Tag: Time

MY BLOGGING REALITY – PART 2

Posted on by Karac Avalron


So the last post I made I revealed that in my 5th year of blogging I am not achieving the goals I set for myself here. I want to be clear that the blog IS successful, just not by my personal measure. When you create content you have to evolve and or be very realistic about how your content sits with the customer (that is you reader). So what the analytics tell me is, once the pandemic ended less of you come here, and less of you engage with the content.


This happened in 2021, I saw the trend and shifted to a more broader content offering. That had some successes. Here is a list of the subjects I post on:
o Anxiety
o Over 50 exercise
o Advice for Men
o Finance
o Some politics
Anxiety tanked for me after the pandemic. I was getting great views and traffic through early 2021, then it fell off. Could be my content, could be people didn’t want to read anxiety pieces any more, could be people went back to work. I don’t know but that is the reality. Its never recovered


Over 50 exercise great interaction but its fitness, so to be candid I suspect a decent % of the interaction was botting. I know that’s not a term you should throw around lightly but I looked at some of the people who liked that content and in some cases it lead me down a rabbit hole, lets leave it at that. So yes it was popular but it’s a small part of my life. I cant devout a blog to it exclusively I just don’t have the content for it.


Advice for Men – This was hit or miss. Some pieces did very well others were utter disasters. This type of content can be divisive and to be blunt to really gain traction in this space you have to be vitriolic. That’s not where I am at mentally, I am not going to yell at men and Im not going to blame women. I found good middle ground on my advice for men but honestly people don’t want that. They want drama, MGTOW and cheating stories. Those get clicks, I don’t have those stories.


Finance and politics we can lump into one group here. They were mediocre given the time it takes to produce the pieces. Anyone can come on a blog and say “Buy this stock” but to have credibility you need to have citation and or good knowledge. I have degree’s in finance and accounting, I have been in finance for decades but saying that doesn’t make people believe you and I am unwilling to expose personal details.


So those categories comprise the main areas I wrote about. I excluded one HUGE area of my life and that is gaming. Yes I am a gamer, it’s a hobby I have had for decades and will continue until I die. I have a gaming channel on you tube that was started AFTER this blog. Each served a part of my creativity that was important to me and I kept them separated. I also did not post much about my family life. I have been married for 25 years, I have kids, dogs, houses I’ve got a lot going on.


So as I look to the next iteration of “A Gen X Point of View” I have some serious choices to make here. I cant sustain the posting cadence of 3 pieces a week, Im out of things to say frankly. This is more then writers block this is literally me looking back at 700 blog posts and wondering “have I already said this?”


In the next post I will explore some of the possibilities I see for the blog. I will also discuss the other posting category on my channel “Wisdom from the Past” which I didn’t cover here.


If you got this far, thanks again for supporting my blog as I work through these issues. I really appreciate it.

Oscar Wilde

Wisdom from the past:“Punctuality is the thief of time.” – Oscar Wilde, From -The Picture of Dorian Gray-

Posted on by Karac Avalron

Once again we harken back to the past to pull out some wisdom on the value of time. As I have said in posts before here Time is the most valuable commodity on the planet. No one knows how much time they have been allotted. Your race, religion, gender, sexuality, aren’t relevant to time, it doesn’t care. How you spend your time is of course the trick isn’t it? How do we spend more time doing what we want, instead of spending time doing things we would rather not be doing?

There are of course many avenues to pursue to achieve the aim of maximizing your time. No one can really tell you the path to take, only you know what it is you truly enjoy doing. The quote from Wilde above is a little misleading. It is after all Oscar Wilde so we have to take his wit in historical context. If you don’t know who Oscar Wilde is, check out this site

What I glean from his quote is that when you invest effort in someone else, like being punctual because someone is waiting for you, you sacrifice your own time that you could spend on doing something else. That something else can be anything really. Yes that includes dressing up as one of your favorite movie characters !

The point here is creating opportunities to spend your time the way you want to should never be taken for granted. Meetings, appointments, deadlines… Are they all necessary? Are you beholden to a regimen of time management that benefits other people?

Look at how you are choosing to allocate your time. Take a week and write out how many hours during that week did you exchange your time for someone else. Work, chores, you name it put it on the list. Of course if you do that, you’ll be exchanging your time to accommodate someone else’s request, mine.

Please be punctual….

Wisdom from the past, and present…

Posted on by Karac Avalron

“Don’t live the same year 75 times and call it a life.”
― Robin S. Sharma

Robin Sharma is an author who deals primarily in business leadership. His resume of companies he has worked with is not only notable but extensive. He is not a main stream name, many people have no idea who he is and honestly would never need to read his material. Like all good authors he, from time to time gives us a pearl of a quote. Let’s discuss it a little bit.

