Rapid Fire

I've obviously neglected this blog for a while, and I want to get back in the saddle quickly.  I kept waiting for my next dose of inspiration, and when it didn't come immediately, I waited, and waited, until I looked up and it had been a full month since I last posted.  I'd like to thank all the people who asked me about why I haven't written anything lately.  Your interest gave me a quick burst of encouragement followed by a sharp twinge of guilt for abandoning something that I started with such fervor. So instead of waiting to be inspired, I'm just going to write about what I've been doing the last month.

Dishes

My wife is an amazing cook, and I reap the benefits of her skills daily.  I mean, who knew that healthy, meatless food could be so delicious?!  However, I also reap the dishes, and apparently it takes a lot of them to make such a tasty meal.  Since she shoulders the burden of providing the food, I feel like it's my husbandly duty to clean up the mess. It's a mind-numbing chore that I don't enjoy, but I've found a natural law at work that keeps me happily scrubbing: Chêz doesn't like to cook in the midst of a mess, so a clean kitchen means another homemade masterpiece is right around the corner.

The remnants of homemade mashes potatoes, roasted carrots, and tofu baked in peanut sauce.  Yum.

Creating a birthday present for my dad
While I was growing up, my dad would tell me and my brothers innumerable mini-lectures and anecdotes that he called his "pearls of wisdom."  We heard the same stories and sayings so many times that we could recite them from memory.  So for his birthday this year, my family collaborated to create a book that recounts those "pearls of wisdom" and my dad's influence on all our lives.  It was a true group effort, and the result was awesome.  My mom wrote a foreword and provided some family pictures.  My brothers and I each wrote 3 stories about "pearls" that had a specific impact on our lives.  My sister-in-law took funny pictures of the grandkids, and my wife designed the layout and made it beautiful.  The title of the book is "Walk Toward the Man with the Hose", which is one of my dad's favorite stories to tell.  What in the world does that mean?  Well, you have to read the book to find out.  You can click here if you're interested in seeing the online preview.

The finished product

We surprised my dad with the book this past weekend, and he was blown away.  Even saw him shed a few tears.  Mission accomplished! :)


Hanging out with my baby

Eliza does her best Tom Selleck impersonation.

Isn't she cute?  She is a ton of fun lately, and she's also getting to be a handful sometimes.  She can mimic the noises made by several animals including lion, cow, and lady bug.  Don't know what a lady bug sounds like? Just ask Eliza, and if you're lucky, she'll tell you.

She's started walking with regularity in the past few days, and she's also decided to test our limits in several areas, like touching the magazines after we tell her not to. She looks right at us, gets a sly smile on her face, and slowly stretches out her hand to see how we'll react.

Getting to spend undivided time with her is by far one of the best parts of giving up TV. Especially now that she's getting more rambunctious, I could see myself getting irritated by not being able to watch a show uninterrupted while she's awake. I'm glad that I've removed that temptation, and I know my life is richer for it.



Piddling my time away
See my previous post "Back Down to Earth". Hoy.

Reading

I have never been an avid reader, but I've been improving in this area over the last couple years.  Chêz has been encouraging me to read books with a story, not just self-improvement and business books, which she finds exceptionally dull.  She introduced me to Three Cups of Tea, which is a non-fiction book that begins with a man's nearly fatal attempt at scaling K2.  He descends from the mountain disoriented and separated from his expedition, and he stumbles into a remote Himalayan village where the locals nurse him back to health over the course of several weeks. After recovering and seeing the total lack of educational opportunities for the children in the village, he boldly declares, "I'm going to build you a school."

After lots of setbacks and several years, he does manage to build a school for the tiny village, and that's about as far as I've gotten (a little over half way through the book).  So far it's an inspirational story of a guy who is willing to make lots of mistakes as he tries to fulfill a promise that he made.

