Sunday, December 19, 2010

Eagle Mother

Eagle Mother, I feel you watching them.

You watch them soaring higher in ever-widening circles, now at times disappearing against the glare of a harsh blue sky.  You see them vanish, reappear, then vanish again.  You call to them, but they don’t hear.  Their sight rests elsewhere;  they can see things you cannot see, hear the call you cannot hear.

Sometimes – far less often now – their flight seems awkward – a momentary ruffled feather in the thermal – and you remember fluffy screeching chicks with head feathers askew.  If you look closely, you can still see the awkward chicks in the powerful young adults, just as you could sometimes see in the nestlings, the soaring raptors they would become.

A pivot mishandled, and you want to fly after them, but that would only slow them down.  You who would have killed or died to protect them – they no longer need you, Eagle Mother.  They are stronger and faster than you will ever be again.  What will you do with all the love you used to blanket them with?  You feel so full with it that you could burst.  Just as you did when you first saw them.

Eagle Mother, you know I feel the call of the wind once again.  My heart feels young, like theirs.  Will I too soar in disappearing circles?  If you fly with me, will your chicks return and find their nest decaying, dead, deserted?

Eagle Mother, you hope some day when their lives are full and complete, they will remember.  They will remember she who gave them life, and who gave her life to them completely.  And they will return to show you their catch, their brides, or their own fuzzy chicks.  And they will bear you up into that infinite blue sky, higher than you can go alone.  You want to be here when that day arrives.  Your heart feels ripped asunder.

And the wind is calling me once again.  Fly with me.  Eagle Mother.


 - For C.



Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Small Meditation on a Big Marriage

Last Friday was my 28th anniversary – of my wedding to an inspiring and wonderful woman. We spent the day apart. Instead I was diving into a weekend workshop on self-expression, knowing that my efforts there were fully supported on the home front.

Sharing about my marriage with the other participants and seeing how it moved them, I was again reminded how blessed I am to be in such a loving relationship.

So many people tell me that what my wife and I have is rare, almost extinct. That may be. But another anniversary last weekend reminded me of other examples – right in my own back yard.

Two years ago last Saturday my beloved mother passed away at the age of 84. When I was going through her effects, I found, framed and faded and hanging on the wall, an old vinyl 78 recording of “their song”. Sixty-five years earlier, Mom and Dad had courted to the musical poetry of “All the Things You Are” by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II.

I knew this of course. On their 40th anniversary, we had gathered friends and family in an intimate banquet room, where my own wife and I surprised and delighted my parents with our wavering a-cappella rendition of the Kern classic.

My parents remained “an item” for over sixty years including the time of their courtship. Their friends still thought of them as they did when they were first “going steady”. They were smitten with each other their whole life through. My brother used to say that if you looked up the definition of “devoted” in an illustrated dictionary, you’d see a picture of Dad. He wasn’t far wrong.

After Dad passed away, Mom continued to live her life as the vibrant woman she was. She was lively and healthy, involved in numerous activities, a fantastic mother, mother-in-law, grandparent – and a wonderful friend to many. She helped many of her peers deal with the advancing years, and when she needed a little more action, she hung out with new friends in the younger set.

Yet vibrant and alive as she was, half of her was no longer with us – the “Dad half”. That was our daily experience of Mom for the next six and half years. When Mom learned that her time with us was running out, sad as she was to be leaving us, she was – I believe – very happy to be “following Dad”. She told us many times how her lifelong love affair with Dad had made her life as full as any person could wish for, and that she was completely satisfied with how her life had turned out. I doubt I will ever have the privilege of witnessing another spirit whose final days were as full and serene.

When the time came to find a home for Mom’s ashes, the answer came strong and unbidden to me and my siblings. So a few weeks later, the three of us gathered around Dad’s grave on a chilly afternoon, where we sprinkled Mom’s ashes over it – in the warm care of Dad’s loving arms. Our three loving spouses were there with us in every way: a most fitting sendoff to a love that had begun more than sixty-five years earlier. I like to think it’s a story that will be repeated. More than once.

(Dedicated to my brother and sister, and our three loving spouses. To those who believe in love. And of course, to Mom and Dad.)

References

Sunday, June 20, 2010

The Wondrous Tapestry of Life

I’ve been thinking about opportunities.

My new bucket list is overflowing with them.  Since I inaugurated the list this year, I’ve confronted several future opportunities, moved them into the present, seized them, savoured them, and celebrated them.  But where do these opportunities go when I’ve ‘ticked them off’?

