The Ten Evils (Part Five)

This was originally one exceptionally long post. I chose to split it into five pieces for readability purposes. I’ll post a segment each day this week.

As mentioned previously, I was recently leafing through a book at the library discussing Japanese martial arts (I believe it was Budo Secrets) when I came upon a sidebar that listed the ten evils that prevent people from improving themselves.

As I read through the list, I couldn’t help but see how each of these evils – or character flaws, as I would perhaps describe them – have held me back in my finances, my career, and my life in different ways.

While thinking about these ten terms, I consulted a dictionary and spent some time reflecting on how each of these has held me back – and can hold you back, too.

(I decided to highlight these evils with some wonderful Creative Commons photographs that illustrate each of these traps.)

Here are the final two evils from that list. You can check out the first pair of evils, the second pair of evils, the third pair of evils, and the fourth pair of evils as well.

Red Light Camera Fine $324: Welcome to the Police State, by Alex Proimos

Contempt
The feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something as inferior, base, or worthless.

An alarming portion of society today seems to run on a concept of contempt for anything that’s different than themselves. Politics is filled with Republicans full of contempt for Democrats and vice versa. Visit the comment section of any popular site and you see tons of contempt for the writer of the article, the subject at hand, and often other commenters in that particularly useless combination of contempt mixed with anonymity.

Of course, there’s a reason that these cultural elements known so much for their contempt-filled behavior are seen with disdain by so many. Contempt is a deep and negative character flaw that drives people away. It only attracts the small sliver of people who happen to agree with you.

Even worse, contempt tends to drive further contempt. Once you consider it acceptable to view one person or group or item with contempt, it becomes ever easier to view another person or group or item or idea with contempt. And so it continues.

Contempt blinds you to the worth in the people, things, places, and ideas you have contempt for. Nothing is perfect, but if a flaw in one trait brings along contempt for the entire package, then you are only limiting yourself by discarding something (or a set of things) that has great value.

In opposition to contempt is respect. Respect does not mean belief that something is perfect. It merely means that you believe that something has value, flaws and all. Respect means holding back your negativity when it serves no real purpose. Respect means building relationships where both people have value rather than one person having contempt for the other.

You can build a respectful nature by holding back on your negative statements, even when they’re protected by a cloud of anonymity. Every negative statement you make breaks down the wall between the emotions in your head and the words and actions you take in the presence of others, even if anonymous. It fuels further negative emotions and makes it even easier to view others as contemptible and treat them in that fashion.

Instead, look for the positive value in everything you see. Snarkiness has almost no value. Neither does disrespect. They both seek solely to de-value things. Take the opposite approach and look for the value in things. How can this thing make your life better? How can it improve the lives of others that I know – or even others that I don’t know?

Go even further and relate the positive value in the things that you see. When people are talking about something, point out the positives, not the negatives. There are plenty of people out there that relish in the negatives and delight in seeing them. Look at things differently and find value in them.

Someday I’ll have a named chair in the Humanities division,by Quinn Dombrowski

Conceit
Overly high self-esteem; vain pride.

Conceited people aren’t enjoyable to be around. Their high opinion of themselves makes it difficult to converse and to interact in any sort of equal way. They wear their achievements as a badge and often stretch those achievements to an incomprehensible level. You know how good they are because they tell you how good they are.

Not only that, conceited folk often have a miscalculated view of their own abilities. They’ll lead people into a situation while being underprepared for it, as their conceit tells them that they’re ready. They’ll turn down genuine offers of help that could put them in a better place because their vain pride makes them turn it away.

Conceit makes people who are without work not go to the food pantry. Conceit makes CEOs make incredibly poor decisions against the advice of the people around them. Conceit makes people in the office believe they can pretty much engage in whatever behavior they so choose.

In each case, conceit eventually makes those you rely on turn against you and can also make your overall life situation far worse. Being proud beyond reason eventually results in a crash – and it’s one that is often painful and difficult to recover from.

The opposite of conceit is humility. Humility means that, regardless of your internal sense of self-worth, you interact with the world with a sense of modesty and respect for the value of others. When others tell you things, you listen to what they say and try to incorporate it into what you know rather than finding ways to blow them off and prove them wrong. When you interact with others, they come first, not you.

Humility can be practiced quite easily. If you achieve something, don’t bring it up to everyone you know. If it’s worthwhile enough, they’ll hear about it from other sources. It’s fine to discuss your achievements if others bring them up, but if they don’t, keep quiet. Eventually, your reputation will precede you, which is far better than your mouth preceding your reputation.

Along those same lines, minimize your achievements when you discuss them. Don’t try to make them seem large. Instead, try to make them seem small with your words. Other people will draw their own conclusions about the merit of your achievements without you having to tell them about it.

