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.
I’m current listening to a book set in the late 1800’s. The protagonist is a 17 year older girl in a poor neighbourhood in London. Life was tough, dirty, and inconvenient. It made me think of how much things have change since then.
After pondering this for a while I got to thinking about a time much closer to now, 2001. Just two decades ago, back when I had a computer in the back of my classroom, but the tracker ball was missing from the mouse. iTunes began, but no one was using it until the iPod came out later in the year. 2001 was three years before Facebook; Four years before YouTube; 5 years before Twitter; Six years before the iPhone. Paper maps were still the most convenient way to find your way around when driving, and my wife and I shared a cell phone.
This all seems prehistoric now. With changes that have major impacts on our lives happening so quickly, just imagine how different our lives could be two decades from now!
It always seems to be one or the other, (read the parable below). This truly is the secret to happiness. I read The Alchemist a half a life ago, but this parable has never really left my thoughts. I’m going to listen to the audio version again this year, in fact, I have an Audible credit and think I’ll get it after posting this.
Also, if you read the parable below and want to read the book, I’ll buy it for the first 3 people that contact me. It will be my pleasure to share this book with you.
A merchant sent his son to learn the Secret of Happiness from the wisest of men. The young man wandered through the desert for forty days until he reached a beautiful castle at the top of a mountain. There lived the sage that the young man was looking for.
However, instead of finding a holy man, our hero entered a room and saw a great deal of activity; merchants coming and going, people chatting in the corners, a small orchestra playing sweet melodies, and there was a table laden with the most delectable dishes of that part of the world.
The wise man talked to everybody, and the young man had to wait for two hours until it was time for his audience.
The Sage listened attentively to the reason for the boy’s visit, but told him that at that moment he did not have the time to explain to him the Secret of Happiness.
He suggested that the young man take a stroll around his palace and come back in two hours’ time.
“However, I want to ask you a favor,” he added, handling the boy a teaspoon, in which he poured two drops of oil. “While you walk, carry this spoon and don’t let the oil spill.”
The young man began to climb up and down the palace staircases, always keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. At the end of two hours he returned to the presence of the wise man.
“So,” asked the sage, “did you see the Persian tapestries hanging in my dining room? Did you see the garden that the Master of Gardeners took ten years to create? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in my library?”
Embarrassed, the young man confessed that he had seen nothing. His only concern was not to spill the drops of oil that the wise man had entrusted to him.
“So, go back and see the wonders of my world,” said the wise man. “You can’t trust a man if you don’t know his house.”
Now more at ease, the young man took the spoon and strolled again through the palace, this time paying attention to all the works of art that hung from the ceiling and walls.
He saw the gardens, the mountains all around the palace, the delicacy of the flowers, the taste with which each work of art was placed in its niche. Returning to the sage, he reported in detail all that he had seen.
“But where are the two drops of oil that I entrusted to you?” asked the sage.
Looking down at the spoon, the young man realized that he had spilled the oil.
“Well, that is the only advice I have to give you,” said the sage of sages.
“The Secret of Happiness lies in looking at all the wonders of the world and never forgetting the two drops of oil in the spoon.”
~ from the book“The Alchemist”
Last year: 63%(57% would have been an average of 4-days a week. I only did less than 4 days a week 3 times during the year.)
This year: 78.7% (288/366days or an average of 5.5 days a week. I only did less the 4 days twice and one of those was the week after I broke my patella.)
I barely missed mediation or a day of reading/writing. A difference of note to last year, I listened to 33 books in 2020. That’s up from 26 last year and included a lot more fiction than in previous years.
I was also consistent with intermittent fasting until I stopped doing this in October. I was dropping weight that I didn’t want to lose at that point. While at some point I might return to this form of time restricted eating, I think I’ve ingrained the habit of not snacking after dinner, but my early morning workouts leave me too hungry to do this when my last meal is usually done by 6:30pm. I’m over 25lbs lighter than I was 3 years ago and actually want to add some muscle mass this year.
Overall, I have to say that this has been a healthy year. Besides my accident, breaking my knee, I had a shoulder injury that was slow to recover, and my (chronic) back issues flared up only once for about a week. Besides that, I’d easily say that I’m the fittest I’ve been in 25+ years.
