Come On Over!

After much deliberation, I've finally made the leap and started up my own website!  I hope to do the same blogging I have done here, but with plenty more on top, including pictures, video, and much more!

I want to thank you all for your support thus far, and I hope you'll join me at my new home...

http://www.mikeborda.com

See you there!

Moving!

My site might be moving soon to a new web host, so stay tuned!

If you have any experience with hosting companies, let me know your opinion.

Dream On

Only 26% of Americans say that they love their jobs

For the past few months, I have been looking for a full time job.  A career, hopefully.  Obviously, this has been a less than successful quest thus far.  However, it has given me plenty of time to think about my life and my career path. 

It seems most of us often have to weigh the balance between doing what we love, what we’re passionate about, and paying the bills.  (Of course there are a select few who get to do both, but I would hardly say that constitutes the majority of us)  It seems a monumental task to take what we find interesting and make it a career from which we can derive both joy and money.  But it is possible. 

So what does it take to combine these two factors?  First of all, it takes guts.  For those of us not blessed with family wealth, connected friends, or freakish intelligence and/or physical prowess, we need a purpose.  We need that something deep inside of us to say do it now, or don’t do it at all.  If we constantly put it off until “later”, we most likely won’t succeed. 

But unfortunately, doing what we love doesn’t just take passion.  It also takes hard work.  You’ll probably work harder following your dream than you ever did just going to your job.  In the end, however, the reward will undoubtedly be so much sweeter than just a paycheck.  It will be a feeling deep in your soul that you accomplished something.  You didn’t just make a big company more money, or complete the same monotonous task day after day.  You did what your heart told you to do, and other people found it so moving that they supported you.  They helped you become what you always wanted to be. 

You might be saying that you can’t start a business.  Or maybe just not now.  Maybe there’s nothing you’re especially passionate about at this point in your life.  And that’s fine. (I know plenty of good people who do a great job, even if it’s not what they’re totally passionate about)  I’m 25 and don’t have a clue as to what my future entails.  But, as Baz Luhrmann says in his famous song, “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)”, ‘The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.’  Try not to get discouraged when you can’t get to (or even find) your career goals yet.  Just keep planning.  Don’t give up.

Now you may be asking what qualifications I have to be giving this advice.  Honestly, none.  But I observe.  And while maybe the majority of us don’t follow our true dreams, there are still plenty of positive examples all around us.  Teachers, business owners, soldiers, businessmen and women, musicians, police officers, fire fighters…I could go on and on.  If you look at these people, they take such pride in what they do it makes everyone around them feel a little bit happier.  I hope they are as inspiring to you as they are to me. 

Half of all new businesses fail within five years.  Moreover, the average job only lasts 7 years.  The average retirement age in America is around 63 years old and rising.  These are scary statistics.  It makes me nervous just thinking about starting a business someday.  Nevertheless, it won’t prevent me from following my dreams.  You? 

“Like most everything in life, you have to work hard at it, and do it until it turns into routine, and then second nature. When you can set goals as second nature, even if it's the smallest, most infinitesimal (You like that word? It's your word of the day. But I'm actually not sure I'm using it right.) thing, you're going to find out that you're quickly becoming, what they like to refer to in the biz, as ‘productive.’”

--Bobby Pulte, on being disciplined and setting goals (www.bobbypulte.com)

A Quick Note About Our Relationship

You wanted to go, but I just didn’t feel like it.  I know it may have sounded mean, but you didn’t have to yell.

I mean, it was pretty childish of you to start rolling around on the ground.

I figured you were just moody because you hadn’t eaten yet, but we sat down for dinner and you just stared at me.  It was actually kind of creepy. 

And trying to steal the food off my plate?  Pretty pathetic.

This is really getting out of control, and I’m not sure I can fix it.

I know you make an effort, and it doesn’t go unnoticed.

I appreciate it when you want to cuddle with me.  But to be frankly honest…you could stand to bathe a little more often.  

And while I agree that bringing others into this relationship might not have been for the best at the time, we’re stuck with the decisions we’ve made.

At first it was new and exciting, but now it’s gotten kind of weird.  The least you could do is pretend you still like them.  We still have to see them from time to time.

Now before you fly off the handle, let me tell you this: I still love you, and I always will.

I know it’s not like when we first met but the happiness is still there. 

So I guess through this whole thing what I’m trying to say is simply this: Next time you get really excited, don’t do it without me. 

Just let me know you need to go outside.

Currency Catalyst

From this:


(http://www.coinace.com/gold-denominations-rare-coins.aspx)

to this:


(http://www.consumerismcommentary.com/new-100-bill-design-with-extra-security-features/)

Quite a jump, huh?  Although the picture on top is one of the earliest coins we have found to date (Lydian, circa 600 B.C.), the Sumerians two thousand years earlier used coins as records for grain storage.  From there we went to bronze, later to gold, and finally, paper.  Now we have paper composites with holographic insignias designed to discourage even the most educated criminals. 

It seems all too easy to forget that money pretty much rules our lives.  We work our entire lives to get money, spend it, and save it.  For many people, their entire focus in life is not on family, charity, or good deeds…only money. 

If we want to stay warm, we need money.  If we want to eat, we need money.  Heck, we pretty much need money just to not go to jail.  I know a lot of times I take for granted what income Paige and I do generate, wasting it on frivolous things.  But having her be our main source of income for so long has taught me a valuable lesson.  I need to appreciate her hard work more, and value our time now.  Eventually I’ll find full time work, we’ll start a family, and my time alone will be limited.  I need to appreciate these moments now, where she stands by me steadfastly earning income while I take time to ponder my position in the working world. 

So if you’re reading, Paige Bianca Borda: I love you, and thanks for being awesome!

And I promise, someday the day will come where I’ll be working full time, you’ll be at home, and you can be happy telling me you slept in until 11. 

"Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations."

--Thomas Jefferson

Party of Two

The mid-term elections have come and gone, and we now have a new set of leaders to (hopefully) guide us into prosperity.  Whether you agree or disagree with the results, let's all hope we see brighter days ahead.  

Now here is my question: Is that it?

Currently in the United States of America there is 1 Independent Governor out of 50, 2 non-major party Senators (who both caucus with Democrats) out of 100, and 0 non-Republican or Democratic Representatives out of 435.  Is this what was supposed to happen?  

Having to choose between only two parties is, to put it bluntly, a failure of democracy.  We gained our freedom so that we could have the right to choose our paths.  The fact is that in today's world if we don't vote for either a Republican or a Democrat our voice effectively doesn't matter.  Anyone else feel like that's a slap in the face of our Founding Fathers?  The whole point of declaring our independence was to be able to make our own choices.  Now, all those choices have been narrowed down to two.  TWO.  If you vote Independent, Libertarian, Green, etc, no matter your reasons, your candidate sadly has almost no chance of winning.   

When our country was being founded, the Framers (people who wrote the Constitution) designed our system so that voters could make a smart, educated decision about what was best for them and their communities.  Today, I get the feeling that many people don't even take the time to think about the issues in depth.  They hear about 10 minutes of propaganda from one side or the other and vote with whatever party they voted for previously in their lives (probably whatever party their parents supported).  

This is not to say that all politicians are bad.  Many of our representatives our genuine, caring people.  Unfortunately, they are overshadowed by those who would try to corrupt our great country.  I hope someday they will be the majority.  

So, all that said, what are your thoughts?  What do you think about our current political system?  Please, comment!

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all."

--Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789

Interlude

Although I have a few topics I want to write about, they will have to wait.  First, a trip to Canada.  See you on the flip-side!