’d benefit more from less taxes overall or simply being taxed at the appropriate rate so receive no return is offensive to them. It is especially disliked when I recommend volunteering to pay more into taxes over the year to increase they’re return. They do not seem to understand that these returns are THEIR money in the first place not free money.

Perhaps we do have to actually scrap our entire tax system to remove this “right” and simplify our taxes which, weirdly, does not come up as regularly as the need to disband the electoral college, or to create term limits.

Transitions

One thing missing in our contemporary lives is transitions.

There is the relatively common discussion on the transition from childhood to adulthood which, many seem to think, is non-existent now.  I would tend agree with them. Even less ground-breaking transitions no longer exist though and lacking these transition spaces I think is problematic for our society.

Consider religious buildings, when one goes into a religious building or place there tends to be some sort of an area in between the outside world and the inner part of that place.  It is some sort of way to show that it is a different place/situation you’re going into.  Another one that is brought up by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman in his book, On Killing, is the transition that soldiers used to experience between battle and peaceful society. He makes an argument that that transition is very helpful for dealing with the psychological issues in warfare.  These are just two other sorts of transitions, as I am calling them. It is simply space or time separating one act from another.

Instead, we tend to focus on the ever-present “multi-tasking” which has been proven to be ineffective but, people still attempt to do it. Multi-tasking, by definition, is blurring the transitions between different actions. Besides the lack of actual efficiency that research seems to show regarding multi-tasking, I also think it creates a habit of attempting to collapse all things together all of the time. This habit, especially with technology now, then expands into erasing the line between work and life. One of the biggest, I think, transition spaces we need to keep in order to simply keep sane if for no other good reason.

Essentially the only transitions we have kept around in life are the transitions between grades within school, probably the least helpful of all transitions since they are not necessarily physical transitions and only lead to more of the same. They are not actual transitions between two fundamentally different things.  The transition between high school and “normal life” or college/university is rather useless as well since it is mostly ceremony. Also, just going from school to college is again not a change into something actually different.

Transitions require a real change I think. There must be an actual span of time or a piece of geography which one goes through in order for a real transition to happen, a walk across a stage is technically that but does not count. Also, the change has to be clearly defined. Sure, I can drive an hour between my work place and my home but, if I continue to check my phone and answer calls or emails from or regarding work the entire drive and at home, I have not really clearly transitioned from one to the other.

I think that we need these transitions in life, both the trite and extraordinary.

The more pedestrian transitions are needed to make life simpler and maintain mental sanity. It is much easier to function if one knows which hat they must have on at the moment. Being a manager is not the same as being a parent, even if some of the “skills” are similar, you cannot bring the same mind-set to those two different environments. Having time to flip the correct switches is needed to make sure you, as a person, know which sort of context you need to be considering. This idea is brought up in some yoga practice recommendations I see of always having a specific space in which to practice, each place has its thing(s) that need to be there, including mind-sets, histories, attachments, emotions, etc. These smaller transitions allow for creativity too.

These transition time and spaces are unbounded, in a sense, since they are between two (or more) different boundaries. These spaces can allow time to ponder and time for different connections to be made. In biology these boundary areas tend towards greater biodiversity. I suspect that greater creativity happens within the transitions too, in a similar way.

Finally, there are the extraordinary transitions which we need in life from time-to-time. These would be things like marriage, adulthood ceremonies, mortgage burning parties, the once-in-a-lifetime, transitions from one situation into another that matter and lead to fundamentally different lives. Losing all of your money, shelter and stability for a period and regaining it is a “rough” transition of this nature. These transitions are necessary for knowing stages of life and bringing a sense of humility to a person-as-human. We need these to remind ourselves of our place in life and help us know that, we are generally working towards death and maybe we need to contemplate that a bit more often.

Just a Thought.

What if, instead of being “agile” “lean” and all of those stupid business adjectives, we focused on quality and making sure we can actually accomplish the minimum amount of work required, being anti-fragile as Taleb has phrased it.  Focus on taking an estimate and adding time to it so that there is a cushioning on it instead of say, estimating how fast a team can accomplish something and setting the release date for that estimated time.  Instead, one could take how fast the team is going and add about 30% of time to the estimated time to take into account various, out of control, random factors.

Folklore

One thing that one never notices anymore is singing and story-telling. Watching old movies and reading various books there are plenty of songs and stories that the characters are telling each other and there are fairly large repositories of songs and stories one can find online that have been around for centuries. In the U.S. though, we no longer share these songs and stories.

