Monthly Archives: March 2024

Headspace when alone

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My family started watching season 6 of Alone. 10 contestants are left alone in the wild way up north on Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada. The challenge ends when just one remains. The contestants have to fully fend for themselves, and they battle two significant battles, starvation and boredom.

Watching this reminds me of how important our self talk is to our overall mental health. We don’t have to face the challenges of these contestants. We don’t go days being hungry. We don’t go for endless hours with no entertainment and no one to interact with. But we still spend most of our time in our own heads.

We can be our own biggest cheerleader or our own worst enemy. We have incredible power to influence our own thinking. The most important thing we can do for ourselves is appreciate that we are doing the best we can with the resources we have. We need to be kind with ourselves… especially when we find ourselves alone.

Knowing/doing gap

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It has become abundantly clear that the old adage that, “Knowing is half the battle,” is a pile of BS that should never have become a knowable quote. People know that smoking is bad for them; they know that second serving of desert is not a good idea; they know that they should work out. The only time knowing matters is after a life-threatening experience, a kick in gut that says ‘get your shit together or else.’

Prior to that, knowing is maybe 5% of the battle. Doing is the real threshold to get more than 1/2 way to the goal you are hoping for.

Doing something to change, no matter how small, is how you get to the goals you want to achieve… to accomplish positive change.

What you do could be less than 1% of what you hope to accomplish. It could be a small step in the right direction. It could even be an initial step in the wrong direction (but with the right intention). What matters is action.

Doing is more than half the battle.

Change doesn’t happen because you know it should, it happens because you took action.

Family pack

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My mom and sister flew in a couple days ago. Today my nephew joined us and 7 of us went out for sushi… a small group but it brought back memories. I forget sometimes how crazy my childhood was. We’d go over to my grandparents house for a typical dinner and there would be 25+ family members there. A family picnic was a convoy. A surprise birthday party would be 60+ people.

I wish my kids spent more of their childhood surrounded by cousins and in the chaos of always being around them and their aunts and uncles, like me and my sisters had. It was such an amazing way to be brought up. I was blessed to have such an amazing extended family experience growing up!

To decide or to deny

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I love this Seth Godin quote:

“You don’t need more time, you just need to decide.”

I have goals that I set, and that I hit. I have other goals, call them lofty, call them challenging, or call them unrealistic, that I don’t tend to hit. Two examples of lofty goals include doing pistol squats, and doing 30 consecutive pull-ups. These are really difficult goals to achieve, they involve considerable effort, and diligent practice… and the practice is hard, it hurts. And yes, they take time.

But time isn’t the issue. I can find the time. I can do less of some activities and put more dedicated effort into these goals. So why don’t I? I haven’t decided that these goals are important enough. I haven’t decided that the pain and effort necessary to accomplish these goals is worth doing.

These aren’t real goals (yet?), they are wishes. I will be denied success because I haven’t decided that I’m ready to put in the time and effort required. I haven’t decided, and so I will not achieve.

I did a set of 15 pull-ups yesterday, followed by two sets of ten. Every set ended with my will power quitting before my body. I am not ready to put my body through the pain required to reach 30. I’m not mentally ready for the pain. Ultimately I’m not ready to push to 18, then 20, then 22, and so on. I simply haven’t yet decided. Of course even if I decided, 30 might be unrealistic, but I won’t know until I decide to try… first I just need to decide.

Gone in an instant

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It’s tragic when it happens. Most recently in the news it was a bridge in Baltimore. A barge lost power and hit a bridge and it collapsed, killing several workers on the bridge. One minute they are going about their job, and then their lives are over. No warning, no forethought. Living one moment, gone the next.

I was recently on vacation and watched a few sunrises. That time of day is busy for birds on the hunt for fish. There is no glare from the sun, and many small fish are feeding near the shore. Here is a slow motion video of a bird diving for food.

Imagine the life of a small fish. You are among many other fish, feeding and going about your morning, and suddenly, most abruptly, a foreign beast plunges into your world and snatches you up. Seconds later you slide down inside of a bird’s neck and into its stomach where you suffocate before being digested.

No warning, no hint of pending doom. It’s part of the life cycle of many living things. We are fortunate that it is not frequent for us as apex predators. Still, it happens, and it’s totally unfair, even random. A fall from a ladder, a car accident, an allergic reaction, a plane crash, a freak accident.

We are fortunate not to be small fish, with far greater likeliness to come to a tragic, early, unexpected demise, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be thankful for the time we are given, and appreciate the luck we have to live a good life every day that we are given. It can be seen as scary or it can be seen as cathartic… knowing that we can be gone in an instant.

