Tread lightly, take only pictures, steal only time, leave only footprints

The author of this quote is unknown, but it has been used over and over by many sources for as long as I can remember.

As a life long hiker, wilderness backpacker, and mountaineer, I took this simple phrase as a kind of mantra. I've been to an unnumbered list of places, and did my best to leave as little impact as possible at each. However, as I have gotten older and more introspective, I began to ponder if this simple phrase didn't have a deeper meaning, waiting under the surface for us to discover. I've heard it and said it myself many times, so did it, or was I just looking for something that wasn't there?

Maybe having children and then a grandchild has altered my thinking. I have lost my parents and a brother through their passing. I have also suffered the untimely loss of friends, people I deeply respected or admired, and others who, although they never knew me, impacted my life in ways I never thought possible. Looking at my life and all of my experiences, both good and bad, has molded me into the person I am, but not necessarily the one I chose to be.

Then I began to see something else in it, like discovering the hidden magic in an unhurried sunrise on a Spring morning. This was less about the physical steps I've been taking, and more of a testimonial on how to live... and reach the end of what you can only hope will be a long and enjoyable life. So I asked myself...

Will I leave behind me footprints that others can feel, enjoy, and know of the kind of person I was? Have I left a pleasing, memorable, and lasting impression for those I loved, those that only knew me, and others who will come to know me through my actions and deeds, and stories others will tell about me?

What about you? 

Did you take only pictures? Did you steal only time?

What kind of footprints will YOU leave?

What I've learned...

Slowly, but surely, I've been going through all of the parts of my hard drive where I have not been in a while, sorting out and removing old files that go back five or six computer upgrades ago. Around the time when I was using a Mac IIvx, I did a lot of writing and collecting of interesting pieces, I felt were thoughtful and worthy of keeping. 

This one is from an old Microsoft Word file that dates back to April 23, 1998. I don't remember writing this, so it must be something I found while involved during the time of taking some manuscript classes. I still like it. Maybe there is something in for you too. Enjoy.

I’ve learned that you cannot make someone love you.  All you can do is be someone who can be loved.  The rest is up to them.

I’ve learned that no matter how much I care, some people just don’t care back.

I’ve learned that it takes years to build up trust, and only seconds to destroy it.

I’ve learned that it’s not what you have in your life, but who you have in your life that counts.

I’ve learned that you can get by on charm for about 15 minutes.  After that, you’d better know something.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t compare yourself to the best others can do, but to the best you can do.

I’ve learned that it’s not what happens to people that’s important. It’s what they do about it.

I’ve learned that you can do something in an instant that will give you a heartache for life.

I’ve learned that no matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.

I’ve learned that it’s taking me a long time to become the person I want to be.

I’ve learned that it’s a lot easier to react than it is to think.

I’ve learned that you should always leave loved ones with loving words.  It may be the last time you see them.

I’ve learned that you can keep going long after you think you can’t.

I’ve learned that we are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.

I’ve learned that either you control your attitude or it controls you.

I’ve learned that regardless of how hot and steamy a relationship is at first, the passion fades and there had better be something else to take its place.

I’ve learned that heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.

I’ve learned that learning to forgive takes practice.

I’ve learned that there are people who love you dearly, but just don’t know how to show it.

I’ve learned that money is a lousy way of keeping score.

I’ve learned that my best friend and I can do anything or nothing and have the best time.

I’ve learned that sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you’re down may be the ones to help you get back up.

I’ve learned that I’m getting more and more like my grandpa, and I’m kinda happy about it.

I’ve learned that sometimes when I’m angry I have the right to be angry, but that doesn’t give me the right to be cruel.

I’ve learned that true friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance.  Same goes for true love.

I’ve learned that just because someone doesn’t love you the way you want them to doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have.

I’ve learned that maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you’ve had and what you’ve learned from them, and less to do with how many birthdays you’ve celebrated.

I’ve learned that you should never tell a child her dreams are unlikely or outlandish.  Few things are more humiliating, and what a tragedy it would be if she believed it.

I’ve learned that your family won’t always be there for you.  It may seem funny, but people you aren’t related to can take care of you and love you and teach you to trust people again.

I’ve learned that no matter how good a friend someone is, they’re going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.

I’ve learned that it isn’t always enough to be forgiven by others. Sometimes you have to learn to forgive yourself.

I’ve learned that no matter how badly your heart is broken, the world doesn’t stop for your grief.

I’ve learned that our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.

I’ve learned that sometimes when my friends fight, I’m forced to choose sides even when I don’t want to.

I’ve learned that just because two people argue, it doesn’t mean they don’t love each other.  And just because they don’t argue, it doesn’t mean they do.

I’ve learned that sometimes you have to put the individual ahead of their actions.

I’ve learned that we don’t have to change friends if we understand that friends change.

I’ve learned that if you don’t want to forget something, stick it in your underwear drawer.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t be so eager to find out a secret.  It could change your life forever.

I’ve learned that the clothes I like best are the ones with the most holes in them.

I’ve learned that two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.

I’ve learned that no matter how you try to protect your children, they will eventually get hurt and you will hurt in the process.

I’ve learned that there are many ways of falling and staying in love.

I’ve learned that no matter the consequences, those who are honest with themselves get further in life.

I’ve learned that many things can be powered by the mind; the trick is self-control.

I’ve learned that no matter how many friends you have, if you are their pillar, you will feel lonely and lost at the times you need them most.

I’ve learned that your life can be changed in a matter of hours by people who don’t even know you.

I’ve learned that even when you think you have no more to give, when a friend cries out to you, you will find the strength to help.

I’ve learned that writing, as well as talking, can ease emotional pains.

I’ve learned that the paradigm we live in is not all that is offered to us.

I’ve learned that credentials on the wall do not make you a decent human being.

I’ve learned that the people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon.

I’ve learned that although the word “love” can have many different meanings, it loses value when overly used.

I’ve learned that it’s hard to determine where to draw the line between being nice and not hurting people’s feelings, and standing up for what you believe.

I’ve learned that love is not for me to keep, but to pass on to the next person.

