Category: Motivation

The Vacation Chronicles, Vol. 1

Alright, so this post represents our first day of transit across the country to go visit my parents in New Brunswick. Last Saturday, the entire household woke up early in order to pack the vehicle, have a quick bite and get on the road. It went exactly as how you would imagine it…

First and foremost, I made a pig of myself on stuffed-crust pizza, the night before. This means that I went to bed with a swollen, bloated stomach and yes, more so than usual. Shaddup! I barely got any sleep, which sounds about right considering I had to drive for ten to twelve hours the following morning. Nathan was up all night on his Nintendo Switch instead of sleeping, which meant he was a cranky piece of shit until he was in the vehicle and could go to sleep. Heaven forbid, he actually sleep while he was in bed…

Packing was the usual adventure that my household faces while travelling, which included the overpacking of a number of items, misunderstandings about where and what we would be using and how, and leaving the house 30 minutes later than originally scheduled. We made our way to a local gas station to check our tie pressure, only to discover it didn’t open for another half hour. Sprinkle on one item that we had to return home for, and you have yourself a Cook family vacation…

So long, Saskatchewan! Hello, Manitoba…

The first leg of our journey went as well as could be expected, with Nathan putt cold in the back seat with his grandmother and Alexander entertaining himself accordingly. We had snacks, fluids and the adults were getting caffeine into their systems. Despite a rocky start, it was working out to be a well-rounded first day. Once we crossed into Manitoba, we made a couple of stops for washroom breaks and further caffeine, as well as fuel. Nothing out of this world.

Unfortunately, as with all things in life, the peace couldn’t last. Alexander decided he had all he could take of being in a car seat and began screeching at the top of his lungs. We stopped at a gas station just outside of Winnipeg for about twenty minutes to allow him to stretch and run for a bit. I took the opportunity to once again fill the gas tank. Thank the light that gas prices have gone down a touch.

I didn’t stop to pose for this one…

By the time we crossed into Ontario, it became very clear that despite the dry, summer roads, we were significantly behind and wouldn’t reached our expected first stop until almost 11 pm, local time. This is a problem as the boys are usually in bed well before that time, despite the fact it would only be 9 pm, Saskatchewan time. We stopped at a McDonald’s in Dryden to have some supper, and it allowed the boys to blow off some steam in the play structure. We got on the road with intentions of making as much headway as we could.

We wound up travelling to a small town called Ignace, which is actually a French name. We booked a cheap room in a seedy motel that looks like something out of a bad 70’s horror movie. The night’s sleep was fitful and shitty, but at least we got to wake up early and do it all over again. It’s roughly 3,500 kilometres from our front door to my mother’s. With three days of travel plus the fourth day where we need to arrive and check in, we need to achieve a minimum of 1,000 kilometres a day in order to ensure we’ll stay ahead and arrive on time.

Life rarely cares about one’s plans. You’ve heard me say this, before. Know who else doesn’t care about one’s plans? KIDS! Kids don’t give a shit about one’s plans. My folks better enjoy their time with these two little monsters. I think I’ve aged ten year and it’s only the first day. The next couple of days should be interesting… ☯️

Zero Hour… The Vacation Chronicles.

Here we go. Day 1 of vacation. I haven’t been home in over two years. My parents have never met their second grandson, Alexander. They’ve never met my mother in law, Judy. Today is the first day that we work towards changing that. This morning, my family and I will be piling into the family vehicle and starting the 3-day trek across our wonderful country to make our way to New Brunswick. Some may call me crazy and say that we could have taken a flight and been there in one day. This is true. But then, we’d miss out on the adventure of seeing our country up close. Plus, I’d be a fool to try and deal with any of the fuckin’ airports, right now.

My posts over the next couple of weeks may be shorter than usual. In the interest of sharing the experience with all of you, I’ll be posting as we go along, showing you all the crossing of Provinces, the scenic views in all the fun places we plan to stop. But I WILL be on vacation… I’ll share, but it will be in small doses and on my own time. I have a fantastic USB keyboard and can write posts through my phone. It’l be fine, everyone just calm the fuck down… But seriously, this should be an epic trip for all of us. I look forward to seeing my family back home. And maybe if I’m lucky, a few friends, as well. ☯️

Boy Scouts Aren’t The Only Ones Who Are Always Prepared…

Today is this weird thing called a floating stat holiday. I’m not even sure WHY I have a day off but I ain’t going to refuse it. Today will be a bit of a long day. My family and I will be preparing, packing and prepping for a long drive as we travel across Canada to go visit my family. The amount of pre-planning and preparation is absolutely ridiculous. I need to calculate and estimate how many pieces of each item I need for the two-week absence from home I’ll be on. Not least of which is the fact that I have to maintain a small supply of fast-acting carbs for on the road.