The quote itself is pretty obvious, how do we parlay this wisdom into the present? We are coming off lockdowns and travel restrictions and the narrative is “let’s get back to normal”. Do you want to go back to the routines you maintained prior to covid? Do you want to live the same year again?

Perhaps for you this is the time to continue the disruption of covid in a positive way. Perhaps changing your “normal” is a good thing. I’ve lived the same year multiple times, it’s easy because routine breeds comfort and comfort swallows time. Think of ways you can change your old normal. Travel more? Get a pet? Volunteer? ?

It’s a great time to change your personal narrative and not fall back into the old normal you used to partake in. Before you know it you will be 75, take me for example… I am closer to 75 now than I am 25. Don’t live the same year over again. Try something new, force yourself, who knows it might be the thing that at 75 you look back on and smile.

Thank you for coming by and supporting my blog I really appreciate it. Want to see another post like this one? Click here.

Gandalf

The Wisdom of Tolkien ….. Again….

Posted on by Karac Avalron

“How do you move on? You move on when your heart finally understands that there is no turning back.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

I’ve come back to Tolkien again. Yes, I am a fan of high fantasy, there are so many pearls of wisdom from Tolkien its hard to accumulate them all succinctly.

The quote is powerful, it is an allowance if you will. It’s okay to reflect, and its okay to look back but why are you looking back? Regret? That’s natural. Are you wishing that you could be in that place in the past? That’s natural. Are you refusing to let go and understand there is no turning back? That is natural.

When we think about our past, it is in our interest to consider this proposition: Those who dwell in the past sacrifice the present, in that moment, which compromises the future. Those who forget and dismiss the past, are ordained to repeat it again until they allow its wisdom to take hold.

I know, it’s wordy but how do you move on? Are there things in your life and events that you dwell on? I do, and I can’t exercise them from my mind. I am working on it are you? There is no turning back….

Thank you for coming by and supporting my blog. Want to see another post like this one? Click here.

Surviving 2020 & covid

Anxiety decades later

Posted on by Karac Avalron

So a quick post today. As most of you know I have anxiety, like many of you, and millions of people all over the world. Now unlike many of you I am in my 50’s and I have been living with Anxiety in some form for decades. So what is it like to have anxiety issues in your 50’s and dealing with them for years?

Let me say that age enables you to have experience and experience breeds wisdom. It makes dealing with Anxiety easier so that’s the good news here. The older you get, the longer you live with this issue the better equipped you become in dealing with it. Now things can still get bad don’t get me wrong, but the feelings of isolation and shame decrease as you begin to realize more and more that many people have this problem, it’s not just you.

That’s the good news, the bad news is you have more time to reflect on, which for me has always been the problem. I suffer from intrusive thoughts. I can be sitting in the car and suddenly I remember something that happened in 1983 that was a negative situation. The problem with intrusive thoughts is you assume the emotional reactions you had at the time and then start applying them to your current situation.

Pick whatever name you want, Anxiety at any age sucks

The older you get the more situations you have that you can reflect on. Now everyone does this to a degree but for me anyway it can be debilitating. I can’t get out of the thought or the feeling, it will replay itself over and over until I can expel it. Like a song you can get out of your head. It flavors everything I am doing and affects all of those around me. Now this is contradictory to the first part of the post isn’t it?

“Karac you said the older you get the less shame and isolation you feel” yes that’s true, but the frequency increases and that’s the problem. Literally daily I have an issue like this, and the factors that contribute to its intensity can be anything from lack of sleep, stress at work or family issues. So the older you get the easier it gets to deal with the issue, but the issue becomes more frequent.

At least that’s what is happening to me. I could take more medication but I basically just push through. Don’t get me wrong I have more good days then bad but when you have anxiety, you are most likely going to be dealing with it for decades. So all my Gen Z and Millennial friends out there, your mental health is a life long journey. The first critical step is recognizing your specific issue and understanding what your triggers are and why they are happening.

Thank you for coming by and supporting my blog I really appreciate it. Want to see another post like this one? Click here.

Gandalf

The Wisdom of J.R.R. Tolkien

Posted on by Karac Avalron

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So, do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” 

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Time is the most precious commodity on the planet. It does not care about your race, gender, political affiliation, religion, sexual orientation. It moves forward regardless of your personal situation, it is all encompassing. You and I are simply passengers on the journey of time, like a train rolling down the track. No one knows when they will get to their stop.

Do you wait in anticipation for the stop to come or do you take advantage of the journey on the way to the stop?

Gandalf was right, we must decide what to do with the time given us.  

I have made horrible decisions regarding time, I have wasted a lot of it. I have also had moments of absolute joy and reveled in the moment. Despite everything that is thrown at us, every minute, of every hour, of every day, of every week, of every month, of every year, our greatest challenge is to enact Gandalf’s wisdom.

