Author: cbarney.45

A “don’t” list of traits…

I think a lot about the traits I admire most – integrity, work ethic, respect, and positivity are just a few. But recently, I thought of the traits that “trigger” me the most. Not surprisingly, they are mostly opposites of what I look for.

For example, if someone is not honest or if they only tell half truths to mislead/deceive people, I immediately feel that I can’t trust them. How do I know they won’t cover up the actual truth just to look good? Or that they won’t tell me something so they can gain/profit from it?

When I see lazy people (employed or not), I don’t want to associate with them. Whether they are lazy when it comes to their work habits, taking care of themselves, etc…I often find that it carries over into other parts of their lives too.

When I see people who are consistently rude, I don’t want to associate with them. Often times they say it’s sarcasm or that they’re telling it like it is, but I feel that’s just an excuse. There’s usually a better way to get your point across.

And when I see people who are always negative, often they’ll call them realists. But what you think, your life will become. It’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. You’re not even giving yourself a chance if you’re not optimistic/positive. A lot of people will think you’re crazy if you have high goals and high expectations. I think that maybe they just set the bar too low and settle for mediocrity.

What’s on your list of traits to avoid?

Helicopter and lawnmower parents – STOP! You’re hurting your children!

Life is like a fight. In the beginning, we’re wearing one of those fat sumo suits where if we make a mistake or get knocked on our butt, it won’t hurt much.

As we progress through life, we slowly start increasing in levels of difficulty, risk, and pain. The mistakes we make run the risk of being more consequential to our lives. So after the sumo suit, maybe we are wearing headgear, training gloves, kneepads, etc. And when we get into junior high or high school, maybe we’re just wearing boxing gear. By the time we graduate college, we are now preparing for a world of bareknuckle boxing.

There will always be difficulties in life, but for the parents who try to clear a path and not let their kids ever fall or get hurt, they are actually doing them a disservice. Because when their kids get out into the real world and have to face other bareknuckle boxers, but they haven’t made it past their sumo suit training, they are going to be in a world of pain and not know what to do with it.

We need to build up our pain tolerance (and our children’s pain tolerance) by failing early and failing often. Life is not meant to be all rainbows and butterflies. We’re not only going to have sunny days. We need to encounter the dark days and know that we’ll make it through. It will help us overcome the challenges that inevitably come with living.

Think about that when you’re parenting. It sucks to watch your kid experience any sort of pain, whether that’s physical or emotional. But your job as a parent isn’t to make sure they never experience pain, it’s to make sure that they know how to respond to it and come back stronger.

Telling the truth

One rule that I live by is to tell the truth as often as possible. I’ve told the truth even when it was in my best interest not to. The reason I do it is three-fold…

First, I tell the truth because it’s the right thing to do. To me, it just doesn’t sit right in my soul to lie to someone else, especially for something important. I’ve told “white lies” many times before, but they usually make me want to come out and say what I really mean. Every time I lie, the other person may not know, but I do. And I don’t want that to chip away at my integrity and how I view myself. To lie because it’s easy is a coward’s way out.

Second, I tell the truth because the truth is likely to come out anyways and I want to maintain my integrity in the eyes of others. Part of the first reason I tell the truth is to maintain how I view myself, but as much as I specifically don’t care how random people view me, I do want people to generally view me as someone who is honest. If I keep telling lies and it turns out that the other person found out I lied, I begin to lose credibility. It takes a lot more effort to regain their trust once you’ve lost it.

Third, I tell the truth because it takes less energy to do so. Have you ever been caught in a web of lies? You have to keep fabricating a story for it to “make sense.” Then, when retelling the story, you have to try to stay consistent with what you’ve already said. How can you keep track of it all when it’s all made up? It takes less energy to just tell the truth. If there are consequences, so be it. Get those out of the way. Apologize if necessary. But I’d rather rip the band-aid off by telling the truth rather than prolong the story (and have the anxiety of wondering when you’re going to get caught/be found out).

The truth hurts sometimes. It sucks. But I’d rather know the truth and do something about it than be told a lie and think everything was ok. If you feel the same way, why would you treat anyone else so poorly by lying to them?

Two important factors for success

In my mind, there are two prerequisites for success: hard work and resilience. If you have those two qualities, you can succeed in nearly anything in life. Obviously there can be limiting factors defined by your physical or mental capacity, but many things can be trained/taught to at least get you to an above average level. You just need to have the proper mindset going into the activity.