Proactive vs Reactive

My Bible study group has been doing the Boundaries study by Cloud and Townsend. The study and the book, Boundaries: When to Say YES, When to Say NO, To Take Control of Your Life, uses Biblical principles to explain what in life we are and are not responsible for.

morguefile.com / clarita

I was just reading about The Law of Proactivity in the book, most of which covers taking responsibility for our choices and for defining ourselves vs. allowing others to define who we are and what we do. This quote was particularly meaningful:

While reactive victims are primarily known by their "against" stances, proactive people do not demand rights, they live them.  Power is not something you demand or deserve, it is something you express.  The ultimate expression for power is love; it is the ability not to express power, but to restrain it. Proactive people are able to "love others as themselves". They have mutual respect. They are able to "die to self" and not "return evil for evil". They have gotten past the reactive stance of the law and are able to love and not react. (pg. 98)

These words were significant to me on two levels. One is from my childhood where an adult who had a very important presence in my life and who would say he demanded respect. Actually, he didn't say it, he usually yelled it out in various threatening tones.  The problem was that this individual did not have much respect for me or just about anyone else around him, and ironically, his lack of mutual respect meant he actually gained little of the respect he so insecurely demanded from others.

Fast forward to today, and I think about the hatred and division I see across the United States regarding politics. I have acquaintances on Facebook and Twitter and a few "in-person" relatives who delight in spewing forth vitriole about Republicans or Democrats, and who seem to be harboring some degree of disgust if not hatred against those who support the party which they hold with such disdain. Some of the things that are said offend me, but I choose to ignore it because these people are entitled to their opinion even if they don't think I'm entitled to mine.  At times, when I've shown support for the party I am most aligned with on the issues (without even mentioning the opposing party), these people respond - react - to me in an over-the-top-negative way. After reading that quote from Boundaries, I believe that my choosing to ignore their behavior in regard to politics while loving them for the other facets of their personality is being proactive.

Be proactive, choose mutual respect.  We don't have to agree on everything, and really, we shouldn't when we have appropriate personal boundaries. If you've been hurt and you're angry, find a way out of the tunnel vision of your pain instead of spreading it by lashing out. There's a respectful way to disagree.

Divided we fall, at the level of personal relationships or as a nation.

1 Corinthians 1:10 I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

Galations 5:13-15 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another humbly in love. If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

TaxACT Review, What Is Personal Finance Software, Account Registers and Classifying Financial Transactions

Some new articles I published on About.com Financial Software last month:

My TaxACT Review was my first tax software review this year since the folks at TaxACT were the first to get in touch with me.  TaxACT has a free version that can be used for even more complex tax returns, but I say part with $10 to get some extra features that are pretty helpful.

I wrote Working with Financial Accounts: Categories and Tags, Attachments and Flags to explain how each of these features can be used in personal finance software to define financial transactions.  Spending categories are the most basic way to differentiate one expense from another and are necessary if you're going to use your software for budgeting. Flags are used to call your attention to a transaction for any reason (perhaps to remind you to verify a credit card charge), tags further define categories if you want to get that anal about budgeting and attachments are images of receipts, etc. which are associated with transactions.

Account Registers in Personal Finance Software was written for total newbs who want to really understand their software and where all the action starts: in the account register.

What is Personal Finance Software? was also written for those who are completely new to the software or who are considering using personal finance software and have no idea how it can help them to manage money.

New Year's Resolution Overkill

I don't really do New Year's resolutions because I believe that every day presents an opportunity to learn, fine tune and to resolve to improve through actions that get me closer to a goal.  But, today is New Year's day and I find myself writing out some details about important goals that I've had for the past few months. I've not solidified or further defined into steps I need to take if I ever want to actually reach these goals, so I decided to take advantage of some down time and get things down on paper so I am more committed to taking action.

Every day is one more chance to start all over
One more chance to change and grow
One more chance to grab a hold of grace and never let it go
~New Year's Day by Carolyn Arends

Some of the tools I'm using are the annual, quarterly and monthly Your Smartest Goals planners from personal coach, Gwen Clayton.  I've never used a quarterly planner before, and I'm finding it really helps to break yearly goals down into that time frame before further refining the goals into actions for any given month.  From the month goal planner, I use a simple list of weekly actions and then plug those into a daily calendar.  After the initial planning is done, I really only use my weekly and daily planner regularly, revisiting the other planners once a month for a few minutes.  I use my ToodleDo online and mobile outlining and project planning app for reminders, check lists and to easily revise plans and projects, but I prefer to work on paper first.

Today, I found myself stuck at the quarterly goals level, and I wasn't moving too fast at coming up with a good list for what I wanted to accomplish this month, either.  I spent several minutes fumbling with getting my thoughts on paper, then considered switching to a mind map when it hit me that the reason for the bottleneck in my thought processes hit me: I was trying to define way too many primary goals!  The planners I'm using are similar to many life goals planners in that your life is broken down into nine areas including career, spiritual, health, etc.  I was trying to plan something for each of those areas, but that was overkill for me.

I have a lot to do with for health and fitness after having recently been diagnosed with digestive tract inflammation, adrenal fatigue and having just recovered from having the majority of my thyroid removed.  I also have much to do career-wise as I seek to expand my freelance projects or to secure part-time employment (see my LinkedIn profile if you're interested in what I have to offer). And, I really, really need to do some decorating in this house, so much so that it's starting to bug me. We've been here for five years and I still need to get these Contractor Vanilla walls painted.