I’ve learned that even if you do the right thing for the wrong reason, it’s still the wrong thing to do.

Artha Gallery is closing its doors

Sue and I have run the web site Artha Gallery since around 2005. It has been great, and we have enjoyed an opportunity to do something like this. Originally, it began as a small gift shop called Simbatta, beginning in 2001, in Mesa, AZ. It eventually evolved to point we are now.

On June 1, 2013, we will be shutting down the site and rolling up the rugs for good. Over the years, the number of internet sites has increased dramatically, and a little mom and pop site like ours just can't compete against them. 

The main product of interest has been our ebony martial art products. They were great, and we shipped these to corners of the world I can only imagine. However, our supplier in the Philippines has apparently vanished, so we have watched our inventory dwindle over time. 

We also have offered a fantastic cross-section of fine Asian gifts, most of which are handcrafted Korean items. These were the things I  enjoyed displaying, because they bring along with them such history and culture of the Korean people.

Although the number of visitors has stayed strong, the number of customers has decreased. We are now to the point where keeping the site open has become a personal expense, and less of a profitable venture. 

I invite you to go there and look around. If you find something while we are still in business, please buy it. I can guarantee that you will not find better prices for items like these anywhere. We have been uncommon in our offering, and the things we sold would be still difficult to find, even now an internet site. Some are absolutely unique.

We appreciate all of the many world wide customers we have connect with over the years. You have made all of this possible. 

Exercise Myths and the Real Deal

This post comes from a good friend of mine, Marlene Harris. I have posted things of hers in the past and welcome her informative inputs on things fitness and health.

1). Exercising Turns Fat Into Muscle   
The real deal: “Fat cells can never be turned into muscle cells and vice versa,” says Wayne Westcott, PhD, head of the Exercise Science Program at Quincy College in Quincy, MA. “They’re two different tissues.” You can, however, reduce the amount of fat in your fat cells and increase the size of your muscles.

2). Ab Exercises Will Flatten Your Belly   
The real deal: If you do hundreds of crunches, or better yet become a regular at pilates class, your abs will be in great shape. If only you could see them. While it’s entirely possible to “spot strengthen” muscles with targeted strength training, you can’t “spot reduce” the fat around them, says Laura Dosdall, certified trainer. You have to burn more calories than you eat, and unfortunately, you have little say in what goes first. A better bet? Crank up your intensity. Studies have found that vigorous exercise, like sprint exercises for 20 minutes, burns up to 5 times more fat than trekking more leisurely for twice as long. 

3). A Six-Pack Is a Sure Sign of a Strong Core    
The real deal: “A six-pack is a sign of leanness, not a strong core,” says Dan Trink, director of personal training operations. “A strong core really involves hips, glutes, lower back, and abdominals working together to produce force or transfer force to your extremities. Conversely, you can have a really strong core with absolutely no sign of a six pack.” Case in point: powerlifters.

4). Slow Workouts Burn More Fat   
The real deal: Like most myths, there’s a grain of truth somewhere. “Our cells need oxygen to convert fat to energy,” explains Mary Jayne Johnson, PhD, an exercise physiologist and spokesperson for the American Council on Exercise. “So we thought for years that low-intensity aerobics was better for burning fat.” What matters more, however, is burning more calories than you take in, and it takes longer to burn calories at a slower pace--more than 4 times as long. In one study exercisers who alternated 30 seconds of sprinting with 4 minutes of rest to catch their breath for a total of 2.5 hours a week got the same benefits as those who did long, slow exercise for 10.5 hours a week. Studies have also shown that this kind of interval training can also boost your body’s fat-burning capacity in just 2 weeks, so you’ll burn more flab even when you’re lapping the grocery store.
 
5). You Only Need to Exercise If You Have Weight to Lose     
The real deal: Ever heard the term “skinny-fat”? According to Mayo Clinic researchers, over half of so-called normal weight adults fall into this category, defined as having more than 30 percent body fat for women or 20 percent for men. And the risks go beyond an unfortunate muffin top. Too much body fat puts you at the same disease risk as an obese person—you’re just more likely to fly under the radar as conditions like diabetes progress. But don’t try to diet your way out of this one—it can actually make the problem worse, since dieters who cut calories alone tend to lose more pounds of lean muscle (in effect increasing your percentage of body fat). It’s time to get moving.

6). Pilates creates long, lean muscles   
The real deal: Pilates is a great way to exercise, but it’s not going to reshape your muscles. “All muscles are lean—have you ever heard of a 'fat muscle'?” says Trink. “Muscle length is determined completely by genetics, so if you don't have the 'long, lean muscles' you’re looking for, blame your parents, not your training.” Tumminello adds, “If your goal is to look leaner, you have to drop body fat and the best way to do that is to strictly control what goes into your mouth.”
 
7). Lifting Heavy Weights Will Make You Look Like a Bodybuilder   
The real deal: Looking like a bodybuilder takes a precise combination of weight training, diet, and hormones. Women do not have enough testosterone to “get big,” even if they did pack themselves full of protein shakes, explains Jessica Cummings, a certified trainer. Want proof? In a study at Central Michigan University, researchers had women train one arm doing a just a few reps of a heavy weight and the other doing more reps with a lighter weight (both lifting an equivalent number of pounds). Surprise: The heavy lifters got stronger, but gained no more size than the arm lifting the wimpy weights.

8). You Have to Lift Heavy Weights to Get Stronger   
The real deal: OK, so we’ve established that heavy weights won’t make you huge. But they’re not the only way. A new study from McMaster University in Canada explored different types of training and found that as long as you keep lifting that light weight until you can’t lift it anymore, you can get the same or more muscle-building stimulation in your cells as you would lifting a bigger weight fewer times, but it will take longer.

9). Stretching Prevents Injuries   
The real deal: You’ve been trained to stretch before and after exercise since the first time you played dodge ball in elementary school gym class, and you’ve probably heard plenty of sporty friends—and even so-called fitness experts—swear by it. Yet despite decades of research on thousands of subjects the fact remains: There’s simply very little evidence that faithful stretchers are any less likely to get injured than the rest of us. Will reaching for your toes hurt you? No, not likely—unless you’re trying to jump or hoist a heavy weight immediately afterward, in which case some research suggests you might be momentarily weaker. It might even feel good. And stretching will make you more flexible. Just try not to stretch your expectations.

