Mind the Beginner

One way to get rid of clutter in your bag

After a year of keeping track of minimalism it still seems to be a trending topic on the Internet. It’s not that hard to understand why, it’s a natural extension of productivity and mindfulness. It’s the effect of being focused, a single goal in mind. There is no place for useless things if you want to reach your goal in a straight line.

When you need your wallet or your keys, do you know exactly where they are? Can you grab them without even looking? Or do you need to dig around in a huge bag crying out “It’s in here somewhere” while you turn the entire contents over on a table.

Frustrating isn’t it, when you can’t find what you are looking for. Of course you have these situations every day. That piece of paper on your desk, that file on your computer, that bill, and where did that scarp of paper go with that phone number you needed to call for a job offer.

Small problems, small solutions

You’ve seen minimalist homes like these and these before, and there are many more examples out there. What they all have in common is that “there is a place for everything and everything in it’s place”. Your car is in the driveway, your TV in the living room and your bed in the bedroom. Huge things with their own clearly defined place. The smaller things get however, the harder it seems to give them their own place.

The reason for this is that smaller things have more places they can be stored. How many places are there to store your car? You’ll be looking in the driveway or the garage. Now, how many places are there to store your keys? A smaller home, room, desk or bag will solve issues like these for you.

Reducing spaces

Minimalism is easy in theory and that’s why the solution is easy as well. Reduce the number of places those small things can hide. How, you ask? Get a smaller bag. Have fewer coats to leave your keys in. Reduce the number of folders in your computer. Best would be to reduce so far that even the smallest thing has only one or two places it can be.

If you religiously hold to those places you can find anything and everything in just a few seconds. Make it a habit (Leo is an expert in this) to put those small things in place. I’ll give you the example of my keyring: it has exactly 2 places it can be: 1: My right front pocket 2: The drawer in my desk. If it’s not in either, I’ve lost it.

Sure, a keyring can be stored in many more places but it doesn’t belong there.

Answer me these questions

To help you look at these questions:

• What is it for?
• Do you need it?
• When do you need it?
• What is it’s specific place?
• Is that place suitable? (not to small but certainly not to big!)
• What other things will be sharing that place?

And of course  ask those questions for the other times found in the last question as well. Start small and work your way up. If you find something that serves no purpose, that you don’t need. Is there a need to keep it? That of course is the last step in applying minimalism. Get rid of anything that serves no purpose. A last tip: if you do not enjoy using an item, do not keep it!

You know Darwin right? That guy who thought up the theory of evolution. Is he right or is he wrong? A continued debate that I fear will never end. We all have our own theories about evolution.

Theories cover everything in life. You think you know how (a part of) life works. There is a lot of theory on running a successful blog, making that illusive online income and in other areas like brewing your morning cup of coffee and the ideal line through a corner with a motorcycle. There is nothing in life that someone hasn’t developed a theory about. There is nothing in life that nobody preaches about.

Looking for theories

Internet is absolutely full of theories. Among the more popular are those about passive incomes, low-hour workweeks, location independence and rocking on the social media. These theories get written down in blogs and circulated through ebooks and membership sites. So these theories seem to be correct. You can generate an income this way or become a social media rockstar. Thousands of subscribers are proof of that.

Internet hasn’t always been here (Yes I know it’s shocking, what did all those people do with their time before the internet.) and so they had books and journals to publish their theories in. It actually still is the best place to look for good scientific theory backed by scientific research. I have more trust in something that is published in Nature than what is published on the Huffington Post. Likewise I have more trust in scientific papers than what you can read on Wikipedia. Last but not least books are better than blogs.

Theories are omnipresent. But they are just theories until you prove them.

Proving a theory

Going back to Darwin, will anyone ever be able to prove he was right? There is evidence everywhere around you, you just have to open your eyes. Or so you would think. There is enough out there that doesn’t conflict with Darwin’s theory, and so far nobody has come with a sound falsification, that is, something that shows Darwins theory on evolution is wrong.

