“Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?”

And George Carlin, while not always focusing on wordplay, was easily one of the best comics of all time. He is perhaps best remembered for the seven words routine (NSFW YouTube link due to language, naturally), but little jokes like the one above are very clever too. It doesn’t have to be crude to be funny (not to say that I am opposed to crude humor).

But does comedy really serve a useful purpose? Do we really need characters like George Costanza and Stephen Colbert in a purely utilitarian sense? Well, American psychologist William James once said, “We don’t laugh because we’re happy. We’re happy because we laugh.” And I think we’d all agree that happiness is pretty important.

Here are a couple of other gems from Carlin:

“Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.”

“When someone asks you, A penny for your thoughts, and you put your two cents in, what happens to the other penny?”

In your quests to find fame, fortune and love, don’t forget to keep a sense of humor about things too. Smile and the world will smile back at you.

“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.”

In the quote above, we are reminded that life is filled with momentum. Taking advantage of one opportunity opens up the doors to other opportunities. When you get on stage as a standup comic, you have the chance to get your own sitcom. When you get your sitcom, you may be able to host a talk show or get a book deal. Opening one door opens many others. You have more opportunities as you seize more opportunities.

Life is all about perspective too. When you take an opportunity, you may be able to gain a new vantage point from this new position. Sun Tzu continues on the concept of perspective by saying:

“Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.”

There’s one thing to be an elitist when you are actually are superior to your colleagues and competitors in some way. It’s another thing altogether when you are actually superior, but take on a more humble stance. Allow your enemies to drop their guard and take advantage of the situation.

Remember that perception is everything. Impossible is nothing.

“Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. Liberty has meaning only if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and a false government security blanket beckons.”

For the life of me, I can’t get all that interested in Canadian politics. I probably should, since it has a greater impact on my day-to-day life, but I find myself much more captivated by American politics. Maybe it has to do with the personalities. Or the coverage. Or the spin doctors.

As I’m sure you’re already aware, the race among the Republican Party is well under way with several candidates already dropping out of the picture. The GOP needs a leader and one guy who wants the job is Ron Paul. This certainly isn’t Paul’s first time at the dance, but it looks like his campaign is slowly picking up momentum.

Now, I can’t say for sure whether I agree with all of his political opinions and viewpoints, but we do share a similar perspective on the relationship between security and freedom. In order to achieve greater freedom, you have to risk bad things happening. Security, by its very nature, is restricting. As a libertarian, Ron Paul leans much more toward the side of personal freedoms than he does of a more controlled and secure state. He values liberty and that’s at the forefront of his platform.

If you want to live free, you have to accept the dangers of living free. You could fall down. You could hurt yourself, but you have to recognize that you were given the choice. And that has intrinsic value. That’s why Paul has always pushed for smaller government.

“America was founded by men who understood that the threat of domestic tyranny is as great as any threat from abroad. If we want to be worthy of their legacy, we must resist the rush toward ever-increasing state control of our society. Otherwise, our own government will become a greater threat to our freedoms than any foreign terrorist.”

Whether or not Ron Paul eventually gets the Republican nomination to face off against President Barack Obama in this year’s election, I think it’s great that he’s finally getting some recognition from the mainstream media. He is a serious contender and should be treated as such. His voice needs to be heard. After all, as this YouTube video illustrates, the man is a psychic!

Or, you know, you could raise Cain instead. Either way, remember to exercise your civil liberty–and responsibility–and vote.

“Normal people… believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet.”

Innovation can truly be a great thing, resulting in brand new products that can make our lives easier, more efficient, and more manageable. But not all innovation is made alike and some of that innovation really doesn’t do us much good at all. In fact, they could make things worse.

Not surprisingly, I witnessed quite a bit of this phenomenon first hand at the Consumer Electronics Show last week. In an industry that is built upon one-upping the competition, there is a constant race to add more features and improve those specifications, even if they add no real value to the final product and to the final consumer.

The quote above, however, does not come from a technologist. Instead, it comes from cartoonist and satirist Scott Adams. He is best known for his Dilbert comic strip, which has always done a fantastic job of parodying the office environment and the quirks of the engineer’s lifestyle. Many times, it’s not about “fixing” what is broken; instead, it’s about taking what’s already great and making it stellar.

That’s exactly the mentality that industry legends like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos have taken. There is no finish line. There is no last nugget. Everything lends itself to a new opportunity for innovation.