Travelling with type-1 Diabetes comes with it’s own set of challenges. As much as I’d love to just jump in the car and go, I very rarely have that benefit. Ensuring I have insulin and the supplies I need is always the priority when I travel. the only happy caveat is that insulin is no longer a “prescription required” item and I can purchase some if I need to. But without the integral pump parts that I need to replace every three days, I’d be relegated to manual injections, which would send my blood sugars into chaos and prevent a pleasant vacation.

I’ve already got a separate bag, packed with all of my diabetic necessities. Now, I just have to worry about packing my work gear (I’m on vacation but I’m not “on vacation”) and a suitcase with the clothing I’ll need for my time away. Then, I get to set up the cargo box on my roof rack, fill the gas tank and ensure seating will be comfortable and accommodating for the entire family and we should be good to go for tomorrow. The open road is a favoured thing, for me. I look forward to it. But if y’all will excuse me, I need to get to it. My preparations won’t complete themselves. ☯️

Musical Chairs, But With Decades Instead Of Chairs…

One of my oldest and dearest friends proposed a game for our old high school gang to play, a few days ago… He challenged us to provide a list of ten songs from out high school years that we enjoyed. They didn’t have to be in order of importance or favour, but they had to have been released during our high school years. This was an interesting challenge, considering that in high school I was mostly a 70’s and 80’s kind of guy. But I met the challenge, and found ten songs I could provide. Then, the rest of the gang started providing their choices and it opened up my memories and tossed me back to 27 years ago…

Before I get to the lesson this game taught me, I think it would be interesting to provide y’all with the list i came up with. Without judging how old I am, bear in mind that all the songs listed below were released in 1996, which is when I graduated high school:

  1. Macarena – Los Del Rio
  2. Follow You Down – Gin Blossoms
  3. Name – Goo Goo Dolls
  4. The World I Know – Collective Soul
  5. Time – Hootie & The Blowfish
  6. Wonderwall – Oasis
  7. Santa Monica – Everclear
  8. Where It’s At – Beck
  9. That Thing You Do – The Wonders
  10. No Diggity – Blackstreet

The nice thing about this list is that it’s beautifully incomplete. there are so many other songs from my youth that I’ve gained an appreciation for and that I love listening to, even today. My friend Leon named Mr. Jones by Counting Crows, No Rain by Blind Melon, Let Her Cry by Hootie & The Blowfish and certainly not least… If I Had A Million Dollars by Barenaked Ladies. Just about everything by Green Day… So many great choices and so little time…

As with all things in life, there’s a lesson to be learned from this simple game. Much in the same way that I was listening to music from a decade or earlier when I was in the 90’s, I’ve only truly come to appreciate the music from the 90’s in recent years. The nostalgia adds a certain something to the whole equation. The thing of it is, I didn’t appreciate the music from my high school years WHILE I was in high school. It took a couple of decades before I truly started to enjoy the music. I have well over 3,000 songs on my iTunes and growing.

Music has a way of helping with everything. It can calm you when you’re worked up, motivate you when you exercise and soothe you while you meditate. When you add some memories into the bowl, it’s a sure recipe for happiness. In a chaotic world where happiness can be a fleeting thing, a little added boost can go a long, long way. And there’s also something in there about appreciating what you have when you have it. Maybe I could have appreciated some of that wonderful 90’s music, well… back in the 90’s! Instead, I get to enjoy it only through the lens of remembering my youth. Food for thought… ☯️

Wisdom From The Most Unlikely Places…

There’s a lot going on in the world, these days… It sucks, because most of us would agree that we would prefer not to have these events happen in our lifetime. It reminds me of my grandfather… He fought on active front lines in Europe during World War II. Unlike many others, he wasn’t drafted, he enlisted. He left his family and his home to go fight oppression, thousands of kilometres from our Canadian shores. He was never nationally recognized, never provided with the honours he deserved but ever loved by his family.