A classic to show what I mean here is “All swans are white”, a very nice theory and in most parts of the world nobody has ever seen a swan that’s not white, excluding cygnets who are greyish but will turn white when they mature. If all swans are white, then what’s this:

Cygnus atratus

Let’s just ignore it and maybe it will go away. All swans are white! That’s how it works with most people, presented with clear proof that a theory is wrong they will persist in believing their theory. Even though this animal has a scientific name and everything. Feed it and it will come closer. Try to come to close  it’s offspring and it will attack you. “The truth hurts” gets a whole new meaning while you rush to hospital for stitches.

Critical Rationalism

Presenting theories and “proof” is what scientists try to do. Bloggers try to do the same, marketing people and sales people are even worse. Presenting all kinds of “proof” that what they are telling you actually works. Well, of course it works for them! They did it that way or at least say they did and now you’re eager to adopt the latest method and you’re sure that it will work for you too. But not all theories are as sound as Darwin’s.

Enter Karl Popper, a philosopher who lived in the 20th century. He rejected classical empiricism (knowledge through experiments) and suggested to think the other way round. Trying to prove a theory wrong instead of trying to prove it right.

The black swan is the perfect example, just one black swan will shoot down the theory that all swans are white. It’s your choice to look away or not.

Hitting yourself with a hammer will hurt. But how do you know that hitting yourself the next time will hurt as well? You can hit yourself to find out of course, that’s empirical proof that it did hurt. But to prove the next hit will hurt you’d have to hit yourself again. You won’t like where that’s going. The other way round, thinking like Popper you give the theory that hitting yourself with a hammer hurts and you challenge anyone to prove your theory wrong. At the very least it provides you with less discomfort.

Stepping on dreams

Being a critic isn’t a very rewarding, glorious job but someone has to do it. Especially when everyone is blinded by theories and promises of glory, riches or eternal life if only they follow a few simple rules that seem to have worked for whoever it is that makes the promises.

Should you stop dreaming? Of course not! Just keep reality in mind and try and poke holes in things that seem to good to be true. They always are.

You’ll have to face it, one day you will die and there is nothing you can do about it. What’s more, there is nothing you can take with you. Sure, you might request that your body be interred with some personal things but you’re not exactly going to use those things now are you. It’s more or less symbolic and comforting.You get a nice headstone with your name on it so people can remember who lies there.

-

Every second death comes closer -tick tick tick- don’t think to much about that or you’ll become terrified of it sooner or later. Look at a clock for a few seconds and you’ll soon see what I mean. Those seconds you just spent can never be reclaimed. You just wasted precious seconds staring at a clock while there are so many things you can do and perhaps even should be doing rather then staring at a clock. On the other hand it does give you a harsh reminder.

But as you’re a regular reader of lifestyle design blogs or other personal development inspired writings you already know this. “Make every second count” and “Tempus fugit” seems to be the collective motto these days. It’s like having your personal devil with a red-hot poker running after you making sure you keep running.

Contrasts in Life

That devil will catch you in the end. You’ll either stumble or just drop dead on the spot and he’s got you. The game of life is to stay ahead for as long as possible. Some people work very hard at that and are true workaholics. Others will just sit somewhere, quietly waiting for death to come claim them. A huge contrast if there ever was one.

We all know people who just seem to crawl through life, let it pass by day by day with each day looking like the previous. Spending days watching tv, sleeping late and doing nothing remarkable. Spending life in anonymity and they might just even complain about the world around them and how life is so unfair. Blaming themselves will never occur to them naturally. The only thing they regret is that they didn’t get to live the life they imagined when they were young.

Likewise we all know people who seem to be working every waking hour. There are a lot of bloggers online that fit this description but not all hard workers are as well known. Sometimes you won’t even see someone working hard but he still seems to get things done at a huge pace. You’ll probably fit in somewhere closer to the hard working group right? Or did you spend the last hour on such useful things as twitter, facebook, youtube or deep in your RSS feed reader?

False Productivity

You call that productivity? I sure hope not. File it under research or marketing but it won’t matter. Spending hours on end with those things won’t get you very far. It’s the tv of the new generation.

