Tag Archives: Life Lessons

Hard but good choices

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Conversation 1

I was talking to a parent interested in bringing her child to our school. But he also wanted a chance to play sports at a big high school and because BC School Sports has treated our tiny program unfairly, he can’t play with them if he joins our program, which is too small to field a team.

His mom really wants him to come to our school, but doesn’t want him to lose out on playing sports in his catchment school. I reminded her that the big high school he wants to go to is an excellent school, and that he is going to get a good education at whichever school he chooses.

I said, I know that this is a tough decision to make, but it’s a good decision either way.

Conversation 2

A student I had previously spoken to had mentioned that he wanted to go to a school that’s out of the Vancouver Lower Mainland, and that if he did, he was going to live in residence. I told him that my experience with living in residence was really wonderful and that I’d recommend it.

A few days later he came back to me and said that he thought about it more and financially it didn’t make sense for him to spend most of his school budget on his first year just so he could go away and live in residence.

So, I told him that while my wife and I both loved the experience, and recommended it to our oldest daughter, she enjoyed residence living the least of any of her 4 years at school. And, my youngest daughter chose a school where she commuted from home and enjoyed her first year quite a bit.

I explained that while it’s a good choice to make for many, it’s not for everyone and you can have a great first year with or without living in residence.

Conversation 3

I had a student explain to me that she got into the top two programs she wanted and she couldn’t decide which one she really wanted. She gave me a couple reasons why she wanted both programs and said she really didn’t know which way to go.

Paraphrasing my simple reply, I said, ‘What a great problem to have! I know this isn’t easy, but of all the dilemmas you could be going through, this one is a pretty good one!’

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Sometimes even the good decisions are hard to make. It’s important to keep this in perspective and not stress as much as when the decision is more challenging and stress inducing.

The other advice I often give in all three of these conversations is that once you make the decision, jump in with both feet! When you finally decide, be firm with your decision, and don’t look back. Instead, think and believe that you made the right decision, at the right time… and give that choice 100% of your effort. Remember that you had a hard, but good decision to make, and whatever choice you made was right for you!

Fruits of labour

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I started my current health & fitness routines in January, 2019. Six plus years later I can really see and feel the results. But if I go back 2 or 3 years, I’d have said that progress felt slow. It was.

Slow, and steady, and other than when I herniated a disc and was in pain for several months (unrelated to my working out), always in the right direction. In other words for almost the full 6 years I’ve seen steady progress. Now at 57, I’m the strongest I’ve ever been. My cardio was better in my 20’s when I was training in the gruelling sport of water polo, but even now my cardio is quite good.

My point is that too often we look for the fast results and the quick fixes. Seldom do we accept that healthy progress is built on good habits over long periods of time. The quest for instant results is unrealistic, and often results in inconsistent outcomes or fluctuations between improvements and losses of gains.

Good habits, consistency, and a willingness to keep going even when the results aren’t immediately obvious are whet leads to long term progress. In the end the real progress, the real fruits of your labour, are the lifestyle changes that keep you feeling young and healthy. You are on a marathon not a sprint. Work on your habits and routines and the results will come over time.

So absolutely unique

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I’m listening to some music I enjoy listening to in the background while I write. I have songs on a ‘Writing’ playlist that I’ve heard many, many times. I know the music and it doesn’t interfere with my thought process. The weird thing is, despite hearing these favourite songs of mine hundreds of times, I don’t know the lyrics to any of the songs from start to finish. They really are just a background thing for me.

I think about my use of music in this way as an example of how unique each of our brains are. My daughters would know every lyric by now. My wife would be able to play the piano parts in her mind the way my daughter could replay the lyrics. And even my daughters would appreciate different aspects of the songs from each other.

We actually don’t have a clue what music appreciation really means to another person. We don’t really know how they experience the tone of a note, or for that matter the tone of a colour…. Is my experience of the colour red the same as yours?

What about how we experience pain? Or the way we feel emotions? How unique is my experience of these things compared to yours? How alike are my sense of joy or sadness like yours, or like anyone else’s?

Some of these experiences might be, probably are, similar. But I know my experience of music is drastically different from my family. I know that when some people feel sympathy others feel empathy. For some people going through a similar experience could result in anger, frustration, futility, disappointment, or some other emotion that I would not feel in the same situation. Because my felt experience is not like yours, and yours too is one-of-a-kind.

The great mystery is that we can never truly know another’s felt experience, and they will never know ours. This is it, we each get this one, incomparable, absolutely unique experience. And no one will ever know how ‘this’ experience is experienced.

Take a moment to appreciate your uniqueness, and value the thoughts and lived experience that make you… you!

