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Separation Of Work and Play

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Separation Of Time On The Big Trip

Photo Attributed to Thenix

When I am living my regular life at home, I create a sort of separation between my ‘work’ time and my ‘home’ time. I work during my work hours and when I come home, I rest. I have created a fine balance between the two over the years of regulated scheduled work, and now I have a hard time, if I have to do work during hours that are supposed to be my rest hours. Thenix, on the other hand, has worked from home for the past few years. He is used to the co-mingling of work hours and rest hours – so that one really is indistinguishable from the other.

When we first started talking about the trip, this came up quite often. How would I deal with the mingling of work hours with rest hours while we travel? We are not going to be working 9-5 as I do right now. I will not be able to wake up and go to work for 9 hours. Whenever we get a chance to grab internet on the road, that will be the time when we are able to work on the road. The rest of the time could be spent doing whatever you wish.

This kind of scares me a bit. After having been trained by society for so long, I do not know how I will deal with this un-separation of time. I didn’t work on my last trip when I went to South-east Asia, but I know that this time around, I wish to work on my blog and some freelance work on the road.

Do you have an issue with the separation of our time into separate pockets? How do you deal with it?

If you haven’t heard of the Big Trip yet, you are in for a treat. Boom and Thenix are travelling to the southern most tip of South America, through the West Cost of US, Mexico and parts of South America and back up the East Coast. We are planning on leaving on or around June 21st. We have made a detailed budget for the trip and we have included it here  for those of you who are curious about how much a trip like this would cost. We will travel for a total of 50,000 kms to around 22 countries. If you have any other questions about the trip please see our post on The Big Trip.

How To Spend Time Unregulated By Work?

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How To Spend Time Unregulated By Work?

Photo Attributed to Thenix

We were speaking to a good friend of Thenix’ and she made a comment that struck both of us really hard. We were both surprised by the sentiment behind it and the validity of her claim. She said, ‘I don’t think I would be able to do a trip like this for a whole year. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself without the stress and time regulated hours of work.’

At first, we all laughed, because it is funny to think you cannot live without the stress of a job. Everyone always speaks about how they hate their jobs, as they cause them stress. But this individual truthfully pointed out that she wouldn’t be able to live without it.

From the time, we are born, our time is regulated for us by parents, teachers, and bosses. We go from daycare, to school, to university, to careers. We are always busy for the 9-5 period, either studying or working. We do not have to think about our  work schedule, because we know we will have something to do as delineated by our bosses.

Because our time is so strictly regulated, we are busy helping someone else fulfill their dreams. It might be a corporation or an individual, whose dream we are helping. People do not know what their dreams are anymore. All their lives, they have been told by others, what their dreams should be. They have given up on dreaming. Have you ever thought about what you would do if you were free to do anything?

Think about what you would do if you won a million dollars. Everyone always comes up with the ideas of paying their debt or their bills. But what about after that? What about the rest of your life? Do you want to travel? Or volunteer? Or start your own business? What would the business be about? The person who made the comment above, hasn’t thought about their dreams. They need the security of a job, because without it, they would have no idea how to spend their time.

On this trip, we will have the freedom to do what we want. We are not running away from work. We are grateful for our jobs – without them and the money we made from them, we wouldn’t be able to do this trip. But we want more control over our time, to live out our dreams.

If you haven’t heard of the Big Trip yet, you are in for a treat. Boom and Thenix are travelling to the southern most tip of South America, through the West Cost of US, Mexico and parts of South America and back up the East Coast. We are planning on leaving on or around June 21st. We have made a detailed budget for the trip and we have included it here  for those of you who are curious about how much a trip like this would cost. We will travel for a total of 50,000 kms to around 22 countries. If you have any other questions about the trip please see our post on The Big Trip.

Possessions Take Up Valuable Time

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“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.”
― John Maeda, The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life)

If your home is filled with stuff, I’m sure decluttering is a huge issue for you. There just isn’t enough time in the day to arrange all the items in your home into their proper space. Even if you tried to put everything back properly every single time you used it, it would take up a lot of your time.  Once you realize that the only way to clean up the clutter isn’t by buying more stuff (organizers, shelves, more IKEA stuff), you will maybe think about decluttering – selling your old stuff that you do not use, Free-Cycling, swapping.

