What I learnt today #15

Thursday 25 October 2012

This morning on my way to work, I took my regular route. 
I know best practice dictates you're supposed to vary your routes to avoid someone recognizing a pattern, but I think I blend in quite well with the other 50,000 cars going in the same general direction every morning. 

My route takes me along the Audrey Jeffers Highway, which has a portion referred to as the foreshore which puts you about 10 meters away from the coastline of the Gulf of Paria. 
This morning I saw a man wake-boarding in the Gulf. Now, for those of you that don't know this stretch of coastline, no one ever ventures into these waters mainly due to its toxicity levels. I always half expect to see a three-legged fish come up from the water and drag itself across the road. Other than the fact that this guy is probably going to become the latest addition to the x-men after his dip in that water, I was absolutely amazed what this guy had planned for his Thursday. I sometimes forget that not everyone lives in the rat maze. After all, practically everyone I know is in it.

Yes, in some ways I did envy this character. Now I know what you're thinking, "Ian you don't know how hard this guy probably worked so he could afford such leisure". You're right, I don't. But it's a sick construct that we have come to believe in that decades of toil are required, demanded even, from the world for us to deserve something great. I'm not talking about the fast track, or get rich dreams or anything of that nature. I'm talking about living the way we want, in the present. Ask yourself the "5 whys" to peel back the layers of why you're not living the life you may want. Look past the "I don't have enough money" excuse 90% of people would list as one of their first limitations. I would argue that the majority of things that we would list as constraints and limitations are self imposed. Yes you need to have a certain risk appetite to be daring enough to break the mold and not walk the prescribed path. But there is much more at risk if you live in a way that does not fulfill you. 

When you really get to the bottom of it, there is a reason we don't run after what we say we want. It's fear. And it's that fear that keeps people, myself included, from wake boarding on a Thursday morning. That and I'd prefer not to have my skin melted off and flesh eating bacteria reducing me to bones. Seriously that water is gross. 

What I learnt this morning #14

Thursday 25 October

Lesson learnt yesterday:

• Opening a blog at 11:24pm, and then saying "I'm just going to rest my eyes for a few minutes" results in a that said blog not manifesting itself. 

• When the body needs sleep, give it. It is the one gift we can present to ourselves that brings supremely  glorious satisfaction that is easy to do and costs nothing. 

• Falling asleep in a place other than your bed, in a position that isn't meant for the human body other than those with 5th degree black belts in yoga, is still a decent sleep. 

• Take pleasure in your sleep in the same way you savour a good meal. It really is one of those small things in life that can bring joy when done right, and causes absolute devastation when absent or lacking quality. 

So, after waking up this morning having drooled 1.32 liters of saliva all over myself, I realise that my days have suddenly gotten very filled. And surprisingly, I'm not really bothered by it. Granted, I have no children. I've always had massive respect for those that get lots done and have little replicas of themselves hopped up on sugar running between their legs. So to all of you that reproduced and still manage to, day-by-day, reach closer to the goals you have set for yourself and family - Gold star for you. 

I will think of you when I feel as though I don't have the energy.

What I learnt today #13

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Today I found myself on the brink of a fairly large change that may occur in my life. My state of mind was pensive, mixed with a bit of anxiety and anticipation. Having little time for a blog today, I will briefly list what I learnt from peering through a slightly ajar door, moments before it is swung wide open:

• Change, in any form that brings major lifestlye shifts, is scary. However positive and welcome this change may be, just simply deviating from what we have become accustomed to is frightening. Even if what we have become accustomed to is not what we want. There is something comforting about predictability, but it is something in which I don’t want to seek solace.

• I can only imagine how a change which brings on major challenges can shake someone to their core, if simple and seemingly beneficial change can make me feel so uneasy. Be patient with those going through a period of change, it is not always an easy process. 

• I don’t want to fear the dark simply because I’m not sure what’s there. I want to feel filled with a sense of adventure and anticipation to discover what I have not been able to see before.

I’d like you to consider embarking on that change that you've been fearful of, and understand that the environment in which you find comfort in its predictability was once a dark cave. You stood at the mouth of that cave once before and stepped forward. Do it again. 

What I learnt today #12

Monday 22 October 2012

I entered the office today just as I did any other day designated by the GORTT as a working day. Only today was a bit different. Upon approaching the front reception area, I was greeted by an employee attendance log book. It was neatly bound, with a shiny plastic front cover. Not having had to sign into one of these since I was an hourly paid worker at my first part time position while at University, there was a wave of nostalgia that wafted past me like a warm breeze. Except this warm breeze was like a fart, and stank to high heaven. What in Zeus' name is this? In the dead of the night, an elf was hard at work putting together this masterpiece. 

