I am a lovable person...really!

, , C. David Dent ,

This a response an article from the Economist about positive affirmations and their negative affect on negative people. Since I am responding to it, this may make more sense if you read the article it is a response to first.

I am a positive person, but it wasn't always the case. In fact I was, at one time, one of the more negative people you could meet. I was constantly in a bad mood and I had to struggle to find it within myself to be friendly. I am still not outgoing, but I am at least pleasant to be around.

Part of the reason for this is through "affirmations" like the one in the article. "I am a lovable person" is similar to an actual affirmation I used: "People like me because I am friendly." While I felt terrifically silly saying that out loud to myself over time it did have an effect. I slowly began to believe it.

Now this is a study and it has to have quantifiable datum to analyze. And it uses established psychological tests to determine happiness (or positive outlook) and the study - for what it is - isn't in question. I accept their results. However, I'd be interested to see how it would change over a longer time period. I'd also be interested to see if the subjects of the study really wanted to improve their outlook.

I say this because the one thing that drives more change than any other is desire. If you do not want to change then change is very hard. This is a big hurdle to overcome. This is why people have a hard time losing weight in a lot of cases...they don't want to lose weight. They may FEEL they have to, but they don't really want it that badly.

I know *I* don't want to. Becasue I know that once I've lost it I can't go grab some Burger King whenever I want to because I don't care about the health risks. I'd have to really care about my weight and I don't. But enough about me and my fat-ass, the point is did the subjects of the study want to be "lovable"? I'd be interested to find out.

Care to Comment?

Coding for fun and profit

, , C. David Dent ,

I am a code tinkerer. I like to write code that does interesting and wonderful things and sometimes less practical things (but no less wonderful). And I code to fill time, boost my knowledge and to learn more about what is going on in the web programming world.

Occasionally I'll get an idea or be inspired to create something that has practical use as well as intrinsic interest for me and I'll share it with other people. Sometimes it is a goofy trinket like the Wheatoncalc and other times it is something more substantial. But my initial idea is always to say, "Here" and get the reaction, "This is cool". And I feel as if I've been paid in full for my time and effort.

My latest "fun" project is something that is desperately needed by the twitter community. Basically it is a way to manage your followers and friends more like an address book than the tools Twitter provides. It is still in testing so I'll not link to it here.

I shared this tool with some friends from Twitter and one of them had me call her. She is a network/social marketer with a lot of savvy and she uses Twitter as one of many tools in her arsenal and I approached her looking for some feed back from a more "professional" angle.

She immediately hit on an application I had not considered and pitched it as a product to be sold. She cautioned me about sharing her idea (and implied a threat as if I needed it) and I tentatively agreed.

So, suddenly one of these toys may make some money. I'm not sure how I feel about that since it has never happened before. I wonder what sort of money it might bring in?

I've registered a name and am looking into hosting but I am hesitant to invest a lot of cash into something that may not pay for itself over time (that's how I wound up with an Internet Kiosk aka the White Elephant).

I may have to plan to work small ($100 or less) and have a rapid expansion plan in place if it becomes necessary. It has been a while since I did the "entrepreneur thing". My skills are rusty.

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