If clarity is not available to me today, I will trust it to come later, in retrospect.

I will put simple trust in the truth that all is well; events are unfolding as they should, and all will work out for good in my life – better than I can imagine.

“You, as much as anyone in the universe, deserve your love and respect.” – Buddha

“The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.” – Theodore Rubin

“Everything is okay in the end, if it’s not ok, then it’s not the end.” – Unknown

“No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.” – Buddha

Simply put, The War of Art is a fantastic book about resistance.

“We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are. More than our parents/children/teachers think we are. We fear that we actually possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us. That we actually have the guts, the perseverance, the capacity. We fear that we truly can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land. We fear this because, if it’s true, then we become estranged from all we know. We pass through a membrane. We become monsters and monstrous.” ― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

Considering the time and expense that goes into earning a college degree, knowing whether your course of study is a career-killer is powerful knowledge indeed. That’s why we analyzed the jobless rates and salaries for graduates with the 100 most popular majors to come up with our list of the ten worst values in college majors.

Using data from Payscale.com and Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, we looked for majors whose graduates—both recent grads (within the past five years) and those well into their careers—face a brutal combination of low compensation and high unemployment. We also worked with Payscale to determine the likelihood that recent graduates from each major would end up working in retail, where a college degree isn’t always required, rather than in their field of study. A ratio of 1.0 is the norm; a ratio of 2.0 means a graduate of that major is twice as likely to work in retail as the average college grad.

10. English
9. Sociology
8. Drama and Theater Arts
7. Liberal Arts
6. Studio Arts
5. Graphic Design
4. Philosophy and Religious Studies
3. Film and Photography
2. Fine Arts
1. Anthropology

By Caitlin Dewey – Kiplinger.com

You can read the entire article here.

Here’s the article in full:

For years we have been talking about the education bubble and the problem that colleges charge tons of money and then graduates are unemployable and in debt. Colleges are responding by becoming job preparation centers. And Frank Bruni, opinion editor for the New York Times, says this is a waste of time and resources. Here’s what’s better:

1. Skipping college.
The real issue we have with admitting that college is not a path to the work world is then we have to ask ourselves why we send our kids to high school. There is plenty of data to show that teens are able to manage their lives without the constraints of school. The book Escaping the Endless Adolescence is chock full of data, and a recent article by my favorite journalist, Jennifer Senior, shows that high school is not just unnecessary, but actually damaging to teens who need much more freedom to grow than high school affords.

2. Focus on internships instead of school.
Kids should be working in internships in high school. Because the best path to a good job is a bunch of great internships. But great internships don’t go to people who need money. They are mostly for young people. Yes, this is probably illegal and classist and bad for a fluid society. But we will not debate that here. Instead we will debate why kids need to go to college if the internships are what make them employable? Kids should do internships in high school and by their college years, they are capable of real jobs where they are doing work that people value, with cash.

You cannot take this route if you’re saddled with huge student loans. You can’t take this route if you’re inundated by homework in required subjects you don’t care about. You can’t take this route if you have no work experience when you graduate college. It’s too late. (Don’t tell me you need to go to school to learn, okay? People just do not believe this anymore.)

I was reading the Fortune list of 40 under 40 and I was struck by the career history of Kevin Feige (number 11 on the list). He’s president of Marvel Studios at age 39. He wrote that he interned with the Superman movie director as a film student and that was the last job application he filled out. That’s because if you get an internship with someone great, and your performance is great, your network will cover your employment needs for a very long time.

3. Start a company instead of writing a resume.
I’m struck by Marissa Mayer (number 3 on Fortune’s list) whose announced acquisition strategy is buying small, cheap companies. Which is, in effect, buying the team. Silicon Valley calls these acqui-hires. She is looking at young people who start companies that are not necessarily successful in terms of product or sales but successfully market the founders as visionaries, self-starters, and hard workers. You can’t show those traits in school, so if you have those traits, you slow yourself down by going to school where you cannot exhibit your best, marketable traits.

4. Refuse to present yourself in a linear way.
Do any workaround that lets you forgo the linear obsession the standard resume format. Because linear presentations favor people who have long, rule-following careers – which don’t necessarily make you look good anyway. I could write a post ten thousand paragraphs long of all the new things people with nonlinear work histories are doing to get jobs.

People use twitter as a resume, according to the Wall Street Journal, which requires only that you publish ideas, not any sort of academic experience.

Young people are selling stock in themselves – paying out dividends for decades at a time.

Agents represent workers who pick and choose projects that match them rather than signing on for indefinite amounts of time. The Harvard Business Review calls this supertemping. Business Week calls it going Hollywood.

But here’s the big takeaway. A fundamental shift is taking place, where the path to getting a job is massively circumventing college credentials. And, at the same time, the American public is fed up with the insane debt that college are expecting new grads to take on in order to graduate. (Good essay: How College Ruined My Life.)

If you are not going to school in order to “fit” into the adult world, then why are you going to school? The love of learning, presumably. But school reform pundits are 100% sure that kids will choose to learn if you put no constraints on them. They will just learn what they want. Best example: The MIT program that gave iPads to illiterate kids in Ethiopia, and they taught themselves to use it, program it, and read it in English. No teacher. No curriculum.