I suspect that this lack is not a positive though. Having a pool of general stories to reference I think is important for creating group cohesion in most situations, there becomes a common sort of language to draw from.

Heat Stress

I am pretty sure that “heat-stress” and it’s related recommendations are a sign we are severely off course on physical health.
First, just the fact that it happens I take as generally a red flag that we are not outside enough, moving enough, and overall remotely close to physically capable/healthy enough for basic life. If some hot weather makes you incapable of anything except sitting, that’s a problem.
Second, every recommendation regarding prevention and treatment is somewhat hilarious. 1) sunscreen to prevent burning im pretty sure we can all just pass on that, especially if we are outside late winter to spring, the sun slowly changes allowing that adjustment to happen on its own 2) the acclimatization recommendation, that should just be happening naturally, instead of having to say at least 2 hours 5 out of 7 days, it’s like a prescription which is goofy. 3) don’t trust your own bodily instincts to drink water? Isn’t a basic biological fact that if needing water we get thirsty like if we get hungry we eat? Next, too bad all these wasteful trainings aren’t required of supervisors and those who do control work more because every other recommendation of “take breaks” “drink more water” “do hottest work during cooler parts of day” “work in air conditioning” “slow down” are all great ideas, probably inherently common sense ones at that but, I’m pretty sure unions had to be created to fight for any break whatsoever, no company is going to actually enforce more breaks for safety regarding heat. Also, no company allows just the whole mid afternoon off for less intense work, that’s called a siesta and the U.S. is fairly well opposed to that idea in all possible ways at all times because “efficiency”. Also, some jobs just don’t exist inside: construction and mail delivery to name two that come to mind immediately. Notice how it’s that group that probably doesn’t need bodily adjustment to hear since they’re actually outside once in a while but also, the ones who have bosses who’ll never tell them “it’s hot this afternoon, you’ll get paid/won’t be docked if you just chill from 2-3 or whatever to avoid the hottest part of the day”
Overall, I’d say heat illness and it becoming an idea even is just anothet example of the huge disconnect we have between health, nature, ourselves and those who make decisions and those who actually DO.
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I am pretty sure that “heat-stress” and it’s related recommendations are a sign we are severely of course on physical health.
First, just the fact that it happens I take as generally a red flag that we are not outside enough, moving enough, and overall remotely close to physically capable/healthy enough for basic life. If some hot weather makes you incapable of anything except sitting, that’s a problem.
Second, every recommendation regarding prevention and treatment is somewhat hilarious. 1) sunscreen to prevent burning im pretty sure we can all just pass on that, especially if we are outside late winter to spring, the sun slowly changes allowing that adjustment to happen on its own 2) the acclimatization recommendation, that should just be happening naturally, instead of having to say at least 2 hours 5 out of 7 days, it’s like a prescription which is goofy. 3) don’t trust your own bodily instincts to drink water? Isn’t a basic biological fact that if needing water we get thirsty like if we get hungry we eat? Next, too bad all these wasteful trainings aren’t required of supervisors and those who do control work more because every other recommendation of “take breaks” “drink more water” “do hottest work during cooler parts of day” “work in air conditioning” “slow down” are all great ideas, probably inherently common sense ones at that but, I’m pretty sure unions had to be created to fight for any break whatsoever, no company is going to actually enforce more breaks for safety regarding heat. Also, no company allows just the whole mid afternoon off for less intense work, that’s called a siesta and the U.S. is fairly well opposed to that idea in all possible ways at all times because “efficiency”. Also, some jobs just don’t exist inside: construction and mail delivery to name two that come to mind immediately. Notice how it’s that group that probably doesn’t need bodily adjustment to hear since they’re actually outside once in a while but also, the ones who have bosses who’ll never tell them “it’s hot this afternoon, you’ll get paid/won’t be docked if you just chill from 2-3 or whatever to avoid the hottest part of the day”
Overall, I’d say heat illness and it becoming an idea even is just anothet example of the huge disconnect we have between health, nature, ourselves and those who make decisions and those who actually DO.

Shorter Hours

What if unions took up the fight for shortening work hours again and then just making it so that people had a liveable wage on it? It seems that most companies are trying to “uberize” overall which leads to unstable-yet-flexible schedules which is fine but, those groups also are not making enough to actually survive most of the time and, if everyone becomes a taxi driver will there be anyone to actually take those taxis? So, instead, why don’t we as a society just decide to move towards this scheduling but make it so that people actually make enough money on it to live? How many jobs would be opened up by say, a normally 8 hour long open company being able to do 3, 4-hour shifts of different people who then can potentially, have their own side jobs that they create outside of that if they so choose.