So where to now? Here’s my plan with my calendar and stickers for 2021:
Red: Exercise (continued) I know the visual of gaps in workouts pushes me. I will try to match this year’s average.
Blue: Meditation (continued +) I plan to continue to give myself a sticker for doing a guided meditation in the morning. But I also plan to give myself a second sticker if I can do a minimum of 10 minutes of unguided meditation sometime later in the day. I think for me to progress in my meditation I have to dedicate more time to staying focussed on my breath and commit to putting more hours into this.
Yellow: Writing. I don’t need to track reading anymore. I read (listen) during cardio and squeeze in more reading whenever I am doing menial tasks or driving alone. But I want to continue to advance my writing. So, one sticker for my Daily Ink blog post, and a second sticker when I do any writing beyond that. Let’s see if my sticker chart can inspire me to do more than just a daily post. At least to start, much of what I write beyond these posts may not be immediately public – so tracking with a 2nd sticker will keep me honest about how much of this I actually do).
Green: Archery. Goodbye intermittent fasting, hello hobby! After a year-and-a-half hiatus, I started shooting again and I’m loving it. It helps that I have a (socially distanced) friend coaching me a bit, and I’m seeing great results. To me this is a form of meditation. It’s also something that I started then watched get pushed asides due to being busy and not prioritizing. If I can get 100 days of shooting in next year, that would be amazing!
So while there are many reasons to throw 2020 the middle finger, I think that my healthy living sticker chart is not one of them. I know that without keeping myself honest with this system, 2020 could have been an abysmal year for my physical and mental well-being… but this charting and commitment to myself was a shining light in what was otherwise a very dark year. I hope to see equal success in 2021!
I’ve been reevaluating my healthy living goals over this holiday break. I’ve realized that I don’t need to track a few things that I was tracking on my healthy living chart.
The yellow sticker was originally for 20 minutes minimum reading (listening to books, not podcasts), and/or writing, which I didn’t do much of until the middle of 2019, when I started writing here daily. I don’t think I’ve missed a day of writing since, and I listed to 33 books this year. So, mission accomplished… and such a regular part of my day now that I really don’t need a sticker to track this behaviour.
Also, I started tracking intermittent fasting in 2019, and continued this year. I needed at least a 14 hour gap to earn a sticker. My original goal was 5 days a week with breaks on Friday and Saturday nights when I might have snacks or drinks after dinner. I think this is really healthy but I’ve been pushing myself on my morning workouts and actually struggling to keep weight on, after years of having too much weight on me. I am now my university weight and fitter than I’ve been in about 25 years. But I struggled once we hit September to go 14 hours on most days, and while I’d get close, tracking it seems moot, because I often felt self care was not the objective of holding off on getting some food in me and feeling strong.
My other stickers are exercise and meditation. I usually worked out 5 days a week, and I know that many weeks this year, when I missed 2 workouts early on, the lack of stickers that week really motivated me to exercise daily and keep going. So this sticker reward and tracking is really working for me.
For meditation, I have been doing 10 min. guided daily, and almost have a perfect record. There are some days when I would take too long writing and do a rushed workout and forget to meditate later, having skipped my morning routine. On this break, where I’m not getting up between 5 and 5:30am, I’ve remembered to meditate after 11pm on 3 different days. I think next year I’m going to try to meditate twice daily, once guided in the morning and once silently later in the day (at least 4 days a week). Then I’ll give myself a sticker for each, so I can contrast the amount of times I meditated twice, while also tracking if I skip both on a given day.
So where am I right now with my 2021 healthy living motivation chart?
Red: Workouts (continued)
Blue: Meditation (1 or 2 stickers)
Yellow: A writing goal that I haven’t figured out yet?
Green: I don’t know yet?
Starting this chart 2 years ago has been significant in me being able to create a healthy lifestyle that I’ve been able to monitor and maintain. It’s not a light choice to make, it’s a year of dedication with significant rewards to my personal health and mental well-being. So, over the next few days, I’ll have to solidify my last two targets… and there you have it, writing this has given me something new to track… archery. Now I just need to make my writing and archery goals specific and I’ll be all set for the new year!
Since downloading Audible, I’ve listened to so many books that I never would have gotten to. I’ve fallen back in love with fiction. I’ve ‘read’ some classics I’ve always wanted to. And I’ve enjoyed listening rather than looking at words in a book after spending a fair bit of time in my day reading words on a screen.
