Afternoon run with the big kids today… It was interesting that they stopped at this spot to wait for me and see/listen to the sounds of nature. As this is a spot I love to stop at to grab a quick photo of the scenes of nature. #running #getoutside. 🏃♂️🚴♀️🚴♂️
Saturday morning run and conversations with this girl and her favorite dog. It is kind of selfish as I want to run but I truly enjoy the company and conversations from this girl. The only problem is she wants to stop every mile or so to just listen to the birds or watch the geese, ducks, and squirrels move about. I can’t really complain though who doesn’t just enjoy just being outside. 🏃♂️🐶
I came home from work tonight to find these girls who are obviously ready for summer ⛱…
Go out and Create Something
Looking for some motivation today? I might have something for you as I too was looking for motivation.
Looking back through the many draft posts and odd saved internet findings. As I read through it now after not reading this quote for 3-4 years I am reminded how true it is. Simple yet true. I think back to where I was 1, 2, or even 10 years ago and most of what has made me to this point are what I have taken in from the world.
You are the books you read, the films you watch, the music you listen to, the people you meet, the dreams you have, the conversations you engage in. You are what you take from these. You are the sound of the ocean, the breath of fresh air, the brightest light and the darkest corner.
You are a collective of every experience you have had in your life. You are every single second of every single day. So drown yourself in a sea of knowledge and existence. Let the words run through your veins and let the colors fill your mind until there is nothing left to do but explode. There are no wrong answers. Inspiration is everything. Sit back, relax, and take it all in.
Now, go out and create something.
Jac Vanek
The morning sun is when I feel the most creative mostly because you can’t beat a beautiful sunrise (October 2018, Carver Park Reserve, Victoria, MN)
Wordless Wednesday 04/24
*Almost perfect early morning reflection (April 2019, Round Lake, Eden Prairie) - Flipped*
Almost perfect early morning reflection (April 2019, Round Lake, Eden Prairie) - Original
This past weekend our crew had a great time exploring around our town. It is amazing the things you can see if you just get outside and explore.
Found an observation deck on my run this morning by the lake. Not a bad view from the top but a little windy… 🏃♂️
Pending Appointments - Air Travel Edition
I am no road warrior when it comes to traveling but I feel like over my 15+ year career I have traveled a fair amount. However, most of my travel comes in waves, a lot in a row and then nothing at all.
For example, right now I am currently traveling and will get back later this week. I will be home for 2 weeks then a vacation with the whole family where we will be traveling for about a week. Once I get back from that I will have a weekend with the family before boarding a plane again. That time, however, will be an international trip which always adds to some travel complexities.
I typically don’t mind traveling except that I have to be away from my family and potentially miss activities of theirs. However, what makes things worse is the pending appointments of flight departures. The hurry up and wait of it all is really nothing special. I am sure I was annoyed with it when I was fresh out of college traveling but maybe I didn’t care as much now. Or it might have been because I was so much younger and didn’t have anything else going on.
What makes that even worse is when you have a flight later in the day and your whole day gets sucked into making sure you can leave on time. Or even worse then you feel you can’t do anything all day as you want to make sure you leave at the optimal time.
There are too many variables when flying that sometimes suck the enjoyment out of air traveling. Let’s start from the top and work through a couple of items that make the pending appointment of air travel less fun.
Getting to the Airport
Travel times, yep you know what I am talking about is there traffic and if so how bad is it? Should I drive or call a car? If I take Uber or Lyft, will they be on time? If I drive, how long will it take me to park and get to the airport?
Security Line
How early should I really arrive? What if the security line is really long and it takes over the allotted times.
Delayed flights
The flight is delayed, should I leave later? Should I still go at the same time because remember that time the switch it to later and then the plane came in early and it wasn’t as long as they said. How delayed do you think it will be? Will I make my connection? When will I get to my destination? Do you think the flight will be canceled? If so, how do I rebook or get a new flight?
You see all of those questions that run through your head and then you have to calculate the time back to your starting point of leaving the house. Not to mention if you have a flight later in the day you keep thinking about it and wondering if the time you planned to leave for the airport is right or if you should go earlier.
Then after you think you have answered all of your questions for airplane travel, you realize you haven’t consulted the Weather! Well, that throws a wrench into everything and you have to start at the top again to see how that might affect what you already decided on ideal departure.
