Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
For a long time I’ve had flexibility issues. Part of it is that I just don’t stretch enough. I’m trying to change that. The thing is, I find stretching very unpleasant. In my mind stretching is closer to pain than discomfort. I think this perspective came from trying to speed up stretching just to get it over with. So instead of slowly pushing to get a better stretch, I just jump to the max I can go and wonder why it’s so uncomfortable.
Then I wonder why I don’t like to stretch.
There’s a metaphor here around getting out of my comfort zone. I see it in things I don’t want to do. At first I might avoid the thing I’m not looking forward to, then once I decide to do it, I’m all in. I go from no stretch to big stretch.
But for physical stretches this is a lousy strategy. The reality is that my body needs time to warm up. I usually do cardio before stretching so that helps, but I’ve got to start changing both my approach and my attitude towards stretching. It’s not about getting to an end point quickly, it’s not just about going all-in. Rather the big stretch comes from countless little stretches. Repeating movements ever so incrementally further.
It sounds simple, but my frame of reference needs to change. My focus needs to be in putting in the time, varying what I do to get the most out of movements, rather than trying to muscle through my stretches. Essentially I have to sit in a place where I’m more comfortable being out of my comfort zone, rather than jumping out of it briefly and in full force. The big stretch isn’t the point, the act of stretching is.
Just before the school year started I decided that I would choose a ‘#OneWord’ for the (school) year, and that it would be PAUSE. The tradition for One Word is to choose it to start the calendar year, but for my final school year I thought it was apropos.
I shared,
“There is a lot I’m going to miss when I leave this job, what I don’t want to do is miss things while I still have time to enjoy them. I’m going to seek out opportunities to take pause in my day and truly experience the things I cherish.”
This came to mind a few times from September to December, but not often enough. Moments where I spent a little extra time in a class, or didn’t just leave the class after one presentation so that I could see the next one. Moments where I sat to chat with staff rather than just sharing a message or asking a question then heading back to my office. Small pauses, meaningful but sparse.
This is my personal reminder to pause a little more often as I head to my end of the school year retirement… what I don’t want to do is miss things while I still have time to enjoy them.
Tomorrow is the last day of our winter break and I have to say that I feel fully ready to get back to work. January is probably my busiest month and if I’m honest, I was not looking forward to starting back after the break.
And now I’m ready.
I can’t say that I fully shut down, but I did so far more than usual, and I think that’s part of the reason I feel so recharged. It’s a little unfortunate that I’m figuring this out so late in my career. For example, I didn’t ignore email, but I realized that there really isn’t much that can’t wait for a response this coming Monday or Tuesday. So I let it go. Earlier in my career I would have felt compelled to respond right away, often unintentionally inviting another email and more work… when the need for a response was not urgent.
Both ‘letting go’ and ‘turning off’ are cathartic, refuelling. Understanding that not just my body but my brain also needs a break is the reason I’m ready.
I just watched a video clip of Sir Ken Robinson promoting a product to reduce your blood sugar. I’ve already shared ‘An AI Advertisement’ with a fictitious expert, and broke down the flaws with the ad. But now we have an actual (now deceased) celebrity figure doing the promotional plug. It looks and sounds like him, but he never said anything he says in this video advertisement. I know this, but how many people will recognize him and pay a little more attention to this advertising scam because it is delivered by someone famous?
This is just the beginning. We are moving into a ‘post truth era’, where nothing is inherently believable. A decade from now we’ll have multiple alternate identities to choose from… Was the real Al Gore the one warning us about global warming, or was the real one promoting fracking, or alternative medicine, or socialist communism over capitalism? Every video will seem equally real, every source seemingly legitimate. One real, all the others alternative histories indistinguishable from reality.
Will it only be famous people that will fall victim to these alternate identities or are we all going to be replicated? When I’m in my late 80’s will I be watching a video of 50 year old me oblivious to whether this recording actually happened or if it was invented with a perfect imitation of myself?
