Category: Uncategorized (Page 89 of 159)

But, what about the rest of us?

I come from a generation where hard work, discipline and grit has value. Not only from your own point of view, but others as well. It was viewed as sort of a badge of honor to only get 5 hours of sleep the night before and still be able crawl out of bed and stumble through your day.

Nowadays, study after study show how unhealthy a consistent lack of sleep can be for us in the long run. Bringing on diseases and ailments due to the absence of valuable REM sleep in order for your body to repair and recover.

In fact, with today’s technology you can track (with precision) your body’s workout, recovery and sleep performance by wearing a monitor on your wrist synced to an app your phone.

Times have changed. When I was a teenager during the school year my father would make sure I wasn’t sleeping in too long on the weekends – even though I played three sports and probably needed the rest. After all, it’s been said teenagers need up to 12 hours of sleep at night due to the major changes their bodies are going through.

I guess I didn’t need it. I was wicked.

How are you supposed to know what you don’t know?

There have been so many times where I’ve looked back and wished I would have known that piece of information 20 years ago, or 5 years ago or even yesterday. I convince myself it would have been a difference-maker and everything would have changed.

I’m not so sure of that, but no doubt, the more we know in the moment, the better choices we tend to make about our future.

I realize we can’t go back in time and focusing on the past doesn’t help our present moment and so we move forward taking what we’ve learned and do the best we can.

Maybe if we become more curious, learn to love the process and find a way to learn, grow and evolve everyday, then we’ll know just a little bit more than we did the day before.

Depending on who I’m around, I may spout my “wisdom” way more than I ask questions. My bad.

As a student of life, I know we can learn more by asking questions rather than flexing our trivial knowledge. Of course there is always a time and a place, but more times than not, I find myself focusing on my response rather than listening to what the other person is saying and diving deeper into what I just heard by asking a follow-up question.

I know better.

And so I will look for opportunities in the moment of conversations with friends, family, co-workers and clients to ask more questions rather than spout my advice.

If they ask for my input, I’m happy to chime in, but my focus is always to grow, learn and evolve. I can’t do that while my mouth is yapping.

It seems to me the British believe any challenge can be overcome or problem can be solved as long as they’re able to sit down and discuss it over tea.

I was fortunate enough to go to London a few years ago with my family and decided to jump on board the tea train as well (Full disclosure; I was already a fan of green tea). It appeared that most people chose English Breakfast and the rules were basic and I committed with all of my being: Any time was a good time for tea.

We would tour the town by walking the streets of the bustling city with cafe’s around every corner where one could get their fill. One of my favorite delight’s about London are all the parks where you can lounge on a blanket, stroll the winding paths or people watch from a bench – while of course – sipping on tea. There seemed to be a cute little building that sold the cup of goodness straight-up (that’s how I like it) with a croissant of course, in every park we visited. How lovely.

What I’ve come to realize about the English is this: It’s not about the tea as much as it’s about the time you take to sip it while connecting with others. That’s the secret. It’s just an excuse to take a time-out and look at each other in their eyes and ask another human being, “so, how are you doing?”

Tea anyone?

Unplugging from our world every once in a while doesn’t seem like it would be a bad idea. As much as we’ve grown attached to our devices, a day of taking pause from checking our phones, replying to texts, emails or looking up the weather rather than walking outside sounds like a sure thing to me.

Maybe we start by weaning ourselves slowly. We pick a day of the week that suits our schedule – say Sunday and book it. Then we turn it off and put in a drawer for an hour while we explore the backyard or go for a walk.

If we’re gutsy, maybe we can block out half a day and go hiking, a stroll on the beach or even call a friend and convince them to do the same and have a long brunch. Sounds stylish to me.

Maybe – just maybe, we can make it a weekly occurrence and discover a little more about ourselves, our friends and loved-ones and this great big beautiful world of ours.

But for now, let’s just take one step at a time.