Keith McArthur's Blog, page 19

Five Things Life is Like

Yesterday, I wrote that life is like riding a horse.

Here are five other things life is like.

1. A Yoga Class

Our lifespan is like a yoga class, Val Boyko writes today at the Find Your Middle Ground blog.

We start with the warm ups and prepare for later on. We learn new skills and practice them to become more masterful. We take on more challenging positions. We keep learning and striving until we reach our peak. Then we shift attention towards finding balance. We slow down and tune in more to what is happening in our mind, body and inner being. We relax. We let go and take the time to nourish and restore ourselves.

2. An Ocean

Blogger and poet Joel F writes in the Joys of Joel blog that life is like an ocean, coming in waves ebbing and flowing. “Yes, the best wave of your life is still out there. Learn from the waves and enjoy the ride,” he write

3. A Cup of Coffee

Sharing a story about a teacher and his former students, blogger Audrey writes on the Living for Experiences blog that we spend too much time focusing on things that don’t matter, represented by a coffee cup, when what matters is inside.

Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of life we live. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee. Savor the coffee, not the cups!

4. A Garden

After suffering a horrible tragedy, blogger Crisly Zerrudo spent some time in her yard where weeds were overtaking her garden. Through her Empowering and Uplifting blog, she finds beauty and optimism in a world that will never be the same.

6 months ago, my life has ended when our daughter was taken from us without any signs. … Yes, we can blame everyone but it won’t bring back our lost child to us, instead we can take small steps to bring back our life. Yes, it won’t be as beautiful as it was in the past but if we just take those steps every day, I know we can make our lives beautiful again. Just like my garden, I won’t be able to bring back how it looked like before, but pulling out the weeds, cleaning and watering it every day, planting new plants and flowers, and make the fence stronger, in no time I can make my garden beautiful again.

5. A Box of Chocolates

What list of life analogies would be complete without the wisdom of Forrest Gump?

My mama always said, “Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

 

What about you? What’s your favorite analogy for life?

Hold the Reins at the Right Tension

First, let me admit that I’ve never ridden a horse.

And yet, I’ve always thought of riding a horse as a metaphor for life. Sometimes you need to be very hands on and hold the reins tight. Sometimes you need to be ease off and hold the reins more loosely.

The Wikihow entry on how to hold a horse’s reins is instructive:

Hold the Reins at the Right Tension. You want just enough tension to maintain control, without restricting the horse’s movements unnecessarily. It’s better to hold them too loose than too tight, in order to avoid causing pain.

This metaphor is particularly useful when it comes to managing people or raising your kids.

Most of the time we need just enough tension to guide our kids or our employees, without restricting them unnecessarily. But when our kids get involved in harmful behavior, or if a work project gets off track, we need to tighten those reins and exercise more control.

What about you? How do you find the right balance when parenting or managing a team?

I’ve Come for My Award

Thank you to Roda at the Growing Self Blog for nominating me for the Real Neat Blog Award!

Some bloggers choose not to participate in these awards, but I think they’re a great way to show appreciation for bloggers who are doing great work, and I really appreciate the nod from Roda!

Scroll down to the bottom of this post to check out the great blogs I’ve nominated.

But first, let me introduce Roda in her own words.

I spent 22 years teaching elementary education. Two years ago, I closed that door and opened a new one… It has been over these past two years that I have focused on “Growing Self”.

If you haven’t already, you should check out Roda’s blog. Today’s post, “I Love You, But Not That Much…” is a great one to get started.

 

How does the Real Neat Blog award work?

There are four rules for people participating in the award:

Thank the person(s) who nominated you in a blog post and link back to their blog
Answer the 7 questions sent by the person who nominated you
Nominate 7 new blogs to receive the award and write them 7 new questions
List the rules and display the Real Neat Blogger Award logo on your post and/or on your blog

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Here are Roda’s questions and my answers

1) Paper or Plastic?

Grocery stores in Canada don’t usually stock paper bags, so our choices are either plastic or reusable bags. I know I should use reusable, but I usually forget to bring them to the store!

2) If you could transform into any animal, what would it be?

