Month: April 2019

Shaking off sickness to wrap up the posts before getting into the next trial. For some, philosophy may be a blow off class they took in high school or college. Others may see it as ancient guys in robes arguing about pointless nonsense. For a different group, myself included, it’s all about how we look at the world and make decisions in it. The primary philosophy I practice in my life is stoicism.

It’s All About the Response

The key I’ve found in reading about stoicism is a pretty simple concept. There is next to nothing we can control in out lives except our reaction to an event. One of the most famous stoic philosophers, Epictetus, was actually a slave who had next to no control over his actions and decisions. He couldn’t decide his lot in life, as many of us cannot, but we can choose how to think about it.

While I’ve been lucky to have a lot of opportunity in my life, I can’t say I haven’t had some difficult days. There have been plenty of times that having this philosophy in mind has helped. A specific example that comes to mind involves my previous job. We had a system that experienced a ton of technical errors. Time and time again I had to send out emails explaining we were having another issue. One day, we had an issue after we thought it was resolved. When my co-worker told me as I walked it, I almost lost my temper and erupted. After catching myself, I sat down at my desk, sent out the notice, and worked to resolve the problem.

As someone who grew up losing his temper or getting over emotional over the smallest things, I can’t imagine where I would be without following this philosophy.

Practical Positivity

Stoicism offers an answer to how and why to choose the response, but what does that really mean? For me, it involves switching my emotions to a positive one. There are of course exceptions to this practice, but I feel there’s no point in getting caught up in the day to day crap that used to take up so much space in my mind. I’m talking about things like bad drivers, missing an alarm and running late, a rude comment, or whatever other annoyance may occur that day.

Whenever something like this happens, I’ll typically accept what is true about whatever happened, possibly make a joke or comment about it, then move on. If I get cut off while driving, assuming we both get out safely, I’ll say to the driver, well to myself really, “I hope wherever you’re going is as fun as your driving makes it seem to me.” I’ll laugh at how ridiculous my comment was, and then keep driving. It’s only slightly different if I’m stuck behind someone going extremely slow on a one lane highway. I’ll say something like, “thanks for making sure we both get to our destination safely,”

When this approach started, I couldn’t say, but I now find myself doing this for everything. Sometimes, I find myself holding back from laughing out loud because of whatever stupid comment I have in mind.

Whether you have a name for what you think or not, everyone follows some philosophy. These are some of the core beliefs I follow for the most part. It’s far from perfect, but it’s not like there’s an award for best philosophy. Whatever you believe, make sure it’s adding value to your life, and if not, a philosophy can always be changed to make life better.

Next Time, Return to Form

I’m excited for the next trial I’ll be doing. I’ve had this one in mind for some time, but waited until now to do so. The idea is to follow a fitness routine that is the punchline of a joke. It comes from the anime series One Punch Man. In it the titular hero can defeat any opponent with a single punch. He got to this point by following a strict routine of 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 100 squats, and a 10 kilometer run every day. Season 2 just started up and the weather is promising, so it seemed there was no better time to start!

The last few posts I made were focused on habits I have been keeping for some time, but hadn’t wrote about. I was working on continuing this for today, but everything I was writing just felt uninspired. With that in mind, I am going to take a week or two off just to get back in the swing of things. I just returned from a long vacation, got sick on the return and my head has been a mess since.

With that said, I plan on coming back by May 1st at the latest, but if I’m feeling up to it perhaps even next week. Look forward to starting a trial soon, just not exactly sure what it’ll be yet.

For about 10 months now, I haven’t been using any product when I shower. That is no soap or shampoo, just water. Being appalled by the idea isn’t surprising and understandable. For me, doing so stands as one of the better decisions I’ve made. It’s simplified a lot of things, and my hair and skin feel the healthiest they’ve been in years.

A Clean Start

Since I shaved my head last year, I wanted to give this whole no product thing a try. I started with the no hair product and figured I´d go all in after a bit. The idea behind not using these products is that they impact the body´s natural production of oils by stripping them away so frequently. This causes the body to overproduce oil, needing more use of product to keep things in control.

With a bald head, I was able to let my hair grow back naturally, and let the transition from shampoo and conditioner use go by. From the reading that inspired this change, the negative impact can still be seen for a month or two after stopping use. Luckily, I had no hair for that whole period.

You Haven’t Thought of the Smell

Now comes the part that we’ve all been thinking since the first paragraph, “how bad to you smell?” From what I’ve been able to inquire, not really at all.

When I started this whole experiment out, I figured someone would call me out on stinking up the room if I was unbearable to be around. After months of not hearing anything, I thought maybe people didn’t want to hurt my feelings or something, so I decided to ask them.

The answer I got was a resounding, I don´t think so. It’s difficult to try and recall a lack of something. One friend made a comment that after working out I did, but others were shocked at the revelation.

Should You Try This Too?

Do I recommend this? I think it´s worth a try for just about anyone. The first few weeks will likely be the most difficult, but afterwards it eliminates a handful of things to think about.

Travel, for one, becomes quite a bit easier without having to pack a bunch of product into a little bag that needs to be separated out. That´s if travel size bottles will even work for the trip.

Showering becomes a simple process that focuses on washing away dirt, sweat, and other filth, instead of lazily lathering some soap around and calling it good.

This may not be for everyone, but like so many things on this blog, I think most things in life are worth a try. This also isn’t something I have deep rooted beliefs in. Should evidence come up that makes this not worth it, I’d change back to my old ways. For now, I’ll continue on.

This is one of my favorite routines and it started out of nothing. I can’t recall a specific inspiration or why I started. One day I just went out for a walk when I was having trouble sleeping, and it stuck. While this habit did take a hit in the winter, I’ve started up again with spring weather upon us once again. This time offers me an opportunity to just think. I throw on some music and go for a an hour long route that I came up with over time. I let my mind go off the leash into whatever it desires in the moment. This helps me wind down significantly before bed, getting out all of the thoughts bouncing around.

Bedtime But Bright-Eyed

I wouldn’t go as far as saying I suffer from insomnia, talking to friends who do experience this I know not to, but I have had restless nights of sleep. I could lay in bed for three or four hours without even feeling a hint of sleepiness. A rare occurrence, but a frustrating one at that. Anyone who knows that trying to fall asleep makes falling asleep even more difficult. This walk became the first pillar in my nightly routine. After walking, I brush my teeth, set my alarm, and go to bed.

No more stirring about restlessly as my mind jumps from topic to topic with no natural transition. I certainly have nights where it takes a few minutes to get comfortable enough to fall asleep but nothing near the restlessness of the past. Just the other day, I found myself awake in the middle of the night, around 2:30 AM and couldn’t fall back asleep. I decided, I might as well get a walk in and see if it helped. Of course, upon returning to bed, I was out before I knew it.

A Free Mind is a Creative Mind

Curing restlessness is only one of the benefits I’ve seen from long walks. They also open up my mind for a lot of creative thinking. I have been able to come up with a number of solutions to problems I was facing or build up the courage to address something due to these walks.

There are definitely some moments when I think, “what the hell am I thinking about right now?” As the weirdest crap stirs around my head. Most of the garbage needs to be processed in order to get to the gold underneath. I have managed to come up with a lot of interesting ideas while on these walks. I don’t want to share the specifics here, but a project I’ve been working on and off for a few months was the product of one of these walks.

Many great thinkers from Stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius to the visionary behind Apple Steve Jobs famously used walks as moments to think and generate new ideas.

While certainly not a cure all, walking is good exercise for the body and mind. Adding it to a evening routine has helped me significantly. Maybe walking at night isn’t ideal for you, but getting a long walk in at some point during the day