Category Archives: Time

The VLD – How To Do Lazy Days Properly

Posted on by Simpletom
4

This post is a tribute to Randall Sadleir, the grandfather of one of my greatest friends. ‘Randy’ was a master of acronym – a trait that was passed onto his son, who endearingly called Randy BOB, short for ‘Blind Old Bastard’. Or, when he had his cataracts removed, Ex-BOB.

Randy lived in a basement flat, affectionately known as ‘the cave’ and was, if his memorial service was anything to go by, a greatly loved man.

Fortunately Randy’s legacy lives on. One of my favourite Randyisms is the phenomenon of the VLD, or better still the VVLD.

Despite having huge amounts of energy, Randy wasn’t indefatigable. Sometimes, when his body or soul required it, he would announce it time to have a VLD – A ‘Very Lazy Day’. A VVLD, as you’ve probably guessed, is a Very Very Lazy Day.

As I’ve mentioned before, I find it important to spend some time doing very little. After a busy week or two, a day comes along where all I want is to curl up on the sofa, or in bed, to watch films or read.

I find that if a ‘day of rest’ forces itself upon me when I feel I should be doing something else, it can make the day unsatisfying, even guilt-filled.

When was the last time you allowed yourself a VLD and enjoyed it without a hint of indulgent guilt?

Nowadays, I try to recognise the signs and understand when I need a VLD, or even a VVLD. It is something to be announced. Sometimes I will know in good time and plan it. Others I will wake up and feel the need to take an unplanned VLD. It’s hard if I have thing to do, but I try to listen to that need.

Giving the day its name means that it is suddenly permissible to be lazy. During a VLD, it’s perfectly OK to do nothing – rather than feeling I should be doing something.

A VLD normally means time spent in inaction. One should spend no more than 20% of the day on one’s feet (which may actually be more than most office-workers’ normal days). Films, reading, doing nothing productive are all encouraged. A short trip out for a walk, or to the shops is just about acceptable.

A VVLD requires complete slobbishness. Spending 60%+ of the day in bed is highly recommended. Trashy films are a must. Reading is perhaps a little over-energetic. Work should be avoided like the plague. Talking to people limited. A VVLD is best enjoyed with phones turned off, or de-hooked.

Admittedly, when it’s sunny outside both VLD categories are a little more difficult, but still important to maintain. Winter days are perfect.

My personal prescription is that it’s important to have a VLD once a week, or fortnight at a stretch. VVLDs are called for once a month.

I also find it important to make sure that I don’t break a VLD. Often I find that after a half-day of VLD-ing, I want to leap up and go and do stuff. I’m re-energised.

Or so I think.

In fact, if I do leap up and give into this desire, the benefits of my VLD do not last as long. Unless there is a real need for action, I find it beneficial to push on through and commit to the VLD. In so doing, I often feel that it is a lot longer before I want, or need, my next VLD.

Some people use excuses to have a VLD – fishermen who spend a day sitting by a lake/river are all VLDers, whether they recognise it or not.

Here’s to not having children at the moment, when/if that moment arrives I think I’ll be in need of some new rules.

Here’s also to the great Randall – whose legacy lives on.

“Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.” – A.A. Milne

Impermanence

Posted on by Simpletom
3

If you are reading this, you will die… Resistance is futile.

No, these are not the mad ramblings of a James Bond villain, Nostradamus, Idi Amin or the reaper himself – but instead merely the musings of a realist. After all life, some say, is a sexually transmitted, terminal disease.

Aside from the odd cryogenic experiment which might (wrongly) claim to have caught life before death in an icy stasis, and the rare case of reincarnation or resurrection for our less secular audience, not one of our multi-billion predecessors who roamed this planet have escaped the grip of death. So the chances of you doing so are slimmer than a skeleton. (Please excuse my lifeless metaphors).

Without delving too deeply into existentialism or religious beliefs – the meaning of life, ergo death and our views of what might happen afterwards, in various permutations, have probably been some of the most widely discussed topic of all time. Yet somehow we have managed to avoid discussing the grizzly mechanics of death itself too often. Talking about dying is not the greatest of dinner conversations. Western society tends, videos and computer games aside, to ignore discussions of death in all its all-encompassing glory.