I would want to fly so it would have to be some kind of bird. I’ll go with a falcon.

3) Who is your historical soul mate?

This is a hard one. But based on Season 1 of The Crown, I’m going to go with Queen Elizabeth II. As a young woman, she’s not the stuffy old woman we imagine. I admire her as an early feminist and her focus on duty over self.

4) Are you a city mouse or a country mouse?

I’ve never lived in the country, so I have to say I’m a city mouse.

5) What is your favorite vegetable?

Avocados would be the obvious choice if they weren’t technically a fruit. So I’m going to go with fiddleheads. I only get to eat them once or twice a year in the spring, but they are so delicious with a little butter and sea salt!

6) Favorite book?

I have so many, but my favorite book I’ve read recently is The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. Her work helped inspire My Instruction Manual.

7) Why do you write?

I write because I have things to say. I write because I’m good at it. I write because I love words. I write because I live. I write because I can.

Keith’s Nominations

I’ve nominated blogs that inspire me in the writing of My Instruction Manual. At least half of the posts at each of these blogs deal with topics of self-improvement / personal-development.

(I have included more than seven, but there are so many great blogs out there and it’s hard to pare the list down. Besides, I went back and looked at the original rules by the blogger who started this award and she says it’s okay to nominate any number of blogs.)

Note to everyone I nominated: It’s totally up to you if you want to participate in this. Just know that I appreciate what you do!

Healthy Life Perspectives by Monte
IpunaBlack by Ipuna
A Year of Living Kindly by Donna
The Way of Consciousness by Matthew
Poised to Thrive by Catherine
The Golden Wave by Hayley
Secret2anamazinglife by Neal
Bee Organized With Pamela by Pamela
Be Inspired
Thoughts n Life Blog by Bella

Keith’s Questions

What’s your favorite television drama? (my list here!)
Here in Canada we’re celebrating the country’s 150th birthday. Have you ever been? Where?
Do you have any nicknames or have you in the past?
What’s the most important life lesson you have learned?
What’s the hardest thing you’ve gone through and what did you learn from it?
Are you happy?
Share one blog post you’ve written that you feel didn’t get enough attention

I can’t wait to see all the responses!

Readers: What self-improvement / personal-development blogs you you enjoy? Let me know and I’ll check them out!

Win the War on Clutter the 5B Way

When Laura and I got married, my aunt gave us a piece of advice: “Don’t lose the war on paper.”

Paper, she warned — paid bills, instruction manuals, report cards, Christmas cards, essays, and every other bit of words on tree fibre — will take over your entire house if you let it.

I’m sorry to say, we’re losing the war, not just on paper, but on all forms of clutter. Much of it is hidden away, stuffed in cupboards or cardboard boxes that we carted from our last house seven years ago.

But we’re starting to make progress. I’ve been reading Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and I’ve used the KonMari method to get rid of more than half of my clothes.

The KonMari method may be too extreme for some. Luckily there are simpler methods.

I recently read about a decluttering technique on the Bee Organized with Pamela blog. I’ve modified it, and dubbed my version the 5B Method because it involves three boxes and two bags.

Here’s the technique:

Declutter your house one room at a time. Pick one room and give yourself a one-week time limit to get it finished.
Bring three boxes and two bags (black and blue) into the room. Go through everything in the room.
Box 1 is for things that are staying in the room. If you can put an item in its proper place right away, do it. Otherwise, put it in the box.
Box 2 is for things that you want to keep but don’t belong in this room.
Box 3 is for things you don’t want that are still in good condition. These are things to give away or sell.
Bag 1 is a black garbage bag. This is for anything broken or things that nobody would want.
Bag 2 is a blue recycling bag. This is to get rid of all the paper clutter. (Don’t forget to shred documents with confidential health or financial information).
Before the week is over, the three boxes should be empty, because you’ve put contents from the first two boxes in the right place and given away or sold the items in the third box. And the bags should be out of your house.

Some rooms may take more than a week. In that case, Pamela recommends breaking the room into smaller more manageable sections by dividing into halves or quarters.

