I had a friend in university who was a compulsive liar. By far the worst I’ve ever met. He had the most RIDICULOUS stories ever imaginable. I can’t even begin to describe the ridiculousness if I tried. I will try anyway…
Ok so there was this one about this cop who would get him cocaine. Super cop crosses the borders with a trunk full of the stuff. And the cop would give him as much of it as he wanted free of charge. The cop would also kill people for him. And make hookers have sex with him and his friends. And so on. You get the point. I’m still not even a sliver close to the ridiculousness of this cop story. It’s way better x10000. I cannot even go there, it’s way too elite for me. Sorry, I tried.
He had a million of these stories. They were never ending. Everybody knew he was full of shit. He’d look you right in the eye and just spew verbal diarrhea. He was a likable guy, and people liked him nonetheless. He built a reputation for being the nice guy who bullshitted everything. When he wasn’t around we’d swap stories on what lies he told for the day. It was entertaining and always good for a laugh. I wish tumblr was around back in the day, because the stories would make a great tumblr blog. The crazy thing is, I believe he actually believed his stories.
Most people lie. It’s the degree of lying that’s different. Telling the truth all of the time is actually kind of awkward. See http://www.esquire.com/features/honesty0707, it’s an article about “Radical Honesty”, which is about telling the truth all of the time.
The worst kind of lie is the kind that hurts others. This could be a lie that gets somebody beat up, arrested, financially destroyed, or some other awful thing. The next worst are the ones you tell yourself.
The ones you tell yourself are often subtle. They start off innocent enough. “I don’t have time to do…”, “I can’t do that because…”, “It’s not my fault because…”. These lies start to accumulate. A white lie here. A tiny lie there. Sooner or later, the lines start to blur. You are not sure what is real anymore. And then you turn into my college buddy with the super cop friend.
In other words, you start to fool yourself and become delusional. The lies you tell yourself start to become the lies you believe. So much so that you start telling them to others, as if they were true. Your friends believe them, until they don’t. Until you’ve tricked them enough times that they simply don’t believe anything you say anymore. They no longer believe your bullshit, even if you still do. See “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”.
People who are full of shit, don’t always know they are full of shit. It starts small. It starts innocent. Now the lies have taken over their life. This isn’t some Breaking Bad TV episode. This is the real deal. Do you consider yourself an honest person? Read Dan Ariely’s “The Honest Truth About Dishonesty”, it’s awesome. You’ll find some really interesting insights about human behaviour and honesty in that one. All I’ll say is that maybe you aren’t as honest as you think you are. Maybe you fudge the truth ever so slightly and convince yourself it’s the right thing to do just so it fits in your current reality. I know for certain I’m probably not as honest as I think I am. I just pray I know the difference between the bullshit I tell myself and the bullshit I tell myself that I actually believe. If not, hopefully the lies are good.
It has been a great and busy week for myself and Rentything, as we got our first bit of PR courtesy of TechVibes. That post resulted in hundreds of likes, tweets, and shares. My own social network really went with it and spread the love. I was floored by all the positive love and responses and words of encouragements I got from not only my friends and family, but also complete strangers. It was a great feeling and affirmation that I am on to something. I couldn’t be more thrilled. Check out the article here.
Summer is here, with record setting temperatures this past week. Hot! The Miami Heat were also red hot this past week, scorching a very game OKC Thunder on Miami’s way to their second ever franchise NBA championship and the first one ever for superstar Lebron James. I love sports, and although I’m not as diehard a NBA fan as I used to be, I do still like watching games and following the finals. One thing for certain is that people either LOVE Lebron James or they HATE HATE HATE him. I haven’t seen a basketball player polarize the fan base so dramatically in a long time. A lot of it had to do with the way he handled his departure from Cleveland to join the Heat. Despite taking a pay cut to get to Miami, many thought he was arrogant in the way he handled himself. When the Heat made it to the finals last year and lost, tons of fans were very happy. Most rooted for the Mavs just because they wanted Lebron to lose, and when they finally did all fingers pointed at Lebron. He took so much criticism on just about anything you could think about criticizing. This year, many wanted the outcome to be the same. I think some people would have enjoyed watching the Heat make it to the finals every year and lose every year until Lebron retired. But it didn’t happen. Lebron not only elevated his game to help his team win the championship, he shut up an ARMY of haters. Well, at least some of them. And at least for a little while.
