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By TJ, July 28, 2009 12:18 pm

If you follow my blog, you know that my wife went to Vegas this weekend to celebrate her sister’s 30th birthday.  She originally wanted to come back Monday afternoon, which meant I took a vacation day from work to watch the kid.  I wanted her to come home Sunday evening, so before she booked the flight she made the very unwise decision to take the red-eye home.

Ever heard the expression “If you try to please everyone you’ll end up pleasing no one?”

My wife is 12 weeks pregnant and doesn’t need the stress of a red-eye flight, nor can she handle it.  I wasn’t happy with the idea, but the flight was booked by the time I knew about it.  She was supposed to get in at 8:15am, but she didn’t end up getting back to our house until 10.  Since I was supposed to be at work already, I was anxious to leave.  But she didn’t feel good, and asked me to stick around.  I did for awhile, but was stir-crazy to get going.  I’m not a patient person, but I sat down at that moment, took a deep breath, and challenged myself to be patient today.  That was my challenge for the day.

Shortly after getting to work, Kara called and told me that she was sick and wondered when I could come home to watch our kid so she could sleep.  I immediately laughed and thought to myself that this was it, this was clearly a challenge from God to test my commitment to self-improvement.

As I drove home, I pondered how I would keep my temper and not lose my patience.  I made the decision not to say a word about her red-eye scheme and not to show any frustration with how the day was turning out.  If I did, it would surely lead to failure.  I came home, smiled, took the kid to the park and let my wife sleep.  And you  know what?  It felt good to be patient and selfless.    When she woke up at 5 she felt a lot better.  I went and picked up pizza, and after dinner I took care of the kid.  Later that night we sat and talked more than usual, and had a great night.  I thought about how the night would have tunred out had I not been patient and loving.  I would have yelled, she would have left the room angry, we would have both been miserable, and we would have sat silently on our computers and worked.  Recently I’ve decided I’d rather be happy than right.

And so it turns out that patience is a virtue, really!  So next time you lose your patience with a friend or loved one, or a stranger in the car in front of you, take a deep breath and smile.  Maybe you willl be rewarded the way I was.

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By TJ, July 27, 2009 12:05 pm

In my post from this morning, I decided to try an experiment.  My goal coming into the day was to be the ideal person that I want to be so that at the end of the day I could analyze it.  Making no compromises, I stepped into the day knowing that it was just a single day.  Every decision I made, every action I took, I asked myself “Does this action represent the person you desire to be?”

I learned 2 things:

1. It aint easy. This wasn’t an exercise to be the perfect person, or to be like someone else that I admire, both of those would be feeble attempts at something unmanagable in the long run.  No, this was an attempt to be a better version of myself.  The person I should be if I don’t let negative influences and weak will-power take me down.

The day started off simple enough, I woke up at 6am like usual. After writing this post, I went outside for a workout in the back yard.  I took in some fresh air and got my blood pumping.  Soon my son woke up, and I made him some breakfast, we sang songs and we danced in the living room.  Exactly the dad I want to be (at least while he’s an innocent 18-month old).  I cleaned and did laundry so that when my wife comes home from her out-0f-town trip to Vegas, she doesn’t have to worry about cleaning.  Exactly the kind of husband I want to be.  By noon I had eaten well, exercised, taken good care of my kid, and did chores to help out my wife.  All was good.

When I put MJ down for a nap, I logged on and did some work for my family business.  By 3 o’clock when my son woke up, I was worn down but had accomplished a lot.  The rest of the day I kelpt at my goal, but it got tougher.  I lost some of my will and made some mistakes.  As a long distance runner, I would compare this journey to running 100 miles.  You don’t just go run it, you train and build up.  You finish your first marathon and think that’s the longest distance you can ever do.  Yesterday was that marathon, and I limped to the finish line.  Now I start my training for longer distances.

