Update On My Dietary Changes

So it has now been a few months since I changed my diet with the help of a Naturopath. As I said before I ran into some health problems and instead of going on any medications I thought it would be good to first try changing my diet. I had also gained an undisclosed amount of weight over the past year that I want to lose so I figured this would also be the time for that. So the first step with the Naturopath was to fill out a questionnaire detailing all the changes in my life, dreams (which I thought was odd), what you eat, what you like/dislike eating, and really everything else under the moon. The first appointment took close to 2 hours in total!

I was then told I couldn't eat wheat, dairy, red meat or pork, mushrooms, and vinegar. So essentially everything! It was really hard the first few weeks because I really had to pay attention to everything I was putting into my system. Grocery shopping took me hours because I had to read every label and check it against my list of don'ts. But I figured out what worked for me and found some meals that I liked and could make quite easily. I got in a groove. It is really surprising how many chemicals and preservatives and overall junk I was putting in my system. You just don't realize it until you are forced to take notice!

I also started a regimen of vitamins, minerals, and supplements to help me get to a level where my energy was normalized and I could start to see some of the changes both physically and mentally that my new program was supposed to show. Over the last few months, prior to the changes, I had noticed a sharp drop in my energy and the overall felling of malaise. Without telling you exactly what I am on, I will say I have 3 extra large pill containers to hold them all!

I am pleased to say that after 2 and a half months I have lost 22 pounds and seen many other benefits of the diet. I have made it my goal to lose 9 more in the month of August and 29 more before the end of the year. It is a lofty goal that would see me far below my regular weight (or at least since I hit puberty!). I think I can do it and do it without being unhealthy, but it will take some effort.

If you have any questions about going to a Naturopath please let me know. I am a firm believer in healing the body naturally without the intervention of medication. There are some things and times that medication is necessary, but if you feel comfortable with giving your body the changes it needs without drugs then it is worth the effort.

Im Baaaack

I am finally finished school - for the foreseeable future anyways. It was a stressful last month between classes, applying for jobs/internships (although not many, as I will explain) and some health problems I have been dealing with for a couple of months now. Unfortunately something had to give in my schedule and this blog was one of the things that had to go on the back burner until some time freed up.

Today was my first day off and I am going to have the next couple of months to look after me and put some effort into some of my passion projects. It is an exciting time and I am really looking forward to this opportunity to decompress and plot out my future path. I have spent the last 20 years in school and this will be the first time when I won't be going back after the summer. My future is ahead and I don't have a clue what it will look like.

As I said my health took a bit of a turn a couple of months ago and its been a tad stressful. I had some neurological problems and as a result I am seeing a naturopath to help me get sorted out. I have been put on a slew of supplements and vitamins, revamped my entire diet, and I am about to embark on a heavy exercise program. My diet has been the tough part to get a grasp on as I can't eat wheat, dairy, mushrooms, vinegar, red meat and fried foods. Its been a rough 6 weeks I tell you! While my health problems aren't something to be happy about, I think they are a blessing in disguise. I wasn't paying attention to myself or giving myself the necessary time and this i just a reason to get back to myself. I have set a goal of losing 35 pounds by the end of the year, and 25 of those in the next 3 months. I will make sure to give some monthly updates to let you know how I am doing.

As for jobs/internships, I have been looking and expect that something will come up that both fits me and I fit as well. I will be keeping my eyes peeled for an opportunity but in the meantime I am also going to enjoy the relaxation that this brief respite will give me. There are so many things I want to do and I could really use this time to sort it all out.

I want you to know I have been collecting lots of interesting information to pass on to you readers and things will be a lot more regular now. So stay tuned and let others know about this blog.

No Posts - Your Chance to Guest Post

It is a busy time right now. School is almost done (2 weeks to go) and I am still searching for a job/internship. It might not sound like much but at the moment it has my mind completely preoccupied. So I may have a chance to post something between now and then but you will have to forgive me if I don't get around to it. I promise that I will be back and that I have not abandoned this blog. Please bear with me and don't delete this feed. In the meantime if you want to write a post for others to see, please feel free to send me an email and we'll get it on here. Look forward to getting back at it!

