Friday, March 22, 2013

Top Ten Mistakes, Bad Decisions, And Bad Choices

We're human. We make mistakes. We make bad decisions and choices. The consequences range from no harm to permanent damage. Don't repeat the same mistake twice. Learn from them.

We make little mistakes such as forgetting to say thank you, forgetting the car's turn signal when turning, spilling soda, and turning off the television before going to sleep. We make bigger mistakes such as failing a sales presentation, spilling tonight's dinner on the floor, forgetting to update the computer's anti-virus, causing a car accident, and hammering your finger instead of the nail.

One mistake I made was getting a traffic ticket for failing to yield when making a left turn. It was an embarrassing mistake. The consequence was paying a fine and traffic school. I could have hit the car causing an accident. The lesson was looking way ahead forward when making a left turn in a non signal light interaction.

One bad choice I made was being picky eating food. I opened myself up to new foods in 2007 because I started to wear braces. I ate kiwi, yogurt, sushi, watermelon, and any fruit ending in "melon". I missed out so many good foods and drinks. Picky eater is number six. Here are my top ten:

10. Preventable Sickness. There were several situations I could have prevented myself getting sick. There was Sept 2010 in Monterey, CA and Carmel, CA wearing the wrong clothes on a cold day, failing to eat enough foods, and drinking enough water to keep myself hydrated. There was also Nov 2012 when I skipped lunch and I got sick because I was too fatigued. And I attended a gaming convention which I didn't drink water all day in Sept 1996.

9. Summer Sabbatical 2007. The worse summer ever. I stressed out in the first months working at Cisco. I wanted to take a break. I didn't. What happened? The simple answer was I did nothing. No trips, no new adventures, no new experiences, no meeting new people . . . nothing.

8. Quitting Too Early. The most notables quitting too early were anime, MahJong (Riichi), and my job at Blockbuster Video. Mentioning anime is not an error. I was introduced to anime in 1993. It took me three years to become an anime fan because of Sailor Moon in 1996.

I started and quit Mahjong (Riichi) in 2007. I was frustrated losing games and I applied little effort learning the rules and memorizing the hands. I was fortunate to retry the game in 2009. Mahjong (Riichi) is one of my top ten favorite board games.

I quit Blockbuster Video to go back to school in 1996. I needed more money. I came back to Blockbuster Video and begged for my job back. I worked for an additional year quitting because I graduated college in Dec 1997.

7. Quitting Too Late. Sometimes there are moments you have to break your mom's life lesson of quitting too early for legitimate reasons. I should have quit Beginning Singing in Winter '10 at De Anza College. The class didn't meet my expectations, it was a waste of money, and it was a waste of time. Another activity I should have quit even before going to college was taking piano lessons. Piano lessons took time away from studying.

6. I'm A Picky Eater. I missed so much delicious food including honey dew, falafel, Thai, pudding, Pop Tarts, and cilantro. I was inspired to open myself up to new foods because I started to wear braces in 2007, thereby limiting my diet to soft foods for three weeks. Some of the soft foods I tried for the first time included kiwi and yogurt.

5. A Thank You After An Interview. I forgot to send a thank you email to a job in San Jose, CA. I believe I could have been hired if I emailed the thank you because I rocked the interview and I heard I was a top candidate after all the interviews were finished. I emailed a thank you for another job in Mountain View, CA; unfortunately, I didn't get the job.

4. Dot Com Boom. I failed to sell my stock investments when the NASDAQ reached 5,000. My stock portfolio doubled at the moment. I should have sold my stocks, take my profits, and ran away.

3. Support At Colliers International. The biggest lesson of my career I learned years later after I quit was I actually had support from most brokers and almost all the staff. My research dept. consisted of myself and my co-worker who was a dumb-ass for most of the tenure. I was miserable every day. If I realized I had people supporting me, I could have felt better and I could have been a more productive and more proactive worker.

2. Anime Expo (AX) 2007 and 2008. I should have skipped AX'07 and attended AX'08. AX'07 was held in Long Beach, CA. The Long Beach Convention Center was too small and there was overcrowding everywhere. There were also problems with some events and registration was too slow. AX'08 went back to Los Angeles which I didn't attend. There were fears and concerns AX'08 experienced more problems going back to Los Angeles. The convention went smoothly overall.

1. Napster. What a waste of money paying for the monthly fee at Napster. I should have paid $.99 for each of my favorite song. Most of the songs I downloaded from Napster I ended up deleting months later because they were really not my favorite.

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