The more possessions you have, the amount of time you spent on those items increases proportionally. It is the choices that we are making in our lives to spend our time on possessions or relationships and experiences. It is about subtracting the obvious as per the quote above and adding the meaningful. Everyone believes that a TV in the house is absolutely essential. It is as crucial to you as a refrigerator or a stove. As crucial as heating in Canada. But what if you stepped away from this ‘obvious’ for a moment? What if you imagined your life without a TV for a few seconds? Imagine how much time you would have saved up from it, think about you can get rid of a TV and related paraphernalia.

If not a TV, think about other items in your home that get very little use. It might be some electronics, or kitchen appliances, or a dining table that is used once a year, your closet that is filled with items never worn, old cellphones or spectacles that can be donated, the 19 pairs of shoes or more, and so on. It isn’t about living like a cave man or an ascetic. It is about plugging in more meaningful items in your life that you have carefully chosen to be placed into the precious space that surrounds you. It is about making sure that you are choosing to be inundated by advertisements on TV or by the clutter in your home. You are not a victim but a opportunist.

How about putting in something meaningful in the space? Something that would make you feel like you are spending your time on Earth with a little oomph. Maybe some volunteering, some travel, some time with family and friends, some learning, some spending time alone, some quiet time, some meditation, some exercise, some natural beauty, some love, a lot more life.

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Are You Spending Time On The Right Stuff?

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Are You Spending Time On The Right Stuff?

Photo Attributed to Thenix

Quote: A year from now you will wish you had started today

We are all stressed and over-worked, involved in several activities at once, full-time or not, and we feel like we do not have enough time in the day to even go to the washroom. Before you start wearing diapers like the ladies in Japan do in order to save washroom time and work a few extra minutes, I want you to ask one important question. Are you spending time on the important stuff? The stuff that is going to bring you closer to your goals, rather than pull yourself towards mundane tasks that will feel good if completed but will not result in any major life change or accomplishment.

It is just such an important topic in my opinion. Sometimes I will go to bed thinking I did a lot today – I feel good about it. But when I probe a little bit deeper, I realize all the work I had ‘accomplished’ was busy work, that wouldn’t result in any major life changes or life goal accomplishment. My main goal in life right now is figure out financial independence: to be location independent, to be able to travel and make money on the road. That is what I think of constantly whenever I’m not thinking of anything else. Some of the avenues that I think would help is this blog, my condo and e-books that I have written.

If I spend even a single day without working on these specific goals, I’m not spending the day correctly. I could’ve spent hours being ‘busy’, but busy-ness is not the same as accomplishing. You have to ensure that everyday you have spent sometime, even a few minutes, working on your goal. For me, it would mean writing a blog post, working on 1 page of a new book, planning the trip that is coming up, and so on. This ensures that in 1 year, I’ll not be lamenting about how fast time passes by, but being ecstatic that I have accomplished my goals, partly or fully.

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Time Slips Away

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Puerto Madero, South America

Photo Attributed to Thenix

Have you found yourself using the words ‘I don’t have time‘ very often as you get older? You might find time slips by faster and faster when your silken hands. I find myself agreeing with those words until I decided to do a time audit on my own usage of time. I sat down one day and marked down the amount of time I spent doing whatever I was doing. At the end of the day when I looked through just one day of time usage, I was kind of ashamed.

Every person on this planet has 24 hours in their day. Just like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have 24 hours in a day, so do you and your neighbourhood dry-cleaner. I’m sure there are people in your circle who seem to accomplish a lot more with their set of 24 then do you. And vice versa. What do they do differently? In my case, I know where my time slips away to. It isn’t never-never land, but to the wasteful land of FaceBook, Pinterest, and dreaming about travelling.

I spend at least three hours a day in these useless pursuits. The first two are apparent in their uselessness, but you might say dreaming is useful. It prods you to do things to get those dreams going. Dreaming about travelling doesn’t cause me to get motivated, but causes me to get dissatisfied with the current state of affairs, and gets me demotivated to the point where I have to work really hard to get back on the motivation horse. That is wasted time that could have been used for something more useful like sleep, rest, reading, dancing, working, or whatever else rocks your boat.

Stop using the words ‘I don’t have time’ and start thinking about where your time is going. If you find that after a time audit, you are satisfied on how you spend your time, I commend you. Then, you will no longer be able to use the words ‘I don’t have time’, but you would say, ‘I’m choosing to spend my time doing something other than what you are recommending I do’. Choice in the way you use your time is much more pleasant then time slipping away unknowing to you.

