Post: #1

Quote:Pat was driving, and as we passed the turnoff for a shopping center she invited us to picture a four-burner stove.

“Gas or electric?” Hugh asked, and she said that it didn’t matter.

This was not a real stove but a symbolic one, used to prove a point at a management seminar she’d once attended. “One burner represents your family, one is your friends, the third is your health, and the fourth is your work.” The gist, she said, was that in order to be successful you have to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you have to cut off two.

Pat has her own business, a good one that’s allowing her to retire at fifty-five. She owns three houses, and two cars, but, even without the stuff, she seems like a genuinely happy person. And that alone constitutes success.

I asked which two burners she had cut off, and she said that the first to go had been family. After that, she switched off her health. “How about you?”

I thought for a moment, and said that I’d cut off my friends. “It’s nothing to be proud of, but after meeting Hugh I quit making an effort.”

“And what else?” she asked.

“Health, I guess.”

Hugh’s answer was work.

“And?”

“Just work,” he said.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/...ct_sedaris

Post: #2

Big fan of David Sedaris!

But a little confused by the story. Is this Hugh's way of saying he doesn't give a shit about success?

Post: #3

I think tv and internet could easily take up more time than family or friends for most people.

If you cut out tv and internet time wasting, you can work, be healthy, and be social to a degree that most people think is insane. Just because they spend hours and hours a week on their ass wasting time.

Of course, I would much rather cut off work and be good with my family friends and healthy

Post: #4

Health is the most important thing. I pity the fool who sacrifices it for anything else. You just cannot feel good if your health sucks.

Family is the second most important thing if you understand this term correctly. Most modern people have brainwashed to view family as the narrow "nuclear family" of two (or even worse - one) parents and children, therefore they see family more as a liability then an asset. . But the real family is something much more wider, its a network of all your uncles, aunts, cousins, in-laws and so on. In cultures not raped by Individualism a wide family is the greatest asset one can have in his life. See movies like Godfather for illustration to this. Family is power of people and governments know this and try to strip people of power by promoting individualism, feminism, multiculturalism and homosexuality.

Friends take the third place, but it varies. Friends on average will never be as trustworthy as your family so they come after family, that is if you have any family. If you don't have a wide well connected traditional family with its values and traditions, if you are just a poor bastard of a single slutty welfare mom then you should try to obtain good friends and should put friends above family.

Work? What is meant by work? A job? A carer? You can live really well without these. This is not required for well being at all and is counterproductive to well being more then not. Or does this "work"" also include personal business, work to raise independent income, work for the benefit of your family, work in building you home, work in training you body, work for purposes of self-expression? If so then work is the most important thing in the world. Work is either the most important thing or the least important depends on what is meant by it.

Post: #5

I agree with TV and internet 'browsing'. Turning off the TV and facebook got me back about 3 hours in a day.

(05-26-2013 12:24 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  I think tv and internet could easily take up more time than family or friends for most people.

If you cut out tv and internet time wasting, you can work, be healthy, and be social to a degree that most people think is insane. Just because they spend hours and hours a week on their ass wasting time.

Of course, I would much rather cut off work and be good with my family friends and healthy

Post: #6

I want to adjust this analogy. Where does love come in the picture? For a young girl, family is not going to include a boyfriend.

If I were to use this routine, excellent one by the way, I would say that the burners are family/friends, love, health and work.

Post: #7

back in college, we used to say "Sleep/Social Life/Good Grades -> you could only do 2 well at most"

i find that the way to "hack" these kinds of models is to develop a strong social system that allows other people to help you in your weak areas while you focus on your urgent/strong ones.

At one point, I was getting 90%+ of my hookups through just a single friend/roommate, a promoter who is well-known in the party circuit. it let me focus on my own work while enjoying the benefits of his labor. so when he came asking if i could help him launch his own business, i happily obliged. you literally take the free-market economic model and apply it to your life, focusing on your comparative advantages relative to the people in your circle. outsource your weak areas or areas that force you to sacrifice too much/distracts you from your important ones. use your strengths to help friends with their weaknesses.

I'm not saying money isn't important, but when all is said and done, it's the strength of your social circle that has the biggest impact on your general welfare. invest wisely and it can pay off in dividends too valuable to be priced.

Post: #8

Reminds me of this:

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” - Jim Rohn.