Are you more of a corporate manager, or a children’s show presenter?
Do you have the time to enter an ultramarathon or are you better off focusing on the problems in front of you?
Will a holiday away actually be relaxing for you? Or should you rather sleep in at home?
Will you benefit from buying that new iPhone, or should you put the money into a savings account?
I think all of the options above are valid. They just need to match up with the rest of your life to avoid angst.
My kid is sick. Ear infection. With the first one we left it too late and her eardrum popped. Let’s not do that again.
The other cut her leg. Germolene is a disinfectant cream. To me it always sounds like the title for an Allman Brothers song “oh Germoleeeeeene” …But I digress.
I am learning that with the girls there is always something to fix. Sort of like my old Audi. It’s part of being at school and growing up.
They bounce back way better than the Audi though. Like little trampolines.
I like to play squash. Probably the best advice I have been given is to only give 70% with each shot, and focus all that energy on cleanly hitting the ball. Do it properly at 70% rather than flying in and flailing around at 110% (which is my natural inclination!)
This is more than just a squash tactic. I am at my best when I am calmly dealing with what is in front of me. If I decide to go 110% and expend every ounce of energy in pursuit of one thing, i usually burn out pretty fast.
Life is a juggling act. Keep some energy in store. Keep your head and wits about you. Do things in the correct way.
Disinfectant, needles, white lights, sickness. As much as we fear and dread going to the hospital, it’s actually a great place to be. A great place to lower the risk of something terrible happening.
My child needs help in the hospital and I’m lucky we have a good one within reach. I’m on my way to see her. Sitting in the Uber putting everything else in perspective.
Hospital hospital hospital – over and over in my head.
I can’t concentrate.
Irrational fears and desires are pushing at some primordial nerve. At any given time i want to:
But I also want/need to:
How can i get rid of the noise and focus on the right thing at the right time? I have 2 suggestions today.
1 – Understand your personality type. I took a personality questionnaire the other day from understandmyself.com – it delved into my responses to certain questions, assessing me under 5 big personality traits:
I have extreme elements which make up my personality (as does anyone) and this makes me want certain things, find some things easier than others and generally behave in certain ways. Of note in my assessment – I am non-assertive, withdrawn, extremely open and agreeable by nature – so I have plenty to work on and my fears and desires stem in some way from my innate nature.
2 – Understand our culture of gratification and pleasure at the expense of long term benefits. The lazy, primal part of our brain is being taken advantage of by the tech in our lives. Structure your life around managing this desire (ie. downtime from the tech), and the signal can more easily be heard among the noise.
If I had to choose 3 things to do for exercise for the rest of my life, these would probably be them:
Curiously none are team sports. This list would have been very different 10 years ago.
Chimpwithcans 