There were various columns for employees to enter the following details:

1. Time of arrival. This one seems fairly straightforward. This is meant to, via manual input by the arrival employee, record crossing the threshold which delineates "the office" from "not the office". 8:31AM. I like to be specific with data I input into tables, especially numbers. I believe units add specificity to numbers. That's the engineer in me. The number 42, as the super computer's answer to the Universe's Ultimate question in "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" may have profound meaning had it been given a unit of measure. 
2. Employee Name. Also fairly easy. Other than aliases not commonly used in the office, your legal name identifies the specific human resource unit that entered the sacred halls of work. Even though we are all on first name basis, I decided to write my entire name. In capital letters. I would hate to have been the reason for any confusion. 
3. Lunch Time Out. This is where things get tricky. If I eat lunch at the office, do I sign out? Is lunch time out a pause between mastication and other processes involved in general food consumption? If the mircowave turntable was somehow stationary rendering a half hot/half cold meal, should the time between warm cycles be counted? For fear of not being taken seriously I decided to go with my instinct on this one. Thankfully, I had pasta salad today that could have been eaten cold. 12:15PM.
4. Lunch Time In. The ambiguity climbs higher. I usually like to have a cup of tea at my desk after a meal. Technically, it is not part of my meal but it is something that I consider important to the digestive process. Should my tea time be included in my lunch hour? I played it safe and put the kettle on as I was between spoon-to-mouth actions. I decided to be bold, and test the waters on this maiden employee log journey. As I exited the lunch room with a steamy cup of tea, I logged out. 12:34PM. My logic was since I was not on a doctor prescribed liquid-only diet, the tea does not constitute actual sustenance and shall not be considered to be within the realms of my legally required lunch hour. 
5. Casual/Meeting Time Out. My internal CPU was beginning to run hot. My meeting times are also to be logged. If I hosted a tele-conference, which I have been known to do from time to time, does that constitute a meeting? What about internal meetings? Does including more than one recipient in my email constitute a meeting if I get a response from more than one person in a 5 minute period? What about client calls to and from my cell phone? As these world shifting questions swirled in my mind, I opted for the safe choice: Do nothing. As I did not have a scheduled meeting in or out of the office today and did not have to conduct business of a personal nature during stipulated working hours, this cell in the sheet remained vacant. 
6. Casual/Meeting Time In. Again vacant. Since I did not log out, logic dictates that I cannot log in. For today, unlike other days, the notion of Parallel Universes and Time Travel was not a consideration. 
7. End Time. Dangerous words for being so close to December 21, 2012. Because I have a belief that the Mayans meant an end of an era and not the end of the world, I did not interpret this as a cell to input my doomsday wish for humanity. I was at the office particularly late today, but logged out before I actually left and entered the "not office" realm. 5:33PM. 

Not bad for my first day. I began to formulate a multi-page query list to clarify some ambiguities in the log itself, but decided against it. My encounter with an employee attendance log has taught me the following today:

• Some ideas die slowly.
• Proactive engagement of a problem is almost always a better way of dealing with issues than historical data gathering to build a case when things get out of hand. One way solves a problem, and the other gives you a lot of paperwork to perpetuate it. 

Tomorrow I am expecting a turnstile entry system and a velvet rope maze to the employee customs area where we are meant to declare whether or not we are bringing any 21st century ideas into the office area. 

What I learnt this weekend #11

On this 42nd weekend, we can mark that over 80% of the weekends contained in 2012 have elapsed. If this year was a marathon, we would be just at the 21 mile mark of our 26 mile run.

You can say that we're on the 'home stretch' of this year. 

Upon reflection, I find that I spend quite a bit of my week looking forward to the weekend. When I think about it some more, I find that many of my weekends are squandered, i.e. much of this free time passes without me feeling like an active participant in life. This leaves me with a sense of regret in facing the new work week. I feel as though I didn't make good use of the two days I have off from the doldrums and sometimes downright ridiculous action of doing something I don't absolutely enjoy in exchange for money. 

An analogy to bring perspective:  A child throws a tantrum, that the most pampered celebrities will be envious of, to have that toy that they glanced at in a store. When the guardian reaches their wits end, picks up the toy, lines up and exchanges hard earned cash (which they received in exchange for mostly unpleasant work) for the toy, the child looks at the toy and tosses it to one side. The parent, after inquiring about the store's return policy, will wonder what insanity drives toddlers sometimes. 

Not spending every minute of the weekend, the time we spend fantasizing about all week, doing exactly what we want - is filled with the same insanity. Not using the weekends to make you feel like an active life-participant will only drain us more for the ensuing work week cycle. 

This weekend, unlike other countless weekends, I spent in a completely revitalizing manner. Without going into detail, which is not important for the point I'd like to bring across, I felt it was a worthwhile use of the two hard earned days we are granted between work cycles. 

My weekend with friends, nature and my country has made me think about the following:

• We are on earth for a short and finite period. We sometimes wait for particular circumstances to begin the life we dream of - retirement with a comfortable nest egg or that big break in our career. We, at any time of our lives, have the power to decide to live in the present. That is, not simply to exist or 'make do' with what we have now in the hope and anticipation for the future we dream about. We don't have as long as we think.

• Instead of wishing for the weekend, I will start planning for the weekend. It sounds simple and I thought it was obvious. But I can recall piles of weekends coming to an end where I thought "What have I done all weekend?"

Due to my failure to select the winning lotto numbers, I will be reporting to work bright and early in the morning. However, in this particular case, I will do so having come off a fantastic weekend. 