The implications for scams are immeasurable. Live video of a seemingly real son or daughter extracting banking data from a senior parent. A meticulously created alternative you moving all assets over to someone else. The scams are limited only by imagination, not by technology or capability.
Alternate identities indistinguishable from reality, all playing out as if real. Sir Ken Robinson plugging health suppliments is only just the beginning… We are in for some reality warping performances from AI alternatives to us, and the people we think we trust… This is only just the beginning!
It’s that time of year again where I go to my big tracking calendar and add up my totals for the year.
Once again I was very consistent with my workouts and meditation, and I’ve yet again maintained my daily writing for another year. I’ll break a few things down as I reflect on the year.
Workouts: After taking a look at my 2024 calendar, I realize that I haven’t missed 2 days in a row in over 2 years. This year I was a little less strict in my definition of a workout, sometimes only doing 15 minutes of cardio, and sometimes not doing both weights and cardio, but still committing to a workout 326/365 days in 2025.
In my 2024 post I said regarding one of two goals, “Gain 7-8 pounds of muscle… Now I fluctuate around 167-169 pounds and would like to bring that to 175 pounds.”
For the last couple weeks I’ve been bouncing around 173-175 but I hit 178 a couple months ago and I’ll get back there after the holiday break. So, I totally achieved this goal, and couldn’t be happier. For 2026 I hope to be in the 183-185 range. I think this is a huge challenge, my body seems to like the 174-176 range and I’ll have to work more on a consistent diet rather than just focusing on weights and training.
Meditation: This is something I need to improve. While statistically I did well with frequency of meditations, about 85-90% of these were done when walking on my treadmill. Although I listened to a guided meditation, I was almost always distracted and allowed my monkey brain to wander instead of truly meditating.
I’m actually not going to try to change this at all in the next 6 months, but once I retire I’ll attempt to meditate for longer, and be more dedicated to meditation. This will include a more formal setup and a setting other than on the treadmill. For now I’ll stick with the status quo.
Daily-Ink: I’ll continue to write every single day for 2026. This started in July 2019, and I have no plans to change this in the short term.
Creativity: This was a failed goal but I’m still happy to track it. I wanted this to increase, but it decreased. Essentially, the only thing I tracked this year was meetings with my uncle where we discuss our Book of Codes project and just as importantly, life, the universe, and everything. Again, I’ll have new goals after retirement, but for now I’m in maintenance mode and just want to keep going as-is.
So, my main goals this year are calorie tracking and building muscle mass. I only want to get to 185lbs, this isn’t a plan to keep gaining weight after that. I actually like the weight I’m at right now, but at 58 with a not-so-great back, I realize that I’m one injury away from having to take a few months off and potentially dropping 8-10 pounds. Hopefully such an incident is a couple decades away, but even if it’s only 5 years away I’m keenly aware that I will have a much harder time regaining weight in my older years. So if I can sit at 185lbs as my normal weight, I know that I likely won’t drop below 175… which again is a weight I’m quite happy to be at.
185lbs by the end of 2026 is my goal, and to get there I will focus on hypertrophy in the gym and a higher protein and calorie intake than I have normally consumed.
Fitness, meditation, and writing are things I no longer need to track to ensure that I’m on track. For this reason, I think I might be retiring my large calendar and stickers. I recently got a Garmin watch with Lifestyle Tracking and I’ll still record these daily, but it’s time to put an end to the calendar. It has served me well but having joined a gym, I no longer go to my basement every day and tracking this month has been less diligent since I could go a full week without adding stickers. That said, if you are starting a new goal, I can’t recommend this strategy enough.
2026 is going to be a great year of continued progress… Gradual at first, but picking up speed after my mid-year retirement.
In the grand scheme of things the end of a year is arbitrary. It does not sit on a solstice, it has no real significance in the dance of the planets around our sun. It’s simply a date on the Gregorian calendar, so named after a Pope almost 450 years ago. And yet the end of a calendar year begs us to do some accounting for the year that has past, and it makes us ponder our accountability for the year to come.
It is a pause in the meter of a timeline we all share. A moment to take note, to reflect, to make sense of what was, and to then align with what we think should come next.