 10). Cooling Down Will Keep You from Getting Sore   
The real deal: There’s actually very little science to support the idea that a slow walk on your treadmill automatically triggers healing at the end of your workout. When Australian researchers had exercisers either warm-up, cool-down, do neither, or do both in conjunction with a soreness-inducing workout session, only the warm-up slightly reduced their next-day aches. The only proven benefit of cooling down: It helps your body to gradually redistribute the blood your heart has been quickly pumping to your legs to fuel the big muscles there for exercise, preventing possible light-headedness (like standing up too fast). But the walk to the locker room will do the trick.
 
11). Working Out on an Empty Stomach Burns More Fat   
The real deal: While some studies do insist that running on empty forces your body to burn more fat, other researchers are quick to point out that the fat you burn from the muscles doesn’t have any impact on your waistline. But let the scientists split hairs all they want. If you’re aiming to lose weight, having adequate energy to fuel your workout will have a much greater impact on overall burn than torching a couple extra calories from fat will, says Jessica Smith, a certified fitness and wellness expert who lost more than 50 pounds before becoming a personal trainer 10 years ago. The more vigorously you exercise, the fitter you’ll get, and the more efficient of a fat burner your body will become. Filling your tank with a nutritious meal or snack within a few hours of exercise may also help to prevent post-workout binges that can occur when you finish your session feeling famished.

12). Staying Off Your Feet Soothes Sore Muscles   
The real deal: Getting the body into motion through stretching and light cardio activity is what reduces muscle soreness the fastest. “Blood contains healing properties,” says author, celebrity trainer, and life coach Michael George. Moving around will increase the circulation of that nutrient-rich blood, which loosens tense muscle tissue and helps the body to release lactic acid buildup, free radicals, and toxins. “Use your non-training days to perform active recovery such as a non-intense incline walk on the treadmill or a leisurely bike ride,” suggests Trink.

13). Popping Ibuprofen Prevents Sore Muscles     
The real deal: Taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can fight the pain and inflammation associated with injuries, but when it comes to exercise-induced soreness, they’re not the right choice. Appalachian State University researchers found that participants who took ibuprofen before and during the Western States Endurance Run, a 100-mile trail race, didn’t finish any faster than those who didn’t take anything, nor did they experience less muscle damage or soreness the following week. What their blood tests did show, however, was higher levels of endotoxemia—the presence of toxins in the bloodstream. The muscle damage that occurs during new or intense exercise is essential to muscle growth. Taking NSAIDs, however, may impair the body’s natural recovery process, essentially canceling out strength gains.

What Science Really Says About the Soul

The following is a reprint from the Wednesday, March 20th, 2013 edition of eSkeptic magazine. Decide for yourself how much you wish to believe.

What Science Really Says About the Soul

BY STEPHEN CAVE

Nathalie was hemorrhaging badly. She felt weak, cold, and the pain in her abdomen was excruciating. A nurse ran out to fetch the doctor, but by the time they arrived she knew she was slipping away. The doctor was shouting instructions when quite suddenly the pain stopped. She felt free—and found herself floating above the drama, looking down at the bustle of activity around her now still body.

“We’ve lost her,” she heard the doctor say, but Nathalie was already moving on and upwards, into a tunnel of light. She first felt a pang of anxiety at leaving her husband and children, but it was soon overwhelmed by a feeling of profound peace; a feeling that it would all be okay. At the end of the tunnel, a figure of pure radiance was waiting with arms wide open.

This, or something like it, is how millions imagine what it will be like to die. In 2009, over 70 percent of Americans said they believe that they, like Nathalie, have a soul that will survive the end of their body. That figure may well now be higher after the phenomenal success of two recent books describing vivid near death experiences: one from an innocent—the four year old Todd Burpo—the other from the opposite: a Harvard scientist and former skeptic, neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander.²Both argue that when their brains stopped working, their souls floated off to experience a better place.

This is an attractive view and a great consolation to those who have lost loved ones or who are contemplating their own mortality. Many also believe this view to be beyond the realm of science, to concern a different dimension into which no microscope can peer. Dr. Alexander, for example, said in an interview with the New York Times, “Our spirit is not dependent on the brain or body; it is eternal, and no one has one sentence worth of hard evidence that it isn’t.”³

But he is wrong. The evidence of science, when brought together with an ancient argument, provides a very powerful case against the existence of a soul that can carry forward your essence once your body fails. The case runs like this: with modern brain-imaging technology, we can now see how specific, localized brain injuries damage or even destroy aspects of a person’s mental life. These are the sorts of dysfunctions that Oliver Sacks brought to the world in his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat.⁴ The man of the title story was a lucid, intelligent music teacher, who had lost the ability to recognize faces and other familiar objects due to damage to his visual cortex.

Since then, countless examples of such dysfunction have been documented—to the point that every part of the mind can now be seen to fail when some part of the brain fails. The neuroscientist Antonio Damasio has studied many such cases.⁵ He records a stroke victim, for example, who had lost any capacity for emotion; patients who lost all creativity following brain surgery; and others who lost the ability to make decisions. One man with a brain tumor lost what we might call his moral character, becoming irresponsible and disregarding of social norms. I saw something similar in my own father, who also had a brain tumor: it caused profound changes in his personality and capacities before it eventually killed him.

The crux of the challenge then is this: those who believe they have a soul that survives bodily death typically believe that this soul will enable them, like Nathalie in the story above, to see, think, feel, love, reason and do many other things fitting for a happy afterlife. But if we each have a soul that enables us to see, think and feel after the total destruction of the body, why, in the cases of dysfunction documented by neuroscientists, do these souls not enable us to see, think and feel when only a small portion of the brain is destroyed?

To make the argument clear, we can take the example of sight. If either your eyes or the optic nerves in your brain are sufficiently badly damaged, you will go blind. This tells us very clearly that the faculty of sight is dependent upon functioning eyes and optic nerves.