This is definitely not an exhaustive list, but these are some of the big, time-consuming things I've been doing instead of watching TV.  Cutting out the television hasn't solved all my time-wasting problems, but it's definitely been a positive experience overall so far, and I'm glad I'm sticking to it.

Turning 30

So, I’m 30 now.  Some people might dread the number or start feeling like their youth is over, but really, I don’t have a problem with it.  I feel like I’ve been getting better with age, so 30 is a welcome landmark. And after proving to myself and others that I’m still young at heart by celebrating with a game of Ultimate Frisbee, I can tell that this is going to be a great decade.

To make sure I start off my 30’s right, I’m doing a Crush 2012 goal-setting seminar with my friend Deacon Bradley.  I’ve never been much of a goal setter, and it’s not a skill that comes naturally to me.  Deacon, on the other hand, is a goal-setting machine, and over the past year, he’s built a business around helping others meet their potential.  I’ve read books and articles in the same vein before, and they’ve never had a big impact on my life, but this time I can already tell there’s a big difference.

I've always been bad at homework.  I am a black belt level procrastinator, and the TV has always been my go-to distraction.  But this week, when Deacon gave me a list of self-reflective questions to answer, I was excited about it.  In fact, I finished all my work that same night, with a full week to spare. Why? Is it because I removed the greatest momentum killer in my life?

In years B.U.P. (before unplugging), I would be at church or work, and I would get inspired to change, or read, or create something.  But as I approached home, I could already feel my resolve waning.  The ONLY thing I wanted to do was lie on the couch and watch TV – after all, I deserved some time to relax, right?   After slumping on the sofa, the unfortunate side effect was that any productive impulse drained out of my body.

Now, when I have an incomplete thought in my head, I want to keep pursuing it. It's like a loose string that I have to tie off before moving on.  So when Deacon gave me an exercise to help me pinpoint my values and create a vision for my life, I felt driven to finish it.  And it was a very rewarding experience.

It may not be a surprise that “Family” is one of my top 3 core values, which seems obvious, and something I would have told you even before this exercise.  But to see how deeply ingrained it is to my identity was a wonderful revelation.  I now understand why it has been so easy and gratifying to give up something that was firmly integrated into my life.  My TV habit violated my core value of the importance of family.

When you give up something that is ultimately at odds with your core values, it doesn't feel like much of a sacrifice.  It feels like a blessing.

Chêz felt the same way when she decided to eat vegan. She’s a very compassionate person towards people and animals alike, so when she could no longer reconcile her diet with her heart, she followed her values.  It wasn't a struggle for her to avoid hamburgers. It was like freeing her conscience.

Even though I’m not a vegan, I am so glad she made that decision.  Earlier this week, after we had eaten together and put Eliza to bed, I told her that her decision to be vegan was one of the best things that has ever happened to our family.  Because she followed her convictions, we have a wife/mother who is passionate about food and nutrition and who has become an amazing chef. 

Good things happen when you follow your values.  I’m already blessed to be feeling the effects of this truth in my life, and I’m excited to see what’s to come in my next 30 years.  

A quick success story

Earlier this year I put up some plastic door stoppers around the house. We purchased them probably 2 years ago, but it was one of those things that I never got around to because I would rather watch tv than stick little plastic discs against the wall. Who wouldn't? It took literally ten minutes to hang all of them, and today I was rewarded for my meager effort.

The door leading from our garage to our laundry room has big hinges that make the door automatically swing shut behind you as you walk in. But lately I could tell that the hinges weren't feeling as springy as usual, and then today they failed altogether. So when Chez went to push open the door while holding Eliza in her arms, she shoved the door hard, expecting to meet some resistance from the formerly stingy door hinges. Instead the door swung freely and WHAM! It hit the wall great force. But instead of driving a doorknob-sized hole into the drywall, she just put a small dent in the plastic door stopper, which performed admirably in the face of such a tremendous impact.

So giving up tv just saved me from the time and expense of having to patch a hole in our drywall. This has been well worth it already!

