How can I find the time?

But with all the stuff I have to do, how can I possibly find the time to work on all four quadrants?

You can find the time to do something on your goals in all four quadrants, every day. It might be no more than five minutes for some of them, but you can do something in each quadrant, every day. Every day, tell your friends and family and significant others that you care about them. Every day — just a small note will do. Every day, work on your studies, or on increasing your employment prospects. Every day, do something for your health, maybe as small as a five minute morning stretch, or some very light yoga. Every day, do a small meditation / breathing session / centering routine.

If you do have the time, you can of course do much more extensive work — a full workout session, a full evening out with friends or family, independent reading of a book about your eventual line of work, etc. If you manage your time well, you can accomplish a great deal.

But you can also accomplish much with just the minimum of five minutes in each quadrant. Work towards improvement at a rate of 1% per week. This week, commit to doing 1% better in each quadrant this week than you did last week. This week, become 1% healthier, 1% more loving, 1% further on your career path, etc. And next week, another 1%. It seems like a small effort, but keep at it — those 1%s add up!

☺



Peace,

Dave Roel.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

- Leon C. Megginson

Almost There

We're ending the semester and my first semester here could not be better. I love the campus, the people and all the new knowledge I'm learning. I got to sing in a choir for the first time, learned how to write a standard college essay, and was introduced to a great deal of new music.

I hope everybody isn't stressing too much about finals or studying for them. I've developed a strategy for balancing my study time with class. It can be a little difficult, but you do what you have to in order to make it work. I usually study in the library in between classes where it wouldn't be worth it to go home. I get a lot of work done this way because sometimes I have over two hours in between.

Other than the library there is many different alternatives. Sometimes I like to sit in the grass outside the campus and get my work done there. I feel like being in the outdoors helps me get my work done faster. Sometimes I will go to the park across the street from campus and study there. One great thing about Fullerton College is all the great areas they have to study, hang out, and various other activities.

My registration date is on Thursday and I have to come up with something in order to get it done. My registration date and time is the exact same time that my math class starts. My teacher is strict about electronic devices and I don't like bringing my laptop to school for obvious reasons. I have to come up with something like finding all the classes I need and have someone do it for me.

Liam
Stay Fly

'Tis the Season

Pointing out the irony of the fact that Thanksgiving and Black Friday occur consecutively has certainly been beaten to death, but the irony is increasingly striking to me as more people actually, literally DIE on Black Friday as a result of the shopping frenzies.

(Of course, when people do point this out, they often fail to mention that Thanksgiving did not go down quite the way most history bookssay it did, but the general sentiment of the holiday still stands.)

Wal-Marts in particular seem to host a pretty substantial amount of fatalities-- every year since I can remember, somebody-- usually a worker-- has died at Wal-Mart during Black Friday. For which I'm sure there are all kinds of explanations, but most stores, at minimum, experience a shockingly rude flurry of customers who treat the retail workers with even more contempt and disregard than usual. And they think it's excusable, or expected, or justified by virtue of the fact that the employees are paid to handle them.

My roommate recently started working at Old Navy, and she considers this past Black Friday to be the worst experience she's ever had. Which says a lot. But I can hardly blame her-- she was barely paid minimum wage to spend at least eight hours attempting to assist customers who screamed demands at her, or deliberately made a mess of the store in front of her with the assumption that she would clean up after them, or, on one occasion, physically tried to pull store equipment out of her hands because she apparently hadn't gotten the customer's clothes quickly enough.

That said, this kind of behavior isn't limited to Black Fridays, but it's certainly more frequent. And egregious.

Considering the literal mobs.

But I think it should make people appreciate service workers even just a little bit more, especially since they're so undervalued despite doing the work nobody else wants to do for barely a living wage.

Something to think about.

Stay classy,

Caitlin.

Adding levels to the quadrants

We know that everything progresses developmentally. The progression of development can be broken down into identifiable stages, or levels. There are hundreds of developmental systems in the world, of course. Let's see if we can apply some useful developmental models to our four quadrants of health, career, relationships and self/shadow.

For the progression of physical fitness, I use Steve Barnes's Four Dimensional Performance Pyramid.

For the progression of career, I use William Torbert and Susanne Cook-Greuter's Developmental Action Inquiry.

For the progression of relationships, I use Knapp's Relationship Development Model.

For the progression of the self, I use Jane Loevinger's Stages of Ego Development.

With the addition of levels, we have added a useful dimension to our map, the stage progression of each quadrant — mind, body, spirit and self. ☺

Peace,

Dave Roel.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

- Carl Jung