The blurred line between success and failure

The blurred line between success and failure

I was on the bus today and felt I had ridden a log way and should already have arrived. The windows were foggy and I couldn’t see outside clearly. As I started to worry about having missed my stop I took another look out and realized I had already arrived. Sometimes life is like this. We feel we have worked very hard for a goal and feel that we should have already arrived but because of the blurry windows of our perceptive lens on reality we don’t realize that we have already arrived.

Try to recognize one particularly good thing about yourself or one area of your life where you actually have arrived but you aren’t letting yourself feel joy concerning it. You’ll feel like a 1000 bucks or in today’s deflationary market maybe 957!

Sleeping without drugs

The other night I wanted to go to sleep. I had a very rough day at work and was still very stressed and tense because of it. I tried to go to sleep and after an hour of trying could never fall asleep all the thoughts were too bunched up in my head and I couldn’t untangle them. I felt overwhelmed and there was nothing I could do to improve my situation of super stress working conditions in the next days. I was a bit lost and didn’t know what to do. Since I’ve been working on focusing on my breathing I did that and just focused on breathing and focusing on that and in this way slowly started to clear my head of thoughts. Then I did a practical exercise where I immagine my mind as a car and I’m putting the car in neutral. This evening I imagined my mind as a lake and I didn’t want to perturbé the smooth surface if the lake with a ripple effect from the pebble of a thought being cast into the lake.

I fell asleep. Hmmm, lovely! 

Taking your time and Reinterpretation

Sometimes there are situations where you are rushed. You need to catch a train or a bus and you’re late and hurrying to make it.

This happened to me today. I was late to catch my bus (or so I thought) and then I looked at my ticket time and it was another time entirely. It was 15 min earlier than I thought and with that new time I would never make it. I stopped and rushed into the next solution without analyzing and reworking my timetable or schedule and without really checking the current time (in a different time zone than I was in yesterday).

In the end I bought a ticket on the train and as I was on the train leaving  and pulling out of the station I realized that due to my new time zone I was an hour earlier than I suspected and thus would have had plenty of time to catch my bus.

Moral of the story :”When things seem not to have gone the way you thought, look back before other action and see if there is a different way to perceive your outcome.”

If possible find a way of perceiving the situation that you like because it gives a meaningful meaning to something that otherwise would be disempowering.

 

Kid on a leash

As I’m sitting here about to leave for UK for work, I’m laying down in my nice suit and laying on the floor.

A woman next to me came up and gave me a disgusted look.

She was with a child of a out 5 and her daughter was on a leash.

I gave her the same disgusted look right back.

Anxious?

When I get anxious about things I can’t change I ask myself, what is the worst thing that can happen?

Another idea is “what is on the other side of this fear”. Usually it’s nothing.

Usually it’s not that bad.

We defeat ourselves before we even get started.

Mark Twain said

” I

‘ve had  lot of worries in my life most of which never happened.

”

Don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Go out try and then when you fail at least you’ll have some experience to take away from the situation and more importantly you’ll know you gave it your best which is the only thing we can do. We can control our internal states snd responses, the external world largely we can’t control.

Many clothes small bag – Packing 101

 

I’m packing my bag today so that I’m ready to leave tomorrow for UK.

Some of you are familiar with my 4 month small Asia bag I packed last year and many friends have asked me to catalog and write about exactly what I put in it and how I packed it.

While booking my flight the other day I got this tingly feeling when Ryanair asked me whether I wanted to book a bag. I talked to my parents and they said : “of course you need a bag, you HAVE to book one”. Hearing this made me doubt whether I could pack a bag for 3 months, including work clothes and a computer and make it all fit in the Ryanair mandated baggage size.

I often doubt myself and think I can’t do something and give up on it. Other times for whatever reason I say. “Wait a minute, maybe I can do this…”

Here is what I came up with.

1. Laptop Computer
2. Mouse
3. Mouse attachment usb
4. Power cord for computer
5. 1TB storage drive
6. storage drive cord
7. Passport
8. Glasses
9. Glasses Case
10. Glasses polisher
11. Gillette shaver with 2 attachments
12. Multi Vitamin Pills
13. Listerine Nivea Cream
14. Floss
15. Toothbrush
16. Toothpaste
17. 4 Hairpins
18. 1 Note
19. pair or earplugs
20. eyeband
21. Nail Clippers
22. toiletry bag to put # 11-21 into
23. Stethoscope
24. Kindle e-Reader

Clothes

25. Blue Pants matching with blue suit coat I’m wearing out

26. Grey Pants

27,28,29,30,31. 4 black tshirts and one grey one

32. grey shirt

33. blue shirt

34,35,36,37,38,39. Underwear

40,41,42,43,44 White socks

45,46,47, 48 Black Socks

49. Black workout pants

+ 2 Bags, One Vaude 30 L Backpack, one small handbag

In Total there are 51 Items and they all fit into my Vaude backpack. The one thing that is missing is my trusty lock, which I lost in Zagreb, and I will buy a new lock somewhere along the way.

