Break it down now... (2 day entry)

So I've broken my issues down a bit. For starters, the joe issue is really 2 issues. The first one is about the relationship in general and whether I'm ready for it. The second one is about money. I need to make a decision on the first question before I can move on to the second.

My job is another issue. I go back and forth about how I feel about my job. Sometimes I'm really happy while other times, I'm pissed and stressed. For this issue, its really about the money and how quickly I can make more. We're about to do a $250,000 deal and yet I don't feel like my cut will really be that much. To make as much as I could start at with another job would probably take me well over a year.

... (continued the next day) ...

So I don't know what to do about that (the job). And these are the things I need to think about and make decisions about. Which bring me to a Warrior of the Light quote:

"The Warrior of the Light is terrified when making imporant decisions. 'This is too much for you,' says a friend. 'Go on, be brave,' says another. And so his doubts grow. After some days of anxiety, he withdraws to the corner of his tent where he usually sits to meditate and pray. He sees himself in the future. He sees the people who will benefit or be harmed by his attitude. He does not want to cause pointless suffering, but nor does he want to abondon the path.

The Warrior of the Light allows the decision to reveal itself. If he has to say 'yes', he will say it bravely. If he has to say 'no', he will say it without a trace of cowardice."

After talking with Ben Leibig, I have also come to like some poems about love and marriage in a book called "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran. One phrase in particular caught my attention when it was discussing relationships:

"Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow"

I think this would be good advice to follow with joe and for him to understand as well. I think I'll recommend he read that poem.

I also found a list of 11 rule about life that Bill Gates supposedly tried to teach a graduating High School class through a speech:

RULE 1
Life is not fair - get used to it.

RULE 2
The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world
will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel
good about yourself.

RULE 3
You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out
of high school. You won't be a vice president with
car phone, until you earn both.

RULE 4
If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a
boss. He doesn't have tenure.

RULE 5
Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your
grandparents had a different word for burger flipping
they
called it Opportunity.

RULE 6
If you mess up,it's not your parents' fault, so don't
whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

RULE 7
Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as
they are now. They got that way from paying your bills,
cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about
how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest
from the parasites of your parent's generation, try
delousing the closet in your own room.


RULE 8
Your school may have done away with winners and losers,
but life has not. In some schools they have abolished
failing grades and they'll give you as many times as
you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the
slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

RULE 9
Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get
summers off and very few employers are interested in
helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

RULE 10
Television is NOT real life. In real life people
actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

RULE 11
Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for
one.


I'm going to make an effor with things again. Dave (from Citadel... my current company) made a point today which stuck in my head. He suggested that everyday that I give my all builds up my own personal integrety and allows me to feel good knowing that I am doing the best that I can. I am going to start trying to do this and looking for patterns and methods of performing at the best of my abilities.

Anyway, that's all for now.


Daniel Delphin, CCNP, MCSE

So the truth is... I'm lost!

So here I am, once again I'm lost in life. I don't feel stable in any way. Maybe I'm overthinking thing a bit but I just don't feel happy with my current life or where its going. I feel like I don't have any plan in place for my future and success... or if there is a plan, I can't see it. Someone told me that I should let this happen... live without a plan for a while and let myself gel and the right path with come. This was suggested rather than scrambling to try to immediately try to correct the imbalance be throwing myself hard in the opposite direction as I've done in the past.

I'm back together with Joe and we're moving in. I honestly don't know that I feel good about this choice. We haven't really been getting along that well but I feel that to tell him I'm not ready after I made all these promises to get him back would surely end the relationship, something that I don't want. To make matters worse, when he move's in, I have to pay for everything. He's gonna stop working completely. I am NOT comfortable with this, but its either that or live in the Bronx or the upper westside. I don't think I want to nor do I think I can afford a $2500 apartment. I feel like that's a lot of money to ask me to spend and I don't feel its an equal share (even if he does provide the debt of his student loans). I want to be happy, but I feel he's going to put restrictions on my life, and if I ever tell him how I feel, he'l surely respond with, "Well that's not what you said when you asked me back." I'm trapped in this manner. I do love him, but I'm not ready for this with him yet. I'm sure he'll end up reading this.. And if you are Joe, don't get mad. Please try to be understanding. I just don't know how to handle it correctly.

Around the same time as moving in with joe, I'm going to lose my health insurance from my father, and my big student loans will start coming due (yet another reason I'm afraid of lack of money). On top of that...

Had to stop last night cause my BB died.

Eitherway I think the end of that message was, "I'm unhappy with my job".

Will continue later.
Daniel Delphin, CCNP, MCSE

If at first you don't succeed, you'll have to actually try!

Once again everything is different... My job, my relationship status, my friends... but I think I'll just get to each in its own time instead of just saying it all out here.

I'm currently reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and there are some interesting ideas presented in the story. I thought I'd post a quote that I like:

"If you start out promising what you don't have yet, you'll lose your desire to work toward getting it"

- Wise old man

To me, this quote makes me think about times that I have new business ideas. I tell many people about them and about how much money I'll make and how successful I'll be, but then it never ends up happening. I often times don't even begin the process of working on the idea so there's no outcome one way or the other. It seems as if internally, I am so afraid of failing in others eyes and my own that I'd rather not try (and be able to say that I didn't) then have to deal with the possibility of truly failing. The more people that I tell, the more of a build up that I have against my actually working on the idea because I've increased the number of people I'll fail in front of.

I've recently realized that it is better to try and fail than to not try at all. If I try at something, there is a chance that it'll succeed and even if it doesn't, I'll have learned something in the process. If I never try, than there's no chance of succeeding.

One of my other issues, even once I get past the point of making the decision to try is how to choose what ideas to truly go after and what ideas of not worth any time. Also, along the same lines, how do I know when to give up on an idea? Should this be something that I set before I start or should I just play it by ear? This is a very difficult question for me and I suppose it is really part of a broader issue of mine... I'm afraid to make mistakes. I don't care about stupid little mistakes, but the big ones... the life altering ones. I dread those. Often, I'm so afraid to make a decision one way or the other that I'll just not make one and whatever is the "no action" decision wins out and I can once again put a disclaimer up that it what happened wasn't my fault if it goes badly.

I need to take more control of my life. I need to make mistakes on a path that I've chosen so I can learn from them. I need to fail so I can succeed.

Another passage that I liked from the book was the following:

" 'What's the world's greatest lie?', the boy asked, completely surprised. 'It's this: that at some certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie.'"

I was read another book a little while ago that said something similar. It was something like...

"Most people let life carry them like a river, allowing it to take them wherever it wants them to go. These are the people that believe in fate, and blame things on life when things that they want don't happen for them. These people will never succeed."

I used to believe that I was definitely not one of those people but as I look at things more and more, I see that I am. It is, however, a good thing because the first step to fixing a problem is realizing that you have one... and that is what I've done today.