A Path Less Taken

There is an excellent video on the web about what motivates us. I think it’s narrated by the author of “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”. The topic is interesting and the points raised are compelling. Check it out and let me know what you thing. RSA Animate – Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

A few days back I watched a video of a presentation by Fred Wilson titled Fred Wilson on 10 Ways to Be Your Own Boss. In the video Fred shared the following quote from Nassim N Taleb:

The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary

I’m willing to add video games to the list. None the less the last item caught my attention as intended. I want to say that I’ve heard it before, but seeing it in this context was still thought provoking.

You may have noticed that the Stack Overflow guys are listed among my blogs of interest. This is because they are interesting bloggers. Get it? Anyway, it looks like their new project Stack Exchange has a new member site and the first to go through what they call their Area-51 community site-creation process. The new site is Web Applications and it seems to be a discussion of all geeky stuff web. I kinda like it. Anyway, have a look and see what you think. I found Cliqset just browsing around. I’m not sure I need another social networking tool (I don’t use the one I have, ugh), but it is a darn spiffy looking site.

My wife ordered a series from Netflix entitled Long Way Down. In it Ewan McGregor (of Star Wars fame) and his mate Charley Boorman travel from John O’Groats, Scotland to Cape Town, South Africa on motorcycles. The total trip is over 15,000 miles through some very unforgiving country. Their bikes are BMW R1200gs Adventures and they look nice! Although the show is fine, I think the big thing I got out of watching it is that overwhelming sense of why not? In their own way Ewan and Charley are defining this trip as their own personal mountain to climb. I think that’s how life is supposed to be. When people ask you “Why do you want to do that?” you simply look at them and say why not!