Then there are the missed opportunities:  those fleeting instants where a word was not spoken, an action not taken.  I liken them to dropped stitches in the tapestry of life.  But what about the tapestry itself?

Over recent weeks, I’ve spent some time admiring my tapestry.  Not focusing on the dropped stitches, but examining the warp and woof of the fabric itself:  the colours and threads that would have been opportunities on bucket lists gone by.

It’s enlightening.

We’re used to displaying our accomplishments for the eye of someone else we’re trying to impress:  be it a college application, a resume sent to a prospective employer, an immigration form, a list of accomplishments for the voters in a club, or in a country.  We apply a filter, “What would they think noteworthy?”  We inflate a few descriptions.

But what if we asked, “What has impressed me about my life so far?  What has made it meaningful and memorable, to me?  Without magnifying it, but just as it was.”  We might even imagine what memories would pass before us if life were ending now.

Maintaining that perspective has been a challenge.  Sometimes I reverted to viewing my memories and accomplishments as I imagined others might see them.  But when I could really let my tapestry glow before my eyes, when I could just sit still and gaze at it for a few minutes, it gave me new insights on what was really important to me now – and what might be worth striving for in the future.

It’s an unexpected mixture of patterns and colours, that tapestry.  There are opportunities that I chose, and some that chose me.  Some of those didn’t look like opportunities at the time.  Some took decades to bring to fruition; others came and went in a heartbeat.  Some might look impressive to others.  Some have meaning only to me.  There are places where the colours are as vivid as the day I lived them.  Other regions are so faded that I can no longer make out the design – not today, anyway.  Another day, I expect to see whole patterns that I’ve yet to notice.

In a recent article, Steve Pavlina said, “If you want to know where your current path is taking you, look to your past.”  He got me thinking.  My past has been pretty amazing.  If my future holds more like that, I’m up for it.

What did I learn from this exercise?  Life is good – the tapestry is worth weaving.  I can try to drop fewer stitches:  speak those words, take that action.  I can investigate new colours, plan new designs:  add something exciting to that bucket list.

And sometimes I just need to hang the fabric on the wall and let it brighten the room.

References

·        The Past DOES Equal the Future” by Steve Pavlina
·        My Bucket List (when it was four weeks old)

