I’m cheating with today’s post, actually i’m cheating twice.
Today, the day I’m posting, is December 25th which makes it Christmas Day. Unless your in overly aggressive retail or some other public service that requires 24/7 staffing, your most likely off. Good for you. You also may be visiting family or entertaining family that has come to visit you as so many of us have had to move from our heart homes to get a ‘good job’ in our field.
What I’ve found is that there is significant downtime in the rituals of Christmas. There is the prerequisite present opening, and then there are sports games or classic movies to watch and Christmas Dinner. In between all that is the downtime to visit with family and/or play with things you may have received. For many the ritual gets boring after a few hours and a nap ensues. For the last few years, I wouldn’t write anything new, and I would always repost my variant of “The Night Before Christmas” but that’s starting to feel a little overdone.
I thought about it for a bit and figured I’d still take my cheat day. Specifically i’m going to take today off, but this year, it’ll only be partially off. I won’t write some big thought provoking article about the collision points between work and life. That doesn’t mean that you, my readers and listeners, may not need something to do. So I figured in lieu of a new article I’d give you a review of some of my favorite articles from 2017 and explain why they are worth a relook. This is actually my second cheat. Typically media sites save the ‘Top X’ lists for the first post of the new year. Yes, we have a January 1st post, but I want the January 1st article to be the big kickoff to my 2018 series: “Big Problems, Big Solutions”. My attempt at offering solutions for some of the biggest problems of the modern era. Our first BPBS article is about what once was the welfare class, which I dub chronic underachievers. But that’s something to look forward to next week. This week, I figured I should provide either a little bit of reading or a lot depending on your needs. So those who have little time because they are engaged in the family ritual can just skip the week, and the ones who need something to do, can have a bunch to read. So I’ve decided to offer my top 5 picks from 2017.
Starting off, my first pick is the very first article of 2017: Where Goldman Sachs Misses the Mark and Where it Hits the Nail on the Head.
Goldman sachs report on the challenges of the modern workforce gets one thing perfectly right. Continual retraining is needed and their analysis that the cost for retraining needs to be shared across all the stakeholders (Gov’t, Individual, and Business) is correct. Their conclusion of leveraging money for retirement for retraining is a bit off the mark if you consider traditional retirement a good thing. Ideally you would want to get to the status of retirement where you don’t have to work as quickly as possible.
My article is worth a read, but the Goldman Sachs podcast on the topic is absolutely required listening, after you have listened to all of mine of course.
The second pick I’d like to highlight from 2017 is: The Density Dilemma
This article is about benefits and challenges of living and working in rural versus urban environments. What ever option you choose, it’s guaranteed to have tremendous impact on your life. There was so much information I wanted to share that it spilled over into a second article which included observations I didn’t quite get into the first article.
You can read the first article here: https://pelusopresents.com/2017/09/04/the-density-dilemma-the-relationship-between-population-density-and-lifestyle/
The follow up article is here:
https://pelusopresents.com/2017/09/18/density-dilemma-ii-additional-observations-about-the-relationship-between-population-density-and-life/
My third article pick of 2017 is actually a series of three back to back articles which are all part of my “Workaholic” Series.
This series was inspired by a friend of mine who worked herself to the bone to achieve greatness in her career (which she did) but when she arrived she found the reward was relentless demands of work and a modified personality that drives her to meet that never ending workload. Many of us may not achieve lofty heights in our chosen vocation, but many do find themselves transferred into being workaholics, driven of course by our modern life and corporate cultures.
Workaholic Part I: The What’s and Why’s of Workaholic’s
https://pelusopresents.com/2017/06/19/workaholic-part-i-the-whats-and-whys-of-workaholics/
Workaholic Part II: The Pro’s and Con’s of being a Workaholic!
https://pelusopresents.com/2017/06/26/workaholic-part-ii-the-pros-and-cons-of-being-a-workaholic/
Workaholic Part III: Breaking the Cycle: How can you not be a workaholic?
My fourth pick of 2017 is another collection of articles, this time about youth and work and life.
It’s two articles that are broadly related in their target subject areas but not actual topics. Specifically, they both are conversations about youth and how the needs of youth is disconnected from the needs of our modern world. In my first article I discuss the broader work and life environment that exists for youth and how ‘hanging out’ and ‘youth’ has extended almost creating a retirement period before work starts. The second article gets a bit more granular, where I discuss more specifically the education requirements for a good life and how they are an absolute mismatch to the call of biology. These two flip sides of the same coin say similar things, which is if you want to efficiently onboard the entirety of next generation into the workforce, something has to change.
The Extension of Youth: How Retirement Now Comes Before Working
Biology Vs. Society
https://pelusopresents.com/2017/08/21/biology-vs-society/
My fifth pick is: Financial Offense Vs. Defense: Which is better for the Professional?
My fifth Pick for article is one that i’m especially connected to at least in topic and tone. It did get a bit academic in its structure. It’s my article on Financial Offense vs. Defense discussing the pro’s and con’s of both approaches in your career. What makes this article so important is that it really gets to the heart of the site. Specifically the collision points between work and life. Work is to make money above and beyond everything else. It’s how you handle that money that impacts your life.
Financial Offense Vs. Defense: Which is better for the Professional?
I have a ton of other great articles on the site and several more I wanted to add to this list. I didn’t include all of them because I wanted to keep this list somewhat brief. That being said, if you haven’t really skimmed through most of what’s at www.pelusopresents.com I’d encourage you to check it out. These five picks may resonate with me, but I’m sure there are many others that would resonate with the different readers. Plus, remember, many of you are reading this on Christmas Day or in the days afterwards when you maybe have had your fill of the ‘love’ from the loved ones during the visit. Catching up with everything you may have missed at Peluso Presents is a great way to give yourself some quiet time if you need it.
One last thing, I know it’s tacky to ask for a Christmas Gift, but, if you are so inclined to want to send one my way, I have a suggestion. Pick some of your friends and family this holiday and get them signed up to receive the articles from my wordpress site. You can also grab their phones and show them how to listen to podcasts. Then subscribe them to the Peluso Presents Podcast feed. I say this because for an author and podcaster, more readers and listeners would be the best Christmas Gift of all!
Merry Christmas from all of us here at Peluso Presents!
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