I used the term ‘read’ rather than ‘listened to’ above because I consider listening to a book the same as reading it. I have consumed the book for my enjoyment. I don’t think the format matters that much… other than the fact that had I not listened, I never would have gotten to read it.
I can’t read a paper book on my treadmill or row machine, and don’t enjoy trying to read one on exercise bike. I can’t read a paper book while I drive. I can’t read a paper book while cooking dinner. Audio books have opened up windows of reading time I would never had had otherwise.
I also listen to podcasts, but books have become my favourite form of audio. The performances are getting better too. Books are coming out with multiple voices, rather than just one, and some books just sound so good in the author’s voice, with emphasis put where the author intended it to be placed.
I’ve read over 50 audio books in the last 2 years. In the two years before I started reading audiobooks, I probably read 8-10 books. Audiobooks have made me a lover of reading again.
Last week I visited my uncle and he reminded me of a dream that I shared with him, 27 years ago, before my move from Toronto to Vancouver.
There is a saying: “To the fish water is invisible.” And that is what my dream was about. I grew up in a pre-Google era, but I had something better… I had my dad. It seemed that no matter what question I may ask, my dad had, and still has, a comprehensive answer. My only hesitation to ask him a question was that I needed to be sure I was interested enough to get his extensive and detailed answer.
The dream was that I was in my bedroom next to my dad’s office and everything was under water. It wasn’t scary, I could breathe. I knew the water was there but I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see what was right in front of me.
What was right in front of me was all of dad’s books that I had never read. 1,000’s of books. My dad has read and given away more books than any 50 people would normally read in their lifetime. From my earliest memories I can remember our house containing numerous bookshelves with books double stacked, one in front of the other, with whole sections having books stacked horizontally, so that 6 or 8 horizontal books could take the place of 4 or 5 vertical books.
And I read almost none of them.
The dream was a dream of lost opportunity. Of being blind to the ocean of information that sat before me metaphorically unseen, and literally unread.
I didn’t enjoy reading until I was in my 30’s. I slowed down again after that, getting too busy, until recently in my 50’s when I discovered that I could listen to audio books while exercising, and walking, and waiting in lineups, and commuting in my car.
We often don’t see the opportunities right in front of us. We often take things, and people, for granted because they are right there.
About 8 or 9 years after I moved to B.C., my librarian at the school I was teaching at did an exchange with a teacher from Australia. That teacher and her retired husband went away almost every weekend during the exchange. In a single year they had visited more of B.C. than I had in almost a decade. In fact, more than I have in over a quarter century of living here now.
We are fish, blind to the water we swim in. Sometimes it’s worth stopping and paying attention to what is right in front of us.
I very rarely read or listen to a book, or watch a movie more than once. Atomic Habits is a book that I listened to twice. I also subscribe to James Clear‘s 3-2-1 weekly email, one of only 3 weekly email lists that I subscribe to. I listen to James last night on the Sam Harris podcast and stopped long enough to tweet this quote:
“A habit is not a finish line to be crossed, it’s a lifestyle to be lived.” ~ James Clear
My daily writing and meditation, my workout routine, my getting back into podcasting (trying to produce/create creative work)… these are habits I have developed or am developing. They don’t have an end goal. They don’t have a place where I can land and say, ‘Yes! I have arrived!“:
“A habit is not a finish line to be crossed, it’s a lifestyle to be lived.”
This is a time when more than ever we have an opportunity to do things for ourselves. I haven’t found my work schedule to be any less hectic at the moment. I still bring things home and fill my mind with the things I need to accomplish that don’t get done in a day. But I have more time at home to do things I felt I didn’t have time for previously.
It’s a Saturday, and after writing this, I’ll meditate. I meditate after writing because when I meditate first, I get stuck thinking about my writing and my mind is too distracted to meditate. So, I reward myself after publicly sharing my writing with 10 minutes of ‘me time’… a simple way to connect two habits and make them easier to do. I’ll work out, and at some point today and I’ll play with making my last podcast with Dave Sands into a video podcast. This is something new that I want to play with. The first video will take a while, since I need to create a reusable intro. But, since I need to interview people from a distance, and Zoom creates a video recording, it seems like a natural progression from sound recordings only… and it’s creative… and it’s fun… and it makes me use my brain in a creative way, unlike Netflix or Crave.