Valuable life lessons can be taken from sports all of the time. You win some, you lose some. There will always be critics, naysayers, trolls and haters if you are doing anything of value and anything worth doing. Always. Bet on it. They’ll be there laughing at you when you stumble or fall, only to quietly slink away waiting until you fall again. No critic was ever idolized. No statues were ever built for them.
Get up, stand up, persist, and do what you were put on this planet to do. You aren’t going to always win. Hell, if you’re like me, you are probably going to lose a lot more times than you win. That doesn’t necessarily make you a loser, but it does make you more resilient. And hopefully a little bit better.
I was having a conversation with my old University roommate the other day and he brought up the story of the time I text messaged him repeatedly in a non sensical panic. I had long since buried the memory. It was the day I got forked.
He was in the lab with a couple of friends doing some group work on an assignment. I was at the condo getting ready to eat dinner. I had made a stir fry using brown rice, some veggies, and chicken. It was piping hot but I was so hungry I just didn’t give a damn. I sat down with fork in hand, took a huge forkful of the stir fry, and proceeded to bury the fork into my mouth. I felt the heat of the food instantly burn the roof of my mouth. As I got ready to spit the food back out, I felt a sharp pain on the lower part of my mouth, inside the bottom row of my teeth on both sides. It was the fork. And it was stuck. I yanked a couple of times but the fork wouldn’t budge. It was literally wedged between the bottom row of my teeth. The heat of the food had caused the metal fork to expand at the exact moment I put it into my mouth. The heat, timing and angle had to be perfect for the fork to enter my mouth, expand, and decide to make itself a permanent fixture in my mouth. Mind you, the food was still burning the inside of my mouth. Too hot to swallow, I rushed to the bathroom, turned my head to one side, and proceeded to use my fingers to claw the food out. As I looked at myself in the mirror I couldn’t help but laugh. “What the hell are the odds of getting a fork stuck in my mouth?”, I thought. I carefully examined my situation in the mirror, wondering what my options were. I yanked and yanked a couple more times. Nothing. My mouth was bleeding. It wasn’t that funny anymore. I started to get a little nervous. I figured since the fork expanded that some cold water would cause it to contract. But it was too little, too late. That fucking fork wasn’t going anywhere. I started to think that I was in some serious trouble. I sat down on my computer and started Googling stupid shit like “How to remove a fork from your mouth?”. Unsurprisingly, nothing useful came up. I started to panic, and that’s when I started to frantically text message my roommate. Can you imagine getting text messages like “HELP ME. A FORK IS STUCK IN MY MOUTH!” and “YES YOU MORON I’VE TRIED TO PULL THE FORK OUT! TAKE ME TO THE HOSPITAL!!” while you are in a lab with group members. What would you do? Well in the case of my roommate he thought I was retarded, showed his group members so they all thought I was an idiot, and laughed it off. I kept sending him these messages until finally one of his group members called me to see if I was just messing around. I didn’t answer and wrote back “HOW CAN I PICKUP WITH A FORK IN MY MOUTH. GOD YOU GUYS ARE SO STUPID”. My roommate, after about 10 exchanges, finally started to sense the urgency of the messages, and agreed to come home. By that time I was so freaked out, I just figured I’d yank as hard as I could and lose a couple of teeth in the process. At least that blasted fork would be out of my mouth. And so that’s what I did. I yanked so hard that when the fork finally came out of my mouth I shot backwards and landed right on my ass. My mouth was a bloody mess but thankfully I didn’t lose any teeth. I rose in victory, did a little dance, and texted my roommate telling him he didn’t have to come home now. To this day he still thinks I’m an idiot.
Dear blog, I miss you. Sorry I have neglected you for so long. A lot has happened since we last spoke. I went on a crazy ass adventure that took me to volcanoes, ash filled glaciers, 24 hour sunlight, lots of rain, lots of mountains, lots of wind, lots of food, lots of laughs, lots of memories, and some shenanigans. I met some super cool people, and a few duds along the way. I got pretty sick but also ate a lot of weirdness. And yes I put on some weight. Worked on a farm, almost got eaten by a dog, and visited the city where Fred Flinstone grew up. I also made it in a Turkish newspaper and some sort of video blog TV show. That was neat.