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Time Spent Complaining

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Puerto Madero, South America

Photo Attributed to Thenix

I was sitting with a colleague, and he was complaining about the weather, his commute and the job. The only thing that he was happy about seemed to be his marriage, which was a relief. But it made me wonder how much time I spend complaining. If I could just record myself for a day in my head, and see how many times I complain about circumstances in my life, changeable or unchangeable, it would be interesting. I also know that there would be lots of it.

Just because I do yoga or meditate, I had assumed that I would be free of the drama and ineptitude of life, the worries and the anxiety, the complaining and the shying away from responsibilities. But that isn’t how life works. I feel like although I complain less, I still have moments where I falter.

I have moments where I believe that the grass is greener on the other side, and I wish to get to that other side as soon as possible, by jumping a fence or digging a hole, or even doing something illegal. I have a hard time staying in the present moment, without lamenting about being in the present moment. I have those feelings where if I was already travelling, I would be happier. Or if I had a little less weight on me, I would be happier. Or if I was a little bit more successful, I would be happier.

The main thing that has helped me in my complaining habit is noticing the complaining while it is happening. If you really get into the mode of complaining, it is hard to get out of it. You are so enamoured with your present position of being a complainer that anything else seems to be a bore. You want to stay in the zone. But if you just step back for a second and observe yourself complaining, you will notice how ridiculous you sound. You will notice that you sound like a little child whining about his/her toys or complaining about nap time. Catching yourself in those moments not at your best, will cause you to want to go there less often.

We are all human. We aren’t perfect. We are going to have moments where you just can’t get over the complaining aspect of life. But if you can get out of it within ten seconds or within ten hours, dictates where you are in the evolutionary scale.

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We Are An Undependable Generation

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Beach Tel-Aviv Israel

Photo attributed to Thenix

I do not do what I say. That is what Thenix accused me of over the weekend. At first, I was flabbergasted. I couldn’t believe that I am being accused of something so base. I believed that I was a person of honour, but that was just another story I had built up in my head. I was a flake, and I ended up cancelling on more events/dinners/things than I could reasonably make an excuse for. I am the queen of excuses. The weather, fake grandparents’ illnesses (all my grandparents are dead), my own illness (real or fake), lack of time, lack of energy, lack of money, and so on. They have been overused in my repertoire.

When I first moved to Toronto, I would get to appointments, and work early. At least 15 minutes early if not more. I was always punctual. People could set their clocks by me. I noticed that I would wait sometimes hours for people to show up. They would almost always be late. I ended up ‘wasting’ a lot of time just sitting at coffee shops, and bars, waiting for my friends to arrive. It made me realize we are a generation that doesn’t show up on time to anything. Even the time that you start at work is considered to be open to negotiation every day. Sometimes you are ten minutes early, sometimes 20 minutes late. In your head it all balances out. I began showing up late to events as well, knowing that if I showed up late, I would still be earlier than others.

Until Thenix showed up in my life. He is always late to events, but no matter how late, he will show up a 100% of the time. In addition to being late, I had started making a habit of cancelling on events. I don’t show up. I make excuses and I stay at home. I realize that more and more, now that when I organize an event, people text me at least 3 times to ensure the event is still on. I have taken on the culture of my peers, but in the absolutely wrong way. I need to change otherwise I am going to start losing respect in a lot of people’s eyes.

This change will come slowly in me, but I do not think it has even begun in our generation. We are still behaving as if we are the rulers of time, and we can do as we wish with it. We are not teenagers anymore, or even young adults. It is time to start behaving like the serious movers and shakers that we are meant to be. We are going to awaken this universe, but we can’t do it, if we are late or if we don’t show up.

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Independent or Codependent?

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Church Ceiling South America

Photo attributed to Thenix

Even though women are independent nowadays, there is still a tendency to want to be rescued. You want to be ‘saved’ somehow from yourself, perhaps. The only person in your head who can do that is your partner. A man. We are slowly getting away from that, but then we go to the other extreme. We don’t need a man or anyone. We are perfect by ourselves. We need to be alone in order to really experience womanhood.

Both extremes are wrong, of course. Anything that isn’t in balance cannot be true. Balance is the direction that all of us strive towards. We cannot be if we are tipping towards one direction. You do not feel right somehow. That feeling of un-right will never disappear if you are in imbalance. I have gone towards both extremes in relationships. Being single for the longest time, not needing anyone, being independent. Being in a relationship, giving myself completely to the other person, being co-dependent.

