When scrolling through some articles over at Jugglezine, I came across this 2001 article by Sally Abrahms called Working it out. It states some great examples of people who’ve found a better life/work balance so they could spend more time with their family. It also provides some advice of how to get a better life/work balance by for instance changing your career.
But what’s missing here and missing in more articles I’ve read on the issue is a very simple thing: money. Sure there are huge benefits to be had by spending more time with family or loved ones, but working less hours means less pay. And that’s okay when you’re living on your own and still can save some money on the side, but what if you’re the sole provider for your family of two and your spouse and you can just make ends meet? A paycut will not seem like the best idea.
Not only that, it seems that (and I can only talk about that from personal experience) when you get more free time and thus having more time to do fun stuff your spending habits go up. If you have time to go out with your kids and you increase your visits with them to petting zoos or the movie theatre, you’ll spend more money. So with increased free time there’s also an increased demand for funds.
Getting a good life/work balance is important. It’s true that you need to work to live and not the other way around. But in most articles only the benefits are given and although mentioned, the drawbacks aren’t given the attention they deserve. When looking for life/work balance a person should look at his situation realistically and not just be pulled in by the benefits.
A few years after the Russian Revolution, the leaders of Russia wanted to show the world their superiority. In order to do that they ordered several architects to design buildings that showed the skill and creativity of communist society. And inspired by the buildings of ancient Rome, the architects came up with some stunning designs. However due to various reasons (world war 2, lack of money) some of these projects never saw the light of day.
It’s interesting to note that it seems that whenever leaders want to show of the significance of their country or leadership, they do it by building huge buildings. The sad part is that this mostly seems to be the case with a totalitarian governments. The before mentioned Romans, but also Hitler’s Third Reich vision consisted of monumental buildings, celebrating Nazi ingenuity. Not to say that others in democratic governed countries haven’t been building beautiful structures, but totalitarians have a tendency to show the outside world that everything in the their country is going well by creating a facade of beauty and grandeur.
So beware when a leader of your country starts suggesting building monuments in his honor…
Original link by BoingBoing
Most commercials are boring. And granted, there’s only so much you can do with a new and improved washing powder or mortgages with lower interest percentages. But some commercials are funny enough to make the increasing amount of commercial breaks seem bearable. The greatest and funniest commercials are honored each year by the Clio awards. And although not agreeing with all the choices (that Nike ad is plain annoying) there are some real gems in there.
The biggest winner this year was Honda with their “Dreams” campaign, consisting of the commercials “Impossible Dream” (accompanied by the Andy Williams song) and “Choir”.
Other winners included Guinness “Noitulove”, Adidas “Hello Tommorrow” (directed by Spike Jonze, who also directed the Gap commercial blogged about here) and Sony’s “Balls”.
Original link by Ted Blog
Sometimes having nothing to do can be a pain. Sometimes it’s heaven. And it’s more difficult than you might think. At least according to the writers at WikiHow. They’ve published a list on How to Do Nothing. Who knew that in order to do nothing you had to plan ahead!
What you might do when one of those times come up is learn how to Exercise an Open Mind. It might be more beneficial to you in the long run.
