Here, Now

Last night and this morning on way way home from and to work I listened to an episode of the Tim Ferris podcast by ex-US Navy SEAL and now leadership consultant Jocko Willink. I first came across Willink a year or two back through his book ‘Extreme Ownership’ in which he draws out leadership lessons from his time as a SEAL commander in Iraq (in particular). The basic idea of Extreme Ownership is that when you have a problem to solve you have to completely own it and focus your attention solely on what you can do to resolve it rather than looking to blame others or the circumstances or to look for solutions from others. It’s an idea I like and one that is very much in tune with the Stoic philosophy of focusing only on things that are in your control (or which you have some influence over) and not wasting time and effort worrying about things which you cannot influence. Stephen Covey calls this your ‘Circle of Influence’ as opposed to your ‘Circle of Concern’.

Anyway, in the podcast Willink introduces some of the material in his new book on ‘Discipline’. Much of the podcast involve Willink talking about his training regimes and about martial arts. Whilst there was some content of interest here I found this to be not especially interesting or useful because it is very obvious that what he regards as being beginner level is WAY above the level that a mere mortal could manage (e.g. An exercise routine that involves doing 100 of any kind of exercise such as pull-ups in one go is well beyond most people, let alone when that is only small piece of an overall routine!). But there were some elements that I found more applicable. Willink talks about the importance of getting up early and gives a blue print for how to achieve this – basically 1) go to bed earlier and 2) work hard during the day so that you get really tired and have no trouble going to be early! This might sound like trite advice, but really, when it comes down to it, there is obvious truth in what he suggests and any attempt to make things more complicated is probably just an attempt to get out of rising early in the first place.

In a similar fashion, Willink has some extremely simple advice about making a change in life or getting started on something. Listening to him speak it is pretty obvious that he is not the sort of person who you would suffer procrastination as an excuse for not achieving something. He cautions against over-thinking things, doing too much research, reading about what you want to do etc. and again, in a definite nod to the Stoic approach, urges ACTION. He answers two questions ‘where should I start?’ and  ‘when should I start?’ both of which can easily derail someone who proscrastinates in the simplest possioble manner…

Where should I start?

HERE

When should I start?

NOW

I have copied these words onto post-it notes which are now stuck on the top of my computer monitor to provide a continual kick up the backside from Jocko:

That’s it for today – I’ve got work to get on with!

Rice Pudding

I have always liked rice pudding, whether it be the kind you buy in tins in shops (i.e. Ambrosia Rice Pudding) or whether the kind that my mother used to make when I was a kid. My memory of the home-made kind is unspecific but definite – the taste, the texture, the brown and crispy skin that I remember not liking particularly. My thoughts of the tinned kind revolve mostly around eating it for breakfast almost every day of a three week cycle touring trip around Ireland with my friend James in the late summer of our first year at university (1984). More recently, tinned rice pudding (or the same product in small plastic pots) has been an occasional food at homes when hunger pangs have struck or when I have felt in need of sustenance after a long run. I like tinned rice pudding but it’s not the same as the home-made kind and for years I have meant to make some (having never made it before). A few years ago I got as far as buying a packet of pudding rice, but that sat in the kitchen cupboard unopened until the use by date was well gone and the rubbish bin became its home…

Gripped by a new desire to make rice pudding that came from I know not where, on Saturday I popped to the local supermarket and bought some rice and amazingly, given my extreme talent for thinking about doing things but not actually doing them, at about 5pm I set to work. First, the rice was added to milk and left to stand for 30 minutes. Then, a small amount of caster sugar added (poison alert…) and finally a little nutmeg sprinkled on the top and the mix put into the oven. The recipe I was following suggested a time of 2-2.5 hours at 130 degrees would do the job but by mid evening it was clear that a bit more energy was needed and so the oven temperature went up to 150 degrees and by about 8:30pm the finished pudding came out. Here is proof, albeit rather blurry proof:


I’m pleased to be able to report that my rice pudding was absolutely delicious, both straight out of the oven on Saturday evening and, again, cold on Sunday – just as I remembered it only this time I quite liked the skin. There is absolutely no way that it will be years before I make rice pudding again. In fact, given that I hardly made a dent on the bag of rice I reckon it could be just days until I get busy in the kitchen again.

Flashman on the March (George MacDonald Fraser)

A couple of nights back I finished reading George McDonald Fraser’s 12th and last written novel in the Flashman series – Flashman and the March. This one covers the period 1867-68 and finds Flashman embroiled in the rescue of British hostages from the mad King Theodore in Abyssinia. In typical Flashman style the plot involves him in a series of scrapes out of which he always comes up smelling of roses having apparently put the needs of Queen and country before his own safety and completed various heroic deeds. The truth is, of course, that Flashman is a bit of a coward who always looks to save his own skin but somehow manages to bring about circumstances where others believe he has been selfless and heroic. Along the way Flashman always has at least one encounter with a powerful female character who, how can I put this, falls victim to his physical charms and this book is no exception.

