More on Perspectives

I thought more about perspectives since entering yesterday's blog, and I realised how my perspective is quite different to most people's. This is mainly because I have travelled to many countries (31) and lived in four - Australia, Germany, England, Canada.

Having not grown up in Canada, I'm not used to -40C weather. I'm not used to 0C weather! Before living here I had seen snow twice - once in Germany and once in England. I had never seen a game of (ice) hockey, didn't know what the Stanley Cup was, had never heard of Edmonton or the Stampede, and had no idea that there was a difference between Canada's and the United States' accents.

But I do know which spiders are poisonous, I know that it's very important to leave your house with a bottle of water on a hot day, I believe that beaches are a free service and should be no more than a 20 minute drive from your home, I'm used to celebrating Christmas in hot weather and sweating over presents before having a barbeque and a swim, and I played basketball as an outdoor winter sport.

Yes, life is different when you live on the other side of the planet, but Australia and Canada are two of the more similar countries I've been to. In Thailand a toilet bowl is a luxury and you haggle over the price of a can of Coke; in Spain the shops don't open until late morning, but they stay open until midnight; in England the beer is served warm and in New Zealand people walk around bare foot in public.

I get told that my Australian accent is a chick-magnet in Canada, but from my point of view it's annoying because I answer the same five questions every time I meet someone new (Are you Australian? I have a friend in Australia, do you know him? How long have you been here? You get the drill!)

Travelling and experiencing the world and its many cultures has been one of the most eye-opening aspects to my life. I am lucky that travel was encouraged by my parents, and that is a gift I will impart to my children. Just like camping makes you appreciate your warm bed, sometimes it takes seeing another world to appreciate your own.

It's because of my different perspective that I won't pay a thousand dollars to go to an all inclusive resort and sit on a beach for a week - that should be free. It's because of my different perspective that I get excited by snow and think of skating as a challenge. It's because of my different perspective that I think that the game of cricket which takes thirty hours, spread over five days is exciting even when it ends in a draw!

As citizens of the world it's important that we recognise and respect the people around us, knowing that they all didn't have the same upbringing as we did, and have vastly different views and opinions of the world. It's not the era for being insulated. This is the age of understanding and acceptance. Today's enemy may be tomorrow's brother.

Perspectives

We live in a world with many where there seem to be many "truths" and absolutes. It's wrong to steal. Giving is good. Drugs are bad. But these and all the other "rules" we live our lives by are not real, they aren't truths and depending on whose perspective you take will depend on your interpretation of a situation.

It's wrong to steal... except if you're doing it to feed your starving family?

Giving is good... except if you're a politician looking for votes?

Drugs are bad... except if you're the one selling them and making money?

Earth is an enormous place, but from our perspective it's a city or a town or a street or our house. It's the places we go and the people we spend our time with. It's not that big really!

I tried an exercise yesterday where I lay on the floor and looked around, getting a closer view of the perspective my 15-month daughter would get... or perhaps the view our cats get. I can tell you, it's a way different view from down there. The kitchen counters are unreachable!

I was also reading yesterday about how we accept different norms in our life. For example, we stand on the curbside and a bus passes us within two feet of our nose, and we have no issue. If we were standing in an open field and the same thing happened, we would feel it was too close for comfort.

We get used to so much, and we see our world from one perspective... our own. Sometimes it's useful to look at the world differently, shake things up and question what we do, why we do it, and whether we should continue doing it.

It's often said that "the world is a small place", but I don't think that came from an astronaut.

Goals for 2007

It seems that the first of January is the most common time to set goals. At least that gets people thinking about their goals once a year, if only that rarely.

I'm in the minority who thinks about goals often, but I still use the first day of the year as a trigger to re-evaluate my goals and my progress.

When setting goals it's important that they are stretching, measurable, attainable and with a timeline.

This year I've looked at different aspects of my life and where I'd like to move forward. Where I see opportunities and where I'd like to be spending more time and energy.

One thing I learned last year is that to make time for things you want to do you need to drop some activities that are not fulfilling.

Basically, I looked at where I was spending my time, evaluating my enjoyment of each activity one by one. I also ranked them in order of enjoyment to see which would be the first to drop if I cancelled them. This included activities like watching television, sleeping, family time, time with friends etc., not just scheduled entertainment.

One major change for me was dropping ten-pin bowling from my schedule... every Monday night from 6:30pm to 9:30pm for 33 weeks. When the new season began in September, I decided to replace it with group meditation sessions on Monday nights instead.

