Life And How To Survive It

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

“Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable” Adrian Tan

Adrian Tan gave a great convocation speech at Nayang Technological University in Singapore in 2008. He’s an author and lawyer from Singapore.

Here’s the video of his talk, his speech starts at 4 minutes 15 seconds in.

Life And How To Survive It Adrian Tan Convocation Speech at Nayang Technological University in Singapore

Mr Wang Says So has the full text of Adrian Tan’s speech

Here’s a few quotes I like.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.
Work kills. … If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are ‘making a living’. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan ‘Arbeit macht frei’ was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.
Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.

People who are very happy quite often seem to be doing what they love to do vs a job that pays the bills.

They may not love 100% of every part of the job, who does? But they do seem to love most of it. It’s not always easy to find something that you love to do and that you’re adding enough value to others in doing it that you get paid for it.

But it’s worth the time, energy and effort to find that something. You get a better quality of life and you become a positive influence on the people around you.

If you have adult ADHD, that may mean you’ll be more likely to create your own job as an entrepreneur, become a freelancer or have multiple jobs so you’re not bored. While there are many negatives to having adult ADHD there are also positives of having adult ADHD too

It’s important for everyone to find work they love but its even more crucial for people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. For us the wrong job can be more than a numbing grind, it can be absolute hell. And the right job can become heaven, especially compared to other jobs where we’ve worked doing things we didn’t enjoy and/or for people we didn’t like.

A Quick Burst of Inspiration

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Here’s a short inspirational video to lift your spirits.

via Bryan Eisenberg

For more inspiration, here’s a series of amazing photographs of 2008 from Boston.com’s Big Picture Blog.

Part 1

part 2

part 3

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Smoke On The Water Japanese Traditional and Classical Style

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Here’s a cool video version of Deep Purple’s Rock classic song Smoke on the Water (based on a true story) performed by Japanese ancient and modern musicians. It starts off with someone playing a shamisen. via Beyond Robson.

I still remember one guy I knew in high school playing Smoke on the Water just outside school during class with an amp so the whole school could hear it. We enjoyed it, not sure what they did to him.

Here’s 1683 people playing it playing in Kansas City june 3rd 2007 for the Guiness World Record. Playing starts at 1 min 58 sec. Apparently the previous record was 1,323 people held in my hometown, Vancouver in 1994. Maybe we need another shot at it?

Here’s Deep Purple’s live Version

Where Kids Learn to Lie

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Fascinating article in New York Magazine on kids and lying where they talk about where kids learn to lie from. Their parents.

Encouraged to tell so many white lies and hearing so many others, children gradually get comfortable with being disingenuous. Insincerity becomes, literally, a daily occurrence. They learn that honesty only creates conflict, and dishonesty is an easy way to avoid conflict

They also lie a lot. on one study of 36 topics that teens sometimes lied to their parents the average teen lied to their parents about 12 of them. They talk about the many different reason kids lie.

Want to know which type of parenting produced the kids that lied the least?

Ironically, the type of parents who are actually most consistent in enforcing rules are the same parents who are most warm and have the most conversations with their kids,” Darling observes. They’ve set a few rules over certain key spheres of influence, and they’ve explained why the rules are there. They expect the child to obey them. Over life’s other spheres, they supported the child’s autonomy, allowing them freedom to make their own decisions.

The kids of these parents lied the least. Rather than hiding twelve areas from their parents, they might be hiding as few as five.

Life Coaches Are Everywhere

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Overboard by Chip Dunham is one of the funniest comic strips out there. Louie is my favourite character. Life coaches are everywhere.

Appealing to The Best Parts of You

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Wow. Check this video out.

If you want to see something inspirational, this video is worth a click. Youtube version here

Ringtone here

Yes We Can is a music video by Will.i.am (born in Toronto) of the Black Eyed Peas inspired by Barack Obama’s Yes We Can Speech in New Hampshire. Lot of other famous people in the music video. He did it in 2 days.