She writes:

Don’t get overwhelmed. Remember it’s like eating an elephant. You do it one bite at a time.

 

What about you? How are you managing the war on paper and other clutter? Please scroll down and share any tips in the comments!

It’s July 1. Time to Set Some Resolutions!

Today marks the half-way mark of 2017!

Did you set New Year’s resolutions? How are you doing in the first six months?

For many of us, annual resolutions are too much commitment. Jackie Mellem of the One and Done blog recently wrote about setting resolutions on the solstices.

The solstices seem like a good time to assess, take stock and plan what the next six months hold. It’s kind of like a new year resolution for commitment-phobes. After all, there’s only a 6-month stint involved instead of a year.

If you like the idea of half-year resolutions, July 1 is another perfect opportunity! (It’s also Canada Day up here where we’re celebrating 150 years since Confederation. And it’s 20 years since I proposed to my wife Laura while celebrating Canada Day on Parliament Hill).

For me, even half-year resolutions are too long. I wrote last month about my first attempt at setting monthly resolutions and tracking them daily in my bullet journal.

How did I do?

I set five daily resolutions for myself in June (you can read about them here) and had varying success. I did well at publishing blog posts (24/30 days) and exercising (23/30) but less well at the resolutions I had set for social media (13/30) and writing my kidney transplant book (10/30). But that’s okay; I’m focused on progress, not perfection.

I did learn a few things in my first month of setting and tracking resolutions:

For five days in June, I was travelling with family to a meetup with other families of children with GRIN1, the same rare genetic condition of my son Bryson. During this time, it wouldn’t have been fair to my family to insist on so much alone time for my resolutions. It’s important to build these major events into our expectations when setting daily resolutions.
Similarly, it was harder to achieve my resolutions on the weekends, when I felt it was important to prioritize family time. This month, I’m setting goals for how many times per week I want to achieve each resolution.
Even during a period as short as a month, it’s important not to feel locked in to resolutions. Successful people pivot according to opportunities or challenges that arise.
Finally, I made a conscious choice to focus on goals that were mostly about me for the first month. For July, I’m adding goals about how I relate to the most important people in my life.

What about you? When do you set your resolutions? What have you learned about what it takes to be successful when setting them?

Mini-Milestone: One Month of My Instruction Manual

One month ago, I published my first post on My Instruction Manual!

So far, I’ve published 26 posts (including this one), reached 364 subscribers (sort of), and had visitors from 47 countries (including Nigeria, Brunei and Guernsey).

To celebrate this mini-milestone, I wanted to take a moment to look back on some of the highlights (and lowlights).

Most viewed posts

Welcome to My Instruction Manual, in which I lay out what inspired the blog and what it’s going to be about.
My Father’s Day Pledge 2017, in which I update a post about my son Bryson, one of the most important pieces I have written
When Bad Things Make Us Better, in which I argue that bad things don’t happen to good people; bad things make us better people.
My Kidney Transplant Story, an excerpt of a soon-to-be released book about my kidney disease and transplant
How Your Job Change Who You Are, in which I reveal that I allowed my chosen profession to get in the way of my happiness

Least viewed post

Not a lot of love for manatees! Or maybe it has more to do with my sense of humor. Other than the one I published yesterday, my least viewed post is the one I published on Father’s Day, What Do Manatees Like To Eat, in which I share some dad jokes about manatees. The post also has no comments. This is your chance to be the first to take on my manatee joke challenge!

Most liked post

The post that got the most likes was also one of the shortest I’ve written. (Does that mean I need to be more brief?). Impossible is a Dare talks about how it’s not enough to believe we can accomplish almost anything. We need to believe we can accomplish anything.

Most discussed post

The most viewed post was also the most discussed. Welcome to My Instruction Manual has 25 comments. But How Complaining Kills Happiness is a close second, with 22 comments. This recent post argues that complaining is toxic, killing our happiness and making us less attractive to those around us.

Readership by country

Overall, I’ve received the greatest number of followers from Canada, which makes sense since that’s where I’m based and where most of the contacts in my social networks are located.

