Three habits for December

I'm committing to three new habits for every day in December...

1. Drink 1.5L of water at work every day
2. Tidy my desk at work every day before I leave for home
3. Sleep at least 56 hours per week

Each of these I'm in dire need of enacting. I drank about 150ml of water today, my desk is a pigsty, and I don't need my wife to hound me that I'm not getting enough sleep.

We'll see how I go!

Savour the Journey

A couple of weeks ago I had a dream that has really stuck in my mind, and it's importance was brought back to me on monday at my meditation group. In our group R. made the comment that he wishes sometimes that he could fast-forward his life a year and get to where he'll be in a happier place.

I responded, "But what if you only live for one year and three days? You'll only have three days left, and you would have missed the year."

"I guess I'll make the most of those three days." He said.

I find myself often looking forward and wishing for the future to happen now. Many of us find it difficult to simply enjoy what we have now and always hope for better or look forward to something that's around the corner.

This is where my dream comes in. I dreamt that I was fifty years old looking back on the last twenty years of life. I wasn't 31 imagining I was fifty, I was actually fifty. I looked fifty and felt fifty. I didn't have quite the same energy I do now. It was a very real experience.

I was reflecting on my life and seeing how everything had progressed over the last twenty years. I remember looking back and thinking what an awesome journey my life had been, although I couldn't remember details. I knew that I was glad I had experienced all of it and not missed any of the experiences.

I realized that the journey is far more rewarding than the end. And projecting forward from fifty, I could see that the journey had no end. In fact the journey is all we really have, and we should savour it.

New Habits

It's very easy to live the same way every day and have very little or nothing change. I try to not live my life that way. I was once told that as soon as you stop changing you become old. It's true for anything, and is expecially evident on products (like clothing) that cannot change themselves and become out of date... old. But not just old. Old and undesireable.

A couple of weeks ago my wife gave me an article to read in a magazine, and I can't remember what the article was about, but it was written by a sociologist or something - someone who studies the patterns of human behaviour. It takes 30 days to form a habit, so he decided a while ago that every month he'll start three new habits that he has to maintain for the month, after which he can decide to keep them or discard them.

What this does is force him to consciously do new things, and keeps himself from getting into ruts. It means that when change becomes necessary he is already in the habit of change, so it's not a concern.

I decided it was a pretty good idea, so I'm going to embark on three new habits each month, as a lifestyle choice.

I haven't finalized what they will be but, ideas so far...

• Eat 2 pieces of fruit each day
• No chocolates unless I've never had them before
• Drink 1.5L of water at work every day
• Read for 30 minutes every day
• Write a card to someone every day
• Compliment someone other than my wife every day (I already compliment her often)
• Do 50 push-ups before breakfast
• Sleep at least 56 hours per week
• Tidy my desk at work every day before I leave for home
• Learn a new word every day

These are all ideas, and by December 1st, I'll know what I'm going to do. Changing your life is all about small steps of progress. And mostly what it is, is getting in the habit of change.

Living Every Minute

Having now returned from Australia, the primary reason for making the trip at the time we did was to see my grandfather for the last time, and for him to meet our daughter. I say "last time" with some sureness because he is in the final stages of surviving lung cancer. Now eighty-six and a half (you start counting half-years again when you hit eighty!) my grandfather is proud to say that he outlived Pope John Paul II.

When I left Australia for a new life in 2000 as a single 25-year-old I thought that maybe that was the last time I would see my grandparents. Shortly afterward my grandfather was diagnosed with a slow-moving lung cancer, courtesy of 25 years of smoking 60 cigarettes a day - a habit he quit in his mid fifties.

After a few rounds of radiotherapy and an operation to remove the cancer, which took half of one lung he continued to battle on. Two years ago I returned to Australia with my wife and I was absolutely sure that that would be the last time we'd see each other.

Wrong again. In February, 2006, when the doctor gave him six to twelve months to live I didn't have a trip to Australia planned, and I wasn't sure I would get to Australia in time to see him. But I made my mind up to go and he waited on Earth for us.