I’d highly recommend watching the individual speech. Even if Obama is not your cup of tea. As a poly-sci major and political junkie, I’ve seen a lot of speeches but this was amazingly inspirational and words don’t do it justice. If you want to see how powerful a speech can be, check it out.

Quite an antidote to george bush and company who has gained and maintained power by appealing to the worst aspects of the American people, and marketing fear. Obama is taking a radical risk and appeal to the best aspects of the American people and marketing hope.

Ballsy strategy, since historically speaking, its easier to win in politics by appealing to the worst in people and dividing people. It has seemed to work in the past for bush and others.

Here’s ABC’s interview with Will.i.am

Here’s a quote from Will.i.am on the songs page

It made me think…
and realize that today we have “very few” leaders…
maybe none…

but that speech…

it inspired me…
it inspired me to look inside myself and outwards towards the world…
it inspired me to want to change myself to better the world…
and take a “leap” towards change…
and hope that others become inspired to do the same…
change themselves..
change their greed…
change their fears…
and if we “change that”
“then hey”..
we got something right…???…

Flash Guide to Your Brain

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Know your Neurobiology! Most adults probably spend more time learning about how their car works than learning how their brain does. Which one is more important? Especially when ADD is a neurobiological condition. It’s like having diabetes and not knowing how your blood sugar works.

Bruno Dubuc has created a great flash site on how the brain works in flash format for Mcgill University in Montreal, Quebec.

Want to know where the pathways of the top 3 neurotransmitters associated with ADD are?

It’s very cool and well laid out. When you click on individual sections you can get further detail by choosing beginner intermediate or advanced on the top left of the page and 5 levels of organization social, psychological, neurological, cellular or molecular on the top right.

They’ve got a good section on emotions and the brain. You might also want to check out the section on anxiety disorders, a common comorbid condition of people with ADHD.

If you want more information on how your ADD brain works, check out the Neurobiology of ADD and Information on How Your Brain Works section on my website.

High Powered Job for Stimulus Seeking ADD Adults

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Since we don’t have as much dopmaine floating around in our brain as non ADDers, and are consequently understimulated, ADD adults seek out jobs that will give them extra stimulation either consciously or unconsciously. If they don’t find a highly stimulating job, they risk self medicating in unhealthy ways to boost their levels of dopamine, i.e., through tobacco, alcohol, drugs, gambling, impulsive spending which all raise dopamine levels in the brain.

This

gives an example of what might be the perfect job for many understimulated  ADD Adults.
Can you think of a more stimulating job for an ADD adult?

Karma Explained Entertainingly

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Karma Ghost is a very cool funny flash cartoon by Billy Bob which gives you a good experiental explanation of Karma. Usually Karma doesn’t happen this fast or we’d all clue in quickly and start living differently right away.

We Could be Number One on the Google!

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Here’s some viral video tech humor. Slightly nsfw. Especially funny for anyone that has a clue about webdesign and SEO or search engine optimization. How to be number one on the google. via the excellent Webstrategist

For a hundred and fifty quid we could be number one on the google!

It was created by PushOn, a UK online marketing company. On their blog they’ve got a cool video of an ibar. An amazing interactive 10 foot long touch screen on top of a bar at a nightclub.

As someone who actually has been number one “on the google” and other search engines from time to time with different keywords, all with organic SEO, anyone that promises you that they’ll make you “number one on the google” is doing one of the following:

1. BSing you, taking advantage of your greed and lack of internet knowledge.
2. Getting you ranked for some irrelevant keyword that almost no one searches for.
3. Doing black hat SEO that may get you near or on number one for a while. But, if you do black hat SEO on your website or blog, you risk getting banned for a few months from google i.e., go back to pagerank 0, start over again.

If you only learn 1 thing about SEO learn the difference between white hat seo and black hat seo. Oh and get your title tags matching your page content. It’s irritating to see bobs widets in the browser bar on every single page on a website. Don’t assume your webdesigner knows SEO. They might, but they probably don’t. It’s just like expecting an SEO can also design your website.

Also google giveth and google taketh away. You could be number one for keyword term x and number 14 the next week. One more reason to cultivate the virtue of equanimity.