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December 2017

Post image for How to Treat Yourself in 2018

At the end of every year I write something about the great recurring problem of holiday baking.

For many people, it’s a time of year when it’s easy to become surrounded by dangerous snacks. In fact it’s a mathematical certainty—each attendee at a Christmas gathering brings a week’s worth of caloric energy, and it would be a shame to let it go to waste.

In my family, someone has a birthday in mid-December, which means we get an early warning, in the form of cake, about the impending invasion of dessert foods. This year we had a beautiful carrot cake. It was delicious and well-made, and after we each had a piece, we tried to make each other take the rest home.

Eight-year-old me would have found this scene hilarious—everybody trying not to eat the cake! To a kid it’s the perfect comedy sketch.  Read More

Post image for Go Deeper, Not Wider

I keep imagining a tradition I’d like to invent. After you’re established in your career, and you have some neat stuff in your house, you take a whole year in which you don’t start anything new or acquire any new possessions you don’t need.

No new hobbies, equipment, games, or books are allowed during this year. Instead, you have to find the value in what you already own or what you’ve already started.

You improve skills rather than learning new ones. You consume media you’ve already stockpiled instead of acquiring more.

You read your unread books, or even reread your favorites. You pick up the guitar again and get better at it, instead of taking up the harmonica. You finish the Gordon Ramsey Masterclass you started in April, despite your fascination with the new Annie Leibovitz one, even though it’s on sale.

The guiding philosophy is “Go deeper, not wider.” Drill down for value and enrichment instead of fanning out. You turn to the wealth of options already in your house, literally and figuratively. We could call it a “Depth Year” or a “Year of Deepening” or something.  Read More

Post image for You Aren’t In the Crowd, You Are the Crowd

For almost ten years I had a job that required incessant driving. I crossed the city by every possible route, often under time pressure. During one of the countless CBC radio interviews I absorbed during that period, the topic turned to coping with rush hour traffic. Someone on the panel offered a novel concept:

“You’re not stuck in traffic, you are the traffic.”

Luckily, I was stuck in traffic at that moment, so I had plenty of time to ponder the thought.

We tend to think of “traffic” as synonymous with “lots of cars in the way.” You’re trying to get somewhere so you can fulfill your responsibilities. Other parties have competing, perpendicular interests, and that slows you down. There’s you, and there’s traffic—traffic being the obstacle.

As obvious as it seems in hindsight, I hadn’t often thought of my own car as the anonymous, other car it always is to everyone else. It’s never anything but in the way, unless you’re me. And that’s a fact essential to understanding what the everyday problem of traffic actually is—we’re all trying to get home, and we’re all in the way.  Read More

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