Large Corporations

A couple weeks back, my boss was giving me a ride home in his car (because I don't drive), and we started to talk about big companies. He then mentioned to me how proportionally, large corporations do amazingly worse. If you imagine the amount of employees that work for Walmart put together, and all their buildings, assets, management, etc., and then you think about how large your local grocery store is, there shouldn't even be a chance for the local stores. This is so amazing because not only do the small companies stay in business, they can actually compete with large corporations!

- I must note that I use the term CEO (Chief Executive Officer) loosely. The intended meaning of the term in my context is the highest person in a company.

I did a lot of thought behind this anomaly, and then realized what is wrong with corporations. That is their organazation. As seen in the chart below, each member of the company that isn't labor or a CEO has to deal with two different aspects of their job, their employees, as well as their bosses. Between the difficulty of the two, the dealing with the employees must be less to ensure a positive revenue.












Also, if you look at the small company below, you can see how the management has a lot more time to make decisions about their employees, because the CEO has to deal with only a few different managers, therefore getting more experience with these people, and possibly gaining experience with the labor too. This link brings the CEO's down to earth with their company by far, which brings up efficiency with their corporate decisions.

Large corporations try to deal with this by adding performance reports, which supposedly bring more information up the ladder. But in fact, it just implements more work for everyone, because there is no possible way for the CEO to read all of these and clearly comprehend what's going on.

Which brings me to my point about how small companies have so much more proportional power, which is derived from the abundance of information. Employees get to know about what is going on in the top of the company and vice versa.

But then one may say "Gogleion! You're so silly! If this system is inefficient, why do CEO's make big companies?!" Well, the answer is simple: money. CEO's of large companies make far more money than ones of small companies, which is why they choose to follow this. Because of this, it also chooses the greediest CEO's for large companies, while the more modest and hard-working CEO's stay with small companies.

Driving

Today, I was supposed to go down to get my drivers permit. But after further reading, I realized that I am ineligible because of the fact that I haven't had an official driving course, which is quite annoying, especially since the permit test is a written test. Although I do believe in setting people up for success, this approach sets up a small group of people up for success; therefore, the rest are set up for failure.

Instead, it might be better we only provided resources to the people that take an active part in learning to drive, instead of those just skating by to get their license. That will help put more responsible drivers on the road, as well as put people that need to be on the road driving.

Going kind of back to my previous post about measurements, the state shouldn't say that when you're 15 years, 6 months old that you will become an instantly safe driver. Because any person can be a good or bad driver, and age is an inaccurate measurement of that.

To solve this, the state should give the drivers license test to anyone, regardless of age or previous driving experience (of course we still should have things like vision tests and background checks), because if a person is a plenty good driver, does it matter their age or driving experience? I don't really see why we should hold these drivers back and other drivers with less skill be on the road with more qualification.

How to Make the World Better

Well, while I'm on a roll here, I've been thinking of some things that we should all have more of. Of course there are all counterparts of things that we really need less of. Make sure that when you read the list, make note of the things that you do right too, because then you can see how to make the world around us better.

-More hugs, less drugs.
-More family room, less bedroom.
-More understanding, less violence.
-More designing, less pirating.
-More chess, less video games.
-More doors, less locks.
-More photography, less pornography.
-More friendships, less boundaries.
-More culture, less racism.
-More moments, less possessions.
-More love, less hate.
-More welcoming, less bitter.
-More suggestions, less arguments.
-More forgiveness, less grudges.
-More smiles, less apathy.
-More truth, less lies.
-More empathy, less pickup lines.
-More hikes, less television.
-More contribution, less vandalism.
-More discussion, less arrogance.
-More information, less celebrities.
-More appreciation, less taking things for granted.
-More radio, less iPod.
-More ethics, less profit.
-More cooperation, less greediness.
-More team, less I.
-More genres, less repeat-song.
-More abstinence, less sex.
-More trust, less secrets.
-More hanging out, less MySpace.
-More phone calls, less texting.
-More today, less procrastination.

Every one of us has at least a handful of these things on the list that we're already doing, at that's great, because everything on the less side makes us feel 'better' about ourselves, and I've been in both places and I'd have to say that the more column is by far true happiness. You want to be happier right now? Try the less side. You want to be happy for a long time, make friends and be seen as a good person? Try the more.

Yay! I'm back!

Hello, I haven't posted in a while, and that's my fault. I guess that I was confused about a lot of things, and the worst part is that I didn't even think that I was confused. As John Locke from LOST said "Insane people think that they're becoming sane", and I realize how that applies here.

But I'm glad that I went through this phase, it helped me realize when there is a problem in my life. We can't all learn the easy way, and sometimes it just is better to learn from bad experiences, it is what makes us appreciate the better moments more.

Hopefully, some of you are interested in what actually happened. For the most part, it was my just plain crappy attitude. It all started when this year, a lot of good things started happening. I got a job, I made the top band in the state, I made Varsity tennis, I got worlds better at programming, and a lot of things just worked out. And its these things that get us off the most, because we can draw conclusions from this that lead us to think things that aren't true.

When these good things happen, there is an overwhelming feeling of "I did something well," which makes us feel good, and is great for optimism, but we can focus too much on the "I" part than the "something well". And that can lead to arrogance.

Arrogance is an interesting thing because a lot of the time, you can be arrogant about something that you did that deserves credit. And we can get stuck on this, and when people mention your arrogance, you can just think to yourself that you have the right to be arrogant, which belongs to nobody. Its just something that we can all be so much better about.

And wow, what a great life everyone has today. This sounds so cliche, but its true. It is so true. We have so much to experience, so many people to meet, people to love, people to forgive, people to thank, people to help, that it makes every part about our lives just great.