And then I returned to my favourite city in the world: Toronto. My grandfather passed away. I miss him. He was a great dude who loved to laugh a lot. I think I got that from him. I read on Facebook the other day someone’s status update about how if you could spend one more day with someone up in heaven who would it be, and I would have to go with gramps.
Then I got to go to camp where I met all sorts of intelligent and fun people. Right after that, I got to spend 3 days with the foremost expert in Northern bushcraft in the world. I learned a lot. I found a really cool place by my school. I can literally go home between classes and nap. I do that everyday. Naps are so nice.
I got into some trouble with a large company. They sent their lawyers after me. Long story, don’t want to talk about it. That was scary. I made a mistake and got slapped. I pray that its over. It won’t be the last mistake I make, either. One of the reasons I haven’t written in so long is I was warned by my school. I have to represent the school and myself in a professional manner now to maintain a good reputation. I will say this: My reputation has long been far from good. It doesn’t take a genius to find some dirt on me on the internet. I can’t stop a friend from posting a dumb picture of me and tag my name on it. I don’t see myself stopping myself from doing stupid stuff in the future, either. Cameras be damned, its in my nature. But I also know a secret that I’m going to share with you. People are forgiving, forgetful, and simply don’t care. So I’m not worried, not for a second.
I’ve been so busy, but in a good way. I really enjoy school right now. I can’t believe I just wrote that, but I really am. I am learning a lot. And the people are just so smart. It feels so good to be back in academia. And I’m not in the least bit stressed. In fact, I get plenty of sleep, eat well, exercise frequently, and even get to go rock climbing and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu a few times a week. And when I’m not doing that, I am attending some school social events, club meetings, doing group work, or hanging out with friends. I even started journaling again, and reading! Phew, and I was worried I wouldn’t have any time.
It hasn’t been easy, though. There have been plenty of bumps and I have my fair share of bruises, but you how I am. So don’t worry about me, I’m all good, but I do worry about my friends and family sometimes. Things have been rough for some of them. I know they’ll get through, but not being able to help seriously sucks.
Anyway, its late, and I’m sleepy. I was supposed to go out to a classmates birthday party but when I got there the lineup was ginourmous so I couldn’t get in. On my way home I thought of you. Strange, I know, but here I am writing away. Hope to do it again, sometime soon. In fact, you can bet on it.
What do you do for the weekend in April when the weather forecast expects below freezing temperatures, rain, snow, and a lot of wind while also being sick and having a busted knee? Well if your me, you take a weekend summer survival course!! That’s what I did this past weekend, and it was awesome. The conditions were perfect; The weather was miserable, I hurt my knee from hiking the bruce trail the day before (actually re-irritated my LCL and IT band after a drunken night of St. Patty day shenanigans), didn’t have proper clothing/gear, and I was still sick after nearly two weeks. It would have been easy to feel miserable about having crappy weather, freezing your ass off and whining about walking on muddy hills with a busted (very painful) knee after dropping about four hundred bucks for the course plus gear. Rather, it was exciting for me. It made the experience of being in a survival situation much more authentic. In other words, how you think matters. You know, that story about two prisoners looking out their cell window and one sees the bars while the other sees the sky.
I learned so much this weekend. Did some survival fishing and got pretty good at it, actually caught something for once as well. Made some cool traps, practiced some more fire making techniques, refreshed my memory on some first aid and shelter making. It was great. Its funny, the older I get I’m constantly reminded about how little I know. I really feel like a kid just trying to soak everything in. Learning and skill acquisition are so important to me. One of my instructors for the weekend spent a year out in the bush by himself (his only visitor being Les Stroud aka Survivorman) and when people ask him why he did it he didn’t really have an answer. He basically said it was a calling that he felt on the inside and it isn’t the first time I’ve heard that from people who have done extraordinary things. I feel the same way about skill acquisition and learning. I don’t know why I do it, I just like to do it.