Neither direction felt right, or good in anyway. I felt lost both ways. I didn’t know what was wrong, but I knew something was wrong. I had to escape, run away to another country, in order to correct the imbalance. Then again, I didn’t have to travel 3000 miles to fix the imbalance. I just had to take care of my needs. My need as a female, and as a partner. I had to remember that all of us crave companionship. We need someone in our lives to call our own, who takes care of us, who we take care of. It is a human need.

It doesn’t mean that once you are in a relationship, you stop your own life. You stop doing yoga, or manicures. You stop going to coffee with friends. You stop dancing till the sun comes up. You stop eating tubs of ice-cream and watching romantic comedies. Whatever you need to do, in order to be you, you are going to keep on doing. That is hard to do sometimes when you are in a relationship. Relationships are fun, but they are also time-consuming. You had so much more free time as a single woman. You have to remember to make time for yourself. In whatever way works for you.

I am still working on that balance myself. I veer too much to one side or the other. I think it might be a life-long journey.

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The Illusion Of Time

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Church South America

Photo attributed to Thenix

We all are eluded by time. We think an hour has gone by while meditating when only ten minutes have passed. We think an hour of the movie has passed when it has been two. We think it has been a month since our last dinner, when it has been two weeks. There are a hundred other examples of this. We do not realize where the time has gone, or will go. We are not efficient gate-keepers of time. We do not know time even though we own a wristwatch or a clock.

I was really hit by this when I counted the time until my trip to South America. In my head, we had six months left before we leave. Then, Thenix calculates it and it is 4 months and 17 days. How did that happen? I mean, how did it even happen? I am still in awe of it. Time had given me the slip once more. It had put on some camouflage and had sneaked by me without alerting me to its presence or absence or even movement. I am sitting here expecting it to return, and it is long gone.

Where did that extra month and a half get to? Where is it gone? It hasn’t disappeared. It is still here. It was in my hands. I passed through it. I haven’t blacked out for the past few days so I know I was awake through it. Or was I awake? Maybe that is the problem. I sleepwalk through the day. My commute through the TTC or car is spend on auto-pilot. I spend minutes at work wishing I wasn’t there, and other minutes day-dreaming about travelling.

I am not present in the moment, and the moment eludes me. I think I have been gipped by time, but the reality is that I am gipping myself. I steal from myself when I do not pay attention to every second. I thought that I have been doing myself a favour by letting my mind wander and not be present. I thought I was making the time go by faster by not being present. But when the time did go by faster, I realized that it just robs me of the opportunity to be truly alive.

I am not here and I am not there. I am nowhere, and I steal from myself.

Time is bound to me by my mindfulness. I have to remember to awaken, awaken, awaken.

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Save Time To Do What?

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

I heard from Thenix that the invention of a washing machine saved women 2-3 days of work. The women before washing machines used to spend 2-3 days just washing clothes. That freed them up to do other things, get a job, contribute in another way to the family, write books, go into politics, and other great pursuits. Another way technology saves time is through robots. Millions of workers in China will be freed up to go into other pursuits, as more and more companies use robots to do their factory work. Whether they are happy about that or not, millions of hours will be freed up.

The question Thenix and I both asked is the time would be freed up to do what exactly. The number of seconds, minutes, hours saved by technology are countless. The technology in your own home results in an additional maybe 3-4 hours for you every day, that you wouldn’t spend washing clothes, hanging your clothes to dry, cooking your food, heating up your food, washing your dishes, typing up your reports, and other myriad tasks. What have you used that time for? What are you using those 3-4 precious saved hours for?

The answer for most people would be to watch TV and surf the internet, which in itself isn’t a a bad thing. There is a lot of information to be gleaned on both mediums. There is a lot of creativity and innovation on both mediums. But essentially, if you are just watching or surfing, without contributing anything back, we are all going to become passive absorbers of information, rather than active gatherers and creators. The reason that is important is because every person on this planet has something to contribute to this world.

Every person has a gem inside of them. Every person is unique and has special qualities that only they have, and only they can give to this world. If you are too busy being passive and not actively creating anything of your own, you are not actually utilizing the talents that you have to give back to the community around you. That is a big gap that is created in the innovations on this planet, due to the millions that aren’t using their uniqueness to create and contribute.

Not everyone is going to contribute in a big way. Not everyone will create something new. There are as many ways to create and contribute as there are stars in this universe. The ideas are all there. You just have to stop long enough from being passive in order to start thinking about the possibilities.

