On Jack Black, Kung Fu Panda 2 and Being Open Minded

At heart, I’m just a big kid and I’m the first to admit it. Jack Black is a big kid at heart too. I watched the new Gulliver’s Travels movie with Jack Black not too long ago. The movie being a modern adaptation, it was vastly different. There was one particular change I found to be noteworthy however, probably largely due to my recent time awareness crusade. I was a very minor detail from the book. The Gulliver in Jonathan Swift’s book had a habit of constantly looking at his watch; so much so that the Lilliputians believed it to be his god. As true as it was in Jonathan Swift’s time, we are ruled by the clock. The Jack Black Gulliver had an iPod instead. I suppose the iPod could represent the modern preoccupation with constantly keeping busy and need to make use of every minute.

Last night I went to see Kung Fu Panda 2, also starring Jack Black, with my lady friend and her family. I greatly enjoyed the movie, and think I’ll watch the first Kung Fu Panda movie again in the near future.

One particular quote from Kung Fu Panda 2 stuck with me; The soothsayer goat at one point tells the evil peacock that he is trying to fill a bottomless cup. Here’s a look at that expression, and  some other expressions that it brought to mind:

Trying to fill a bottomless cup.

In the movie Kung Fu Panda 2, the evil peacock has an unquenchable thirst for power. The goat asks him, after he takes over China, what then? The cup he is trying to fill has no bottom. He will never be satisfied.

Many bottomless cups exist. In psychology, this is the foundation of Maslow’s Theory of Human Motivation. We are driven to fulfill our needs in a specific order. With most of our needs met, most of us struggle with needs related to esteem. We attempt to fill this need the wrong way, with more stuff or more power. Sometimes we confuse the need and seek to fill it with food, retail therapy or empty sexual relationships. These pursuits are unsatisfying. They are bottomless cups.

I believe the way to truly fill this need is to discover what Po did in Kung Fu Panda the first. There is no secret ingredient. The Dragon Scroll is Blank. The answer is all inside you.  Esteem comes from within.

Empty your cup.

I was first introduced to this phrase by way of the movie Forbidden Kingdom (with Jackie Chan and Jet Li, 2008). The concept is that if you believe you know everything, if your cup is full, you cannot fill it anymore and it overflows. You reject new ideas. If you empty your cup, if you become open to new ideas, you are open-minded and thus able to learn. If someone tries to teach you something new, seek first to understand. Instead of determining why someone’s idea is wrong, try to understand why they could be right.

The cup is not half full or half empty; it is the wrong size.

Do you see the cup as half full or half empty? Maybe that old chestnut is a trick question. The answer depends largely on what your motivation is. Motivation is a concept rooted in the past or in the future.  Was it full or empty to begin with? Do you wish it were full or empty in the future? Perhaps the liquid is not the problem. Perhaps the cup is. The cup represents your way of thinking. Maybe you simply need a different cup. Be satisfied with what you have rather than focused on what was or what will be. Everything is subjective.

It’s similar ancient Chinese parable about Good Luck vs. Bad luck, which illustrates this subjectivity.

Parable of a Chinese farmer:

A Chinese farmer gets a horse, which soon runs away.
A neighbour says, "That's bad news." The farmer replies,
"Good news, bad news, who can say?"

The horse comes back and brings another horse with him. Good news, you might say.

The farmer gives the second horse to his
son, who rides it, then is thrown and badly breaks his leg.

"So sorry for your bad news," says the concerned neighbour.
"Good news, bad news, who can say?" the farmer replies.

In a week or so, the emperor's men come and take every
able-bodied young man to fight in a war. The farmer's son
is spared.

Good news, of course.

Now, to blow your mind, here are some bottomless, empty cups that become full.  Please enjoy this video of a weird machine that fills beer cups from the bottom to the top.

The Secret to Breaking Bad Habits: Stop Hitting Yourself

When I was young, my older brother would occasionally grab my arms and proceed to whack me with my own hands. Quit hitting yourself, he’d tell me, as big brothers do. When he stopped, so did I. I wasn’t really hitting myself, obviously, nor did I want to.

To this day, I still don't want to whack myself in the face, so I don’t. It’s not a complicated concept. It’s silly to think that if we are perpetuating a behaviour that we wish was not a part of our repertoire, that we are somehow doomed to repeat it. So, if I really want to stop biting my nails, or start exercising, why don’t I?  I’m fairly convinced that it’s simply because I don’t want it enough.