Which is a shame.

“Glory? A shame?” I hear you say. “But it is not something I really want to think about.”

Certainly the image of bits of ourselves puffing from the top of a crematorium’s chimney or being devoured by insects below ground is not overly cheery. The memory of a departed loved one can be too much to bear. Death is, perhaps, the most omnipresent of elephants in our collective rooms. The idea that you will no longer exist, in all your article-reading, children-raising, self-improving, food-loving, holiday-indulging, sustainability-championing glory, is just not very palatable.

The reason it is a shame we do not discuss or muse on death more often is because our impermanence can be very rewarding, if we choose to look more closely at it.

Thinking about death does not have to be morbid. What can we learn from increased time spent with, or musing on death?

Continue reading →

Allied With Time

Posted on by Simpletom
3

“Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t
own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep
it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it
you can never get it back.”

– Harvey MacKay

One of the greatest luxuries in life is to have lots of time for the things you love.

Yet much of modern life is focused on progress, motivation, efficiency and achievement. Each of which belie a desire to get more from any given period of time. If pursuing these phenomena results in greater time for pleasures and people, they are well worth chasing. If not, one has to wonder whether our relationship with time is a healthy one.

On my Vipassana course, one of the things I noticed more than any other was my unhealthy relationship with time. 10-days spent with zero external stimulus will do that to a person. However, the period showed me the depth of my wrestling with time. The continual anticipation of the next session, the next day and what I would do after the course. My thoughts of the past, my anxieties about the future.

Yet I realised that many of those thoughts were worthless. The anxieties about the future that I’ve had previously have often been about things that never occurred. Life’s twists and turns means that much worry isn’t worth worrying about, given the things that cause the concern never happen.

One of the things I’m most grateful for in my life at present is having time. Yet time is also one of my biggest issues. I have it, right here, right now, yet I’m often thinking of the past or the future. If life is a journey, my thoughts tend to lay with the horizon, or my footsteps.

A recent visitor out here in Kenya mentioned that one of the things she found most special about the place was the time each of us had for one another. People take siestas. Even busy people will take a few minutes if they bump into one another. There are fewer people, so you get more time with each. I’ve spent more quality time here in Kenya with people from London and San Francisco than I imagine I would have been able to back home. Part of that is the situation – people are staying with us. Yet part of it is also not having the pressure of time bearing down on us. We don’t have three people to see in different parts of town. When I eventually head home, I’ll try to remember the following:

  • To see one person properly, rather than many fleetingly.
  • To book in more one-to-one dinners and less parties, even if that results in my friendship group diminishing because I can’t keep up.
  • To work on one thing at a time, even when I have a motely collection of different tasks to do (which is normally).
  • To worry less about what ‘might’ happen and to concern myself with what ‘is’.
  • To take more time over important things and ignore much of the rest.
  • To try to do less, better

Most of all, I’ll try to remember that the only way to deal with the past, or the future, is now.

Happy Christmas – Being Thankful & Having Time

Posted on by Simpletom
Reply

“If you as an individual no longer found an identity from your thoughts, then you would break free of time and enter the sweetness and clarity of the timeless.”

– Bernie Prior

A Happy Christmas to you all. Oh, and a Happy Birthday to my Mum!

Sadly, I’m not with my family this year. Instead, I’ll be celebrating in Kenya in the heat -a far cry from the usual frost, fires and mince pies of the UK. Perhaps I’ll work off Christmas lunch with an afternoon kitesurf.

It’s a tough life.

Thinking of my absent family, I hope you celebrate what you have and who you’re with. Put your feet up and indulge in a little laziness. Enjoy taking some time away with people you love.

Here’s a thought-provoking post on why simplicity works, from someone who has been forced to adopt it for health reasons. It’s important to remember our own mortality.

