Josh Allred's Blog

Making a choice that benefits someone else, perhaps someone not even born, that is against our nature.

The default setting isn’t to think about ourselves. Of course, it wasn’t always this way. We can find examples in the Bible or in the marines. The emphasis then is to lose oneself for something greater than ourelves. And this is how we create zealots as well.

It seems to me there needs to be a balance we need to strike. The ability to lose oneself when we hit the limits of “me.” At the same time, be able to switch to something where the self cannot exist.

Because when we are alone, we are lonely. And when we are together, we are stong.

This rule of thumb was coined by technology journalist Ian Betteridge: “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”

It’s the assertion that if the writer were confident in the answer, they would write a statement instead.

Confidence, however, isn’t decided until after a piece is written. While starting a venture with confidence would be nice, it isn’t a prerequisite for most things.

In our culture, the answer is often to look within —to soul-search.

This is also a product of individualism, not that there is anything inherently wrong with it.

There are alternatives. The most obvious is to build one’s own identity. There is also a path to kill it.

When we identify with something bigger than ourselves, the self is no longer important.

This is also rather extreme. But perhaps the middle path is a switch of some sort, a duality.

Sometimes, writing every day can be daunting.

Then again, when I think about the millions of words written, what’s a few more?

Adding something to a large body of work is much easier than starting a whole new venture.

Sometimes, time can heal wounds. The question really should be, how much?

Too much time says we are who we are. Too little isn’t enough to gain new experiences and insights to turn into wisdom.

The answer is likely longer than you expect but shorter than the feeling of “forever.”

Falkner said something of this nature.

It’s important to remember that sometimes things fail—not because you didn’t care enough, but because some things are just out of our control.

In our digital world, it’s easy to find another convenient option.

Don’t like this restaurant, you can try another.

When someone gets stuck in the snow and asks for help, it’s tempting to say, “Call a tow truck.” After all, there is another option for someone to help that isn’t me.

Convenience trains us to look for ourselves and not ask for help. Worse, it sneakily teaches us to make problems someone else’s.

You may regret the decisions you have made because of unfavorable outcomes.

It also needs to be pointed out that making decisions should be celebrated despite the outcomes.

Making decisions is hard. Regret is a side effect for someone who takes control of their life and believes they can change it.

The start of the calendar is an invisible starting line. To motivate ourselves to fix what’s broken, to change what can be changed, to do what must be done.

But we cannot see a real starting line. We create it out convenience to start the next leg of the race. We can use the calendar to flip the script, but finding another reason to begin again each day is just as effective.

Use it if it’s helpful, but more importantly, use it again when it stops working the first time.

There are intentional mistakes. And, of course, on the other end, unintentional. The curious thing is how often we claim unintentional consequences.

Car accidents happen all the time, unfortunately fatal ones. But the difference is that we don’t believe they’ll happen to us.

We believe we are the exception to the rule, that somehow we will escape death. Intentional is starting with the facts.