When we don’t want to rock the boat, when we’re satisfied with the status quo, we choose the easy road. We medicate in various ways. It’s easier to treat the symptoms of our problems than it is to solve them.

I was raised in a family that didn’t believe in pills. Growing up, when I fell sick, I stayed home from school, slept, and maybe had some cough candies. Today, my illnesses last longer but I’m sure it’s as a result of my approach to healing. I drag myself out of bed, drag myself to work and drag myself through my day with the help of some bright orange day-time cold relief pills the unnatural colour of Cheese-Whiz. What I should be doing, what my momma taught me to do, is stay home and let my body recover. Instead, for some reason contrary to good sense, I pride myself on not being phased by obstacles. Suck it up and power through. Crash when the weekend starts. I never liked to miss a day of school, and now that I’m free to make my own choices, I’m free to make bad ones.

There is no cure to the common cold. What we have is an arsenal pills that treat the symptoms instead. Pills don’t make us better, they make us feel better. If you have a runny nose, or a cough, or a headache, or a sore throat there are all kinds of choices you can make to stay your symptoms. Pills of all colours. Green, orange, purple and red. A rainbow of quick fixes.

What you really need is sleep. Kill the lights, drink some juice for vitamins, some Gatorade for electrolytes and come chicken soup for sustenance. Give your body what it needs. If you can’t sleep as result of your congestion or cough, try classic red Nyquil. A shot of Jack Daniels yields the same result with less chemicals. But Nyquil won’t heal you, and neither will whiskey. There is no cure, recovery comes from your body. Give it what it needs: Food and rest. Almost everything else just gets in the way by making you feel better than you are.

A habit, every habit, works the same way. Can’t sleep? Take a Unisom at night and coffee in the morning. Stressed after work? Have a beer. No time to cook? Take out. No time to exercise? Just don’t eat.

Or maybe, you need to stop looking for quick fixes. Maybe too much coffee is making it hard to sleep. Maybe your poor diet is the cause of your weight gain. Or maybe it’s stress. Maybe alcohol is making your sleep less restful and making you irritable. Perhaps you’ll be better off without so much help. Black coffee, Red Bull, Pabst Blue Ribbon and the golden arches. Different rainbow, but quick fixes just the same.

Try listening to your body. Cut the crap you’re putting into it. If your line of work is the cause of your disharmony, due to long hours and high stress, you’ll never have the clarity to realize it until you listen to what your body has to say. Putting yourself through Hell with the help of chemicals is still putting yourself through Hell. Seek clarity of thought, then seek a better path.

Find it tough to stop drinking? Need that coffee in the morning? You’re not too weak. Want it. Don’t stop trying. You’re in control. Your hands are free. Stop hitting yourself.

The FREE, No B.S. Guide to Personal Development Secrets

...Because Implementation is All You

I love the notion of personal development. The idea of improving yourself to be better, more successful and happier is a powerful one. The problem with real personal development is a lot like the problem with real weight loss solutions; quick fixes have more appeal than proven methods. There’s a popular aversion to healthy eating and exercise, but a billion dollar market for quick fix diet pills.

I don’t believe in quick fixes; however, the idea of real fixes quick does hold a certain appeal.

Although “slow” has really been more my thing lately.

Here is a quick, concise Free Guide to Personal Development:

The Secret to Making Money:

1.       Find a product or service that a lot of people want to buy.

2.       Sell it to a lot of people.

Note:  The Secret to Making Money Online is to do this, but on the internet.

The Secret to Becoming Rich:

1.    Make money (see previous secret)

2.    Spend less money than you make.

3.    Don’t buy stuff you don’t need.

The Secret to Getting Everything you Want:

          Want less. Be grateful for what you have.

The Secret to Personal Efficiency

1.    Take it slow.

2.    Do it right.

3.    Be proud of what you do.

4.    Ask for help when you need it.

5.    Offer help when you can.

 The Secret to Managing Stress:

1.    Breathe deeply.

2.    Take it slow.

3.    Get it done.

4.    Alcohol, caffeine and nicotine make matters worse, not better.

5.    Always make time for the important things: Family, friends, food and sleep.

The Secret to Breaking Bad Habits:

1.    Acknowledge that what you’re up to is causing more harm than good.

2.    Want to stop.

3.    Really. You need to want to stop.

4.    Stop believing that it’s out of your control

5.    Ask others for help.

6.    Fight hard for the first few days. They’re always the toughest.

7.    Think about it rationally once you’ve stopped for a while. If you don’t believe things are better now, it’s time to get the rest of your life in order. You may have been using your addiction to escape your problems. Quitting was a step in the right direction, but you have more work to do.