Whats Worth More

Let me ask you this:

What is worth more
A dollar or a kind word
A dollar or a smile
A dollar or hug
A dollar or giving hope
A dollar or a minute or your time

We get so caught up in giving money we forget what all of us can give. You don't need a dollar to make a difference. I know what I would rather receive and while a dollar for some can make the difference between life and death, it doesn't change the fact that everyday we could give so much more, and change the lives of so many more without a pocket full of money. What is worth more to you?

End of the Semester

So I have been noticeably absent lately and I do apologize. My time has been consumed by end of semester assignments and tests and I haven't had much time to sleep let alone write anything insightful. I am glad to say that it is now over and I can again breath. I missed two big days this past week and I hope you had a chance to read about them elsewhere, or more importantly to celebrate them. Earth day was April 22 (Tuesday) and African Malaria Day was April 25 (Friday).

I would also like to announce that Million Dollar Youth, the organization I was formerly working for, is hosting a concert on May 31 here in Toronto at the Opera House. Doors will open at 7pm and there are some really popular acts on the bill. I attached a poster below with more details and hopefully you can make it out.

Life On Hold

As a young adult still doing post-secondary education I am often reminded that "real life" starts after graduation. While I have always liked to think that this is a faulty premise I recently figured out, through some introspection, that I have indeed been treating my life like it is on hold. Waiting for the real part to start, treating life like I have time to practice. I don't know why I did, but am sure it has to do with protecting myself. I stopped dating, put projects on hold, postponed doing things that I wanted to, all because I think I might be scared to actually do them. Doesn't seem like me but it makes sense.

I told myself a couple of years ago that I wanted to see the world. Live in some odd locations, see the tourist spots and go down the unbeaten path. For this reason I also told myself I didn't want to get involved with someone. I didn't want someone to hold me back, and I knew that if I was dating someone at the time I left then my heart would be torn between achieving my dreams and living with one. I didn't want to hurt someone else and I didn't want to hurt myself. I wanted to avoid the risk so I preemtively stopped myself from even considering it. I put my heart on hold.

I wanted to start a couple of online projects, all of which I have stalled on. I pick away at them as I can but have not put any considerable energy into making them happen. I have done this because I know if I do that they will either be a nice success, requiring further energy and time, or be an utter failure and a huge disappointment to me. I don't put in the time because either way the result will be hard to take in. I do it for self defense because the dream of them is so grand to me and I am acutely aware that the reality might not be quite so grand.

I share these examples because my attention of them was brought into view recently. I realized that the world I was creating around me was in fact not the world I wanted and yet it was of my own doing. I set myself up in a box that I could make sense of, a world I felt in control of; but the box was holding me back. With these constraints in my life I was failing at the game. I told myself it was practice, and that it could wait, but I felt fragmented. Sometimes it takes an event or a person to come in your life to help you realize that right now is the only time we have to live. Tomorrow is just a figment of the imagination. It doesn't exist until it happens and if you live thinking - believing - that it will lead or bring the life you want, then you are setting yourself up for failure. You are depriving the world of an integral part; YOU.

Life can't be broken into tiny, divisible parts. It isn't neat and tidy, and by trying to make it so you separate yourself from the possibility of life. By putting up these barriers, by setting up controls, you cut yourself off from chance. Tomorrow may never come, but right here and now is for sure. It is the only sure thing in life. It is the only thing that wont let you down. Here and now will always be here until it isn't anymore and then it wont matter. There is no practice round, you get one shot at it. One opportunity to the make the most of. Set yourself free.

Disappointment

We have all at times become disappointed in life. With someone, over something, we can't escape a let down here and there. It is a part of life, unfortunately, that not everything goes our way. However, take a second to think about that. The mere notion that we could become so wrapped up in our own lives that we forget that our disappointment could infact be another persons proudest moment, is cause for concern. The world does not revolve around us, which is a good thing. The world is not ours, which is a good thing.