What I learnt today #10

Friday 19 October 2012

Scenario: Getting ready for my day of work. I plug in my iron to take out massive crinkles that line my shirt like creases on an elephant's ear. This may be due to the fact my work shirts reside under 12 pounds of other clothes. Given my poor ironing skills, the shirt goes from the texture of crumpled newspaper to, say, a napkin. "That'll do" I mumble to myself, since I am already a half-hour late and here I am ironing my shirt while still in my drawers. 

By the time I'm downstairs, my phone rings and the office is asking me the question that I get almost 3 out of 5 mornings....."Morning Ian, (boss' name) wants to know what time you're coming into the office". I give my standard answer of 15 minutes. I could be fixing the camera on the Curiousity rover on Mars and I'll still report an ETA of 15 minutes. 

So by the time I am in the car, the urge to put some pep in my step is climbing. I reach the end of my street, which leads to a T-junction onto a major road. I stick my nose out to signal to oncoming traffic of my intent to join this major artery from a smaller blood vessel. One car goes by, then two then three..four...five. No bligh from anyone. A small line of traffic builds up in front of me as if all the long sticks in a game of tetris landed end-to-end. I look at the person driving the car that failed to let me in, since they are directly in front of me, sitting there waiting for the traffic to flow once more. They avoid eye contact in the same way a dog that just destroyed the couch cushion sits in the corner when you get home. That look of guilt transcends animal species. Yeah driver, you did smut. But I almost understand why you did that. You too are in a rush. Your actions, however inconsiderate and pointless have a motive. Congratulations for having saved yourself 0.37 seconds from your commute. But maybe that driver got 4 calls from his office as opposed to my meager solitary call. 

My brief encounter with Mr. "I gonna jam myself in the middle of the junction and play I not seeing you" this morning has taught me the following:

• People are motivated by the same things you are in most cases. They are under the same pressures, same stresses and have the same headaches. Sometimes it is worthwhile to assume that someone is under more stress than you, and irrational actions may have to be pardoned. That "may" has a long list of pre-conditions however. 

• The unnecessary pressures that people are put under cause the population to be less than nice to each other sometimes. So many arguments and road-rage incidents would have probably been avoided if people didn't feel herded like sheep down the asphalt trails to the slaughterhouse. 

This morning I let almost everyone who requested to slip in front of me in traffic a welcome pass. I waved people on and flashed my lights like it was going out of style. I didn't arrive to my destination any later than I would have had I been a squeeze out specialist. I'd like to think that somehow I made someone's day a little easier. 

So next time you see a soldier with a crumpled up shirt on his way to work at 8:30am, consider giving him a squeeze in front you. 

What I learnt today #9

Thursday 18 October 2012

Let me begin by saying this: I did not win the lottery.

Life has a funny way of correcting your behaviours. After becoming drunk with thoughts of wealth yesterday, I rose to the realisation that I am just another poor sod who has to toil for a meagre salary. And toil I did. Thanks life, you brought me back to earth.

Two site meetings, in North and South Trinidad respectively, broken up by a couple hours in between at the office pretty much had me beat by the time I got home. I’d say that I did pretty OK considering I woke up not wanting to even leave my bed.  

Shortly after my arrival at home, and my ritual of stripping down to my undies to relax, my phone chimed. It was a friend asking if I wanted to do anything later. Now, usually when I’m home and down to such a small amount of clothes, it would take fairly extreme circumstances for me to leave the house. And as far as I could tell, my house was not in an advanced stage of combustion at that exact moment. But on this occasion I decided to go against my usual action and spend some time with a friend since we haven’t seen each other for quite a while.

We caught up with each other’s life’s events and spoke about our future plans.

He relayed a story of a man who had abandoned his wife and family in pursuit of another woman. He eventually squandered his fortune, leaving nothing for the family he left behind. He had died some years after, and to this day his family are not sure under what circumstances he passed away, or where he is buried.

I thought to myself: “His friends have let him down”. I know that there are many things I don’t know about the story, but it made me think. If my friends saw me going down a path of self destruction, would they be strong enough to stop me? I understand fully that you can talk to someone ad infinitum and they will do as they choose, but when words do not work, how far would you go to save someone? If having learnt of a real friend’s demise, not only in terms of life or death, but moral and emotional destruction, would you feel satisfied knowing the furthest you went is forcefully speaking to them?

I would like to think that my friends would do what it takes to set me straight if I demonstrate that I am no longer of sound mind and have fallen under the influence of personified devastation.

How much can we actually do to change the minds of others?

Have you ever been witness to someone destroying themselves?

At what point must you let go without yourself being pulled down into the abyss?

My day today and time with friends tonight has taught me the following:

• When waking up, the faster I focus on getting off to a productive day the better. No use in wishing for more sleep, or contemplating going to the beach if you’re just going to go to work anyway. Either wake up, set your mindset for work and get on with it or go to the beach. No use in playing that wicked mind game.

• Even though I am not yet a wealthy man, I have a solid foundation upon which I can enjoy my future wealth, i.e. trustworthy network of friends and family.

With no winner yesterday, the lotto rolled over to $14M. Yes I bought multiple tickets today.