It was at the same time that I decided that I no longer wanted to watch television, and so we cancelled our full cable subscription to go back to basic, eliminating the temptation to watch garbage. I decided that I'd rather sleep than watch garbage on TV. Television viewing actually ranked as my lowest priority activity, although it wasn't the activity I spent the least time on.

Which brings me to this year's resolutions. Again I'm looking improve my health and fitness. I admit to having a chocolate problem, and I've decided to track my Chocolate Free Days (CFDs), with the aim of having 23 per month. I'm also tracking my gym visits which should be ten per month. As I get older I realise the importance of keeping the body in peak physical condition. It's the only one we have so we should treat it with the utmost respect.

I've also set goals for writing my book. It will be done and published this year, even if I have to publish it myself. I have set dates for when each part of it will be done, and they are all achievable.

I also want to sell my paintings, so I will make a larger effort to market myself and my art to galleries, cafes and other places people can see my work.

From a growth point of view I want to read two books a month, and continue with my spiritual growth through mediation and and other exercises to increase my intuition.

2007 promises to be a big year for me. I feel I'm on track with my goals and I feel like they can be achieved. I've decided that it's a priority and so I'll keep at it.

Eye Of The Fire

Overwhelmed!

We were having dinner with some friends and the comment came from one of them that they were "stressed out". Now there's nothing peculiar about being stressed out, but looking at their life, it's actaully quite similar to our own, yet we aren't stressed out about ours.

So it made me think about why they are and we aren't. what are we doing differently. And there was really only one thing... we finish something or become finished with something and move on.

They will complete tasks 80% and leave them, so in the end there are many many incomplete tasks that piule up and become overwhelming. And not only is the task incomplete, but the object that is a part of that task sits around incomplete and with little use.

So in the end they have a situations where they are surrounded by useless things that are a part of a project that is incomplete and they can't derive any pleasure from. Do this for a few years and suddenly you have an overwhelming amount of "stuff" and the problem becomes insurmountable.

Therefore the need to break it all down into smaller tasks that can be completed in an hour, or a few hours, or a weekend. Whatever it is, focus on a small part of the total issue and get it solved, then move on to the next.

My wife and I purge every few months. We find that the change of the season is an appropriate time because that's when you need to make decisions about clothes, like is it worth hanging on to them for anotehr year or is it time to consign or donate them. So it's at these regular occasions as well as other times throughout the year that we will go through stuff, evaluate whether we need it and usually we'll eliminate 10 to 20%.

This comes back to my experience travelling in Europe. I had no fixed address for around 18 months, and could pack up everything I had with a few hours notice. It was a very freeing time becasue I realized then, that everything I need I already have, and everything I own is more to carry. Which comes back to my blog from yesterday which refers to everything I see having no meaning.

We all fill our lives with meaningless clutter (both physical and mental) and attach meaning to it. Some deal with the clutter better than others, which basically means that some people can discard the clutter easier than others. Today being December 29th is a perfect day to set some goals, look at life and decide which clutter can be discarded and by starting with baby steps anything can be accomplished.

This table does not mean anything...

Over the past few months I have been reading a number of books on spirituality, getting the most from life etc. One text that was often quoted in these books is A Course In Miracles. So I thought, after reading about this book so many times I ought to see what it's all about. I've borrowed it from the library, and realized quickly, it's not the sort of book one reads in a few evenings. In fact there's a section which has a lesson for every day of the year. It will be a book I will purchase and read over an extended period of time.
For more information, please visit- http://www.fipdata.org/index.html

Anyway, I was reading a few of the lessons and I was thinking about the first lesson, which is printed in full below, essentially, "nothing I see means anything".

Since I read it over a week ago it has resonated with me, and I began to think about this world, and how we have attached meaning to things. The world of marketing is about attching value to brands, labels, material goods, experiences... anything that can be sold for a profit. And as a race, we all buy into it. Whether or not we do buy Nike or BMW or McDonald's we have all become victims of marketing. Indeed those who decide to go against the flow and boycott certain brands for whatever reasons create their own sub-culture, which in fact is a culture of its own, with its own "membership criteria and status".

So, no matter what we own, if we see that ownership of it adds something to ourselves we have ascribed some value to it, and have fallen into the marketers trap. That's why this lesson is so interesting. When you say out loud that nothing you see has any meaning, it seems logical, yet it goes against our own subconscious thoughts about it. It goes against what we perceive to be true.

