Tom's Blog on Life and Livingness
Never truer words spoken! Everything that makes you think you are less than an immortal, indestructible being is something that was added, with your agreement I’m sorry to tell you, to make you think you are less than this. So stop being so damned agreeable! Start being uncompromising in your recognition that you are more powerful than you have been led to believe. If you weren’t that powerful they wouldn’t have put so much effort into making you believe otherwise!
Freight is often looked at as a bellwether for the rest of the economy. If industries ranging from retail to housing to lumber are estimating that they’ll need fewer truckers, many economists see that as an omen of an economic downturn. If people aren’t buying or building as much stuff, there’s less of a need for truckers. Trucks move 72% of all freight.
One 2019 study from Convoy, a trucking brokerage firm, found that six out of 12 trucking recessions led to macroeconomic downturns. For example, the trucking industry dipped in April 2006 — more than a year before the Great Recession slammed the larger economy.
Trucking experiences recessionary periods twice as much as the rest of the economy. But for the 2 million American truck drivers who power much of this industry, the effects can be brutal.
Trucking demand is “near freight recession levels,” according to Bank of America. Shippers’ outlook on rates, capacity and inventory levels are matching attitudes not seen since May and June 2020, when pandemic lockdowns sent freight volumes into a historic decline.
As FreightWaves reports, in a Friday note to investors, Ken Hoexter (available to Zero Hedge professional subscribers), the managing director of Bank of America’s trucking research, wrote that shippers’ view of demand is down 23% year-over-year. The proprietary Truckload Demand Indicator hit 58 — the lowest since June 2020.
Got to thinking about how to increase my results in life. Looked over what I had learned and put together this. Hope you get something from it.
It started with recalling that anything I cannot confront (face without flinching) I cannot see. Anything I cannot see I cannot do much with. So I figured I should simply raise my confront to the point where I could confront anything. The more I thought on it the more a sequence of actions formed that led to total mastery in an area. I compared it to my experiences in life and it matches.
First, we assume a BEINGNESS
Then we adopt a VIEWPOINT, a point from which to view.
We LOOK at the environment, and, as a result
We consider something, make a CONSIDERATION
Make a DECISION to pursue a course of action
Formulate and maintain the INTENTION to accomplish something.
(The rest of these items are not so much a label for a point as they are a label for a gradient scale of ability as each capitalized item can [and should] be improved.)
Maintain the DISCIPLINE to overcome obstacles and ignore distractions that are present or will manifest.
Either be able to or raise the willingness to CONFRONT a thing,
The confronting will raise our AWARENESS
Such that we can increase our PERCEPTION of our environment
Which will raise our OBSERVATION of it
Which will allow COMMUNICATION with it
To improve our REALITY on it
And raise our AFFINITY with it.
The previous three will deliver UNDERSTANDING of it
So we have KNOWLEDGE of it.
With knowledge, if we are prepared to take RESPONSIBILITY for it
We can then CONTROL it.
If we then exercise DISCIPLINE to
Engage in PRACTICE or DRILLING to
Acquire COMPETENCE with it
And, eventually, MASTERY of it.
It will be observed that it is impossible to attain an item later on the list with an item earlier not being present.
This raised my respect for people who have acquired a high level of competence or mastery in an area. There are a lot of elements that go to make up mastery of a sport, art, profession, relationship or even life itself!
So if you are pretty damn good at something, take a bow!
Recognise what you have done and don’t lose sight of the journey when starting a new endeavour.
I figure I can also have this list serve as a guide as to what might be out if I am not attaining the results I desire.
And this is about as good an example as you will get of an over-simplification because you could write a book about each one of those capitalized letters. In fact books have been written about them.
And of course, because there is a gradient scale of competence for each point and each of these items applies to any given area of endeavour, we can be at different levels of competence for the same point in different areas.
Let me know if this was of use.
And along that line, something I read years ago from Larry Ellison:
Following is a talk given by Larry Ellison (Oracle Founder) to Yale Graduates in 2000.
“Graduates of Yale University, I apologize if you have endured this type of prologue before, but I want you to do something for me. Please, take a good look around you. Look at the classmate on your left. Look at the classmate on your right. Now, consider this: five years from now, 10 years from now, even 30 years from now, odds are the person on your left is going to be a loser. The person on your right, meanwhile, will also be a loser. And you, in the middle? What can you expect? Loser. Loserhood. Loser Cum Laude.
“In fact, as I look out before me today, I don’t see a thousand hopes for a bright tomorrow. I don’t see a thousand future leaders in a thousand industries. I see a thousand losers.
“You’re upset. That’s understandable. After all, how can I, Lawrence ‘Larry’ Ellison, college dropout, have the audacity to spout such heresy to the graduating class of one of the nation’s most prestigious institutions? I’ll tell you why.
Because I, Lawrence “Larry” Ellison, second richest man on the planet, am a college dropout, and you are not.
“Because Bill Gates, richest man on the planet — for now, anyway — is a college dropout, and you are not.
“Because Paul Allen, the third richest man on the planet, dropped out of college, and you did not.
“And for good measure, because Michael Dell, No. 9 on the list and moving up fast, is a college dropout, and you, yet again, are not.
“Hmm . . . you’re very upset. That’s understandable. So let me stroke your egos for a moment by pointing out, quite sincerely, that your diplomas were not attained in vain. Most of you, I imagine, have spent four to five years here, and in many ways what you’ve learned and endured will serve you well in the years ahead. You’ve established good work habits. You’ve established a network of people that will help you down the road. And you’ve established what will be lifelong relationships with the word ‘therapy.’ All that of is good. For in truth, you will need that network. You will need those strong work habits. You will need that therapy.
“You will need them because you didn’t drop out, and so you will never be among the richest people in the world. Oh sure, you may, perhaps, work your way up to No. 10 or No. 11, like Steve Ballmer. But then, I don’t have to tell you who he really works for, do I? And for the record, he dropped out of grad school. Bit of a late bloomer.
“Finally, I realize that many of you, and hopefully by now most of you, are wondering, ‘Is there anything I can do? Is there any hope for me at all?’ Actually, no. It’s too late. You’ve absorbed too much, think you know too much. You’re not 19 anymore. You have a built-in cap, and I’m not referring to the mortar boards on your heads.
“Hmm… you’re really very upset. That’s understandable. So perhaps this would be a good time to bring up the silver lining. Not for you, Class of ’00. You are a write-off, so I’ll let you slink off to your pathetic $200,000-a-year jobs, where your checks will be signed by former classmates who dropped out two years ago.
“Instead, I want to give hope to any underclassmen here today. I say to you, and I can’t stress this enough: leave. Pack your things and your ideas and don’t come back. Drop out. Start up.
“For I can tell you that a cap and gown will keep you down just as surely as these security guards dragging me off this stage are keeping me down . . .”
The Sri Lankan government announced on Tuesday a temporary suspension of repayment in all external debts of about $51 billion due to the worsening economic crisis in the country caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war.
“We have lost the ability to repay foreign debt. It has come to a point that making debt payments are challenging and impossible,” Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe said at the media briefing.
Half a million people have sunk into poverty since the pandemic, with rising costs forcing many to cut back on food, the Guardian reported.
Might be an advertorial for ProtonMail but has data good to know.
Be informed. Be alert. Stay secure.