People set goals all the time, but as James Clear says, goals aren’t enough. Every competitive athlete at the Olympics has a goal of winning gold, only one of them will achieve this. But the habits we build into our lives, those become the lifestyle we live, they don’t lead to a finish line target, they lead to a life well lived.
I’ve always been a slow reader, and so the transition to audio has been a refreshing way to consume more books than if I stuck to reading text. Even so the amount of books I can read is very limited, especially when you consider that a typical audio book runs somewhere between 7 and 12 hours of listening. So I was very interested when a colleague told me about Blinkist, a book summarizing service. He shared a link with alternative summarizing services and I ended up getting a competing service called 12 Minutes. The app chose me when a lifetime membership went on sale for less than 2 years on Blinkist.
I tried this out and I didn’t like it much. Although the summaries are short, I found my attention waned. Informational books devoid of the compelling stories and examples couldn’t hold my attention even for 12 minutes. I was disappointed.
But recently my desire to get through more books increased after reading a Tim Ferris blog post that said,
“We don’t have that much time left to read books.Tim Urban’sThe Tail End makes this clear. Based on his calculus, he might only read another 300 books before he dies. He and I are roughly the same age, and Tim is averyfast reader.”
I’m older, and a slower reader than both of them. So I thought, let my try again with a differentapproach. I opened up my iPad to a sketching app, called Paper, and then opened 12 Minutes and saw the feature book was The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. This is the perfect book because I wanted to read it, it was gifted to me by a parent at my school over 3 years ago, and it sits on my shelf unread, not even on my list of books I have have time for in the near future.
Here are the notes I created while listening to The Lean Startup:
It took longer than 12 minutes. I didn’ttime it but I’dguess 20-25 minutes with pausing and reminding. However this book is relatively small at only 8 hours and 38 minutes on Audible… and I likely would never have gotten to it.
With this new two-pronged strategy, I was able to stay focused and take a couple useful ideas from the book. I also have some notes I can come back to later. So unlike my audiobooks that I listen to working out and commuting, I will probably use the 12 Minute App in conjunction with a sketching app, and I’ll see if this new approach to learning from books is something I will stick to?
I’m listening to a novel right now. That’s unusual because I usually wait until holiday breaks to read for pleasure, choosing instead to read (or listen) for learning. But I was done my last book and my new credit on Audible isn’t available for another couple days, so I picked up a cheap and popular Sci-Fi novel for a bargain on Black Friday.
When I get on the treadmill at about 5:30am this morning, I’ll put my headphones on and listen to the final chapter. I’m looking forward to this, but I’m also saddened by this as well.
I love the journeya good book takes you on. It doesn’t have to be a happy book, it just has to be an adventure. The heroes journey often takes the protagonist home at the end, but the journey is unforgettable. The last chapter is seldom climatic, it just offers resolution and closure. The rollercoaster ride is over, and you are parked back at the start of the ride, but there is time to reflect on the ride before the safety belt unlocks.
I love a good adventure, I don’t really enjoy ending it. Closure is melancholy to me. I remember reading once that the two things humans struggle with most in life are beginnings and endings, of these two it is endings that I struggle with more.
It’s time to get on the treadmill, and to close the final chapter of this book.
My commute is very short. I get to work in about 7 or 8 minutes, but it will often take me over 10 minutes to get into the building. It takes longer because I end up sitting in my car listening to an audio book, waiting to find a good place to pause.
If I need to pick up one of my daughters, the ride to them is ‘reading time’ for me, listening to my book, and when I pick them up, I let them choose the music we listen to.
When I get on my treadmill or go for a run, I’m listening to my book. Travel and commute time, as well as cardio time, have become ‘reading’ opportunities for me.
Last year at this time, I’d read about 2 books. I find my eyes fatigued at the end of a work day, and so I don’t end up actually reading (rather than listening to) books all that often. In fact, I’m only half-done the one paper book I started reading in March. Meanwhile, I’ve listened to 11 audio books and am on my 12th now since January.
Thanks to audio books, my commute time is actually enjoyable learning time. I find myself wishing I had a slightly longer commute to work… how do you use your commute time?