Something needs to change, but the change has to come from within. Nobody changes because others want to, they only change when they see that what they are doing isn’t what is in their greater interests. Watching tv is just about as useful as watching a clock tick. it’s not adding towards reaching goals, living the life you want to be living. Tv isn’t the only “clock” in this way but again, you already know this.

What you leave Behind

Let’s have another look at death, you can’t take anything with you. All you can do is make people remember you and it’s often said that you won’t really die unless people forget about you. An underlying goal in life once you realize this – and a very powerful motivation- is to make it damn hard for people to forget about you. What am I saying, make it impossible for people to forget you and what you did in life.

Sitting in front of that tv all day will make people remember you for a while, you might even be remembered by your grandchildren. But after that generation you’re probably forgotten. If you make an impression on the world however, people will definitely find it hard to forget about you. History and literature are full of these people, and for the last century television and radio have added to this group. Last but not least we have the corporate world and the online world. Both have names that will be remembered for decades or even centuries.Because these people made an impression, they had an impact.

Make the Impact

I wanted to present you with a highly controversial example of a person who made an impact, but thought better of it and will not present that name here. If you’re curious you can contact me over twitter. Instead let’s have a look at a simpler example: Terry Pratchett. A fantasy writer who’s books have been read by millions. He found something he was rather good at and stuck with it. Spending countless hours writing and promoting his books. To keep things closer to home, think about people like Darren Rowse, Clay Collins, Seth Godin, Jun Loayza. You either have heard of them or will hear about them soon enough because it’s their hidden goal to make it impossible for you to forget about them.

Your hidden goal from this moment onward is “Make it impossible for people to forget me”. In everything you do, ask yourself if this will make that impact. You don’t have all the time in the world and you know it!

Inspiration comes from the strangest places these days. I was reading a Terry Pratchett book “A hat full of sky” in wich a creature of sorts stalks a witch. It’s not able to die, not able to forget and not able to be unaware. It’s terrified of this world and just wants to die. It can’t cope with the continuous flood of its senses.

Boredom: the feeling you have when you’d rather be somewhere else than right here, right now.

Two of the greatest skills humans have according to this creature are being able to die, and being able to be bored. So what’s so special about being bored? If you look around you (as I often ask you to) you will notice only a hand full of things of what is actually going on around you. As I’m sitting here in a terminal room at uni I see my screen, hear my keyboard en have the lingering taste of coffee from the sip I just took.

But only after giving it some thought can I hear the terminal fans blowing, other people talking, pages being turned and the person next to me breathing softly while using the scroll wheel on his mouse. With even more effort I can hear more fans, people walking outside this room, the air conditioning and a myriad of noises coming from the corridor I can’t define.

Sensory overload

Imagine you couldn’t block out all those sounds, smells, and other sensory bombardments. How would your day be? Would you be able to concentrate on a single thing? Maybe not, you’d have to block out the rest to do so. But on the other hand. Would you ever be bored? Every second of every day presents you with new things to sense, new things to learn.

You’d go crazy. You would never get any rest because you can’t block out the sounds in your bedroom while you are trying to sleep. Everyone has those nights when they lie away and something in the background -just barely audible- is humming or making some other noise. It drives you crazy and the sound starts to grow into a deafening roar you can’t not hear. But look on the bright side, at least you’re not bored. You’re tired, cranky, and irritated, but not bored. You now have the joy of discovering all kinds of new (and probably irritating) sounds and sights while you’re trying to sleep. You will become aware of every little discomfort in your body and just can’t find a comfortable position.

You have all kinds of feelings, but you are definately not bored.

Shoulder surfing

A quick intermezzo here, the guy sitting next to me tells me he has ADHD and because of this he likes to learn while listening to music. Loud music probably judging by his long hair and band-shirt. The music allows him to block out all those other noises because they just aren’t loud enough to be heard anymore. I can’t imagine learning with loud music but if it works for you, who am I to try and stop you. Rock on!… or something like that.

Back to our blogpost.

What is boredom?

A while back I wrote a bit about being bored while driving. While you might think that taking things very slow is boring it rarely is. What am I saying, taking things slow never is boring. As long as you don’t block out all the senses. Going for a ten meter walk can be an adventure if you let it. Typing a single sentence is a journey across a keyboard. How can you ever be bored with all these things going on around you?