Retail and Entertainment companies should support this move too because, most likely, many people will simply use that extra time not working to watch TV, shop and eat thus moving money to them, so, why don’t they also support this along with unions, the original fighters for flexible scheduling?

Student Debt

What would happen if all students with debt simply decided, at one time, to stop paying the loans back?

Seriously, if every, or nearly, every person with student loan debt simply stopped making payments, what would happen? Can government/enforcement organizations seriously go after every single individual with student loans? I know that’s loans are based on an assumption and trust of the system working but, it seems that everyone thinks that this system isn’t working anymore so why continue with it?

Or, how about if our government bails out those with the loans when this bubble does finally burst instead of the banks?

Just a thought.

Active and Passive Media

How about splitting media types up by their activity. Activity being the sense of “mental activity.” Mental activity is of course incredibly complicated and probably well beyond my expertise (or lack thereof) but, I will do it anyway because I can.

What I mean by mental activity is some sort of mental effort having to be put forth in the sense that the media doesn’t simply “invade” the senses. This is more of a spectrum, not hard divisions but, I suspect media types lend themselves more towards one end of the spectrum or the other.

The easiest pair for me to point at is TV and reading on physical pages. I will be using these as the Pinnacle/extreme ends of the spectrum. TV I consider one of the main examples of passive media whereas reading a physical page is the most active.

I consider TV passive because of the fact that essentially, one immobilizes themself and then just receives the data (images and audio primarily).  One does not have to engage with that data, just receive it.  Of course, one has the option to engage with the material and analyze it but it is not required; not to mention, let us be honest, a majority of the media taken in on TV does not require analysis of that sort.

Reading, specifically, from a  physical page, is one of the more active mediums because, although one immobilizes themselves again (like all media that isn’t purely audio), they actually have to hold onto the material and move it around to an extent and mentally take in the text.  One cannot “read” something without at least deciding to do the reading.  I have yet to figure out how to “turn on” a physical book and just let it run, if there is a skill there that I failed to learn that others know it makes this point moot. (Or, if someone can multi-task while actually reading because I certainly cannot.)

Entirely useless aside, skip to stay on track:

A strange parallel to this comes from all that research on sitting and how it is dangerous.  Although it is probably overblown to an extent, some of the movement systems I am interested in talk about sitting/squatting often.  The sitting they refer to is just sitting on the floor and squatting as a resting position.  Both of those are actually much more “active” than sitting in a chair.  Sitting upright on the floor or squatting down, although a resting position, requires muscle engagement to maintain balance or not simply flop down into a laying position.  Sitting in a normal chair, although not a requirement, lends itself to “passive” sitting, just laying back and letting the chair do all of the work of keeping oneself upright.  It is certainly work well for me right now as I type this. Active sitting vs passive sitting, a new way to get healthier?

Anyway, active/passive media.  TV would be at the passive end, photos would be slightly more center, audio further towards active and then reading would be the most “active.”  Generally.  This spectrum is of course not set in stone and one can be active while watching TV and fairly passive in reading a relatively simple/easy book.

This separation is not particularly interesting in and of itself but, what if this difference leads to a different sort of mind-set?  By this I mean, something like the idea of “you are what you eat” and habits, if someone watches a lot of TV and habitually tends towards the passive sort of viewing, what sort of habit does this cultivate?   It would seem that it cultivates a passive type of habit which then could bleed into the rest of their life and lead to becoming a more passive person overall.  I sometimes wonder if that passivity is becoming more pronounced as more people spend more time watching TV passively and sitting passively.

Discipline

What if trying to “build a child’s self-esteem” is actually becoming detrimental to that self-esteem?

I mean, there seems to be a movement to help “build a child’s self-image” through talking to the young child (I mean early elementary or before).  Cutting deals with them and attempting to manipulate them in subtle ways in order to get them to do what the adult needs/wants them to do.

It seems that this is the preferred method because it “empowers” the child which then gives them confidence. What if this confidence is a weak confidence though; instead of creating a deep-set confidence which holds through any issue, what if confidence based on this empowerment is very shallow and not resilient?

Sure, giving a child a choice, if only of limited options delimited by the adult can empower the child; make them feel like they have control over parts of the world but, that feeling of control is fake and, I think, a root cause in people lacking resiliency.

Think about it, resiliency comes from many factors.  Some of those are: feeling in control, being able to let go of the things you cannot control and your emotional outlook towards events in life.

