Tag: development

Betting on the future…

If you distill this journey of life down to its purest form I think you’ll find that everything we do and say is reasoning with the future and its potential outcomes. Were always looking way out into the future dreaming about what could be if we just stay the path. The fundamental problem with the long play is just that it’s long, arduous, and more often than not the progress is so slow that it’s barely noticeable at all.

The good news about a task so huge is that it can usually be widdled down into more manageable pieces. I know this isn’t a mind blowing epiphany as I’m sure you’ve heard a dozen or so analogies about this subject matter, but the question is are you employing those in your daily life.

5 years ago I started down the path of losing weight and getting healthy, there were a ton of mountains just on the horizon but I didn’t focus on those. I tackled the molehills in hopes that I would be strong enough to take on the mountains a couple of years down the path. There was certainly no guarantee that I would ever make it to the base of those mountains and even if I never would have gotten there I would have made significant progress in my life.

Fast forward to March 18th of 2020 aka 5 days into the epidemic I went out to my backyard to contemplate just what the heck was going on and I looked out into a jungle of an overgrown yard and thought to myself maybe this is finally the time when I’ll be able to clear out all this junk and put in all those fruit trees and vegetable plots I’d always talked about but never got around to.

Over a long hot summer, I got out the shovel and the chainsaw and went to town whenever I could find the time. If you want to see what a mountain looks like when it comes to back yards here it is.

I snapped a shovel digging out one of these trees.

That was a lot of bargaining with the future if you ask me. People would come by seeing what I was trying to accomplish and they would tell me I was nuts and that I should just hire someone with a bobcat to dig everything out. Sure this would have been the easy path and put me months ahead of where I am now but when the results come easy you won’t be willing to put the work in the work to maintain what you have.

Hundreds of hours later including taking a full week off from work I rounded the corner on destruction and finally got to a point where I could put plants in the ground instead of ripping them out by the roots. It was 11 months worth of bargaining with the future to get to this point and there’s still a decent amount of finishing touches to do but you wouldn’t believe how good it felt to put a few trees in the ground and then stand back and appreciate how it amazing it looked and just how much blood, sweat and tears went into getting to a rainy valentines day morning when the next chapter of bargaining with the future began.

A couple of the fruit trees I bought should be short term wins and produce fruit this year but several of them are long term investments. Sure I am the happy new owner of a mango and avocado tree but the reality of walking out to the backyard and being able to make a mango smoothie and a bowl of guacamole is still years out into the future and that’s if the weather and ton of other variables decide to cooperate. But you know what all that work I put in digging out giant tree stumps pails into comparison to maintaining the food forest.

My hope is that one day my kids will say. Hey Dad, I’m hungry and I will just be able to point to the backyard and say I’m sure there are several things ready to pick out there.

Call to Action.

  1. search out a local independent nursery this spring and buy a fruit tree for your backyard. Don’t have a back yard? buy a planter box and grow some herbs. It’s super exciting to watch something as small as a seed turns into something that can fuel your body.
  2. Don’t take the shortcut no matter how tempting it is, sure it looks tempting but it will most likely cost you in the long run. Put your head down, put in the work, relish the process and never forget just how miserable the journey was as it will be the best motivator possible to keep pushing forward.

On Work.

You may have noticed that I say I have a lot of favorite things, I don’t think this is a bad character trait I just feel lie it makes me well rounded. The quote below is one of my said favorite things.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas Edison

I don’t know as many things as I did when I was younger but I have come to the complete realization that the above statement is a cold hard truth. We know this down to the core of our being but it doesn’t stop us or clever marketing executives from trying to convince us that they in fact have finally figured out the shortcut to success that does not contain excessive amounts of work but it will cost you at least $39.95 to get started. There is no easy path to growth and change in our lives it is filled with bumps and obstacles and the relentless fact that you have to get up and do it all over again tomorrow. Add on the hecklers telling/selling you the short cut and it’s easy to see why it’s so hard to make and stick to a plan of personal development.

Were at that natural time to reflect on things we liked to quit, start or improve in our lives this week. Can I make a suggestion from personal experience?

Often times we think that working the absolute hardest is the best path to opportunity when in reality taking a controlled and measured approach will get us better results in the end. It may take us longer to get where it is we want to be but the likelihood of reaching the goal is far greater when we put in a little bit of work every single day.

Call to Action.

If you’re thinking I need to start exercising every day or I’m going to go on a super restrictive calorie deficient diet starting Friday morning it’s highly likely that it isn’t going to last, It’s never worked for me in the past anyway. Biologically speaking one of our greatest strengths as humans is our endurance and when we look past this characteristic and rely on a change to happen like a sprint we are left dejected on the sidelines trying to catch our breath and getting further behind in the long run.

What I’m suggesting from personal experience is that we work efficiently to drive change in our lives. If you haven’t been working out for months running a 5k on Friday is not where you start or if you’ve been relying on the standard American diet for the better part of the last decade switching to whole 30 like a light switch is the fastest way to end up back where you started. Try this instead,  find one or two small things that you can do fairly easily and start there and grow into your work, it won’t be long before you start to notice those other opportunities to put in a little more effort and before you know it you will be miles down the path instead of saying “well there’s always next year”