101 Things that have made Life so-far worth Living

I prepared the following list while thinking about my Bucket List, and the tapestry of my life.  It became the grist for my article, “The Wondrous Tapestry of Life”.  The original idea for this exercise came from reading "50 Things I’ve Already Done" by Marelisa Fábrega.  (Marelisa also had some of the best advice on creating a bucket list.)
The list is far from complete.  New items are still being added.  But these items made an impression:
  • Was born to loving parents, in an extended family with a rich sense of its history, tales and characters.  My extended family has been a key part of my life ever since.
  • Can remember countless memories of being awed by the world around me – by clouds roiling in the sky, or the airplane sailing through them;  of the sounds of insects on a summer day, or a grandfather clock’s ticking competing with the winter rains outside.
  • At the age of nine, I earned my first real money selling tropical fish I'd raised to the nearby 15-cent store – now called a dollar store, adjusting for inflation.
  • Hiked to the incredible Skookum Chuck tidal rapids, before there was a park or trail
  • Had many other adventures as a kid, including sailing down the beach on a raft powered by a sheet, sending a fish up in a kite – and releasing it alive, and constructing a candle-powered hot-air balloon – and not burning down the forest.
  • Together with cousins, built several kids’ forts, even one with a secret room, accessed by an underground passage.
  • Traveled across North America several times by both train and car, including via the unpaved Alaska Highway to Whitehorse and beyond.
  • Wrote my first computer program – in 1966 – and co-produced an eight-minute movie dramatization of the dangers of excessive automation, at the age of 15.
  • Managed to place second out of almost 6000 in a high-school mathematics contest, and received honourable mention in a second one
  • Spent 10 long and glorious childhood summers in a beachfront cottage on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast – what a wonderful opportunity to live in a place that moved me.
  • Visited the World’s Fair in 1967.
  • As a youth myself, helped create and run a youth-based “coffee house” with weekly entertainment such as poetry readings and local folk-singers.
  • Crossed a giant underground lake by boat
  • Ran away from high-school to “join a monastery in Argentina”, ... but returned to graduate after getting as far as the Caribbean.
  • Gave up TV in my teens, and have never really watched it since.  We raised our kids without it.
  • Volunteered as a DJ on a campus radio station, playing classical and world music – in the 60s.
  • Once went over five days with no food and only water, just to see what it was like.  Now, I know.
  • Searched for uranium in the muskeg of the Far North in the company of a grizzled old prospector full of tall tales.
  • Survived being stranded overnight and underdressed on a large frozen lake in subzero temperatures, while the Aurora Borealis danced enticingly overhead – a night I will never forget.
  • Fell through lake ice and lived to tell of it.
  • Flew day after day in a door-less helicopter with a crazy ex-recon pilot who still thought he was flying over the jungles of Vietnam.
  • Survived being trapped by a forest fire for two days in a small remote bush camp full of dynamite and jet fuel.  The fuel, our little camp and its denizens were saved by our relentless campaign against the sparks that blew over and rained down on us in the smoke.
  • Flew as “bombardier” in the classic Beaver seaplane, water-bombing other forest fires.
  • Worked as an automobile test-driver.
  • Got the highest undergrad average in my university.  Wrote the first 100% paper ever in my physics course, earning a personal letter from the prof.
  • Sang tenor in a German folk choir -- “Ein Jaeger aus Kurpfalz, der reitet durch den gruenen Wald, ...”
  • Worked a summer as a German-speaking waiter in a Bavarian guest-house, and didn't speak English all summer (except to assist with two medical emergencies).  One highlight was being mistaken for a “Bavarian” by a group of German diners.
  • Went to Italy for lunch (but only from Germany.)
  • Stood almost alone on the windswept podium of Hitler's reviled stadium in Nuremberg, and looked out over the vast greyness.
  • Crossed the Berlin Wall at “Checkpoint Charlie” – both ways – at the height of the Cold War, ... after spending the night before staring over the Wall while an escaped border guard told me how hard it was to get over.  (After the Wall came down, I named one of my sons after Freedom.)
  • Triumphed over the instructor in a contest to have a computer calculate the most prime numbers in the least amount of time.
  • Worked in the lab at a sewage treatment facility, and in an oil refinery – both were fascinating.
  • Was invited to create and teach an introduction to Austrian economics to activists in a federal political party.
  • Ran for Federal Member of Parliament – most unsuccessfully, likely for the best – and twice more for provincial representative, also with minimal success.  Have been interviewed on national TV on this and several other occasions.
  • Danced the samba in the street with 1.5 million Brazilians in Rio's carnival – dressed as the bearded lady, and protected by two enthusiastic young women.
  • Flew through the edge of a tornado while on a commercial flight.  There were many praying that day.
  • Married a  wonderful woman who didn't speak English and who I met while traveling – and learned her language over the next six years.
  • Became president of a great Toastmasters club.
  • Planted several thousand trees while living on a country acreage, and then went back to see the forest groves 30 years later.
  • Learned to snow-ski, water-ski, cross-country ski, snowshoe, ride a snowmobile, drive a half-track, paddle a kayak and canoe, row a skiff as well as a dinghy, sail, sailboard, body-surf, forecast the weather, cook from scratch, play chess, and play the piano, though perhaps none of them all that well – but the wonder is that I did them at all.
  • Managed the research and development operations of an early pioneer in minicomputers.
  • Traveled to another country to participate in a self-development group run by a psychologist I admired.
  • Worked with top-notch teams on a wide range of computer applications including application development platforms, communications processors, computer language development, geophysics, internet applications & virtual communities, multilingual systems, musical synthesizers, negotiation & game theory, operating systems, optimization problems, physics research, and processor emulation.
  • Rewrote one company's floating-point emulator to surpass the benchmarks for IBM's version, many times over – always fun to tweak a giant’s nose, even if they giant doesn’t notice.
  • Immigrated to Australia – then moved back across the world a few years later.
  • Saw penguins in the wild, though not yet in Antarctica.
  • Drove across the Nullarbor Plain en route from Sydney to Perth, Australia.
  • Camped in below-zero weather and drove through a blizzard in Australia’s Snowy Mountains.
  • Drove around Tasmania and the South Island of New Zealand, both places that seemed like the “end of the world” in a delicious sort of way.
