365QOD- Day1421

A Single Day is a Lifetime

"...live each day as if it is your last day"- a zen belief

I hope that I live my life as if it could come to an end today.  It is an ideal that I strive towards but seldom reach.  That does not mean that I stop.

This quote teaches a slightly different version of this concept.  It is to see each day as having a beginning, middle, and eventually comes to an end.  The quote teaches for us to live it as if it is a lifetime.

I believe that a perfect day would start with being grateful to even be given the opportunity to begin it.  It is not guaranteed.  Following this short prayer, focus on making each moment meaningful and full of your attention.  By simply being in the "now" you will live the best day.  And lastly at the end of the day, close your eyes and say your thanks for the "present" that was given to you.

Tomorrow, get excited about the next present...if it comes.

Today's question is:
"Do you live your day as if it is a lifetime?"

365QOD- Day1397

Living Forever

"We all die. The goal is not to live forever.  The goal is to make something that will."-Unknown

I started writing this blog almost four years ago with the quote, "The key to immortality is to live a life worth remembering." It is still my guiding light.

Once in a while I sit and ask myself whether I am moving towards that light.  Sadly often times I realize that the light is behind me. As

As the quote advises it is not the longevity of the person that is important.  In the end the person turns to dust and returns to the earth.  

The work and deeds that the person achieves last forever.   A piece of you survives.  The more meaningful the work the longer it will survive.

Today's question is:

"Are you moving towards your light?"

365QOD- Day1314

A Different Way to Breathe

"Place a finger on the right side of your nose and hold it close, breathe in through your left nostril.  Now place a finger and close the left nostril and breathe out through the right nostril"- A yoga breathing technique

My yoga instructor, Carmen, the other day provided this technique.  I found it very interesting and new.  So I tried it and loved it.

She said that many people find it hard to do without the hand.  A challenge!

Yesterday when I went for a walk I practiced this technique.  She was correct.  Initially it was hard to do but after working with it the technique became easy to perform.

Why is this important?

Many years ago I was told that we often breathe through one nostril at a time.  Stop for a moment and take a deep breath.  I believe you will find that this is true for you.  The reason this is important is that when we are breathing through the left side we are using the right side of our brain.  When we use the right nostril we tend to use the left side of our brain.  In other words we are either logical or artistic.

In order to maximize the effect I used to blow my nose before each exam.  This way at least initially I had both nostrils open and was using both sides of the brain.

This technique is an interesting twist.  Can I continuously force my nostrils open during the day?  It will be worthwhile to learn to breathe this way continuously.

Today's question is:
"Can you perform this breathing technique without hands?"

365QOD- Day1267

Daily Death

“We need to practice death daily”- Socrates

In Day253, I wrote about the idea of  Ichi-nichi issho.

"Ichi-nichi issho:  'Each day is a lifetime.'  We arise in the morning newly born.  As we pass through the day, we age and gain experience.  When we tire at day's end, we 'die' and take our rest.  That one arc serves as a miniature of our entire life.  What we do during a single day- and how we do it- becomes the foundation of our whole lifetime.  For what is life but the sum of our days?..."

Notice that Socrates' advice is additive to the Ichi-nichi issho concept.  The Ichi-nichi issho concept teaches us that we must see our day as a smaller version of our whole life.  

It mimics the journey that we undertake except it is in one day.  What and how we do that one day becomes the foundation for the life quality that we live.

Socrates’ advice is that we need to practice dying daily.  We have to look at the end of the day not as simply a miniature version of our life but as the end of our life.  When our head hits the pillow, we need to be ready to never again wake up from our sleep. 

The big question is, “What would you want to squeeze in before that last moment?”  Who would you want to reach out and thank and say good bye? Who touched your heart today?

It makes you wonder what difference it would make if you lived life as Socrates suggests.  Would we be gentler?  Would we leave things undone?  Would we leave things unsaid?  These are things that we currently do every day and would have to drastically change because we would not be guaranteed a tomorrow.

Today’s question is:

“Do you practice daily death?”

365QOD- Day1215

Don't Plant Flags on Mountains

"Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air, and behold the view.  Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you."- David McCullough

This quote offers a lot of wisdom.  Let us break it apart.

The mountain serves as an example of a goal.  By planting a flag we are saying that we were there.  That we have accomplished the goal.  The advice of not planting the flag teaches us not to let it be known that we have reached our goal.

Second past says to embrace the challenge.  To me this says that it is important to set the goal.  We need something to aim for. Something to move towards.

