photo credit: graymalkn

I’m an idealist. I don’t believe the ends justify the means, and I am a big fan of concepts like “doing the right thing,” “personal responsibility,” and “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

I’m also a pragmatist. I think this is partly personality, partly profession, and a good deal of being married to Daniel.

Normally these two personality traits co-exist reasonably peacefully. They temper each other and keep me from going too overboard in either direction.

But then political questions come up, and suddenly I’m the host of a little mini-war of the mind and heart.

There are a few issues that my idealist-half cares deeply about, and then a wide range of issues that my pragmatic-half insists on worrying about.

The problem is that the idealist issues are really not likely to actually matter in practice. For instance, abortion: I am absolutely pro-life, and consider the issue of abortion to be a huge spiritual battle, but when it comes down to it, electing a pro-life candidate is highly unlikely to change any of the legislation.

And that’s where the dilemma comes in: is it worth ignoring all of the pragmatic issues in favor of one unlikely-to-change-anything commitment, because it’s “the right thing to do”? Or should I embrace the pragmatism and focus on “doing what we can, where we can”?

I took some “find your ideal candidate” tests this morning and apparently, I’m really a Bob Barr supporter. Of course, no one’s ever heard of Bob Barr, and that might prove a bit of a complication for him. My pragmatic site absolutely forbids me to vote for the man, given that it would accomplish nothing, but idealism says, “The two-party system is a crock, and you should vote for the candidate who is best, regardless of his chances.”

I think the pragmatic side will win that one.

But my question is, should it? Where would we be if pragmatism was always put first? One of our household heroes, William Wilberforce, was ridiculously idealistic, and that’s a good part of the reason the slave trade was abolished. It took almost 50 years, though!

I think the abortion issue today has some significant correlations to the slave trade in Wilberforce’s time. It’s one of those things that most people would agree isn’t really an ideal solution, but people are generally happy to live with for reasons of convenience. I think in historical retrospect, though, more enlightened future generations will be astounded, just as most of us are today when considering slavery. I also think in both cases there is substantial behind-the-scenes spiritual influence.

But the point of this isn’t to convince you that abortion is wrong. My pragmatic side assures me that trying to argue that belief isn’t going to work anyway.

The point is: given that I hold these beliefs about abortion, is it my duty to vote accordingly, even with the realistic expectation that no candidate will be able to change things? Or is it my duty to look at all the issues, even though I don’t feel that most of them are nearly as important, and balance them all to figure out my support?

Daniel thinks I should become a politician.

photo credit: Per Ola Wiberg

The first day of a new month (rabbit rabbit!) and it’s the one that feels most like “autumn” to me—nevermind that it’s supposed to get up to almost 90° F today! The only downside: dreaded invoicing day. I really hate invoicing. A lot.

One reason for my passionate loathing is just the simple fact that it involves doing tedious tasks that I’m not particularly good at. If that was it, though, I’d outsource it and be done with it. The worse part is that I have to go through all of my PayPal transactions and categorize them, make sure everything matches, and realize that I’m putting in tons of hours and making very little money as a result. That’s just depressing.

So today I’ll get through evil invoicing first in hopes of having a better rest of the day. I haven’t even showered yet—don’t worry, it will immediately follow invoicing.

I also need to fit in some baking for our church gathering tonight—I’ve committed to bring some bread and I’m thinking about a certain bread machine roll recipe + a pan of cornbread. Neither will take very much active time but I need to remember to start early enough.

Most Important Tasks

• Invoicing
• Do two specific tasks on a client site (being vague here for privacy reasons)
• Create three new videos for my training course and write text versions for all four videos

The reward

I’ll allow myself to read as many of my blog feeds as I want (when my work is done). I have about 150 unread posts, and spent some time last night reducing the incoming flow, so I’m looking forward to catching up.

It didn’t respond to any of the happy “kill program” commands, so I finally hard-rebooted it and now it’s not coming back. I’m no Mac guru, but I’ve tried a whole bunch of remedies found via Google, and no luck yet. Computers are finicky beasts, though, so I’m hopeful that something will work. I’m going to call my local Apple-friendly computer store when they open and see what they suggest.

In the meantime, I’m incredibly glad I installed FolderShare last week, so most everything is backed up on my laptop (where I’m typing now) as well as my JungleDisk. If I need to work on my laptop, I can, it’s just not as nice for coding.

My big priority for this week (other than getting the misbehaving Mac working) is to finish up some outstanding projects that are really stressing me out. I have new projects lined up for next week and am going to have a nervous breakdown if I have to do them all at once, so the obvious answer is to finish up the current ones first.

One of the projects is a client’s web application and the other is the ebook.

For today…

I’m going to focus on the client project and make as much progress as I can there. I have about seven other obligations for the day, but this is going to be my core task.

For the week…

I’m going to keep working on the client project, and do the following for my ebook:

• Decide on a final name
• Get a cover and site designed (starting the process today)
• Set up sales and affiliate program
• Format the book
• Do an interview to promote the book

Want to jump in yourself? Just leave a comment saying what you’re going to do today, or post on your own blog and leave a link.

I’ve spent today catching up on the neglected clients and projects. It’s draining to feel behind on everything (though admittedly, it’s getting better). I decided to take a break and go get the mail—getting the mail is one of the great (small) pleasures of my life.

Imagine my excitement when I got a package! I love packages!

And then I opened the package!

Oh, now you know that’s going to be good!

Now I know you are all incredibly jealous… look at all that fudgy goodness!

A little back-story on the fudge: when I checked my email on Monday morning, I had a super-nice note from Reonne of Earth’s Sweet Pleasures. Over the weekend, she used my WordPress videos to learn to install her blog, appropriately named Chocolate Fudge Cafe (is your mouth watering yet?!).

She appreciated the videos and offered to send me some fudge. Now what sane woman would turn down that offer?!? Not this one! (Though I guess at this point my claim on sanity is a little tenuous…) I didn’t realize that Reonne was going to send me 16 pieces, though!

Honestly, even more than the fudge (which is fantastic, by the way… I kept it intact just long enough for the photos ), I’m really touched that she went out of her way to do something so nice. After a very stressful few days, it’s like my soul just sighed with satisfaction.

Ahhhhhhhhh…

Don’t underestimate what your gestures of thoughtfulness can do for another person.