  • Lived for several years on Narabeen surf beach in Australia, and routinely boogie-boarded before breakfast.
  • Learned to swim the butterfly stroke in my 30s, and then placed in the state Masters' games.
  • Did the 28-day Outward Bound course in the Queensland rainforest – with a special “old guy” dispensation – and climbed the highest mountain in the State.
  • Spent three days and nights totally alone and stranded on a nameless tropical island in the Coral Sea, fishing like Friday in the hot sun to supplement my ration of flour and oranges.
  • Saw Mozart's Magic Flute in the Sydney Opera House.
  • Was part of the team that created the world’s first online banking system to run entirely on PCs – even before Windows 3.1.
  • Planted a whole field of wildflowers – and my old neighbours still pick them.
  • Was an active participant with my wife in the births of both of our sons.  I can still remember singing to them face-to-face for the first time.
  • Created a home on a wooded acreage on a small island community, and lived there with my family for several years.
  • Sailed on a three-masted tall ship between the islands of the Caribbean.
  • Went scuba diving on a reef in the British Virgin Islands.
  • Have been proud to be independent and not an unwelcome financial burden on my fellow citizens – was the subject of a nationwide editorial for my efforts over many years to avoid taking money from the government.
  • Founded an organization working for political reform and made in-person submissions to government committees;  have been a member, supporter and occasional officer in a dozen or more similar organizations supporting peace and individual liberty around the world.  Have underwritten a large part of the founder’s salary on more than one occasion.
  • Have hosted many interesting travelers from around the world, including one young man from Russia who claimed to have brought Boris Yeltsin a satellite phone during a standoff with the Soviet army.
  • Helped develop a 750-acre island recreation property, including resolving the problem of allocating individual lots among almost a score of partners.
  • Co-founded and helped run a successful Internet consulting company for almost ten years.  Helped several clients achieve their business dreams.
  • Helped build and run the technology for the world's largest Internet job board for the travel and tourism industry
  • Stood naked in the sun with arms outstretched at the top of my island acreage – now that was a rush!
  • Played frisbee on Grande Saline beach on St. Barths.
  • Wrote an unpublished short story which earned me a dinner invite with an award-winning author.
  • Designed and commissioned a waterfront cottage on 65 forested acres on an unserviced island, and summered there with my family for seven years.
  • Owned and operated a “classic” cabin cruiser.
  • Helped produce one of the early Internet virtual communities – in the days long before Web 2.0.
  • Ran one of Canada’s most extensive anti-war Internet sites during NATO’s 1999 war on Serbia.  Mentored and assisted other international peace & freedom sites.
  • Became conversant in three foreign languages:  German, Portuguese, Spanish.
  • Took the family – our boys aged nine and 12 – on a half-year meandering adventure around the back roads of Costa Rica.
  • Zip-lined through a Costa Rican forest, mimicking the flight of the toucan.
  • White-water rafted down a Class Four Costa Rican river with my nine-year-old son – he still thinks we were crazy, … and maybe we were.  (I thought the road trip home was more dangerous.)
  • Was swarmed and chased by African killer bees along with my young sons in a mangrove swamp – and we all escaped relatively unscathed.
  • Snorkeled with turtles, stingrays, octopus, barracudas, monk seals, and a bazillion fish.
  • Have seen in the wild:  grizzly bears, a wolf pack, moose, peccaries, crocodiles, howler monkeys, cassowaries, poison-dart frogs, the great green macaw, the beautiful quetzal, kangaroos, goannas & iguanas, humpback whales, and a ton of other animals.
  • Stood on recent lava flows and watched the eruption of two of the most active volcanoes in the world, Costa Rica's Mt. Arenal and Hawaii's Mt. Kilauea.
  • Had an article on reactions to “September 11” published on a well-regarded anti-war site, republished by Pravda Online, with follow-up on talk radio in Kentucky.
  • Played an active role in parenting our two boys.  Together we made life work so that we were always available to them.
  • Participated in running a Montessori school for 15 years, so that my children could have an education that also excited me
  • Was invited by a well-known author to help review a parenting book in progress.
  • Was present at the dignified and peaceful deaths of each of my parents – was lucky enough to be impressed with how they lived their lives, even to the end.
  • Saved the life of at least one someone close to me.
  • Learned to manage my own chronic back problems, and to cope with tinnitus.
  • Have come close to achieving financial independence.  Along the way, have worked and invested in several start-ups, lost money on most, traded stock options and fielded margin calls, got into debt and learned how to get out and stay out.
  • Took salsa and Latin percussion lessons in private homes in Santiago de Cuba.
  • Cycled a beautiful stretch of British Columbia's Kettle Valley rail, and a number of other rides.
  • Watched wild killer whales dive under our kayaks from only a few feet away – the boys got the closest view as the orcas stared up at them from under the icy water.
  • Sailed on a yacht between a number of Greek Islands.
  • Visited the ruins of the ancient Greek Island city of Delos, birthplace of Apollo.
  • Climbed the Acropolis of Athens, and a Mayan pyramid.
  • Hitched a ride on a dolphin.
  • Snorkeled in an underground cenote.
  • Participated in a great men’s group.
  • Have kept my good health long enough to have done all this, and well enough to anticipate many more adventures.  Lost 35 pounds quickly when I needed to.
  • Soared in a vivid blue sky over rivers, hills and valleys in the front of a fixed-wing glider – and didn’t even have to touch my ‘chute.
  • Visited over 400 towns and cities in 20 countries on four different continents.
  • Have read thousands of great books.  Authors that have affected me include Albert Einstein, Alexandre Dumas, Ayn Rand, Edward de Bono, Ernest Hemingway, Isaac Asimov, James P. Hogan, Jean Auel, Ludwig von Mises, Maria Montessori, Murray Rothbard, Nathaniel Branden, Rafael Sabatini, Robert Heinlein, Spider Robinson, and Victor Hugo.
  • Count myself lucky to have many friends – and a few very good friends, several of whom I’ve known for 30 years or more.
  • Had quite a few adventures too ex-rated for polite company, … and too delicious to forget.
  • Found love a few times, and True Love once.
  • Have been married to a fantastic woman for 27 years, one who did many of these things with me, and who still turns me on.  And I never settled for less.
  • Raised two young men who are now making their way in the world, and who also did a number of these things with me.  These years engendered countless other special stories, but perhaps they more properly belong in their life histories.
  • What's next? The Bucketeer's List