You should take disappointment and flip it around. Take a new perspective on life, take a step back and examine the possibilities that can come from disappointment. The old saying of when "one door closes another opens" is a comment on how we should look at the world. Take applying for a new job, what looks to be a perfect job and one that you would die for might not be right for you. If you don't get the job then the person who did get it may have been perfect for it, maybe it was their big break, maybe they needed it more. We live in a world where we think about "me" first, but not only could we be much happier, but we could allow those around us to be happier as well.

Disappointment rubs off on others. Our bad mood is projected out on the world and we propagate the I/Me way of thinking. People see that we are wrapped up in our own problems and our own negativity that they react by doing the same. Others will look at us and see how self-centered our thoughts are and they will do likewise. Try the opposite sometime. The next disappointment you have turn it around. Propagate the feeling of a "We" world, one where your disappointment is another persons moment. See what kind of a reaction those around you give. See how that in turn makes you feel. The positive will come back, the people around us will think about "us". The world will be a better place.

Disappointment can seem like an insurmountable mountain. It will plant itself in the middle of our lives and take them over. The solution is to think about things as if we are already at the top. Life can be a magical success or an utter failure - it is a choice you can make.

The First Thing I Ever Wrote (not including school work)

I wrote this short little inspirational page about 3 years ago. It was the first thing I had felt comfortable writing and putting my name on. It was exhilarating at the time because all I had ever tried to write was school papers. The energy you can feel when you put your thoughts on paper is limitless. It is probably where the seed was planted for me to start this, and try to get as much of these short inspirations out of my head and out into the world. So here is the seed, hope you enjoy it:

The Only Thing We Can Know For Sure: The Time is Here and Now
Go where the wind takes you. Day by day. Don’t think about where the wind will take you tomorrow. Just let it happen. The second you get caught up in what might happen, you forget about what is happening. Whether you believe in fate, destiny, or coincidence, everyone believes things will happen. Let it. Live it. Love it. Each second of everyday brings with it an eternity. These eternities can never be relived. Enjoy every one of them.
The problem with looking to the future is you become anxious, and grow unhappy with what is. The future never comes quite as we expect it or want it to, and the only result is disappointment. To quote the book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, “Your sorrow, your fear and anger, regret and guilt, your envy and plans and cravings live only in the past or in the future. Santiago, the main character in The Alchemist, is an example of just living. He flows with the wind and lets life happen. His reward is beyond everything he wanted or needed, but the journey was his treasure. He realized happiness and his dreams. He let it. He lived it. He absorbed it all.
Dan Millman wrote, “You don’t just gaze up at the top of the mountain, you look directly in front of you and take one step at a time”. That’s how life is meant to be lived; one step at a time, wherever the wind takes you.

Being Right or Being Happy

I started reading a new book, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, this week. I am only a couple of chapters in and I have found a couple of interesting things. While I don't agree with everything that is said in the book thus far, the author raises some thought provoking questions for me. In one part of the book, which if you have not read it it may sound a little abstract, he discusses how the role our ego plays in conflicts, including wars. At the risk of simplifying it too much, Eckhart refers to how instead of allowing ourselves the option that we are not the only holders of truth, we insist that we hold the only truth. We must be right, regardless of the implication, because our ego will not allow us to be wrong. For example, religion has lost track of the important role compassion plays, and instead each religion insists that it is the single truth. In doing so it causes conflict. The argument is that we force our point of view as being right at the cost of being happy. Without paraphrasing too much he says we would rather go to war for our beliefs than be happy knowing that we could possibly be wrong, or at least not the only one that is right.

I don't disagree with this assertion. I had a discussion today with two of my classmates, me on one side and them on the other. The discussion centered around mass media and essentially how awful it is here in North America and how ethically unjust it is (the argument centered around the television). I sat on the side saying that mass media is not to blame in and of itself, because people play a role in how awful it really is, and to say that television is bad/wrong, to me implies that we have no control over it. The point I am trying to make is that we both had a point of view and neither of us thought we were wrong. I believe we were both right, and I am willing to accept that they were right. While we certainly wouldn't go to war over such a silly discussion the fact that we were all open to listening to one another made the discussion enjoyable and challenging rather than frustrating.