My interpretation of boredom is quite simple: It’s the feeling you have when you’d rather be somewhere else than right here, right now. If you’re bored you’re not experiencing what is going on right now. Because if you were, there is so much to discover and learn from this very moment that you wouldn’t be bored anymore.

Give it a go. The next time you’re bored, know that you are blocking out all kinds of experiences of the present moment and start experiencing them. Time won’t go any faster but moments will no longer pass in a blur. You’ll never get that time back. Time is a one way trip after all. You’d better make every second count. And if you’re bored, your missing out on all kinds of experiences.

Every day I’m confronted with problems, problems of my own and problems other people have. And as with all problems I like to see them for what they are: challenges and puzzles to be solved. Sometimes problems are much easier to solve than you’d think. Take the classic Gordian Knot, a very complex knot impossible to untie but made short work of with a sword. Other problems might not be that easy but are still easy enough when cut down to size a bit.

The trap

The hard part here is yielding the sword properly. Cutting the problem down to size will in the end leave you with a very simple problem to solve, but will the solution still hold in the big picture? You could cut the knot, but what if the owner of the rope would get very upset if you cut the rope, which was a family heirloom? You got so focused on finding a solution to the knot itself that you forgot the context.

Just a few days ago I made this mistake in a very complex problem. I kept reducing and cutting away until I got the simple solution, but I forgot all about the context of the problem. My solution to the small problem would actually do exactly the opposite when applied to the problem in situ.  If someone turns down your solution because of this, they are absolutely right to do so. Nobody wants to make things worse now do they? And of course I’m sorry for suggestion such a stupid and short-sighted “solution”.

Keep the context in mind

Finding answers to questions is what we all do. Even up to the point of “If it won’t fit… get a bigger hammer” or “You’ll just have to make time”. Did you ever try actually making time, let’s not go there. Fact remains that when you whittle down a challenge, reducing it to a single step, that step may no longer be an answer to the question. While simplification is a very nice tool, and you can cut away a lot of things that don’t matter at all. If you cut away even a single chip of the context that has a direct or indirect impact on the problem, you just changed the problem and so the answer.

So there you are hacking away at the problem, making it smaller and smaller. It’s actually starting to look like the answer just like making a statue of an elephant from a piece of marble is as simple as chipping away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant.  We all look on while you’re blurred behind a cloud of chippings and then suddenly we hear that dreaded word “oops”.

…

Thankfully you noticed that you messed up and didn’t present your answer as the answer to the question right? What? You didn’t notice!? You were so happily chipping away that you didn’t notice? We’ll just have to display that elephant without a tail and hope nobody bothers to look at the backside of the statue. You might pull it off every now and then, but you will know the tail isn’t there and I’m sure it will get noticed once you realise that the statue was meant to be placed on a low pillar in the centre of a lawn.

The clear view

If you want to simplify problems you’re always free to do so, at your own risk. If you’re to extreme you’ll get into trouble. If you’re not extreme enough you still have a lot of work to do. Simplification is a very delicate business and more of an art-form than just a skill. Something I’ve definitely not mastered yet but am working on every single day to perfect.

What are you trying to simplify?

What is the difference between failure and success? Or more accurately, what is the difference between learning and not learning? A very simple fact of life: You have to make mistakes in order to learn. But that isn’t where things start.

The first step in learning is actually getting of your behind and getting to it. In some cases you’ll have to get on your behind actually (like when you want to learn how to program a computer, desk-flying is the way to go.) but nevertheless, you need to act. Something I’ve been learning the hard way the last few days. For a quick background on that: I’m studying for a few exams and so I’m spending almost all my waking hours on it. Not to pass the exams (it’s important) but to learn more. To end each day knowing things I didn’t know when I woke up. (much more important)

Twenty minutes

By far the best way I know of to learn something is to completely focus on it for twenty minutes at a time. Set a timer and make write down what it is you want to have done in those twenty minutes. Start the timer and immerse yourself in what it is you want to learn. The timer goes off and you grab a quick cup of tea, perhaps some fresh air and after a short break (five minutes) you immerse yourself again for 20 minutes. Spend the first few minutes reviewing what you did in the previous block and then continue with the new things.

