Tag Archives: Life Lessons

Low battery mode

I spent most of Thursday night coughing on the couch, trying not to bother my family. Friday was a sick day and while I had respite in the late afternoon, I’m back on the couch tonight. When this gets posted in the morning, I hope to still be sound asleep. But I’m not writing about this to seek sympathy.

I just started thinking about my recent post, Adding fuel to the 4 Burner Theory. In that post I talked about taking care of ourselves first, and thus having more to offer. I still believe this. But sometimes you get knocked on your butt and you have no fuel, or battery, to give. For the last week and a half colleagues, students, and my family have all been under the weather, and it finally got me. Other times we have to deal with personal tragedies, or relationship/friendship challenges that rock us.

I just think it so important to acknowledge that sometimes being at our best isn’t our best, because our batteries are low. Like our phones, we sometimes have to put ourselves in ‘low power mode’ and just do the bare essentials until we can get charged again.

Adding fuel to the 4 Burner Theory

The four burner theory, as seen in this video shared below, suggests that we never actually live a balanced life, and if we do, we can never really be successful in any key areas of our lives: Family, Friends, Health, and Work.

The theory suggests that we have a limited amount of energy to distribute to these different burners, and so we need to decide where best to distribute that energy. The video also suggests that we might want to distribute that energy differently at different times in our lives.

I agree with this video in that I have seldom found balance in my life and I’ve often put one of the areas ahead of others, reducing those other areas in time commitment and overall satisfaction. However, this year I’ve also realized something else… we don’t need to accept that the limited amount of energy we have is completely fixed.

Since the start of this year, I have instituted a self-care program that has really changed my ability to give more to all 4 burners, so by giving time to a 5th burner of self-care, I have more to offer. This vlog shared my healthy living goals for 2019.

Does this mean that I’ve suddenly found balance in my life. Absolutely not! I agree with the idea that balance is not fully achievable if we want to excel in different areas of our lives. But I don’t agree that our fuel, our energy levels are fixed. I think we all know this too. Every one of us have had times when we’ve felt down, and low in energy, when trying to be successful in one area means we have nothing left for the other areas of our lives. We’ve also had times when we’ve had high energy levels and things are going great in more than one area of our lives. The question is, are these differences ones that happen to us, or do these differences happen because we create them? This year, I’ve been able to give more of myself in more areas of my life.

By taking the time to listen to audio books, and to write; by exercising more consistently than I have in over 15 years; by reducing my unhealthy snacking; and, by meditating daily for almost 10 months now, I have felt more energized, more level-headed, and more productive in other areas of my life. That said, I’m the first to admit I don’t have everything under control, I’m not perfect, and in fact I’m still my own biggest critic. The start of this calendar year was so crazy at work, I had days I just wanted to run away and move to a remote island. There were weeks where my only communication with my wife were logistical. There were days where 20 minutes on the treadmill started with 40 minutes of procrastination. But as I approach the end of September, the craziest time in the school year, I feel more on top of things than I did a year ago. I’m enjoying my family time more. I’m seeing leaps of improvement in my strength and conditioning. And I’m doing things like this daily post on a Saturday morning, while my family is still sleeping. Sunday morning, when this post goes live, I’ll be having breakfast with a friend.

The reality is that we may never have balance, but if make taking care of ourselves a priority, we have more fuel to add to the other burners in our lives.

Sharing the flame

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” ~ Buddha

There is one more element to this quote that I think is worth reflecting on. Not only does the lighting of other candles not diminish your own candle, but the joy of sharing your light increases the brightness around you!

How and where do you share your flame?

Motivational Speakers

Have you ever heard the term, ‘knowing is half the battle’? What a load of crap!

How many people know that:

• Smoking is bad for you.

• Eating poorly can lead to health issues.

• A sedentary lifestyle will take years off of your life.

• Focussing on negative thoughts will reduce your happiness.

How many people:

• Stay in dead end jobs that they hate?

• Remain in unhealthy or abusive relationships?

• Choose to self medicate with elicit or even prescribed drugs?

Most people that do these things, on some level, are ‘in the know’, and that is certainly not ‘half the battle’. I love this quote Derek Sivers, shared on the Tim Ferriss podcast:

“If information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.”

Knowing that you need to change is the first step in the process of actually changing. ‘Knowing’ is the compass that points you towards the battle, as opposed to being half of the battle. Once you have the direction you want to go, then the key thing that needs to happen is taking action towards that change.