Think about a time when you were on one side of an argument or discussion. Did you leave yourself open to the possibility that the opposition could be right? Or, did you stick to your guns to the point that instead of listening you became frustrated and stopped listening? This is an important shift in mentality that we all need to embrace. We need to open ourselves up to the idea that anyone can be right, we can all be right, all at the same time, even when all of us disagree. We don't need to 'win' an argument, we don't need to be on any side. What we need to do is listen and open up to a world of possibility. When we make this change we can be happy no matter what. We can allow others to be different without judgment, we can let others have their opinions without being angry.

If you want to change the world, if you want to make the environment you inhabit better, then let go of the necessity to be right. Open yourself up to others being right, even when it opposes your thoughts. We can all exist together, we don't need to group ourselves into the dichotomy of right and wrong, good and bad. The world is big enough for everyone to have their own faith, their own thoughts, their own feelings. Maybe it wont stop the next war from occurring, but it will make everyone happier knowing that they can speak to you without fear of judgment, with the realization that you are truly open to listening to them. That is a better world. That is a simple act that will make a big difference.

Diversity in a Puzzle

I wrote a post the other day about how we need to start thinking about the world as a jigsaw puzzle. I haven't stopped thinking about it since. There are some holes in my idea that I want to clear up.

Diversity is a real treasure in this world. It is something that needs to be celebrated. I have an unbelievable gift in that I live in the worlds most multicultural city on the planet. Every day I go to school and my classmates represent the diversity that exists from all over the world. It is a true blessing to be a participant in this kind of society. The jigsaw puzzle also celebrates diversity. Every piece of the puzzle is different. No two alike in shape or in the part of the picture they fulfill. Every piece exists independently from the other pieces but they still coexist and work together for the greater good. The puzzle is accepting of pieces of all shapes, sizes, and colors because that is what makes the puzzle whole. The puzzle exists because of diversity and for diversity.

Every person also has the right to choose their own destiny. There is, I believe, a path on which we travel. However, the path is one we choose. I do believe that we have an innate connection with something and I call it purpose. We all have a purpose in this world - some more glorified than others - but we all have a place in the world. This purpose is what we all search for. Some people spend a lifetime trying to live but they lack the awareness to live a life with and on purpose. We choose which part of the puzzle we are but we are connected to a part of the puzzle. We are not forced into a predetermined size or shape, but we connect with a certain piece. When we find our place in the puzzle, the place we are meant to inhabit, then we exist with purpose and we allow others to follow suit. We represent our purpose and in doing so help others find their purpose. Our passion and belief in our purpose impacts others.

Interconnectedness. Jigsaw puzzle. Enough said? We are all interconnected. We exist in connection with one another. My decisions in life affect the people around me. It is that simple. We must all learn to understand that every action we make has repercussions. Every action has an equal reaction. If I choose to drive a car to school then the effect that has across the world is felt. The family that lives on an yet-to-be-discovered oil patch is in danger of losing their home because the land they live on continues to become more valuable to an oil company. The car manufacturer who employs workers around the world, from the mining that is necessary to produce the parts. It also has huge environmental implications as the car creates biproducts that risk the future of our planet for generations of people to come. A jigsaw puzzle exists with the knowledge that interconnectedness plays an important role. The puzzle is accomplished because of the interconnectedness of its pieces.

The more I think about the world like a jigsaw puzzle the more I think it is a good metaphore. What do you think?

Do You Believe?

It is the fundamental question that you must ask yourself: Do you believe the world can change? OR let me rephrase that: Do you believe YOU can change the world? If you answered no to either phrasing then reading anything I write will be of little use. It is essential for you to believe in both the ability of yourself to create change and the ability of the world to accept change. If you don't believe in either then your cynicism is in the wrong place. This space is reserved for the believers: the ones who wake up every morning ready to make an impact; they may not yet be confident enough to take on the challenge but they genuinely believe that change is possible; they go to sleep at the end of a long day of thinking about what they could do to make the world a better place and they have a sense of optimism that tomorrow may be the day for those ideas to take shape. You need to believe for yourself and the world needs people to believe in it.