For me there sits a simple, key question to ponder: Was it a good year? The answer is less simple. Did I seize it or waste my year? Did I find more joy than sorrow? What will I cherish, and what do I wish to forget? What did and didn’t I accomplish? Was I present enough? Did I create anything of value? Do I keep going ‘as-is’ or make changes?
These are reflections and perspectives I have control over. But 2025 had moments I could not control. A loved one suffered a scary health incident with a slow, lingering recovery. And I lost a sister both unexpectedly and too soon. Reminders that we are only on this earth a short time and time is ultimately limited. Such reminders simultaneously make me want to leave 2025 behind, and yet leave me wanting to hold onto the past… hold on to an innocence, if not ignorance, of the pain of loss.
But that was the year that was, not the year yet to be. That was 2025, a year with only hours left before the calendar is forever left in the past. A year that I leave with a whimper not a bang. Maybe in the grand scheme of things the end of the year is arbitrary, but for me, I’m happy to leave the year that was behind… A reminder to value and cherish 2026 not only this time next year, but meaningful moment by meaningful moment all year long.
I heard this phrase and it really struck a chord with me:
“Accept people as they are, but place them where they belong.”
There are 2 really big ideas here.
First, we are often quick to want people to change, and the disparity between who people are and who we want people to become is often too large of a gap. Step one is accepting people for who they are.
The next step is a bit more challenging. We often spend way too much time on people that are not worth our time. We don’t ‘put people where they belong’. We take amazing people for granted and we focus too much attention on people who aren’t worth our time.
The task sounds simple: accept people for who they are, then place them in your life accordingly.
There are people who would do anything in the world for you. And people who you in turn would do anything for. When that’s the same person, well then you need to prioritize your connection to that person. They deserve a special place in your heart and in your life. They deserve your attention and time. Not the person that cut you off in traffic, not the annoying co-worker, not the friend in need that is never there when you are in need.
“Accept people as they are, but place them where they belong.”
Tonight I’m going to watch a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon laser show. I think I was between 16 and 18 the last time I saw a show like this, so it has been at least 40 years.
I find it amusing that it can be that long between experiences and yet I still know exactly what to expect. I saw Pink Floyd’s inflatable flying pigs concert back in the 90’s, and I’ve always enjoyed their music, although I’m more of a fan of their Another Brick in the Wall album. That album took me places in my mind that I didn’t know I could go to. I’d lay on the couch and listen to it for hours, especially the side with Mother and Comfortably Numb.
Tonight I’ll get a little taste of that experience again. A little trip down memory lane.
My resting heart rate will often drop to around 50bpm when I’m lying down and below 55 when sitting still for a while. I just checked my pulse on my watch and sure enough it’s showing 55bpm right now. When I don’t start my day with exercise, like today, I find it hard to kickstart my day. It’s almost 6pm and I haven’t done 1,700 steps yet.
The good news is that I’m about to get on my exercise bike and that will get me going. It’s the holidays and I don’t mind having a lazy day, but this is a good reminder that morning exercise doesn’t just invigorate me, it prepares me for a far more active day.
Essentially, I’m like an old car, needing a bit of time to warm my engine up… slow to get going but reliable as can be once I’m on a roll.
We had just completed our weekly training as we prepare to ‘Everest the Crunch’ (walking up the Coquitlam Crunch 37 times in 48 hours, to climb the equivalent height of Mount Everest), when Dave shared the following quote on Instagram, along with a photo of us and of a sensational sunrise behind Mount Baker from this morning.
“Refresh, renew, and re-emerge! Find your Everest, go for it, and crush it!”
This is the time of year when millions of people start New Year’s resolutions, yet statistics say that 92% of these will fail. If you want to be in the 8% success rate, take a moment to really consider what your goal is that you are going to attain with your resolution. Is it something that you can hold on to? Is it big enough to be a challenge, desirable enough to keep your drive, and yet still attainable enough that you won’t be discouraged if progress is slower than expected?
