Tag Archives: Life Lessons

I’d rather tell you than smell you

I started my career teaching middle schoolers for 9 years. Every spring I had a chat with the kids about how their bodies were changing and it was time for them to start showering more frequently, if they didn’t already shower every day. And if they weren’t already using deodorant, it was time to talk to their parents about getting some… and then actually using it every day.

I always started with the same line, “I’d rather tell you than smell you.” I would follow up with, “…and if I tell you, I’m doing you a favour, because I don’t get as close to you as your friends do, and so if I smell you, your friends can smell you too. And because I’m doing you a favour, I’m not going to be embarrassed about telling you.”

I will admit that a few times over the years I chose to have a female teacher address this with a female student. This was because in these circumstances I thought it would be devastating to the child if I said it, and the intent is to help them, not horrify them.

Now that I’m in a high school I still use that line. I said it last Monday as we started weight club, and I’ll share it again in the spring. I had the conversation with a boy in Grade 10 a few years ago, and he thanked me publicly, in front of friends and their families in a grad speech. That was something I never expected.

It’s not mean, it’s an uncomfortable thing to share, but not as uncomfortable as the student’s friends would feel, sitting all day next to someone that could use a shower or some deodorant. It’s easier for me to say something, than it is for their friends.

Favourite food on the menu

When you find that one dish that you love having at a restaurant, don’t deviate. Order it every time. Why? Because if you decide to try something else, more than 9/10 times you will be disappointed.

I am a huge fan of food from all over the world. I take chances with food. I eat ‘street food’ when I travel. I like variety. But when I find a food I like at a restaurant, I mean really like, then I don’t stray from it.

Why take a low risk for a small reward? I already really like a dish, so why try something new and get disappointed? Even if there is that one dish that might be slightly better, the reward is small since I’m already enjoying a favourite. And besides, more than likely the different dish won’t be as good, and I’d leave the restaurant feeling let down.

When you find a favourite, stick to it. Enjoy and savour it, knowing you aren’t missing out, you are getting exactly what you like. Save the experimentation for new restaurants, or restaurants where you don’t already have a favourite.

Choosing not to act

There are moments in your life when doing nothing is better than doing something. These are seldom moments when nothing feels like the right thing to do, but then time and reflection allow you to see that you made the right decision. Here are a few examples:

  • You are in an incident where someone is displaying road rage. They get out of the car and want to confront you. You keep your windows up and doors locked and drive away.
  • You own shares and the whole market does a dive (not just your stocks), and rather than selling low, you do nothing. A week and a half later your stock prices are where they were before the crash.
  • Your child tells you about a very bad choice they made, but they chose to tell you rather than to hide it from you. You want to punish him/her but know that this could cost you the relationship where they feel they can come to you.

Choosing not to act is different than passively doing nothing. That’s the fundamental difference: One is a choice, the other is a lack of choice. Knowing and understanding the difference, that comes with experience, and a good dose of reflection. Because choosing not to act doesn’t always feel right, and only after looking back at the experience later can you truly see if non-action was the best, or at least a good, choice.

Lesson not learned

In February I broke my bow. I carelessly shot it without an arrow in it. When you dry shoot a compound bow, the force that usually goes to push the arrow forward ends up reverberating up the strings and the cams get the full brunt of the force. It sounds like a gunshot as the string gets stretched to great tension and breaks. I know this sound well because yesterday I heard it (and felt it) again.

Two days ago I planned to shoot after work. I had a dental cleaning then went back to shoot in my empty gym. But when I got back to work I kept working until almost 7pm and got too hungry to stay and shoot. At my dental cleaning I found out I had lost a small filling and was able to book another appointment yesterday.

So yesterday before my late appointment, I got my ‘to do’ list done at work and raced to squeeze in some archery before the appointment. I was going to have to rush to get a scoring round in. Rushing was a bad idea. I didn’t do my ritual setup when I took the bow out of the case. So I got to the shooting line and realized that I had not adjusted my sight scope, something usual done well before this point.