Studying this way  you can learn anything you want. Yes it takes some time but that’s common knowledge by now, getting something for nothing is exceedingly rare. You’ll just have to come to terms with it: if you want something you’ll have to work for it.

Twenty minutes, isn’t that a very long time to focus on something? Once you get going, the twenty minutes fly by and the timer will startle you. Seriously, time flies when you’re having fun. And if you’re a bit like me, learning something new is fun and you’re always looking to learn more. Every day brings new opportunity to learn stuff and to go to bed just a bit wiser than when you got up this morning.

Cutting down time

Now we go back to success and failure. What is the difference? It’s time spent on trying to be successful. Nothing more then that! The more time you spend learning how to be successful the more you will learn how to be a failure. In time you’ll learn every single pitfall that is stopping you and you can easily navigate around them. Success!

You’re already and expert with life but I’m sure you want to be an expert in other things too. But here’s another hard truth for you: you only have so many “10,000 hours” in a lifetime to spend. Now if we apply the 80/20 principle that Tim Ferris made popular to that you can become  really really good at something in 2,000 hours. But we can cut that down even further. Learning the basics of something takes far less than that.

If you want only the barebone basics of programming in c++ for instance. That can be done in 160 hours or less. (That’s what my University expects at least, the course Programming 101 is “worth” 6 ECTS, and one ECTS is equivalent to 28 hours of investment). Like a lot of courses students somehow manage to complete the tasks and pass the exams while not investing nearly as much time as expected. Another cut in our hours to leave us with the final number: 100 hours for something as complex as computer programming. That’s 300 blocks of 20 minutes to learn the basics.

Basics

Becoming an expert isn’t all that hard, find a direction and head off into it. Keep going into that direction and you’ll soon be the expert. Teach others how to do the same and become rich. Doing it for them will be even more profitable. Conquering the basics in any field often is more than enough. Do you need to be able to dream html/css/xml to build a website? Of course not, look at this blog for instance. I have no experience with css or xml (yet) and very little html. But I’m running a blog, a successful one at that as well.

You can get a tune out of a guitar on just one string, or if you want something a bit more fancy, learn a power chord and you can slide that all over the neck. Add a distortion and you’ve got rock! 100 Hours of learning to play a guitar and you can join a rockband. That’s all it takes, and you’ll get better while in the band of course.

Ruling the world

Does every guitarist on stage have 10,000 hours spent? If they have now they sure didn’t when they started out in a band. Likewise a computer programmer is capable of producing good basic code within 100 hours. Ruling the world isn’t being an expert, it’s investing twenty minutes at a time learning something so every single day you go to bed wiser, better and smarter than when you got up that morning. Day in day out: keep learning and going to bed wiser and you will rule the world, twenty minutes at a time.

Do I look like I need help? Do I ?!

Writing a blog and better the world, provide you with great content that is going to leave a mark and changes lives. Just some of those ideals that bloggers strive for. Making a difference you know.

I’ve tried to help others with issues I though I had an answer to. Tried and failed I admit. For you see, there are a lot of people out there who do not want your advise. In the most extreme cases the only reason they won’t listen to you is because you’re younger than they are. I know, it’s strange sometimes, especially when you’re an adult deep into your twenties, a respected blogger or simply just know what you’re talking about. Age can be an issue, as can gender, religion, or perceived life experiences.

It’s a different matter when you’re acting out your profession, no patient of mine questioned what I told them when I was working as a therapist. Young and old alike, even the doctors would listen to me. Wonderful. But what if your blog is your profession? Or a patient won’t listen to what you have to say? Then what?

Frustrations

One of the biggest gumption traps out there is when you actually know what you’re talking about, you know what needs to be done to solve something. And people just don’t want to hear it. No matter what you do, they won’t have any part of it. You know people like this don’t you? It’s draining trying to reason with people like this. Actually, there is no reasoning with people who aren’t open to reason.