I don’t need any presents – this year has already treated me well enough. Here’s a few things I’m thankful for:

  • My health.
  • That I’ve been lucky enough to have been able to explore simplicity this last year without worrying about where my next meal was coming from.
  • For all my family and friends, some of whom have visited me out in San Francisco and Kenya whilst I’ve been living ‘elsewhere’ this year.
  • Time.

Each of us battle with time. Too many of my previous years have felt like the Pink Floyd song:

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say

Pink Floyd – Time

It’s a fight that I’ve been on top of this year. This year, I’ve had more time than ever before. Sometimes it’s felt like too much. More often, it’s still not enough. Obviously, in reality, it’s been the same as every other.

If you don’t enjoy the passing of time, if you always feel that you could have achieved more and that there’s more to do, my sense is that you’ll never truly be happy.

Enjoy this moment, right now. It’s your present.

How To Prevent Aging – Working Backwards

Posted on by Simpletom
2

“I grow old… I grow old… I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled” – T. S. Elliot

In the last week I’ve had two glimpses into old age:

One was offered by re-reading one of my favourite books of all time – Any Human Heart by William Boyd. In the book, Boyd tracks the entire life of Logan Mountstuart and writes the latter sections of the book magestically, in which Logan ages.

The second is I’ve had a bad flu, akin to the swine flu I picked up last year. Fortunately, despite what the band the Verve might claim, the drugs do work and they make things better. Much better. However, for a few days I felt old. Everything ached and standing wasn’t much fun, so I was bedridden.

Growing old happens to everyone who isn’t struck down prematurely by tragedy. As such, for most growing old is a preference. In some countries, like Ladakh, or Kenya it is respected. In others, sadly we start to loose our respect for others as their faculties diminish.

I imagine it’s hugely humbling, getting old. Even the greatest leader, the fiercest fighter, the most indefatigable hero can be reduced to needing care from others for the most basic things.

Yet the perspective from our elders can help us that are young to understand what’s most important, IF we’re willing to listen. It can give us a vantage on some of the follies of life. A poem I quoted earlier on this blog indicates that the experience of age helps us pick out the more important aspects of living. Here is a similar poem, again posted earlier, which includes some more of my musings about the wonder of old age. Although I’ve just noticed that if you read the two poems more closely you’ll notice that plagiarism might not something that diminishes with age!

As we get older our priorities change. Here’s a passage from Julian Barnes’s Nothing To Be Frightened Of which exalts the finesse that age can bring:

“There is something infinitely touching when an artist, in old age, takes on simplicity. The artist is saying: display and bravura are tricks for the young, and yes, showing off is part of ambition; but now that we are old, let us have the confidence to speak simply. For the religious, this might mean becoming a child again in order to enter heaven; for the artist, it means becoming wise enough, and calm enough not to hide. Do you need all those extravagances in the score, all those marks on the canvas, all those exuberant adjectives? This is not just humility in the face of eternity, it is also that it takes a lifetime to see, and say, simple things” (p189)

Musing on age can help us. What memories would you like to be able to reminisce on when you’re older? Would you prefer a massive pension and a large house, or a close family, friends around you and a sense of community?

Money can buy you excellent care, but it can’t buy you love and affection, unless Anna Nicole Smith is in your sights. And even then, it might not be your mind and body that are in hers.

It’s worth musing on old age and death more often than we do. It might be worth spending some more time with old people and ask them about their priorities, what they would do differently and for their advice.

Thinking about our demise doesn’t have to be morbid. In fact, it might help keep you alive.

__

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time” – Mark Twain

Better still: I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather… Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car. – Will Shriner


Over-expecting

Posted on by Simpletom
3

It’s been a while (again) since I last wrote.

I’ve been away (again). After all, Leonardo da Vinci said,’ Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer’. I’ve merely dropped the ‘every’.
My mum once said to me that she worried about me because I ‘expected too much from life’. Given one should always listen to one’s mother, I had a good think about this and decided that she was almost certainly right. I’ve since reminded her of this and she now claims that she has been misquoted, but I’m going to stick with this because I like it, and I’m obviously still deeply rebellious.
The less you expect from life, the more likely you are to be surprised by the results. The more you expect, the more likely you are to be disappointed.

