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.
The problem is that often when we should admit we are wrong we double down, we get defensive, we justify with bias.
Double down or learn. We can’t go both.
Although that’s not totally true. We can do both, just not simultaneously. We can double down in the heat of the moment, reflect later, recognize our error, and make amends, admit our error, and hopefully learn.
But learning is a whole lot easier, and less confrontational, when we can admit our error before putting our back up and defending it.
It’s not just better for us, it’s better for everyone around us… and we learn, and grow, and maybe spend a little less time doubling down to defend our errors in the future.
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.
Living in China for two years, from 2009-2011, I was surprised by how market-driven the economy was. I was surprised by the brightness of the cities at night. And I was surprised by the focus on growth and development.
The running joke was that the national bird of China was the building crane. I remember being downtown in Dalian, a ‘small city of 6 million’, (as the city was described to me), the first time I heard this national bird joke. From where I stood, looking to the sky I counted 11 building cranes. The construction of new buildings seemed to be everywhere. The Superintendent of schools that I worked with lived in a very nice neighbourhood near the ocean. Her high rise apartment building had less than 25% occupancy, and yet there were 6 or 7 other high rises being built near her building.
And everywhere you turned downtown, there were shops, underground markets, and in the narrow side streets pop-up markets with items on sale. Go to the fancy mall and buy a $3,000 original name brand bag, or go to the underground markets and get a similar in quality knockoff for $200, or go to the pop-up market and get a similar but much cheaper, lower quality bag for $25.
I should note that when I say ‘underground markets’ I am not speaking metaphorically. I’m talking about entire shopping malls under the city. Floors of sub-terrain buildings under the buildings. These underground markets are often the only place you can find grocery stores. First floor stores are too real estate rich for a grocery store, so these are always one floor down.
Public transit was cheap and efficient. Restaurants were affordable too. Starbucks cost as much or more than here in Canada, but in China you always have to pay well for Western comforts and amenities. The desire for status is as strong there as anywhere in the world.
When I was hired it was by the outgoing superintendent, who had the job for 17 years. I remember him sharing a story with me on my first visit the June before moving there. We were being driven from the city to the suburb of Jinshitan where the big high school was located. We were driving through Kaifaqu, and he told me, “When I started here 17 years ago the road here was a pothole filled dirt road through a tiny village, and now it’s a city of 1 million people.” Imagine moving from a village to a high rise filled city in 17 years. I would not have believed it was possible anywhere else, but having lived there I know it’s possible in China.
Until recently, most people didn’t have a sense of the scale and the development of China. But in recent weeks there has been a flood of information on social media that has made it possible for people to see what life in China is like. And the reality is that while there is poverty there, it’s probably much worse in North America. While the middle class is different, the economic reality for a middle class in China is probably better than the debt-ridden middle class in the west. And the infrastructure and cost of transportation is incredibly less in China than almost anywhere else in the world, with faster and more efficient travel.
Add to this the most sophisticated electronics and manufacturing industry anywhere in the world and China is an international powerhouse that will shock most people who have illusions of China being a developing country. I can say that even 15 years ago it was farther ahead than people imagined, and in China 15 years of advancement is equivalent to 50 in most other countries. It will be the dominant economic force in the world if it isn’t already.
I remember when I was in Grade 9, in a Grade 7-9 Junior High, and I was 4’11”. I was the second shortest Grade 9 and the shortest guy was very popular. I thought about my height a fair bit back then and it bugged me a lot. My perception was that I was tiny and that I’d never grow. The only time I was physically bullied was being put in a locker for all of about 5-10 seconds, and I honestly don’t even remember who did it… but I got a lot of comments about my size and they weren’t always nice. It didn’t help that I was nerdy and only had a small group of friends, but they were good friends and they looked out for me. The reality is that my (lack of) height didn’t really hinder me much, other than in sports, and yet I let my height bug me quite a bit, because I could see everyone growing and I just stayed the same.
Little did I know that I would grow 7-and-a-half inches in the next school year. My mom had to buy me new pants 3 times in that year because it just wasn’t cool wearing floods (pants that didn’t at least reach your ankles).
Today I have a false sense of my height. I’m a little shy of 5’10’ because I’ve shrunk a bit in the last decade, but I often think of myself as taller. I am often surprised when I get close to someone and I realize that I’m 2-3 inches shorter than them… My first impression being that I’m the same height as them. I don’t know if this misperception is related to confidence or something else, but that’s the way I see myself.
I remember playing basketball against a colleague that I’d worked with for a few years. I went to check him and realized he was a lot taller than me. I literally asked him when he grew, because for years I considered us the same height and he’s 6’1. It seems weird to me that I would have this perception of my own hight considering where I came from in Grade 9.
