Get What You Want

I have come to realize something in my short life spanning a mere three decades...   Getting what we want out of life is much harder than we ever thought as naive children with big ideas, hopes, and dreams.

While it may be infinitely more challenging than I ever thought possible, achieving what I want it is much less complicated than I ever realized.

There are a million "self-help" gurus on the circuit, each trying to sell you their version of what they think is the "secret" to life.  I've watched "The Secret."  I've listened to the likes of Tony Robbins...

I'm sure they've helped some people.  I'm also very sure they've "helped" those people lighten the weight of their wallets as well...  Some people do genuinely care about helping others achieve their goals, however, nothing comes without a price.

I think it's all bullshit.  Quite literally.  They want you to believe that they have all of these "secrets" that they have to share with you and that the information they have is so powerful, that they simply must charge you for it. 

There are really two key things you need to get what you want in life.  They are so simple that we want to believe that they can't possibly be true.  They are also so very hard to actually execute, that we want to believe that there must be an easier way.  After all, who doesn't want something for nothing?  Or at least minimal effort?

The first thing you need to get what you want out of life, is a clear understanding of what you want.  How can you get what you want if you don't even know what it is?  Definitively identify exactly what you want so that you can start to work towards those goals. 

So many people have vague goals like, "getting rich" or "famous."  Those are not goals.  They are the by-product of some other goal, such as being an actor, singer, writer, radio host, etc.  You have to identify what you want, so that you have the ability to go after it.

After you have identified what you want, there is one very important last ingredient that you simply must have... Desire.  Not just any desire.  You have to want it more than anyone else in the world.  The people that are successful, didn't get there by living stagnant, effortless lives.  They busted their tails and did whatever they had to do to get where they are.

If you want something bad enough, and want it more than anyone else, you are going to do whatever you need to do to get it.  A lot of people say "I want this more than anything," but they don't really mean it.  If they did, they would have made the sacrifices necessary to get what they wanted. 

If you have a goal, a dream, a wish, you can make it a reality.  You just need to know what it is that you want, and you have to want it more than anyone.

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They're All Liars

I just read an interesting article on MSN Money. They brought up a study which shows that Americans cannot do simple math. It was conducted by the department of labor and told us that only 42% of American adults surveyed could add the cost of two items on a menu (one cost 60 cents and the other cost $1.95) and then figure a 10% tip.

That is outrageous to me. 42% of people could not add those two numbers together and factor in a tip? All it takes is to move the decimal place for 10%! I hate math as much as the next person, but I did not have trouble figuring that out. Did you?

I didn’t get to see the actual study, so I don’t know where the sample of people came from, but it’s not that hard to skew a study to show statistics that back up your cause. However, I think they might be onto something in this case. I don’t think the problem is so black and white as this study suggests. I really think that the issue lies with companies out to swindle us out of our money.

The problem with capitalism is that it really leaves no moral boundaries when it comes to money. You either have it or you don’t. The people that do have it, have the power and the ones that don’t, don’t. It’s really that simple. That means that there really isn’t any wiggle room when it comes to mercy in the marketplace. Companies are going to do anything they can to trick you out of your money.

We’ve seen the personification of this as used car salesmen in movies and on television, but the fact of the matter is that every sales person is a used car salesman. There are just varying degrees of sociopathic behavior on their part. Salesmen are out to get your money at all costs. Advertising is meant to drive you to buy whatever product they are selling. Companies don’t care whether or not you need it or can even afford it. They only care that you buy.

We may think that used car salesmen are the only ones out to lie and cheat us out of our money, but sharks like this are lurking around every corner. They’re in our grocery stores, department stores, clothing stores, outlet malls, restaurants, convenience stores, our attorney’s offices, our shrink’s offices, credit card companies, gas stations, governments, mortgage companies, and banks. It’s like the Matrix: “They are everywhere and they are nowhere.”