Giving a child options, instead of simply a “no, because an authority figure said no,” limits which factors grow in a child.  The child ends up always feeling good because they at least always have the semblance and feeling that they are in control.  What happens once that facade fails though?  Since they are less used to being in a situation out of their control, there is potential for all of their self-confidence to crumble.

Instead, the benefits of simply telling a child “no” and not giving them options teaches them that they are a) not always in control and not always going to be in control and then b) how to emotionally deal with that in a way that makes sense and teaches them to remove their personal feelings from the exact situation so that they can have a healthier emotional outlook on the situation.

So, what if resilient individuals come from slightly sterner upbringing?

Leadership

What if we re-examined “leadership”?  More importantly, the way it gets taught and treated.

The various “leadership” courses I have been in have always pushed and been framed with the idea of “everyone can be a leader”! Which is not inherently wrong, but, maybe that has become too literal.  The general framework, as I have perceived it, has been that every single individual can be a leader at the same time and it is based on making sure everyone has a chance to participate and talk in some sort of a group task/discussion.

This idea of everyone being a leader training waters down true leadership (much like the use of the word “hero” has watered down what a hero actually is) and has led to people feeling less empowered to actually lead.  This is because leadership training focuses on “management” instead of actual leadership and focuses too much on teams and making sure everyone feels involved.  Those too things are reasonably important skills yes, but they are not leadership and do not teach individuals how to be a leader, it teaches them how to play office politics.

So, obviously, my definition of a leader is different than that which the training is teaching towards.  My idea of a leader is someone who has a specific goal and can take steps to accomplish that goal.  The better the leader, the bigger the goal and better able to plan and implement the steps to that goal.  But wait, that is just what a manager does, split a goal into tasks and get people to accomplish those tasks to achieve said end-goal.  No.

A manager receives an end goal from some other entity along with some of the general tasks that have to be done to achieve those goals and then reports on progress.  A manager, at any level, is simply the reporting arm of an entity between the on-the-ground work and higher levels.  That does not inherently mean that CEO’s are leaders though either, they are just among the highest level managers.  Sometimes there are leaders among all of these levels, including the on-the-ground people but often enough, they are managers and nothing more and simply get trained in how to manage other groups somewhat more effectively.  Managers help hold team together, leaders attract teams of people.  I think that is one of the fundamental differences.  Leaders are those much more charismatic people who have end goals that they are working towards an then end up with teams of people all helping achieve the same end goals.

The problem with this idea though is, you cannot then “teach” leadership.  There is no such thing as “leadership” skills. It also means that not everyone can be a leader (at the exact same time), hierarchy is essentially required for this type of leadership, not exactly a palatable idea to our current society because it is much easier to say that everyone can be a leader and leave it at that than actually deal with leadership and roles.  But, that is because of big assumptions made.

“Everyone cannot be a leader,” does not inherently mean there is a gender, racial, class, education, whatever bias.  It is simply a statement that not every single individual can possibly be “the leader” at all times, the buck has to stop somewhere and that would be the actual leader (who, probably, is the original initiator of the project).  There can be a group of leaders working towards a similar or even same goal but, someone had to bring them together and truly focus them, that person is the leader of the other leaders.

That shows the sort of skills that leaders actually need: how to find people and how to START something. Leadership training focuses on “problem-solving,” “synergy,” “discussion,” “empowerment” etc.  (at least the training’s I’ve been in).  Actual leadership is someone who has a goal and actually knows how to winnow through individuals to talk to the people in the correct mind-set and context(s) to implement parts of the goal or see the value in said goal and will line up with the initiator (leader).

Then, and I think this is the biggest difference between actual leaders and others, the leader starts towards their goal. That starting, the initiation, is also one of the least “taught” aspects of leadership it seems.  This can be seen in how goals are dealt with.

Nearly everyone has probably heard about S.M.A.R.T. goals.  You know, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant/realistic, timely or your favorite incarnation.  Notice one thing about that list?  You never start anything!  I have had plenty of goals and ideas for goals that could fall into this type of goal but, I never start towards said goal(s), perhaps some of my S.M.A.R.T.est goals have never come to fruition because I did not initiate, I did not take the steps to START towards them.  I think that leadership training has to turn towards that, teaching (somehow) how to initiate something, how to take that first step.  Then we will actually be educating and empowering people to be leaders.  Until that point, we will simply be teaching managers to keep the world spinning as it is.

What do you think?  Is what I am saying even making sense?