Spring Cleaning
April 5, 2010 § 2 Comments
It’s almost March. And it’s a beautifully sunny day in Calgary. In my apartment, my entire south facing wall is nothing but a huge window and a sliding door overlooking 17th Avenue. I don’t live in a big building, it’s only 6 floors in all, but there aren’t any bigger buildings behind me, and so the sun shines into my little abode pretty much the entire day. Today is the first day in a long time that I’ve been in the right mindset to check in with myself, take inventory of where I’m at and just see how I’m doing. In these kinds of moments, I can spend 20 minutes, sometimes more, just gazing out the window. Focusing on each car that goes by, each bird riding a current, and how the sun falls on my favourite leather chair just so.
Today, as I settled in to ponder and my gaze headed out the window, I noticed just how dirty the windows had gotten over the winter. It’s funny how we sometimes don’t notice the build up of dirt and grime over time, or how we’re willing to look through the dirt to see the world because we don’t really feel like washing that window.
Somehow, gazing through dirt just didn’t cut it today. It was time to wash the windows. I have these microfibre clothes made by a company called Norwex. There’s one specifically for windows and glass. You don’t need any cleaning agents. Just some water and the cloth. And boy, that cloth can clean a window and make it sparkle better than any bottle of Windex I’ve ever tried. In all, it only took me about 20 minutes to clean off the dirt inside and out. I’m back on my couch and the difference 20 minutes… 20 MINUTES… made for a clearer view is phenomenal.
How much scum and dirt do we let pile up on ourselves and on how’re we’re seeing the world around us because we’re too lazy to take a few minutes to wipe it clean? I want to compare looking out my windows now to looking out of them before being washed to that drinking and driving commercial where it shows how much your vision is impaired after each drink. How much less clear is our perspective with each layer of dirt that settles in (on our windows or in our lives)?
I’m sure I’ll be going through this exercise again. A few months will pass and I’ll notice that my window isn’t quite as clear as it could be, and that’s just from day to day exposure. It makes me think about my own housekeeping, all of the things I’m exposed to day to day that I don’t notice until they build up and just how much better I feel after it’s all been wiped away. Whether we think our lives are currently well put together, or there’s a pile of dirt that seems to have built up and soiled what we have to show the world, and what we can see of it, there’s always going to be some housekeeping to do for optimal performance. The good thing is, it doesn’t have to take a lot of effort to wipe things clean again.
Building the Circle of Life
March 22, 2010 § 3 Comments
I attended a funeral the other day and was reminded of my own father’s passing on just over 21 years ago. Hearing some of the same traditional hymns like The Old Rugged Cross brought back memories.
It was my supervisor’s father whose life we were celebrating. He’d lived into his 80s and, through the eulogy, I learned more about the person I report to. I couldn’t help but smile to myself at a couple of ‘ah ha’ moments when I heard characteristics that also describe my supervisor and explain more about who she is and why.
Traits get passed on without us even knowing it. I now wonder what people would notice ingrained in my son that would also be true of me.
When my dad died, less than three months before my son was born, it seemed very much like the Circle of Life experience from the Lion King. My father had planned to come visit us after the birth. It’s too bad he didn’t get the chance. It would have been one of the joys of his retiring years.
Within a month, my son will turn 21. His future, like an unpainted canvas, lies ahead of him, particularly since he has not determined a clear direction.
I wrote in this space earlier that I want him to find something he is passionate about with an ever-increasing amount of choices in our global marketplace. Like many young people, he plans to begin seeking his fortune in a larger centre, likely Edmonton.
Once he does, who knows where that will find him. He plans to work a year there to help make some decisions with a broader view of the world.
Maybe he will be like a young friend of mine, Megan Koprash, who worked as an office assistant in my business during high school. She finds herself working overseas after doing some globetrotting.
She’s supportive of Peter travelling to better understand his options. “There’s a great big world out there. It changed my life,” she told me when we spoke online today.
In her free-spirited way, Megan did a short stint in Taiwan before moving to England to teach, following her graduation from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay.
It will be three years in August since she began teaching in Essex County, near London. Megan has considered leaving there a few times, but something always makes her stay. I think the place fits her personality.
“I am a bit of a drifter and a dreamer,” she reminded me.
I have always admired Megan for being both carefree and committed to what she believes in. To this day, she’s the recipient of one of the best letters of reference among the many I’ve written.
Even in high school, Megan got it. I would allow her time off to audition for theatre productions and she would reciprocate on her own volition by working into the wee hours on deadline projects.