Ask, seek, knock

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I am not religious, but I’ve read a fair bit of the Bible, both Old and New Testament, most of The Bhagavad Gita, a little bit of the Quran, the full Tao Te Ching many times, and I’ve dabbled in a few other scriptures.

Of these I’ve studied the Tao Te Ching the most, and at some point I want to explore this 81 verse text even more. But to me one of the most interesting verses from a religious text comes from the book of Matthew in the New Testament:

Matthew 7:7-8 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”

I think that this is more true than we think… and the challenge of this is in what we actually think. Yes, we all know that person that seems to be charmed, they walk through life like the world is their oyster and good things seem to happen to them all the time. And we also know an Eeyore, someone who seems to walk around with his or her own rain cloud, much like the gloomy character in Winnie the Pooh. In both cases these people seem to get what they want, although those things are drastically different from each other. But most people we know are not as extreme as these two characters.

Yet most of us inherently do spend much of our lives getting what we ask for. The thing we don’t realize is that:

We ask the wrong questions.

We seek the wrong things.

We knock on the wrong doors.

There is a lot of talk about the power of positive thinking, and I believe that the truth in it is that thinking positively allows you to ask the right questions, seek the right goals, and find the right doors to open up for you. Yet we often don’t ask the right questions. Have you ever wondered, “Why does stuff like this happen to me?” Ask and it will be given to you.

So often we want things that we don’t know how to properly ask for. We choose to look in the wrong places for luck, love, happiness, wealth, and success. We shut doors on ourselves, blocking opportunities because we don’t believe we are worthy, successful, capable, or even lucky enough to get through the metaphorical door.

This doesn’t mean we should blindly and blissfully go through life thinking positive and suddenly we will get everything we want. It does mean that we should question how we speak to ourselves, how we internalize the things that happen to and around us. When you think the world conspires against you, conspiracies continue to show up. When we wonder why other people are so lucky, we are unintentionally asking ourselves why we are not lucky? When we are bitter because someone else has an opportunity that we want our jealousy closes us off to finding our own similar opportunities.

It’s not magical. It’s not divine intervention. It’s our ability to open ourselves to opportunities and to see them as such. It’s recognizing how we limit ourselves in what we ask and seek… and allowing ourselves to find the right doors when opportunity knocks.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Phone Presence

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I’m writing this on my phone. My laptop is only 20 feet away from me and I’d definitely write faster on it, yet here I am on the couch tapping away with one finger at about 1/4 the pace of typing on a real keyboard. I could use voice to text but I find that I am not as reflective when I speak rather that type my thoughts. If I was writing more than a few hundred words, I’d probably head to my laptop, but I’ve gotten very used to writing my blog on my phone and will continue to do so most days.

Phones have become an essential part of our environment that we kind of live in as well as on. We’ve developed a sort of autopoiesis – a kind of a living system that allows it to maintain and renew itself by regulating its own composition and maintaining its own boundaries. It’s sort of a symbiotic relationship where we feed the phone with time and energy, and it self-perpetuates by giving us information, connections, entertainment and other functions.

Our phones help dictate how we interact with our environment and how the environment interacts with us. Phones have become ‘our environment’ that pulls us away from being present in the world beyond our phones. Case in point, there is a very high probability that you are choosing to read this on your phone.

I, for one, spend too much time on my phone. I am slowly learning to change that. I’m not checking email into the night, and I actually have all email notifications turned off. I am going to start keeping my phone on the counter instead of in my pocket for periods of time in the evening. And I’m going to continue to keep my phone on ‘Do not Disturb’ for most of the day, with my family and a handful of closest friends having the ability to ping me when it’s on this mode.

If I’m honest, I will still live in my ‘phone environment’ a fair bit, but I want more choice about when and how much time I live in its presence.

Actually, you’re doing great!

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I came across this quote, but I’m struggling to find the original source.

Working out will make you feel weak, when it’s actually making you stronger.
Learning new things will make you feel dumb, when it’s actually making you smarter.
Investing in yourself will make you feel broke, when it’s actually making you rich.
Facing your fears will make you feel terrified, when it’s actually making you braver.
Never hold yourself back.
Strive to be better tomorrow than you were today.
Thank yourself later.

If you want to be hard on yourself, do so for not trying when it’s hard. Be tough on yourself when procrastination wins and you skip an attempt to improve. But no matter how small the gains may appear, no matter how minimal your attempt to be better seems successful, that is the journey you want to be on.

James Clear said,

Goals are for people who care about winning once.
Systems are for people who care about winning repeatedly.

You don’t set the right systems in place when you are looking for instant gratification or results. You show up… Every. Single. Day… And you take solace in knowing that what you do today will pay dividends for days, months, and years ahead. Understanding this helps to relieve the stress of not seeing long term positive results, by trusting in the seemingly insignificant improvements today will bring.