I found Flashman on the March to be one of the weakest of the Flashman series. There simply isn’t enough action or complexity to the plot. Flashman goes on a long journey, meets woman companion (etc.), escapes from danger, falls into danger again, escapes, falls into more danger etc. etc. until eventually in the final battle everything resolves itself in the way that you know it always will and Flashman’s reputation is enhanced even further. Overall, this adventure is just a bit boring.

I now have only one more Flashman novel to read to complete the entire series, which spans his adventures from 1839 through to 1894. This is Flashman and the Tiger (the 11th title written) and is split into three parts including a final part, the actual Flashman and the Tiger story itself, which brings in Sherlock Holmes as a character which sounds like an interesting twist. Judging by the rate I have been getting through this series, alternating titles with all the other random books and fictional series that I am working through, I should be reading that one in perhaps 18-24 months time.

What my Fortune Cookie said

Yesterday was my 52nd birthday and to make things easy we decided to order take-away Chinese food. For a bit of fun I threw some Fortune Cookies into the online basket when I ordered – at 20p each and with four of us eating it was hardly the most extravagant act of my life.

Once we had devoured the main food, and boy did I devour far too much of it, we broke open the Fortune Cookies. I picked the one that had a green wrapper. I always pick green things when there is a choice out of allegiance to my football team, Plymouth Argyle. Anyway, the message in my Fortune Cookie was “Many successes will accompany you this year” which certainly seemed appropriate wording on my birthday. It should be noted here that the other three Fortune Cookie messages, delivered to my wife, daughter and her boyfriend were definitely NOT as appropriate. So I am now looking forward to the promised ‘many successes’. Notably, the slip of paper in the cookie also listed a set of six ‘Lucky Numbers’. I am not going to write these numbers down here but I AM going to buy a ticket for the National Lottery draw this evening. Wouldn’t it just be incredibly spooky if I end up winning the jackpot!

Simplify

I was musing this morning…

[aside: Is ‘musing’ a verb? Is it actually possible ‘to muse’? I probably mean that I was thinking this morning but ‘thinking’ doesn’t really capture the somewhat day-dreamy type of thinking where I let my thoughts ramble playfully wherever they choose, settling occasionally for a few moments before setting off again like a butterfly flittering between flowers. So, regardless of whether ‘to muse’ is a valid verb in this context, that is what I was doing.]
… Anyway, I was musing this morning and settled on the word ‘Simplify’. I think it absolutely captures the essence of what I need to do as much as I possibly can. I suspect that pretty much every thing that I am involved with, every system or process I use, every group of possessions I own, every place I utilise could benefit from being simplified. I do try to keep things simple. I like to think of myself as a tidy and uncluttered person (or at least a person who would like to be tidy and uncluttered). But I am very conscious that there is so much stuff – stuff I own, stuff I interact with, stuff I have to do, stuff I want to do, stuff I think I should do, stuff I might do if I ever get round to it. Stuff, stuff, stuff. It all needs a good prune. Hack it down, thin it out, clear the decks, get rid. Simplify.

Gratitude

Over the last two or three years I have read/heard many times that keeping some kind of ‘gratitude journal’ is supposed to deliver a boost to your happiness/contentedness. The basic idea is to spend a few minutes at the end of each day reflecting on the hours just gone and identifying a small number of things (e.g. three) that you are grateful for. It makes sense that by reminding yourself of such things on a regular basis you will end up with a generally more positive attitude – highlighting and acknowledging the good stuff that has happened or reasons to be cheerful.

I already keep a small journal of sorts. Each night before I go to sleep I make a note of the key events of the day by just writing one or two words to describe the event and drawing a little symbol or icon to represent it. For example, I have different icons for work (two gears meshed together), reading (an open book), watching a film (movie camera), watching TV (TV set), drinking coffee (cup), walking (stick man), listening to a podcast or music (head with earphones). I should add photos of a page or two to this post sometime to illiustrate what I mean (more likely I will write a separate entry about my notebook habits).

