INVESTMENTS

 When choosing an investment,  these three principles of a corporation should be considered: environmental, social, and governance.  The corporation should be concerned with environmental issues like climate change, reducing carbon emissions, pollution, energy use, waste, and conservation.  Social issues like human rights, labor standards, diversity, and inclusion should be important to the corporation.  Corporate governance includes relationships with employees, suppliers, customers and the communities where it operates, plus fair pay for executives and other workers, internal controls, audits, and  shareholders rights. 

Of course our investments should produce profits, but just as important are these ESG principles and standards of behavior.  Your investments should not only benefit your pocketbook, but also be an asset to the world now and for the future.     

LISTEN and SPEAK

 Many methods of communication are available these days, but listening and speaking face-to-face in person has many advantages.  Many decades ago this along with snail mail were the main ways to communicate, then the telephone, smart phone, texting, and email added to the methods.  

Perhaps the best communication is still in person.  One obvious challenge to make this happen is distance; we may not live close enough to easily do this.  We may also have gotten used to the ease and comvenience of sending quick brief texts. 

Surly, we still see the value of spending time with the other person.  The value of being with each other in the same room, the social aspect, the addition of sharing our lives with each other, body language, facial expressions, tone of voice are among the many advantages of communicating in person.  The quick back and forth in response to each other is easier.  The conversation can take many turns and the subject can change.

Those family members living under the same roof have many opportunities to communicate as long as they make the time and effort, as longs as they don't let other distractions interfere.  Friends and neighbors can also listen and speak to each other.

We all appreciate the convenience of texting, but hopefully this will not become our main way of communicatimg.  A phone call is one step better to hear the voice and expand the emotional connection.  Texting, however, does have advantages.  We need to stay connected.

Please consider the effect your methods of communication have on others.     

HOT

 Too hot for humans and many animals.  Our bodies can't tolerate continued heat and can develop heat stroke.  We rely on air conditioning to survive.  

Our planet is changing and we are at fault.  Extreme heat causes the soil and vegetation to dry out which creates the condition for fires to spread rapidly.  This further reduces the number of trees which help keep the atmosphere healthy.  

Many workers must perform their jobs outside; they aren't in air conditioned buildings.  Their work may involve creating and maintaining infrastructure or working on farms.  This allows us to travel and eat.  Many of us are crowded into urban areas and depend on others to bring our food to grocery stores.  

Become aware of what we humans are doing to our planet.      

GROWTH MIND-SET

 Both mind-sets can exist in your brain, but the more you develop a growth mind-set, the more successful you will be.

A fixed mind-set makes us feel we know best, that we want to stay in our comfort zone and avoid mistakes.  A growth mind-set makes us feel we can change our minds, welcome feedback, and realize mistakes help us learn.

A growth mind-set can help in our personal lives, in our careers, and allow us to develop ways to cooperate and even become effective leaders.  This mind-set broadens our thinking to understand ourselves and others.

TRUSTWORTHY

When you put your trust in an individual, organization, or company, you believe they are honest and truthful.  Hopefully, you have listened to what they say, observed their behavior, then made your decision that they are trustworthy.

In personal relationships with family members, friends, or prospective mates, an emotional component may sway your opinion.  In professional relationships like with medical providers or financial planners, recommendations from others may be helpful.  Trusting organizations may be more complicated especially if your family has belonged to these groups and expect your loyalty.  Putting trust in political organizations has much to do with the trust you put in the politicians.  In general, trusting our country and our democracy will help continue our survival.

Most companies, we hope, are trustworthy, and safeguards are in place to help keep them honest; however, the responsibility lies in us to research their reputation and advertising.  The products and services they provide should be reliable. 

We also need to be trustworthy, honest, and reliable.  As we search for truth, we can build trust in others.    

IRL

In Real Life outside the digital world, face to face activities can include communication between two people or within a group, shopping in stores, playing physical sports, socializing at school and parties.  Imagine all the different ways we can interact without technology.

There must be advantages to avoid real life.  Perhaps it is faster, saves time, more controllable,  can be like a one way street where no one is gong the other way.  We text at our convenience at a time of our choosing maybe getting a quick reply, maybe not.  Now it's up to the other person to reply whereas face to face, the conversation immediately continues back and forth perhaps getting more complex even bringing up issues we don't want to discuss.

Online shopping can be faster, save time, done in our own home when we choose, often delivered the next day or so.  Of course while shopping, we can't touch the item, judge the quality or be sure of the fit, but we can always send it back.    

Playing video games in our own home takes much less time and effort than practicing a sport and participating on a team.  Interacting face to face is not necessary.  

Surely we can also see the disadvantages of not going into the real world.  Reducing real life conversations and learning situations can stunt our abilities.  Misunderstandings can develop.  Malls and shops are losing customers and money and then workers may lose their jobs or transfer to big warehouses.  Delivery trucks and cardboard boxes clutter our environment.  Gaming in our bedroom does not provide fresh air, exercise, or learning team work.

Try to spend more time and effort IRL.       

 

 

DECISIONS

This or that, here or there, now or later, decisions need to be made.  Our goals will guide our actions.  A commonly heard advice is "Live your best life." You need to consider others who may be affected by your decisions, but each of us needs to realize our own goals and move forward.  Decide what is best for you.  

First, we consider our options, allow time to evaluate the possibilities, and plan our actions.  Talking to others may help our decision making.  Then, we need to see the steps toward our goals.  Others may not understand, may believe we are moving too fast, or that our decisions are wrong.  Some may misunderstand or feel our decisions are partially based on something they have done.  We can try to explain our thinking and hope they will agree with our decisions.

After we have accomplished our goal, we may be satisfied with our decision.  We may also realize the goal needs updating.  Our decision making continues.