Megan is who she is because a great upbringing and support from her parents, Margie and Ron, in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.
She will cite them when it comes to describing her success story later in life. Megan will go as far as her ambition takes her.
I’m pleased the letter of reference I wrote helped Megan get that job in Britain and to have been part of her early professional growth.
Megan’s parents did a fine job of enabling and encouraging their daughter to follow her dreams.
As a parent, you strive to leave some kind of legacy like that. I would like my son to see that I’ve pursued opportunities as they’ve been presented, allowing me to lead a very rich, rewarding and varied career.
My own father left his own trademark. I always thought of him as strong and invincible – that go to guy who was always there … so much so that months after he died, I went to pick up the phone to ask advice, only to remember that he would not be on the other end of the line.
His departure from this earth just after he started learning to enjoy himself was a lesson to me – to work toward the future but to not forget about living in the moment when good times are to be had.
Circle of Life scenarios are abundant and aren’t all associated with family members. For example, I think it is ironic that my blog mate, Wendy, was born just two months before I graduated from Kwantlen College in 1982. Somehow I think that is one of the things that link us.
In this relay called life, I enjoy passing the baton to others with less experience, helping them to advance into the fast lane with perspective and insight they wouldn’t otherwise have.
There’s no joy like having someone, whether a young friend or a family member, tell you that you made a difference in their lives.
It’s all in my head: How visualization has helped me
February 22, 2010 § 2 Comments
I’ve been reading The Secret over the last couple of months. It hasn’t taken me a couple of months to get through it, but I’ve been reading it over and over, letting it sink in, seeing if I could swallow what the author is saying or if I thought she was missing the ball. I think, that like anything else, there is some truth to what she is saying, but there are important elements about myself that I have had to recognize to find a way to make what The Secret is about work for me.
Take, for instance, the idea of visualization. If you visualize what you want, it will become reality. The mind has a tough time differentiating between imagination and reality, so by visualizing what you want, it will come to pass because your mind already thinks it’s real. And to some degree, I think this does work, but, I’ve found that I’ve had to make a few modifications for it to be successful. See, for me, I need to know where that difference is between reality and make believe. I’m all too willing to believe that what’s in my mind is true today. Except that half the time, this isn’t the case. And without recognizing that fact, I would never have believed that visualization could be a successful exercise in getting what I want. Because I wouldn’t have seen that sometimes, visualizing what you want isn’t enough, sometimes the stuff around me needs for me to be present in it and take action in it as well in order for this to work
I live the majority of my life in my own head. That sounds a bit absurd to write, if I wasn’t in my own head, who’s head would I be in? Well, nobody’s. Just my own. But what I’m getting at here is that I have always had an incredibly active imagination. And in some cases, that imagination has gotten me through some tough times. It’s been my cocoon from life’s events that may have otherwise taken me down. But it’s also kept me in a world entirely of my own.
I’ve had some very good relationships in my head. I’ve loved and I’ve lost. I’ve overcome so many barriers… except that many of them never made it past the walls of my cocoon. And that’s where I’ve found the greatest benefit for me with visualization. It’s helped me see where there’s a disconnect between what I see in my mind as true and what the situation around me actually is. It’s reinforced the importance of balance in my life. Balance of work, balance of friends, and balance in the amount of time I spend upstairs, and how much I’m out taking action, ensuring that what I find when I close my eyes is what I will find when I open them.
When they don’t match, that’s when I know I’ve got some work to do. But that’s the easiest place for me to get tripped up – when I think everything is going according to plan, but I’ve only checked in with myself, not with the situation around me.
I’m not sure how many people out there are like me, and how many are the opposite. But I do know that living in either extreme does not get me any closer to having what I see internally and what I see externally mirroring one another. How about you? What kinds of things do you use to keep yourself in check and on track?
The first step to wealth is health
December 21, 2009 § 15 Comments
“The first step to wealth is health.”
That rhymes, I told my doctor as he was chiding me for letting a period of extreme stress get in the way of effectively managing my diabetes. He hadn’t considered that, he said, noting he is not a poet. It would to me as a writer.
“There will always be jobs,” the doctor continued. “But if you don’t take care of yourself, that won’t matter.”
For someone who several others readily call a mentor, the motivator had allowed himself to be distracted from Looking out for Number One. He who has pushed others to be positive has lost his own focus.
No excuses. I know better. If I am to remain competitive in the battle against the D word, then I have to do better. Every day. It has already taken its toll in varying ways.