In some ways, a lot of ways, I’m fortunate. Even with everything happening in the world, I won’t get drafted, I’ll never see war and I’ll never experience what my grandfather did. I have him to THANK for that. No one should have to live through any of that. We’ve suffered through a rough couple of years, with COVID-19 bringing the world to a halt, followed by creating a level of chaos my country has rarely seen on its own soil. Now, war rages in Europe and Asia. yes, Russia has a higher percentage of its land in Asia, though we don’t think of Russians as Asians. But I digress…

Before I delve too deeply into current world politics, my point is the image above. I’m one of the few, rare people who have actually read JRR Tolkien’s novels and have experienced the full story. The movies were fantastic but despite their length, they left out a lot of details from the book. One of my favourite is illustrated in the image above. And they do have a scene in Fellowship of the Ring that covers it. Frodo and Gandalf are resting on a landing inside Moria, when Frodo begins speaking about how he wishes the ring had never come to him and how he wishes none of it would have taken place in his lifetime. I can relate.

The scene is made memorable by Gandalf, iconically played by Sir Ian McKellen, explaining that it isn’t up to us to wish that things wouldn’t happen within our lifetime but to make the most of the time we have, regardless of what’s happening within the world. Wise words and from the least likely of sources. As I’ve often said, we most often find our destiny on the road we least thought to travel. Although it’s a weird place to find such wisdom, a fantasy book has provided it. Make the most of the time you have. Food for thought… ☯️

Don’t get Cross, You’ll End Up In Stitches…

Everyone has a specialty… a niche, if you will… Each of us has something that we’re good at, that others may not be quite as good at. or in my case, at ALL! I’ve been watching my wife doing cross-stitch recently and I was distinctly reminded that I don’t have the skill, patience or ability to do what she does. I mean, she takes a piece of cloth and uses needle and fine thread to turn it into a piece of art. I’d have set that thing on fire, fifty ways from Sunday by now! But I digress…

I took the liberty of looking up the history behind cross-stitching, and I came to realize that it’s been a practice for most ancient civilizations, dating back as far as 500 BC. Basically, for as long as there’s been cloth to work with, cross-stitching has been a thing. In ancient China, a woman’s worth was measured by her ability to stitch, especially since she had to stitch clothing and materials for the entire family. In medieval Europe, tapestries and embroideries were all the rage and involved the same stitching skills as modern cross-stitch.

My wife’s current project! Look at all that detail!

Cross-stitching as we know it today was introduced in the late 1890’s and is far more popular than many other mainstream hobbies. In fact, when I grew up, I remember my parents had a framed cross-stitched image of giant mushrooms, which was made using thick yarn. This is a different technique, despite the most popular method being the use of linen and fine threads. It takes an amazing amount of time, patience and precision and fucking up just one stitch can mess up the entire project. Like I said earlier… I’d have destroyed the whole thing with fire long before this point.

Art is still very much alive in the world, even though the average person doesn’t recognize it on a daily basis. I’ve been gifted with an affinity for the martial arts but I know some people that would injure themselves far worse than their opponent if they tried to train. I’m in this very boat with cross-stitching. I’ve never even been able to stitch my own crests or patches on my gis or sweaters. My hat’s off to my wife. If she ever believes that she has no patience, I just have to show her the photo above to prove that she does. ☯️

Sunday, Lazy Sunday…

Keeping yourself moving is an important aspect of life. Not only is it important for one’s health and fitness goals, it’s also important for one’s mental wellbeing as well as Diabetes control. But as much as health & fitness is important, there’s such a thing as too much of a good thing. This is why we have break days when exercising, why we don’t have karate classes seven days a week and why one needs to allow one’s muscles to recover. The funny thing is, even when our fitness goals are on track, taking a break day tends to make us feel lazy.

Last weekend, our home experienced a ridiculous level of summer heat. I won’t complain about that, since I tend to bitch about the cold during the winter… That’s pretty much the definition of humanity, right there. The grass always seems greener during the other season. But the temperatures have made it somewhat difficult to take a full breath while standing outside. We made our way to an outdoor splash pad with the boys on Friday evening, which was wonderful despite the heat. But Saturday saw us running errands in air conditioned environments and retail locations.