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The Myth About Commuting

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

Thenix said something really profound the other day. Something to the effect of, ‘If my commute was ever too long, I would always blame it on the fact that my house is too far from my work.’ I know it probably doesn’t seem very mind-shattering to you, but to me, I am sitting here and thinking, I wish everyone else thought the same way.

For most people on this planet, the thinking would go the other way. ‘If my commute is too long, my work is too far from my home.’ It is the way we’ve been taught to think from when we were very young. Our homes are static objects that are never to be moved. Everything else is questionable. The reason I bring this up is because I was complaining that it is cold outside and my commute is long. Not as long as others, not as short as others, but 1 hour long. I automatically assumed it was my work’s fault. My work isn’t close enough. I have to change my workplace.

It never even occurred to me that it could have anything to do with the fact that I live too far from my workplace. It isn’t that I recommend you change your home every single time you move. That wouldn’t make any sense. That seems abhorrent to me from my viewpoint. But I am just bringing this up to point out the preconceived notion in our heads about our commute and homes.

It might not seem like a very big deal, but every single time you break down another notion in your head, every single time you are able to look at something clearly, as if for the first time, it frees you up. You are released from the shackles of myth and culture. You are no longer bound to think a certain way, because you’ve always thought that way, or you would be chastised if you didn’t think that way.

Maybe you are reading this post, and you don’t see the big deal in this notion. But I would have to say that urbanization, suburbanization and the modern culture is totally dependent on that notion. We live in bigger homes far away from our workplace, because living close to our work is not financially possible. We commute hours every day in order to get to work, in order to get the paycheque, in order to pay the mortgages for our bigger homes. It is a cycle that just perpetuates itself. It is never-ending. Until, we awaken. We see things as they are. Not as we’ve been fed them.

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Minimalism In Food

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

For the past few days, I have noticed a lot of talk about minimalistic food. A lot of minimalism bloggers practice minimalism not only in the stuff they own, in the jobs they do, in the blogs they write, but also the food that they eat. They eat only as much as their bodies need to survive, they eat mindfully and they are fitter for it.

For me, food is one of pleasures of life. One of the most important pleasures in life. I have thought about the fact that even though I love food, at work, busy with the hundred tasks that are assigned to me in the day, I am unable to sit down and enjoy  my lunch with any thought of mindfulness.

I gulp it down to quell the hunger that I feel and I hope that my body will not need sustenance for a while, so I can finish all the work on my plate. I usually have one hand on the fork and one hand on my keyboard. It is actually quite sad the more I think about it. It would be better if I just fasted all day at work, then putting food down my throat in this unmindful manner.

I have been trying really hard in the past few weeks to take my lunch into a different room, sit down and have it at least for ten minutes without any email interruptions or phone calls. Even if I have to schedule it into my schedule at work, I do, and I try most days to take the time to eat. The funny thing is that the culture at most workplaces has now changed. It is actually frowned upon to sit down away from your desk for half an hour and eat your food.

Most people at my work look at me oddly. Why is she sitting there and eating her lunch? She must not have a lot to do. Or maybe it is just the guilt in my head talking. But no matter what it is, I am resolved to take the time to eat my lunch away from the keyboard. I find just that ten minute break resets me back to the calm that I felt after my meditation session in the morning. It helps me get through the rest of the day without tearing my hair off.

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Being Creative

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

I feel like I am not being creative enough in the new year. I am going through the motions, but in the past few days I haven’t really done anything creative. I blog which is creative enough, but for some reason I feel like it isn’t enough. I need more. The problem is that I have to be cognizant that there are a limited number of hours in the day and I need to take care of myself and my health in addition to piling stuff on in the day. Working a full day and then coming home, doing some yoga, cooking, eating and spending time with Thenix leaves very little time in the day.

Especially if you ‘waste’ that time playing games on the iPad. I put waste in quotation marks, because the joy that I get from playing the game, spending time with Thenix while I play it, should be worth the time put into it. Not everything I do in life has to be productive, and resulting in something. Some things you do just for the hell of it, because they are fun and because you can.

The year has just begun so I am not going to start it off with negative thoughts. I do know that the year began with a really honest conversation between Thenix and I, and therefore, the theme of this year should be honesty. Something I have an issue with. As in, I am not very good at it. A horrible thing for sure, I agree, but in my poor defence, I have good intentions. I always have good intentions, but sometimes they go astray, people don’t actually see it as I do.

Let’s start off with the good intention of being creative, writing more, reading more, creating more. Let’s see where positivity gets us.

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