The KIDS GIVE me HOPE !

Last week saw one of the worst school shootings in US history.
http://time.com/5158678/what-to-know-about-the-active-shooter-situation-at-florida-high-school/

 

The Victims

And like all previous tragedies, this followed the regular pattern. Major media coverage. Thoughts and Prayers. Partisan blame going around. The Democrats calling for Gun Controls. The Republicans claiming Guns had nothing to do with it, and the 2nd Amendment is sacrosanct.

And then came the Kids. Who showed way more maturity than the adults. Leading me to feel and tweet this.
"Watching the Florida Town Hall. The kids give me HOPE. The adults continue to disappoint. Ashamed to be an adult."

If you haven't already, you should watch the Town Hall. And decide for yourself. Its a little long. But, I do believe its a subject that is important enough to spend the time.

You should also read about the issue in a non partisan way. There are several great opinion pieces written by thoughtful people on all sides of the debate. Here are 2 examples.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/10/second-amendment-argument-united-states-constitution/

https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/16/opinions/second-amendment-debate-strum/index.html

To me the question we need to ask ourselves is this. "Every-time there's an incident that puts individual safety at risk, we do something about it. What makes this so different that not only are we unwilling to do anything, we refuse to even discuss it."

Introverts. We're not as bad as we think.

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking with a long time friend and we were chatting about everything. And nothing. The topic came around to social skills. And our interactions with people. And he hesitantly told me that I had some room for improvement in my social skills and interaction with people.

I had the usual knee jerk reaction to feedback. I disagreed. And even before I finished disagreeing, I knew that he was right. On social skills, my family and friends who are extremely kind to me, would rate me a -10 on a scale of 1 - 10.

On the opposite side of the spectrum to my being an extreme introvert is my beautiful wife. With her amazingly pleasing personality (her words, not mine), she is an extrovert and has the ability to talk to anyone, even unknown strangers. And I've always envied her ability. And wished I had a small fraction of it.

I've recognized this personality or rather lack of it, and tried to move on and stumble through social interaction as best as I can. And as luck would have it, I jumped when I came across a TED talk titled, "The power of introverts."

And while I'll continue to try and take small steps to learn and improve my social skills, its nice to know that our inability does have its benefits. For ourselves and for others. And while we are definitely not better off than extroverts, it seems like we are not less well off, either.

And if you're an introvert like me, check this out. And if you;re an extrovert unlike me, you need to check this out too.

The power of introverts | Susan Cain

Eureka! I'm not Lazy. Just an "Original Thinker"

One of my favorite activities is Procrastination. And I just found that "Procrastination is a virtue and leads to Creative Thinkers."

I knew it. I wasn't just lazy. And finally, I can procrastinate and not feel guilty about it.

And all of my fellow procrastinators, sit back, relax and enjoy, as what we thought is our failing is actually a virtue.

Are we becoming irrational ?

While looking at our decision making, I kept finding that most of us were misjudging probability of events or assuming impossibility of events. Even though we had been proven wrong time and time again.

I wondered if this was a new phenomenon. And found that it's not. It's always been there, and it was I who only now realized that it seems to be part of a human folly.

Charles Munger, Vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway gave this speech on Human Misjudgement in 1995.

You can see a "...an abridged and animated version of that speech."
The Psychology of Human Misjudgement

or
You can see the full original speech
The Psychology of Human Misjudgement - Charlie Munger Full Speech