Money the most overrated thing on the planet…

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“Cause it’s a bitter sweet symphony that’s life. Trying to make ends meet you’re a slave to money then you die.” Are the lines from The Verve song Bitter Sweet Symphony. The song would ultimately lead the breakup of the band and a court case with The Rolling Stones.

The Beatles on their second studio album would cover the song “Money (That’s What I Want)” whilst on their third studio album was “Can’t Buy Me Love.”

Money is the most amazing narrative that humans have created. Historian Yuval Noah Harari explained once if you gave it to  a monkey he would not know what to do with it as you cannot eat it or use it for shelter. It’s just a piece of paper or these days a series of computer code. But thanks to the narrative humans have built around money it has become something we’ve killed for, lied for and some even died for.

It has lead to people coming up with wonderful ways of leveraging it forming more stories about what other pieces of paper are worth and that $1 becomes $20.

Money makes some people go and buy as much toilet paper as they can. They then put it on eBay to sell it at a profit to take advantage of people who can no longer buy it at a supermarket. The low measures we sink to, to get more money astound me at times.

I write this post as a middle class, white, Australian who thankfully has never had to worry about money or money troubles. I am truly thankful for this. But as I get older I have grown to see the fallacy that chasing money brings.

Every single day I talk or think about money. Whether at my job and how much something may cost the business. At home talking about family budgets with my wife or giving my daughter $4 a week in pocket money and teaching her to be responsible with it.

Money is here to stay the human race has created such a wonderful story around it that it’s place is with us forever. We don’t have a fair and sensible alternative. We should be responsible with it, and there is nothing wrong with striving to obtain it but, if this is our sole aim in life or if we think “I just need an extra $X” then we’re wrong.

With money we build ourselves wonderful cages. With more money we make the cages golden or bigger or we add things. But in the end it’s still a cage.

When we have money we take on debts or buy things or commit to obligations. This forms the bars of the cage. The bank owns most of my house I then pay the bank every month so that one day they won’t own it at all. In the process the bank makes a large amount of money, that makes their shareholders happy as they get some of the money and the wheel continues.

Once the house becomes mine then I will have more money of my own right? As I won’t have to pay the bank. So I could buy another house (well the bank could) and I will pay them again every month until I fully own that one. The bank gets money the shareholders get money, and I have a new cage but maybe this one is by the beach.

Maybe I just need a bit more money I don’t need another house but a bit more money would be nice wouldn’t it? I could use that to do nice things with the family? Or I could drive a Mercedes instead of a Subaru? That would be a pretty cage wouldn’t it.

This is why money is a trap as in western society we will never have “enough” someone will have a nicer house, a nicer TV, gold earrings, a better car, or a boat (that would be an aquarium not a cage :)). We get more, we want more, then we’re a slave to money then we die and as a Scotsman I worked for said regularly “There are no pockets in a shroud!”

In my last days I can’t imagine sitting being glad I managed to get a bit more money so I could afford new curtains.

Recently there have been two podcasts with people who I was extremely jealous of. One was a “dirtbagger” she lived in a van which she parked in carparks to sleep in. She would use McDonald’s carparks to get free WiFi. But she went to every national park in America whenever she wanted and scaled mountains and had amazing experiences.

The other was with a guy who rode his bike around the world (that is not a typo). He had experiences money cannot buy and his happiest times were in the places where the people had “nothing by western standards” but they were happy.

Many of the happiest people are some of the poorest they thrive on love and community.

So am I going to sell my house and buy a van? No. But I am jealous of the freedom. Yes. Am I going to try and free myself from the cages I’ve built? Absolutely as fast as possible.

I’ve done much life assessment recently and freedom is something I crave. Part of that is being free of money and the problems it brings.

Money is overrated, but it is necessary. It is something that can do much good, but also extreme evil. It is something we must be responsible with, and I think part of that responsibility is seeing it for what it is and that is that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. But if we use every dollar wisely we free ourselves to be ourselves.

Three simple things to improve your diet…

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Keto, Atkins, Lemon Detox, whatever celebrity craze is currently happening. Forget it. I am interested in nutrition. I have seen how what I eat effects my performance.

I eat a whole food plant based diet (mostly) and discussed this in a previous post here. Diet is a divisive subject and I don’t want to get involved in any arguments. What I want to do is suggest just three simple things that will help you improve your diet. Not ten, three. Also none of these tips have any requirements to go to the Himalayas and scrape moss off a rock. No calorie counting, no discussion of carbs vs. fat. Just three simple steps.