References

Saturday, April 17, 2010

My Left Brain takes a Mayan Holiday



Ah, to live life in vacation mode every day!  What does it take?

I explored the texture of that question on a recent trip to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

For sun-chair reading, I’d packed a copy of Jill Bolte Taylor’s My Stroke of Insight.  Neuroscientist Dr. Jill reports “from the inside” what it felt like when a massive stroke shut down the left side of her brain, and put the right side in charge.  As I understand it, the left brain manages linear reasoning and language functions;  the right brain fills a more intuitive, holistic role.  In Dr. Jill’s case, for the first eight months of her eight-year recovery, the “little voice” in her head fell silent.  Imagine!  She used her experience to reflect upon her life in general, and in particular, the relationship between her two different aspects.

Dr. Jill observed that “vacation mode” derives from the right brain.  So simple, I mused?  The question hovered over me like an iridescent Yucatan hummingbird.  Meanwhile, I did the usual holiday things.

One of my travel activities has me strike up conversations with strangers for no reason.  I dusted off my knowledge of Spanish, German and Portuguese to talk to almost anyone I found myself next to, even tried to learn a little Mayan.  Bix a bel, tz'unu'un!  What’s up, Little Hummingbird?  Yet my wife and I both found it hard to start conversations at the resort.  Our fellow vacationers seemed reluctant to connect, as if locked in their tour buses with the windows up.  I felt frustrated.  After this mood settled over me, something startling took place.

En route to climb the great Mayan pyramid at Cobá, we pulled of the road at a corner store in one of the small towns that crouch in the Yucatan interior.  We squeezed in to harvest a few nuts and chicharrones to stave of the need for a tourist-priced lunch.

I plopped a couple of bags of munchies near the cash register, while we continued to hunt for more.  Just then, a small Mayan girl of six or seven came in, chose a bag of the pork-rind snacks and took them to the cashier.  As we arrived at the counter with the rest of our purchases, I saw the store owner already totaling our bill.  The young girl stood waiting.  I sensed him directing preferential treatment toward us “gringo elders”

In my most sophisticated Spanish, I explained that she had preceded us, and that he should look after her first.  Alas, my linguistic abilities failed me.  After a couple of failed attempts followed by puzzled looks, he asked me if I meant to pay for the young girl’s purchase.  Annoyed that my communication attempt had gone so completely wrong, I shook my head and replied, “No, no!  That’s not what I was trying to say.”  Chastened into silence, I let him continue with our order, and we left the store.

While we poked around decaying ruins that afternoon, however, I had my own “micro stroke of insight.”  I saw that I had at least two valid answers to the store owner’s question, “Do you want to pay for hers too?”