Enjoy the air and behold the view teach us that there is something spacial about the goal that wet should appreciate.  Maybe even reflect on the goal?   Look at the goal with respect to other goals you have our have climbed already. You must enjoy the result of the goal.

Climb it so you can see the world not so that the world can see you says to me that we need to be humble about achieving the goal.  We do not need to gloat.  Keep it personal. 

Today's question is:

"Do you set goals just for you to enjoy the view?"

365QOD- Day1193

Deleting Instead of Adding

"Delete an app a day" -my new idea

 We are always adding things to our lives.  We add projects that will never get completed.  We add  people and then we do not keep in touch. We add and add.

One of the things that we quickly and painlessly add is new apps.  We see an ad or get a  recommendation and pretty soon we just hit download.  But no different than projects and people, we never use it.  Even though we thought the app was great we simply never open it.

So I have been thinking.  Maybe we should get rid of an app pet day.  Probably for many apps this  will not cause us pain.  But after many days we will reach a point where it will cause us pain.  The pain I am talking about it the mental  pain of not wanting to get rid of it.  

I believe that this deletion process will help us get clarity as to what we truly use or not use.  Maybe all of the tools are not the right tool for us.  Or maybe we have outgrown them.

Today's question is

"Could you delete an app a day on your smart phone?"

365QOD- Day1176

Teaching

"I have just three things to teach: simplicity(S), patience(P), compassion(C).  These three are your greatest treasures"- Lao Tzu (I added the S, P, and C)

The other day I found myself looking through calendars.  It is end of April but there were many cool looking calenders for sale.  The quote is from a Zen calendar.  I believe that the three things are priceless and worth exploring.

Often times simplicity provides the least convoluted solution.  It also provides the clarity to clearly see the solution without all of the fluff.  The solution should be simple enough to solve the problem and not complicated because we want it to be cool.  Simplicity could also mean not being dragged down with extra things in our life but living a life filled with only things we need.

Patience is a virtue is an old saying.  Learning patience is hard.  In our world today speed is valued and because of that we have taken up the habit of multitasking.  Even though most of us believe that we are multitasking we really are wasting time moving from one task to another.  Have patience and focus on the task at hand and simply finish it before moving to another.

Compassion is also missing in our world.  We judge others so harshly and save the worst for our self.  We need to note that we are perfect the way we are.  Our past choices are the best we could have made with the inputs we understood at that time so stop playing them over and over again.  The universe is as it should be.  You are as you should be.

Today's question is:
"What else would you teach besides SPC?"

365QOD- Day1152

Becoming Human

"Everyone is born a human, but not everyone dies a human"- Unknown

Sometimes phrases do not translate well.  This is an example of one.  In US we believe that everyone is born human and dies a human.  But in other countries this is not true.

Why?

You are born as a human.  But that is it.  You are the raw material that makes up a human. Life molds you and shapes you into a human.  This is done through our thinking and experiences that we go through.  We evolve to that level.  The best way to think of it as achieving wisdom and enlightenment.

So what does it mean to not die a human?  Well, that is the lack of evolution.  You have squandered your life and made poor choices in your relationships and dealings.  At the end you are no better than if you have not lived.  You never became the best [insert your name here].

Today's question is:
"If you were to die today would you die as a human being?"

365QOD- Day1100

Giving Stuff Away

“Get rid of one thing each day for a month.”- advice in a story about TheMinimalists.com site

The other day I wrote a post about starting a habit of drinking one liter of water per day.  I explained how tough it is to add a new great habit because it has no emotional connection.  You can intellectually know that it is a great thing to do.  BUT to get emotional about it is tough and thus it is hard to set up a path to success.

How about the reverse side?  Getting rid of stuff we own is just as tough.  You can intellectually decide that to get rid of or give away something that you are not using is a great thing to do.  The mind can see that you are not using it and that someone else could benefit from it. 

But again the emotions get in the way.  The shirt that you want to give away is the same shirt that you have a memory attached to it.  You can clearly see the day that you did X while wearing the shirt.  Man giving the shirt away is like wanting to eliminate the memory out of your past.  So of course you hang it back in the closet.

I believe that this exercise is very tough but worthwhile.  Adding good things and subtracting things we have outgrown should be automatic.  The lesson in my opinion is that we should always adapt to change.  This way when change is forced upon us it is easier to adapt and survive.

The clutter in our lives is not just physical.  That type of clutter is the most visible because our closets and space can visually be seen bulging and needing to be cleaned.  Mental clutter is easy to not so easy to notice until we feel overwhelmed by the stress overload.  So maybe we need to get rid of one of each?

