Eric Walker

Last year was spent focusing on things that mattered not only to myself but my family too. I felt overall it was a very successful endeavor that allowed me to improve my health, mental state, as well as family time.

Early on in the year we definitely decided to make Family a priority and carve out some time throughout the year. One of the first things that kind of popped up unexpectedly was that each kid got a mini vacation with a parent. My wife took our oldest and youngest to Arizona at different times as they coincided with other family events. Then I took our middle child on a daddy-daughter trip to Duluth where we spent time wandering around and exploring via kayak sea caves. Since I wasn’t at either of the Arizona trips, I can speak more to our trip to Duluth, MN and it was really fun. It was great to just connect one on one with our children since most of the time we have multiple around us.

April and Gretchen in Arizona on a Mountain in Phoenix (April 2018)

Brecken and April in Arizona at Bearizona (June 2018)

Madiana and I in Wisconsin Kayaking in the Sea Caves (August 2018)

Another trip that sparked after some of the initial kid/parent trips earlier in the year was with a weeks notice we decided to take a family road trip to Colorado. This was a big highlight for all as it was really last minute and we were able to visit a number of things along the way. As much as I know traveling by plane is much quicker, sometimes just jumping in the car and driving to destinations is well worth it. The journey is part of the overall experience and the kids still do remember it.

The whole family in Rocky Mountain National Park 12,000 ft above sea level (July 2018)

Another first this past year was camping and spending a lot of time at the Iowa State Fair. I can admit it publicly that it was actually a lot more fun than I would have expected but then again it has not been a dream of mine to do like wifes’. After experiencing it last year and seeing the pure joy on my kids faces every day even though most days we did the exact same things brought me joy as well. Not to mention days, weeks, and months after the Iowa State Fair, our kids keep talking about it and we also find them pretending they are at the Iowa State Fair when playing downstairs.

Whole Family with Papa Gott at the Iowa State Fair (August 2018)

Focusing on my health and mental state kind of went hand in hand but didn’t really take shape till late this past year. What I found was running was not only good for my mental state but I know there are health benefits there too. In the fall, I really started to up my running from what was 2-3 times per week to every single day. It still kind of amazes me that I started it but more amazed that I have been keeping up with it for the past 6 months. My excuse has always been that I never had the time to run longer or more days in a week. It was really tough at first but then I got creative and also started to understand where I failed in the past and planned ahead in order to be successful.

Finally, besides everyone being healthy we welcomed a new member of our family this year after the passing of our pets the prior two years. So meet Lainey Lou the Miniature Petite Golden Doodle.

Lainey at 8 months old (March 2019)

Lainey at 2 months old (September 2018)

As you can see she is not as petite as she was when we first got her :) .

Everyone in the family loves her to death even though we miss our old pets. This has oddly enough been a little bit of an adjustment as we really did take advantage of a pet free lifestyle over the summer. Now that everything has changed, it is a good change but we are back to moring upfront planning to make sure Lainey can either come with us or has another place to stay.

As I continue into this next year, a new word that keeps popping up in my head is Embrace. It builds upon last year as I want to embrace those things that my family and I enjoy and continue to cut out other areas that do not bring us joy. This not only goes for personal things but work related stuff as well, I know there is time to focus at work but also I want to start embracing the opportunities that are placed before me instead of always trying to run to or think about the next shiny object.

If I am true to myself in this upcoming year I know this will be a challenge to keep but I am really up for it as it has been on my mind for a while.

Previously: 35, 36, 37 ..

It hit me that I have been consuming so much so fast that I haven’t had time to actually think about what it means. This is further expanding on the topic I discussed a while back titled Media Consumption. I have listened to some great Podcasts and read some great articles. Some of them have great nuggets of information that I write to myself thinking I will expand on it soon. The problem is that I never have time to execute that idea. I just end up with pages of notes that I will never look back at because I am already consuming the next block of information.

The Never Ending stream of Information

As you can see from the picture below I have a podcast listening problem big time. Don’t get me wrong I like all of them but there is never enough time. Mostly I listen to podcasts while running. However, it is also really easy to just keep listening to these wonderful podcasts after I return from a run or during downtimes like walking the dog, walking into work, folding laundry, working around the house and the list could go on and on.

View of my Podcast list from October 2018

Hence lies the problem that I might be consuming too much information versus creating my own output or reflecting on what I have heard. Every time I read articles, books, or even listen to books or podcasts I always have this great intention of sitting down at the computer and writing out some thoughts like I am doing right now. However, as you have noticed from my very sporadic posting schedule, I never quite get back to the creation side of things.

On a run a while back I was planning to hit a feat I had not done in a long time by cranking out a 6-mile run. About 2 miles in my Bluetooth headphones died and all I had was silence. It was a strange feeling but good strange. I was just listening to my breathing, my feet hitting the pavement, and animals making noises in the distance.

It made me think that maybe I do need to rethink when I consume vs create or maybe I just need times of silence. In fact, it might just be that I need more time to think through what I had been consuming instead of just going right on to the next book or the next podcast. It is almost too easy to just let the next in queue startup without even thinking about it or digesting what was said.

What is next!

Obviously, the answer is easy but sometimes you just need to hear other people say it for it to sink in. I think Cody Warner said perfectly in one of is daily vlogs from a while back…

Stop Watching… Start Doing! - Cody Warner

As I look for areas to improve on, this tweet I ran across below might be a good rule to follow.

My new social media rule for 2019: create as much as I consume.

— Jillian Johnsrud (@JillianJohnsrud) September 20, 2018

Other Articles on this Topic

If you have been thinking about this too, or wonder what other people have to say on this topic I am sure there are a bunch of other articles you can find. Towards the end of 2018 I was hearing a lot of people talk about it. Below are two articles that stuck out in my mind and each are taking different approaches.

Thinking about Attention by CGP Grey

CGP Grey, where he talks about stepping back from the internet almost completely. I don’t disagree with his thoughts as I too feel my attention span may be affected by always being connected and getting bit-sized pieces of information instead of long-form. For me personally, I consume more long-form listening than reading and even though I try to actually read a couple of books a year it is a challenge for me to stay focused. Grey may be taking a drastic approach that I am sure will work well for him.

A New Case for Unsubscribing from Nearly Everything by Cait Flanders

Cait actually has more than the one article touching on this topic as if you follow her you know she started slowly taking steps back from how she consumed information from the internet. She is not completely stepping away from the internet and just focusing on what mediums she wants to “subscribe” to as a way to ensure she can focus on other projects that are important to her. In another article (Why I’m Retiring from Personal Blogging) she wrote about intentionally creating space in our lives for things we want to do.

When we intentionally create space in our lives, we can intentionally decide what to fill it with. - Cait Flanders.