J.R.R. Tolkien was a brilliant writer. In his works you can find so many gems, it boggles the mind. I decided to spend some of my time sharing this with you, have you decided what it is you are going to do with the time given to you?

Thank you for coming by and supporting my blog I really appreciate it. Want to see another post like this one? Click here.

Gandalf

The Wisdom of J.R.R. Tolkien

Posted on by Karac Avalron

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So, do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” 

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Time is the most precious commodity on the planet. It does not care about your race, gender, political affiliation, religion, sexual orientation. It moves forward regardless of your personal situation, it is all encompassing. You and I are simply passengers on the journey of time, like a train rolling down the track. No one knows when they will get to their stop.

Do you wait in anticipation for the stop to come or do you take advantage of the journey on the way to the stop?

Gandalf was right, we must decide what to do with the time given us.  

I have made horrible decisions regarding time, I have wasted a lot of it. I have also had moments of absolute joy and reveled in the moment. Despite everything that is thrown at us, every minute, of every hour, of every day, of every week, of every month, of every year, our greatest challenge is to enact Gandalf’s wisdom.

J.R.R. Tolkien was a brilliant writer. In his works you can find so many gems, it boggles the mind.

I decided to spend some of my time sharing this with you, have you decided what it is you are going to do with the time given to you?

Gandalf

THE WISDOM OF TOLKIEN…. AGAIN….

Posted on by Karac Avalron

 “There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit or There and Back Again

I’ve looked for things, I’ve looked for peace of mind and to no avail. I have found Anxiety, Stress and depression. Did I want to find these things? A part of me did, how else can I confront, overcome and reconcile these issues?

I’ve looked for other things, I’ve looked for happiness and have succeeded. I am married for 20+ years with a great family who understands that I have anxiety, they are just not in tune with the depth but that’s okay.

I’ve always been averse to popular notions that -sound- foolish. “look within yourself” or “the answer lies within” I have been foolish not to apply these simple sayings to my historic behaviors. The answer to many of the I’ll of my life have in fact been my reactions to what I perceived others thought. Of course, I couldn’t really know, I have no way of knowing the operation of someone else’s mind.

I’ve looked for it, the answer. The answer to why I am predisposed to consider what others think. Perhaps it is a societal norm? Perhaps a social construct I am bound to in the subconscious? Or perhaps I need to continue looking at myself and find what has been there all along.

I am okay, I am normal, I am too critical of myself, I am an expert in me. It’s not really what I was after, but I will find it. The wisdom of Tolkien once again astounds me.

Thanks for coming by and supporting my blog I really appreciate it. Want to see another post this one? Click here.

Gandalf

The Wisdom of J.R.R. Tolkien

Posted on by Karac Avalron

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So, do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” 

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Time is the most precious commodity on the planet. It does not care about your race, gender, political affiliation, religion, sexual orientation. It moves forward regardless of your personal situation, it is all encompassing. You and I are simply passengers on the journey of time, like a train rolling down the track. No one knows when they will get to their stop.

Do you wait in anticipation for the stop to come or do you take advantage of the journey on the way to the stop?

Gandalf was right, we must decide what to do with the time given us.  

I have made horrible decisions regarding time, I have wasted a lot of it. I have also had moments of absolute joy and reveled in the moment. Despite everything that is thrown at us, every minute, of every hour, of every day, of every week, of every month, of every year, our greatest challenge is to enact Gandalf’s wisdom.

J.R.R. Tolkien was a brilliant writer. In his works you can find so many gems, it boggles the mind.

I decided to spend some of my time sharing this with you, have you decided what it is you are going to do with the time given to you?

Ben Franklin

Wisdom from the past – Ben Franklin

Posted on by Karac Avalron

“Lost time is never found again” – Ben Franklin

It’s time for another short post on wisdom and time. When you engage in activities that you otherwise wouldn’t if you had the choice you are losing time. Now the premise is “you don’t have a choice” and often that is the case. The goal here is, is to start working on the ability to HAVE the choice. This can be working on exiting from a toxic relationship.

This can be recognizing a bad habit and working on fixing it. This can be resigning from a job you hate, on and on. The important thing to strive for is maximizing the time you do have with things you want to do or enjoy. We all have things we would rather not be doing (like cleaning as an example) but working towards a life with less and less of those is paramount.

Time is the universal currency. It doesn’t care your about your gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, none of it. So to decrease your anxiety and increase your happiness figure out what you like to do and what you don’t like to do and stop losing time, you will never get it back, it will never be found again.

Thank you for coming by and supporting my blog I really appreciate it. Want to see another post like this one? Click here.