Most of the time we can’t see the people stealing our money and we have no idea that it’s happening. We generally believe that people are good and we too easily give out our trust. “Not me,” is what you’re saying to yourself right now. The fact is that you can say that because you don’t even really know how many people have their hands in your pockets right now. Are you sure you got every deduction last year on your tax return? How do you know that you got the lowest interest rate on your card, car, house or general loan? You don’t really, but they do. They’re taking it all the way to the bank.

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The End of elovelesson.com

I have been thinking about this for some time. I published some articles for online magazines on relationships and break-ups. I then published even more articles and it suddenly hit me that instead of promoting other people’s websites by driving in traffic with my articles, I should be promoting myself on my own website. So that’s exactly what I did.

That’s how elovelesson.com was born.

I soon realized that building and maintaining a website is a full time job in itself. I continued to work on my projects and even wrote a couple of eBooks with moderate success. Unfortunately, this success took me down other paths and I began to find myself stretched too thin. I continued to do some freelance work for other websites while building other websites and blogs. I soon found myself overwhelmed and ended up not doing anything for awhile. This of course, is the worst thing you can do.

Not updating your website is the kiss of death. I soon saw my regular site traffic dwindle and fade away into nothing. I still get a few hits a day, but nothing compared to what I did. I had a newsletter that I sent out regularly, and then stopped. It became too much work and too overwhelming to keep everything going.

After the freelance work that I did, I thought that having a website/blog where I could showcase all of my work, not just that on relationships would be the best way to go. I felt like I needed a place that would accommodate a wide variety of subjects and reflect the diversity in my writing ability. Having a website dedicated to relationships was great, but it was only showing one piece of the puzzle. I wanted to display the entire thing.

So that’s when I started maynardblack.net, “The Maynard Black Confidential.” I wanted to have an online archive of all different types of writing that I could do. This was a fantastic idea, unfortunately it came at the cost of neglecting elovelesson.

So I have merged my two blogs, and will probably set fire to elovelesson.com altogether at some point in the near future. It’s just too narrow of a focus for me, that I have a hard time imagining myself continuing to be engaged in that subject matter for a long period of time. I would like to broaden my focus and write some eBooks on other subjects that I have a lot of experience in.

I apologize to the fans of elovelesson. However, it’s not really going away. I will continue to blog about relationship issues, and am still very open to readers questions and offering advice. The archives are still here if anyone cares to read them. My eBooks, of course, will still be offered for sale.

Thanks to the dedicated readers that I had in the past. I greatly appreciate your visits and questions!

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Over-inflated Markets

I was just reading an email someone sent me about the new credit card laws going into effect. Well, there’s nothing that will get me riled up more than economic or political issues.

However, this email got me worked up about something different than you might think… The email talks about what impact the new laws and what they will do to protect consumers. It then goes into what the unintended impacts will be on consumers. One of which discusses how it will be difficult for adults under 21 to build credit. This will either force them to get an older adult to co-sign or they will have higher interest rates on their first car or home loan.

What bothers me about that statement is that we have just come to expect that we should have to take out a loan to buy a car or a house. It has become an expected part of growing up that you must take out a loan. You must build up your credit. Why? So that lending companies will lend you more money. So why do we have to borrow so much money? Because houses and cars have become so over-inflated in price that we now have to borrow the money in order to purchase them.

Look at the price of automobiles and real estate 50-75 years ago in proportion to what the average income was back then. Then compare that to the prices of them now compared to the average yearly salary. It doesn’t add up.

1950-
House: $8,450
Average income: $3,216
Ford car: $1295-$2262

Today houses in my state cost around 300-400k for a small place with a couple of bedrooms. A couple years ago, those same places would have went from 400-500k. The housing market has dropped, but not enough in my opinion. Who decided that buying property should be so expensive that you can never buy it outright? Who decided that automobiles should be so expensive that you have to take out a loan to purchase them? There was a time in our country when land was free.

