{"id":16409,"date":"2013-12-31T10:00:37","date_gmt":"2013-12-31T17:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=16409"},"modified":"2013-12-31T08:40:49","modified_gmt":"2013-12-31T15:40:49","slug":"want-to-be-a-better-more-perfect-version-of-yourself-master-something-difficult-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/16409\/want-to-be-a-better-more-perfect-version-of-yourself-master-something-difficult-this-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to be a better, more-perfect version of yourself? Master something difficult this year."},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"M\"<\/a><\/dt>\n
You weren\u2019t just cheated of an education when you were young, you were cheated out of the full awareness of your own humanity.<\/span>Mait J\u00fcriado<\/a> \/ Foter.com<\/a> \/ CC BY-NC-SA<\/a><\/span><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

I always love to read about the outrageously nefarious bad guys who are doing all the things we hate. Doesn’t matter who “we” are, since the bad guys afflicting every “we” are always blindingly brilliant, amazingly competent masterminds of evil.<\/p>\n

I guess it’s useful to exaggerate your opposition, but here’s the thing:<\/p>\n

Everyone I remember from school was a fuck-up.<\/p>\n

Start with a good solid two-thirds compliant drones, dutifully going through whatever motions seemed to be required. Maybe half of the rest were glib and lazy. Even the straight-A apple-polishers were just phoning it in, doing the minimum necessary to get the grade from the glib-and-lazy grown-up teaching the class.<\/p>\n

Am I misrepresenting the world of education? Is there anything you can think of that you did in school that you’re truly proud of now. Away from athletics or the school play, was there anything in your academic life that you gave everything you had? Was there anyone else who did that?<\/p>\n

Was there any class that you took — ever — where you had to bust ass every day or risk get hopelessly lost? And when you got to that class, was that the end of your forward progress in that discipline?<\/p>\n

The kids from the hard side of the quad — the maths, the sciences — know what I’m talking about. The kids from the soft side of the quad — the arts, the social sciences — may be recalling a graceless exit from the maths and sciences.<\/p>\n

But the truth is that virtually all of us were denied the kind of education that was a matter of expected routine for our grandparents. Partly this is our fault: Too often we were grade-greedy glib-and-lazy fuck-ups. But mostly it was the fault of our teachers — and their<\/em> teachers.<\/p>\n

Were they outrageously nefarious bad guys, hell-bent on depriving us of a decent education? Were they blindingly brilliant, amazingly competent masterminds of evil, conspiring to enslave us in a state of Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You weren\u2019t just cheated of an education when you were young, you were cheated out of the full awareness of your own humanity.Mait J\u00fcriado \/ Foter.com \/ CC BY-NC-SA I always love to read about the outrageously nefarious bad guys who are doing all the things we hate. Doesn’t matter who “we” are, since the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,212],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16409","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-egoism-in-action","7":"category-flourishing","9":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":465,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/465\/blogoff-post-88-rental-house-smart-opportunity-if-set-up-as-business\/","url_meta":{"origin":16409,"position":0},"title":"Blogoff Post #88: Rental house smart opportunity if set up as business . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"This is one of my personal favorites from my Arizona Republic column:I'm helping a young friend buy his first home. I've known him since he was in high school. I admired his decision to defer college for an arduous tour of duty in Iraq. He's back in school now and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18273,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/18273\/overnight-news-pompous-cowards-is-drab-dresses-supreme-court-abolishes-property-rights-to-avoid-controversy\/","url_meta":{"origin":16409,"position":1},"title":"Overnight News: Pompous cowards is drab dresses: Supreme Court abolishes property rights to avoid\u00a0controversy.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 30, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The Supreme Court handed down a very important decision yesterday: Property rights in the United States emerge from popular opinion and have no basis in the United States Constitution, federal or state laws or the common law of property going back to the Roman Forum. That's what they bellowed \u2013\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":18203,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/18203\/overnight-news-millions-died-from-the-virus-but-the-survivors-learned-we-eradicated-the-seasonal-flu-just-by-keeping-our-snotty-noses-on-opposites-sides-of-the-room\/","url_meta":{"origin":16409,"position":2},"title":"Overnight News: Millions died from the virus, but the survivors learned: We eradicated the seasonal flu just by keeping our snotty noses on opposites sides of the\u00a0room!","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 6, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I have been my own barber for the past year, and I don't see that changing. My hair looks like hell \u2013 but I never cared, anyway. Except for dating and job interviews, grooming is more about effort than outcome. And while I resent all of the custodial functions of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":18387,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/18387\/overnight-news-a-reconciliation-with-loss-when-death-is-what-comes-next\/","url_meta":{"origin":16409,"position":3},"title":"Overnight News: A reconciliation with loss, when death is what comes\u00a0next.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 12, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"This is me seventeen years ago, writing about a cat who cheated death for as long as she could: Anti-evolution asserts itself... Understanding anti-evolution, step-by-step: 1. My wife Cathy has been feeding feral cats in our neighborhood, depriving them of the natural evolutionary process of starvation. Denying them, even, of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3304,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3304\/away-and-in-the-dirt\/","url_meta":{"origin":16409,"position":4},"title":"Away, and in the dirt…","author":"Geno Petro","date":"July 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In the 1968 movie\u00a0adaptation of John Cheever's short story, The Swimmer, Ned Merrill (portrayed by Burt Lancaster)\u00a0stands on a neighbor's poolside\u00a0terrace in Speedos, gazes\u00a0out\u00a0at\u00a0the Westport,\u00a0Connecticut suburban landscape, and\u00a0contemplates swimming\u00a0across all the\u00a0backyard pools in the upscale valley to his own grand\u00a0residence\u00a0and waiting family, somewhere\u00a0on the distant horizon of his\u00a0rapidly waning psyche.\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16860,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/16860\/unchained-melody-whose-heart-is-breaking-in-seven-year-ache\/","url_meta":{"origin":16409,"position":5},"title":"Unchained Melody: Whose heart is breaking in \u201cSeven Year Ache\u201d…?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 1, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I've always loved this song, and I finally figured out why: The narrator is actually male \u2013 just as the actual narrator of \"Angry All The Time\" is female. This is not Roseanne bitching out Rodney for his adultery, this is the lamentations of the cheated-on guy. Big duh, right?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Casual Friday"","block_context":{"text":"Casual Friday","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/casual-friday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/hrUs_FWqj9s\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16410,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16409\/revisions\/16410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}