My “right-wrong” linear left brain had jumped in and taken control of the situation in the store.  “No, that’s wrong.  That’s not what I was trying to say.”  End of story.

Yet his question had another valid answer, one that my less linguistically adept right brain could only whisper on a quiet trail in a Mayan jungle.  Did I want to spend sixty cents to buy chips for a cute kid who looked as if sixty cents mattered?  Did I crave a chance to make the tiniest human connection, no matter how fleeting?  Yes. I did!  Yes, I had!  Yes, I would have!  And then a wave of sadness and disappointment flooded my soul concerning opportunity missed – not just this one, but for all the little missed opportunities of a lifetime.

Fresh from Dr. Jill’s book, I supplied mental hemispheric interpretation to the event.  My number one priority on this holiday involved connecting to people, just because – I thought that a right-brain function.  Yet I’d let my linear left brain run the whole show with its need to get the Spanish right.

This reflection troubled me.  My troubling in turn shocked me.  My own stroke of insight had allowed me to glimpse how my left brain’s reaction had drowned out my right brain’s voice, leaving my life just a little less rich.  A single thread dropped from an intricate Mayan blanket.  Even after returning from Mexico, I kept brooding.  Intrigued that such a trivial event had bothered me for days, I pulled at the loose thread.

How often had I missed an opportunity like this one because I didn’t want to get something wrong?  Ba’ax ka wa’alik?  Hell-o?  Now I see how many threads I’ve dropped in the tapestry of my life. It’s a good blanket regardless and it keeps me warm, but my stroke of insight showed me that I could weave it even warmer, more colourful.  Sometimes I hush my left brain’s chatter, listening for a second right answer, a fleeting chance to make the human connection, just because.

I’ve watched myself drop a few more stitches since then.  Sometimes I’ve gone back and picked them up again.  I look forward to catching more before the tapestry runs out.  The colours brighten.

Yum bo’otik!  Thank you, Mayan sun god.


Resources

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Living Life in Vacation Mode

I've taken on a new Life Purpose.  Or should I say I've returned to an old one?

"To live life like a child:  to delight in learning something new every day, to treat each person as special, and to share myself without reserve."

One powerful way of waking myself up to this possibility is asking myself the question:  How can I live in "vacation mode" all the time?

I doubt that vacation mode is everyone's key to the Good Life, but it always has been for me.  As much as I've enjoyed the rest of life, my most exciting times have been on vacation, or planning for one, or recalling one.

For me, a vacation is not a time to lie around a pool with a drink in my hand.  I like to do things on holidays:  learn a foreign language – I'm conversant in three so far – get trained in orienteering in the Queensland rainforest – memorable! – or bike from Venice to Florence – coming up this year.

While creating my all too brief 2010 holiday plan, I took on a project to see if I could bring more of holiday mode into everyday living.  So I'm looking for the holiday differentiators:  what works on vacation, and could it work the rest of the time?  I've come up with a few so far.

Do only one good thing every day.

I learned this one a number of years ago when my wife and I took sabbaticals and spent half a year slowly wandering around Costa Rica with our two boys, then nine and twelve.  We moved base every week or three, and spent the time exploring the vicinity, largely by bus and on foot.  During our first month or two, we often planned to experience two destinations in a single outing.  Good project managers that we were, we thought we were being efficient with our time-and-motion studies.  Eventually we learned that we got more out of each excursion if we didn't plan a second stop.  Instead of keeping one eye on a watch, and sometimes missing a great opportunity because we had somewhere else to get to, we could really enjoy our single focus.  If an opportunity opened up, we were free to pursue it.  Some of our best adventures happened this way.  So we made it our holiday rule to try to do only one thing a day.  And to make it a good one.

Talk to people for no reason.

Until recently, I hadn't seen how crucial this was to holiday mode.  During day-to-day life, most of my conversations are about getting something done:  work is full of task-focused talk;  home life conversation is often about chores or finances or kids;  even interactions while out are often centered around commercial transactions.  But on holidays, I just talk to people because they're sitting next to me.  Or just to "practice my Spanish", another excuse to talk for no reason.  Even talking to my wife or my family on vacation is often richer;  we took to planning a holiday with the boys because we knew we'd end up talking more than we do at home.  Now when I'm on vacation, I make a conscious point of talking to more people more of the time for no reason.

Live with less material stuff.