Once I reduced the major areas I would be working on in the weeks to come to these three, the ideas started flowing again and the planning was quickly wrapped up.  If you're struggling with setting goals and resolutions, consider how much you're trying to do - is it realistic?  Choose the most important goals to focus on and make a "Goals I Gotta Do Someday" list for the rest. Then, define the projects that are necessary for achieving the goals and funnel those down to specific actions.  Schedule the actions on your calendar and honor that time as a real appointment and you're on your way to fulfilling resolutions.  And, remember that if you're reading this long past January 1, every single day presents an opportunity for improvement and planning toward that end.

iHome+Sleep Review (with extensive narrative)

This review was updated on December 27, 2011.  I am no longer ready to box it all up and send it back.

Being purveyor of household and extended family Christmas gifts is a tough job, so this year, I decided to buy myself a gift as well.  I even wrapped it and labeled it "To: Shelley  From: Santa".  The gift was the iHome iA5 App-Enhanced Alarm Clock Speaker System for iPod and iPhone.

When it comes to clock radios, I always buy a cheapie at WalMart.  My current clock radio worked well enough, and the two alarm settings were helpful.  The alarm went off when it was supposed to and the radio sounded like music siphoned through a tin can, but that's what you get for $8.99.  This must be the elite model of clock radios, because not only does it have two alarm settings, but there's also a Nap button.  Hit Nap and in 10, 20 or 30 minutes (depending on how many times the button is pushed) the radio alarm goes off to wake you from your brief respite of sleep.

The Nap button soon became my nemesis.  Occasionally at night, I would reach out in the dark to push the 'set' button to turn on the alarm for morning and, damn(!), I would hit the Nap button.  There is no way to disable Nap.  Once you've gone there, the radio alarm will go off in a minimum of 10 minutes, just as you and the spouse are drifting off to sleep.  This is so annoying.

I was really looking forward to using the iHome clock radio.  I almost bought the $120 retail priced iHome iD84BZ from SamsClub.com for $80, but it wouldn't ship on time for Christmas, so I settled on the little iA5 model from Amazon for $65, which would save some space.  The sound quality from a smaller radio would probably suffer, but it would probably be better than the tin can I had been listening to for a few years.  The iHome line of iOS app-enhanced clock radios won CES awards and work for iPhone and iPod Touch with some models for iPad.

iHome iA5 Pros:

• Small form factor saves space.
• Set multiple alarms with a variety of configurations.
• Like to fall asleep to music or meditation recordings? The iHome apps cover that beautifully.
• Fills a room with decent-quality sound, and gets better with the iHome app equalizer.
• Provides a use to my old second generation iPod Touch, abandoned last year when I got an Android phone, which I much prefer to anything that requires syncing with iTunes so much that I can't resist stating that fact here.
• Gentle wake feature - volume of music or alarm increases slowly to gently awaken you.
• Can set an alarm even without the iPod/iPhone attached.
• Works as speakers for any audio played through your iPod/iPhone.

iHome iA5 Cons:

• No radio in the clock radio, so if internal alarm is used instead of using iOS device, you will be jarred awake to the sound of a hair-raising buzzer which will likely make you cranky for at least four hours later.  Buy the $1.99 iHome Radio app to have a radio through the iOS device.
• The *&^% settings in the iHome apps (two are required to get all advertised features, but you'll have to figure that out on your own) are not entirely intuitive to set up.
• The iA5 clock radio comes with directions, but with no information for how to use the iHome Sleep app.
• To get the equalizer, dimmer and other advertised features, you need to download the iHome Set app, which alters your iPhone or iPod hardware.  Not sure if this is reversible.
• If you go to iHome.com/apps to learn more about the required apps and hopefully to gain an understanding of how the slide-y Sleep thingy and a few settings work, you will be disappointed.  Ditto on iTunes. Need more information on app features.
• The weather feature was been removed in the latest app update.
• The app screen does not dim sufficiently, but you can turn the iPod screen off and alarms still work (I tested this a few times).  This requires the latest app version.

Am I happy with my iHome clock radio?  I was originally so frustrated with trying to set up the app, and discovering I needed to download additional apps while trouble shooting that I was on the edge of sending the iHome back to Amazon. But, I really like that I can set up my choice of music or meditations to play for a set period of time as I fall asleep, and the alarms work just fine despite what comments say on iTunes, so I decided to try it for a couple more days.  After more time, I'm starting to love this clock radio.  Each time I hear it, I'm surprised by how un-tin-can-ish the sound is and I let the music play after I get up out of bed.  I'm keeping my iHome Ai5.

The real bummer:  I expected the apps to be really easy to set up. Most Apple technology users are accustomed to ease of use. But the apps aren't entirely intuitive. I should mention that I've tested a lot of apps and software for my work, and I'm so sick of developers who don't find a way to get a true user's perspective. A few words of instruction from the developers are needed so the user doesn't spend way too much time trying to figure things out.  I still have no clue what the nap, sleep and wake reminders are, no clue at all.  This is unacceptable.

Update 12.28.2011:  I found a 'how to use iHome apps' guide while searching for how to register the apps today. It's an old pre-OS 5 guide, but it explains features I was clueless about.  Bedtime and wake up reminders are for notes that display when a wake up alarm goes off or you start the timed music to fall asleep to.  Nap is for setting timed alarms, i.e., 20 mins.  Other features I won't use but are still very cool are overnight news for viewing Twitter and Facebook updates that accumulated overnight, and the app keeps an optional log of sleep stats.

Video: iHome demonstration at CES 2010, via YouTube / mocciat.