I re-designed the blog website last week. I tried to make it as ridiculous looking as possible and think I succeeded. It was a fun learning experience and I’m glad I did it (there’s still bugs in the system, let me know if you find any. free hug!). I don’t know why I did it, I just felt like doing it. I also paid to be a part of Scott H Young’s “Learning On Steroids” program which involves rapid and accelerated learning techniques as well as Ramit Sethi‘s “Earn 1k” program. Scott’s program is a monthly subscription and Ramit’s was a one time deal with an option for ongoing support (which I chose not to pursue at this time). It was funny, I emailed Ramit and pretty much told him I have little money with a condo and big fat tuition bill on the way, no time, and soon to be no job and explained my situation to him. He basically wrote me back and said man up or go home. I literally laughed out the coffee through my nose because I knew that was what he was going to say and because I would have said the same thing to someone who emailed me that. Then I busted out my credit card. Sneaky, persuasive bastard.
The journey into awesomehood is never easy but always rewarding. It’s about focusing on your strengths and improving upon your weaknesses. It’s about taking what’s useful and discarding the rest. It’s about ignoring everybody and everything, sometimes including common sense and conventional wisdom. Standing at the edge is better than standing in the middle. You get a better view.
So I finished the CN Tower Climb for United Way this morning and had a great time! I didn’t quite make my goal of a sub 15 minute time but I was very close. 15 minutes was an arbitrary number I put out there, and I really think I could have made that easily if I had done a few more things right than I did wrong. My time was 15 minutes and 13 seconds. That number is not that accurate in my opinion. At the top, I didn’t realize I was done and so I had to fish the timecard out of my pocket and then I had to wait in line for others to get their time stamped. I probably did get under 15 minutes but its ok, I’m not too worried about it 😉 I stuck around to see what other peoples times were and I only saw two people, a guy and a girl who were together, definitely runners, with faster times than me in the 14 minute range. As Georges St. Pierre would say, “I am not impressed with your performance.” lol. It was my first time climbing up the CN Tower and if I decide to do it again I will be much better prepared.
I raised $250 so that is pretty cool. Thank you to everybody who sponsored me, I really appreciate it. Even the guys I pretty much forced into it lol. I am still allowed to raise money for the next little while (don’t remember the exact date, I think November 20th) so feel free to contribute if you want. The proceeds go to helping worthwhile programs throughout the city of Toronto. My sponsor page can be found here http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=779232
Below are my thoughts on what I did right and some advice on what you could do to get the best time possible. Learn from my mistakes.
What I did right:
Warm up and stretch: It was pretty cold and windy out today so I really had to warm up and stretch. Don’t skip this or you’ll be cramping up. I saw a number of paramedics helping people out who were experiencing muscle cramps probably because they skipped this part.
Massage: I really have to thank Johnny Vos at http://www.vosrmt.com/ (Toronto Life named him the best massage therapist in the city here http://www.torontolife.com/features/best-service/) and his team for making sure my muscles were in good shape. I had a session with him last Friday, one yesterday with Joanne (who is phenomenal as well), and another one on Monday. It has been a while since I’ve had a massage and Johnny mentioned how ridiculously tight my muscles were and really helped me loosen them a lot. Joanne also mentioned she could feel a lot of scar tissue in my hamstrings, I have no idea when I did that I have had so many injuries over the years due to pure ignorance and improper training that I have lost track.
Keep fit: I am a P90X grad and soon to be Insanity grad and am in, by far, the best shape of my life. Rock climbing and Yoga have really helped as well and although I have a disc bulge and a disc herniation in my neck, I feel strong enough to give BJJ a go starting in November. Its been too long and I am itching to get back in there. General healthy fitness will really help you in your athletic endeavours.
Mental strength: The mental game to push through your perceived limits is so important in athletic competition. For the past week I’ve visualized reaching the top in spectacular fashion and never doubted my abilities for a second. I’ve also been using guided Paraliminal meditation to help with peak performance and it has been doing wonders for me.
Hydrate: Self explanatory. Just make sure you are well hydrated as you aren’t allowed to bring any water with you during the climb. They have hydration stations before and after the climb. For myself, I used Vega sport combined with Vega Health Optimizer, mixed with a greens infused liquid, Udo’s oil, cacao beans, goji berries, acai, matcha green tea, tumeric, two bananas, a berry antioxidant mix, squeezed lime and lemon, and coconut water. It really, really helped me recuperate from a mild hangover and tasted delicious.