And so there comes a time when you just have to give in and give up. Yes, sometimes the only thing you can do is take your hands off of the whole matter and let someone live with what they think is right. Nothing you say will ever change their mind. Confronting them with the error of their ways will only make things worse. They don’t want to hear any of it and can become downright hostile. For a blogger this means you’ve lost a reader, for a therapist it means you have one less patient. For a human being, it means your ego got bruised.

Mind your own business! – Oscar Stephenson Trich

Ostrich Politics

I don’t recall ever seeing ostriches being involved in politics but if they would, their modus operandi would be sticking their head in the sand and refusing to view immovable facts as a practical, reasonable basis for further action. What can you do about this? Absolutely nothing and it gets under your skin if you let it. And so you won’t give up, you keep trying to convince others that you know what you’re talking about and can help them.

This is what we bloggers want to do, we want to offer our advice, our help to anyone and everyone. We know what we’re writing about, we’re at the top of our game and you should listen. But you don’t, you never listen. And we just don’t give up.

Who’s the ostrich, we bloggers who keep trying to have you flock to our personal cause, refusing to see that you don’t want our advice. Or you, refusing to get your head out of the sand and realising that we’re making a genuine effort to help because we know what’s good for you.

Back to real life

We should both face the facts, there are things that you don’t want help with and so there are things we should all just leave alone. On the other side of that coin, realise that you’re burying your head in the sand on some things and you really need to face the issues. Stop hiding, and I’ll stop badgering.

How many online resources can you name in one minute that talk about how to make money online? Getting rich quick schemes, membership sites giving you all the details, eBooks giving you pointers on things you actually already know. You already know it’s not that hard to make money online. But of course, the problem is that it takes a lot of work, and if there is something you don’t want to do it’s work hard for your cash right? You want an online income, and you want it yesterday.

And this is your lucky day! In this blogpost I’m going to explain to you exactly how you can do it.

It’s actually magic:

Describe exactly what you need

But of course, if you want something you’d better be sure what it is exactly that you want. It’s just like making a wish. You can’t be vague about it. Have a nice clear image in your mind about the goal you want to reach. Let’s say you want to be earning 1k a month by the end of summer. Imagine yourself checking your bank account and seeing all the money, imagine how it feels. Do your best to get rid of any vagueness. Keep track of the whole and of every single minute detail. Feel it, make it as real in your mind as you possibly can. This actually is essential to the whole process.

Do you have a clear image? Do you know what it is you desire? Wonderful, let’s go on with step two

Use exactly the right words

Now write down what it is you want. If you’ve read older blogposts of mine you’ll know it’s very hard to put to words what you’re thinking. But give it a go anyway. To help you a bit with how specific you need to be here’s a quick mind game: Imagine that the one granting the wish is an evil djinn who will do everything he can to distort your wish into something not so pleasant. Don’t wish what you’ll become 100. Be a bit more exact or you’ll have a beard before sundown. It might take you several pages to describe this, that’s alright obviously because then you’ll have something you could even show others to make your idea clearer to them. If you find that you forgot about some details, go back to step one and try again.

Now you have that piece of paper, an exact representation of what had in mind, put to paper. It’s on to step three

Perform exactly the right rituals

You want to earn money from your blog by selling an eBook or some other product? (Just guessing here) You know what to do don’t you? Select exactly the right niche, write a good product you know will be worth every dollar you charge for it, build your blog audience and make sure people know what you are all about. Build subscriber numbers, search engine traffic, use social media. Do all those things you’ve read bout hundreds of times by now. You know what the rituals are, and if not you can quite easily find everything online. You’re not alone in this obviously, there are thousands if not millions of others trying to do the same thing.

What do you say? That sounds like work? Absolutely not, it’s magic! Or you might call it religion. You go to a house or worship, light a candle or incense and pray to a certain saint to get something. Be sure to light the right incense and use the right words in prayer to the right saint. Get it? It’s magic. You invest some time to get something for -almost- nothing.