Modern media enables us to envision the trappings of the rich and famous. Our education system teaches us that almost anything is possible. Success is a universal goal. Every entrepreneur can be a Richard Branson with the right combination of hard work, luck and skill, so they say. Even the less talented can achieve the greatest heights – cue Liam Gallagher and Sarah Palin. How many people go through their teenage years expecting that, one day, they will be happy, rich, famous, satisfied? I’d guess quite a few. How many achieve all four? Not many.

Yet the less you expect, the more likely you are to be pleased with the results. I’ve learned, through listening to my mother to expect very little – which means that I constantly feel like things are going rather well. Yet I know others whose lives are much fuller than mine who are constantly disappointed because their actual life doesn’t live up to their exalted expectations.

I was once queuing up for a visit to No. 11 Downing Street for an event (yup, that was a bit of unashamed showing off, but it’s true and it sets the scene… so there). I remember looking over and seeing someone I knew who was still in their 20s who at the time was one of the most successful young entrepreneurs around. As an entrepreneur myself, I remember feeling a little envious of his success. Then, he noticed another entrepreneur who was more successful than he was and told me how envious he was of the other entrepreneur. Finally, perfectly on cue, the third entrepreneur spotted another entrepreneur who was THE most successful entrepreneur of the day in the UK and expressed his jealousy. There I was, sitting at the very bottom of a massive bundle of envy on what should have been a day when we all got more than we expected.

With that in mind, I’ve realised that the more you fantasize about what might be, the less you appreciate what is. As ‘ABC spirituality’ as it sounds, I try to enjoy what’s in front of me and expect a little less. I’ve been amazed at the difference it’s made to my mood, to my stress levels, to my enjoyment of things.

Thanks Mum.

Breaking things – taking time off and away

Posted on by Simpletom
3

The Parisians - rather good at chilling

I haven’t posted since the 4th January, as I’ve been on a break. You probably haven’t even noticed! Yet for many bloggers, this would be a serious no-no. You have, they chime, to keep posting ‘every day’ or ‘at least once a week’. Your blogs have to be a certain length, or include a number of urls or photos to ensure that you maximise your readership.

Well, it is nice to have readers – but to me this is endemic of the impatience of the internet age. I’d rather write posts I enjoy writing at a pace that works for my lifestyle. Frankly, I believe that my readers will appreciate it all the more if my posts are representative of me and my style, rather than hammered into conventional internet shape.

What happened to the writers of old who had to wait four months for a letter from their loved ones if they happened to be sailing far a field? Not much… they waited, and the world kept turning, and wonderful novels, treaties, tomes and philosophies were still written. In fact, they probably had more time to write them, rather than look for interesting urls to pepper their works with.

In my experience, taking a break from things can actually help you be more productive. Perhaps not in the sense of ever-increasing GDP, but if you measure productivity as I do – which is about producing more moments of value – then certainly.

Yet people take less and less holidays despite the labour-saving and timesaving technologies we now have at our fingertips. Americans, poor souls, take an average of 14-16 days holiday a year, in comparison with the ~30 that Europeans get. This article in the Weekly Standard explores a few arguments. However, despite a few promising moments, its conclusion is woefully trite and blinkered by the limitations of traditional, machismo-influenced economics.

Does being progressive really have to mean focusing on progress (although the inherent philological link might make it difficult to break the two)? What is this progress and toil accelerating us towards? At the moment the future seems bleak as a result of our labour, certainly from an environmental perspective. Mother nature would much rather we were all less productive (feel free to use this as an excuse next time you miss a days work!).

So when you find the screen swimming in front of your eyes, or work interfering with your dreams, or stress closing in… take a break. You deserve it, it may even be more productive.

Taking a break is a very powerful tool. It helps you relax. It helps you find solve problems you might not have the time to concentrate on. It enables you to ‘do’ and see more, rather than less – as the last few weeks have proven for me. It helps you watch the world go by, rather than going by the world.