And we can all take something from this. Arrogance is such an awful thing to have going around, because it feeds itself. Instead we need to be optimistic about ourselves and appreciative instead of pessimistic and expectant. Because that's what makes people truly happy; it makes people around us happy.

I just hope that everyone can see how we can see less of ourselves and see our friends, the ones that have stayed with us, the people that forgive us, the people that put up with you every day of your life, the people that are so great for us to have in our lives, and to never see ourselves above any of these people, because there is so much more to our lives than just us. So much more.

Short Story

Today I've got an interesting story and a moral. All of this is true.

My parents have always gotten mad at me for not trying my best at school. I get mad at them for getting mad at me and punishing me too much. They get mad at me for arguing back. I get mad at them for that. Its a really bad cycle that I've been in for quite some time. Today, they got mad at me for my grades. I never was too disappointed in my performance, but I was disappointed in the fact that every time that we have this talk, I get in trouble and lose a privilege. And that's the cycle.

Since my post on optimism and pointing out the good things, I got angry once more with my parents, because they only were pointing out the bad things about my grades. They would talk about one bad grade that I had, despite all of my other 'A's. Why couldn't they give me the slightest bit of positive feedback?

I found myself at a loss in that conversation and I realized that I've always been the kid that's really smart but never really cared about his grades. I skated by through all of my classes with okay grades. And then I thought, "Why not be the kid that's really smart and gets really good grades?" After that I realized that I should just do both. Although I never liked homework, after doing my studies today, and all of my homework, that I would usually lack to do, I felt good.

If that isn't enough of a philosophical breakthrough for me, as I was studying my spelling for Friday's test, my sister came in my room. I never really liked my sister all too much. She always seemed like she said a whole novel about every good thing good that you did. She continued to praise how I manage a job and schoolwork, and do quite well on all of my tests. But then I thought something really important that I think we can all learn from.

You can always find positive feedback, you just have to open up and listen for it.

Optimism

Have you ever had a moment when you've said "Wow, I'm really unlucky... think of the odds of THAT happening."? I used to have a lot of those moments. After a lot of thinking, I realized that there are so many things that go right in your favor that you only notice the bad things. Think: You turned on a computer to read this, and the computer worked fine, your internet is up, you logged in okay, there was electricity to power the computer, you aren't blind, you are well enough to get up and get online. But if any of these events weren't in your favor, a lot of people would have said "What are the odds?". Of all of the thousands of things that happened in your favor, the odds are pretty low most of the time.

There are so many things that we just don't notice that when we say "What are the odds?" we don't really mean it, but we bring ourselves down when we say it. Whenever you say that, you realize that your life is really unlucky. The odds of whatever event happened bad, are pretty low. But that's all people notice usually. If you're a optimist, then you'll avoid this and not bring yourself down.

Going off of this, if you've ever called someone an optimist and they said "I'm just being a realist", chances are they're just noticing the bad things, and not paying attention to the good things that happen. One could argue that optimists would only notice the good things. But that's impossible. We are hard-wired to notice bad events. All optimists notice these bad events, but then realize about all of the good things in their favor. So the optimist is actually being the realist and the pessimist is just making it worse for himself/herself and usually everyone around them.

Pessimism can also hide in questions that you ask yourself. When people get angry, they ask themselves "Why can't I do this?" The answers to that questions are all negative and none will help, they're all just excuses. You tell yourself "I can't do this because I'm sick", when you're not really sick, and then you can't focus on the things you can do to get better. Then you don't get better because you don't know to work on. You don't know what to work on because you don't get better and ask yourself these questions. Then you read my blog. Then you ask yourself positive questions like "What can I work on to get better?" and "What would be a better way of doing this?". You get better. You ask more positive questions, and the cycle repeats in a good way.

I could go on listing all of the strategies for avoiding being pessimistic and being optimistic, but its easy to know what optimism feels like once we do things that are optimistic, and you don't need to have me type until my fingers fall off or start bleeding (I've always wondered if you can type until your fingers bleed).

Have a great day! And don't type too much : P

Smiling

Have you ever seen someone that you think "Man, that person is really grouchy" or "Wow, that person is always happy"? Or maybe you see a trend that people call you "grouchy" even if it is joking? A big difference in people's opinion about you is how often you smile. It seems like a weird, far-fetched fact, but it actually works!

I used to never smile, because there were too many things not to smile about. If the weather sucked, or I got a bad grade on a test that day, or if I was late to class, or I had a lot of homework, those would all be excuses not to smile. But then someone told me "Those things just don't care" and at first I thought that it was just a weird old piece of Zen philosophy, and disregarded it. But then one day, I was walking to class and realized what it really meant.

What that means that the test doesn't care or your homework doesn't care is that no matter what, if you're smiling or frowning, or not doing any facial expression, the homework is still the same. The test is still the same. You're still late to class. But the people around you do care. If they see you smiling even through tough times they'll think "Wow, that person is really resilient", and maybe they'll try smiling. And before you know it, the people around you will be happier and so will you.

So now that you've learned how smiling is good for you, you get to learn how to smile. All over again. I see in a lot of people that they smile and its just too forced. Or it just looks not right. So heres how to make a smile that's really genuine and real.

So smile right now! Smile really big! Okay now that you're smiling (and keep smiling while you're reading this) make sure that your mouth is relaxed and not tense. Does it feel like your cheeks are being pulled up? Your mouth should be relaxed and your cheeks should feel relaxed as if they are standing on your smile.

Try smiling while talking about any happy or light-hearted topic. If you smile during sad conversations, make sure that you do it while you say something optimistic, but don't ever smile too much while someone is talking about something bad, it can really scare someone away.

So go out there. Smile. Be happy. And try something new.