In western society we are calorie rich and nutrient poor. So the best thing you can do is eat more nutrients and increase fibre.

So three simple things;

1) Look for the whole…

You want to eat food in a form closest to it’s natural state. So instead of drinking apple juice eat an apple. The whole food has all the fibre and nutrients. The more processing that occurs the more good stuff you lose.

Other simple changes to help with this. Eat wholemeal bread and pasta. Brown Rice instead of white. White breads, pasta and rice have all had key parts of the grain removed with nutrients and fibre.

Remove processed foods and look to whole foods.

2) Add a vegetable…

Vegetables are full of nutrients, kale for instance has the highest nutrient value for calorie intake. Don’t like kale? Eat a vegetable you do like. Try the ones you don’t but, cook them in a different way.

Think of creative ways to add a vegetable. I use a Nutri Ninja for breakfast, but there is no need to buy appliances. Replace muesli bars with carrot and celery sticks and dip (you can also make your own dips and incorporate chickpeas or vegetables).

If you aim to add one extra vegetable to each meal or 3 a day you increase your nutrient intake.

3) Eat the rainbow…

Foods of different colours have different nutrients.

Strawberries are Red

Blueberries are Blue

Add some spinach and you’ve eaten green to

Aim to eat as many colours throughout the day as possible. Note! Follow the earlier rules foods with food colouring don’t count.

Three simple things. Start with one if that’s easier. Change your sandwiches to wholemeal bread. Then you can add carrot to that sandwich. Then add tomato, baby spinach and some olives and you’ve done all three things. Then work out other meals and ways you can do this.

 

The training / racing dichotomy…

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Currently I have gone the longest period since I first started running seriously without, having a big goal race planned. Typically I finish one and then start planning the next, but with the birth of my son I wanted to see how things shook out.

I’m very happy not to be in a structured training regime at the minute. I’m tired! Newborn sleeping patterns are unpredictable and I am probably operating on 40-60% of my “normal sleep.” So being able to just do a run that suits my condition is perfect right now.

Having said that I am missing not having a goal race. I always enjoy looking forward to race day. I enjoy thinking about the race and how it will unfold. I like being race fit and feeling in top condition from doing the hard training.

But, I am currently really enjoying the flexibility of being out of structured training. I’ve picked some of my favourite places to run and run for as long as I can / want. Today I ran by the beach to clear my head. I don’t live near a beach but the opportunity arose and I took it. These types of things I don’t always do in “normal training” because they may not fit with the plan.

Training for Ultras is hard. Getting yourself in peak physical condition for any endeavor is hard. It’s probably the main reason that so many in western society don’t do it given, we like to live in our land of convenience.

In peak training I will 12 or more hours a week with varied level of intensity. I run up to about 130-140 km in a peak week. This takes a toll on other areas of life and sometimes waking up and knowing I have a one and half hour run with hill climbs is tough or, waking up at 5 am on Saturday to think I’ve got to do 4 hours feels awful. Once I start I’m fine but getting to the start line can take significant mental energy and can add to the tiring nature of the training.

Training is meant to be tough as an Ultramarathon is tough. Training prepares the mind and body for the rigors of the race.

Not having a formalised training plan is a wonderful mental freshen up for me. And in many ways it feels like a holiday. So I am really enjoying this current moment of running, based on how I feel on any given day. However at the end of the week I miss the miles and the gains I’ve made, at the moment I feel heavy and slow. In peak training I can also feel heavy and slow but after a recovery week I will break records on training drills. That’s peak fitness and that is enjoyable, but it’s draining.

So this is the dichotomy I like racing and I like how it makes me feel. Training to get there can be hard.

As I think we can learn from everything, what I am learning is that I should be more flexible when I am in peak training. This has a limit as if everyday you say “don’t feel like it” you won’t reach the peak fitness that feels so good, but maybe when your body and brain just ache it’s OK to do an easy recovery run.

Time is not on my side…

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My newborn son seems to be a guts who gorges himself on Mum’s milk. Why do I think this? He seems to require a burp fairly regularly, you can put him down and ten minutes later he needs another burp to settle.

My son seems harder to settle than my daughter was when she was a baby. Saying that compared to many babies he’s still pretty good, particularly at gaining weight.