We live in a world of perception - the world of time, of change, of beginnings and endings. It is based on interpretation, not on facts. It is the world of birth and death, founded on the belief in scarcity, loss, separation, and death. It is learned rather than given, selective in its perceptual emphases, unstable in its functioning, and inaccurate in its interpretations.

A Course in Miracles says "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God."

LESSON 1

Nothing I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything.

Now look slowly around you, and practice applying this idea very specifically to whatever you see:

This table does not mean anything.
This chair does not mean anything.
This hand does not mean anything.
This foot does not mean anything.
This foot does not mean anything.
This pen does not mean anything.

Then look farther away from your immediate area, and apply the idea to a wider range:

That door does not mean anything.
This body does not mean anything.
This lamp does not mean anything.
This sign does not mean anything.
This shadow does not mean anything.

Notice that these statements are not arranged in any order, and make no allowance for differences in the kinds of things to which they are applied. That is the purpose of the exercise. The statement should merely be applied to anything you see. As you practice the idea for the day, use it totally indiscriminately. Do not attempt to apply it to everything you see, for these exercises should not become ritualistic. Only be sure that nothing you see is specifically excluded. One thing is like another as far as the application of the idea is concerned.

Each of the first three lessons should not be done more than twice a day each, preferably morning and evening. Nor should they be attempted for more than a minute or so, unless that entails a sense of hurry. A comfortable sense of leisure is essential.

Values

I've been thinking over the past few days as we've approached Christmas about the value of money, and the value we have decided to place on certain goods and services.

For example we've decided that an old car like this classic...

1980 BUICK LE SABRE LIMITED, an excellent classic car, ready for restoration or daily use, 4 door, beige exterior, 350 4 BBL engine, automatic transmission, air conditioning, am/fm, cassette, cruise control, intermittent wipers, power brakes, power door locks, power mirrors, power seat, power steering, power windows, rear wheel drive, tilt steering, 235,000 kms.

...is only $1,500 o.b.o.!!

I took this directly off www.trader.ca

We have determined that this 1980 classic has the same value as this two piece lounge suite, currently on sale at The Brick in Calgary for $1699 plus GST, children not included.

So how did we come up with this value? Indeed who determined that a can of Coca-Cola has the same value as a basic calculator with a solar panel?

Why is a woollen sweater worth the same as a meal cooked for you by someone?

And it always amazes me how cheap goods like mousetraps are. For whatever they cost... thirty... forty... ninety cents each there are many people making money - the retailer, the freight company, the manufacturing company, and the worker who put it all together, not to mention the companies who supplied the raw materials!

Then on the other hand, you go out for a nice meal and have a beer or a glass of wine, and suddenly the bill for two people is $100. One hundred dollars to feed two people once, seems extravagant when you compare that to what a mousetrap builder earns.

Looking at a different extreme, how can an average school teacher earn sixty times less than the average major league baseballer? I'm not going to go on a communist rant about everyone getting paid equally. Hell, if someone wants to pay a steriod junkie $3 million to play catch, all the power to them.

It seems as though there's an apparent inequality in the way the world is paid for services, but it's obvious that if you want to get paid more, you work in a field that is televised or sponsored by corporations, since mass media advertising pays the big bills.

Yes, when our children, and indeed many adults worship attractive women with dysfunctional relationships, or young men with excellent hand-eye co-ordination and a long criminal record, you know that we've got our heads screwed on straight!

Yup. Sometimes I think that it's a funny world we live in.

Christmas Time

It's Christmas time and every year the consumerism that is Christmas makes me more and more sick. Everywhere you turn there are more commercials for buying presents, justifying hundreds of dollars to be spent on "your loved one". And this comes from someone who works in marketing!

Since when did Christmas become about spending inordinate amounts of money on gifts? Ever since retailers could make a profit I guess. But really this phenomena has only sprouted in the age of mass media. And we've lost sight of the real point of Christmas.

You can argue that the point of Christmas from a retailer's point of view is to maximize profit, and that is a valid argument. I used to work in marketing for a large retailer in Australia, and the profitability of a store for its whole year is determined by how successful a Christmas campaign they have. Sad isn't it?

This year my wife and I agreed to a $20 limit on the gift we would give each other. We have friends who are astounded when they hear that, wondering what's wrong with us. How can we keep the marriage together without expensive gifts? Where's our Christmas spirit?

Well for twenty dollars you need to be creative. You need to think and consider carefully to get the right gift. It's the thought that counts. It's not a matter of going through the store flyers and circling requests. What's the point in that? Why not go and get that yourself? Why wait for Christmas?