Instead of stepping away from the shooting line, to do my setup, I stood there and made the adjustment. At this point my usual shooting procedure was completely broken. I made the adjustment, then fired my bow, in the rush I was in, to get a scoring round in.

Bang, ow. I instantly knew my mistake.

I’ll go to the archery store this weekend to see if my bow cams are salvageable or not. If they aren’t, I know the lower cam is not available to be replaced… it’s the same brand and model as my old bow, not made anymore. If I have to buy a new bow, I’ll be sure to buy one that has been dry shot tested, some of the newer bows don’t explode when you make this mistake.

Both times I did this, I was in a rush and careless. Both times I have reminded myself that I’m still a rookie. But most archers don’t make this mistake, and even less make it twice. It’s an expensive lesson that I hope I have finally learned.

50 is the new 30

When I was a kid, I’d watch TV and the grandmother in her 60’s would be hobbling with a cane, and grandad wore a hat that only old people wear.

When I was 25, I moved to Vancouver. At the time my dad was 46 or 47 and I used to call him ‘my old man’.

Today my brother-in-law turned 50. He and my sister have always been the young, hip family, and now he has joined us ‘old folks’ in their 50’s. But they are still young at heart… and so are we! Although my hairline might disagree, and I’m now needing glasses to look at my phone and read the already-too-large font, I have a hard time seeing myself as old.

50 is the new 30. Does this sound cliche? Yes. Do I care? No.

My in-laws are celebrating their 60th anniversary in a few days. My wife and I celebrated our 23rd yesterday. As we look at old photos and reminisce, I don’t look back and think the best years have happened already. Life may be short, but that doesn’t mean we can’t fill the time we have left with new adventures, joy, and activities that keep us feeling young.

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Update for those of you that watched Three’s Company growing up: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMR66HGfT/

You can’t change the people around you, but…

I heard this brilliant quote yesterday:

“You can’t change the people around you, but you can change the people around you.”

It reminds me of:

“You are the average of the 5 people you hang around the most.”

Finding the right people to be around is a secret to life seldom discussed. We are blessed when those people are our family, and we don’t have to seek them out elsewhere. Being surrounded by people who make you a better person is a sure way to be a better person.

Choose your friends wisely.

Mindfulness is witnessing the dance

“Life is a dance. Mindfulness is witnessing that dance.” ~ Amit Ray

Today’s meditation was about meditation as a means to become a witness, and thus using meditation as a way to disconnect and observe rather than experience.

While I understand that meditation can be used to do this in a positive way, I wonder how many people bare witness to their own lives without actually living, not feeling anything? Kids cutting themselves because that’s when the feel the most; zombies moving through life from sleep to work to alcohol and/or television before sleeping again; people bitter about the hand life dealt them, who live in disappointment, numb to everything around them; lonely people, who may or may not actually be alone.

I think too many people are already witnesses to their own lives. I’m not saying meditation isn’t a good way to do this, but I wonder how many people need to do the reverse? I know that there are times in my own life where I’ve felt like I was existing rather than living, the observer rather than participant, but family and friends are good at snapping me out of this.

The unexamined life may not be worth living, but there can also be paralysis by analysis. You can watch a surfer and see all their moves, you can know everything about the wave, it’s energy and flow, but if it’s you on the surfboard, it’s probably best to be enjoying the ride than trying to witness it.

Happy surfing!

The cap gun

When I was a kid, I had a cap gun. It was a eight-shooter, with the caps coming in a ring that fit into the revolver cylinder. Put it in your cap gun and you could shoot off all 8 caps before putting a new ring in. But I never used it, I was always saving my caps. I hid them at my grandparents house, under the bathroom sink in the room my great grandfather used before he died.

