Exercise. Walk. Stop and smell the roses – or at least look at the fallen twigs in your path.
Go for a walk
Slower than Anything
This is a guest post by my brother, Bill Merrill. Thanks Bill!
For most of my life, when I wanted to say how slow something was, I’d use one of the standard phrase “slower than molasses in January.” In recent years, I’ve switched over to “slower than highway construction.” According to our friend the internet, the US federal government currently spends about $40 billion on our roadways each year, an amount that has steadily increased throughout the years, even in current-year dollars. In my own experience, it hardly seems I can drive anywhere in any big city without encountering one construction project or other. (By the way, this was NOT the case in my vacation a couple of months ago in the Benelux countries of Europe.)
It’s not just that progress is so soooo slow on these projects – the average length of a project here seems to be about seven years – but also that there are many times when I drive by the construction site and nothing is happening at all. There is a turn-around on a freeway overpass near my credit union branch that’s been underway for about a year now, and I wonder why it’s not finished yet. Most times lately when I pass the turn-around, construction equipment sits idle, no sign of life anywhere. This can be frustrating, but I try to be mature about things like this, and not let my frustration turn into unproductive, useless anger.
I’m not in the highway construction business, but I had enough indirect contact with it earlier in my professional life that I suspect this kind of situation is a result of scheduling issues, or maybe budgetary considerations. The particular turn-around in question is part of a much larger highway project, so maybe the turn-around is on hold until some connecting piece of the project is finished. And it is certainly not the workers’ fault, so it would be totally unfair to be hostile toward them in any way.
(By the way, turn-arounds are really wonderful things, allowing vehicles going from an access road to its opposite-direction counterpart to avoid waiting through traffic lights! They don’t exist everywhere, but they should!)
Editor’s notes: 1) Colorado does not have those turn-arounds, and we wish they did! 2) Bill took the photo at the road construction site mentioned in this post.
Treat your body like…
…it belongs to someone you love.
Self-destructive behaviors abound. (And I’m far from perfect.) But I love this saying – how often do we treat our bodies like we love ourselves? Even more important, how often do we treat others better than ourselves? (See here.)
If we truly followed that saying, would we shop at Whole Foods to pick up food for that homeless person we see on the corner on our way to the office?
(Thanks to Whole Foods for their store-window poster.)
The problem of where they should live
Places like Aspen and Breckenridge have a problem: people who work there can’t live anywhere close.
Jonathan Thompson wrote an article about this in The Denver Post (link). He outlines the problem far better than I can – and backs it up with good research.
But Jonathan did not propose any solutions. I will.
Part-time residents in such places should pay a tax to build affordable housing in close proximity. That tax should be based on the amount of time they don’t live there. In other words, if someone lives in their vacation home just three weekends a year, their tax would be higher than someone who lives there year-round. Or than someone who rents out their vacation home during the time they’re not there.
I know this is the kind of post that many read and take issue with. I’m turning off comments for this post only, as it’s one of those things where if you believe differently, I can’t convince you of my point – and vice-versa.
p.s. I love Aspen. And Breckenridge. And their competition. I took the photo above during a brief visit in 2007. That’s the airport just outside Aspen, which has a greater density of Learjets than any other airport in the USA. (That is not a statistic I can back up.)
What kind of light are you letting into your life?
The tiles in our bathroom change in color and shadow depth during the course of every day. In the same way, my mood changes, depending on what is happening outside of me.
My mood sometimes changes due to inside forces. I let my response to events drag me down. Other times, I am in a strong place and am almost immune to difficult situations.
But inside is affected by outside. The voices I allow myself to hear affect the way I deal with life. If I’m always listening to negativity, I will tend to be negative. Positivity leads to being positive.
But false messages of either type never have a good effect. Truth is always the best thing, even if it hurts. (However, we do not always need to tell everyone everything.)
Who are you listening to today?
Sad to see them go
Another local business died. After 31 years, Arapahoe Cyclery closed their doors. Mike and Greg were amazing mechanics, nice guys, and a pleasure to do business with.
What’s sad is that I didn’t get the opportunity to say goodbye. Since we’re in the depths of snowy weather, I hadn’t been through their doors in a few months. I’m hoping I’ll run into one of them at some point, so I can share my pain at the loss.
Rather than go into a long rant about why it’s good to give business to your local independent shops, I’ll just ask you to try to do that when you can.
