If you are looking for an explanation why the FDA food pyramid is wrong, why we have more "diet" food today but more obesity as well, and why eating fat doesn't actually make you fat, I would recommend reading Tim Ferriss' book "The 4 Hour Body", and "The Paleo Solution" by Robb Wolf and/or watch this video by Gary Taubes.  Let me know what you think!

My next adventure.  Who's coming with me?

December 14th, 2011 marked the 100th anniversary of Roald Amundsen reaching the South Pole.  To commemorate, adventurers from all over the world have converged on the icy region to make the same trek this year.  I have always been fascinated by the explorers who risk their lives to reach the arctic pole.  And now with twitter accounts abounding, we get a new insight into the daily thoughts of these adventurers along the way.  What must it be like to sit on the most isolated place on earth...alone? 

Enter British skier, Felicity Aston, a 34 year old adventurer looking to become the first woman to cross Antarctica...alone.  And despite the cold, wind storms, ripped tents and anything else that -40 degrees brings, she recently said in an interview that her biggest challenge is loneliness and the blaring white of the snow and clouds; a feeling most of us will never experience.

In my world, a little quiet and solitude actually sounds kind of nice.  A little.  Last summer I decided to do a little experiment.  I had been reading the "Spiritual Exercises" by St. Ignatius of Loyola who tells of the wonders of "practicing solitude".  It was a day where the kids were in school and the wife was at work.  I planned for nothing that day.  I didn't have to be anywhere, didn't have to do anything.  So, I got up in the morning, made some coffee and just sat.  Being in solitude is more than just being alone, it's more about letting the world go by without participating in it.  It's about introducing rest to the soul.  So, I sat for a while, then went for a walk, then sat.  If it sounds boring, it was.

But after a while something else started happening.  There began this gnawing feeling that I needed to get going.  My mind started racing with all the things that needed to get done and panic set in.  Because Ignatius talks about this, I was expecting it to some extent, but this was getting bad.  The longer I purposefully waited, the faster my mind ran until I couldn't take it.  I picked up the phone just to connect with someone.  The minute I heard another voice, my mood instantly went from anxious to relief and joy.  I can still remember how good it was to have community in that moment...if only via phone.  

Volumes are filled with historical figures teaching the rest of us about the intense joy that the cycle of deprivation/relief cycle brings, not just St. Ignatius.  It makes us more aware of the daily goodness we easily take for granted.  That day, solitude taught me the value of friendships.  My heart breaks for those who don't have someone to call; someone to break their solitude with.  I imagine Felicity Aston will feel much the same once she completes her adventure.  As far as rest for my soul goes, ironically, I may have to take it in smaller doses.

Follow Felicity Aston's adventure on Twitter at (@felicity_aston).

I often see flowers from a passing car
That are gone before I can tell what they are.

I want to get out of the train and go back
To see what they were beside the track.

I name all the flowers I am sure they weren't:
Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt--

Not blue bells gracing a tunnel mouth--
Not lupine living on sand and drouth.

Was something brushed across my mind
That no one on earth will ever find?

Heaven gives its glimpses only to those
Not in position to look too close. 

The New Year's upon us!  Each year about a week from now gyms start filling up with people determined to keep their resolutions.  New books are released in droves promising a "new you" for real this time.  New clothes from Christmas provide a fresh start for a new image at work - and if done correctly (in correlation with that gym membership) people will start recognizing the new you and the most flattering thing of all might happen: they might just want to be like you.

I have gone through this cycle at least 15 times.  But I've failed every single time.  (See previous post on why I never go to the gym).  I am like everyone else.  I love to be promised a new self - a reinvention, if you will.  The vision of a life I've always wanted, now made available because it's a new year!  It's just that it never happens.  The reality is that the momentum of my choices up Until now simply flow over the top of my greatest intentions, wiping them away and pulling them far away from the coast - until next year when I try something new and the tide comes in all over, and over again.  

So this year I have only one resolution: no more idols of the perfect life.  No more archetypes of how life should be.  They are only responsible for making me increasingly discontent rather than whole.  My time is better spent, I am convinced, with figuring out who I am rather than who I wish to be.  Resolutions promise a new you, but turn out to be a cover to hide your old self behind.  

