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December 30, 2006
Hangover From New Year's Eve May Carry Extra Meaning
The eve of the New Year is a traditional time to look back upon the past twelve months and reflect upon what you have done and upon what was done to you. If you were like many people one year ago, you may have spent a portion of New Year’s Eve and New Years day, genuflecting over a toilet bowl, exercising your demons.
The thing I want to ask you is that, if you do any genuflecting this year, you look closely at cause and effect. Hangovers are good for that.
People often fail to see connections between their behavior (the cause) and the results of their behavior (the effect). Oftentimes, people simply don’t connect these things together. They don’t see the link: but these links most certainly do exist. And the hangover is the most vivid example, because when we drink, we drink not with reservation and caution but with reckless abandon.
The common Hangover comes in many other forms, metaphorically speaking. The Drink-Then-Puke type which we are all so familiar with is only one example, but it is such a visceral example of cause and effect that it is a perfect illustration for my purposes today. I get a little kick out people — myself included — who do something silly (which, I might add, they have done before) and become confused about the results.
“Why did I drink that?” [Barf!]
“Because — you silly! — you forgot about cause and effect.”
Hangovers are created by various other forms of cause-and-effect: one good one is the credit card binge hangover, which comes when the mailman delivers the bill around the twentieth of January. This is when you metaphorically begin puking your guts out, retching, heaving, and generally suffering.
“Why did I buy that?” [Credit Card Debt!]
“Because — you silly! — you forgot about cause and effect.”
There is a definite connection there between excessive drinking and excessive credit card buying. They are both binge-oriented, and they both are facilitated by society at large. By this, I mean that there are many bars to drink in, and there are many stores to buy in. So, I’m asking you to be a little bit more wary of sacrificing long-term benefits for short-term gains.
Last year, I wrote about how New Year’s Resolutions can be intellectually re-framed as opportunities to percieve our difficulties more clearly in such a way that we might dissolve them. And this year, I ask that you take on an air of self-reflection if you find yourself puking over your toilet bowl or your checkbook. Happy New Year!
Posted by Rob at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)
December 24, 2006
When the wind blows
When the wind blows, hoist all the sail that you can!
Posted by Rob at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)
December 23, 2006
Food for thought
Are you building an empire, or a funeral pyre?
Posted by Rob at 08:48 AM | Comments (0)