It's that time already

Happy holidays to all!

Time flies. It's that time of year already to do a yearly review.

We continued to walk daily when weather permits, and we added a few kilometers a day from 8 to 12.

Richard continued to play pool every day and started rope skipping. He continued to lose weight. Now he weighs around 160 lbs. This is the weight he will maintain. We measured his height and turned out that he was 6'. At the above weight his BMI would be 21.7.

I added some stretching exercise, and 15 to 20 minutes meditation in the last three months of the year when walking became difficult due to the weather. I continued not smoking.

We continued to eat healthy, which to me is home prepared meal with plenty of vegetables and fruits. Our protein source is mostly from fish. Towards the end of the year, we added some tofu and a little bit of pork. Our carb. comes from pumpernickle bread, plantain and rice. Fat source is from cheese, avocado and walnut for Richard, and avocado and walnut for me. Of course, all nutrients overlap somewhat. there is fat in tofu and protein in cheese and walnut.

We cut off refined sugar in every format, except one chocolate cake (1kg) every two months on average.

We stopped drinking fruit juices all together after reading how fruit juices are processed (Orange juice: basic beverage isn't that simple).

Are we caloric restricted? Not by very much, anywhere between 0 to 20%. However, I have achieved my goal when BMI is concerned, which is at 18.8.

At the beginning of the year, we wanted to put in some house plants into the apartment. We started with 3 Mother in law's tongue (which survived three months without any care). Now we have 13. The ones we added include:

1 English ivy
6 Money Plants
1 peace lily
1 Christmas cactus
1 Madagascar jasmine

Out of all these, the Madagascar Jasmine was the most expensive and probably hardest to care for.

Richard continued his bible study.

I read and studied health and longevity related articles and becoming increasingly convinced that living till or beyond 100 is very achievable.

We started to host our own blog, which you can find at www.instead-of-wishing.com.

On the living space, we started the year by finishing Sanya home and just continued on. We started purely to beautify our living environment. However, this year seemed to have more weather related disasters on buildings than ever. We were one of its victims. So we fixed whatever damages done to us and tried our best to stay one step ahead; do what we could in order to prevent future disasters.

Live Full Time, Work Part Time

St-Lawrence river

Imagining being able to wander along the longest city park in Montreal (St-Lawrence river front in Verdun and LaSalle) on a sunny day during weekdays, anyone who loves idling should take a day off work and try it.

So this year, we decided to Live Full Time and Work Part Time.

Money is printed. Time cannot be duplicated so we try to grab as much as we can as it goes by.

It's that time already

Happy holidays to all!

It is this time of the year when every one reflects what one has done for the year.

We replaced the last segment of the cast iron pipe in our building, in doing so Richard broke his leg, which turned out to be good luck after all. While learning how to walk again, we discovered the pleasure of walking. We now walk 8 kilometers a day along the St. Lawrence River every evening when weather permits; 3 kilometers in bad weather. Next year we will continue to do the 8 km walk in the evening and would like to add a 3 km walk in the morning.

I started blogging as a way of observing my own thoughts. In the process, we have set our course for the next 40 years for Richard and next 56 years for me. We are also implementing steps towards Epicurean way of simple life or Jerome K. Jerome’s simple pleasures. I will continue to blog next year first as a tool to find out what I think and then to monitor my thinking.

Richard is playing pool every day as a physical and mental discipline. He will continue to do so next year.

Richard has also joined the gym and lost 15 to 20 pounds in the course of three months. He will continue to go to the gym next year and will exercise in a way to maintain his current weight, which is 180 lbs for 6’2” height.

We have cut out sugar in our coffee. Richard has also cut out coffee for a couple of months, but we have decided that drinking 2 to 3 cups of black coffee a day are more helpful than harmful.

We always eat a lot of vegetables. This year, we have consumed more fruits than ever. We practically have an apple a day, but have also eaten tons of grapes, raspberry, blueberry, etc.