Here’s what I’ll be wearing out:

1. Bulky Tennis shoes
2. Heavy Blue Pants for cold rainy days
3. Jeans shirt
4. Black and Brown interchangable Belt
5. MP3 Player
6. Blue lightweight sweater
7. Blue Suit Coat matching with Blue suit pants (#25)
8. Brown Coat
9. Brown Scarf
10. Grey Hat
11. Wallet
12. USB Flashdrive attached with Shoestring to pants

 

 

49+2+12 Items = 63 Items for 3 months away. Not too Bad!

 

 

Eccentric and I like it

As I was going over what I needed to do this morning one of the questions I asked myself was: ” How can I do these various, boring errands in a different and exciting way for me ?”

The first thought that popped into my head was that I would run to all of my meetings in the morning and take care of my business in my running clothes. I thought it was a splendid idea so I set off on my run and ran to an appointment with a lawyer, ran to the bank, ran to the Medical Association to do some paperwork, ran to the BMW dealer to pickup my car ! As I was doing all this running and as people were staring at me in the lawyers office for example I thought to myself, really these people need more things from me than what I need from them, so why should I conform to the way people are supposed to dress to supposedly make them want to interact with me more? My other thought was, in some way all of these people I am paying, so, if I’m the boss why do I have to dress up to interact with people that are working for me?

Do something different today. Wear that flamboyant tie that you’ve had in your closet forever but have been to afraid to wear out. Put on your running pants and sports shirts and join me at the bank and/or lawyers office. Do something that makes you feel alive, do something that makes you feel at least slightly uncomfortable. Do something daring.

Dare to Live at least a little bit of life on your own terms each day and you’ll feel fantastic.

me in my workout outfit today!

Breathing, Smiling and self love

Sometimes you meet nice people, sometimes you meet assholes. No matter who you meet the ability to influence your internal state and interior monologue remains the same.

Don’t get carried away by the naritive your mind creates or as I like to call it the hamster running on the wheel.

Had a shitty day? Lots of problems keep creeping up? Try silencing and bringing your mind back to the moment you are in.

Take 3 deep breaths and inhale and exhale with your eyes closed. You’ll start to feel better.

Look up at the celling and smile for a minute or two. You’ll be surprised how much it helps. Do something nice for yourself today.

Today I’m giving myself a nice relaxing steam sauna for 15 min when I get home to say I love you Cole.

What can YOU do to show yourself that you care about YOU ?

Planning 101

Planning, execution and following up on my plans is something I struggle with and have struggled with for a long time. I believe in simple systems that are easy to set up and easy to continue because they are so simple.

For the next three months I’m going to post a blog post every day with different and new ideas as they come across my path and I reflect and develop them.

Every week I’ll have a main goal for my week and will check in to make sure that goal is progressing or has been accomplished by the end of the week.

I’ll post the things left to do on my Door so I will see them continually during the day when I come and go from my apartment.

Every week I want to :

• write one blog post a day with new ideas I’m having
• create one element of content on my site EdwardColeMiller.com about travel, ideas or Medicine
• Create one element of content on DrSex

 

My experimentation in Information Blackout is giving me the time I need to be able to do some of these things. Soon I’ll post a longer piece on Information Blackout and why I haven’t watched TV, Movies, listened to Radio or played any video games or apps for the last 3 months.

Over the next weeks I’ll try to do another blog post on this subject since I want to develop a system of habbits with some of the things I do on a regular basis and how to automate and grow my life.

I’ll also check-in a month or so later to see how this is going with this easy planning system

Now I’m off to catch a train to Zagreb, Croatia!

Focus

Often when I get on the computer I tend to waste time. From a laser targeted goal I get distracted by one tab and then the other as my hamster mind spins out of control and tries to occupy itself with “busy” instead of focusing to create something that is meaningful to me.

The practice of bringing my mind back to whatever task I have at hand is always a valuable one.  This reminds me of Bruce Lee’s quote :”The Successful warrior is the average Man with Laser Like Focus”. This type of focus is what we need to complete long term goals. This is why I find meditation so effective. By meditating we constrain and direct our hamster like minds that want to run on the spinning wheel into a purpose. We go from a rudderless boat that cannot arrive at clear destinations to a laser guided missile that embodies precision.

A simple exercise is to sit with your eyes closed and focus on your breathing. Count to 10 breaths one at a time from one to ten. Inhalation- 1 Exhalation-2 Inhalation – 3 Exhalation- 4 Ecc.   I tend to do this in down moments of the day when waiting on someone or something so that I can train my focus. These times tend to be on the Subway or waiting for the Dentist or friends.

Another exercise I do it listening to the sounds around me and trying not to interpret them with my mind. I try to hear the sound for what it is without applying mental filters such as interpretations to them.

When your mind wanders bring it back, the exercise of doing this will create more focus in your life and you will be able to pursue your goals with greater direction and focus.

Greetings from Bongo Hostel Belgrade