Back Down to Earth

I have a confession to make.  Even though I've cut TV out of my life, I still struggle with wasting time.  Overall, suspending my daily TV ritual has resulted in a net positive of productivity, but I'm definitely not a super productive hyper-achiever. In fact, my talent for procrastination makes me wonder if the TV was just a scapegoat for a fundamental character flaw.  Maybe I'm the world's most prolific time waster, and even if I were alone on a desert island with no technological gadgets, I would still manage to fritter away the day playing "hide the coconut."

I'm still feeling very positive about my experience, and I'm optimistic about the future, but I also think it's important to be honest.  And so I submit a list of the top 3 time thieves that are threatening to take the place of TV in my life.

1.  Facebook.  I used to be secretly proud of my minimal Facebook involvement.  I would think, "I don't have time to check up on every person whose kid just did something cute, or who just ate a hamburger that was 'SOOO GOOD!'  Who's even interested in stuff like that?"  Me.  I am.  I want to know, and I have some spare time.  So please tell me:  What did you do today?  See anything interesting on YouTube?  Your 18-month-old daughter said what?  That's adorable!

Carefully drawn graph illustrating the increase in my Facebook involvement.

2.  Online news.  With Yahoo!, Drudge Report, and ESPN.com, who even needs TV?  There is so much information to be consumed, and I have a desire to devour all of it. This is a challenge that is greatly exacerbated by my new iPhone.  If only I had kept my stupid Blackberry with its clumsy design, spotty service, and non-WiFi capability, I wouldn't be having this problem.

3.  This blog.  Now, I actually think that this blog is one of the best and most productive consequences of my no-TV experiment so far.  I feel really good about creating my own content instead of consuming someone else's for a change.  However, I really have to keep myself in check to make sure I don't obsess over the details. Layout, comments, page views, traffic sources, etc.

I had my first real test this week to see if I could ignore these growing distractions and get some work done. Chêz left the house for the evening, which means that once I put my daughter to bed for the night, I had a couple of hours all to myself.  What would I do?  Well, I got sucked into the vortex of Yahoo! for about an hour before I even knew what happened. I snapped back to my senses and did some stuff around the house, but I was disappointed that I didn't do more.

Since publicizing my no-TV resolution, I've had a few people tell me "You're a stronger man than I am," but I don't see it that way. To me, it's a confession of weakness. An admission that I can't live a life of moderation when it comes to this. For me it's either a life of abstinence or of slavery. I wish I had the fortitude to pick a point in the middle, but I'm not there yet, and now I'm fighting the same battle on new fronts.   

So there you have it.  I'm not perfect yet, and I expect I never will be.  But on the bright side, at least I didn't spend 3+ hours of my life this week watching Alabama attempt a mind-numbing 7 field goals in the BCS Championship game.  Definitely not sorry I missed that one. :)

Expectation vs Reality

Expectation and reality are really two separate things, aren't they?  After deciding to give up TV, I had an expectation of the challenges I would face:  the struggle to find worthwhile activities; the discord with my wife that would intermittently surface after taking away one of our favorite evening and weekend pastimes; and oh, the boredom.  I had a secret fear that the monotony of "real life" would be unbearable.  But after being TV-less for two full weeks, I now see how far off my original expectations were.

I've been most surprised to discover how easily the time passes.  Not once have I sat and twiddled my thumbs thinking, "I have no idea what to do with myself."  It's not that there is suddenly more to do, but rather I've removed the object that always won out over the many other options that were always present.  We had a busy and eventful week, and I'm embarrassed to think of what I would have missed if I had spent my usual 2-3 hours/day watching the tube.

Yesterday was Eliza's 1st birthday (observed).  Chêz worked hard in preparation, and she succeeded in making it a beautiful and memorable day.  We had a tight-knit party with our family at our house where we celebrated, played games, and watched Eliza smush a bright pink cake all over her face.  It was both wonderful and exhausting.