Meditation continued to be difficult for me. I tried and failed to form a habit to meditate daily. I will try again next year. Richard reads his Daily Bread (a Christian program) and following its program to read the bible cover to cover in a year.

I quit smoking since August 17 and will evaluate its merit next year. Side effects of quitting smoking includes weight gain of 12 lbs (12.5% weight gain), which helps my appearance; but hinders my agility.

We did some Lian Gong in 18 forms (type of exercise to combat modern forms of stress caused by bad posture, structure and balance) and will try to form a habit next year.

Richard kayaked several times in the summer with a friend and will do more next year.

What do you worry about?

Last night Richard asked me “what do you worry about?”

I worry most about some things are going too fast and others too slow. I worry that the medical breakthrough would not come fast enough for us baby boomers to benefit. I worry about the IT world is going too fast so that our privacy will be jeopardized. I worry that the economy in rich nations will stagnate and people will blame it on the emerging nations.

Being a Chinese in Canada 20 years ago compared to now is totally different. 20 years ago, the reaction of people in Canada to a Chinese was “Oh, poor you, you need help and we are here to offer the help to you as long as you do not ask too much”. Today, the reaction is “You guys make junky stuff; you take jobs away from us; if anything bad happens to you, you deserve it”.

I do believe that the rich nations have a duty to help the poor nations. We are all connected and related. We may have to sacrifice our luxurious life style for a few years in order to bring the rest of the world up to a similar level. From the selfish point of view, if the rest of the world is lagging too far behind us, we cannot ascend to the next level.

Right now these are the things I worry about, all in all, though, I am optimistic about the future and living my life trying to achieve the highest good in Epicureanism, a tranquility derived by the absence of agitation and the highest positive pleasure, a society of good friends. I think these two qualities can also be interpreted as faith and love.

Another way to describe the same lifestyle is by Jerome K Jerome:

Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasure, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing. You will find the boat easier to pull then, and it will not be so liable to upset, and it will not matter so much if it does upset; good, plain merchandise will stand water.

Why are we here? And what shall we do about it while we are?

Comedy writer John Lloyd said that there are only two questions worth asking in his TED talk titled "inventories the invisible":

Why are we here? And what shall we do about it while we are?

To help answering these two questions, he quoted two philosophers. One is Ludwig Wittgenstein, who said: “I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.” Another one is W. H. Auden, who said: “We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know.”

It was a funny 10 minutes talk. However, the two questions are very serious. We tend to ask ourselves all the time. My own take on these two questions is that we should not ask the first question at all.

If you have a strong will to live and are having a good time here on earth, why should you bother asking “why are you here”? For example, if you go to a party and are enjoying yourself, would you be asking “Why am I here”? By asking “why am I here” might get you kicked out of the party. It is a question which gets asked when we are depressed.

If you do not ask yourself the first question, then the answer to the 2nd question shall come quite easily. I shall have a good time for as long as possible. Or in other words, I shall have a happy and pleasurable life for as long as possible.

There are many interpretations regarding what is a happy and pleasurable life. I find mine so close to Epicurus, it makes me wonder whether I had read Epicurus in Chinese translation when I was a teen and forgot about it. He counseled his disciples to live a quiet, secretive life apart from society, avoiding responsibilities in public life or social life. This avoids the pain of ambition and fear caused by others. The highest good in Epicureanism is ataraxia, a tranquility derived by the absence of agitation. And the highest positive pleasure is a society of good friends.

This is the simple life I prefer.

On downgrading lifestyle

From September 2008 onwards, I think majority of the people in North America have downgraded their lifestyle, including us or us in particular.

Is it necessary? I think so. Every time we upgrade our lifestyle. We do not just spend more money once. We basically commit ourselves to spend more on all our future years until we decide to downgrade. The best example is for someone to decide upgrading by moving into a bigger house. All of a sudden you are paying more for mortgage, insurance, property tax, utility and other miscellaneous expenses for the next 25 years or longer. We know we can afford it now, next year and maybe even the next 5 years; that was good enough in 2006, when everyone is living high. But now, one year after the crisis, we are thinking longer term. We are realizing that more is nice and it is human to want more, but less is equally nice and does not make us inhuman.