Yet curiously, when many people imagine their soul leaving their body, they imagine being able to see—like Nathalie, looking down on her own corpse surrounded by frantic doctors.⁶ They believe, therefore, that their soul can see. But if the soul can see when the entire brain and body have stopped working, why, in the case of people with damaged optic nerves, can’t it see when only part of the brain and body have stopped working? In other words, if blind people have a soul that can see, why are they blind?

So eminent a theologian as Saint Thomas Aquinas, writing 750 years ago, believed this question had no satisfactory answer.⁷ Without its body—without eyes, ears and nose—he thought the soul would be deprived of all senses, waiting blindly for the resurrection of the flesh to make it whole again. Aquinas concluded that the body-less soul would have only those powers that (in his view) were not dependent upon bodily organs: faculties such as reason and understanding.

But now we can see that these faculties are just as dependent upon a bodily organ—the brain—as sight is upon the eyes. Unlike in Aquinas’s day, we can now keep many people with brain damage alive and use neuroimaging to observe the correlations between that damage and their behavior. And what we observe is that the destruction of certain parts of the brain can destroy those cognitive faculties once thought to belong to the soul. So if he had had the evidence of neuroscience in front of him, we can only imagine that Aquinas himself would have concluded that these faculties also stop when the brain stops.

In fact, evidence now shows that everything the soul is supposed to be able to do—think, remember, love—fails when some relevant part of the brain fails. Even consciousness itself—otherwise there would be no general anesthetics. A syringe full of chemicals is sufficient to extinguish all awareness. For anyone who believes something like the Nathalie story—that consciousness can survive bodily death—this is an embarrassing fact. If the soul can sustain our consciousness after death, when the brain has shut down permanently, why can it not do so when the brain has shut down temporarily?

Some defenders of the soul have, of course, attempted to answer this question. They argue, for example, that the soul needs a functioning body in this world, but not in the next. One view is that the soul is like a broadcaster and the body like a receiver—something akin to a television station and a TV set. (Though as our body is also the source of our sensory input, we have to imagine the TV set also has a camera on top feeding images to the distant station.)

We know that if we damage our TV set, we get a distorted picture. And if we break the set, we get no picture at all. The naive observer would believe the program was therefore gone. But we know that it is really still being transmitted; that the real broadcaster is actually elsewhere. Similarly, the soul could still be sending its signal even though the body is no longer able to receive it.

This response sounds seductive, but helps little. First, it does not really address the main argument at all: Most believers expect their soul to be able to carry forward their mental life with or without the body; this is like saying that the TV signal sometimes needs a TV set to transform it into the picture, but once the set is kaput, can make the picture all by itself. But if it can make the picture all by itself, why does it sometimes act through an unreliable set?

Second, changes to our bodies impact on our minds in ways not at all analogous to how damage to a TV set changes its output, even if we take into account damage to the camera too. The TV analogy claims there is something that remains untouched by such damage, some independent broadcaster preserving the real program even if it is distorted by bad reception. But this is precisely what the evidence of neuroscience undermines. Whereas damage to the TV set or camera might make the signal distorted or fuzzy, damage to our brains much more profoundly alters our minds. As we noted above, such damage can even change our moral views, emotional attachments, and the way we reason.

Which suggests we are nothing like a television; but much more like, for example, a music box: the music is not coming from elsewhere, but from the workings within the box itself. When the box is damaged, the music is impaired; and if the box is entirely destroyed, then the music stops for good.

There is much about consciousness that we still do not understand. We are only beginning to decipher its mysteries, and may never fully succeed. But all the evidence we have suggests that the wonders of the mind—even near-death and out of body experiences—are the effect of neurons firing. Contrary to the beliefs of the vast majority of people on Earth, from Hindus to New Age spiritualists, consciousness depends upon the brain and shares its fate to the end.

You Can Survive the Micromanager

You Can Survive the Micromanager

By: Donna Doyle

Get your boss to lighten up

You find yourself wondering during your workday why you are preparing yet another seemingly useless report. Or your boss is in your cubicle a dozen times a day for weeks on end, and you’re not even currently working on a tight deadline.

Or your manager seems obsessed about how you do you job and not about the quality of your work or your results. Lastly, your manager seems to want to control your every action, even though you have extensive experience doing your job.

You are, my friend, being micromanaged.

Webster’s defines micromanagement as “managing with great or excessive control or attention to detail.”

You define it as, “My boss is making me want to spend my evenings browsing the job posting Web sites.”

And you are not alone. In his book My Way or the Highway: The Micromanagement Survival Guide, consultant Harry Chambers quotes statistics that are revealing: 66% of people are being or have been micromanaged in the past. Of those, two-thirds say it impacted their productivity and reduced their morale.

So why are more and more managers turning to this form of control in the workplace? What are the dangers to the employee, the manager and the company when micromanagement is allowed to continue? And lastly, what can you do to help your boss get the heck over it? Let’s get to the bottom of this.

Why Bosses Micromanage

One thing is for sure: Most managers don’t actually know—in real time—that they are micromanaging their employees, says Chambers, president of Atlanta-based Trinity Solutions Inc., a consulting and training firm specializing in leadership, team coaching and building, and organizational development.

“By the time managers figure out they are doing it, the damage to employee morale and productivity has already been done,” Chambers continues. “Many companies don’t teach and develop their managers, and so the managers don’t have the skills tonot micromanage. Their default position is to control workers, and they think they can retain control of the job using someone else’s hands.”

In addition to trying to control employees, some managers may not trust that their workers will perform the job well. For example, if your manager is giving you the same instructions over and over, she may not trust that you are understanding the job. If you find yourself in this situation, Liz Kislik, president of Liz Kislik Associates, a Rockville Centre, NY-based management consulting firm, advises: “Find out what didn’t work, and articulate to your boss what you didn’t understand about the task.”

Another reason managers are turning to micromanagement is that they are worried about how this difficult economy will impact their own jobs. “People are on edge these days, and that often leads to distrust to get the job done right without excessive management,” says Kislik. In such a scenario, “managers will tend to force how things get done not just what gets done.”