Recently I’ve seen a lot of platitudes on Twitter and Facebook, as well as in searches for memes when looking for images to add to these Daily Ink posts. Words of wisdom and encouragement that I’m prone to sharing too. They sound nice. They feel good. They tell you that you are special, ‘You can do it!’, believe in yourself. These are wonderful words of inspiration, but there is nothing actionable about them.

They remind me of Matt Foley in his Saturday Night Live skit, ‘Go for it!‘, where he plays a motivational speaker who essentially says, change your life or you’ll end up just like me, “living in a van down by the river”! While most platitudes and words of wisdom and inspiration do not fall under the category of ‘change or you’ll end up being a loser like me’ they are similar in that they don’t really do more than provide encouragement.

A favourite quote of mine comes from John Grinder and Richard Bandler, the founders of NLP – Neuro Linguistic Programming, “What is the difference that makes the difference?” This goes beyond platitudes because it identifies what can be done differently in order to change behaviour. It’s the ‘it’ in ‘You can do it’. It’s actionable.

There are some pretty amazing motivational people out there that understand what it takes to change behaviour in people for the better, and there are also a lot of motivational speakers who understand inspiration but don’t meaningfully inspire perspiration – the work needed to actually change… and to me, this is the difference that makes a difference.

One upon a meme

If you’ve been following my Daily Ink, you’ll know that I’ve been using meme images to accompany my daily blog posts.

(Images below link to the posts.)

Why have I been doing this? I like adding images to posts, but this daily blog is something that I want to do really quickly. So, by using meme images, I can simply find an image related to the topic, quickly add a few words, if needed, and I don’t need to worry about giving the image creator credit. Searching for the right image, adding text, and making it the featured image on my blog, will usually takes less than 5 minutes.

This is great because I’m starting back at school and need this process to be fast if I want to maintain the daily habit. However, yesterday I used this ‘Change my mind’ meme image that I’ve seen used many times before:

I have this blog set up to automatically tweet, add to my Pair-a-Dimes Facebook Page, and post on my LinkedIn profile, accompanied by the featured image on the post.

Yesterday I got a comment response on LinkedIn from Stephen Downes:

“I’m not sure I would have been comfortable using a ‘Louder with Crowder’ photo for this.”

I googled ‘Louder with Crowder’ and got to Steven Blake Crowder’s Wikipedia page, which said this:

“In June 2019, Crowder’s YouTube videos were investigated over his repeated use of racist and homophobic slurs to describe [a] journalist.”

My response to Stephen:

Just looked him up and totally agree. I have been using meme photos with my Daily Ink posts and admittedly am guilty of not paying attention to the stories behind them. Thanks for letting me know.

I then changed the image featured in the post to the more innocuous puffin meme, generally used to convey opinions that are unpopular:

Both images work for the post, but one doesn’t have a ‘charged’ connection to it. Since changing this image last night, I’ve been thinking about my use of memes. This post was educational in nature and adding the ‘Louder with Crowder’ meme image definitely did not add any value to the post, and for at least one reader was deemed inappropriate, (and I certainly appreciate Stephen bringing this to my attention).

So what now? Do I stop using memes? I’m certainly not going to attempt to check the background of every meme image I use, that would totally undermine my attempt to add images without adding significant time to my posts. So, I’ll be more cautious, use more generic images, with animals, cartoons, and famous/iconic people…

And I will make mistakes. When I do, I’ll own up to them, change them if I see fit, learn, grow, and move on.

This has made me think about some people who might have their image ‘memed’ without them liking how the image is used, and also about cultural or racial appropriation of memes. These are things I should think about before using an image. Now I will be more thoughtful, but again I will openly admit that I might make some mistakes. If I do, I’m hopeful someone will let me know so that I can address the concern and continue to learn and grow… while still having fun with memes. 😃

Special Moments

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

How many special moments can we count in our lives? What deserves that honour?

Yesterday was my 21st wedding anniversary, surely that counts, as would my wedding day, and the birth of my wonderful children.

But what about that salted caramel ice cream I had last night with my family? What about my conversation with a colleague during a break in our meeting yesterday? What about the wave I got out of the driver’s side window when I let a car in ahead of me?

What about getting off my treadmill after giving myself a physical push with some interval training? Or listening to an insightful passage in an audio book? Or feeling my body relax during meditation?