This seems out of place Well hope you enjoyed these random thoughts while I sit in the airport for a 3 hr delayed flight that was supposed to leave at 8:30 pm but we are now not leaving till 11:30 pm and arriving around 2:30 am local time. Don’t worry though I only have an 8:00 am meeting to make sure I am awake for.
Miscalculated or having time to Kill in the Airport? Just as I was going to hit the publish button this came up in my feed so I figured I would share it in case you made a mistake in your calculation or are delayed 3 hours like I was, 10 ways to Survive a Long Airport Layover by Jodie from Travelettes.
*Bright lights of the city from above (April 2019, Buffalo, NY)*
CAUTION! Rough road ahead. Note this is in town and helps sum up the winter we had… My pace biker even with the obstacles is too fast for me these days. #🏃♂️
Lovely day to build a snow family… ⛄⛄⛄⛄⛄ #facesofboo
Amazing the difference 26 hours looks like… Not to mention “No School Snow Storms” can stop me from getting outside… 🌅🏃♂️🌨🌬
Being Rich vs Being Poor
Watching this video by Casey Neistat the other day brought a couple of thoughts to mind that I wanted to share. However, before I jump into my own thoughts I really think you should watch the video as he brings up some really good points on being Rich vs being Poor.
Recap
For a little recap, in case you didn’t watch the video but I really think you should, Casey boils it down to everyone has Life Problems which consist of Happiness, Love, Fulfillment, and Purpose (at a minimum). However, if you are poor on top of those problems you have the big gorilla which is Money Problems because you don’t know where you are going to live, how to put food on the table, take care of yourself when you are sick, or maybe even not sure how to get to your job without proper transportation.
If you are like me, you are going to look at that list and agree with him that it is kind of straightforward. Poorer people are worried so much about money problems that when rich people say they can’t find their purpose in life and that money can’t solve their problems, we all jump off the rails because money would solve our problems.
So let’s take this one step further now….
There are some people that are in-between this simple concept of Money and Life problems. In fact, most people probably fall in the middle of this easy example. I would take a guess that most of us think we have some sort of Money problems.
If we take a closer look at what we think are our money problems (or think we are poor), are we really just spending above our means. We feel we need a bigger house or extra vacations. Where in reality if we cut those out we could begin to look closer at those Life problems.
In the video, the article that Casey references is from the NY Times and titled America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful, and Miserable by Charles Duhig (@cduhigg). One part of the article that jumped out at me was a quote from the guy who made $1.2M a year and felt defeated in life said he was locked into a lifestyle that made cutting his pay impossible.
He had received an offer at a start-up, and he would have loved to take it, but it paid half as much, and he felt locked into a lifestyle that made this pay cut impossible. “My wife laughed when I told her about it,” he said.
That right there is the true problem of what we all feel when we have moved out of the Poor category (i.e., basic needs being taken care of), we get locked into a new version of ourselves that moving backward would feel like we failed. So our new version of poor keeps increasing with us. I am guessing most people could probably take a different job and still not be poor assuming they could get their spending and priorities in order of what is important. That is work that not everyone is willing to take and it is also something that does not change overnight. Not many people want to downsize their house or give up that yearly trip to Disney with the kids.
Over the past years, I have read a lot of articles from Personal Finance and Minimalist bloggers and the thing that always sticks out to me is the underlying topic of living true to your priorities. Some of that is figuring out what your “basic needs” or “minimum needs” are so then you can really figure out if changes can be made in your job/career to help you really tackle Life Problems that we all face.
My thoughts / Take Aways
I am not immune to this thing and it is something I always struggle with as I am sure most people do. My basic needs have been met so at the simplest form I really shouldn’t have any Money Problems. Moving past that, I boil it down to the two resources I have at my disposal in order to make my Life Problems either manageable or fixed.
Time and Money are both resources at our disposal which is really all that is needed for most problems in our lives and possibly the world. The hard part is to figure out how to balance both of them in order to get an optimal outcome for yourself.
Note I said optimal outcome, as there is not always a perfect balance of having tons of money and tons of free time.
Each of these resources is needed for prioritizing things that are important to us. For example, if you continue to upgrade your lifestyle by buying the newest gadgets, bigger houses, and fancier cars because you feel it is the most important thing to do you might find yourself in a situation of having no way out. Similar to the guy in the story from the NY Times. All of your resources are being used to tackle a lifestyle you want to achieve and I am guessing that lifestyle gives you less time and money to find love, meaning, and happiness.