Today’s question is:

“What is the last and the next thing you will give away?”

365QOD- Day1091

Beginner's Mind

"Why would you go to a school and start as a white belt?"- My question to a friend

Many years ago while I was working in a steel mill, there was one guy who was unusual.  He would spend his lunch hour working out.  So I joined him.

He was in his middle forties and told me that he has serious arthritis.  In order to reduce the effects he worked out every day doing martial arts.  He had done this for 20+ years.  You would never guess that he had arthritis.

So we would work out by doing different martial art forms.  He was a great teacher and a very different thinker.  I enjoyed learning from him.

One day he told me a story how he had recently signed up as a white belt in a new martial arts school. I thought this was weird.  He was a high ranking black belt in multiple styles.  It just did not make sense for him to go backwards and start as a white belt.  Apparently, this was something that he had done many times.

I kept thinking and thinking as a to why someone with great knowledge would go back and start at the very bottom.  His answer to me was that he knows the basics very well BUT maybe the person teaching him learned them differently.  The funny thing was that many of his teachers were lower ranking than him.  

This is when I learned that we sometimes need to humble ourselves and consider even less knowledgeable people around us as teachers.  I understood that a beginner's mind brings freshness to something that you might have done a million times.  It is very hard to be that humble BUT it is worth the effort.

I adapted his belief many years later when I taught martial arts as a white belt for years.   The looks on the parents faces as I was teaching their black belt students told me that I was doing the right thing.  I was teaching them all to be open to learning and that a black belt was just a learning point not an end to a journey.

Today's question is:

"Do you have a beginner's mind?"

365QOD- Day975

The Man with Two Watches

"So why do you wear two watches all of the time?"-my question to a friend

Many years ago I worked with a friend of mine whose name is Ivy.  He is a very interesting person with whom I have had many conversations over the years.

The quote above was the start of one such conversation.  I was curious as to why he always wore two watches, one on each hand, at all times.  So I asked the question.

Ivy told me that he has a young wife and that he also has two watches.  Everyday he makes a choice to wear both watches in order for them to be worn.  He said that every night he also makes love with his wife as if it was his last time.

I could not resist asking why?  His answer was that he did not want to die and for some guy to come in and find brand new watches and a wife that had not been loved.  So he lived his every day trying to use to the fullest what made up his world in order for their value to be zero to anyone else.

Today's question is:
"Do you appreciate and use everything in your world?"

365QOD- Day882

" Hapifork, an electronic fork that vibrates and lights up when you're eating too fast connects via USB to your computer our via wireless to your smart phone to track your eating habits"- Entrepreneur magazine 6/13

I have a problem when I eat. The speed with which I consume my meals is too fast.  Often times my stomach has no chance to recognize that I am full until it is too late.

This invention is brilliant.  It brings you into the now so that you can note your eating speed and provides a record of it.  You can then study yourself and learn how to eat better.  What the idea also made me think was how we are starting to use more tools to help us to do better. 

Why is it that I need a vibrating fork?  Because I am not aware at those moments.  That should be my focus.  The tool could over time make me realize that I am eating too fast and too much but it can not make me aware.  In a sense over time I should use the fork reminders less and less.

Today's question is:
"What tool could you use to make you more aware of your habits?  "

365QOD- Day872

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life"- poet Mary Oliver

How many of us would classify our lives as wild?  Probably even less of us are aware how precious life is truly.

For me the second part is easy.  I believe it deeply.  I realize that each day a gift that I was given that at the end of the day gets thrown away.  I have 20000 presents left to enjoy.

The first part of the quote caused me to pause.  My life is anything but wild.  I live a pretty simple life.  Most people would even classify it as somewhat boring.

Maybe I am missing many things by the way I live?  Maybe I need to introduce a bit of the wild in my day to day to feel the effect of it.

Today's question is:
"Do you see your life as wild and precious?"

365QOD- Day871

"Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone"- Pablo Picasso

I read this quote the other day in a group of 50 success quotes.  Ever since I read it, I could not get it out of my mind. Here are some of my thoughts about it.

I believe that we tend to spend most of or lives in two time modes: yesterday-now and now-tomorrow.  The only thing that those two modes have in common is the now.  Unfortunately, we tend to forget this.

Our lives are either spent reliving the past or planning for the future.  But the magic only occurs in the now. This why it is a'present'.

As the quote instructs we should not waste our time putting off our dreams till tomorrow because it might never come.  If it is that important to you then continue working on it today until you are spent. For if you are to die tonight, you would have done all you could towards completing it.