"It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg." -- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Just today I ran across a short article in Outside Magazine  about Ryan Levinson (read his blog here).  Ryan was voted by readers as Outside's 2011 Chief Inspiration Officer, which afforded him the opportunity to write a monthly blog on Outside's website.  As 2011 comes to a close, Levinson retold his story about having a form of muscular dystrophy and the heartache he is experiencing right now as a result of not being able to be active as he once was.  I can't share his whole story here, but in his final blog, he passes the torch onto the next "CIO" with these words:

"Since then, I have come to understand that our childhood coaches were right: what matters most is how we play the game.  Or, rather, why we play the game.  In my first blog post for Outside Online, I wrote that 'surfing is not about your ability to maneuver a board, but rather it is about how completely you experience the moment.'  Our thirst for conquest and titles is just ego opium we snort in response to our personal doubts and fears.  When I was chosen to be the Reader of the Year, I was told I had a blank canvas to inspire readers however I saw fit.  So I'll leave you with this: We can waste our lives dreaming big but letting insecurities blind us, or we can look up and see life as a series of moments to be experienced rather than conquered." 

As usual, my Mom flew in for Christmas this month.  It is not only the height of my holidays, but another chance for her to catch up and bond with her grandchildren, my kids.  Amidst all the laughs, shopping, and talking, the subject of my Great Grandfather came up.  He was an editorial writer for the Peoria Star in the 1940's and 1950's.  Deeply committed to his family and his calling as a writer, Gomer Bath wrote a weekly article on life, society, and politics.  Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, they are gone for good.  I do have his journals, however, which tell of his life growing up prior to and after the depression.  True to his writing nature, he kept his journal from the time he was in grade school faithfully writing in it nearly every day. 

In his journal, he recounts the various struggles of growing up in the early 1900's, getting into fights in Junior High over a girl, his relationships with other family members, and his own thought process of trying to figure out an increasingly complex world - not unlike what many of us are going through.  By the standards of his time, he was relatively successful.  He had a job which earned him name recognition and a steady income for most of his life.

As my Mom and I talked about him, it became apparent to both of us that the very fabric and standards of life were much different just a hundred years ago. There was a contentment with life - even if it was a struggle - that seems to have all but disappeared in my lifetime.  The obsession with celebrity, power, fame, and fortune did not exist - or if it did, most people weren't going to ruin their lives in the chase after such things.  Yet, they were happy.  They didn't need the biggest house or the latest toy.  Their identity came from who they were, not what they accomplished.  They weren't constantly chasing the next big thing. 

Read any book about leadership, management, entrepreneurship, or what have you and what you find are the best minds in the country offering solutions to problems that didn't exist for Gomer Bath.  People were honest and hard working.  Sure, there were the bad apples, but in general, people were happy to have steady jobs and income - they didn't need to be the boss, the CEO, or the president.  Even my Father, for example, started working at Caterpillar right out of high school, and retired there some 45 years later.  His mentality is not our mentality. 

Can we ever get back to a life like my Great Grandfather had?  I don't know.  But, I would like to think so.  And should we have the courage to step out of the race, the flowers will still be there to smell and wine still rich to taste.

"People don't want more information.  They are up to their eyeballs in information.  They want faith - faith in you, your goals, your success, in the story you tell.  It is faith that moves mountains, not facts.  Facts do not give birth to faith.  Faith needs a story to sustain it - a meaningful story that inspires belief in your and renews hope that your ideas indeed offer what you promise."  Annette Simmons, The Story Factor

As a teacher, I am always looking for the most effective and efficient way to help students learn.  Falling into the trap that many teachers do, constantly providing facts to the students made me feel good at the end of a lecture - but at the expense of burdening and wearing out my students.  At the end of my last year teaching, I took some time to ask students the lessons they remembered most.  Their answers confirmed the intuitions that had been building in me throughout the year - they identified and remembered my personal stories far more in terms of detail and quantity far more than anything that they had read.  

This plays off the old adage, "I know what I told you, but I don't know what you heard."  The challenge with teaching, presenting, selling, etc. is to have greater control over you can be sure the audience hears.  After all, it really doesn't matter what you tell people - the only thing that matters is what they hear.  I will be writing more about this as I continue to experiment with it in the classroom, but Annette Simmons writes that there are certain stories that, if you tell them, will launch you into the stratosphere in your communication and influence.

The goal with personal stories is to make a connection that offers little resistance.  What is your immediate response when someone asks for your trust without giving you a story?  I always think about people who knock on my door and offer to clean a section my carpets for free.  I have never let these people in.  Why?  There is immediate resistance - even though they are giving me a free service.   

Just two days ago another gentleman knocked on my door and began telling me a story about how he wanted to go to Europe and asked that I support his ambitions by buying a few magazine subscriptions.  I will give him credit - at least he attempted to build a little trust, but I still didn't buy.  The reason?  What both of these folks are fighting against the minute they knock on the door is the larger narrative/story that we all already trust: That door-to-door salesmen are a nuisance not to be trusted.  If these guys want to start selling door-to-door, they will need to tell a new/better story with a new conclusion that we can all believe in. Until then, then answer is no.