2. It’s totally worth it. I love my family and myself, and I want the best for us.  I want to make their lives better, I want to be a role model to my son and dependaable to my wife.  Too many of us live in a selfish world.  And we think that when we do something for someone it’s a big deal, and we deserve a reward.  My grand experiment showed me that (cliche alert!) the journey is the reward.

Spend the next few minutes thinking about the person that you want to be.  Then go out and be it.  Every opportunity, go out and ask yourself what the ideal you would do, then do it.  Try it out for 24 hours and let me know what you find!

Related Articles:

If You Want To Be A Better Person, You Have To Be A Better Person

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By TJ, July 26, 2009 11:37 am

Three frogs sit on a log.  One of them makes a decision to jump into the lake.  How many frogs are now sitting on the log?

The answer is three.  Making a decision to jump into the lake is not the same as jumping.  If that frog is one of us, he’s probably preparing for the jump now.  He’s dipping his toes in to check the temperature.  He’s checking the depth, worrying about how long he’ll be in there, how he might get out, what kind of fly he had for dinner last night. And soon the opportunity will pass, it will get dark and he will decide that it’s best to go for a swim tomorrow when he’s not so tired.

The thing is, if you want to do something you have to just do it.  Preparation is great, but not everything needs preparation.  We’re not talking about climbing Everest or swimming across the English Channel, we’re talking about making steps towards being a better person.   And there’s no better time than now.

Today I will being doing a little social experiment.  I’m going to make the entire day about being who I want to be.  This means I will focus on being a better husband and dad, being more healthy, and being more engaging.  All day I will ask myself what I should be doing to be a better person, then I will just do it.   It’s 6:30 AM, I’m going to start by drinking some more water and getting in my workout before my kid wakes up.

I’ll be checking back in periodically today to document my findings.  You can check back here or follow me on Twitter.

Update: Here’s the follow-up article

Subscribe to my rss feed to make sure you don’t miss the follow up on this or any other experiment!

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By TJ, July 25, 2009 7:58 pm

We’re so busy all the time, we barely have time to breathe.  It sounds cliche, but I mean it literally. We are so busy doing stuff, so busy worrying, so focused on what’s next that we never stop to just breathe.

Breathing is a cool thing, actually.  It’s one of the few bodily functions that can be controlled both consciously and unconsciously.  Unconscious breathing is controlled by the brainstem, which regulates the rate and depth of your breathing.  It’s the reason that you’re breathing softly and slowly right now, and why you breathe fast and hard when you’re exercising.  It keeps us alive and we don’t even have to think about it.

Interesting fact: People have survived over two hours without breathing when submerged in freezing cold water.  But just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Conscious breathing has an astounding physical and mental effect.  It calms us down when we’re stressed about money, angry that some jerk just cut us off on the highway, or excited that our team just won the Super Bowl.  Regardless of the emotions we’re feeling, taking a deep breathe will bring us back to reality when we’re ready.

Focused breathing, or pranayama, is one of the five principles of yoga.  The Yogis realized the importance of an adequate oxygen supply thousands of years ago, and that is why they developed and perfected various breathing techniques that will help to revitalize the mind and body.  This controlled breathing delivers oxygen to our blood and our brains, giving us vital energy.

For me, the very best time to take a deep breath is right now.  Anytime I think of it, I do it.  It’s free, it’s fun, and it’s healthy!  So do it with me.  First, exhale completely, pushing every last drop of carbon dioxide from your lungs.  Pause for a moment.  Now breathe in slowly, filling your lungs with life’s free and guiltless treasure.  Take the time to taste the sweetness of the air, imagine the oxygen saturating your blood stream enabling stronger muscles and a faster brain.  Take it all in that one deep breath.  Once your lungs are full, pause for a moment. Don’t think about where you’ve been or where you’re going, think about how good life is at this moment.  Now relax and exhale.

Did you do it?  Go ahead, I’ll wait.  :)

What did you think?  What did breathing do for you?

photo by LunaDiRimmel