What I found most amazing was how good he looked for someone heavily affected with poor health. Indeed other than his terrible cough that takes his breath away, and the fact that a three quick steps around a table has him catching his breath, he was in good shape. The cancer had caused him to lose about fifteen or twenty pounds and he was now fitting into his old suits.

And he loved his youngest great-granddaughter. I think he fell in love all over again. And our one-year-old daughter was more than happy to spend time with him.

But what was most interesting to see was how he was making the most of every single minute of life. During the day he cares for his wife, now visibly affected by Alzheimers, and when she goes to bed at 9 o'clock every night my Grandfather stays up reading and learning. It was like he was studying for an exam that loomed. Time was running out and knowledge had to gained. He just bought himself his first digital camera a week before we arrived, and he was reading each and every word of the manual to learn how it works. You would ask yourself, what's the point at this stage, he only has a few months to live?

Indeed, what's the point then at any age?

It was very special to see how he valued every single extra minute of life, and he made sure he was putting it to good use. Time is something many of us take for granted when we're not told our funeral could be held on a date on this year's calendar.

If you're not putting your time to good use then you're just killing time until death... waiting for the Grim Reaper to raise his scythe.

Both my grandparents came with us and my parents to Melbourne, a place they hadn't visited for many years, and while we were there my grandfather was talking about going to Darwin, at the northern coast of Australia on the historic Ghan train. All from a man who is living well into his twilight years.

I have learned many lessons from my grandfather, but this one he didn't even know he was teaching me...

Every minute of life is a gift. It should be treated as such.

Never too old to find your purpose...

When Harland was six, his father died and his mother was forced to go to work. He had to take care of his three-year-old brother and baby sister. This meant doing much of the family cooking, giving him the opportunity to become a master of a number of different dishes.

At age 10, he got his first job working on a nearby farm for $2 a month. When he was 12, his mother remarried and he left his home near Henryville, Indiana, for a job on a farm in Greenwood. He held a series of jobs over the next few years, first as a 15-year-old streetcar conductor in New Albany, and then as a 16-year-old private, soldiering for six months in Cuba.

After that he was a railroad fireman, studied law by correspondence, practiced in justice of the peace courts, sold insurance, operated an Ohio River steamboat ferry, sold tires, and operated service stations.

When he was 40, Harland began cooking for hungry travellers who stopped at his service station in Corbin, Kentucky. It wasn’t a restaurant, but he served people on his own dining table in the living quarters of his service station.

As more people started coming just for food, he moved across the street to a motel and restaurant that seated 142 people. Over the next nine years, he perfected his cooking technique and chicken recipe with a blend of herbs and spices.

In the early 1950s a new interstate highway was planned to bypass the town of Corbin. Seeing an end to his business, Harland, now in his sixties, sold his operations. After paying his bills, he was reduced to living on his $105 Social Security cheques. And at his age, he was not expecting to work again.

Knowing he couldn't live on his pension, he took his chicken recipe in hand, got behind the wheel of his clunker, and set out to make his fortune.

His first plan was to sell his chicken recipe to restaurant owners, who would in turn give him a residual for every piece of chicken they sold--5 cents per chicken. The first restaurateur he called on turned him down.

So did the second. So did the third. In fact, the first 1008 sales calls Colonel Sanders made ended in rejection. Still, he continued to call on owners as he traveled across the USA, sleeping in his car to save money. Prospect number 1009 gave him his first "yes."

After two years of making daily sales calls he had signed up a total of five restaurants. Still Harland pressed on, knowing that he had a great chicken recipe and that someday the idea would catch on.

The idea did catch on. Harland, better known as Colonel Harland Sanders or Colonel Sanders had, by 1963, 600 restaurants across the United States selling his secret recipe of Kentucky Fried Chicken (with 11 herbs and spices). Colonel Sanders franchise actually helped many people succeed in the restaurant business.