Last night I wanted to go to sleep and it took me about an hour and a half to settle him before he went to sleep. I think I counted eight burps and three vomits, one which went all over me. Given that my plan was to rise at 5 am and get back into my normal pre-baby routine of driving to the office, go for a run and then do a days work I was getting stressed about the lack of sleep I was about to have.

My wife and I have already had discussions about “it won’t always be like this” or “we’ll be able to do X again soon.” In these moments it is very easy to long and hope for the current period in life you are in to end.

One saying my Father has said to me regularly is “don’t wish your life away, it will go quicker than you think.” This was mainly said to me during exam periods when I would say “I can’t wait til next week when I am on holidays!”

As I get older I appreciate the wisdom of my Father’s words more and more. The simple fact is life does go quicker than you think. I now have a three year old daughter and it doesn’t seem that long ago I wasn’t a father.

So as I tried calming my son last night after getting over my frustration and stress of “why won’t you go to sleep!” I began thinking “won’t be like this forever” but instead of hoping for it to end, I thought the real frustration is that I don’t have enough time. 

I don’t want this magic period to disappear in a haze. My son is a newborn and is only a newborn for a very short period. Soon he won’t be curled up in his little newborn hunch, soon he won’t be so dependent on me and soon I’ll long for the day when he was a baby.

At the same time I still want to achieve so much everyday. I want to write my blog, go running and train for Ultramarathons, play with my daughter, hang out with my wife, work on other projects that interest me, go to work and any number of other things including sleep (ideally 8 hours, but this is a pipe dream at the minute). If only time was limitless and I wasn’t stressed about one area limiting another. If only I wasn’t standing there late at night thinking “I need to go to sleep, I have these three things to do tomorrow.” But unfortunately time isn’t limitless and when we get stuck in a moment, that puts pressure on our time, we can get stressed.

Given I cannot create more time to allow me to enjoy moments more, all I can do is prioritise where I put my time and efforts. Some of this I covered in a previous post about my hierarchy of fulfillment. The other area I need to improve is living in the moment more, instead of thinking about tomorrow or that thing I need to do and it’s 11.30 pm and I want to go to sleep. I need to appreciate the moment I am in, and enjoy my baby son for who he is as he won’t be like that for very long.

Unfortunately the Rolling Stones weren’t right when they said “Time is on my side.”

 

Move your TV, it may just change your life…

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“Do I want to watch TV? No there’s no furniture in there.” This was an internal monologue I had internally one night when I had the house to myself.

My family and I have just moved back into our house after completing renovations and an extension. The main part of the extension is a new kitchen and large family room. This is now where we spend most of our time. But this new room does not have a TV.

We have the TV that was in the old house. But this is in another room which is not connected to the new family room.

Prior to the extension the TV was in the main living space visible from the kitchen, dining table and general area we spent most of our time. This meant I’d often turn it on. I’d have it on in the background. I wouldn’t be watching anything in particular and sometimes wouldn’t really be watching at all. But I would have it on none the less.

Our new arrangement means I need to consciously move rooms to watch TV. When in there we currently have no furniture, other than an old beanbag. It is also typically cold as it has a different heater from the main area we now use.

So since we moved in I think I’ve watched about one half of football and that’s about all.

The first paragraph of this post talks of a night I was thinking about watching Netflix. But instead I wrote a blog post. If you’re wondering which one it was this one here.

With the new housing layout and TV location, it requires a conscious decision to watch TV. It is no longer a mindless picking up of the remote and turning it on.

So what’s this meant?

Well I’m spending more time writing and learning through this blog. I’ve read other people’s blogs. I’ve gone to bed on time, I used to sometimes stay up to finish watching a show that half the time I had no interest in. I’ve listened to music more. Had better family dinners talking to my wife and daughter. Sat around our dinner table and talked to my wife or just sat together without TV, after our daughter has gone to bed.

So does this mean we sell our existing TV? No. There is still a place for Netflix and other entertainment but, now it’s on our terms and when we really want to watch rather than just having it there to fill space.

There is a space for a TV in our new room, in fact my mother in law has even loaned us one. But I am in no rush to plug it in. We may plug it in one day, but if we do I’ll be more conscious about its use than I used to be.

So seriously think about moving your TV and make it harder to watch. You never know what you’ll discover!