I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes 10 years ago this fall. At first, my doctor felt I could address it with proper exercise and diet. After five years that didn’t work, primarily because I didn’t do the work, and I was prescribed two medications for that as well as pills for cholesterol and high blood pressure.
Diabetes can best be described as juggling four balls – there are four main contributing factors – heredity, stress, diet, and exercise. The first, I can do nothing about. My dad was “borderline” diabetic. When I told the diabetes nurse this, she laughed. “That is like being borderline pregnant. Either you are or you aren’t.”
Then there is stress. Mostly, I am able to use this in a positive sense, feeding my natural drive and energy but lately I have found myself distracted by it, letting things over which I have little or no control bother me.
Speaking of feeding … although I don’t eat horribly, my diet management is not great, mostly in terms of portions and timing. Before I learned I am diabetic, I didn’t eat breakfast so that was an improvement.
The exercise has improved lately, walking the dog almost every day for at least a half hour, often more.
The bottom line is, diabetes is a silent disease. It is not necessarily going to give you a daily reminder like a lump or chronic pain do. But holding it at bay does take daily attention.
So, while I am great at fostering motivation in others, I must accept the responsibility for managing my own stress, diet and exercise. It is MY blood that needs to be monitored and MY doctor appointments that must be kept.
Others can provide encouragement, but it is me who must take charge of my own health.
And, ironically, the best prescription to stress has been at the forefront all these years.
On the side of my mother-in-law’s fridge (for the record, the least reason for me to have stress and, no, my wife is not standing over me as I write) she has posted the Serenity Prayer … God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
My mother-in-law learned in her late 70s that she, too, has diabetes, and has done a much better job of monitoring the disease.
Why?
Perhaps, even though I know I have the disease and know the consequences, I’ve been just too busy worrying about other things.
The doctor was right.
The first step to wealth is health.
Channel Surfing
December 14, 2009 § 3 Comments
It’s another boring night with nothing on. You’re on your couch passively flipping through the channels, trying to find something that will spark your interest for at least a minute. But as you go, the more you surf, the less you find, and the less you pay attention. You get lulled into a sense that there’s never anything on. And so you continue to move through channels, now at lightning speed. Click. Click. Click. Wait, what’s that? Nope, I’ve seen that before. Click.
Sometimes you settle on something to watch for a few minutes before passively clicking through to the next channel, but every now and again you hit the right frequency with that click and come across a program that piques your interest. It’s not that you were looking for this specific program, in fact you probably didn’t really know what you were looking for. But here it is. Out all of the hundreds of channels at all of the different times of day you’ve been through, for once, here it is.
I’ve been thinking about my life in terms of frequency lately. What frequency am I on? Do I like what I’m seeing? If I don’t, I change the channel until I find something that resonates with me.
There’s a bit of singing advice I heard from Matt Good that fits well here too. In order to get the most out of your voice and to hit all of the high notes, he’s learnt to sing from a place where his voice resonates inside of his mind, not from his vocal chords. He said that’s why Thom Yorke from Radiohead is always moving his head around so much. He’s finding the spots in which his voice hits just the right frequency.
Imagine the practice it takes to find that. Imagine the kind of head space you’ve got to be in to make that work. For me, that’s not from a knowing space, that’s from a feeling space. That’s being aware of your own mind enough to hear when those notes hit the right spot. And that may take some searching and practicing to find. But once you do, it’s pure gold.
Think of this now in terms of finding yourself through life, finding a point where things can resonate for you. You’ll need to have your feelers on as well as your thinking cap for this one. Think about how off life can feel when you’re not tuned into the right frequency, but how easy it is to just pick up the remote and change the channel until you like what’s on. Once you’re there, you stay for awhile, if it’s really good, you’ll come back and watch it again. So try that with your life, the more you find what feels right, what strikes a chord in you somewhere, the more your going to want to come back to that. The more you come back to that, the more you’ll like what you see. And soon, you may just find yourself another step closer to living passionately.
The Journey Continues
November 10, 2009 § 13 Comments
Canadian rocker Tom Cochrane had it right: Life Is A Highway.
My blogmate, Wendy, won’t be surprised I’m using a musical reference in my blog. We both do that with regularity to explain things.
In her last post, Wendy described the search for herself as a long one. She wondered if she would stand still for a moment or if she’s destined to keep moving and to continue in search of herself along the way.
I’m certain Wendy’s journey toward more knowledge of herself will be ongoing, just as mine about me will.
Anyone who constantly looks for more out of life, who is not content with the status quo, is bound to wonder what role they play in the scheme of things. There is going to be an ongoing search of who we really are because we continue to evolve and grow with the new circumstances in which we find ourselves.