Enjoyed the view: It was my first time up the CN Tower and I spent quite a bit of time at the top, really enjoying the spectacular view and cooling down. I went outside and it was extremely windy and cold but very fun as well. It was kind of embarrassing that I’ve lived in Toronto for 8 years and have never been to the CN Tower up until now. Toronto from above looks pretty awesome.
What I did wrong:
Arrive early: I got stuck behind a lot of people going up the stairs. There was a huge lineup to register and a huge lineup for coat check. Even though I got there at 6:45 AM, I didn’t get to climb until 7:45 AM and by that time it was already rammed. I’d suggest going at 5 AM and being ready to climb at 6 AM.
Get adequate sleep: I have had back to back to back sub 6 hour sleep nights when I am normally used to at least 8. That will mess up your recovery and rest and energy big time (I definitely noticed this at the beginning of the climb… I was seriously struggling). Make sure you are well rested and refreshed and energized.
Do not get drunk two nights in a row prior to the climb: I decided to support my homegirl Heather (http://www.gingermartini.com) in her quest for world fashion domination and sending her off to Vancouver Fashion Week on Thursday night and then Nick and Tina’s super fun engagement party last night. Although I didn’t get super hammered I did get drunk enough. Both nights were fun and I have no regrets, the timing of everything just so happened to be non ideal, but if you can I wouldn’t advise doing what I did.
Train properly for it: I didn’t do any stair climbing whatsoever. Heck, I didn’t even do any running. If you are looking to get a great time then you probably should. Next time, I will.
Wear good shoes that you have adequately worked in: I was worried that they weren’t going to let me climb with my Vibram Fivefingers, so instead I went out and purchased a pair of Nike Free the day before the climb. Nike Free is Nike’s line of “barefoot” running shoe, and even though they are pretty sweet they are no comparison to the freedom of the Fivefingers. I definitely should have worked them in more, as I wasn’t used to them at all. Even though they are super light, they aren’t nearly as light as the Fivefingers and the cushioning is a lot more than what I’m used to. My feet felt trapped on the climb and they started to hurt probably with 50 flights of stairs to go. Not good. I should have confirmed with the organizers if I could wear the Fivefingers or gotten used to wearing the Nike Free. I did neither.
Do not get sick: I have the sniffles, probably because I got pretty wet going to Nick and Tina’s engagement party. My umbrella busted in the windy rain and so I chucked it mid pour. The sniffles will definitely impair your breathing as it did for me.
Have a support team: I made it to the top and saw others high fiving each other and getting cheered on by their friends and family before and after the climb. I had neither. Schools climbed together as well. I saw McMaster there, Humber there, lots of elementary schools, etc. I was like “Yes, I did it!!” then high fived myself. A couple people stopped to talk to me and say they saw me blazing past them, but that was it. I would rather celebrate with friends, its more fun and rewarding that way.
Be more aggressive: This is for charity so people come in all shapes and sizes, not everybody is going for time. Lots of people would walk beside each other and there was no easy way to get past them. I patiently waited for my openings but instead I probably should have said “excuse me” a lot more than I did.
Prepare yourself: Stairs are narrow and not wide like I thought, that messed me up because I wasn’t able to pass people. You aren’t allowed to bring anything up either. They say you can bring a fanny pack up to carry your id but that’s ridiculous, who the heck has a fanny pack these days? It makes sense that you can’t bring up your ipod, cell phone, camera or water. Imagine people dropping their electronics, stopping to take pictures or chat on their phone, or spilling their water on the metal stairs. It could be disastrous when you are pushing 5000 people up a small stairwell. There are paramedics at every 10th floor I think, so if you run into any injuries they can assist. Also, after you are done and your time is punched, there is still another 10 flights of stairs or so to get into the tower, so be aware of that.
I think that’s it. I am happy with my performance and if I ever do the climb again feel I can demolish my time easily with some proper preparation. I am probably going to catch up on some sleep now then do my Insanity workout for the day. I have 1 more week to go then I am done with the program, 67 days of pure …well insanity. I’ll probably post my thoughts on the program and my fit test numbers once I am done.