The Secret to Weight Loss:

1.    Eat right.

Focus on fruit, fibre and protein from lean or white meat. Make your own meals, and buy organic if you can.

Stay away from sugar, salt, trans and saturated fats. Also avoid the 4 Bachelor’s food groups: Fast, Fried, Canned and Instant.

2.    Exercise. Here are some ideas:

Bike to work.

Go for a walk in the park with your partner.

Don’t have a partner to walk with? Adopt a dog. They’re an excellent source of exercise and companionship.  It may even help you meet someone.

Take up running.

Adults: Pick up a copy of THIS BOOK

Unless your weight gain is caused by an outside medical condition, this method should work if you work hard at it.

The Secret to Life:

1.    Life’s not fair. No one said it was supposed to be. Just do the best you can with what you’ve got.

2.    There are no magic answers. There are the answers you know, the answers you’re willing to look for, and what you believe to be true.

3.    Spiritual Practice. You don’t have to pray, just find beauty in the everyday and be grateful. This is open to interpretation.

What you should keep in mind is that these are the answers, but only a few of them. The methods required to achieve results are personal and are best discovered by you for optimum understanding and relevance. There are a ton of personal development resources available for free. Any that I’ve been convinced to pay for have been, and will continue to be, reviewed here on this blog at no cost. Here, practical application matters and will always be taken into account.

Impermanence: Nothing Lasts Forever

I write this post today with a heavy heart.

There is a principle in Buddhism that suggests that the source of all unhappiness is attachment. The concept of anitya, the Sanskrit word for impermanence, observes that everything is in a constant state of change; nothing lasts forever. Everything grows, evolves and eventually, breaks down into its composing elements. Those composing elements eventually combine with other elements anew, to form new matter and new life. Consciousness aside, this is reincarnation explained scientifically. With this concept in mind, decay can be beautiful.

The water is currently high all over Manitoba, from the rivers to the lakes they spill into. With every spring thaw, the water level rises reminding us that we are always at the mercy of nature. It doesn’t matter what your land title deed says, land can’t belong to you. We belong instead to the land. It has been here before us, it’ll be here long after time comes for us to return to it. We are the land, the elements and minerals that comprise us, only ours for as long as we are able to use them.

The way you own land is the same way you own beer; it’s a rental, not a purchase.

The water is noticeably high all along St. Mary’s road, though the street is high enough to observe the placid brimming banks with ignorant awe. Elsewhere, the landscape is filling as turbulent waters spill from the dyke broken to save 850 homes, demolishing 150 others.

Up south of Lake Manitoba, Twin Lakes Beach spills into cabin country. The beach where I once spent a weekend watching pelicans and existing complacently, living slowly before I consciously know what I was doing, now rests at the bottom of an expanding lake. The shoreline creeps into the cabin where I once slept, washing away evidence of collected memories, some I share and some unknown to me.

I never anticipated a return to that special place, but I am saddened that such a return is now strictly impossible. Such sadness is irrational, but this sadness is one thing I do in fact own, and it too will return to nothingness, such is the nature of all things. Nothing lasts forever; both a blessing and a shame.

Slow vs. Simple: Competing Philosophies?

For the last few weeks, I’ve been putting forth an effort to stop rushing. Rereading my previous post, a book review on The Power of Less, I realize that some statements I made seem to be somewhat contrary to my current goals.

The book review was actually written 3 months ago, lying in wait for a case of writers block to ensure I have a post ready each and every week. In this review, I mention that I skipped through a few chapters of the book due to redundancies and repetition on the author’s part. Such an action is not really in tune with the slow philosophy.

 If my new time management philosophy has taught me anything, it’s that slow works. As a result of putting into practice the concepts contained in the book, In Praise of Slow, I have:

·         Stopped biting my nails

·         Worked less overtime

·         Drastically decreased my caffeine intake

·         Slept better

·         Been less irritable

·         Gotten more work accomplished pertaining to my own personal projects

With that in mind, I stand by the comments made in my previous post, though I do plan on rereading The Power of Less to ensure I didn’t miss anything. The “goal map” idea (see previous post) has been quite beneficial to me personally. Maintaining focus on your goals is a pillar of most personal development programs. Laying out and organizing all of your own goals complete with a personalized action plan (which is how the goal breakdown functions) is a direct approach to the abstract concepts of the “Law of Attraction” or the “Law of Intention” discussed in books like “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success” by Deepak Chopra. Books like Chopra’s are interesting in their fantastic New-Age, open-to-interpretation idealism, but actionable ideas like Babauta’s quite likely have a higher success rate.   