The alternative

You might be on to me by now, I sure hope so. You need to do things to get things, there is no such thing as the free lunch after all. But there is one alternative way to make your wondrous wish come true. There is? Yes there is. It’s the simplest way actually, I was saving the best for last:

Hire a wizard who can do it all for you, he’s a magic expert after all right? There is just one tiny draw back: it will cost you.

And now back to the real world. There is no such thing as magic, but there are wizards. They just aren’t the magical kind. These are the people who actually learned how to perform the rituals, who invested time (and money) into learning everything and went out and did it. They could have hired a wizard to do it for them but they wouldn’t be one themselves. Now they are “in the know” and offer there services to anyone willing to pay their steep prices. You can buy eBooks written by them where they teach you how to do what you can find online for free. It’s where they got it.

Because you don’t want to learn how to do it yourself, knowledge is money. Realise this, invest time into learning something other people want to have/know and sell it. You’re the wizard now.

“The only stupid question is the one not asked.”

A huge problem with internet I’ve talked about before is that if people perceive you as an expert you are an expert. On one side of the coin this means that you can quite easily become an expert in just about any field out there. All it takes is knowing a bit more about something than others. It gets even more fun in real life. On the other side we have the danger of being perceived as an expert without being one. I’ll get back to that a bit further down.

Computer experts

Just this afternoon I walked into one of the terminal rooms of my faculty (the rooms where they keep the computers), a fellow student was sitting there looking very hard at some statistics. With a quick comment on how he was looking at his screen sparked a chat that lasted well over an hour. Now I can bluff my way out of most statistics things and I nodded from time to time. Although I do understand what they were about, I can’t recreate them.

The subject changed to things like SSH. And that is where I had a realisation. I actually have no idea at all what it’s for. Yes, it’s a secure shell. But what is secure, and what is shell. At that very moment I could do two things:

1. Bluff my way out of it and hope nobody would notice. After all, I’m an IT student, a perceived computer expert.
2. Confess that I had no idea what he was talking about.

Stupid questions

I started firing questions, quite simply because I no longer really care about what others think. I had questions and I wanted answers. The guy I was talking to seemed to know what he was talking about so that was a good place to start. He might not be an expert, but to me he was because he knew a bit more than I did. I got an answer to just about every question. Answers I could build upon. He spent more than an hour of his time explaining things.

Two students in a computer related education, one computer science and one information science. They both should know those basic things right? You shouldn’t be studying in this field if you have no clue how to do the simplest of things with a computer.
And right there is where the problems begin. People don’t ask questions in shame of now knowing.

Don’t be stupid

Had I not asked what SSH was I still wouldn’t know right now. There are a lot of things in “geek culture” for instance that everybody knows. Or at least it looks like they do. A random “42″ somewhere is sure to cause a few laughs. There are tons more of those acronyms and terms. BSOD, /dev/null, IRC, coffee++, Dvorak, the list is endless.
Now I know that there are several students who have no idea what these things mean. I used to be one of those actually. There are several ways to tackle such problems, gabs in your knowledge. You could look things up, and I recommend wikipedia for that. The quality of knowledge there is actually quite good. But the simpler approach – much faster too – is to ask what someone means. Becoming a google jockey also helps.

Shame

“Ask someone about something I should know?! Are you insane!” Yes my sanity can be questionable but that’s beside the point. Take my talk this afternoon for instance. The guy I was talking to knows more than me obviously. But because I’m a student in the IT sector, look the part and am a geek it’s an immediate assumption that I know the things I ended up asking.

There you have the other side of the coin I talked about at the beginning of this blogpost. Just by looking like an expert people project their ideas on what an expert should know onto you. It’s hard to break through that at times. The first few times I asked questions people would look rather strange as if I was joking. But now comes the great thing about my faculty: if you ask questions, no matter how basic people do not laugh.Now I know that’s not the same for every crowd you’re going to be in. But does laughter about a question say something about the one asking the question, or the ones laughing.

It’s not shameful not to know something. It’s the perfect beginning to learn. If you do not confess that you do not know, how will you ever learn? There is no shame in not knowing, there is only shame in not admitting to it and staying stupid. You are not a failure if you do not know. Got that?

If you do not know you are NOT a failure (you’re a failure if you don’t ask..!)