I wonder what other misperceptions I carry with me that I’m not as aware of as this one? What are the things that I think about in ways that help or hinder me as I move about the world? Do I sell myself short in ways that do not serve me well? Do I walk around obliviously confident in other ways that help me navigate things better than I should?
Have you ever had a friend tell you that you needed to work on something that you thought you were good at? Or have you had them compliment you on something you thought you weren’t good at? I think that’s one of the strengths of a good friend, that they don’t see you with the same misperceptions that you see yourself. Because it’s really hard to see your on misperceptions… if you could see them, they would just be perceptions.
In 3 generations, no one will even remember your name.
If that doesn’t give you liberation to just drop your problems and find some joy, I don’t know what will.
Life is inherently ridiculous and guaranteed to end sooner or later.
So you might as well enjoy the ride.
I had a simple reminder of this yesterday. My original Pair-a-Dimes for Your Thoughts blog was down for a while and I finally got around to going into the back end and figuring out what plugin was preventing it from working.
Then my phone got a notification:
“The site’s downtime lasted 4 months. We’re happy to report your site was back online as of 2:37pm on March 16, 2025.”
For 4 months a blog that used to be my baby, that I put thousands of hours into vanished, a white screen followed by an error page… and not even I noticed that it was down for a full 4 months. And anywhere from 1-5 years after I’m gone the DavidTruss.com domain hosting will expire and literally thousands of blog posts will be lost to all but the internet archive. When is the last to you visited that site to find a dead article? For me it had to be at least 5-6 years ago.
The frame to think about this is the one Chris shares above, “In 3 generations, no one will even remember your name. If that doesn’t give you liberation to just drop your problems and find some joy, I don’t know what will.”
Our journey here is short. The things we should worry about should not outshine the things we should be grateful for. The reasons to be frustrated or upset should not compete with or get in the way of things we appreciate and bring joy to us and others. We can all take at least a small dose of not taking ourselves so seriously.
I was listening to Michaela Slinger’s break-up song, Petty Things, this morning while on my exercise bike and began to wonder, what are the petty things I worry too much about?
Here is one example: The bad driver that does something stupid, making me swear out loud while in my car. Then this festers in my brain for too long, perhaps even to the point of mentioning it to someone later in the day.
But I’m not writing this as an excuse to share my petty grievances. No, that’s literally complaining about them while simultaneously re-grieving them. Instead I’m questioning what underlies the petty things that make them feel more than petty?
What are those points of anger, frustration, hurt, and aggression that trigger a petty response in a way that is an obvious overreaction? What’s beneath the surface, waiting for a petty excuse to be shared?
And can we do the same with joy? Can we (naturally) look for those wonderful occasions of happiness and delight to spring out at any given moment. Can we foster inquisitiveness around joyful happenstance as easily as we sometimes trigger petty thoughts?
I think the animal in us sometimes overrides our humanity. We look for the dangers, the warnings, the things that make life challenging as a sort of animal self defence. But when an animal escapes danger, it literally and physically shakes it off and goes about its life. Humans remember, hold on to, and relive the experience.
If we want to change that, we need to be intentional. We need to seek the positive things we want to live in our minds rent free… petty things already reside there, it’s up to us to vacate those thoughts by filling our brains with things we know will be more enjoyable, more delightful. When we do this our petty grievances start to feel a lot more petty… we start charging rent for negative thoughts, while joy starts to live rent free.
It started January 1st, 2019. I was almost 30 pounds overweight and I decided that I’d had enough of working out, getting busy and lazy and not working out, and yo-yo-ing between these two states… while progressively getting further out of shape.
In my 1 year video reflection, back in late December 2019, I was able to share that I’d basically lost the 30 pounds and was back on track for staying healthy. Now, years later, I’ve put back on about 12 pounds, but a completely healthy 12 pounds. I’ve added almost an inch to my biceps, I have great definition on my (still skinny) legs, and my shoulders/traps are probably where I see my biggest gains.
Here are my key stats this year:
Workouts – defined as a minimum of 20 minutes cardio and some weights (unless it’s a Coquitlam Crunch day when I don’t usually go weights).
Meditation – At least 10 minutes, usually 15 or 20 minutes guided meditation on the Balance App.
Daily-Ink – Daily writing on this blog.
Writing/Creating – Intended to be for writing beyond my blog regularly but mostly just tracking conversations with my uncle.
Workouts: 326 days or 89%
Meditation: 313 days or 85%
Daily-Ink: 366 days or 100%
Writing/Creating: 53 days or 14.5%
Reflections:
Workouts: I’m actually setting a goal to work out less in 2025. I’ve made some good gains and think they can be better if I gave myself more rest. This is especially true for my legs. I think working out cardio 10-12+ days in a row is limiting my leg recovery time needed to see them grow a bit more. Lack of rest might be why my legs are a lot stronger but still skinny. For upper body, many of my workouts are just a single muscle focus, and so I usually get enough rest between hard sets for specific muscle groups.