Consider making time today to sit down and type out the many goals you want to accomplish in your life.  Start by typing them all out, then organize them in a way that they can be tackled in bite-sized pieces. I agree in taking things "one step at a time" and believe that "slow and steady wins the race", but for those concepts to work, you need to be continuously taking steps.

Good luck with all of your pursuits.

Book Review: The Power of Less by Leo Babauta

“Do less. Get more done.”

The Power of Less was written by Leo Babauta, who blogs regularly at ZenHabits.net.  Having read a few of his articles, I was excited to read this book believing therein I would find fresh minimalist insight.

It was an entertaining read, but I am sad to say that I was somewhat disappointed. Though the foundation of the book is solid, it fails to deliver what it sets out to encourage the reader to do. An easy read at 170 pages, I found myself skipping through many unnecessary chapters. Much of the content is redundant.

To summarize, the message of the book is prioritizing. Re-evaluate how you spend your time and eliminate anything unnecessary to your happiness or success. Set a few clear goals, break them down into smaller tasks, and focus on them until you complete them.

Occasionally, this book seeks to explain why simplicity is such an effective element in improving one’s quality of life. The main criticism I have about this book is that I feel anyone reading it would likely already understand that simplicity has benefits. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be reading it in the first place.

The one gem that I did take away from this book was the helpfulness of creating a list of your goals. The idea is to make a list of everything you hope to accomplish. Then, you set subgoals to help you stay on track. I keep this goal sheet as a word document on my desktop and look it over from time to time to track my progress and make sure I’m still working towards the life I want. One of my recent goals is to set up a proper workspace in my home. The breakdown looks like this:

Goal: Set up a proper workspace in my home

1.    Clean out my spare bedroom

a.    Sort my paperwork

• i.    Shred what I don’t need
• ii.    Recycle what I'm able to

b.    Bring in Xbox and Nintendo games to vintage gaming store

c.    Sort and give away items to local thrift store

2.    Move my desk out of the living room

3.    Purchase a chair similar to the ones at the local coffee shop, where I’m the most prolific

a.    Put aside $100 biweekly to purchase a chair in July
b.    Measure door frame to ensure that chair will fit

When large goals are broken down into half hour tasks, they seem less daunting. My goal of setting up a proper workspace is a subgoal. My main goal is to live a better life. To accomplish that, I would like to find more fulfilling work. To be honest, I’m not in a huge rush to ditch my job, but I definitely feel better about myself when I’m working towards it. I need a proper workspace to be more productive in my writing and website creation endeavours. Setting up a proper space is a step in that direction.

In short: Prioritize. Simplify. Focus. Don’t waste time on work that doesn’t need to be done, and don’t waste money on stuff you don’t need. Yes, I do actually need to buy a chair, I'm currently writing in a noisy kitchen, but no, you probably don't need to buy this book.

If you already have a basic understanding of these concepts, please see below for three great alternate reading suggestions relative to minimalism and simplicity in respect to your life, work and home:

Simplify Life: 
The Essential Works of Thich Nhat Hahn

Simplify Work: 
The Simplicity Survival Handbook: 32 Ways to Do Less and Accomplish More

Simplify your Home:  
It’s all too Much! An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff 

For a balanced counterpoint to this review, please check out the forums on the author’s blog at ZenHabits.net/forum.

Getting More Done Slowly; Zen and the Art of Sandwich Creation

For the past few weeks, I have made a conscious effort to live slowly and it has yielded fantastic results.

Living slowly is essentially the same as living mindfully. It involves making an effort not to rush, and a conscious effort to enjoy the moment. Rather than rushing on to the next activity and then the next, you take your time doing each task, one at a time. You take breaks. You stop when you feel yourself becoming frustrated and pick up again when you decide the time is right.

Last week at work, due to the short work week caused by Good Friday, I had a lot to catch up on. Rather than fall back into my old work habits, which involves powering through, working a ridiculous amount of overtime and stressing myself out to just get it done, I opted for a different approach.

I worked as hard as I could, but I took most of my breaks. Typically, I don’t like to take anything more than a lunch break because I find it slows down my day. This time around, I decided to embrace that, and use the extra time to read.

