February 4

To be continued.

February 3

To be continued.

February 2

To be continued.

February 1

To be continued.

Break Free From "I'd Be Happy If..."

Author Srikumar Rao says that it is all well and good to set and achieve goals.  However, break free from the "I'd Be Happy If..." mentality.  Passion comes from within, not without.  "Plug into your hard-wired happiness." Think of your life ten years ago.  You had goals and dreams.  Have you not achieved some or many of those goals?  But are you any happier than you were ten years ago?

About 10 years ago, I wrote a piece for an online writing course I took inspired by the Bare Naked Ladies song "The Old Apartment"(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quYV9nASs8Q).  It was our first year of marriage.  I was just starting out in my teaching career.  I had a Teacher's College loan as well as a used car loan at a whopping 13%.  My husband Rob was attending university full time to get his Master's.  As newlyweds, we lived in a 900-square foot attic apartment in Hamilton, Ontario.  We brushed our teeth in the kitchen sink.  Mrs. Hunt, a divorcee who had lived in the second floor apartment for 20 years would relay to Rob's Oma, who lived on the first floor, whenever we had a fight.  Oma would phone Rob's Mom who in turn would phone Rob.  One day, Rob put his suitcase in the back of his car and left sans moi.  Mrs. Hunt told Oma that he was leaving me!  It turned out that he was picking me up at the Paris school where I taught and we were going to drive together to my parents' house in Grand Bend.  Believe it or not, I look back fondly on that first year of marriage: we had next to nothing materially but we had each other.

The problem is that the "I'd Be Happy If..." model that we follow is flawed.  Don't waste all your time changing the IF.  Be content in the here and now.  Think about a scene that took your breath away at on time in your life, like a rainbow over a valley.  You took in the scene, took a deep breath and thanked God for the beauty all around you.  You didn't proceed to change the scene:  trim a tree or make the rainbow a little bit higher.  You accepted the universe as is.

You can change your action but you can't change the outcome.  Srikumar Rao mentions a husband who had been neglecting his wife.  He decided to change the situation and bought her a pretty dress for a special occasion.  His wife, however, did not react the way he expected her to:  the dress was the wrong size and the wrong colour.  He received the opposite reaction to what he intended.  Focus, on the action, not the outcome.

Imagine if a 12 month old baby got discouraged every time she fell after taking a few steps.  Imagine if she berated herself over and over again.  Imagine if she needed to go for counselling every time she had a misstep.  She would never learn how to walk.  But she perseveres and she does reach the point of walking without stumbling.  Enjoy the process...and the rest will take care of itself.


Source:  Ted Talk Plug into Your Hard Wired Happiness by Srikumar Rao (https://www.ted.com/talks/srikumar_rao_plug_into_your_hard_wired_happiness).

https://www.ted.com/talks/srikumar_rao_plug_into_your_hard_wired_happiness

Fall in Love with the Process

The formidable foe in Rocky IV courtesy https://www.pinterest.com/bjornbrouwer/martial-artistactordirector-dolph-lundgren/.

I remember my brother, Bill, used to love the Rocky movies when he was growing up.  In Rocky IV, Rocky's good friend Apollo Creed meets up with a formidable opponent from Russia named Drago.  Drago is so muscular, so huge, he doesn't even seem real.  Despite the odds, Apollo Creed rises to the challenge.  He faces Drago in Las Vegas where the Russian is determined to show his Soviet superiority.  Apollo's blows land but don't seem to have any effect on Drago.  Then the Russian attacks the American with such ferocity he knocks him out and kills him.

Determined to avenge his friend's death, Rocky challengers Drago to a match.  But how could anyone defeat the steroid-enhanced Soviet in the ring?  Rocky rises to the challenge.  He doesn't focus on the end result, on the fact that the odds are stacked overwhelming against him.  Instead, he focuses on the process.  He falls in love the process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6w4XtsfyVo

This is the part of the movie that Bill loves.  To prepare for the match, Drago exercises with his high tech equipment and pumps himself full of steroids.  However, Rocky takes a completely different approach.  He travels to Siberia where he trains under the most primitive conditions:  lifts and throws heavy logs, chops down trees, pulls an overloaded sleigh in the snow and climbs an icy mountain. What most would consider mundane and boring, he thrives on.  The process becomes Rocky's "raison d'etre".

Through his training, he doesn't just build strength, but resilience.  During the match, its this resilience which helps him go the distance with Drago.  Battered and bloodied, he manages to knock the Russian out and win the match.

What is your goal?  Who or what do you have to face?  Rather than focusing on the formidable opponent who looms over you, focus on the process  Fall in love with it.  It won't seem like work anymore.  You will go the distance.

A jubiliant Rocky after defeating Drago courtesy http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/02/rocky-movie-rankings-creed-sylvester-stallone-rocky-iv-ivan-drago.

How Arnold Schwarzenegger Used a Vision to Become Mr. Universe

"I had this fixed idea of growing a body like Reg Park's.  The model was there in my mind.  I only had to grow enough to fill it.  The more I focused in on this image and worked and grew, the more I saw that it was real and possible to be like him." (Arnold Schwarzenegger)

Reg Park, Mr. Universe 1951, courtesy http://www.strength-oldschool.com/tag/reg-park/.

Arnold Schwarzenegger had a vision.  One day, he picked up a magazine with Reg Park, the star of Hercules, on the cover.  It hit him:  "He was going to follow in Reg Park's footsteps, become a body building champion and a huge movie star."

Growing up in rural Austria in the 1950's, Arnold's father had other ideas.  He pushed for his son to enter the Army and then become a police officer, as he had done.  His father frowned on bodybuilding which was not popular at the time.  Even so, Arnold began training in earnest to pursue his dream.

At 18, Arnold's father insisted that he join the Austrian Army.  Arnold did so, but still with his vision fixed firmly in his mind.  Each night, when the cadets fell into bed exhausted, Arnold would devote three additional hours to strength training.  Each morning he woke up early to get in his push-ups, sit-ups and chin-ups before the mandatory 5 am run.  The other cadets thought that he was foolish, but Arnold had a vision:  "I had this fixed idea of growing a body like Reg Park's.  The model was there in my mind.  I only had to grow enough to fill it.  The more I focused in on this image and worked and grew, the more I saw that it was real and possible to be like him." (http://www.willpowered.co/learn/arnold-schwarzeneggers-vision)

Arnold's opportunity to prove himself came in the form of the Mr. Junior Europe Championship in Stuttgart, Germany.  He sneaked out of the military base early and hopped a freight train.  Arnold generated huge applause from the audience and captured first prize.  In 1966, Arnold attended the Mr. Universe competition for the first time and impressed one of the judges, Charles Bennett, so much that he offered to coach him (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7Iaz_r2t-g).  The following year, Arnold clinched the title of Mr. Universe.  "The Mr. Universe title was my ticket to America," explained Arnold. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schwarzenegger).  

But Arnold's dream hadn't completely come to fruition.  He frequently told his English coach, Roger C. Field, when he lived in Munich, "I'm going to become the greatest actor."  The vision became a reality when Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in The Terminator (1984) launching his career as the top action film star of the 20th Century.

What is your vision?  What is your "Aha!" moment?  Have you discovered a picture on a magazine cover?  Fix the image in your mind and dwell on it daily.  Ignore the naysayers.  Believe in yourself. Do the "heavy lifting" to make it happen.  You, too, will be standing on top of the podium.  

Arnold Schwarzenegger (right) Mr. Universe 1967 courtesy http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.php?topic=252107.0.