Today is fleeting, there are many tomorrows, many days that future you will appreciate the efforts you put in today. The original quote above ended with, “Strive to be better tomorrow than you were today. Thank yourself later.” I think that I would add, ‘Also remember to thank yourself today… you’re doing great!’

Habits and motivation

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I’ve got my weight vest on. However, I don’t want to get on the treadmill, which is why I’m wearing the vest. I want to crawl under my blankets and not think about having to shovel the driveway later.

But yesterday was a rest day and I refuse to be someone who misses two days in a row. My habit of regular exercise is part of my identity. Am I motivated right now? Hell no! Am I going to work out immediately after writing this? Absolutely!

Make your habits about who you are and not what you do… and you don’t need motivation… you just get it done.

Definition of anger

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Heard this a few days ago and it has stuck with me.

The definition of anger: An emotional punishment you give yourself for someone else’s behaviour.

Kinda makes my little road rage about someone not using their indicator feel a little stupid.

I think there are times when anger might be an appropriate response. But how many times is it just unnecessary self punishment? How often does it linger too long? How much mental energy is used to hold on to angry thoughts?

And who ultimately pays the price for being or staying angry?

Phone a friend

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Probably my favourite moment on any tv game show is John Carpenter on ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ He received the final, million dollar question and had his 3 support lifelines still available to be used. He hears the question and says he wants to use his ‘Phone a friend’ lifeline, and so a call goes through to his dad. Once his dad was on the line John tells him, ‘I don’t need your help, I just wanted you to know that I’m going to win the million dollars.’ He then gave his final answer… and won.

Not directly related but on a similar topic, a favourite movie scene of mine is from the movie, The Town. Ben Affleck’s character, Doug, walks into a room with Jeremy Renner’s character, James, and says, “I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later, and we’re gonna hurt some people.” After a quick pause Jeremy responds, “Whose car we gonna take?”

If you needed help, not just a skill testing question but real help for a challenging situation, who would you call?

As I reflect on the year that has passed, I have a great appreciation for the connection I’ve made to my good friend, Dave. In January of 2021, with Covid restrictions in full effect, we had just come off of our winter break where we were mostly isolated and home bound. We decided we would do a walk called the Coquitlam Crunch, because it was an outdoor thing that we could do and actually see each other, and still maintain a respectful distance from each other.

This morning, we witnessed a beautiful sunrise over Mount Baker as we did our 158th Coquitlam Crunch since that first one back in January ’21. These crunch walks represent 158 opportunities, basically 40 times a year for the past 4 years, where we’ve had a chance to connect face-to-face. These would not have been a chance to spend time together if it wasn’t for our planned walk. We went from not seeing each other regularly to our visits becoming a committed routine.

(A beautiful sunrise on our walk this morning.)

In 4 years we have only skipped out on one walk after driving there on a cold, wet, miserable, sleet-blowing-sideways day. Just once despite many other miserable and even snowy days. These walks have been medicine for the soul. They have been ‘phone a friend’ kind of support, except with the joy of being in person.

So, to end the year, I’d just like to thank Dave for the opportunity to connect so often. It has been an enriching experience to have so much time together with a friend. It reminds me of how valuable friendship is, to have scheduled companionship, and to have someone that I need not have any filters or pretence to talk to.

These walks have been ‘phone a friend’ moments that have enriched my life… and I get to have them almost once a week.

If I could give anyone advice for the new year, if anyone is looking for a resolution, my advice would be to routinize connecting with friends. Do you want to build a relationship where you can phone a friend up and ask for anything at all? Well that kind of bond is created by spending time together. In this day and and age, if you don’t schedule time with people, you just won’t see them enough.

PS. Hey Dave, need my help? Just one question, “Whose car we gonna take?”😜

Create experiences

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This is something I’ve thought a bit about over the years. As time passes, and I’m looking ahead at retirement, I think about the time I have left with family and friends. I wonder how do I create experiences rather than just reminiscing? When we meet up, are we doing something together or are we reflecting and sharing stories of the past?

This isn’t to say reminiscing isn’t enjoyable, but simply identifying that this shouldn’t be what we do every time we get together. Are we doing something active? Are we doing something novel? Are we creating opportunities to experience something new? Are we designing our time together or just letting time pass.?

It’s easy to live a life of ‘rinse and repeat’, going through the day-to-day routine and taking both people and time for granted… ‘they will always be there’… ‘there will always be more time’. There is comfort in those beliefs, but also caution. Are we just going through the motions of life with little emotion? Or are we creating experiences that will give us future reasons to reminisce the next time we meet?