Weekends tend to fly by for us, with the majority of our time spent trying to do something fun with our sons coupled with trying to meal plan, exercise and get some much-anticipated television binging in. It tends to make the two days I have off go past as though I were standing still. But once in a while, you need to control the flow of time and simply sit still, which is what we did last Sunday. Sunday morning saw us sleeping in until just shy after 9 am, which is pretty late in my household. My morning started like almost every other, with a cold, 473mL can of caffeine. We started by watching an episode of “The Flash” on Netflix and we had plans to go out and do our weekly groceries.

I threw together a pan of breakfast hash browns mixed with peppers and bacon crumble, seasoned with dill powder and seasoning salts. I make that sound WAY fancier than it actually was. But it’s delicious and has become a staple of our weekends. Once we finished eating and were watching television, my wife and I both agreed that neither one of us wanted to leave the house or run any errands. Given that the temperatures reached the 30’s (Celsius) before the noon hour, it was no surprise that both of us wanted to stay in the relative cool shade of our house. We watched our show for the next few hours until the toddler started showing signs that it was nape time.

We put Alexander down for a nap and provided Nathan with something to keep him busy for a couple of hours and we retired for what I can only describe as an afternoon siesta. And it. Was. Glorious. I write about the importance and benefits of napping on frequent occasions but I would be lying if I said that I get to do it, every weekend. But we indulged in about two hours of napping and I awoke at about 4:20 (insert weed jokes, here). We enjoyed a cold supper of ready-made chicken, cheese and dip. It was a wonderful day of doing next to nothing.

We all need a day like that, once in a while. I can admit that I stepped out briefly to grab milk, bread and some necessities for the week but I did nothing besides that. I originally had plans to knock out 40 or 50 kilometres on the bike but I’m not into peddling in high summer temperatures. The end result is that we got a day’s rest and got to be lazy, which is perfectly okay. Everyone needs to do that, sometimes. It was wonderful and I think I needed that. Between the heat and the fact that I once again go for eye injections tomorrow, it was a nice change of pace. Once in a while, you just gotta have a lazy day… ☯️

Better Days Are Not So Far Away…

Despite our efforts to avoid them, we all have bad days. Typically and for the most part, we suffer through them, deal with them and let them pass after a good night’s sleep. Remember I said that; it will apply later on in the post. But most people will actively do whatever they can to avoid bad days, despite the fact that they’re essentially unavoidable and a part of life.

Last week, I experience one of the worst “bad days” that I can recall in quite some time. What exactly happened to make it a bad day is not important (and I don’t need to come off like a snowflake for my woes) so much as how I dealt with it. Given everything I’ve been through in my life, I’ve prided myself on being able to maintain healthy tools to manage my emotions, more specifically anger. Please note that I said “manage” my anger and not control or suppress it.

Suppressing or bottling up one’s anger is a little like shaking a bottle of carbonated soda (something Nathan loves to do). Although the bottle will hold the soda, pressure will continue to build and gather until eventually the cap will pop and that pressure will explode outward, saturating everyone and everything near it. Anger is very much the same; if you don’t have a healthy outlet for it, it will eventually build up enough pressure to eventually burst and affect one’s entire environment.

Unless someone is close enough to me to have been told this fact, people believe I maintain my calm because I study the Buddha Dharma when in reality, I study to Buddha Dharma to help calm me. The difference is important because like any other living person, I feel and experience the entire spectrum of emotions and they affect me very much in the same way as anyone else. But it’s how I choose to deal with these negative emotions that’s important.

Just to be clear, anger, sadness and any other emotion labeled as “negative” still has a purpose, even if we dislike them and don’t assume so. Much like feeling fear let’s us known that we are potentially in danger, anger and disappointment tell us something about ourselves and the situation we’re facing that we may not have been aware of, otherwise. It doesn’t mean it isn’t normal to dislike being on those situations or that something shouldn’t be done about them. Cue the advice…

Meditation can be a fantastic way to help alleviate the effects of negative emotions. By entering oneself and allowing oneself to calm, breathe and focus on the lighter things, anger will often seem to lose its strength. This may not always be the case and may not work for everybody. But it’s definitely a good starting point. Finding the time and space to do this can be challenging, but never impossible.