Christmas is a time to be with family. A time for giving and sharing. A time for kindness and love. It doesn't just have to be about spending money.

I'm getting exhibited!

One of my new habits for January will be to make at least one effort a day to get my art either exhibited or sold. But today I got that off to a flying start by getting my art exhibited at the Oolong Tea House in Kensington for the month of January!

This is the third time I've been exhibited. The first was at the Artpoint Gallery in Inglewood, the second at Higher Ground Cafe in Kensington.

No regrets...

I am a firm believer in no regrets, and that there are no such things as mistakes, only undesired outcomes to situations, which become learning experiences. Often we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes. I rememeber a television commercial from Nike, where Michael Jordan talks about how many times he failed. The monologue in the ad goes like this...

I've missed over 9000 shots in my career.
I've lost almost 300 games.
26 times I've been trusted with the game-winning shot... and missed.
I've failed over and over and over again in my life.
And that is why I succeed.

Life can be a struggle sometimes, and there are many times where things don't seem to go our way. Those are precisely the times when we need to take a step back and look at what is happening and find the lesson. I find these times the most enlightening, and right now I feel a little frustrated that everything is just a little too easy. There's nothing that is jolting me out of my comfort zone that I am not quite happy to be in. That's why I started the three new habits for the month, which I've kept up with... and I'll have three new habits for next month, all designed to propel me forward.

However, when I look back on some of the more significant choices in my life they came out of situations that did not necessarily require such radical decisions. I however took the opportunity to take a bigger chance and what turned out to be a more rewarding path that I could have. And I know that on my life's journey there have been times when I wondered whether I had made the right decision.

In 2000 I left Australia with AU$12,000 savings bound for the U.K. with a two-year working holiday visa. After a few weeks I found getting a job not quite as easy as I had expected and I was unhappy with the room I was renting from a very weird landlady, who kept making unscheduled appearances to move the furniture around. I was feeling low, and I remember sitting on my own in Starbucks. Surrounded by 16 million people in London, I knew none of them, which made it an even lonelier place than being isolated on a desert island. Then suddenly the phone rang and I had a job interview. I started the following week. A month later I had moved to a new place and life was on the up and up. I was making friends and had a social calendar, albeit a meagre one. Moving to London was the right decision after all.

When my three-month job contract ran out, I had another job lined up as European Marketing Manager of an international media company. Could it get much better?

After two days I lost the job, because of my visa restrictions.

So I immediately called all the hiring agencies that had been so impressed with my credentials. "Sorry, there are no contracts right now. It's the end of the fiscal year and there's a federal election in two months."

Could it get much worse?

My AU$12,000 which bought me a little under 3,000 pounds had dwindled, and with rent and utilities totalling 500 pounds per month, plus food, travel and other miscellaneous expenses, I had about two months before the funds would dry up.

For two weeks I rang and re-rang all the employment agencies, making calls every day, and I waited for the phone to call me back. It didn't.

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas A. Edison, US inventor (1847 - 1931)

So that's when I made the decision. I decided I would apply for any job, that might look like fun... to work on a cruise ship, as a tour manager on African safaris, a tour manager on European coach tours... anything that would be an experience of a lifetime.

I kept calling the employment agencies and looked to different ones which hired for non-marketing roles.

Then the phone rang! I had an interview with Contiki for the Tour Manager position taking tours around western Europe.

At the same time I went for an interview for a position as National Franchise Manager for a chain of Aussie style pubs in the U.K.

Suddenly I was offered both positions. The National Franchise Manager role came with a car, a laptop, great pay and perks, and the best opportunity to spread my wings in the U.K. The Tour Manager position was an experience that came with no frills.

The follies which a man regrets most, in his life, are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity. - Helen Rowland (1876 - 1950)

The safe bet was the marketing job. But I figured that this was my first and last chance to be a tour manager of western Europe, and if I wanted the marketing role in a few years time then I could work at that later.

I worked as a Tour Manager for almost six months and it was the best time of my life. I made many friends and saw many sights, but the most enduring reminder from that time is my wife, whom I met while working with Contiki. I've ended up living the last four and a half years in Canada on a path determined by my decision to change the course my life was taking and step into the unknown.

"Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes." - Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

If you don't take a chance to make something happen in life, maybe it never will. Make small change, or a large one. In general we fail to try because we are afraid of the outcome and doubt ourselves.

The ups and downs are part of the journey that is our life. You cannot live your life's calling if you never act on the opportunities presented to you.