Self-improvement, Time Management, Entropy and Me + a couple of random thoughts

I keep a whole bunch of books going at the same time. I try to keep a variety of genres, so that I'll have something to fit my mood at any given time. I keep a modern fiction, a western, a philosophy, a space opera or other sci-fi, a bio, a political opinion book, and also something from the business or self-improvement genre. Well, this is the reason that my briefcase is so darn heavy. When I go through security at a courthouse, the officers (most of whom are friends of mine) always rag me about all of the books I carry. I don't tell them about the "ready shelf," where books I'm more or less slowly going through are kept.

The business/self-improvement books I consider to be very work-related, because they purport to improve my life and work, which really are about the same thing. I know that's not a healthy attitude, but it's mine. There are several types of the self-improvement books. There is the pure business related book - Time Management for Dummies is a good, basic example. As silly as the title is, it has a few good ideas. I'm reading now a book on law office management, which is extraordinarily dry. I consider it a victory when I get one or two good ideas from one of these books. There are the pure self-improvement books. Shut Up, Quit Whining and Get a Life, by Larry Winget is a good example. There are mixtures, business and attitude, including There's a Reason They Call it Work, also by Larry Winget. I think I've highly recommended his books elsewhere. I also count within these broad categories the pure modern philosophies. Conversations with God, by Neal Donald Walsch is a strange example of that. OK, a REAL strange example. Also, the works of Wayne Dyer have shown an evolution from 30 years ago when he wrote Your Erroneous Zone and Pulling Your Own Strings, down-to-earth take-care-of-number-one advice tomes, to The Power of Intention, which is to me an uncomfortable, silly, witch-doctor-ish read. (I also have a sister-in-law who has written a witch-doctor-ish book.) I put the works of Deepak Chopra and Anthony Robbins also here, Chopra on the more spiritual side and Robbins the high-energy full-speed-ahead type. (There is a wonderful parody of the whole self-improvement genre, God is My Broker: A Monk-Tycoon Reveals the 7-1/2 Laws of Spiritual and Financial Success, by Christopher Buckley. He lampoons the "Choprans" and the "Robbinites" at the monastery. It's worth the price.) And lots of political books have a philosophical bent, so I think of them in this area, too. Al Gore's The Assault on Reason, Joe Conason's It Can Happen Here, and Gerry Spence's Bloodthirsty Bitches and Pious Pimps are examples. In fact, pretty much everything Gerry Spence has written fits there, even his novel, Half-moon and Empty Stars.

From all of these, I look for ideas with which to approach work and life. (Here, by "work," I mean pretty much any useful or creative activity.) There is a duality among these books that's been percolating in my mind. One school of thought might be called the 80% approach. An Italian economist (I think he was an economist - maybe he was a con-man) by the name of Paredo announced the "Paredo Principle." Essentially, it says that every human activity is divided 80-20. For instance, 20 percent of the effort is supposed to be worth 80 percent of the value. If you want to get to 100 percent, then, you have to bust your ass for not much satisfaction or additional value. Therefore, this school reasons, you ought to work at about 80 percent of your capacity, and screw the other 20 percent. That has some attraction - leave work at a reasonable hour, don't worry about tomorrow, because today you did what you set out to do. I've seen suggestions that you put a tag reading "80%" on your computer monitor to remind you to keep your work flow steady and, like the tortoise, win the race. Well, I've done that. For whatever it's worth. The other approach is the 212 degree approach. That holds that if you have water at 211 degrees, you have some hot water, which is no big deal. But if you have water at 212 degrees (Fahrenheit, of course), it will make steam and steam has power in it. (They don't address the whole transition heat issue. Seldom does a scientific or mathematic analogy hold together perfectly.) Therefore, if you don't push to that last degree, you've failed. Vacations? Bad. Time at home? Bad. Heck, even time blogging would be frowned upon. Well, those folks suggest that you put a little tag on your monitor which reads "212 degrees." I've done that too. And I'm honestly torn. What is the "right" approach to life? Take it easy and enjoy life? Push like mad and do the absolute most that you can do? One of my heroes is Theodore Roosevelt, I've mentioned that before here. He came down FIRMLY on the running-flat-out approach. Of course, he also died of old age and exhaustion at age 61. (And an undiagnosed tropical disease may have contributed to that, too.) I really need to get one of those tags off the computer. I'm drawn more to the 212 degree school, but that is a difficult and lonely life. I guess what I need is a self-improvement book custom made for ME. Fat chance. This is rather self-revealing - maybe too much so - a taste of the demons who often drive me.

Let's see. What else is on my mind. Oh, you may recall that I've been on a careful Bible-quoting jag of late. Part of that is to irk the Great Right-Wing Conspiracy, where the folks wave the Bible, and thump the Bible, but don't appear to read very much of it. Well, on the theory that it contains lots of good stuff other than useful quotes, I splurged and spent $44 at Amazon for a new Bible. (A Masonic edition - no, we don't have some mystical separate Bible, it's regular KJV with a concordance of stuff out of the Masonic work.) I think I may found the "Church of the Red Letter." That is the church which uses Bibles where the words of Christ are in red. Our church would pay extra-close attention to the stuff in red, and not be so worried about myths, Daniel and the Revelation of St. John the Divine. I wish that people who call themselves Christian would give it a shot at being a touch more Christ-like, and a touch less judgmental.

Finally, a poem I've been studying on for weeks - darn hard to figure out, at least for me:


THE FOOL'S PRAYER
by: Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887)

THE royal feast was done; the King
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the Monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool;
The rod must heal the sin: but Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

"'T is not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
'T is by our follies that so long
We hold the earth from heaven away.

"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heart-strings of a friend.

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept--
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to say--
Who knows how grandly it had rung!

"Our faults no tenderness should ask.
The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders -- oh, in shame
Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;
Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!"

The room was hushed; in silence rose
The King, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
"Be merciful to me, a fool!"


Maybe that's what I need to be asking for, Be merciful to me, a fool.

Mizpah.

R