"I proclaim to my own self: "Count your years and you'll be ashamed of wanting and working for exactly the same things as you wanted when you were a boy. …Look around for some enduring good instead. And nothing answers this description except what the spirit discovers for itself within itself. A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness. Even if some obstacle to this comes on the scene, its appearance is only to be compared to that of clouds which drift in front of the sun without ever defeating its light."

"There's a lot of work remaining to be done, and if you want to be successful you must devote all your waking hours and all your efforts to the task personally"

These two quotes are very strong quotes from Seneca that can be placed towards our everyday living and on our search for our vocational call. The first quote in my opinion, deals with our personal maturation. When we search for jobs we should look into something that is rather enduring job wise and personality wise. The second quote emphasizes the effort we must place on things we want to achieve but also including the personal effort involved.

My overall career choices would be the same regardless of my lifespan. If i lived to see 80 that would just provide me with more time to achieve my goals. If i only lived to 40, that would only make me cram my goals in a sense. Now if everyone lifespan was reduced to 40 or 50, than education would more than likely be pushed earlier and harder. This could possibly result most completing undergraduate school by 18. I personally believe if you have certain goals you wish to achieve you must do whatever to obtain it regardless of your lifespan. You have to strive to fullfil your goal because tomorrow is not guaranteed.

The video above, Daniel Pink talks about the basis/science of motivation. Pinks insist the typical reward and punishment approach of motivation does not work for our generation but rather harm us. Rewards have a tendency to narrow our focus, concentrate the mind. That's why they work in many basic reward cases. He also reiterates the right brain capabilites because left brain jobs are being constantly outsourced to other countries. Reward and punishment approach tends to destroy personal creativity. Pink informs us that the key to motivation is not based on rewrds nor punishments but rather more the drive within us on things that really matter. I have to agree with Pink on this. Our motivation should thrive on things that matters to us and not based on rewards because we perform poorer.

Bad Designs

Who loves cars? I do but one thing I would hate would be to spend a couple of million on a car and only for it to be shattered in complete pieces.


The Ferrari is commonly a two seater sports and luxury vehicle with speeds that are capable of topping about 300 mph. The car can go from o-62mph in about 4 seconds. The cost of the different versions of Ferrari range from $150,000 to $500,000 or more depending on location.


Heres the wonderful car destroyed in a car accident.
Ferrari may be great in the speed of the cars and luxurious designs but their cars fail heavily in the safety department/ For the money you pay for this car, I would expect for the car to not be split in two .

One thing I absolutely hate is touching trash cans. One invention that was invented to prevent people from touching trash cans has became relative useless.

THe step pedal trash cans are nice for decoration but suck in quality. You are better off purchasing a rubbermaid trashcan with more space for trash and less money coming out of your pocket. From my own personal experience, these trash cans break easily and the lid eventually stops lifting up when you step on the pedal.

Good Design

Diversion Safes:

You see this coke liter

to the average eye you would only think its a bottle of coca-cola. In reality it is a safe spot.

Diversion safes like these come in many different forms and sizes of popular home products we use every day. The safes are used for a variety of reasons depending on your personal choices. I always felt it was unique how they create each item to weigh like the actual item.

CELL PHONES

Cell phones is one of the top inventions of technology. Many of us, like myself, can not live without our cell phones. Years ago, we did not have phones and over time we upgraded to house phones. The increase of times, led for the demand of more communication which led to beepers and cell phones.

When choosing schools, what do we truly look for? Many students look more into the social atmosphere than analyzing actual benefits the school may provide to them as whole. Most schools, when deciding which students to pick they look at their left brain aptitudes or abilities, such as grades, SAT scores and other tests. On the other hand, R-directed people are more intune with the non-logic approach in a sense.

In elementary, I will admit most of my training as a child was very L-directed. They would always tell us to keep your grades up and score high on test and you will be successful. As many future students apply for schools now, schools are starting to look more at your community skills or other R-directed skills. In all honesty, as much as hated the rigurous education when i first entered Mercer, I can say now that it pays off for the best. Mercer is relatively easy to get in but its hard to stay. Most other schools professors tend to pacify you with information, but with Mercer professors you have to anaylze the depth of the information to truly understand the material.