Physical fitness is also an important aspect. Pushing yourself through a rigorous workout that can include martial arts or just hitting a good ol’ fashion punching bag can go a long way towards cooling the intense heat that your anger may have created within your soul. Even something that isn’t intense, like taking a walk, getting some fresh air and being alone with your own thoughts can be quite effective.

Sometimes there just isn’t anything that can be done and you have to just ride it out. This can be tough, especially if you’re already angry and you have to be in the same environment as loved ones and that anger become clear and obvious to them. An important step is not to bottle it up and isolate yourself. Letting those loved ones know WHY you’re angry is not only important towards making sure they know it isn’t directed at them but also pursues potential means of help as they could say or do something to provide relief from that anger.

Ultimately, sometimes all one can do is call it a day, hit the sack and get a solid night’s sleep in order to recharge one’s batteries and let one’s soul reset. This is what I did. Once I recognize I simply had no life left in me to deal with the day, I kissed my wife goodnight and let my head hit the pillow. In keeping with the mood I was in, a strong thunderstorm raged through most of the night. The next day was a new day with new challenges so I was grateful for having gotten the extra rest. Anger is a normal part of life. The idea isn’t to avoid it and the important thing is how you DEAL with it; and deal with it, you must. ☯️

What Binds Us…

Opening yourself up to others can be one of the most difficult things one can do. Especially in modern times, when people tend to try and get to know each other through virtual means before even meeting in person. When I was growing up, making a connection with someone meant actually meeting them face-to-face, introducing yourself and talking to them. Friends, associates and intimate relationships were forged this way.

These days, people meet dates online, join chat rooms and see each other for the first time through the digital frontier. Where spotting someone from across the room in a coffee shop and smiling at them would have been a first steps twenty years ago is basically considered creepy today, despite the fact that you genuinely never know who you’re meeting online until you see them in person, often with disappointment. In fact, there are entire shows about that very thing that you can watch.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, because as living creatures, there’s an energy that binds us all. That energy is called “connection,” and it’s something one can only truly accomplish by being physically present in the moment with another person. As one could no doubt agree, the problem with the online world is that you can be “connected” with thousands of people but still feel completely isolated and alone.

“Connection is the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”

– Brene Brown

Being connection with someone else is more than physically being somewhere with them. There also has to be a trust, a comfort level, an ability to know that no matter what you say or do, that person won’t walk away from you or judge you. This isn’t an easy thing, especially in light of the modern world’s propensity to be overly sensitive and offended by everything. But a good baseline to know if you’ve made a solid connection with someone is to ask yourself if you would be comfortable doing something in front of them that you would usually only do alone. If the answer is yes, you can have confidence that some trust has been developed; at least to a certain degree.

Connections are important. Humans were never meant to be solitary, isolationist creatures. Even those who often claim they prefer to be alone still need others to one extent or another. And while that need is very real, making connections and building trust are integral parts of ensuring one’s wellbeing and health. Food for thought…☯️

Strike Your Own Fuse…

Motivation is a funny thing and I often categorize some of my posts (this one included) as a “motivation” post, but that’s usually because I hope that it’ll motivate you. But the thing is, motivation means different things to different people, depending on their perspective, how they train and what values they attach to such things as motivation.

Some people believe that you need to be motivated to start doing something good for yourself. Okay, let’s examine that concept… Normally, motivation is defined as a general desire or willingness to do something. But how can you desire doing something if you’ve never experienced it before? In order to take that first step towards better health, better fitness and overall goals, I would argue that you need WILL. So long as you have the will to take those first steps and push yourself towards a goal, progress and success will motivate you to continue on.

That feeling of motivation comes almost as a reward for pushing through the difficult, initial steps of any goal you set for yourself. Some may argue that you need to be motivated to start. I respectfully decline. You need to have the WILL to start. Motivation comes later. And once that motivation comes, it’s important to recognize that it should be geared towards a positive outcome. If your motivations are for the defeat of others, you’ll never succeed. If your motivations are geared towards status, image or ego, you’ve failed before you started.

Have the strength of will to make a start. It may suck, it’ll likely hurt and may be difficult to accomplish. But if you can rise up and push yourself enough to take those first steps, progress will motivate you and push you further. Chicken or the egg; you can’t have one without the other. Food for thought… ☯️