But this week, the scales have tipped and I’m getting more readers from the United States. This is good news since it means I’m getting an increasing number of followers from outside my own social network, people who are specifically interested in self improvement and personal development. Rounding out the Top 5 countries are the United Kingdom, India and Australia.

Readership by source

Facebook has been my best source of incoming traffic followed by Twitter, the WordPress Reader, LinkedIn and search engines. SEO was by far the largest source of traffic at keithmcarthur.ca, but it will take work and time before search engines weight my blog better.

Followers

I was surprised, but pleased, to learn that WordPress will transfer followers from one blog to another. It took a few days after my request, but WordPress kindly transferred 311 followers from keithmcarthur.ca to myinstructionmanual.com. Since I’ve launched this blog, I’ve welcomed more than 50 new followers.

What about you?

And you? What do you think of the first month of My Instruction Manual What posts did you like most? Are there any you didn’t enjoy? Are there other topics you want to see me cover?

Progress not Perfection

We were running late as always.

But my teenage son Connor needed a snack before his martial arts class, so we ran into the grocery store to grab something quick.

As soon as we went to pay, two cashiers abruptly turned off their “open” signs. Everyone was being diverted to a single aisle with a line six customers deep.

“So everybody’s closed?” I snapped. “You’ve only got one aisle open in the whole store?”

Connor intervened.

“Dad, stop. It’s embarrassing. Besides…” he said, pointing to the seven-items-or-less line where there was no wait.

The irony was that earlier that day I had published a blog post about why we all need to stop complaining. And I was preparing to write another post about the difference between complaining and advocacy.

I snapped because I was worried about getting Connor to his class on time. But clearly, my behavior was about complaining not advocacy.

The things I write about in My Instruction Manual are lessons I’m learning, not ones I have mastered.

And that’s okay.

Like most things in life, self-improvement is not about being perfect. It’s about trying your best, and identifying and self-correcting when you slip up.

Alcoholics Anonymous has a saying: Progress not Perfection.

The AA philosophy is that that once alcoholics stop drinking, they still need to address other character flaws. And in this, they are taught to focus on trying to be a little better each day, rather than expecting to be a new person right away.

It’s advice that is good for all of us to hear.

Perfection is the enemy of progress. When we inevitably fail to meet our own rigid standards, we are liable to just give up.

It is much better to set reasonable expectations and focus on becoming a little better each day.

What about you? Have expectations of perfection — from yourself or someone else — been a stumbling bock to your progress?

Don’t Complain, Advocate

Families of sick children are supposed to wait patiently. The clinic nurse had made this clear eight weeks earlier when my wife Laura first called to check up on Bryson’s lab results.

But what was supposed to be a four-month wait had stretched to half a year of waiting to find out if Bryson had tested positive for a degenerative disease that would prevent him from reaching adulthood. So Laura ignored the ‘don’t call us; we’ll call you’ directive and dialed again.

“The results still aren’t back,” the nurse said. “We’ll call you when they are.”

When Laura pressed, the nurse reluctantly agreed to check on the file. A few minutes later, the nurse returned to the phone to sheepishly acknowledge that an error had been made. Bryson’s blood was never sent to the US lab for testing.

The reality of this – another four months of waiting – hit Laura hard. She hung up the phone and wept.

This was several years ago. Thankfully, Bryson eventually got a diagnosis of GRIN1, a rare genetic condition.

But through his health issues and my kidney disease, our family has learned an important lesson: When you’re navigating the health care system, it pays to be pushy. Patients — and parents of patients — need to be advocates.

Yesterday, I wrote about how complaining is toxic, killing our own happiness and making us less attractive to those around us.

But this doesn’t mean we sit back and take whatever life throws at us. As Luminita D. Saviuc writes, the key is to change things if we can. And when it’s something we can’t change — the weather for example — we need to change our attitude instead of complaining.

So how do we stand up for ourselves and our families if complaining is off the table?

Advocacy.

Complaining is easy but it’s useless. Too often, we complain to people who have no power to change our situation. Even when we complain to the person responsible for the problem, we are so full of fear and resentment and anger that we are actually harming, not helping, our situation.