I've got a great home and it's full of useful things, things that mean something to me, fascinating books, great music, computers, coffee-makers, clothes for all seasons, and even mementos of various vacations.  Still, there's something liberating about leaving it all behind.  When we went to Costa Rica, we ended our lease and put the entire contents of the house in storage.  Four large bags for four people was all we took for six months away.  Then, twice in the first two months, we shed half of it;  some we only picked up again on our way home.  For four months, we lived out of two bags, and had a great time.  Now we're going to see if we can do three weeks in Italy with only a carry-on bag each.  I feel "enlightened" just thinking about it.  There are compensations for traveling with less stuff.

Go outside even when the weather isn't cooperating.

When I'm sitting at home, and it's raining, or perhaps just cool and overcast, it's tempting to put off heading outside.  The couch beckons, ... or the computer.  On holiday, I don't let the weather keep me inside.  A vacation is too short to wait a day for the sun to shine.  Ignoring the bad weather pays off.  It's rarely as bad as you expect – and if it is, then it's bad enough to be exciting.  Like getting caught in a downpour, or fighting a gale.  Or experiencing a thunderstorm first hand, one of my favourite vacation pastimes even as a young child – when the weather was cooperating.

Travel with friends and family that you enjoy being with.

That's another holiday principle that should have been obvious.  I plan vacations with people I like.  That's one reason I love vacation time.  If I'm holidaying with strangers, I leave the plan loose enough that we could part ways if we had to.  So far, I can't recall ever needing to.  Even an obnoxious stranger can be easier to take when you're traveling with friends and family whose company you enjoy.

Have sex any time of the day.

Somehow, this seems to be more likely on a holiday.  Must be something about being open to the current moment.  Or not trying to do too much in one day.  Or having less stuff to worry about.  Or going out in the rain.  Or traveling with someone you really love being with.

So now I have my assignment.  From now until my next scheduled vacation, can I be content to do one good thing every day?  Talk to people for no reason?  Live with less stuff?  Go outside even when the weather isn't cooperating?  Spend more time with people I like?  Enjoy some afternoon delight?

Sounds like a vacation to me!



Resources

Sunday, April 11, 2010

How I Became the Listing Bucketeer


When I can stand aside from harsh self judgment, I am forced to admit I've had a successful life so far.

I'm nurtured by a fantastic relationship with an incredible woman, my wife of 27 years.  I've fathered two sons who are now young men, and who fill me with pride and joy as they begin to make their way in the world.  With my family, I've moved and traveled when and where I've wanted to, and have experienced life in several different countries.  I've had a varied career, and notwithstanding investments that fell short of the mark, financial independence is within reach.  I've had many adventures along the way:  I've run for political office, helped start a company, learned some foreign languages, developed some real estate, helped run a school, affected many lives.  I've met interesting people and made some very good friends.

Yet, I've found myself often disappointed, yearning to find that one big Mission whose accomplishment would ensure that my life had been worthwhile.  And falling short.  The job wasn't the One that would truly make a difference.  The cause I was supporting wasn't quite good enough.  Nothing quite measured up to my unassailable standards.

One day, a life coach asked me what I would do the following day, if I didn't have to worry about money, or family, or job, or other commitments.  What would I take on if I didn't each have to worry about finding a new cause, or making a difference, or doing Something Important -- with a capital "I"?

It wasn't an entirely new question, but it touched a nerve recently made raw.  After almost six decades on the planet, I resolved to start my Bucket List -- and to apply sustained effort to knocking off the items one by one.

The launch of my List pushed aside the ageing scaffolding of Importance.  For the first time since I was very young, I started to think about things I would do "just because".  No need for them to be earth-shaking, or important in anyone else's eyes, or even Important in my own eyes.  The only test for inclusion on my list was:  would I regret it if I didn't get around to this before my life was over?  Would I feel my life unlived if I could have created the opportunity, and let it slip by instead.

Starting in that moment of decision, I felt myself lifting away from some unneeded concerns.  Living became fun again.  I felt like a wide-eyed child again.  Life was good, and the world was bursting with opportunities.

My List grew slowly at first.  I didn't want to clutter my list with things I thought I should want to do, but didn't yearn for.  No "nice ideas";  no "everyone should want this."  I was careful to make sure everything I added met the requirement:  was this honestly something I would regret not doing?  A final indicator was a certain feeling of "Yes!" when something passed the test:  it had been on my unspoken list all along.  After a couple of weeks, my List had six items on it.  Two weeks later, it had grown almost sevenfold.