In 1964 he sold his interest in the U.S. company for $2 million to a group of investors including John Brown Jr., who later became Governor of Kentucky. The Colonel remained a public spokesman for the company. In 1976, an independent survey ranked the Colonel as the world's second most recognisable celebrity. Colonel Sanders' story teaches an important lesson: It's never too late to decide to never give up.

Earlier in his life the Colonel was involved in other business ventures that weren’t successful, but at the age of 65, however, he decided his chicken idea was the right idea, and he refused to give up, even in spite of repeated rejection.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." (Luke 11:9)

We can all take direction from our intuition. If we get an urge to try something new then we should act on that urge. Don't dismiss it just becasue it doesn't fell like it's your purpose, it may be the doorway to the future.

If you feel that you have a purpose beyond what you are doing now (as I do), then honour that feeling, and let yourself be guided by your heart. Your soul knows your purpose and the nudges you get from time to time are the whispers from your guides to keep your soul's path on track.

It isn't that we are looking for our purpose, it's that our purpose is calling for us. All we need to do is listen and respond.

Preconceived Ideas About Work

I'm in Australia right now, and I've had some interesting conversations with people I don't get the opportunity to chat with often... and the great part about that is I get new views on life, and I can learn from the experiences of others.

In this case I've learned how preconceived ideas or notions that we have and live by affect our lives in more ways than we know. For example if I told you that Calgary has the best weather in the world and you never travelled or knew any different then that's what you would know as a truth. You would never have reason to believe otherwise and would have no desire to travel to warmer places during winter or the like. Simply because it would get any better anyway. With different knowledge, behaviour is different, hence the popularity of all-inclusive holidays to Mexico, Cuba etc.

Now this is an obviously ridiculous example because with technology and information it's very difficult to convince someone of something like that. However it is very oikely that people get preconceived notions as to what constitues work and whether it can be enjoyable.

I heard the argument that there was no point to working after retirement because that was the point of retirement - to not work. But what exactly is work? We tend to think of work as something we don't want to do. A mundane nine-to-five job or working for minimum wage. Something to pay the bills so that we can take holidays away from work.

So what is its definition?

work –noun

1. Exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil.
2. Something on which exertion or labor is expended; a task or undertaking: The students finished their work in class.
3. Productive or operative activity.
4. Employment, as in some form of industry, esp. as a means of earning one's livelihood: to look for work.
5. One's place of employment: Don't phone him at work.
6. Materials, things, etc., on which one is working or is to work.
7. The result of exertion, labor, or activity; a deed or performance.
8. A product of exertion, labor, or activity: musical works.

No where in this extensive definition was there a mention of an activity that wasn't enjoyable. It's only our personal associations with that word that give it a negative connotation.

chore –noun

1. A small or odd job; routine task.
2. Chores, the everyday work around a house or farm.
3. A hard or unpleasant task: Solving the problem was quite a chore.

It is only in the definition of chore that we have unpleasntness, although it was not the primary meaning.

What's interesting is that if you speak to someone who loves what they do for a living then they don't consider it to be unpleasant, although it still constitutes "work". The unfortunate thing is that most people don't enjoy their work, so by association, work is negative.

Where this causes a problem is if you are retired from work and still want to do something meaningful with your life. It may be classified as "work" and therefore fall into the unenjoyable category, and that was the point of retiring in the first place. Meaningful work can be for no earned income or can be for income and it doesn't matter if it only earns a fraction of your previous earnings, so long as it makes you happy.

The fact is that "work" is a four-letter word that has a simple meaning. If that meaning is a negative one and it prevents you from moving toward a life of fulfillment then change the word so that it allows you to think freely on the matter. It's the same with anything in life.

Maybe these words work better (pardon the pun)

• Activity
• Calling
• Endeavour
• Profession
• Pursuit
• Specialisation
• Vocation

And with all of these new words, there can be fun, enjoyment and fulfillment included and whether or not they earn money may be irrelevant, it's about your life choices.

Abstract Landscape

EYE'M Watching

Vienna