Advocacy is hard but it’s useful. Advocacy is about fighting for our rights and the rights of those around us in a way that can actually improve the situation. Advocacy is challenging because it means trying to look at a grievance from a detached, emotionless, outsider’s perspective. This allows us to see the situation clearly so we can act in a way that will solve our grievance.

So how do you know if you’re complaining or advocating?

If you’re talking to someone who can’t improve your situation, or if what you’re doing makes you feel angry or powerless, you’re probably complaining.

If you’re talking to someone who can actually fix the problem, and what you’re doing makes you feel calm and empowered and generous, you’re probably advocating.

What about you. What successes or struggles have you had with advocacy and complaining?

How Complaining Kills Happiness

For our honeymoon, Laura and I went on a 10-day Mediterranean cruise.

On the ship, we made friends with another honeymooning couple from Canada and ended up spending quite a bit of time with them, chatting in the cocktail lounge and going on shore excursions together.

We quickly learned that this couple was not easily pleased. They complained about their room; they complained about the food; they complained about the destinations we were visiting in Italy, Spain and France.

At first, it was fun to join in with the complaining. After all, there were things we didn’t like about the cruise, too. We bonded by grumbling.

But after a few days, we started making excuses not to spend time with them. We had grown tired of their complaining. More importantly, we had grown tired of our complaining. We didn’t want to start our life together in a place of negativity.

Similarly, the critical, sometimes cynical, way that journalists need to view the world sometimes got in the way of my happiness when I was in that profession.

“Complaining not only ruins everybody else’s day, it ruins the complainer’s day, too. The more we complain, the more unhappy we get,” conservative US radio host Dennis Prager once said.

Luminita D. Saviuc, creator of PurposeFairy.com, argues that complaining not only arises from a feeling of powerlessness, it also reinforces that same feeling.

Complaining is a dreadful addiction that creates a false sense of separation between you and the world around you. It keeps you from connecting with yourself and the world at a deeper level. It keeps you stuck in a place where outside circumstances seem to always control you and sabotage your happiness, health and well-being.

When I was feeling sick and tired and frustrated in the days leading up to my kidney transplant, I complained. Sometimes, I complained to Laura and the kids.  Always, I complained to myself, a constant track of negativity playing in my head.

I complained back then because I felt powerless. But the negativity likely also reinforced the sense of powerlessness.

Does this mean you should sit back and accept it if teachers, doctors, waiters or sales clerks treat you badly? Not at all.

Saviue’s advice? Don’t complain about things, change them. And if you can’t change them, change your attitude.

As I was writing this post, I glanced down at my bullet journal and saw that one of my to-dos for today is: “Complain to Selvi.” I actually have “complain” as a task I need to complete today.

I’m not sure if this is ironic or hypocritical.

But it’s a reminder that the things I write about here are things I’m working on, not things I have mastered.

The “complaint” on my to do list is about problems with health care services for my son Bryson. So I’m reminding myself that “complain” is the wrong word. What I really need to do for Bryson is to advocate.

In tomorrow’s post, I’m going to write about the difference between complaining and advocating.

But what about you? How does complaining make you feel? What do you do to turn that negative energy into something more constructive?

 

Impossible is a Dare

Impossible isn’t a declaration.

It’s a dare.

How do I know? Because Muhammad Ali told me so. Ali was not only the greatest athlete of the twentieth century but one of the most interesting humans in modern history. Ali died a year ago this month.

I was so moved by his story that I compiled and published an anthology of writing by him and his contemporaries. (I’m biased, but I strongly recommend the book. You can buy it in print or ebook here.)

Ali was also a terrific wordsmith. Here’s what he had to say about the limiting word “impossible.”

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” — Muhammad Ali.

For no good reason, most of us believe there are things we just can’t do. I wrote recently about how I believed it would be impossible for me to improve my penmanship. But when I identified this faulty thinking I was able to change it.

Many of us believe we can accomplish almost anything. But that’s not enough. We need to believe we can accomplish anything.

That’s what Ali did.

And that’s why he’s the greatest.