The World is a Giant Jigsaw Puzzle

The world has been seen as a metaphorical pie: each person, country, state, etc, depending on whether we look at it from a micro or macro level, has tried to maximize their slice of the pie. It is no stretch to understand then how so many people live with so little. A pie is finite: If I take more then someone else naturally gets less. This is a classic example of the butterfly effect. For anyone who may not quite understand what this is, it is simply a theory that when a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, a hurricane can occur halfway around the world. As science puts it: every action has a reaction.

Now what if we looked at the world like a giant jigsaw puzzle. A 6.6 billion piece puzzle to be exact. Each piece would represent a person. Each piece adds to the grand scheme of the puzzle that makes up the world. Now to put the puzzle together each piece must be put in its correct place according to the large picture. If one piece doesn't fit, then the whole puzzle cannot be finished. For this reason each puzzle piece has a purpose. Without that piece - no matter which one - the puzzle is incomplete without it.

Now when most people tackle solving a puzzle (although I may be speaking from my own experience) they start with a section - maybe even just a single piece - and they work from that. They may start by putting together the border and then working away, they may pick a distinct part of the puzzle and work from that, but they don't start without a plan in mind. They also have a picture of what the final, completed puzzle, should look like.

What if pieces of the puzzle refused to start fitting together? Wouldn't there be a chain reaction making it nearly impossible for other pieces to fit in their places? What if there was no picture for the finished puzzle? Would you have any clue as to where to start? Remember this isn't just a simple 1000 piece puzzle - we are talking about a 6.6 billion piece puzzle. All the confusion, anger, frustration exists because the pieces just wont work together. They are fighting to make sense of it all.

The picture on the puzzle box has always been my guide when solving the jigsaw puzzle. I need to see where each piece goes relative to the others. Unfortunately, we are trying to solve the puzzle without a picture. Without that picture each piece has trouble understanding what it's purpose is in the grand scheme of the whole thing. This is the way we live. We live without understanding of why or where we fit.

There are some people that exist and know who they are and know what they should do with their lives. These are the people that we look up to, that we choose to follow because when we are with them we have a sense of direction. We feel like we fit, like we are in the right place. When you have a 6.6 billion piece puzzle you need more than a few of these people to start making sense of things.

So the world is like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Without a picture. Without the pieces understanding their purpose. We need the picture on the box. With any luck, one day we can come together to decide what the puzzle will look like. Until that time it is on each of us, each piece, to start making some sense of ourselves. If we can do that then others will naturally start to fit in around us. When we each take it upon ourselves to find our purpose then we allow others to do the same. That is what making the world a better place is all about.

So we can look at the world like a pie, and keep eating as much as we want without any compassion for others who also have to eat the pie. Or, we can look at the world like a puzzle and know that we have a place in a bigger picture, no one piece more important than the other, with no right to more space than another. Both philosophies work, but when you see the world as a puzzle you might just start to think about putting it together instead of tearing it apart. We all exist together and we need to try to recognize that we need each other to finish. We each have a right to exist, and we need to stop acting like we are the only ones invited to desert.

Positive Thoughts

Has anyone heard of the idea that "if you can't say something positive then don't say anything at all"? The world needs people to contribute to making it better, not knock it down. Why do people feel the need to speak up only when something is bad? The world is full of negative thinkers, they react to things that are bad, but do nothing to make things good. We need people to be both proactive and positive. We need people to spend their time looking for and creating positives, not making more negatives. It is an important paradigm shift that is essential to things becoming better. If you spend your time preoccupied by what is wrong in the world than you will have no time left to make it better. Stop knocking other people down for what they say and do and instead start saying and doing things for yourself. If we could all learn to appreciate each other than maybe we wouldn't feel so beaten down all the time. Stop spreading negative thoughts and start giving positive thoughts.