Never forget that people are far more impressed by your actions than by your words describing those actions. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Let your actions define who you are, not your re-telling or bragging about those actions.

View the original article here

The Ten Evils (Part Three)

This was originally one exceptionally long post. I chose to split it into five pieces for readability purposes. I’ll post a segment each day this week.

As mentioned previously, I was recently leafing through a book at the library discussing Japanese martial arts (I believe it was Budo Secrets) when I came upon a sidebar that listed the ten evils that prevent people from improving themselves.

As I read through the list, I couldn’t help but see how each of these evils – or character flaws, as I would perhaps describe them – have held me back in my finances, my career, and my life in different ways.

While thinking about these ten terms, I consulted a dictionary and spent some time reflecting on how each of these has held me back – and can hold you back, too.

(I decided to highlight these evils with some wonderful Creative Commons photographs that illustrate each of these traps.)

Here are the fifth and sixth evils from that list. You can check out the first two evils and the second two evils as well.

Dangerous Risk Adrenaline Suicide by Fear of Falling, by epSos

Fear
A strong, uncontrollable, unpleasant emotion caused by actual or perceived danger or threat.

All of us experience fear at some point. We’re afraid of illness. We’re afraid of losing our jobs. We’re afraid of losing the things we hold dear in our life. We experience phobias – one of mine is a fear of heights that’s almost paralyzing.

Fear drives us to make mistakes. We walk away from things we should be addressing. We become obsessed with things that should be trivial. We avoid situations that might provide great value to us.

It was my fear of the possible economic consequences of pursuing a degree in English lit that kept me away from writing for a decade and a half. It was my fear of losing my soon-to-be wife that caused me to turn down several job offers during my last year of college, more than one of which would have been quite intriguing. It was my fear of looking like a “loser” that kept me spending money and falling into debt during my early adulthood.

Fear drove me in every instance. Fear drove me away from my potential. It pushed me from what I could be into something much smaller.

In opposition to fear is bravery. This doesn’t mean the lack of fear, but merely control over it. It’s an understanding that great things are accomplished at times if fear is overcome and it’s also an understanding that some events in life simply cannot be controlled, so fearing them is a useless emotion.

Bravery means following your passions. It means not choosing your college major due to expected income, but due to what you’re most passionate about and excited about. It means choosing the lower-paying job because of the opportunities and the upside.

Bravery means not doing what everyone else is doing. It means living frugally. It means rejecting crass consumerism. It means not lusting after the same material objects that others lust after. It means defining your own goals and chasing them, even if they’re much different than everyone else. It means having your own hobbies and interests, regardless of what those around you think is “cool.”

Bravery means being your own person and taking on what you fear. Doing that brings happiness and a fuller life. Doing that consistently eventually brings respect from those around you.

Doubt, by Shahram Sharif

Doubt
To lack confidence in; to disbelieve, question, or suspect.

We don’t believe that we’re good enough to handle the task at hand, so we make an alternate choice that leads us down a sadder road. We hesitate – and in that moment of hesitation, our chance is lost.

Doubt leads us to second-guess our choices and to dwell on past mistakes instead of merely learning from our errors (and successes) and moving forward into a bright future. Doubt leads to a sense of failure, one that’s hard to escape from.

A hint of doubt is good, as it tells us that we can always sharpen our skills. More than a taste, however, and we convince ourselves that we’re not up to the task.

Opposing doubt is confidence. Not overconfidence, mind you. Overconfidence results in making impossible claims, acting arrogant, taking on unrealistic situations, and often failing to back up your statements. Overconfidence means looking like a buffoon and letting other people down.

Confidence, on the other hand, simply means that you’re certain of the truth of everything that you say and that, when you’ve chosen a course or path, you’re certain that it’s the best path. Hand in hand with having confidence is having reasons to back up your belief, while overconfidence means that you don’t have reasons to back up your belief and doubt means that you don’t take on a belief even in the face of reason.

I feel constant slight doubt about my writing, yet I keep writing. That’s confidence trumping doubt. That’s confidence using doubt as a push to keep improving, but not as enough of a hindrance to stop moving forward.

How can you build confidence? You build confidence by doing instead of avoiding. Try new things, particularly challenging ones. Tell youself that you can do this and do it.

If you fail, don’t dwell on the failure. Instead, look for what you did wrong (and the multitude of things you did right), pick yourself up, and try it again using what you learned. Keep the things you did right and try a different approach with the things you did wrong.

The more you try, the more you’ll succeed. The more you succeed, the more doubt will melt away from your heart.

View the original article here