By the way, the sign is from the same plaza the bike shop was in. It was for an auto parts store that closed down within the last year. My hopes aren’t too high for the new fitness center that recently opened.
Slow Down
I’ve discovered the joys of using a fountain pen. It gives me a unique sense of pleasure to feel the pen tip moving across the paper. The paper’s texture enters my brain in a way it never could if I was using my super-smooth ball-point pen.
My sister and her family raise chickens. Sure, it takes a lot more work to keep those birds happy compared to simply buying eggs at their local supermarket. I am sure that the eggs taste better – and that their kids are learning responsibility in a way that schoolwork alone could never do.
The book Words Onscreen (by Naomi Baron) advocates moving away from electronic books – and back to the old paper variety. At least one of the reasons is that printed typography can be better. I’m not sure I am willing to ditch my old Kindle, but it’s worth considering.
Walking or riding a bike to get somewhere takes a lot more time. Time is money, so it can be expensive too. But you’ll smell the roses along the way.
Brewing coffee with a French press takes longer than an electric drip machine. But I like the taste better.
I’ve started sending old postcards, by snailmail, to friends. I like using my fountain pen and making that small analog connection with humans. (Who doesn’t like to get something in the mail?) If you’d like to get a free postcard, send an email to me (with your address) at phmerrill at gmail dot com. Apologies, but if you live outside the USA, I can’t afford the postage – about four times more!
The photograph was taken by my daughter Rachel.
Tension
Tension can make or break us. Too much tension can ruin a relationship. Too little tension can bring on depression.
We are naturally drawn to seek tension, because it’s healthy. But we are also repelled by situations that cause too much tension.
We all fall in a spectrum of desire too much or too little tension.
Benoît Lecomte plans to swim across the Pacific Ocean. (He has already crossed the Atlantic.) Mr. Lecomte is seeking a huge amount of personal tension. I am not sure why he is seeking such levels of pain. He will either receive the fame that comes with being the first to complete such a feat – or he may lose his life. I appreciate how people like Benoît push the boundaries of humans accomplishment.
At the other end of the tension spectrum is someone I knew who died for lack of tension. They refused to exercise to the point of losing most physical capabilities. They insisted on their own way by refusing healthy choices, some of which resulted in their eventual death. Their driving motivation was to avoid pain.
You most likely fall somewhere in the middle. My struggle is not judging people at either extreme.
Another struggle I face is pushing myself from the complacent end of the spectrum toward the middle. I know that I need more tension, like in the area of exercise. In some areas of life, I need less tension.
Balance is elusive.
Dreams
“Dreams” often mean “desires” or “hopes” – or if we are serious with our intentions, “plans.”
Today I’ll refer to “dreams” in terms of what happens when we’re asleep.
I love dreams – at least most of the time. It’s fascinating to see how our brains mash up random bits of our past experiences with what’s going on in our lives.
My wife, daughter and I often ask each other first thing in the morning, “Did you dream anything?” It’s a fun way to start the day.
Lately I’ve been having a lot of dreams related to my job – the projects I’m spending my days working on. Sometimes those dreams are just variations on what is really happening and other times they go in random weird directions. A few weeks back I dreamed that I needed to bake several egg dishes and write down the recipes. (I’ve never been much of a cook.)
My favorite dream of the last several months was one that featured my mom. She passed away more than five years ago. In this dream, she talked with me, and it was very soothing. The part of my brain that was still rooted in reality knew that she was gone, but she came back for just a little while. It was really nice.
Have you had any good dreams lately?
Change is not always better
I very much love Apple products. One of the thorns in my side is spending my 8-to-5 on a Windows 7-based laptop. It works fine, but I very much miss using a Mac. (And changing back to a Mac at home messes with my head.)
Like every forward-facing company, Apple is always changing things. The latest computer operating system, Yosemite, has some significant improvements. But the new system-wide typeface is harder for my non-assisted eyes to read. The Helvetica-like “6” looks too much like an “8.”
If we could pick and choose what gets changed in our lives, that would make us God. But we can’t, so I’m hoping the not-fun-changes will make us stronger.
Footnotes:
- There are some ways Windows is better. One good aspect is having both a delete key and a backspace key.
- If you have a minute, in the comments, share a change you experienced that provided both good and bad results.
- My Mac starts up much faster with Yosemite. (Your results may vary.)