What about a shared laugh at dinner? What about listening my my daughter recap her day? Or even sending a funny cartoon to a friend via text?

What about watching a sunset? Or petting my cat who pushes his nose against mine? Or a delicious meal?

A hug. A smile. A laugh. A quiet breath? A silent walk. A happy exchange with a store clerk. A supportive conversation with a friend?

We can reserve special moments for only sparse, special, and momentous occasions, or we can choose to celebrate a hundred or even a thousand special moments every day. These moments may not necessarily take our breath away, but they can be celebrated; a reason to smile; an impetus to value life; a moment to appreciate.

In this way, every day can be wonderful. How man special moments will you decide to have today?

Rewards for hard work

I’ve always said that the sport which correlates best with success in school is swimming. I think that when a kid regularly wakes up early and is on a pool deck at 5:30 or 6am, has to look at a board and see a tough workout that will take an hour to do, that builds a mental toughness that most other sports don’t provide.

I’m not saying a football or gymnastics workout can’t be equally as tough, but I am saying that no other sport routinely creates such a tough mental frame for a workout.

You arrive at swim practice and the workout is on the board. You know your warm up, your workout, your cool down. You know it will take an hour. You know it will be hard. You know that you can’t rely on others for anything other than to push you to work even harder. Now get in the pool.

After years of that, pushing yourself through the hoops that schools create are fairly simple. You understand hard work, you understand putting your head down and muscling through what needs to be done.

Forget for a moment that school isn’t just about that, and think about how valuable a skill that is. How useful it will be in the future?

Where in our lives do we train our bodies or our minds to push through and do something hard, for the payoff later? Because ‘work smarter, not harder’ is a wonderful quote, but it doesn’t build grit and perseverance. We don’t become mentally tough through short cuts. Diets don’t work without discipline. Strength doesn’t come without resistance. Effort can’t be sustained without practice. Patience isn’t built without delay of gratification.

Sometime hard work is the reward.

We love the rewards of our hardships but curse the hardships themselves. ~ Seneca

Interrupting a Pattern

Recently, traffic has been getting to me. I know this because I speak out loud to the other drivers, in my car, with my windows rolled up. No chance of them hearing me, thankfully because I’m not being kind.

I didn’t notice my uptake of nasty remarks, my daughter did. “Dad, what’s with you? Chill.”

This reminded me of an event that happened about 25 years ago. I was driving my girlfriend’s car, she was in the passenger seat, and there was construction ahead. I was in the right lane, which was closing, and the cars started to ‘zipper’ into one lane, a car from the other lane followed by a car in my lane, back and forth.

As I approached the end of my lane it became obvious that the driver that should have let me zip in front of him was not going to participate in the established pattern. He kept his front bumper less than an arm’s length from the back bumper of the car in front of him, moving quickly as the car in front moved.

‘What a jerk’, my girlfriend said. She might have used an expletive, and her tone was upset.

I let him ahead of me, not that I really had a choice. And a few feet further we came to a stop due to the construction. At this point, I saw his eyes in the rear view mirror. I waved, gave him a thumbs up with a huge smile, and I dramatically mouthed the words, ‘Thank you’!

He stared at me through the rear view mirror, I repeated: wave, smile, ‘Thank you’. A little further down the road, I saw him look again, I repeated. He rolled down his window and flipped up his middle finger angrily. We laughed, I repeated: wave, smile, ‘Thank you’.

We got through the the construction and as luck would have it, I caught up to him in the reopened right lane. I looked at him through my window, smiling and waving. He clearly said a profanity and gave me a passenger-side middle finger. He was literally steaming red, his face and neck completely flushed. We laughed.

Then he beeped his horn a couple times as he moved ahead and switched into the left turn lane, sticking his left hand out of the car window in a repeated middle finger gesture. I couldn’t hear him, but it looked like he was yelling, and I’m pretty sure what he was saying wasn’t polite.

We laughed, and laughed.

I’ll openly admit that killing him with kindness was not a kind thing to do. We were having a wonderful time, fully at his expense. But it was a valuable lesson for me about how our disposition towards an event can change our experience. My girlfriend and I had a wonderful time laughing at a traffic incident that usually caused us upset.

Now, I don’t want to go around causing others to be upset, but I do need to breath and rethink how I’m coping with traffic. Hopefully my family members won’t be needing to tell me to ‘chill’ again any time soon because I’m throwing nasty commentary towards other drivers.