It has been 8 months now that Motoko and I left Japan. We are having a great time with our lives but this is also not an idyllic lifestyle. It is great to be able to see the world and have complete freedom, but we are really starting to miss having a regular routine in our lives. Here is a short summary of our current situation.
We are in Istanbul
We are currently in Istanbul and loving it here. The hospitality of Turkish people has been amazing. Turkey is very unique in that it is a bridge between European and Middle Eastern cultures. It is so different then anywhere else we have been but I will write more about the country later.
Our Financial Situation
We haven’t been able to sell our house in Japan because of the terrible real estate market there, so we have been paying bills and a mortgage for an empty house. It would have been nice to get rid of that obligation, but such is life. We are now thinking of spending a few months every year in Japan. Unfortunately, we got rid of all of…
I have been back in my home country of Canada for about four months, now I have two more weeks to go before I leave again. It has been great to be back home, but I think I enjoyed it more because I know it is not permanent. My wife and I have not made any roots and have not anchored ourselves to a lifestyle we don’t want. The greatest insight I have discovered is that life is fantastic.
Sometimes it is easy to forget just how good we have it. Several friends and relatives have recently undergone major medical surgeries. I have heard many complaints about how far they had to drive to get to the hospital, how long the waiting lists were to get a hospital bed, how many times their surgeries had been postponed, how late the doctor was, etc.
I understand people under-going life threatening operations are under huge amounts of stress and want to get out the hospital as soon as possible, however I think they may be over-looking how lucky they are to be in a rich developed country with amazing technological advances and medical…
On a recent post on Untemplater.com, I wrote about how I think talent is created, not born. I called the post, You are a Monkey so Stop Thinking You are so Special. I learned a couple of things from the comments, apparently people don’t like being called monkeys and some people place a lot of emphasis on the genetic side of the debate.
Of course genes are important in many circumstances. It is difficult to be a professional basketball player if you are short. It helps to have big hands and feet if you want to be a world class swimmer. Good eyesight is necessary to be a pilot. So yes, genes do shape our future to a degree, but how often does genetic makeup really limit what we can accomplish?
The purpose of the monkey post was to show that since humans have 99.9% of the same genes as chimpanzees, maybe we shouldn’t put too much emphasis on our genetic makeup. The worst part of an over-reliance on nature over nurture is that it…
In a recent email, a reader of this blog asked me how I became so successful. He read in one of my posts about how I moved to Japan on one week’s notice with no job, no work visa and only $1000 to my name and later became a jet-setting global rock star celebrity. (Okay, I added the ‘jet-setting global rock star celebrity part ‘ for added effect. )
Here is the Secret to my Success
The short answer is … I am not successful. Most people, myself included, tend to glamorize or even exaggerate successes and hide set backs or negative aspects of their lives. Don’t believe everything you read or hear because you are only getting the positive side of the story.
I am not rich. I am not famous. I am not particularly smart or talented either. I am just an ordinary person that is not afraid of hard work. When…
Corbett Barr at FreePursuits.com recently posted a fantastic video that is closely aligned with my personal life view. The TED video is of Srikumar Rao who outlines how to be happy in life. I briefly summarized the video below, but I didn’t include the great examples that will help convey the message. Watch the video, it is worth it.
Brief Summary
Srikumar Rao
Everything we do in life in someway is a quest for happiness.
There is nothing that you have to get, do or be in order to be happy.
Happiness is your innate nature. It is wired in your DNA.
We have a mental model that says we have to get something in order to be happy.
IF this happens, THEN we will be happy.
The IF-THEN model itself is flawed. But instead of realizing that, we spend an enormous amount of time changing the ‘IFs.”
Recall a scene of spectacular beauty that took you outside of yourself into a place of great serenity like a rainbow or mountain range. The reason that happened is that you accepted the universe exactly as it was. You didn’t say that is a
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