Yes, life is a highway. Mine is just significantly longer than Wendy’s since I am several years older.
Sometimes we can whip into fifth gear and zip into the fast lane on our life’s highway – things are going great and we haven’t a worry in the world. Other times there is road construction and we are forced to travel along at a snail’s pace – perhaps we are overwhelmed with competing life or work priorities that are bogging us down. Sometimes there is a blizzard and we are storm stayed, stalled from moving forward – a death has occurred in the family or maybe we’ve had a relationship go south.
Events and people along the way can serve as jet fuel to thrust us ahead while some individuals and circumstances can clog up life’s carburetor. It is always a good idea to do a maintenance check to see our personal engine is firing on all cylinders.
In my case, I was flying through my 20s. I had the fortune of meeting my bride-to-be and my best friend by interviewing her for a profile while I was a newspaper reporter in St. Paul. I was married at age 25 and she has been my rock ever since. If I had any doubts, having my wife follow me across the country for my latest job when she loved her work and the people she worked with would have removed any questions.
My life euphemistically veered for the ditch when my father died in January 1989. Somehow I knew when I moved to Ontario, that I would never see him alive again, but you can’t live life on premonitions.
It wasn’t that my father and I were that close. We were alike in many ways – our work ethic, values, kindness, our friendliness once we get to know people, and our concern for the underdog. But we had little else in common in terms of interests, other than we shared the Montreal Canadiens as our favourite hockey team.
My father’s death became something of a Circle of Life moment in that we knew he had plans to come and see my son once he was born in April 1989.
Although I have never developed the prototypical work-life balance we are reminded to find, his untimely passing did underline for me that it is important to live in the moment.
I was able to launch my communications consulting business, The Write Stuff!, and have some flexibility in my life because my father had left an inheritance. However, I would give all that back to have seen him live longer. He was just learning how to enjoy himself when he died. In fact, Dad just attended his first NHL game on the night he passed away.
I have strived to find my own level of conformity with the work-life balance ideal, but I do love what I do, so it is not a 50-50 proposition to me.
So, I have found myself working hard like he did, but playing hard when it came time to see some of my favourite performers in concert. Between 2005 and 2006, I saw the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seger live. I have also taken in numerous hockey and baseball games over the years.
After my mother died in 1991, it was back into the fast lane again. I refocused my career to move from newspaper reporting to corporate writing, editing and photography at the Ontario Lottery Corporation. Five years moved by quickly and I learned a lot of things that would help me find opportunities down the road.
When restructuring began occurring in 1997, I knew it was time for me to revamp my career. It was in that year that I started my company. That led to my position with the Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board, which in turn, paved the way for my current position with the City of Grande Prairie as Manager of Marketing and Communications.
When I think back, my highway of life has been mostly bare and dry, allowing me to travel at top speed most of the time, changing gears as needed. Setbacks, such as my diagnosis of diabetes in 1999, have not been debilitating.
When I found out I had diabetes, I said that the D word is a whole lot better than the C word – cancer.
My good friend and best man, Darrell Skidnuk, was not so fortunate.
He was taken from us after a lengthy battle with cancer in April 2004 at the very young age of 42. Darrell and I met as reporters at the Daily Herald-Tribune in Grande Prairie. He would become associate publisher of Fort McMurray Today. Darrell was the consummate professional, husband, father, volunteer and citizen.
Even though I believe in God, I have not been able to rationalize why He would let a great guy like Darrell suffer and perish when he had so much to offer the world. Many others hate their existence and wish to die.
Darrell was one guy I could talk to about anything, so it seems natural now to wonder when I am having a dilemma, “What would Darrell do?”
Another friend, Diane Sims, has ovarian cancer and multiple sclerosis, along with other related ailments, yet still has a strong spirit to continue writing and helping others through their pain.
Again, I wonder, “Why Diane?” Is it that there are certain people put on this earth simply to inspire others?
So, how does all this relate to me and my life?
I have been motivated by them and try to be better at what I do when I think of them.
Although I don’t know where my highway is taking me, I know my role is to make every workplace I have been to better and to encourage others to be the best they can be. I am here to foster better lives for others who have not had the same fortune as I have while constantly raising the bar for myself.
Wendy is right, we only have one shot at life. Darrell packed a lot into his short existence. Diane continues to fight the odds.
I haven’t always lived up to their standards, just as I don’t always heed the Serenity Prayer when I should.
But as long as I remember where I should be on that highway of life and follow the signs, I will enjoy a rewarding journey.
The Muse and Views 