Looking back

On March 13th 2009 I made my very first blogpost ever, starting the blog on a wordpress hosted domain. Right off the bat I can tell you that that was a mistake. I should have started on my own domain from the beginning. My old domain is still getting more traffic every day than where you are now. Over the year this blog has had several small and big changes made to it. Ranging from new layouts, inserting images and discovering some useful HTML features all the way up to getting a clearer focus on what this blog is about.

I started out blogging about “A little blog on beginning, it sounds so simple but it’s quite complex.” this changed to ” lifestyle design and personal development with a Zen twist” and now I finally got down to what really gets me going: “Thoughts from a Zen mind in a Western World”. My view on just about anything and everything in my daily life. At times confronting and perhaps even a bit extreme, but always honest.

All I knew was that I wanted to learn how to write and connect with people around the world. I was looking for affirmation that there were more like-minded people out there. Also, I wanted to learn more about the dynamics of online marketing and social media. To do that you need some sort of platform to promote obviously. So it became twofold: connecting with minds and learning how to market.

Right now

Looking around at other bloggers who started out at just about the same time as I did (Corbett Barr and Carl R. Nelson to name two) you might be tempted to say that this blog is a very slow grower and I must be doing something wrong with the marketing. That could well be the case, I like to think the main reason is that these two put so many hours in their blogmarketing that they deserve it. There is no secret way of doing this, it comes down to putting in the hours. (That, and I haven’t done any guestposts)

Looking around you might also conclude that I’m doing rather well. For the first time in the history of this blog the feedburner counter jumped the 200 mark. It took me 8 months to reach 100, and 4 months to go up to 20o. May I conclude that I will be at 300 subscribers in another 2 months? (and 400 one month later). That would bring me well over 1000 subscribers in the next year. 300 Subscribers is one of my goals for this year as you might recall and it looks very much within reach.

Another awesome thing happened to me this year of blogging. For the very first time in my personal history I actually earned money through without selling a physical object. Although I’m no where near my goal of the $500 a month goal I set seeing money being transferred into your paypal account from a sale is empowering, no matter the amount! It gives a sense of accomplishment. And thinking about one of my initial intentions to start blogging, I’ve marketed my blog effectively enough to earn a few dollars. The theory that you can earn money through blogging is now a fact to me. I can now honestly say I know.

Personal things

Learning how to write has had a significant impact on how I think and express my thoughts. Developing the skill to put to words what you are thinking is very powerful and if this was the only thing that blogging would have brought me I would be a very happy man. But of course there is more to blogging than just that. It also thought me how to stand up for what I think a bit more. I’m still trying to keep friends with everybody at times but there are moments when you can quite simply agree with me or be wrong!

I am a blogger and I am in it for the long haul. Personal experience and thought will never dry up and as long as that is there you’ll be reading about it here. Blogging taught me how to express myself, how to market a website and how to use social media to that end. Through blogging I’m very happy to have made friends all over the world, loyal readers and honest critics. Thank you!

Looking forward

We made it this far. So what’s next? Life and business are nowhere without a direction, a goal, a set of values. You can always come here and read about the world through my eyes, I will keep doing the best I can to offer you high-value content and meaningful blogposts to think about. Ruthless honesty and simplicity are my main values here and that is what you will get. My ultimate goal is to have this blog grow to well over 1000 subscribers, for however long that takes. Once there, nothing will actually change except the number of readers you can connect with to discuss my thoughts.

Are there other plans as well? Of course! I’m thinking about a few things: guestposting, a second blog, an eBook, learning CSS and HTML, more serious marketing to get my name out there as a blogger, the blogger on the subject of Zen thinking and the effects it has on life in terms of personal development, lifestyle design, minimalism, productivity and simplicity. You get the idea don’t you?

This first year was awesome! Thank you for your continued support. Hang on to your seat, it’s going to be a wild ride from here.

A small request

As a closing thought on this blogpost I’m going to ask you for your help. If you think this blog has added value to your life in any way, please spread the word. Backlink on your blog, tweet  and urge others to subscribe to my RSS feed.Thanks again, I would be nowhere without you.