It has been a rough week

The past week has been rough. The days have been alternating intense pain and extreme sleepiness. The nights have been mostly not sleeping but so tired I can't do anything.

Sometime during the week (I am not sure exactly when) a young paintballer in Serbia killed himself. I don't know the details but I gather he had been homeless and staying with various friends and relatives for over a year, then his fiance left him. He was a happy, energetic, outgoing kind of guy trapped in a mess. There are lots of people like him in the world, all trying to live a decent life and trapped by circumstance in bad times and bad locations. And there is nothing I could have done to make it better even if I had known he existed before his death was posted on a paintball forum I read.

I like to help people. It depresses me to see so many people who need help. Some have created their own situations but others are in bad situations through no fault of their own. It is those people who deserve help but there are literally millions of them. There is no way I could help them all. Heck, there is no way I could even meet them all.

Life isn't perfect. It is often painful and traumatic. But I have hope that someday society will grow to the point where we can help others. Or better yet prevent the conditions that cause people pain.

Being on time

I am very time oriented when I work. I used to do fixed price contracts and you had to know how long things took to do that. One of the things people don't seem to understand is that if you want to be somewhere on time you have to leave on time. If a meeting runs late it pretty much guarantees you will be late for the next meeting, which may in turn make that meeting run late. If everybody showed up on time and used the meeting time effectively the meeting would end on time. Simple, but lots of people don't seem to get it.

Courage

I have met a lot of people who are lacking in courage. Courage to say no, courage to say what they mean, courage to stand up for what they believe in. It is discouraging to see this but I think is our societies fault. We raise children to do what they are told and not disobey adults. We reward uniformity and discourage independent thought. We need to encourage people to think for themselves and act on what they believe in.

Life

I hate it when people lie to me or put off telling me something because they don't have the courage to say something. It is very annoying. Just tell me the truth. Tell it to me nicely if you think it will hurt my feelings but just tell it to me. Lies and half truths only make things worse.

Cows go moo

I have been busy at work lately so haven't posted much. Which I suppose is okay since only a couple of people actually read this, but I really should try to keep it up. I did have some good ideas for posts but they are gone, I was too busy at work to record them and now they have wandered off and gotten lost. I hope they are okay and haven't been killed by cars or are living as crack addicts in some cheap flop house in the inner city. Poor sad lost ideas. I would pray for them if I believed in that sort of thing. I wonder if all prayers go to heaven or if some wander off and get lost. Poor sad lost prayers. I would pray for them if I didn't think it would just perpetuate the cycle.

I cannot believe how hung up people are on looks

It is amazing how many people make important decisions based on looks along. What is even more amazing is that some of them know they are doing it and try to justify their decisions. It is mind boggling.

I have been working in software development for over 30 years and not once has a computer program run incorrectly because of the way I look. And yet people making hiring decisions are influenced by appearance.

I have worked with or spoken to a bunch of men and women who are unhappy with the people in their lives, yet they chose those people primarily on appearance. And when they go to find a new person they also chose by appearance.

Of course not everybody uses appearance as the primary criteria but lots do. It is amazing.

Communication

Communication is one of those problems that I can't seem to solve, and as a dedicated problem solver that really annoys me. I have worked hard to improve my communication skills, yet the ability to communicate clearly keeps eluding me. I know one of my problems is that I don't explain enough and while I recognize the problem I keep making the same mistake over and over. But there are other problems that I just can't identify. It is very frustrating.

Anybody have any solutions?