Meditation: These could have been qualitatively better this year. It’s not an issue of volume but definitely one fit quality. In 2024 I found that writing was taking me a bit longer in the morning, and so a lot of times I ended up doing a walking meditation on the treadmill to make up the time. That said I’m not convinced that those meditations were necessarily moving me towards my meditation goals as much as dedicated time would.
Daily-Ink: I’ll keep my blog going another year. And while I’ve basically maintained daily writing for 5 and a half years, I still want to track it.
Writing/Creativity: The largest area for growth is in being creative. I’m going to do a couple things to improve this. First, I won’t be counting conversations with my uncle, even when we are recording them. What I will count is video editing of the videos he and I record, as well as writing not related to by blog. A goal related to this is less social media time… Reducing distractions and focusing on creativity. My writing/creativity goal will be a minimum of two days per week, 104 days a year, or basically doubling last year’s total while not counting the vast majority of days I would have tracked last year. I won’t meet my uncle less often, I just won’t be counting these Zoom visits as part of my creativity goal.
Ultimately I want to see two outcomes this year that will result from my tracking above:
Gain 7-8 pounds of muscle. This is a big jump for me. In my 30’s and 40’s I had a hard time maintaining a weight of about 153 pounds. If I worked out consistently for several months I’d get my weight to 155 but struggled to put good weight on beyond that. When I stopped working out I’d drop a few pounds and sit closer to 150. By December 2018, at age 51, I’d (unintentionally and without awareness) let myself go and weighed just under 185 pounds, with all of that extra weight being unhealthy. After year one of my healthy living goals (reflection shared again here) I was back down to around 155. Now I fluctuate around 167-169 pounds and would like to bring that to 175 pounds. Basically, it took me about 5 years to gain 12 pounds of muscle and I want to add 8 more this year. Increased protein and more dedicated weight training will get me there if I maintain my positive habits and get a bit more rest between (harder/smarter) workouts.
More creativity. I think 2 days a week of doing something creative is realistic and attainable. Reducing social media distractions will be key. I’m going to automate my blog going into social media, and add time limits to all socials for Monday to Friday as a starting point. I’ll see how that works and re-evaluate my success after a month.
Finally, one more goal unrelated to my tracking will be a reading goal. Watching that December 2018 reflection video again I was shocked that I listened to 26 books that year. I think this year’s count was 6, with 3 partial reads to finish, although I did listen to a lot more podcasts. I want to improve my book count. I think this will also help with my creativity.
One final reflection: Overall I’m pretty damn proud of my 2024 stats above. Yes I have some ambitious goals ahead of me, and I’m always pushing to improve… but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I’ve been on a 6 year journey from an overweight and unhealthy 51 year old to a 57 year old who hasn’t been this healthy and strong since I was an athlete in my 20’s.
My ultimate goal is a great healthspan to go with my lifespan. I want to be able to do things in 20 years that most 77 year olds can’t imagine doing. I want to be hiking, traveling, and living a vibrant, healthy life well into my senior years. I think I’m on the right path.
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?”😜
My oldest kid turns 25 today. How did I get to be old enough to have a daughter that old? I only ask that question partially in jest, because there is a part of me that is really baffled about how fast time flies by. I remember holding her in my arms for the first time, her first words, and her first steps. Did all that really start a quarter century ago?
With age, time goes by faster. I think it has to do with reference to the length of our lives. To a 10 year old, 5 years is half of a lifetime; to a 15 year old, 5 years is a full 1/3 of a lifetime. To a 60 year old, 5 years is 1/12 of a lifetime. So that same 5 years is relatively shorter as we get older, and represents less significance to our overall lifespan.
I think about how much my life changed from ages 26-31… I moved to BC, met my wife, started my career in education, got married and bought a house. Then we started a family and the next 5 years are a blur of joy, stress, and core memories of our kids having first experiences.
In comparison, the last 5 years have felt a lot more like status quo, and have seemed to fly by a whole lot faster. I can remember the excitement of starting a new school year, and now it’s already just a week away from the Christmas holidays… where did the last 3 and a half months go?
I remember my mother-in-law saying to me that she didn’t know where the time went, and how she felt that she was a young person in an old body. I think of that now because about 26 years later I realize that I’m almost the age she was when she told me that. Is this just a cycle of life that the older we get, the more we recognize that time speeds up for us?
Today my oldest daughter turns 25. This is a reminder to me that I’ve got to value the time I have, and to spend it wisely… no matter how fast it seems to fly by.
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?
