One Fasouli At A Time

There is a Greek expression that roughly translates as, “One bean at time, the bag is filled.”  Recently, I tried this approach with some creative writing.  I have been very busy in my non-work hours, but I decided to write a short story.  It took a month, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Every day I made some progress and it gave me a little bit of joy until I finished.  Then, I had a lot of joy!

Going through this process made me admire the discipline of the English novelist Graham Greene.  Apparently, he wrote exactly 300 words each day.  Not 295 one day and 314 the next day.  He would even finish in mid-sentence.  (That would probably happen almost every day.)  It sounds a little excessive, but he did finish over 25 novels, so it is hard to criticize.  I don’t know what he thought about beans.

 

The ONLY option? Gulp…

I drove by a school this evening and I noticed a new inspirational message.  On the flip side of a sign that mentioned parent teacher meetings and exam dates were the words, “SUCCESS IS THE ONLY OPTION.”  At first, I just sighed and wondered if there was only one option, doesn’t that mean there are no options.  And, did the person who put this message up think of these kind of things.  Then, I realized it was possible, as long as the students gave 110% of their total abilities.  Well, no need to worry about the future, everything is going to be fine.

 

Return to the arena, Champion!

Being sick sucks.

OK, there is nothing new about that statement. And, since it is the common cold that I’m getting over, I know that there are worst things that can happen to a person.  I haven’t lost sight of that, so I am grateful that it was just a cold.  Still, this cold muddled up my plans.  But, during my sickness I did get some unexpected encouragement.

On one of the days where I was coughing  quite a bit, I decided to try some lozenges.  Of course they didn’t cure my cold, but they temporarily reduced my coughing.  What was interesting was that the lozenge manufacturer has printed some upbeat slogans on the wrappers.  You can see them in the photo below.  My French is poor, but even looking at them in English, it appears one says, “Return to the arena, Champion!”  (The other one should be something like, “You know you can do it!”)

It may not be much, but it made me smile.  And it did make me want to return to the arena, at least to go skating or play hockey.  Hopefully everyone is happy and healthy, or will be real soon!

Halls Wrapper

 

Review: 59 Seconds

This is the second book by Richard Wiseman that I have read.  (The first one was “The Luck Factor”, a book I also recommend.)  I usually don’t find a book’s blurbs very helpful, but this one has one by David Eagleman that, after reading the book, I can say is accurate: “Imagine taking thousands of papers from the vast world of psychology and distilling them down to the most important, unexpected, salient, and straightforward lessons for how to live our lives.  That’s Wiseman’s book.”

A typical section starts with the author exploring and debunking some common myths.  He follows this up with discussions about scientific research on the topic.  This is followed by a “59 seconds” summary or call-to-action. Instead of giving a sample, below is a link to Richard Wiseman’s YouTube channel.  Some of the topics in the “59 Seconds” segments relate to other books he has written, but even with those you will get a feel for this book and I why I enjoyed it.

Richard Wiseman on YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/In59seconds

Title: 59 Seconds

Sub-Title: Think A Little, Change A Lot

Author: Richard Wiseman

Publisher: Random House

Copyright: 2010

ISBN: 978-0-307-35811-0

Website: http://www.randomhouse.ca/

 

The End and the Start

The end of the year and the start of the year are great times to take a step back and look at your life.  (Birthdays, weddings and funerals are great, too.)

A while back, I came across this observation: within a few generations after your death, there will be no one alive who remembers you.  If you are in some manner famous, people will remember your name and stories about you, but none of it will be first hand and much of it may not be accurate.

At a public garden in Toronto, at the base of a crabapple tree, you will see a memorial plaque.  I took a photo of it:

It is a nice sign and a great way to express gratitude for someone. It doesn’t matter if other people won’t ever know this woman and the people who did know her will one day gone.  That stuff doesn’t matter.  We all have the same challenge, to lead the best life we can.

I can already see that this year has the potential to be extra challenging when it comes to managing short-term goals with long-term goals, properly celebrating successes and effectively dealing with losses.  That’s life.  I wish everyone in the world (and the world really needs it right now) a healthy, peaceful and prosperous new year!

By the way, if you are looking at getting in a philsophical mood, I recommend taking  a walk by a pond.  It helps if there are ducks in the pond.  (The photo below is from a park near Lake Ontario; you can see the CN Tower in the background.)

 

I Didn’t Realize It Was That Cold Outside

The photo below is a screenshot from The Weather Channel’s website earlier today. Somehow, this website believes I live in the Entertainment District of Toronto. But, that isn’t the biggest mistake. If you see the numbers beside “Feels Like”, you will see that this website is telling me that I better not go outside since it is about 300 degrees colder than absolute zero!!! It’s a good thing the furnace is working.

 

Sunset Photo

I was going to write about how Toronto is moving forward without a Ford as a mayor. Instead, I’m posting a photo from October 23rd. The goal that afternoon was to see the partial eclipse. It didn’t work out that way, but I did manage to take this photo of the sunset. Perhaps it is a little symbolic of the city’s politics. Now all I have to do is to wake up early and take a sunrise photo. (For those who live in the city, the photo is from the T&T Supermarket parking lot.)