There's Only One Goal You Really Need in Life

I tell my students that they only need one goal in life: Don't Quit.  

This advice comes from personal experience. The only way I can maintain physical fitness is to run.  But I have a love/hate relationship with running.  It can be boring and difficult, especially in hot, humid DC summers.  When I first started running I couldn't run more than a quarter mile without needing to stop.  It took me several more months of persistent work to be able to run a marathon.  Through it all I had only one goal: don't quit.  It didn't matter how many times nine year olds lapped me on the track, as long as I improved my time by just a few seconds.

If you don't quit you make determination, persistence and gradual improvement your allies. I confess that there were times when I just wanted to put everything on hold. Sometimes, progress was so gradual that I couldn't see the future as being any better than the present. Yet every moment that I came close to giving up, something held me back. I couldn't give in to simply letting all my progress go.

Thinking this way has immense benefits (just ask Jerry Seinfeld).  We spend so much of our lives worrying about all the other goals in life that we forget about the most important one: the journey.  

We give up after achieving artificial milestones: studies find that people often stop running regularly after completing a race.  And we stress out about the huge goals we set for ourselves, without considering that committing to the journey is more important than obsessing over the destination.  For instance, Americans ritually stress out about achieving their New Years' resolutions but just 8% of them ever end up achieving their goals.  

If your overarching goal is not to give up then achieving your other priorities becomes easier.  As long as you don't quit, your other milestones - how fast you ran that last 5k, or whether you got a B- instead of an A+ - become less important: you know you'll achieve the goal next time, or in some other way, as long as you remain committed to moving forward. 

When I bring this up in class, I sometimes get confused looks and questions.  Can't quitting be healthy or necessary? What about quitting a job someone doesn't like? Shouldn't people quit smoking? When I say don't quit - I'm focusing more on the mindset and less on the action. If your goal is to have a fulfilling career, then "quitting" an unfulfilling job actually furthers your goal. But staying in that job because you've given up - that's quitting.  Even the person who continually plans on leaving their miserable job (but never does) hasn't quit.  

A good strategy for not quitting is to reframe how you think about your goals as a continuum rather than as concrete actions.  A setback is pause in a longer journey.  Stopping because of a setback is one of the worst things you can do. Focus instead on a commitment to moving forward and learning.    

So as the new school year starts and as we get back from our vacations ready to work ... remember to never quit. 

Who Manages Immigration Enforcement? An Analysis By Dr. Kevin Fandl

Since the country’s inception, how the United States deals with its immigrants has plagued all levels of government and successive presidential and congressional administrations. In part, this is due to the overlapping and oft-competing priorities of state and local governments and their desire to control the influx of immigrants entering the United States. The 10th Amendment establishes state sovereignty, giving states the ability to create and enforce laws within their own borders, as long as they do not preempt federal law.  Arguably, states have the right to legislate within their borders on matters as diverse as education and criminal punishment. However, immigration law has increasingly muddled the understanding of where federal and state powers begin, end and overlap.  This messy legal area has resulted in active scholarly debate.

Previously I featured an interview with Dr. Kevin Fandl, an Assistant Professor of Legal Studies and Global Business Strategy at the Fox School of Business at Temple University.  Dr. Fandl’s work on immigration matters provides unique insights into immigration law, policy, and reform. Now in an upcoming publication, Putting States Out of the Immigration Law Enforcement Business, Dr. Fandl provides novel arguments that focus on the exclusive role of the federal government in the immigration law enforcement arena. Dr. Fandl’s overarching analysis covers federal immigration law, from its inception, explaining how it remains within the realm of federal powers, and ultimately indicates that the basis for state usurpation of the federal law relies on a faulty premise.

Dr. Fandl’s analysis begins by detailing the historical development of immigration law, and identifying immigration as a federally controlled area of law that largely pre-empts state action. In addition to a detailed historical analysis his work delves into recent state immigration enforcement actions, such as Arizona’s SB 1070 and Alabama’s HB 56, and the federal court’s rejection of these laws as evidence of federal pre-emption. Dr. Fandl’s analysis explores the Supreme Court’s decision that the federal government maintains jurisdiction over immigration law. His conclusion that state governments maintain general police powers to protect the interests of their citizens, and arguments raised about the negative effects of unlawful immigration are flawed is a novel attempt at highlighting faulty data surrounding the impact of undocumented migrants on the U.S. economic market and criminal climate.   His premise rests on the notion that upholding and reinforcing a myriad of state laws would, therefore, only create more problems rather than solve them. However, given that this area of law is constantly evolving, it is unlikely that this power struggle between federal and state will be resolved in the near future.    

To read Dr. Fandl’s full argument and his concluding recommendations make sure to check out the publication featured in the Harvard Law and Policy Review Journal.

Watch this short film from the Sikh Coalition: The Struggle to Serve

Matthew Rogers, who produced and co-directed the film, was immediately inspired to pursue this project when he first read about the issue in 2014: “I couldn’t believe that Sikh Americans have to choose between their faith and service to their country. That’s a false choice that nobody should have to make and one that inspired me to explore the issue further by producing this film,” he said. Learn more.

Principles of Faith Based Dispute Resolution

Read my latest article on the principles of faith-based alternative dispute resolution published in ADRTimes.

“Part One – Sulh: Islam’s path to reconciliation

A boy and a girl shuffle along, stalked by the shadow of poverty, disease, violence, and death. They are on their way to work at their father’s shop; but it’s doubtful they’ll even make the short distance, let alone work in the shop for the day. And on the way there will be problems. There will be marauders perhaps, or checkpoints. There will be gunshots again, like the ones that kept them up all night. And they will need to duck and run to make it to the safety of the shop, deep inside the Christian quarter.[1]

This is Nigeria: It is a country of vast wealth, untapped resources and burgeoning modernity. But it is also a country of strife, violence, and corruption. The nation is continually being torn apart by religious strife and sectarian violence. Just yesterday, this boy and girl fled with their father from their home to the police station. An angry crowd had gathered outside their home chanting for the unbelievers to come out, throwing bottles at their windows, shattering the fence posts around their yard.”

— http://www.adrtimes.com/library/principles-of-faith-based-adr?rq=ehsan%20zaffar

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