Chambers agrees, adding if a manager is worried about her own job security, she will want to stay on top of not only her own work, but that of her employees as well. Your manager may fear that her own boss may ask her about a project on which you are working, and if the manager doesn’t have a ready answer about its progress, it may reflect badly on her. So she may be worried and say to herself, “I have to stay on top of this.”

Interestingly, many managers don’t see this as micromanaging. Rather, they think they are adding value to the work and that their employees are benefiting from their experience, says Chambers.

There’s no doubt that a few micromanagers just plain have some pathologies playing out. “Some people have an insatiable need to get more and more information,” says Chambers. Indeed, extreme cases are characterized by an obsessive-compulsive style of management. Other micromanagers may be workplace bullies, narcissists, or control freaks. Additionally, they may be insecure about their own workplace abilities and may be trying to create an environment by which they can demonstrate their own self-worth.

There are myriad reasons why you might be getting micromanaged. And while it’s good practice to try to discern why, the next question to ask is, “Am I doing anything to prompt this?”

Digitally Distracted
- Gen Yers tend to function well in the workplace and to be motivated, says Kislik.
- Moreover, they tend to be optimistic, proactive and flexible, according to Simon Walker, co-founder of Talentsmoothie, a U.K.-based training and development consultancy.
- Gen Yers generally dislike autocratic behavior and look to their peers for inspiration rather than to higher-ups.
- They value the ability to multi-task and work collaboratively in networks and on teams.
- And there’s no doubt that recent developments in technology have played a key role in shaping this generation of workers.

That said, a few managers do think some Gen Yers are “digitally distracted”, for example, spending an excessive amount of time on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other potentially time-wasting Web sites. “I do see the potential danger for poor time management with this employee demographic,” says Margaret Battistelli, editor in chief of FundRaising Success magazine.

When I was a manager, I noticed that some employees knew the funniest YouTube videos to pass around and seemed to spend maybe a bit too much time giggling with their friends in front of someone’s computer screen. More than once, I had an employee quickly minimize his computer screen when I entered his workspace, turn to me embarrassed, and then proceed to tell me he needed more time to finish an assignment. That can be frustrating for a manager, even one like myself who knows that employees need to blow off a little steam now and then.

In general, while Gen Yers are very good at multitasking, they do “have a tendency to start and stop and to work on projects in small chunks. That may not be conducive to producing good work all of the time, because errors happen that way,” Kislik notes.

Some Gen Yers may need a manager to help them with time management, how to start a project and work on it until it’s done, shunning distractions—including digital ones—along the way, Kislik continues. For example, turn off the “alert” feature in your e-mail software that tells you when you get a new message, and then check your e-mails only twice per day rather than every few minutes.

“Gen Yers may need to learn that they can’t necessarily live their work lives in the exact same way they live their personal lives,” says Kislik. For example, when you greet a client or your boss, take your ear buds out. And keep your iPod’s volume down while in the office so that the employee in the next cubicle doesn’t have to listen to it and so that you can hear when your phone is ringing or when a coworker is behind you trying to get your attention.

In short, do use today’s technology to enhance your productivity and expand your network of helpful colleagues, but be careful not to let it steer you too far astray from the job at hand.

Disengaged, Then Out the Door

Whatever the reason may be for being micromanaged, the effects can be anything from simple annoyance to quitting the job in exasperation. One of the most common and dangerous effects of micromanagement is disengagement. Employees who are disengaged put in time but little else. They grow apathetic about the job, which leads to loss of productivity, self esteem, and confidence, and eventually, to thwarted career advancement.

A disengaged employee may do the tasks given to him and nothing else. He will wait for his manager to tell him the next steps in a project and will show little initiative or resourcefulness to move forward on his own. “Such employees may have been made to feel by the manager that they can be successful only if the manger told them what to do next,” says Kislik. “They become very passive. In workplaces with many disengaged employees, turnover becomes a real problem.”

Chambers said he once read the results of an employee study that found that 60% of employees who had been micromanaged wanted to leave their jobs. Of those, 40% actually did quit. “They are leaving to get away from poor management, not necessarily for career advancement or any of the other pat answers that employees give during exit interviews,” says Chambers. “Micromanagement actually encourages people to move on. As soon as the economy and job market pick up, there will be a lot of empty desks in front of a micromanager.”

Even employees who stay on the job can be severely negatively impacted. For example, they may internalize the problem, which can lead to low self-esteem and reduced confidence. That, in turn, can lead to poor performance, feelings of hopelessness, and a downward spiral into depression. If you think you are being micromanaged, it’s important to try to separate your manager’s behavior from your own personal views of your performance. Try to stay grounded and realistic, while being open and flexible about trying new ideas to solve the problem.

Not All Micromanagement is Bad Management

Interestingly, Chambers notes that about 10% of a manager’s job should be done in a micromanaged way. This could include, for example, controlling departmental costs and setting deadlines. If you’re a manager, the trick is to figure out what that 10% should include.

Kislik notes that an employee who is in training or being developed for a job or promotion probably needs to be micromanaged at first. “They may need confidence that only detailed management can offer,” she notes. “I call it ‘training wheels.’ For some that training may seem excessive, especially if they have some ability to do the job. But for the others, it means safety.”

Raise Awareness, Gently

Both Kislik and Chambers recommend that employees who are being micromanaged may be able to resolve the issue by talking with their managers. Calmly—that is, without an accusatory or exasperated tone—ask the following questions:
• What are the parameters of the job (e.g., deadlines, legalities, best practices, boundaries)?
• How do you want the job to be done?
• What results/accomplishment/outcomes are you expecting?

Kislik offers an example: If you are responsible for assessing vendors for your company, and your boss requests a memo from you, before you produce that first memo, ask your manager how she likes to see information. For instance, does she want a summary at the beginning with details below, or just bullet points? Does she want a chart with a comparison of vendor pricing and capabilities included? Does she want recommendations in the memo, or just an outline of costs and/or analysis of vendor quality? “It’s up the employee to hammer this out first,” she notes.

Encourage your manager’s trust by explaining how you work best, and then ask if working that way is best for the team. Be open to thinking about doing your job in a different—perhaps a better—way. “It’s your responsibility as an employee to articulate to your boss how you work best,” says Kislik. “But do recognize that you have an obligation to be open to her requests and ideas.”