This room was sort of my play room that I used at my grandparents, who lived on our street. It wasn’t a room used by anyone… except me. Fast forward to us moving to Canada when I was 9 (we grew up in Barbados). Our bags are packed and we are leaving the next morning. I remember the cap gun and about 30-40 ten-packs of caps. I gather them up and take them to my parents to pack.

“We can’t take that in the plane.”

So, after a little back-and-forth with my parents it becomes clear that the cap gun and hoard of caps is staying in Barbados. So I did what any kid would do… I spent the next 45 minutes to an hour shooting off every cap I had. I shot everything and everyone around me. I spent every last round, and then have the empty gun to my cousin.

It was fun, but not as much fun as using the gun all along, rather than saving every cap for this unforeseen occasion. While it was a moment to remember, it wasn’t memorable because I went on a shooting spree, it was memorable because it wasn’t as enjoyable as I had anticipated, and I realized that I missed out by hoarding caps rather than using them all along.

Today, I still laugh at myself when I catch myself doing something like this. A perfect example is when I get a sticker I like… I find myself not wanting ti use it. But I do. I remember the cap gun and all those unused caps and I peel that sticker and stick it somewhere… it doesn’t get ‘stuck’ in a drawer waiting to be never used.

What are your metaphorical caps, and why aren’t you enjoying them right now?

20 years experience

I heard a question yesterday that really made me think. The question was, “Does he have 20 years experience, or one year of experience repeated 20 times?”

Years of experience is different from years of growth. Many students finish grade 12 and graduate. Some did the bare minimum, some got really good at ‘doing school’ year after year, some come out lifelong learners ready for anything that comes their way, and will actually seek out new learning experiences.

The same can be said for teachers, doctors, lawyers, and tax accountants. Some get good at doing the same thing over and over, some are constantly learning and becoming better… many are a mix between the two.

What are you really good at? How long have you been doing it? What do you suck at, despite putting years into it? And for the latter, what are you going to do differently, so that you are adding to your experience, and not just your years of doing it.

I’ll never look at expertise the same again… ‘years of experience’ comes in many different forms.

Standing wave

I remember hearing that on average human cells are replaced every 7-10 years. However, unlike the ship of Theseus not every cell is replaced. Some eye lens cells last a lifetime and there are other cells, such as some in our hearts, that can live for over 50 years. That said, at 53 most of the the cells that made me me when I was born have been replaced, some every couple days, some over years.

Last night coming home from Nanaimo, back to the mainland on the ferry across the Strait of Georgia, I was mesmerized by the standing wave made by the boat. I watched the wake of the boat out over the railing on an opening on the car deck, and stared at the water dancing across this wake. It occurred to me that despite the wake being consistently the same distance from the boat, as I stared at the wake, I was staring at a constant flow of water being replaced by water coming off of the front of the boat. The wave stays the same, but the water is constantly and completely changing.

Inversely, we tend to try to stay the same in an ever-changing world. We develop metaphorical standing waves that treat everything that comes our way the same. We develop patterns of behaviour where we react the same way to people and situations that come our way. Yes, we learn and we grow, but more slowly as we age. We tend to find comfortable, repeatable ways of facing life’s challenges in the same way. Some of us being more like small sail boats that confront every wave a little differently as our boat adjusts, and others more like a massive tanker ship, that keeps the same standing wave in all but the roughest of seas.

What standing waves do we create in our lives? What do we tend to leave in our wake? I’ve met selfish people that leave turmoil and chaos in their wake and go through life selfishly disrupting other people’s wakes, and I’ve met others that are selfless and worry more about helping others with their wakes than worrying about their own. The most dangerous of all are those that think the are the latter but are actually the former… they think they are what makes the seas calm while they themselves are hurricanes, unaware that they are in the calm of the eye of the storm they create, while those around them face the tumultuous winds and rough seas.

We should all think about the wake we create, and we would be advised to keep out of the wake of people who create disruptive waves. And while we slowly replace ourselves with our future selves, we need not create the same old standing waves if they don’t serve us well and move us in a direction we want to go.