The abuse of welfare

This week we offered a plan to end welfare as we know it—a plan that will encourage personality and help strengthen our families through tougher child support, more education and training, and an absolute requirement to go to work after a period of time.” -Bill Clinton, radio address, 6/18/94




Friedman touches on the concept of good fat and bad fat in his book. Good fat is considered to be programs such a s social security. Examples of bad fat is welfare. TOday many people are abusing the system of welfare and are encouraging people to work less or not at all in some sense.

So i decided to talk about the abuse of welfare in our country. Initially welfare was initiated by President Roosevelt as a system that would helped financially challenged families or individuals.Eligibility is determined using gross and net income, size of the family, and any crisis situation such as medical emergencies, pregnancy, homelessness or unemployment. Previos research done on the abuse of welfare showed people tended to provide solely on welfare because the check was more than a regular minimum wage check.

IN order to reduce, the abuse of welfare, many rules and regulations needs to be enforced and implemented. For example, people should be required to look for jobs and have copies of their bills and their gross monthly income sent to welfare offices. Also the amount of children should also be reported accurately and not falsely. One of my biggest peeves with people on the welfare system, is parents use the govermnet aided to buy cigarettes, drugs, luxury items and top notch electronics. None of the aid is used to provide for their children but only used for their selfish purposes.

In awake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster one predominantly known republican set out a stand for changes in welfare and as well as new plans. I feel this is quite an interesting video.

e-generation

Learning is a primary process in achieving our goals. As time progresses, our technology becomes more advanced. The result of technology becoming more advance should infer to us that changes in how we learn should be advanced. Growing up, I always felt the best way for me to learn was to have a teacher who made the class fun and relatively interesting.

Friedman provides a very relevant point in the comparison of education in the U.S compared to other countries. He states that thirty-five years ago, if you had the choice between being born a B+ student in Brooklyn or a genius in Bangalore, India, you'd rather be born the B+ student in Brooklyn, because your life opportunities would be so much greater in Brooklyn, even as a B+ student. Today, you'd much rather be born a genius in Bangalore, because when the world is flat, and you can plug and play, collaborate and connect, just like you can from Brooklyn, your life chances and opportunities hold more potential than ever before.

Friedman suggests that we should be learning to learn is nothing new to those of us in education, but it does give it new weight, as he warns that "what we learn today in school will be outdated by tomorrow. In result, the most successful people in the flat world will be those who can adapt and learn quickly. The greater our curiosity and passion for learning, the greater chances we will have for success later in life."

Friedman speaks about drastic changes that have occurred in the last fifteen years or so -- events that have leveled the global playing field. He refers to ten "flatteners": things that have enabled us to connect with the rest of the world much more easily than ever before. Events such as the fall of the Berlin wall, Netscape going public, and the new world of "technologies on steroids" -- cell phones, wireless devices, always being connected, and so on -- have made our world a new place.

Employees from one organization are no longer working side-by-side inside the same building. Individuals from anywhere can compete with others from around the world. This convergence gives a new feel to how successful twenty-first-century businesses operate and how twenty-first-century learners can learn.

Friedman talks about the "untouchables" -- those people whose job won't be outsourced or merged. Those are entertainers, authors, great motivators, specialists, and so on. Another group of untouchables are our locals: the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.

Besides the untouchables, Friedman suggests there will be eight types of jobs for the middle class that will be in demand for a long time to come. They include the great corroborators, the great leveragers, the great synthesizers, the passionate personalizers, the great localizers, the "green ones," the great explainers, and the great adapters. Those with these skills are less affected by changes in careers, new job requirements, and so on, because these are lifelong skills that don't become obsolete.

In conclusion, our future generations education shoudl be constantly updated. Even now as college students, we can take online classes and even labs from local schools and as well schools overseas. More technologically advanced classes could help spur some motivation for children to learn more.