Chambers agrees, adding: “Ask if there is something that you could be doing differently, and then really listen to the answer. See if there’s an alternative plan.” He also recommends keeping your manager informed of what you are doing. “Don’t just tell your manager when you are done a project, but tell him what you plan to do next,” he notes. “Don’t give your boss a reason to doubt your work. Rather, stay out in front of information you give to your manager. Give it before he asks for it. Pay attention to what he needs and give him the comfort level he is looking for.”

Conclusion

Says Kislik, “If your manager is unhappy with your performance, it doesn’t matter what you think of your performance. Go to your manager and ask what wasn’t good enough. Try to understand your manager’s concerns, and then you can decide if you can or cannot meet those performance goals.”

Donna Loyle has been a Philadelphia-area magazine and newspaper editor and reporter for the past 19 years.

Audiofoolery

    I used to think I was reasonably savvy about the subject of audio equipment, but reading through this article by Ethan Winer from the January 6, 2010 eSkeptic magazine had me take another look at what I knew, what I believed, and how much I could trust of what the so called experts were telling me. All those dudes selling you stuff and sounding like if you didn't get this particular thing, or that special thing, are for the most part, just padding their own pocket with whiz-bang lingo and audio baloney. Read this and judge for yourself. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

     YOU MIGHT THINK that a science-based field like audio engineering would be immune to the kind of magical thinking we see in other fields. Unfortunately, you would be wrong. In my 35 years as a professional audio engineer and musician, I’ve seen some of the most outrageous pseudoscience sold to consumers, and even to other audio pros who should know better. Not unlike claims for alternative medicine, nonsense is shrouded in scientific-sounding jargon to confuse the uneducated, or a sales pitch will cite science that is legitimate but irrelevant. The result is endless arguments among audiophiles over basic scientific principles that have been fully understood for fifty years or more.

As a consumerist, it galls me to see people pay thousands of dollars for fancy-looking wire that’s no better than the heavy lamp cord they can buy at any hardware store. Or magic isolation pads and little discs made from exotic hardwood that purport to “improve clarity and reduce listening fatigue,” among other surprising claims. The number of scams based on ignorance of basic audio science grows every day. Surely some of these vendors know they’re selling snake oil, but I’m certain that just as many believe their own hype. I’d respect these people more if I thought they knew they were conning people!

Few of us have unlimited budgets and must spend what funds we have wisely. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to help consumers distinguish truth from fiction in order to determine what is and is not worthwhile. Experience has shown that it’s futile to claim I know what someone else can or cannot hear. Therefore, I will relate only those things that matter to my experienced ears, and explain what makes sense from the perspective of science and logic. You don’t need an engineering degree to understand the explanations that follow, though I’ll assume you’ve played with a stereo receiver and CD player or cassette deck a few times. I’ll begin by defining the four basic audio parameters so that when I describe some common audiophile scams you’ll understand why they are scams.

Audio Parameters Defined

Only four parameters are needed to define everything that matters for audio reproduction: Noise, frequency response, distortion, and timebased errors. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

1. Noise is the background hiss you hear when you turn your receiver way up, and you can also hear it during quiet passages when playing open reel or cassette tapes. A close cousin is dynamic range, which defines the span (expressed in decibels) between the background noise and the loudest level possible before the onset of gross distortion. CDs and DVDs have a very large dynamic range, so any noise you may hear was either from the original analog tape, was added as a byproduct during production, or was present in the room and picked up by the microphones when the recording was first made.

Subsets of noise are AC power-related hum and buzz, electronic crackling, vinyl record clicks and pops, between-station radio noises, tape modulation noise, and the triboelectric cable effect. You’re unlikely to notice tape modulation noise outside of a recording studio because it’s specific to analog tape recorders, which are fast becoming obsolete, and it is usually hidden by the music itself. You can sometimes hear it if you listen carefully to a recording of a bass solo, where each note is accompanied by a “pfft” sound that disappears between the notes. The triboelectric effect is also called “handling noise” because it occurs when handling poorly made cables. I haven’t seen a cable with this defect in about 20 years.

2. Frequency response is how uniformly a device responds over a range of frequencies. Errors are heard as too much or too little bass, midrange, or treble. For most people, the audible range extends from about 25 Hz at the low end, to just shy of 20 KHz at the high end. Even though many audiophiles believe it’s important for audio equipment to respond to frequencies far beyond 20 KHz, in truth there is no need to reproduce ultrasonic content because nobody can hear it. Subsets of frequency response are physical microphonics, electronic ringing and oscillation, and acoustic ringing. These subsets are not necessary for consumers to understand, but they are important to design engineers and acousticians.

3. Distortion is the common word for the more technical termnonlinearity, and it adds new frequency components that were not present in the original source. When music passes through a device that adds distortion, new frequencies are created that may or may not be pleasing to the ear. The design goal for audio equipment is that all distortion be so low in level that it can’t be heard. I’ll return later to the notion that distortion can be pleasing when I explain why some audiophiles prefer vinyl records and tube-based electronics.

There are two basic types of distortion—harmonic and intermodulation—and both are almost always present together. Harmonic distortion adds new frequencies that are musically related to the source. In layman terms, harmonic distortion adds a slightly thick or buzzy quality to music. All musical instruments create tones having harmonics, so a device whose distortion adds a little more merely changes the instrument’s character by some amount. Electric guitar players use harmonic distortion—often lots of it—to turn a guitar’s inherent plink-plink sound into a singing tone having great power and sustain.

Intermodulation (IM) distortion requires two or more frequencies to be present, and it’s far more damaging because it creates new content that is musically unrelated to the original. Even in relatively small amounts, intermodulation distortion adds a dissonant quality that is unpleasant to hear. Another type of distortion is called aliasing, and it’s unique to digital recording. Like IM distortion, aliasing creates new frequencies not harmonically related to the original, and so is unpleasant and irritating to hear. Fortunately, in all modern digital gear, aliasing is so low in level that it’s inaudible.