More exciting still was getting into action on Item Number One, something that I'd been taking no action on for years.  Pushing considerable fears aside, I went for it.  I could not have imagined what a powerful and liberating experience that would be!  But that's a story for another day.

So too is my laughing thought that my List might yet be the catalyst for Something Important.



Resources:

Here are some of the resources I found most helpful in starting my List:

The Bucketeer's List

This is my bucket list as it was after about one month from its inception.  I'm posting it primarily by way of illustration for my short article: How I Became the Listing Bucketeer.  Obviously my actual list is a never-ending work in progress, but I'm not promising to keep this version up to date.


Priority 1:
1.       [redacted to protect personal privacy] – DONE!
2.       Find my passion / discover my life's purpose – do it in a way that inspires others who are also searching – in progress!!!.
3.       Start a blog or column and post at least once a week for 5 months - restarted.
4.       Get my Conflict Resolution certificate – in progress.
And at least one item from each of the Travel Bucket – every year.

Travel Bucket:

5.       Ask in person for the keys to the city in Italy that bears my name – DONE!
6.       Climb a Mayan ruin such as Chichén Itzá or Tikal or Cobá. – DONE!
7.       Climb to Machu Picchu.
8.       Experience an active volcano more powerful than when I saw Arenal or Kilauea.
9.       Explore the lost city of Petra, Jordan .
10.    Explore the ruins of Pompeii or Herculaneum.
11.    Go on a safari in the African savannah, perhaps out of Botswana.
12.    Visit Vilnius, Lithuania and meet with someone bearing my old family name.
13.    Return to Australia, visit my old friends, and snorkel the Great Barrier Reef.
14.    See the Christmas Truce Memorial in Frelinghien, France & the Museum in Ypres, Belgium.
15.    Spend a Christmas in the Alps with my wife.
16.    Stay with on old friend in Cognac, France or suggested rendezvous elsewhere in Europe.
17.    Take my wife and visit the Hotel Weinbauer in Schwangau, Germany.
18.    Visit Stonehenge & some of the Arthurian sites in the UK.

Priority 2:

19.    Create a source of income other than technology or passive investment. - The spirit is starting to form.
20.    Learn Italian well – DONE!
21.    Live in an intentional community that suits me, such as a small “retirement” commune, “free-country” project, or other. - The project has been launched.
22.    Write a novel or book about something I really care about and get it published - about to be restarted!
And at least one item from the Experience Bucket – every year.

Experience Bucket:

23.    Bareboat charter:  skipper a multi-day sailing trip.
24.    Bike or walk across an entire country - Half Done!
25.    [redacted to protect personal privacy]
26.    [redacted to protect personal privacy]
27.    Join a Zorba-style dance in a Greek taverna.
28.    Sail a Hobie Cat with a member of my family.
29.    Sing “Sabor a Mi” to a woman (or several) in a Latin American cantina. – Did a great "practice" run the other day; now for the other "real" thing.
30.    Soar in a fixed-wing glider. – DONE!
31.    Take tango lessons in Argentina.
32.    Watch a space launch (not necessarily in the US), with one of the boys.

Priority 3:

33.    Create enough passive income so that I don't have to work another day in my life - well over half done!
34.    Dance with my sweetheart on my 110th birthday
35.    Live in an ocean-view or oceanfront country house built to my own design, and with plenty of time and space for trees and wildflowers - Started as part of another item on this list.
36.    See the 160s on the bathroom scale again.  Done and then some!
And at least one item from the Learning Bucket – every year

Learning Bucket:

37.    Learn a foreign language well – DONE!
38.    Teach English to students in a foreign country - awaiting the right opportunity.

Candidates & Possible Candidates:

There are two more sections to my list, one containing items that are going to be on the list, but need more specifics in order to arouse sufficient passion.  There are currently about ten of these.  The other contains items that I'm tossing around, but so far, while they might be fun to do, I'm not sure they're bucket-list material.  I'll probably knock off two or three of them this year regardless.

For completeness sake, some things I've already done: 101 Things that have made Life so-far worth Living

Want to Create Your Own Bucket List?

See the short list of helpful resources at the end of my article: How I Became the Listing Bucketeer.
Or check out Marelisa's list of 525+ Ideas for Your Bucket List
Marelisa also has a new eBook for sale: How To Live Your Best Life- The Essential Guide for Creating and Achieving Your Life List (affiliate link)