This is not a self-help post (1/7/2018)

In my previous blog I discussed how 2017 was for me.  I can assure you that while I tried to convince you, dear reader, that my glass is half full, there are always stressful times intermingled in my life, and yes I lose it at times.  A friend of mine wrote on her Facebook page that when her glass is half empty she gets a smaller glass and pours the content of the larger glass in it.  Well that is a way of changing your expectations or outlook on life.

There are all kind of ways to deal with stress (no this is not a self-help post, but just something I feel like sharing).  Some can be destructive to the person or close ones.  I am talking about alcohol, drugs or other addictions.  I like my glass of (red) wine (I wrote a few reviews of the Virginia wineries I visited), my beers (IPAs and stouts in particular ... I need to do review of them once: microbreweries and bottled), my single malts (I have around 8 different ones), bourbons (I have a few laying around), and a good cognac or armagnac (but I do not make enough money to drink that regularly).  But I generally do not have more than one drink during the week and two on the weekends.  There are exceptions of course, but that is a general rule.

So what do I do to de-stress?  It gets somewhat difficult when I travel and teach.  On days that I travel to a place, I often hope to get a nature experience in.  When I travel to the western part of the state it often becomes an hour hike on the New River trail.  When traveling to Front Royal, I love the visit the State Arboretum or find a piece of the Appalachian Trail to walk on for an hour or so.  When there is no nature, a book store or even an outdoor's store like REI (in Fairfax) will often fit the bill, at least there I can dream of being outside.

After teaching, when I stay another night, I often end up back in my room taking a nap.  Teaching takes a lot out of me.  I follow this up with a nice dinner (and a drink) and then I write and read (I recently updated my reading list).  I may have a night cap.  I watch very little TV, but I may have the TV on for noise and when I do it usually is on the Food Channel (I love cooking and baking).  Again, when I am out west and have my bike with me I might go for a bike ride on one of the many rails to trail sites that they have out there.  I have been known to visit a micro-brewery at times.  For one reason or another I do not frequent wineries when traveling alone.  When going home after teaching I tend to find a Starbucks or other high test coffee so I can survive the trip and get the hell out of there.  As you can see, I live a boring life.

When not traveling my stress relief consists of my almost daily lunch walks that end up at Starbucks for a cup of coffee and some writing or reading (my daughter complaints that this is where my retirement savings are going ... for me it is sanity).  We have moved and now my office is right next to Starbucks and I am not sure how to adjust my walks accordingly.  Another issue is that the last time I was there, there were three ladies from our office; before I was only the only one and I like being incognito.

At home I do yoga once a week.  I like it and have been doing it for 5 years now.  You all know that I like to practice "forest bathing."  A walk in the woods behind our home does wonders for me.  I also play with my bonsais and just looking at them and imagining what to do to them or how to prune them is very calming to me.  Sailing and being on or near water is another way of getting rid of stress.  My wife knits, and that is her way of being in the moment; her way of meditating. 

It has been very cold here I south east Virginia. It has been below freezing for a week and we have had snow.  Still, this has not deterred me (us) from getting outside and walking in the woods.

We even went for a 10 pm hike in the woods during our "snow storm" or the beginning of it.  The photo was taken with my head lamp on.

I think the overall idea is to entertain the mind, to keep it busy to be in the flow and concentrate on things you enjoy and not on the things that stress you out.  I've written about this a lot, but found it important to write about it again and keep reminding myself about it.

Que sera sera, what ever will be will be, really? (3/8/2016)

Of late I've been interacting with people or hearing about people who seem to be so fatalistic, and just take life laying down.  I went out to the field with an absolutely great guy, who in is mid forties and already has developed type two diabetes.  He warned me about it, since he had to take an insulin shot at the lunch table, to make sure I did not have to deal with someone in a sugar coma later on during our work in the field.

Not that it grossed me out or so watching someone shoot up, it just upset me to see someone so young and nice to be so matter of fact about it.  He was like: "My grandmother has it, my mother has it, so I knew it was just a matter of time before I developed it."  He went on telling me how skinny his grandmother was (he is not that skinny; he is actually a big bear).  But, he told me it was to be expected since it was familial.  He continued to tell me that the insulin shots actually caused him to gain some weight, which if you believe the books would make a person even more insulin dependent.  More than half of the people in my wife's office have the same affliction of being either pre-diabetic or having full-flung type 2, and yes there are a few who also blame their genes or as I sometimes say, "their uncle Bob."  But then, I seem to blame anything on Bob!

So I come home with this story nagging my brain, and my wife comes home from the field after talking with a guy who is convinced that he will be dead in a year.  All his relatives died by the age of 60 except his father who died at ripe old age of 63, so at the age of 59 he figured his years were limited.  In other words, who cares, he might as well throw in the towel, give up and let his life and health go to hell, since he is going to die after all: a self fulfilling prophecy?  He basically summoned my wife to get his business in order before he died.

