365 (and a bit) days to make stuff happen...

Social media feeds are filled with the anticipation of a new year and all the best wishes that come with it — it’s the time of the year to reflect and dream and resolve to do better in the upcoming year. The calendar is reset, and we enter a new year fresh with endless possibilities — we are given another twelve new months to make stuff happen.

To everyone, great success with making stuff happen in 2023 — better yet, great success with making the hard stuff happen in 2023.

Well there you go, I’ve done my part by wishing you a happy and successful new year; an easy proposition if ever there was one. The rest is now on you (and me I suppose because I know people have wished me a happy and successful new year).

This does feel so very familiar and there is an imperative somewhere in all of this. Oh right, it’s my new year so it’s only fair that I’m the one to make it happen.

Good thing I have done this New Year Thing before and can reflect on what has worked before and look at what hasn’t worked as “growth opportunities”; although if memory serves me, there are no guarantees what worked before will work again so I better stay sharp. Where is that list of reminders again?

• Have goals (plans, resolutions, wants, desires, objectives) and at least get them scribbled down on a napkin.

• Work fuckin’ hard.

• When your plans go south (and this happens a lot) you cannot quit — you must keep your wits about you and find a way.

• Cherish your relationships and give more than you take.

• Whining is OK when it gets hard, but keep it to a minimum, and keep going until you’re finished doing what needs to get done. (a personal favourite)

Well, that’s all I’ve got. Do have a safe and healthy 2023, and let me know if I can ever help.

iamgpe

What's the purpose of it all?

The question was posed just as he was about to jump into the water, “What’s the purpose of it all?” My answer was, admittedly with little thought, “There is no purpose at all, and in fact, from an evolutionary perspective you’ve done your job.”

It’s a privilege to have known my friends for a very long time, and as I like to say, “Life is what we have in common” — I’m almost certain I didn’t come up with that but it is apt. Most of us were able to make it up to a friend’s family cottage (that was built in 1904) but not all; life gets in the way of the best laid plans of mice and men. The food was good and the conversation was better; cycling, hiking, novelty waffles for breakfast, boating into town, a fire, and shared memories of a lifetime. It made for a great time..

Recently I read that success is defined as some talent plus luck and great success is defined as some talent plus lots of luck — any way you want to define success, the people around me have leveraged their talents and their luck and done well by any measure. Each of us also carry the literal and figurative scars of a life lived; they are part of our actions, part of how we look at things, and part of the stories we tell around the campfire. It has all made for very rich lives.

The reason I am writing about this weekend at all is because I was dared to write something that involved discussions of our favourite fruit, novelty waffles for breakfast and the advantages of tubeless tires, but not use the word “pithy”. With that little challenge behind me, I will admit the question regarding “the purpose of it all” is still resonating — a question for the ages to be sure and something great thinkers have tried to answer. It was trite for me to answer the way I did but I never said I was much of a thinker, and after putting some more thought into it, I still it haven’t come up with anything else of substance. I wonder if it can truly be answered.

Until there is a better answer, I will continue to work on developing some talent, get out there to make as much luck as possible, and foster those relationships that make everything worthwhile — at the very least, it’s an honourable pursuit. Very much like “light and love”.

For my brothers.

iamgpe

A two year pandemic journal...

It is said, and thankfully I’ve only experienced this figuratively, when the shelling starts, try to get as small as you can.

Whispers of a new virus started in late 2019 and by April of 2020 many jurisdictions had implemented mandatory lockdown in an attempt to control the spread; by August 2021, vaccines were being rolled out and by April 2022 many jurisdictions were opening back up with the promise of picking up where we had left off.

During the time of Covid, my mantra was to get as healthy as I could, don’t get sick and don’t make anyone else sick — I maintained a very small bubble and in effect became as small as possible.

The gym fitness journal I started just before the pandemic offers insights into my progress and the interruptions due to the lockdowns — it is a journal by proxy of what I did for two years. There is an 18-month gap in the journal as a result of the lockdown and the gym was substituted with running the stairs at the Wallace St bridge. My life became very simple. Work; Run stairs; Saturday Zoom call; Check in on my 90-year old father. REPEAT.

My journal became active again after two jabs in my arm and changes to policy — the journal illustrates and notes my progress, injury, more progress, and smaller lockdowns. Stair running started to shift to more walking and hiking which found its way into the journal. The virus itself had also come a long way since the wild type of late 2019 and the Omicron variant has made everything comparatively easier. I am almost at the end of my current journal — dog eared and worn; it has been a great companion.

The last two years have made me physically healthy to be sure — I didn’t put on 114 pounds, I didn’t lose most of my hair, or break a couple of teeth eating ribs, or accidentally stab myself in the cheek when I got overly excited about eating pie. The pandemic is behind me, and I am back to getting out and about, but lately I’ve noticed I’m dealing with things as if I am still trying to be small; two years of instilled habits are hard to break. The time to be small is over and there are things to deal with, opportunities to take advantage of, and a grand life to live. More than ever, this is a time to get big and bold.

Considering what we have on the horizon, big and bold are exactly what we need.

I have my new workout journal picked out and the first thing I will write in it is “Aus der Kriegsschule des Lebens.— Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker,”*

iamgpe

* “Out of life’s school of war—what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.” — Nietzsche