4. Time-based errors affect mainly pitch and tempo. If you’ve ever played an old LP record where the hole was not quite centered, you’ve heard the pitch rise and fall with each revolution. This is called wow. Analog tape recorders suffer from a different type of pitch instability called flutter. Unlike the slow pitch change of wow, flutter is more rapid, producing a warbling effect. Digital recorders have a unique type of timing deviation called jitter, but with all modern equipment, jitter is so much softer than the music that you’ll never hear it. The last type of time-based error is phase shift, but it’s benign even in relatively large amounts.

Room acoustics could be considered a fifth audio parameter, but it really isn’t. Nearby room boundaries can create frequency response errors (called comb filtering) due to wave reflections combining in the air. Reflections can also create audible echoes and reverb, but these are timebased phenomenon that occur outside the equipment, so they don’t warrant their own category either.

The above parameters encompass everything that affects audio fidelity. If a device has noise and distortion too low to hear, a response sufficient to capture the entire range of audible frequencies, and time-based errors small enough to be insignificant, then that device will be audibly transparent to music and other sound passing through it. However, clarity and stereo imaging are greatly affected by room acoustics; without question, the room you listen in has far more effect on sound quality than any of the audio components.

You may have noticed that several times I referred to errors that can be too soft to hear, like the inherent background noise of a CD, or are inaudible because they’re much softer than the music and are thus masked by the music. Masking is an important concept because it prevents us from hearing low-level artifacts in the presence of a source that is louder—especially if both contain similar frequencies. For example, low frequency hum caused by a bad connection is the same volume whether the music is playing or not. So when you stop the CD, you can more easily hear the hum. If the music consists of a cymbal or tambourine only, you’ll hear the hum even while the music plays because those instruments contain primarily high frequencies. But when drums or a bass play, those instruments will probably mask the hum. Some artifacts like tape modulation noise and jitter occur only while the music plays. So unless they’re fairly loud, they won’t be audible at all.

The Cable Guy

The earliest audio scam I can recall is fancy wire for connecting loudspeakers, and it’s still going strong. These days vendors claim their wire yields better sound quality when compared to normal wire, and, of course, it’s much more expensive than normal wire. In truth, the most important property of speaker wire is resistance, which is a function of its thickness. The resistance must be low to pass the high-current signals a power amplifier delivers. For short distances— say, up to five feet—16-gauge wire of any type is adequate, though thicker wire is needed for longer runs.

The three other wire parameters are inductance, capacitance, and skin effect. But those are not a factor with usual cable lengths at audio frequencies, especially when connecting speakers to a power amplifier. Low capacitance wire can be important in special cases, such as between a phonograph cartridge and its preamp. But high quality, low capacitance wire can be had for pennies per foot. Wire scams are very popular because wire is a low-tech device that’s simple to manufacture and the profit margin is extremely high. I could devote this entire article to wire scams, but instead I’ll just summarize that any audio (or video) cable costing more than a few dollars per foot is a rip-off.

Even sillier than expensive speaker wire is replacement AC power cords and most other power “conditioner” products. The sales claims sound logical: Noise and static can get into your gear through the power line and damage the sound. In severe cases it’s possible for powerrelated clicks and buzzes to get into your system, but those are easily noticed. The suggestion that subtle changes in “clarity and presence” can occur is plain fraud. Indeed, every competent circuit designer knows how to filter out power line noise, and such protection is routinely added to all commercial audio products. Spending hundreds of dollars on a six-foot replacement power cord ignores the other hundred-odd feet of regular wire between the wall outlet and power pole.

Some audio scams are so blatant you wonder how anyone could fall for them, like a replacement volume control knob that sells for $485. The ad copy proclaims, “The new knobs are custom made with beech wood and bronze … How can this make a difference??? Well, hearing is believing as we always say. The sound becomes much more open and free flowing with a nice improvement in resolution. Dynamics are better and overall naturalness is improved.” Yes, I bet that’s just what they always say. Wood is a common theme among audiophile scams, falsely implying a relation to a fine old violin where the wood’s vibration really is a part of the sound. But a volume control knob?

illustration by Joe Lee

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Among devoted audiophiles, one of the most hotly debated topics is the notion that ultrasonic frequencies are necessary for high fidelity reproduction. Put aside for a moment that no human can hear much past 20 KHz. Few microphones respond to frequencies beyond that, and even fewer loudspeakers can reproduce that high. If maintaining an extended frequency response were free, I’d have little objection. But in this digital age, storing frequencies higher than necessary waste memory, media space, and bandwidth. Even sillier is the way audio is handled on DVD soundtracks. DVDs accommodate frequencies up to 96 KHz, but then “lossy”data compression— which results in an audible loss in quality—is often needed to make it fit! Record companies and equipment manufacturers just love that millions of people replaced all their old LPs and cassettes with CDs. They’re trying very hard to get us to buy all the same titles, and new gear to play them, yet again with the false promise of fidelity that exceeds CDs.

Another popular scam is mechanical isolation devices. The claims have a remote basis in science that are skewed to suggest importance where none is justified. If you ever owned a turntable, you know how sensitive it can be to mechanical vibration. Unless you walk lightly, the record can skip, and if you turn up the volume too high, you’ll get a low frequency feedback. A turntable is a mechanical device that relies on physical contact between the needle and the record’s surface. CDs (and DVDs) work on an entirely different principle that is immune to mechanical vibration. As the CD spins, the digital data is read into a memory buffer, and from there it is sent to your receiver or headphones. Several seconds of music are always in the player’s buffer, so if the player is jostled enough that the CD mistracks, it simply sends from the buffer until the drive can find its place again. Large buffers are common on CD players meant for joggers for this exact reason.

Isolation has no advantage for other electronic gear either. You can spend thousands of dollars on fancy isolation devices for preamps and receivers, yet they don’t improve the sound even a tiny bit (though mechanical isolation with loudspeakers is valid). A related scam is cable elevators— small devices that prevent your wires from touching the floor. Like so many other audiophile “tweak” products, the claims for cable elevators sound magical, and they surely are.