Scott Adams reiterates this idea in another way:

“Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.”

If life gives you lemons, then you have to figure out how to make an aluminum unibody smartphone with automated Twitter updates and a 18MP low-light digital camera. And a can opener. You know, just because.

We’ve heard it all before. Do what you love and the money will follow. That mantra is partly responsible for my current career as a freelance writer. I have always enjoyed writing, so I found a way to parlay that into a full-time job. To some people, this may sound like the best possible scenario.

At the same time, you might remember when I discussed the risks of turning a hobby into a business. When faced with challenges and repetition, you can start focusing too much on fiscal viability and less on enjoyment. The lines can become so blurred that it always feels like you’re on the clock. While I certainly don’t regret my professional decision, I also understand that true life-work balance requires something outside of the world of work.

The additional challenge is that Beyond the Rhetoric, while partly a professional blog on personal development and freelance writing, is also a personal blog. I write about the meals that I eat, the trips that I take, and the movies that I watch. In this way, what may be considered leisure to most people can almost become like work for me. This blog does not make nearly as much money as my main freelance writing business, but it does make some money. And as such, it is a business and I treat it accordingly.

Yes, much of what I do for fun is related to work. I enjoy video games, but I also do video game reviews, as well as cover various gaming and technology-related events. I love playing Street Fighter, and while I don’t do it competitively, I do run Hadouken Online and have written on other sites about fighting games. I attend Dot Com Pho to socialize with friends, but I also produce many of the videos. A hobby of mine is photography, as evidenced by my Flickr photostream, but I also take photos for my clients and for this blog.

It is along this line of thought that I started to ask myself whether I had any hobbies and interests that weren’t at all related to the world of work. I realized that I do, but they are few and far between. I enjoy watching hockey and football, though I rarely write about either. I’m known to watch many of the programs on HGTV, both about real estate and about home renovation, but I don’t really write about those topics either.

The more I think about it, the more I’m wondering whether having significant hobbies that are completely not related to work is something that I should actively pursue. What do you think? Is it more about life-work integration than work-life balance?

“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask remains a fool forever.”

I’ve written Sunday Snippet entries in the past about fools. I’ve written about how they feel compelled to say something and how that usually leads to complaining and criticizing. We can all be fools sometimes, but we don’t have to stay that way.

The quote above is actually a Chinese proverb and it provides us with a very simple, yet very profound lesson: ask questions. Consider the curiosity of a child, gazing upon the world with wide-eyed wonder. Why do butterflies have wings? Why is the sky blue? What is sushi? Where does the sun go at night?

And it is through these questions that they can gain a better understanding of the world around them. They don’t know, so they ask. Why is it, then, that adults can oftentimes shy away from asking questions and asking the right questions? Social pressures may intimidate someone, not wanting to look ignorant among his or her peer group.

But that’s exactly the thing. If you don’t ask the question and the conversation continues, your ignorance will only intensify. Believe it or not, you’re allowed not to know something. Just remember to ask. Then, you’ll know. And then you will be better equipped to spread this knowledge to others.

Now that 2012 has arrived, many of us may be taking on some new year’s resolutions. Some may aim to reduce debt or to lose weight, but we can all strive to learn something new every day. And learning always begins with a question. Don’t be a fool. Ask questions.

Happy new year!

“My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?”

It’s such a simple concept. They say that there is something about the holiday season that has everyone is good spirits. That may be true, but who said that we have to wait for these last few weeks of the year to treat our fellow man with kindness, consideration, and love?

Bob Hope is easily one of the best known and most iconic entertainers of the last century, but that sentiment of loving others during Christmastime has been echoed through the ages. Jim Davis (via Garfield) taught us, “Christmas: it’s not the giving, it’s not the getting, it’s the loving. There, I said it. Now get outta here.”

In a slightly different way, Linus van Pelt tells us in A Charlie Brown Christmas that all the sad little tree needed was a little love. And it’s not just the little trees that need that love. The other reindeer used to laugh and call Rudolph names, but he ended up being the hero.

You may feel compelled to “celebrate” Festivus to counter the commercialism and relative non-inclusion of the season, but don’t forget that we could all use a little love… and not just during the holidays, but throughout the year.

“Oh, he’s so lucky to have bought a house at such a young age.”

“Oh, he’s so lucky to have such a successful blog with such a large readership.”