This is capitalism at its finest. We don’t seem to realize that the same system that gives us the freedom to do what we want is also the same system holding us down. Most of us will never make it to the economic upper crust because the system needs the majority of the people at the bottom in order for it to work. A pyramid needs a large supporting base in order to have the pointed top.

The people at the top benefit by keeping the people at the bottom in debt with the bulk of their income flowing to lending companies in a steady stream. What better way to do that than to make the necessities of life so expensive that they have to borrow your money to buy it from you. Then not only do you get what you are charging for it, but you make a huge profit off of the interest as well. We end up paying ten times what the actual price of the property was.

We laugh at movies like The Matrix that proposes the notion that we will one day be “batteries” for robots to use our energy to sustain their life. In reality, we are not that far from that status now. We are the batteries that sustain the life of our large corporations. People like Ted Turner and Bill Gates have watched their wallets grow fat off of the working poor. We all want to believe that we could be the next one of them, but the reality is that it’s economically impossible.

Every “Bill Gates” requires millions of workers and consumers to support him. The rich get rich off the backs of the poor and less fortunate. That’s the ugly side to capitalism that we don’t wish to see and regularly ignore.

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A Day in the Life of Corporate Greed

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about these evil corporations that we all work for in order to survive. They really have us by the “balls” don’t they?

It’s easy to dismiss the idea by merely thinking, “Well, I could always go get a new job.” While that may be true, who exactly are you going to go work for? Yet another corporation. How many mom and pop businesses do you see anymore?

Even the ones that you do find are franchised outlets of some greater corporation. You can’t go to your mechanic at the local garage anymore. More than likely they’re franchised or affiliated with Napa or some other auto parts corporation.

Everywhere you turn, there are wolves in sheep’s clothing. There’s a Starbucks on the corner that you visit for your morning coffee. For breakfast, you swing through McDonald’s for a McGriddle or a Grand Slam Breakfast at the local Denny’s. This of course, after you’ve taken your vitamin made and processed on corporate machinery. Then you head off to work for your corporation and complain about the hours, the people, or the company’s health plan. For lunch you can’t decide if you should have Panda Express, Chipotle, or a $5 sandwich from Subway. On the way home you stop at your local grocer, which really isn’t local at all. You have the option of Safeway, Fred Meyer, or Albertson’s. You may need some clothes or lawn furniture and in order to make only one stop, you head to a Super Walmart instead. At the store you buy clothes made by people (probably children) working for yet another large corporation in some 3rd world country. The garden gnome you also purchased was made in a different country still and run by another large corporation. The meat you bought was processed by another giant corporation that mass produces and massively abuses farm animals in the name of profit margin.

Local farmers barely exist anymore because they can’t compete with the quantity or price of corporate farms, whom also have the backing of their shipping partners and paid brand advertising telling everyone that they are the best. Grocery store shelves are lined with corporate greed and clever marketing right down to every last color and font style on the packaging. After flushing your money back to the very corporations you despise, you have to stop and get more gas from a large oil corporation that cost the lives of thousands of sea creatures in that last spill. A company whose exploitations knows no boundaries or limitations. What choice do you have? You have to have gas in order to drive to Starbucks, McDonald’s, the greedy corporation you work for, Super Walmart, the gas station, and home, of course. The same home that you own, or rather, the bank owns (another large corporation) and you owe large amounts to money to which requires you to get the corporate gas to get you to your corporate job and buy your corporate food. Not to mention that it’s the same bank (corporation) that actually owns the corporate made car that you drive as well, which you still have two years before you pay off. Maybe you should call the bank on your corporate made and serviced cell phone to see if that payment went through!

Gone are the days where we all mastered a trade and bartered the goods that we need through hard work and talent. We no longer grow our own food in gardens or raise our own livestock on land we own without the need or mortgage companies. Our lives are run and controlled by corporate greed.

How do we end the vicious cycle?

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