Ideas-for-Life

Spent the bulk of the weekend re-watching Season 9 of How I Met Your Mother, complete with its unsatisfactory ending in which Ted shoots off to Robin’s after all she put him through. Tsk!!! Tsk!!! Before that though, Ted’s summation of his 9 year journey to finding Tracy did resonate with my inner suppressed romantic: It was at times a long, difficult road. But I’m glad it was long and difficult, because if I hadn’t gone through hell to get there, the lesson might not have been as clear. You see, kids, right from the moment I met your mom, I knew… I have to love this woman as much as I can for as long as I can, and I can never stop loving her, not even for a second. I carried that lesson with me through every stupid fight we ever had, every 5:00 a.m. Christmas morning, every sleepy Sunday afternoon, through every speed bump. Every pang of jealousy or boredom or uncertainty that came our way, I carried that lesson with me. And I carried it with me when she got sick. Even then, in what can only be called the worst of times, all I could do was look at her and thank God, thank every god there is, or ever was, or will be, and the whole universe, and anyone else I can possibly thank that I saw that beautiful girl on that train platform, and that I had the guts to stand up, walk over to her, tap her on the shoulder, open my mouth, and speak. ...

https://www.ted.com/talks/judson_brewer_a_simple_way_to_break_a_bad_habit?language=en A fascinating talk by Judson Brewer on habits and how we form them. Apt, given I am looking to embed 12 key ones this year. The key to tweaking our trigger-behaviour-reward cycle is being mindful and curious, focusing on what is really happening to us in the moment of behaving, apparently. #Timely

Stolen off Instagram… Have a peek at the kid’s back story. Impressive

From Simon Guillebaud’s January 3rd message at Holy Trinity Brompton on the subject Be A Living Sacrifice: Live Urgently Give Unreservedly Be Transformed Radically #Pondering

Stumbled upon via the Wordpress discovery feature, The True Story of a Seven Year Marriage: Before you can make high towers, it’s best to build a good strong base. It comes from laughter, empathy, forgiveness, accepting the other person’s struggle, and knowing yourself. But sometimes without knowing it, you build too high and too fast. Things get shaky and start to wobble. There is always a way to rebuild if you’re willing. Always new and different blocks to try, always time to take a few steps back and build the bottom stronger. ...

A few of the more interesting pieces I stumbled on on the web during March… Enjoy On Spock- Gukira: Leonard Nimoy died, and amidst the outpouring of grief and the eulogies, I found I related most with this piece by Gukira who said it better than I ever could I do not have a single Spock moment—an image or narrative that stays with me. Unlike those who know how to write about TV and movies, I cannot recall a single episode, at least not by name. When I was younger, when I first encountered Spock in Nairobi, in reruns from the 80s, I encountered him as gesture: as the arched eyebrow, as the grip that caused others to faint, as the Vulcan mind meld. ...

Firmly mired in the middle of my February read, Ted Thompson’s debut novel The Land of Steady Habits, no thanks to a gruelling schedule at work with criminal deadlines, although I did manage to complete a profile of Selma star David Oyelowo for the church newsletter I occasionally write in. What intrigued me about that in the first place was how open he has been about his faith through out his career from theatre to Hollywood. Fascinating read, if I say so myself. Other than that most of my February reading was web based longform, a few of the more interesting ones being highlighted below: ...

In addition to completing Moon Walking with Einstein, The Pioneer Detectives and significantly denting my copy of The Best American Essays 2014, my 2015 reading has consisted of loads of longform, which I am curating via Pocket. Below are a few of the more interesting pieces that caught my eye this month: 1. Learning to Drive - Adam Gopnik (The New Yorker): What we learn when we learn to drive? … Driving a car more like walking on a sidewalk, [is] full of recognitions and hand waving and early avoidance, tamping down the sudden shocks that the combustion engine is heir to… ...

A few of the interesting bits and bobs I’ve stumbled on over the last few days Hope for a cleaner, cheaper, oil less future just became a wee stronger. Nigeria beware? @forakin on why we should all blog. For a more in depth analysis, Andrew Sullivan’s seminal piece from 2008 offers a longer read. The £11bn conundrum. The scale of the problem or an opportunity? Khoi on the design of the iPhone 6. Unimpressed is the word Education as a tool for disrupting and challenge paradigms - the NY Times weighs in. Ebola contained.. Phew - Elon Musk, on Mars On lightning, and being struck by it. On Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the Modern Novel. Pay and gender gaps, closing?

Day 26 of the Better Man in 30 days challenge - Take the Marine Corp Fitness Test --- Managed the 3 mile in 29.5 minutes (includes the very leisurely 3 minute warm up), 46 crunches in 2 minutes and a barely there 4 pull ups for a total of 95 from a maximum 300 points possible. Not great but better than I thought given how a certain HIIT youtube video kicked my ass on Day 24. ...