Luck. It’s one of those things that seems so far out of our control, yet it has such a monumental impact on our daily lives. We credit luck to a lot of circumstances and events, but that just gives us an excuse to use an external locus of control.

The fact of the matter is the harder (and smarter) that you work, the luckier that you will get. He was lucky to have the house, because he worked so hard to save up a sizable down payment. He was lucky to buy the house, because he worked so hard shopping around the tough real estate market to find the diamond in the rough. He was lucky to have a successful blog, because he capitalized on a rising trend just as it was picking up steam.

Fortune favors the bold, but it also favors those who put in the hours and do the right thing. When you have a strong work ethic, putting in the effort even when no one else is looking, you put yourself in a situation where you are more likely to encounter the “lucky” opportunity.

Does hard work guarantee success and happiness? No, not at all. There are many people who grind it out for years and never get that golden chance, but you do want to position yourself in such a way that you can capitalize when the situation presents itself. Whether or not I want it to be so, I still believe in good luck and bad luck. Hard work, without good luck, can still pay off. Good luck, without hard work, is oftentimes short-lived.

Live your life accordingly.

“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.”

A short while I ago, I wrote a post asking whether or not success needs to be measurable. Are you able to measure your success? Are you able to measure your happiness? According to William John Copeland, you can and you should.

Known better as Bill Copeland, he was an Australian Test cricket match umpire and a member of the Victorian police force. While I don’t completely understand the rules of cricket, I do understand the sentiment expressed in the quote above. Think about it. If you don’t have an end destination in mind, how can you know if you are going in the right direction? How can you know when you achieved something? How can you know when you have won? Without having a concrete goal in mind, you’re simply going through the motions.

Even if you never share those goals with anyone else, it’s a good idea to have them in the back of your mind as you strive to better yourself in some way or another. This is also why it is positively critical that you set S.M.A.R.T. goals. They need to be specific, they need to be measurable, they need to be relevant, and perhaps most importantly of all, they need to have a timeframe in mind. Saying that you want to “lose 10 pounds,” but not defining a deadline doesn’t give much value to that goal.

Yes, smell the flowers. Yes, enjoy the game. But while you are running up and down the field, remember why you are doing it and what it is that you are trying to achieve.

Let’s say that you have a potential Olympic athlete and she is training for the 100-meter hurdles. She trains for years and manages to make it onto the team. She trains more and makes it to the Olympic Games where she stuns the world and wins the gold medal. By all accounts, we’d all agree that this athlete is successful.

Similarly, let’s say that we have a day trader who starts with a modest $10,000 portfolio. Within a week, he’s able to double that portfolio and the growth continues to be steady. Again, I think we’d all agree that this investor has been quite successful. However, is it really fair to say that all success and all happiness needs to be discretely measurable?

The Benchmark for Success

Many of us were taught that setting S.M.A.R.T. goals is the way to go. This way, you have a direction to follow and an end destination in mind. Part of setting S.M.A.R.T. goals is to ensure that they are measurable and specific. Telling yourself that you want to “lose weight” isn’t nearly as powerful as saying that you want to “lose 10 pounds by Christmas.”

This establishes a specific benchmark for success. It’s quantifiable, so you know exactly whether or not you’ve achieved this goal. At the same time, you could find yourself in the situation where you are dangling a carrot on a stick. Coming out of school, you may be happy earning $30,000 a year. When you reach that goal, you aim for $40k, then $50k, and so on. When is it good enough? When can you deem yourself truly successful?

It’s All Relative

I use the context of wealth, because we can all relate. And in this sense, we seem to gauge our success in a relative sense. If you surround yourself by billionaires and you are “only” a multi-millionaire, you may not feel nearly as successful. If you have the exact same amount of wealth, but most of your peers are not millionaires, then you may feel more successful.

But that’s just one aspect. What about all the other factors that go into that feeling of success? What about all the other things in life that make you happy?

The Immeasurable Intangibles

And this is where you really find yourself wondering whether real success and real happiness can be measured at all. If you have all the riches in the world, but no loved ones around you, are you truly successful? If you earned that Olympic gold medal, but you sacrificed all other areas of your life to achieve it, can you be happy in the long term?

What about the value that you may place on leisure time? What about those precious little moments that are truly invaluable and can never be replaced? Life is far too complex and putting everything against a measuring stick will only have to missing out on the rest of the human experience. Yes, set S.M.A.R.T. goals and shoot for the stars, but don’t forget to smell a few flowers and share a few hugs along the way too.