Eliza celebrates her dominance over the birthday cake.

After the party when Eliza and Chêz were taking well deserved naps, I normally would have plopped on the couch and watched the NFL playoffs, dreading the moment when Eliza woke up and I would have to snap back into the role of responsible husband and father. But I'm starting to realize now that I'm always responsible. I'm either responsible for the edification of my family or responsible for the malaise that accompanies my apathy.

So instead of plopping and watching, I cleaned up the remnant mess from Eliza's party, and I sat quietly in the kitchen while I ate dinner and reflected on a joyful day of laughter and family. And when Eliza stirred, I eagerly greeted her, fed her dinner, and splashed her down into a warm bath so that I could try to get out the dried crumbs of cake that were still in her hair.  Needless to say, Chêz was thrilled when she woke up to find a happy, well fed, clean baby, and she now thinks that I'm the perfect husband.  I'm sure at some later point I'll have a post about how I was able to prove her wrong, but for now, I'll take it.

I'm glad I'm getting more done because that's what I thought this experiment was about: being more productive.  But I'm starting to understand that it's actually about being present.  It's about being available and tuned in to the needs of my family and those around me.  I'm no longer anxious to put my daughter to bed so that I can watch the latest episode of "The Office" in peace.  Instead, I'm learning how to be a blessing to the people who are most important to me.

I read a quote this week that really made an impact on me:

"You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it."  - Charles Buxton

I have no idea who Charles Buxton is (and if someone finds out he is a racist or a Nazi or something, I'll stop quoting him), but I think he's right on the money. I'm ready to stop trying to find time for the important things in my life. I'm ready to start making time.

Ducks, Badgers, and Babies

Took down our outdoor Christmas lights today. Of course, even if I were watching TV, I would have eventually taken down the Christmas lights, but I probably would have waited until the last weekend in January after we had received the first warning letter from our HOA. Confession: the first year that Chêz and I were married, we had our tree up until Valentine’s Day.  Yikes.

Spent a lot of time out of the house today, so didn't get a chance to add much to the list. In fact I was forced (FORCED I tell you) to watch part of the Rose Bowl when we went to visit some friends who recently had a baby. I can't remember the little boy's name, but man those Oregon helmets sure were shiny.

Just kidding Colter!  Glad we got to meet you.  You're an awesome kid so far.  Keep up the good work!

Launched my blog.  Now I feel the pressure of public accountability.

On New Year's Day (sung in the style of U2)

Helped plan Eliza's 1st birthday party and my 30th birthday party. (Decide for yourself which one you think is more significant.)  Usually, these tasks would either be left totally to Chêz, or I would have begrudgingly turned off/paused the TV to help.  She was clearly grateful for the help, and I had fun doing it.

Carefully and lovingly prepared bite-sized chunks of a delicious peanut butter sandwich to feed to my precious baby daughter.  She threw most of it on the floor.

She's starting to have opinions. I'm not sure I like that.

Vacuumed the whole house, not just the living room like I sometimes do when we’re expecting company and running out of time.  (Sorry Chêz.)

Continued reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I'm on habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind. The book is filled with timeless principles and morsels of wisdom, so I'm really enjoying it so far. Some of it is a little dated since it was originally published in the 1989. For example, it uses the term 'synergy' unironically. Whenever I hear that word, all I can think about is the buzzword obsessed CEO Teddy K from In Good Company.  “Teddy K!”

It's all about synergy.

I was surprised and dismayed to find that spending several hours a day watching TV was not one of the listed habits of highly effective people. Maybe it's listed in its companion piece "The 6 Tendencies of Mostly Defective People."

Watched some college football bowl game highlights on my phone. Not a lot, just a couple I was interested in. Is that cheating?  I did feel a little guilty afterward, even though it was literally just 6 minutes of footage.  What can I say, I’m not perfect…yet.