I myself always prefer less, the way of simple life, which is consistent with my desire for freedom. Less means less obligations and less obligations lead to more freedom. So I choose to live the way I prefer. How wonderful!

However, the whole world cannot live the way I live and most people choose to have more if they can. I salute these people. By consuming what others produce and producing for others to consume, isn’t that the way we are organized to live?

Recharging

In the journey of self improvement, I tried to observe my own thoughts. However, in the last few days, my thoughts are chaotic and clouded. Actions are kept at minimum. You can say that I look and act somewhat depressed.

We have reached a point where we have envisioned ourselves to be. We have a place to stay, food to eat, no debt and have savings. In other word, we have simple comfortable life money can buy without ever having to work for anyone else for the rest of our life.

So why am I feeling down?

Some people might say that it is only normal that we have ups and downs. When we are down we needed to be re-charged like those batteries.

Batteries are recharged with electricity. How do we get re-charged? The followings are some of things I used to do:

1) Take a vacation.
2) Change hair style/color
3) Stay in bed
4) Read something interesting
5) Watch a movie

This time I watched a video clip of John Maeda on simplicity from TED talks, which lifted me up a lot.


C-Cassia

Abundance

“Simple living is not a virtue; it is a preference”.

- Leonard Cohen

In this economic downturn, many sites that advocate simple living and frugality have become increasingly popular. As for myself, simple living is a preference rather than a virtue, to quote Leonard Cohen. I had done a fair share of shopping with friends in the past as leisure outings. But it gave me more headaches than pleasure.

Even though impulse shopping is a very rare occurrence in my day to day living, it happens to me when I am on holidays. Every year we spend 2 to 6 weeks on the same tropical island in Southeast Asia. Whenever I am on the beach under the tropical sun, I have this urge to take a break and go shopping in the mall next to the beach. I do not understand the change in me except by saying that the sun has cooked my brain. I was in denial when this was first pointed out to me. Look at deals I get. Now at least I am aware, which is the first step towards cure. The next step is to set a budget and keep it. I am now at this stage. After that, I will take a look at the inventory and see whether I have been wearing them. The final step would be to plan what I need to buy and stick to my plan.


Simple living is not a virtue, but I do believe that impulse shopping is a vice and is not the opposite of simple living. The opposite of simple living is lavish living. I personally know people who are like that. They still shop according to their plan except that their needs are greater than folks who prefer simple living. I have a brother, who constantly upgrades all electronics in his household and buys brand name clothing. Since his need is greater, he uses this as a motivation to earn more money, therefore, he is never under water.

The point I am trying to make is that frugality is not a solution to all the financial woes. Living within your means is. It is not a matter of how much money you make, as long as you have money left over in the end of year, year after year, you have abundance.

Picture explanation: a Chinese abundance charm that literally says “surplus year after year”.



c-cassia

Simple Pleasure

Canadian duck on the St-Lawrence River

“Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasure, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing. You will find the boat easier to pull then, and it will not be so liable to upset, and it will not matter so much if it does upset; good, plain merchandise will stand water.”
Jerome K Jerome "Three Men in a Boat"

One of the simple pleasures we enjoy lately is the amazing walk we do along the St-Lawrence River in Verdun in the evening. It is only 5 minutes walk from our home. If it is not raining, we are out walking. We go about 3 km towards west along the lower path right next to the river and take the bike path on the higher ground to come back. In the midway back, we drink some tape water that comes out of a stone. It takes us about 1 ½ hours for the round trip. In addition to doing it as a physical exercise, we also enjoy the scenery. Everything is green now. The air feels fresh and crisp. You almost do not hear any city noise on the lower path.