Bi-wiring is a more recent scam, and it’s a pretend relative to bi-amping, which is legitimate. No single speaker driver can reproduce the entire range of audible frequencies, so manufacturers use two or three drivers—called woofers and tweeters—to handle the different ranges. Biamping splits the audio into low/high or low/mid/high ranges, and each range is sent to a separate power amplifier that in turn powers each speaker driver. This avoids passive crossovers that add distortion. Bi-wiring uses two separate speaker wires, but they’re both connected to the same single power amplifier and a passive crossover!

Vinyl records and vacuum tube equipment are very popular with devoted audiophiles who believe these old school technologies more faithfully reproduce subtle nuance. There’s no question that LPs and tubes sound different from CDs and solid state gear. But are they better? Not in any way you could possibly measure. Common to both is much higher distortion; LPs in particular have more inherent noise and a poorer high frequency response, especially when playing the inner grooves. I’m convinced that some people prefer tubes and vinyl because the subtle distortion they add sounds pleasing to them. Adding small amounts of distortion can make a recording sound more cohesive, for lack of a better word. Recording engineers sometimes add distortion intentionally to imitate the sound of tubes and analog tape, and I’ve done this myself. Simply copying a song to a cassette tape and back adds a slight thickening that can be pleasing if the instrumentation is sparse. But clearly this is an artificial effect, not higher fidelity.

Other common scams are small devices that claim to improve room acoustics. You can pay a hundred dollars each for small pieces of rare wood the size and shape of hockey pucks. The sellers instruct you to place them around your room to improve its acoustics. But with acoustics, what matters is covering a sufficient percentage of the room’s surface. Real acoustic treatment is large and not always conducive to a living room (as my wife will attest), so lots of folks want very much to believe that something small and unobtrusive will solve their bad acoustics. If only it were possible.

Free, But Stupid Anyway

The key to identifying most audio scams is the very high prices charged. As an audio pro, I know that $1,000 can buy a state of the art power amplifier. So it makes no sense to pay, say, $17,000 for an amplifier that is no better and may well be worse. However, some scams are more like urban legends — no products are sold, but they’re still a waste of time. For example, one early legend was that you can improve the sound of a CD by painting its outer edge with a green felt marker pen. Yes, it must be green. (I guess other colors won’t create the proper energy field.) A related legend is that cables and electronic devices must be “broken in” for some period of time before they achieve their final highest fidelity. Aside from a manufacturing defect, the notion that wire or a solid state circuit changes audibly over time makes no sense. This legend becomes a scam when you deal with a vendor who says you must break in the product for 90 days to realize a benefit. Why 90 days? Because credit card purchases are protected for only 60 days.

The Devil is in the Details

As you have learned, all four audio parameters are important, but what matters most is their magnitude. Test data is sometimes graphed at low resolution to hide the true performance. So a frequency response line may look reasonably straight, implying a uniform response, yet a closer examination shows that each vertical division on the graph represents a substantial deviation. Using excessively large graph divisions is just another way scammers try to fool uneducated buyers.

Many (but not all) audiophile magazine reviews include impressive-looking graphs that imply science but are sorely lacking if you know what the graphs actually mean. Numerous irrelevant data is presented while important specs are omitted. For example, the phase response of a loudspeaker is shown but not its distortion, which is far more important. One magazine recently reviewed a $4,400 tube preamplifier so poorly designed that it verged on self-oscillation (a high-pitched squealing sound). The reviewer even acknowledged the defect, yet still summarized by saying, “Impressive, and very highly recommended.” The ignorance and misguided loyalty of some audiophile magazines is a significant problem in this business.

Many of the scams I have described do have a factual basis in science, but the effects are so infinitesimal that they can’t possibly make audible differences. I often see “believers” proclaim that science has not yet found a way to measure what they are convinced they can hear. In truth, it’s quite the other way around. We can easily measure jitter that’s 120 dB below the music, which is a typical amount and is about 1,000 times softer than could be audible. Likewise for distortion, frequency response, and noise, especially when you factor in the ear’s susceptibility to masking. Many audiophiles truly believe they hear a change in quality, even when none can possibly exist.The Bottom Line

The biggest variables in audio quality come from transducers—microphones and loudspeakers that, being mechanical devices, must physically vibrate. When assessing frequency response and distortion, the finest loudspeakers in the world are far worse than the cheapest electronic device. And any room you put the speakers in will exaggerate that already poor response even further.

Like the Emperor’s New Clothes, many people let themselves be conned into believing that a higher truth exists, even if they cannot hear it. There is no disputing that hearing can be improved with practice and that you can learn to recognize detail, but that’s not the same as imagining something that doesn’t exist at all. And, logically speaking, just because a large number of people believe something does not alone make it true.

It can be difficult to prove or disprove issues like those I have presented here because human auditory perception is so fragile and our memory is so short. With A/B testing—where you switch between one version and another to audition the difference—it is mandatory that the switch be performed very quickly. If it takes you fifteen minutes to hook up a replacement amplifier, it will be very hard to tell if there truly was a difference, compared to being able to switch between them instantly. Even when switching quickly, it is important that both amplifiers be set to exactly the same volume level.

When all else is equal, people will generally pick the brighter (or just louder) version as sounding better, unless of course it was already too loud or bright. People sometimes report a difference even in an “A/A” test, where nothing changed! And just because something sounds “better,” it is not necessarily higher fidelity. Boosting the treble and bass tone controls often makes music sound “better,” but that is not more faithful to the original source material.

Beliefs and the placebo effect are very strong. When people argue about things like this on the Internet, it’s commonly referred to as “religious arguments.” I’ve even heard people argue against double-blind testing, claiming such tests “break the mood” and thus invalidate the results. Sound familiar? That’s just like the psychics who, when tested publicly, blame their failure on negative vibes from the skeptical testers.

Psychological factors like expectation and fatigue are equally important. If I brag to a friend how great my home theater sounds and that person comes for a visit, it always sounds worse to me while we’re both listening. Finally, it is important to consider the source of any claim, though someone’s financial interest in a product doesn’t mean the claims are necessarily untrue. But there’s more than a little truth to the popular sentiment, “The most important person in a company that makes audiophile speaker wire is the head of marketing.”