Everything Figured Out: Part 1

Introduction

As an elementary school librarian my Mom tells me that intelligence is often how quickly kids can connect something they've learned with something else they've learned. I've also heard it said that our minds our a giant wheat field with pockets of knowledge and as we learn we beat down a path between those pockets, how romantic. My mind is a backyard of crabgrass with bald spots where my dog of learning stopped and marked his territory. Today I would like to share with you the culmination of a number of those bald spot, so watch your step for landmines as we go on a little adventure through the backyard of Ben's brain.

This post is my dear hunter, it is the culmination of a life's work that started over a week ago. I've put at least four hours into this instead of playing with my daughter and for some odd reason she's seems more emotionally stable than she did last week, connect the dots.

As of now this post has six parts, these parts all hit me hard when I first heard or read them individually. Now, connected I feel like they have pulled together to create a state where satisfaction comes much easier, where enjoyment in the mayhem is achievable, where consumerism is put to rest, where my mind feels peace instead of a continual search for the moving target that is happiness.

Think of these subsequent post's as not a destination showing you that I have found the answers but rather a sign on the trail that reassures you your heading in the right direction and if a change is needed it is there for that too.

Part 1

Henry Ford created the assembly line, eight hour work day, five day work week and the color black but took a little creative licensing with the last one.

As middle class Americans we have the full spectrum of riches (I say riches instead of wealth very pointedly) and yet we feel so unsatisfied. Henry Ford moved his workers from six ten hour work days down to five eight hour work days because he believed that unless you gave workers recreational time they would not be consumers. Ford was a genius for this but the next step that he did not take is that once you have turned somebody into a consumer the best way to move them up the ladder to consuming more is to make them unsatisfied.

We live in a culture of choice, just wait around and something better will come or buy but be prepared to buy when the new one comes out. We stand in front of a shelf at Walmart staring at thirty choices for pillows and no matter what we grab there will be a certain amount of dissatisfaction due to how much we had to turn down. Have you ever searched for something really specific, went from place to place until you found a store that carried just one of what you were looking for, this is true consumer satisfaction. Consumer satisfaction is bad because you will replace or upgrade that thing very soon or very easily.

So what is the lesson here, it is said that "Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another" Anatole France.

If we have the ability to not be working all of the time we must do a number of things during that off time. First, realize that relaxation time was created for you to spend your money. Secondly, relaxation from work is best found in work. Work you love. Work that helps others. Work that creates. Work that inspires. Work that is fun.

This is just part 1, come back for even bigger and better life changing lessons in part 2 through who knows. If I used Henry Ford as my opening band, image how big this could get!