Waiting for a food cart in Richmond this afternoon, few people know what their health future will be, or maybe few know what it actually is or they are cavalier about it.  I know that when I travel I don't often eat the most healthy, but at least I try to get some exercise in to offset my diet.

I have just been so bothered by people taking things lying down and taking things spoon fed.  When I teach my students I try to help them think, understand and appreciate what lies beneath it all.  I want to instill a wonder lust; a curiosity.  I know it is often appreciated.  Sadly, all that I see lately is people just blindly following demagogues (politicians); they seem to follow the same paths where the rest of the herd is going without asking questions; or even personally concerning themselves, they let their relatives (uncle Bob) and parents rules their health, life and longevity.

What lies beneath it all.  A dear friend and fellow teacher uses this picture in one of his presentations and it is emblematic of it all.  We need to look beneath it all Look at the root instead of being spoon fed.  The hammer sharks here also symbolize my I need to work (hammer) on myself physically and mentally.

Darn it, if I believe this, I should be having treatment for prostrate cancer by now, because that is what my father had at my age.  I was tested and I'm doing fine.  I also made sure I did not suffer from any brain aneurysms as my mother had and I suspect her mother had.  I will "Go my own way" damn it, just like that popular Fleetwood Mac song.  I know I need to clean up my life, but then again, I am not as bad as some others that I know.  It is such a damn cliche, but such a good one: "getting old is not for sissies," I am stiff, I hurt, but I'm going to fight getting old all the damn way!  That is why I sail, why I bike, why I hike, why I blog, practice yoga, try to meditate, live in the moment, and why I still threaten my wife that I will retire when I am 70.  It is just that I want to live my life my own way, with my wife and my friends, without people telling me how to live it or what to expect based on some preconceived idea or model.

Knowing how essential exercise and moving is I made sure that during my tripto Front Royal Virginia today I stopped over at a point where the Appalachian Train crossed the highway and I went for a walk.  My fitbit reported I walked for an hour and a half for 5640 steps, average heartbeat was 106 with top rate at 159.  I climbed over 500 feet at times.  Great exercise!

Shawsville (7/24/2014)

Taught two courses at different sides of the state this week.  Kind of like a traveling salesman.   I drove to Fairfax on Tuesday evening after having an MRI of my head (boy that was a different experience).  The MRI itself was absolutely not as bad as everybody had warned me about.  But then, I am convinced that all my yoga practice helped with it.  Shavasana really helped.

Then it was down to Wytheville after a full day of teaching in Fairfax.  I left around 4 pm on Wednesday and got in around 9 that evening.  After teaching again on Thursday I stayed overnight to recuperate and took it easier going back on Friday.   By taking it easier I mean not going 8 or 10 miles an hour over the speed limit, trying to make some time, kind of in the frame of mind of "hurry up to relax."  This probably is a contradiction, and I am not sure if it works anyway; you area kind of wired after a five hour rat race on the interstate at 80 mph.  So on the way back I made sure that I consistently only exceeded the speed limit by 4 miles per hour (if that) and I actually got off the highway for a while.

So I got of the interstate in Christiansburg and actually rode highway 11 down the mountain.  Highway 11 is a nice twisty (down the) mountain road that is actually really quiet with some nice vistas.  I am sure it does not put many extra miles on the vehicle but it is away from the rat race of the interstate.  I took the picture below in Shawsville. No idea what I took a picture of, but is was a pretty farm building.  Wikipedia does not tell me much about Shawsville either; although I am sure it has a rich history, in addition to being wiped out by the Shawnee Indians in 1756.

Eventually I got back on the highway and joined the rat race back to Richmond.

One of the things I taught my students Thursday was "to think outside the box," while understanding that most of the time they will need to enforce the law and regulations.  Yes, there may still be times that they can, may and even should improvise, even though they are restrained by those darn laws and regulations.

Think outside the darn box!

Well that's what Friday felt like.  I think it felt like that for everyone; for me, kind of obeying the speed limit and getting of the main road and driving the back roads, at least for a little bit.  For other it seemed that they were all living in the left lane on Friday.  It was amazing here I was driving 70 (which was the speed limit) and I was passing people in the right lane.  I even had people moving over to the right to let me pass and then more back to the left lane.  It was so bad that I adapted the Beatles tune Yellow Submarine into "We all live in the left lane."  Guess even they were thinking outside the box, but I'm not sure if that was the right thing to do.  We learn in traffic school that most fatalities happen in the left lane (but that would be thinking inside the box).  Oh well.

Getting back to Richmond, even a transformer thought outside the box.  It seemed that it exploded underground, just outside our offices.  All traffic lights were out and our building only had emergency lights and was evacuated.  Dropped the car off and continued my road trip home.  A busy week indeed.