I saw the video below that a friend posted this video on Facebook last night about challenges for millennials in the workplace. I think it says some important things that has caused me to think I need to work on some of my own behaviors. He talks about addiction to social media–on cell phones in particular and the dopamine high that is triggered. He talks about what a great disservice it was to tell children they were great when they were not great. He talks about the idea of delayed gratification that seems to be completely missing in an entire generation of young people. He talks about the increase in suicide and accidental drug overdose in that generation that is most probably a result of this. I think he is exactly right on all that. The video is truly a worth 15 minutes of your time.
It was kind of depressing though that in about the last third of the video he espouses the idea that the corporations need to take responsibility for fixing this. That is a completely different subject, but he is objectively wrong on that. The corporations might need to address the issues associated with this large problem because it prevents them from finding good, long term employees that facilitate them meeting achieving their purpose–to make money. Corporations should not be tasked with social engineering. They should, like government, achieve their purposes without meddling in peoples’ in areas where they are so patently unqualified. They really, really have competing interests with respect to what is good for individuals and that is not necessarily a bad thing. The individuals themselves, their families and, most importantly, God and their spiritual communities are the only ones who have the truly worthwhile answers to these kinds of challenges. Disinterested third parties whether they are government school teachers, coaches, bureaucrats, academics and even bad parents are the ones who trained them in this wrong thinking in the first place.
I have been wearing the Fitbit Kelly and Christian got for me for a present a couple of years back and my miles/steps are pretty good during the week. I kind of fall off the wagon a little on the weekends because of volunteer programming and church, but I am going to try to remedy that starting tomorrow. I have not been so great on the diet end of things–that self denial thing is not nearly as fun as getting outside and getting some fresh air. Still, I am down about ten pounds from my high and going the right direction. My buddy Lyle W. and I are competing a little with the steps thing over the Internet, so that is a good thing too.
We got a package in the mail the other day. It was a new skirt from Kelly for Lorena’s birthday. She wore it on Sunday to church. It is beautiful and we were thankful for both a beautiful skirt and a thoughtful daughter. Lorena has been running like crazy, but now has our apartment under control. We can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel now and hope to be settled into a long term home within the next few months. We have had a wrench thrown into our plans at this stage, several times, so we are not holding our breath. Still we have hope.
11.1 of 60
I am not sure how much I wrote about the struggle we were having getting to a close on the house we wanted to buy in Washington state, but just a few days before the funeral the whole deal fell through. What happened was that a lot of stuff showed up on the inspection that needed to be fixed. That was OK with us; there was nothing on the list that was not fixable for a very reasonable price. The house owner, a lawyer, decided he wanted to give us about a third of the money required to fix the problems, add a bunch of legalese to the contract and have us take it “as is” so we were saddled with all the issues. We decided to bail out.
9.8 of 60
Down 10.7 of 60
Down 7.4 of 60
If I can walk to work and back every day and also walk to the grocery store for lunch every day (I am doing that now), I will have put in four miles and reduced my gas bill. No down side to that.
Lorena, Kelly, Christian and I had time to spend together as a nuclear family while we were out in the Pacific Northwest for Grandpa Milo’s and Grandma Sarah’s funeral. We all agreed that in spite of all the hiccups that occurred (really bad weather, cancellation and change of venue at the last minute, etc.), it was the best service of its kind we ever attended. I am sure a lot of that has to do with the fact that it is our parents and grandparents who were the objects of the whole event, but that does not diminish the joy we experienced in celebrating their lives with dear, dear friends and family.
make more time for these kinds of getting together. We want to include our friends in that getting together, too. At these kinds of events it surely seems like all pettiness falls away. We will be contacting all the people who made all this possible over the next week or two to let them know how much they are appreciated.
It seemed appropriate to everyone that there should be at least a modicum of chaos surrounding Grandpa Milo’s and Grandma Sarah’s funeral. Sunday afternoon before the memorial service on Monday, Milwaukie High School called us to let us know that with only 19 hours notice, they decided to close the school and cancel our event. We briefly considered rescheduling because people had flown and drove in from all over the western U.S. Aunt Jean and Uncle Jerry came through with a beautiful venue in Oregon City, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Willamette Falls facility which turned out to be much more well suited for our purposes than the original venue: fabulous acoustics for congregational singing, a well tuned grand piano, a kitchen with an eating area for the potluck, easier parking, etc., etc., etc.
The weather is monumentally bad all over the Pacific Northwest. Kelly was scheduled to work in Oregon today for her job and just stay there after work today until the funeral. Lorena, Christian and I plan to fly to Seattle today, then drive down to Portland to start helping with all the upcoming events tomorrow. Since the weather did not cooperate and allow Kelly to go to Oregon yesterday, she will meet us in Seattle tonight and drive down to Portland with us. That is a very good thing. I will be nice to have a couple of meals and a night together as a family before we say good bye to Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah. Christian took the picture in this post through the window at his gate at the PHX airport with his new Google Pixel phone. To say the conditions were not optimal would be a wild understatement. So far the camera and optical system seem to be crazy good for a cell phone. I hope he remembered to pack his new Fuji camera, too.
do (which for him is a lot), but the main feature is that the phone is not so locked down you cannot do what you want. Christian says the phone is about the same size as our current Samsung Note 4’s and then he says the following:
Kelly got her first business cards today. She had some for her graduate degree, but it was just not the same. She has a very cool title, too! There is nothing like getting your new business cards when you get a new position.