Don’t Live with the Pain of Regret You Didn’t Start
It’s your only instruction. The only rule you need to follow, the only decision you need to make is to start today. Just as the sun rises and the dawn chorus of birdsong fills the silence from the night every day, so you need to do the same.
For years I craved peace.
I yearned for solitude from the noise of the town. No longer did I want to hear the roar from the bus as the diesel engine coughed into life, ready to carry its passengers along. No longer could I cope with walking past the smoking…
A process to help you consider the consequences, whether they be good, bad, or just doing nothing.
Perspective changes decisions. It gives us a view unseen from the stance we’re holding, like looking over the horizon from a mile further forward than you’re stood.
We make decisions all the time; what to wear, what to eat, what to buy at the shop, and even what foot to lead with when we walk. Our intelligence has learned to simplify the process of making decisions through intuition; an inherited system of responses found within our genes. Over thousands of years, our forefathers learned the survival instincts of flight, fight, or freeze.
It’s the art of doing the opposite
When you outscore your opponent in football, you win. In the quest to win English football's biggest prize, managers have chased the glory of goals to succeed. Teams have gone all out to keep hitting the back of the net. It drives the game forward, as managers seek to adopt smarter ways to create and score goals.
Twenty-five years ago, Kevin Keegan managed a Newcastle team utterly focused on scoring goals. Attack, attack, attack. Scoring freely, they were still outgunned by Manchester Utd, who scored more goals and won more games.
Newcastle came second that season.
There is always another…
How imagining your life ten years from now can give you life goals worth chasing
We take life goals for granted.
The passing of my stepdad brought that perspective to me. His passing hurt me in a way no other earlier losses have. Dear grandparents have gone, creating a void once filled with love. Yes, their passing was sad, but not like this.
I’m sad because my stepdad had life goals he can’t achieve now. He wanted to explore and make friends, having moved not long ago. This won’t be happening now. But I’m also sad for his passing as it exposes a truth; we don’t get to live forever.
I’m running out of days.
…
Because one day it will be…
I’ve been on this planet for approx. 18,000 days. My calculations reveal I have 11,989 days left — assuming I can make eighty. These are the days I have left. Some might not like the thought, but with the passing of my stepdad I wanted to know, no, I needed to know.
The answer surprised me. Of course, it hinges on me living to see my eightieth birthday. My stepdad didn’t. He fell short by 1,500 days. It doesn’t sound many but turn days into years and its half a decade.
Five years is a lot.
Mortality and the lack…
A real-life example of the chaos coming from doing nothing
The definition of Entropy is a tepid affair.
It’s wrapped up in the language of science, and if you’re not a scientist, you’re not likely to understand it.
Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property that is most associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. — Wikipedia
It gets worse; another definition of entropy lives within the second law of thermodynamics. Quite simply, the second law of thermodynamics says the entropy of a system never decreases. Left unchecked, it increases.
Let’s pull this back to reality and real life.
All it takes is the right questions
I can’t decide.
Do I get up and go for a run, or do I stay in bed where I’m warm? I snuggle into the duvet, the comfort imploring me to stay. My ears prick up at the continuous patter coming from the windows mean one thing.
Should I leave the warmth behind? Should I, should I, should I…
For a while, my mind battles with the choice of yes or no. As I gravitate between running in the rain versus staying in bed, I realise I’m a fool. I’m limiting myself to an easy decision. …
Questions which will lead to you find the facts, gain perspective, and consider entropy
“So, what do you want to do?”
Here I was, fourteen, acne-ridden, and faced with a big decision. At the time, I didn’t see it as a big decision, with the game of football I was missing occupying my mind. My mum and the deputy-head thought otherwise.
“I’ll stay where I am” I stammered. “Are you sure” challenged the deputy-head.
Assurances tumbled from my mouth that the lower maths set was right for me, convincing them with my words.
Two years later as I sat on the steps of the fire escape, smoking, and hiding from the office manager, I…
Every year, at the same time, the same thing happened, and the company I worked for responded to it in the same way. It was a crisis, a moment of panic as work threatened to overwhelm the business, damaging client relations along with it.
No-one could see the repeating pattern and after five years — and five new department managers, my manager decided he wasn’t going to be number six. He — we — looked at the historical data, and realised the same thing happened every year.
A fixer: a firefighter would step in and manage the crisis. She was…
All you need is one…
The four of them stayed at the dining table, as was the custom every Friday night. With the completion of tea, it was time to review the takings and see how good the week had been. Tom, his wife Lin, who did the books — and their two young adult children, Jen and Gerald knew it had been a busy week.
Tom’s finger followed the line of figures down the page, as he checked to make sure nothing obvious was missing. The ledger listed the sales and expenses for the week, such as the way of accounting before computers.
Tom…