The biggest barrier to accepting the radical new nature of the job hunt is the reverberations throughout the rest of life. If you don’t need school for work, and you don’t need school for learning, then all you need school for is so parents can go to work and not worry about taking care of their kids.

It takes bravery to go against the grain. It’s difficult to say that the great learning and the great jobs come from leaning out, doing things in a nonlinear, non standard way, and playing only by the rules that fit your own style for personal learning and growth.

In a world crowded with intense competition, it’s a challenge to stand out. Unless you have a really special product, or a better mousetrap, it isn’t very likely that you’re much different from your competitors. This is true whether your competition is that other company in your industry, or that other person in your office.

If you’re really not that different, how do you stand out?

When you think about differentiating yourself, you likely think of “what” you do or offer, versus “how” you do it. As such, you tend to concern yourself more with narrowing your niche and refining your pitch, than with something that might be more important. In the process, you place too much emphasis on the uniqueness of “things.”

Rare is something or someone so unique that they truly stand out. Yes, there are those exceptions, but in any case, they would not be memorable were it not for a particular factor. That is – a job well done! Think about it – do you buy something, promote someone, or choose a service because it’s unique? No! You buy because you perceive the benefits and then are satisfied when it delivers on its promise. That’s the “difference.”

Being good at what you do, is what can make you different!

Your uniqueness will develop if you make doing things well a top priority. Instead of focusing your energy on your differences, focus on your strengths and the important tasks, and then do them well. This, more than anything, will make you stand out in the minds others. When people recognize you as someone who does a job well, that’s what will make you different!

Those were the words that tumbled out of my mouth as I failed to return my racquetball opponent’s shot. I hesitated, anticipating that he would miss his shot and the point would be mine. That’s not how it worked out.

Have you ever slacked off, cut corners, made a half- hearted attempt or just didn’t try at all, hoping instead that things would just roll your way?

We all have the tendency to slow down once in a while; rest and relaxation can be a good thing. But we are also prone to hesitating, procrastinating and down right avoiding effort, all on a regular basis. So, why do we do that?

There can be a number of reasons why we don’t do what is necessary to succeed. Perhaps it’s an attention deficit disorder, a physical limitation or a psychological obstacle. However, beyond those more serious conditions, it’s probably something more basic. That is – we trust more in the hope that things will just “happen,” rather than participating in our own success.

Countless opportunities are missed because we’re waiting on something. Waiting for that winning lottery number, for our competitor to stumble or fall, or for our co-worker to quit or get fired. In the process we approach things half-heartedly, or not at all, and then fail to gain the growth, awareness and enlightenment that new experiences bring.

Why not commit yourself to taking action instead of waiting to see what opportunity you’ve missed?

Despite their fear, doubt and uncertainty, true leaders, innovators and trail blazers take action. They don’t wait for things to happen, or to see what others are doing. They are “on-the-ball” and focus on their goals and objectives, while doing those things necessary to achieve them.

Whether you’re playing a game, climbing the ladder in your career, or building a business, hesitation, procrastination and avoidance are not your friends. Focus, effort and action are your true allies.

Today, look at where you’re procrastinating. What action can you take?

When you take action and make a real effort, you’ll be more satisfied, learn some lessons and improve your chances of success. If you wait around, you’re likely to be tackled, run over or left in the dust. You don’t want that to happen.

If you want better results in reaching your goals and objectives, don’t be caught with missed opportunity on your hands. Enjoy the experience of participating in your own success by taking action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen!

There are a lot of smart people in the world. They are inventing things, running successful companies, building skyscrapers and advancing technologies. At the same time, do these smart people know what they feel and what to do with that?

In The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle said that anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – this is not easy.

Perhaps you’ve heard of EQ, or Emotional Intelligence. Much has been written about it. In a nutshell, EQ is the capacity to know what we are feeling, and to then make the most appropriate choices in the presence of those feelings.

We’ve all been in situations where we were flooded with emotion and then said the wrong thing, made some unproductive choices or were downright destructive. Why did that happen? Why were we emotionally hijacked?

In the function of the human brain, a “fight or flight” response mechanism is the root of our reactions. Since many people don’t have a vocabulary for what they feel when they feel it, instead of intellectually interpreting what is happening, they go into react mode. If, however, they had a greater EQ, they would have the capacity to make choices that are more appropriate in a given circumstance.

This has significant implications in the business world and in relationships in general. With higher EQ, we tend to have meetings that are more productive, better functioning teams, higher motivation, and retention of key employees. It’s when we are bogged down in feelings that we waste time complaining, resisting and undermining our best objectives. It’s also a time when conflict increases and good employees quit.

The starting point is awareness and developing a “feelings” vocabulary. Most of our emotions fit within seven feeling categories. These include pain, shame, fear, loneliness, anger, guilt and joy. With these, do an experiment. See if you can raise your own awareness of what you are feeling, when you are feeling it. Use the list of seven feelings as a guide.