Today's question is:
"What dream are you willing to left undone forever?"

365QOD- Day821

" Wherever you are is the entry point" - Rumi

Most of us expect a magic starting point with trumpets announcing the beginning of something big.  Reality never lives up to this fantasy.

Everything has a beginning and an end.  Both the beginning and the end are often very fuzzy.  You seem never certain that you are just starting or that you are completely done.

So with this in mind, Rumi's advice is a jewel.  It doesn't matter if the start gun had gone off, just begin.  It doesn't matter if the finish tape had been removed, just keep going.

Both the beginning and the end are entry points.  Just continue.

Today's question is:
"What is this adventure an entry point for? "

365QOD- Day820

" How would you live your life if you only had six months to live?" - a big question

It seems at times we lack clarity.  We feel we can always get to it tomorrow.  Whatever the it we are working or thinking about now.

While listening to an audio CD by Joe Polish with Brian Tracy, Brian asked this question.  He said that he felt most of us would be forced to focus if that was the reality for us.

For most of us that life or death situation does not seem real.  So we delay. And delay because we feel that tomorrow will always come.

The most extreme position is to imagine if this is your last day.  This is a zen idea. 

Today's question is:
" If today was your last day, how would you spend it? With who? Doing what? Eating what? Saying good bye to? Finishing? "

365QOD- Day773

"Bamboo is flexible, bending with the wind but never breaking  capable of adapting to any circumstance.  It suggests resistance, meaning that we have the ability to bounce back even from the most difficult time...Your ability to thrive depends, in the end, on your attitude to your life circumstances.   Take everything in stride with grace, putting forth energy when it is needed, yet always staying calm inwardly"- Ping Fu Bend, Not Break 

Recently I have been getting up at five and doing yoga for a half hour.  Initially, it was somewhat of a chore to get up and stretch but now if I do not do it I feel the difference.

Most animals stretch when they wake up.  There is a reason why many of the stretches are named after animals: downward dog, cat, cow, frog, cobra, etc.  Maybe there is wisdom to stretching first thing in the morning?

I have also noticed that I not only feel good that I have stretched but also my mind is calmer due to the breathing portion of yoga.  The calm typically lasts for a few hours.  By noon I note no difference.  Maybe I need to do a lunch session to get it back?

Today's question is:
"How do you begin your day?"

365QOD- Day703

"Vicis exspecto pro nemo"- a Latin expression

I am an observer.  I observe ads, commercials, t-shirts, tattoos, etc. I get a kick out of getting the joke or learning something new.

Recently while on the beach I saw a young lady who had this expression as a tattoo   Unusual to say the least.  

With the help of a search engine, I found out that the meaning of it is that "Time waits for no one".  It is a great reminder to live life to its fullest.   A wonderful reminder to the young lady and every one of us.

Lack of time probably ranks as one of the biggest excuses for not getting things done.  But remember that you can steal time from life by getting up early and achieving your dream.  You can do a lot of damage at 4 in the morning and no one will stop you.

Today's question is"
"What are you waiting for?"

365QOD- Day683

“Life is more accurately measured by the lives you touch than by the things you acquire” - unknown

We tend to hoard stuff.  The other day after church I sat in a church hall and had a discussion about the effects the last hurricane had on people in Galveston. 

The lives of many of the people there were affected greatly.  I asked them what they deemed most important that they took it with them.  The answer was that they went through a hurricane level 3 that barely dropped any rain so when this hurricane level 1 came through they thought it to be a non-event.  So most of them packed a couple of days worth of clothes.  The island was not accessible for two weeks after the hurricane.

Rest of the conversation focused on the way people behaved and how they did things for each other that in the past they might not have done.  They became better humans by having to go through a inhumane experience.  Things were replaceable but people could not be replaced so easily.. 

Today’s question is:

“If you had to leave your home quickly, what would you pack?”

365QOD- Day655

"God is a verb..." - start of a title of a book

What a way to capture someone's attention!  I was in a half-price bookstore the other day and this tittle jumped out at me.

Why?  The idea of God being a verb - something that we do- never entered my idea of God.  I consider myself more spiritual than religious.  But the idea of God being a verb did not fit nicely in either of those labels.

After some some time to think about it I came to a conclusion it is the only way to be.  To be more God than follow any religion could fit in.

Instead of WWJD, replace it with WWGD... Does it matter?  To most non-Christians it would.  In any religion it should fit nicely that we would want to act more like God.  I assume it is blasphemy in some.

In the end To do God is To do Love...

Today's question is:
"How does one do God?"