I’m heading home

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It’s almost noon and I’m sitting poolside, but in the shade. I had a shower and really don’t want to lather up with sunscreen when I’m going to be taking a cab to the airport in just over an hour. After writing this I’ll put my audio spy novel back on for 20 minutes before heading to a shack restaurant in the strip of restaurants and shops across the street. I’ll order one more delicious breakfast burrito and savour it.

I usually prefer more active holidays, rather than planning my day between pool chairs and meals, but I have say that this was a fabulous trip! I was with great people, and my wife and I had more quality time together than we’ve had in quite some time. It’s easy at home to get busy and live side-by-side lives, without spending enough quality time together. It sometimes takes a holiday to really enjoy each other’s company and not just spend time planning the next thing, the next meal, the next shopping list, the next… and the next, and the next ‘thing’ we need to do.

I’m heading home today, but I hope to be able to find some chill time at home that keeps this holiday-time feeling going, ‘small slices of relaxation every day’ or ‘holidays in a cup’. I won’t have this gorgeous poolside view, but I can still find moments, slices, and tiny tastes of holiday every day.

How long ago?

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March 24th, 1984. That’s the Saturday that students in the movie ‘Breakfast Club’ spent in detention.

@pina_kaletta

40 years ago today, on March 24, 1984, the students in “The Breakfast Club” spent their day in detention

♬ original sound – Kaletta

It was a defining movie for this Gen X’er. I saw it in a theatre in downtown Toronto. My buddy Dino and I talked about it the whole way home.

It’s hard to fathom that this is a 39 year old memory (the movie actually came out in 1985). Where does the time go?

The quest for food

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I’m on holidays and I’ve had the privilege of watching a few sunrises over the ocean. Before the sun rises, but the day has brightened, and before the glare gets in the way, birds nose dive for small fish feeding on the turmoil of the ocean; as waves crash near the shore. I’m reminded of another privilege we all have: we don’t have to spend most of our day seeking food.

These diving birds must constantly be on the move, seeking their next meal. Food is life, and the quest for food makes up a significant part of most bird’s and mammal’s day. We don’t have to do that. We have the luxury of grocery stores, restaurants, refrigerators, and means to store food without it going bad. Much of our innovation and subsequent convenience comes from our ability to spend precious time not in the quest for food.

But it’s not just about innovation and convenience, it’s also about creativity. I think we are on the threshold of a new era of creativity. AI and robotics are going to move us into an era of greater innovation and convenience, and ultimately give us more precious time to design, create, and be artistically inspired.

The quest for food will be replaced by the quest for self-expression. A new chapter is about to be written… it will feel much more like fiction than reality.

Delight in the moment

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It’s 6:17 and I just got off of a Stair Master. When I am at a gym with cardio equipment I don’t have at home, I like to use it. I was contemplating heading out to the beach to see the sunrise at 6:21, but it would be a rush to get to a good viewpoint from here just in time.

Then in my head I saw the sunrise I took a picture of yesterday. Then I saw an image of the sunset I took the day before. Beautiful. Serene. Majestic.

Running from here to capture the moment today would not have been the same. It would have felt like an effort, and the moment would have been more about documenting that I saw it again, rather than appreciating it.

Tomorrow I’ll plan to be at the water, coffee in hand. I will not lift my camera as I have on previous mornings, instead I’ll just enjoy the moment. Un-rushed, appreciative, and listening to the waves crash.

You can rush to an event, but you can’t rush a feeling you are seeking. You can race to a meeting, and be present, but you also have to be aware of your presence.

I missed the sunrise this morning, but if I rushed to see it, it would not have added value to the memories of sunrises I already hold in my mind. There is the idea of watching the sunset, there is the actual viewing of it, and there is the experience it evokes. Today would have been all about the first two… and so I really didn’t miss all that much.

Tomorrow I’ll delight in the moment.

Now back to my workout.

Ending discrimination

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This article was in my inbox this morning: Premier’s, attorney general’s, parliamentary secretary’s statements on International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Niki Sharma, Attorney General, said:

“We all must do our part to fight racism in all its forms. But words are only as good as the actions that follow, which is why we will be introducing anti-racism legislation in the coming weeks to address systemic racism in government programs and services, and launching more supports for racialized people. On this International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, please join us in standing up against racism to create a more equitable and safer province for everyone.”

Imagine a world where we cared as little about skin colour as we do eye colour. A world where bodily autonomy wasn’t controlled by religiously biased policymakers. A world where entire groups of people were not disenfranchised or discriminated against based on how they looked or where they came from.

If you asked me 25 years ago, I might have said this was possible by now. Ask me now and I fear we are much more than 25 years away from this. How have we gone backwards? What will prevent a further slide? There will not be an end to discrimination in my lifetime, but I do hope it’s possible in my kids’ lifetime.