For the last week, I have been adding an extra section at the bottom of each day of this journal headed “Grateful for” with a three item list below populated by things I am grateful for from that day. I thought this would be easy. It hasn’t been. When I reflect back on my day each evening I find it surprisingly difficult to come up with items for my ‘grateful for’ list. It is NOT because everything is bad or because I am ungrateful wretch, at least I hope it is not. Rather, I am just finding it hard to identify anything significant or different each day. For example, if I look back on today’s activity so far (I am writing this at work before I leave for home) I can only come up with things like the fact that my schedule hasn’t been too hectic today or that I had egg sandwiches at lunchtime. Things like this just seem too trivial to acknowledge, but try as I might, I can’t pull out anything more significant. I am not sure what to make of this. Perhaps the whole point of keeping a gratitude journal is to focus the mind on small things that would otherwise go unnoticed; to remind yourself that even on a mundane, ordinary day, small and unspectacular things happen that provide a boost to life. I hope so.

1+1=0 leading to chicken curry (or something)

No, I don’t have a clue what the title of this post means either. It’s based on the scribbles on a flipchart left in the classroom I was teaching in this morning. Here is a photo of the actual flipchart page, just in case you think I am simply going insane…

Presumably this means something to somebody but I’m darned if I can work out what, or who. Bear in mind this is from a university classroom. Any thoughts? Have I missed something obvious?

Today I saw a weasel

Today was an odd day. It ought to have been an ordinary day at work, but instead, I had to drive my younger daughter back to her University house in Southampton after she had a spell at home recovering from a nasty bout of illness. This meant a drive of 3.5-4 hours each way including rest/coffee breaks with a short spell tag the house helping her settle back in (and buying some food in the supermarket). Now I am home, replenished by a microwave chicken jal frezi curry, but feeling a bit zonked out and looking forward to an evening of mindless television watching (‘Eat Well For Less’, ‘The Apprentice’). However, the day had one really great element – on the way to Southampton, somewhere in the middle of the journey, in Dorset, one of these little fellows (or fellowesses) sprinted across the road in front of us, fortunately making it all the way to the other side intact:

I am wracking my brain, and can only recall one clear memory of having seen a weasel before, years and years ago whilst cycle touring. On that occasion I got a better view as I was closer and moving more slowly but I still got a real thrill from seeing today’s sprinting weasel flash across the road in front of me. Sadly, I have no way of knowing whether he/she went ‘pop’!

‘Less but Better’ – Essentialism (Greg McKeown)

After listening to an Art of Manliness podcast interview with Greg McKeown last week I went straight ahead and listened to the audiobook version of his work ‘Essentialism’. The basic idea of Essentialism is that it is a mindset in which you seek extreme clarity on where/how you can make your best contribution in life and then focus ruthlessly on paring back activity that does not align with this goal. The underlying principle is one of ‘less but better’. McKeown argues that there is an increasing tendency for people to adopt a non-essentialist mindset by default and that it is necessary to actively combat this by shifting toward Essentialism as a way of life.

There were two particular elements of Essentialism that struck a chord with me. First, there was the ‘less is better’ principle. I think it is hard to argue against this but very easy to slip into a mode of working which runs counter to it. ‘Less is better’ works for me because it is expressed so simply but captures a lot (so it is, itself, a great example of less is better!). Secondly, I liked the idea that you should look for your ‘essential intention’ and see this as one decision made now that saves you from one thousand future decisions. However, I do struggle to come up with one essential intention that covers every aspect of my work/life and think it would probably work better or be more useful to find several complementary essential intentions for the various roles that I have (bear in mind that my work is very much multi-faceted – a kind of portfolio job within a job). Overall, I found that Essentialism matched a lot of principles that I have been trying to adopt – doing things deliberately rather than accidentally, simplifying things as much as possible, trying to mono-task and remain in the moment as much as possible etc.

Whilst I enjoyed the book, I did feel that it became a bit confused as it went along. There were quite a few chapters that were not so much about Essentialism but, rather, seemed more like general productivity, self-management advice and I got the impression that McKeown was really just writing a general book about improving personal productivity but used the neat idea of Essentialism to hang things off even when the fit was not so good. I suppose the difficulty was that a book that explains ‘less is better’ really only needs to be very short and, so, would be unlikely to be very sellable.

“I am a Crazy, Stupid Person”

On my walk into work this morning, as I passed a mum and her young son (presumably) coming the other way, I heard the lad, who must have been about 5 years old, proudly and loudly say: “I am a crazy, stupid person”. To my ears, he didn’t say this in a negative way implying that being crazy was bad or that he was stupid in the sense of being ‘thick’ but, rather, he seemed to say it in an excited and celebratory way. The message I heard was more like “I’m a bit bonkers and isn’t that fun?!”.

Now isn’t “I’m a bit bonkers and isn’t that fun?!” a great philosophy of life for a 5 year old? In fact, isn’t it a great philosophy of life for all of us? Go forth and be crazy, stupid, bonkers or a little mad at times. I think the world will be a better place for it…