Rebooting Elements

It has been 8 months since I last posted anything on my blog, and I didn’t realize how long ago that was.

We get so hung up on so many things, we really tend to miss out or forego on spending time on the things that you really want to do. We try so hard to squeeze in everything in our schedule, but it seems like there isn’t enough time. On some occasions we do these things that we want, to help us take our mind off on other stressful matters. But that too tends to fall off our calendars.

I tired doing a root cause analysis on it, and unfortunately I’d rather not share what has caused this. Some things are best kept to yourself, and you would just have to push the reset button to start things over.

When I started this blog back in May 2009, Elements of Life, I just wanted to share what I have encountered in this lifetime. Everything and anything that is practically under the sun. I am no professional blogger, I have no experience in journalism, I don’t plan to make a career out of it. I simply want to share the things that make me laugh, cry, frustrated, excited, happy, sad, blow my top off, all the emotions that comes after the personal experiences in Life. Because in these personal experiences are some of the Elements that shape our Life.

The past 8 months have really been hectic for me. I seemed to have lost sight of several things. I grind out each day to the limit. You can say that I am at a point where I have exhausted all my energy and is gasping for a recharge. I have probably achieved one characteristic on becoming an astronaut as I have mastered the art of power naps. Because that’s pretty much the kind of sleep time I have nowadays.

There is so much that is expected of you that having to do just one function is not enough. Having to do what is expected is no longer the norm. (When the Norm No Longer Exists) You have to evolve in becoming cross-skilled. Even doing the extra mile, boy, you gotta go farther than one mile; it’s now a cross-country hike. So you see, you get cross-skilled, you do a cross-country, but be careful not to get cross-eyed.

People say to take a step back, take time off, disconnect. Yup, pretty much did that. I even blogged about getting disconnected Disconnect to Reconnect 

So do I need a reboot? (Similar to what I do with my 2007 desktop PC every time things get messed up already and it hangs up on me, I just literally unplug it and boot it up again.) Though it’s about time I should get a new one. This PC is croaking up already, I get notifications that Microsoft will no longer support my platform, Google Chrome will no longer send updates, and I can hear the internal fans also gasping for air.

Well, I can’t buy a new me. So I will have to deal with what me has to offer.

But there are certain Elements of Life that you can probably reboot in order for you to be revitalized. Look at the little things that make you happy. Capitalize on those. It doesn’t even have to be a huge thing because if you have trickles of happiness, it will have a ripple effect. Getting frustrated has no place in this Life, you just don’t have time for negative Elements. That time can very well be spent on something better.

When the Norm no longer Exists

Ever heard of Kodak? Or you probably had a historic Kodak moment that was captured on film? It was the company who pioneered camera film rolls and the first digital camera. They ruled for over a century, where their films were even used in the Apollo space missions. Fast forward to the next century, due to the digital age Kodak stopped selling film cameras in 2004, they knew that things had to change and they quickly switched gears to digital cameras. But a couple of years later, things started to go downhill to the point where they filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

 

So what went wrong? They dominated for 100 years, they adapted to the new age, and yet, it failed.

 

Ever heard of the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. You have that certain level of complacency that things will be ok since you have been successful with how you do things traditionally or within the norm, that there is really no need to change the way things are or how it is done. You live in that state where you are in a bubble and inside you feel confident that you are protected, but outside, you have forces that can easily burst your domain and everything falls apart. But if you live outside that bubble, you are free to roam and do greater things.

 

We always say to ourselves there is room for improvement, we need to get outside of our comfort zone. But do we actually give space for it? Do we actually step out?

 

Nowadays you have to really be open to anything and be able to adapt by leaps and bounds. How I wish it was as easy as Keanu Reeves’ character in the movie The Matrix, where you can learn Kung-Fu in a matter of seconds. You can’t be stuck with “I’m sorry, this is what I only know”. Wouldn’t it be better if you could say, “Hold on, I will learn how to do it”.

 

Kodak had it going, but they were not doing it at the speed that was in pace with the innovative world we live in. They probably foresaw what was coming and yet they did not act on it immediately, thinking that they were a giant in this world and it would take a lot to take them down. But then again Goliath was dropped with a single stone, and the bigger they are, the harder they fall. So we shouldn’t sit back and wait to see if others act on things, the moment we see a potential risk, we need to quickly assess it and do what is necessary to avoid an epic downfall.

 

Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher quoted, “The only thing that is constant is change.” Everything around us changes every day. Especially in my line of work I always say that each day is a new day since I encounter something different, an out of the ordinary situation that keeps me thinking constantly of solutions on how to deal with these dilemmas. And the moment you stop, either you get caught off guard or get too far behind to ever catch up on things. So we better start learning how to eat change for breakfast.

 

The Norm is a lost land. And you would not want to get stuck in it. Let’s admit that there is part in us that is old fashioned and is at ease when staying within that comfort zone. That we may not need to change our ways in our lifetime if things are ok. But then why settle for ok, when you can do better, and you can do more.