I did end up staying late a few times, but only about a half hour or so to tie up loose ends and not leave a mess behind. Rather than work 12 hour days, I instead came in on two off days and worked two extra four hour shifts. Though I had to give up two mornings on my days off, I enjoyed it a lot more. I worked the same about but spread it out more reasonably. I took it slow.

As a result of losing those days off, I had a lot to do this weekend. I simply decided to take that slow too. I didn’t want to rush and try to fit everything in. I just let the unimportant things fall away, and I focused on enjoying the day with a friend of mine.

Around lunch time, we realised that doing everything on our agenda wasn’t possible. The following option presented itself; skip lunch and do it all, or slow down.

We were far removed from our regular area of town on a quest for some Passover Coke. There was a clothing store my lady friend wanted to check out since we were never in this particular area. As she perused the clothes, I didn’t rush her as I often do. I noticed a Subway across the parking lot. Though I had wanted to visit the Used Book Market at St. Vital Centre, I decided that since I have about 50 unread books at home that lunch was more important. The Book Market could wait another day.

The lunch we ate was a validation of the slow theory.

We were the only ones there, and the resident sandwich artist tool his time making our sandwiches. The bread was fresh, the tomatoes were evenly spaced and the mustard was just right. The soup was like homemade and was the best chicken noodle I’ve ever had.  

I believe the reason he took his time was because we took ours. I didn’t tell him I wanted lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, banana peppers and jalapenos. I told him I wanted lettuce. Tomatoes. Pickles... You get the idea. I made sure not to be rude or patronizing, because sometimes it’s easy to misread a tone of voice. I made sure to say please and thank you. I was mindful of my speech.

It was a fantastic sandwich. About halfway through our meal, the gentleman working there offered us a free cookie. He told us it was broken and so they couldn’t sell it. It was very kind of him. It’s funny how different service can be from one restaurant to another.

Even the mints, which I never bother with at my local Subway because I’m in a rush on my lunch break, were good. They tasted like cinnamon and mint.

It was an excellent idea to slow down and stop for lunch. I don’t regret putting off the book fair, because that lunch was worth a lot more than a few more books to add to my unread stack.

We did everything slowly that day, from visiting the U of M to stopping for bubble tea before coming back home. It was a good day. It has been a good few weeks.

Slow is beautiful.

Coca-Cola Marketing and the Pursuit of an Even Better Cola (Part 2 of 2)

Passover Coke has been around for a while now in Canadian markets but despite being somewhat of a Coke connoisseur, even I had not heard of it until this year. If you have read my previous post in praise of the Coke marketing people, one might be lead to believe that this was somewhat of an oversight on their part, though this isn't the case.

Passover Coke is released as a service to the Jewish community. It is also more expensive to produce. To keep costs down and product available to the Jewish community, they don’t advertise. Made with real sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup, it is in fact the Coca-Cola of yesteryear. Coke changed the original recipe in 1985 from sugar to corn syrup to save on manufacturing costs. Corn is on the list of grains avoided by those observant of the traditional Jewish Passover. For that reason, it’s only available during the Passover Season, and usually only in specific, predominantly Jewish markets.

I discovered Passover Coke far too late this year to act accordingly. Immediately after reading the Winnipeg Free Press article, I exhausted every avenue. I used my Coca-Cola connections, sale representatives and product merchandisers, to obtain the locations where the product had been sent, where it was sighted and where I could find it available for sale. They no longer sport the distinctive yellow caps of the past, making them more difficult to distinguish. I still am not entirely sure what the bottles looked like this year, but a Coke merchandiser I spoke to informed me that that they did in fact say “Passover,” and that at a quick glance, they look very similar to the regular recipe variety.    

I drove all over the Winnipeg to no avail.

The nostalgia of the old recipe and the limited edition nature of such a product surely inspires hoarding. Next year, I will be more proactive in my pursuit.

The reason I’m excited about this product has a lot to do with a product I purchased in the United States a year or two ago. I bought a few bottles of Coke in glass bottles to bring back for friends and family as a souvenir. This was before such glass bottles were so readily available here in Canada. The bottles available here, at grocers such as Superstore, are not the same.

The Cokes I had purchased in North Dakota tasted better. Sweeter and with smaller bubbles, I believed it had something to do with the bottling process for glass being different than the process for plastic. When the glass bottles became available here, I jumped on the opportunity to try it again, albeit at 3 or 4 times the price. I was seriously disappointed.

I believe the glass bottled Coke I had stumbled on was in fact the original sugar recipe. I don’t know for sure, but one thing I do know is that to find out, I’ll be starting my search early next year.