Wordless Wednesday 04/10
Nothing beats a sunset run where you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere but you are really in town. (Edenbrook Conservation Area, Eden Prairie, April 2019)
Mornings really are a great time to get outside… 🏃♂️
The Minimalist Home by Joshua Becker
The Minimalist Home: A Room-by-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life by Joshua Becker overall is a great book for anyone that is looking to declutter their house and has possibly never done it before or just needs some more encouragement. However, if you have read other philosophies on decluttering or are 80% there, this book might not be for you then.
The Book
Each part of the book is comprised of topics broken down into specific rooms to tackle and ideas that go along with it. Specifically, some of the chapters were around decluttering the following rooms:
- Living Room and Family Room
- Bedrooms and Guest Rooms
- Closets and Mudroom
- Bathrooms and Laundry Room
- Kitchen and Dining Room
- Home Office
- Storage, Hobby, and Toy Rooms
- Garage and Yard
The book did a good job of having a mix of tactical informing to get started, personal stories from Joshua, and then personal stories of others. I think each complimented the other and really enforced to the reader that you are not in this alone. There are people out there right now reading this ready to take the same steps as you as well as people like you who walked these same steps and here is their story, and mine.
In addition to the great steps and antidotes throughout the book, I really enjoyed the quick quotes sprinkled throughout. They are perfect to write down as a reminder of why you might be taking this journey.
Minimalism isn’t about removing things you love. It’s about removing the things that distract you from the things you love.
- Joshua Becker – The Minimalist Home
There is one thing I don’t remember from his other books and he called it a minimalism dividend. In short form, it is really just the savings or benefits you would get due to the fact you now have less stuff to take care of (e.g., maintenance cost of items). There honestly is so many benefits to living a more decluttered life and if you haven’t started your journey it could be hard to grasp. That is where this book does a good job of pointing out many of the benefits you could gain by reducing clutter instead of just organizing it nicely in a closet or storage facility.
My own decluttering thoughts
Never organize what you can discard. - Joshua Becker – The Minimalist Home
From a personal perspective, that was one of the biggest things I learned through my decluttering process. I think back at all the time my wife and I were just trying to move things around in our house in order to be organized. Fast forward 10 years, with the knowledge we know now and we really just needed to get rid of stuff. I can’t even count the number of times we commented to each other that all we felt like we did was organize and move stuff around during our free weekends.
ONLY Downside
The only downside to this book for me is that I have read a lot of what Joshua Becker has written in book form (e.g., The More of Less), stories from his blog Becoming Minimalist, in addition to taking his Uncluttered course. So from that token, nothing in the book was new to me and most of his personal stories were the same ones that I had heard before. That is why I said at the beginning if you are far along on a path to decluttering this book might not be right for you as it probably won’t be anything groundbreaking to get you to 100%.
Parting thoughts
Even though I have followed Joshua Becker for some time, one of the best parts of this book is to hear other people’s stories. Since the other stuff was not new, I enjoyed all of the other stories and hearing how other people have approached it and then after they completed what it means to them today. As I said before if you are looking to declutter your house and need somewhere to start I would definitely pick up this book as it really does a good job giving you a room-by-room guide to getting you started. If anything, I feel Joshua Becker does a great job in this area anyway so I would suggest you check out his blog Becoming Minimalist.
With so much stuff to do we spent almost all day at the NCAA Final Four Fan Fest… #finalfourfanfest
Wordless Wednesday 04/03
*Taking a quick break on our run to check out the ducks (Round Lake, Eden Prairie, March 2019)*
True Blue by Eliot Peper: Now An Internet Art Project
You can now read True Blue by Eliot Peper for free online as it has moved to An Internet Public Art Project.
[ To read the online story click on the picture.
This is a really cool idea of turning a short story into something different. It isn’t really a comic book but something almost living by utilizing the technology of today to create and make the story more visually appealing. I enjoyed the story when I read it in 2017, but the story combined with the illustrations and design make for an even more brilliant read.
I am a fan of Eliot’s work as I have tried to read almost everything he has written. However, for this creation I need to be sure to give credit to the Illustrator Phoebe Morris and the Designer, Art Director and Developer Peter Nowell.
If you are curious about the creative details of the online version check out Eliot’s post on Medium titled Making ‘True Blue’.
