Tag / personal

Getting off the Hamster Wheel

*groan*

In the name of progress, I am stepping off the hamster wheel. My lifestyle is changing regardless of anyone and everyone around me. There are no more excuses and not more crutches to lean on. This image of a healthy breakfast was from January 2011. I’ll let you know that I’m pretty good at getting in a great breakfast, but the evening is a true challenge. Laziness and ambition for other things leaves me stuck in old ways. There are bursts of an awesome week but that’s not a lifestyle change.

I’ve done everything I want to achieve my my health before. I even remember being on cardio machines and repeating something related to the fact that depression can’t compete with this. Yea, before I really even understood I suffered from depression. I know how to eat amazingly healthy but I decided to make bad choices. It’s so easy to make the bad choices.

Since I know what to do, I am going to action my knowledge all the time and I am not going to let the apathetic mindset get to my decision making. I am not making bad choices when it comes to my health. This is going to be a hard thing for a little while. Why? Because I can see it putting a little bit of strain on Marika and I. I’m going to be resisting the little things that keep that hamster wheel spinning and us getting stuck. She can have those things, but not me. It will just be a matter of time before she sees that it’s possible and that my health is changing before her eyes. She’ll be motivated to join in with me.

How do I ensure I stay off the hamster wheel?

This is going to be tough. There is no doubt about it. I’m not on a weight-loss ranch like the Biggest Loser and life goes on hold, but thankfully I am not where Biggest Loser contestent were at during the start of the show. Key to making sure that never happens is to take action today.

To keep myself in check, I’m going to be doing visualizations of my past success. I’m going to be doing visualizations of what it feels like to be back in athletic shape – The athletic feeling is better than the taste of any type of food. I need to keep reminding myself of this!

Do I share more information here on my weekly weigh in and progress? I think it would increase the ownership on me to keeping my word.

There is one last part of all this that I look forward to: Knowing that God is on my side.

Being created in the image of God, I want to treat my body as a temple. I look forward to God showing his glory though my progress and that it helps to inspire others that want to overhaul their lifestyle as well.

Let’s get on with the day! Cheers!

My World Has Been Rocked

When was the last time your world was fully rocked? I’m not talking about the east coast earthquake of 2011. I’m talking about about a shift within you, so big, that ignites an ember of potentiality you thought was already glowing pretty good. Little did you know that ember was at risk of going out with the slightest of breeze.

Or instead of an ember, my symbolic reference online seems to be within that of an embryo. Inside all of us lives a sense of self that longs for meaning. Most of us go though life never nurturing our calling, that embryo of potentiality, and thus it sits within a plateau since childhood.

What lives within side you? Do you believe this embryo – that is your true self; your calling – has the potential to grow if nurtured or is it simply getting dimmer?

Is the life you’re meant to lead stuck within you?

Continue reading →

I Care About Being Debt Free

Can you live a life without debt?
How many people actually ask this question, I wonder?

I have cared about being debt free for a long time and I didn’t really know it. I do know that I was meant to learn a big lesson in this lifetime – a lesson about money. I planned to pay off debt and envisioned it disappearing. I envisioned it gone and how great it would be to be without it. The interesting thing was that I didn’t have a plan for how I would make it disappear. I just envisioned it going away.

I’m not going to get into everything right now, but I’ll tell you that I see the light at the end of the tunnel now. We have a plan that ensures we’re debt free (except for our house) in less than 5 years. This didn’t happen on purpose; however I do believe this happend because of my massive desire to want debt gone. With such a desire, the universe or God – whatever you want to call it – put things into order. The order of which may not look as expected but the outcome is oddly the same.

5 years and we will only have a mortgage debt payment. No car payment, no line of credit payment, no visa credit card payment, no sears card payment, no camera equipment loan or credit at a store to pay, ect. The income we earn will be used to build wealth. However, there is something that makes me even more excited than being debt free (except the house) in 5 years. But what?

What is More Exciting?

What makes me more excited is to be debt free (except for the house I still point out) in less than 1 year.

I’m not going to sit around and wait for 5 years to pass before I can achieve this massive milestone for our family. That’s why the post about a globe and waiting for stuff like that is super important. The point of talking about admiring and not aquiring was to say I am handling my money in a much smarter way now. I’m not defined by that stuff that I own. The things that I do purchase must be planned out and/or serve an important purpose. These types of things are to help with my work, business, and creativity. Everything must be weighed heavily on a system that says I can be debt free in less than a year.

I care about being debt free more than I care about trying to impress you.

This isn’t about living a frugal life and being ridiculous for the rest of my lifetime. I’m just willing to not care about impressing you. I know that I need to shoes and I’ll get some soon. I promise. I know that globe would look nice on the shelf in a photography studio or creative office. I’ll get one someday. Right now though, I imagine the pace at which wealth and giving can happen when I have control over where my money goes.

My Own Empowerment

Imagine all the debt payments you make right now and imagine you suddenly didn’t have them anymore. When you get paid, you get to keep that hard earned income. Suddenly you’re empowered. I care about my own empowerment. I care about being able to focus energy on helping the economy in new positive ways instead of feeding the economy with more debt.

Can I be stretched even further? Can we be debt before the 1 year? Can I work so hard to hit the mark in 10 months? or maybe 9 months? or maybe 6 months? What would I have to do so that I could achieve this goal within 6 months? That’s a question to ask because it forces me to think differently.

I care about being debt free.

It was never really about globes.

Toronto, See You Soon

The wedding shot last Saturday in Toronto was pretty darn awesome. There were some traffic issues and it resulted in some lost shots, but overall it was a huge success. I’m once again reminded that I need to see Toronto again soon before the winter comes.

I love how that looking up in Toronto produces so many interesting sights :)

My Blog is a Playground

Friday has hit us and it’s been a wild week mentally for me. I can feel the tension releasing as a big wedding shoot will happen tomorrow, leaving me with work but no build up. Taking a small break, I wanted to edit a photo to post on here today. The point for the photo is to talk about my blog as a playground. The playground metaphor is something that started over at Nuwomb with my photoblog there (something I sort of wanted to move away from). Here I can share images on a more personal level and then talk about them in another level on Nuwomb.

I might share a totally wack edit here to see what you think. I might share that on something like Google+ too. But the point is that I’m having a good time on my blog and there’s no room for stuffiness. I’m trying things, experimenting, and testing. I share more than just photography and it’s me.

The photo that I’m sharing though is totally fun and this guy was just sitting there after having enjoyed his ice cream. The signage played as a great way to offer depth, texture, graphic interest to a street photo of the man. He was happy to know I got his picture! Take some time to go sit on a bench in the near future. Time that doesn’t have an objective other than to sit on the bench and be.

Cheers!

The Power of Free Writing

[dropcap]Sometimes[/dropcap] I use my blogs as a place for free-writing. I don’t plan out what I’ll write and I just write off the top of my head. Perfect example of this was today in the post called “Over Extending.” Essentially, I was stuck and frustrated with being that stuck. Freeform writing is something that really helps and I’ve gotten off the ritual of writing on 750words.com. I could go back and delete the post from earlier today as it was pretty whiny, but it served a purpose. After writing, I actually got some stuff done that has helped me feel a bit more at ease.

A great book (that I haven’t even finished) is about free writing and how it can help to unlock creativity and inner genius. It’s called Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content by Mark Levy.

Really smart and I need to finish it.

I’ll do my best not to leave posts like today around the blog, but I’m glad to report how free writing can be powerful.

Soon, I’ll update my reading list too!