As a sideline, I have began to work on a blog for The Yoga Sanctuary, my local yoga studio. There will be information, updates, profiles and other news directly related to studio happenings. If you’re curious, check it out– and if you live in Toronto, give us a visit!

Namasté

There’s nothing quite as exciting as hearing family members give you well-intentioned, but utterly useless advice. Taking situations that happened to them, devoid of the specific context, and trying to apply them to your life without correcting for any temporal or spatial differences.

We’re all exactly the same, right? Same problems, same goals, same attributes, same personalities and of the same hive mind. With no independent thoughts or case-specific variables that might require a different approach.

It all comes back to being a good listener. And by that I mean making sure the other person is forced to listen. If they bring up any complication, just talk over them with whatever limited reasoning power you possess.

Year after year, this is the recipe that keeps so many people looking forward to wonderful family get-togethers.

I’ll never forget this awful computer commercial where basketball player Steve Nash is telling us about the company. He rambles on, repeating a script with little interest or insight, and absolutely zero passion. It comes across like a marketing guru was burned out and produced a cut & paste from a marketing manual.

And that’s how we’re expected to play it. Pretend we belong, make lukewarm gestures, eventually get close to the rim without really trying to score. The heat is never turned up high enough to get cooking, but it isn’t dangerous enough to get burned, either.

When Nash laces up his sneakers, do you think he’s looking ahead to another day of coasting and going through the motions? If he played just to survive, he’d be replaced by someone who actually wanted it. A big problem with companies today is that for various reasons, people lose their drive and lose their motivation– if they ever had it in the first place. Yet there is no incentive to work hard and eventually the decline sets in.

Maybe most people are willing to resize themselves until they fit into the marketing guru’s handbook’s parameters. That box can’t hold everyone, and not everyone is willing to be held back.

I was dreamin’ of tomorrow so I sacrificed today
And it sure was a grand waste of time

–Billy Joel, “Got To Begin Again”

***

I heard about an individual looking to go all the way and take a flying leap into a new milieu. Considering how safe and secure their current position is, it just stopped me cold to think that they would risk what they worked to achieve for something bigger.

But then I thought about it: They believed in themselves. And whatever they had done up to this point had been helping them gather momentum. Of course they wanted to try something new, and if it didn’t work out, they could maybe go back, right?

Momentum could be the key. Not resting on laurels, past achievements, but knowing that they’re worth more, and being prepared to go out and get more.

Check out my gym profile in this month’s issue of FIGHT! magazine on the Xtreme Couture Toronto facility. It features the stories of Mark Hominick, Chris Horodecki and Mark Bocek. The deck explains it all,  “Fighters and participants train at a world class facility in a province where both amateur and professional MMA competitions are banned.”

FIGHT! magazine is available on newsstands everywhere, including Chapters-Indigo locations.

Friendships are a lot like plants. You have to maintain them, otherwise they’ll wither. Under the worst of circumstances, namely total neglect, they die off.

As we move to new places, leave old haunts behind in search of new digs, people get lost in the shuffle. In the here and now, maybe two people just don’t synchoronize properly– emotionally, mentally, spiritually. It takes more than shared interests to build a real friendship.

We’ve all known people who were only there during the good times. Or the kind who only ever called when they needed something. Anyone so self-absorbed that they see everything as a one-way street should be dispensed with in short order.

Growth happens in the direction of the most support and reinforcement. The people that help make us happy also help us find direction towards what is important. 

I haven’t seen a single episode, yet the sense of anticipation I feel while looking forward to watching the British series This Life is heavier than the advance lineups for the latest/lamest Star Wars installment/disappointment. The best measure of it’s impact and the way it won audiences hearts over is the uniformly caustic reaction to the 2007 reunion show. Says The Times Online: ‘This Life + 10 was terrible. Witless. Insubstantial. Saggy. Navel-gazing. Or, as Anna might have put it in better days, after taking a large gulp of red, “Total f****** b******s.”’

When you’ve had a magical friendship, relationship, or event, coming down becomes extremely difficult. You realize what you’ve been missing, and the decline or loss of that wonderful moment is devastating. The terrible performance of the reunion show is just proof positive of the power of the original, ground-breaking series.
 

In tournament-style competition, players or teams are either seeded, or there is a random draw. Seeding involves ranking the competitors so that the highest ranking or favorites are in opposite brackets rather than eliminating each other early on.

No such fairness exists in real life. For some, the obstacles and challenges in the way are far different compared to others. There is little process to give those with higher abilities an equal chance at the best opportunities. Connections, marketability, presentation, and luck are as important or weighted higher than skill in many cases. 

Having to work that much harder to prove you belong, or facing early opposition others haven’t met makes some of us better, more game. After all, Nietzsche famously says, “That which does not kill me only makes me stronger,” but a line must be drawn somewhere. There is a point where discouragement, frustration and other negative emotions weigh into the equation as a byproduct of the things that are trying to kill us. Taken the wrong way, people can become weaker due to facing increased challenges.

Attitude counts for a lot. It always does. Those who want to continue and see things through will always try to make progress. And those who don’t really have their hearts in it will always be full of excuses.

So fair or not, the system is what it is and we have to try our best to navigate it with what we are given. Full stop.

Last night was the 10th anniversary of the TFEW freelancer’s group: 

“Toronto-area writers, editors and well-wishers crowded into the upstairs room of Big Mamma’s Boy on Parliament St. last night to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Toronto Freelance Editors & Writers collective. Over the past decade, the group, which exists mostly in the digital realm as an e-mail discussion forum, has grown from “6 people in David Hayes’ living room to the 270 members on the list today.” Our photos from the event below the fold.”

Masthead editor Marco Ursi was on hand to take photos of guests– I got a little press coverage. An illustrator from The National Post was on hand to sketch a New Yorker-style cartoon; the caption was, “…and those are just a few of the reasons I love freelancing. Spare any change?” 

Several editors were in attendance, as well as other stalwarts of the Toronto freelance community.