Patience – part two

Posted on by Simpletom
Reply

The second patience is the one you and I grapple with. The very same patience that allowed me to write and you to (I hope) read the whole of the last story without feeling the need to go and do something else, or be more productive. Although I forgive you, of course, if you think it was crap. After all, there wasn’t much to it – somewhat like most of our lives (remember the humility virtue – this week’s my week!).

What I’ve noticed in my post-Patience life, is the importance of patience in our every day (please play close attention to the capitalisations).

In my week focusing on patience, I noticed that I continually anticipate other people’s points in conversation. I’m constantly wanting the future here this very minute. I want to have finished my to-do list. I want to be more successful. I want to be back in Africa. It is an entrepreneur’s curse – to see the potential of the future and want it here, now.

What I’ve learned by focusing on patience in the last weeks (notice that this is weeks, not a week – because what’s great about the Franklin guide to self-improvement is that even without the direct focus, there is a positive residue from previous weeks), is that patience is incredibly powerful. If you wait for someone to finish their point without interrupting, you are often able to reply in a more meaningful way. If you leave longer before you sit down to write, you often find that your mind has been working away at your subject matter subconsciously and it’s more perfectly formed when you do sit down.

At the moment I’m writing a proposal for a book and I find myself impatient to get it finished. But the longer I leave it and the more time I give it, the more coherent, crystallised and complete my thoughts. I find that if I’ve given myself time, I can sit down and the structure and words assemble themselves very satisfactorily. If I sit down out of guilt and impatience and try to push the proposal through, I often do more harm than good.

I’m not suggesting for a moment that we all have the luxury of time to only do things when we want to. I’ve been overdosing recently and there must be a balance. All writers (and I certainly wouldn’t categorise myself as one, yet) talk of times where they have to force their work… perspiration rather than inspiration and all that.

Yet I’ve noticed that I continually grab at things when the grabbing is counter-productive. So, with renewed patience and focus, I’m enjoying the process of letting things come to me, rather than running to them and for the time being it’s working and I find myself relaxed, happy and surprisingly productive. Here’s to patience and, of course, wonderful Patience.

Introducing Patience and patience – part 1

Posted on by Simpletom
3

A face of patience

This autumn, I met Patience twice.

And I suspect that you’ll need some patience to get through this article, which for the purposes of yours, I’ll split into two parts, especially as the first is a simple story of slapstick insignificance.

Patience 1

The first Patience is my wonderful friend Tara’s (of Wildfitness fame) housekeeper in Watamu, Kenya. Patience is a huge Kenyan lady with a beautiful chubby child-like face from which two large luxuriant eyes sparkle (note the lady above is another patient-looking Kenyan lady, but not the same). Patience would turn up at the house most days with a smile and a waddle, and proceed to completely invalidate my already meagre efforts around the house. Frankly neither of us had a huge amount to do during the days, the house being small and its occupants being fairly low-impact – but my attempts to offer help were quickly thwarted and I relaxed into a somewhat guilt-ridden laziness.

I know, I know – a housekeeper is hardly in keeping with a simpleTom. Yet we must remember that Kenya is a very different place from where most of us grew up and I truly believe that the arrangement is wholly symbiotic, at least in today’s Kenya.

Whilst Tara rushed around being super-productive and I took the time to read and read and read – Patience moved slowly and deftly around the house. In the garden, the gardener proceeded to mow the four-acre lawn. When I say mow, no doubt you imagine a sit-upon mower (after all four acres is quite a spread), or at least a petrol number, or at the very least a push-along contraption. Not even – he proceeded to mow the lawn with what looked like a sharp-edged sand wedge (a golf club, for those of you not in the know). He’d move, very slowly, thwacking his grass wedge back and forth, back and forth, not so much cutting the lawn as swinging great big divots into the ground leaving a driving-range effect behind him as he continued indefatigably. He was exercising the ‘Russian/American/Chinese foreign diplomacy’ approach to lawn-mowing. Namely, the finished product was deeply unsubtle, damaging and perhaps would have been better left. Although unlike these countries, it demonstrated his patience and my comparative sloth.

Continue reading →

Now is the time – Hafiz

Posted on by Simpletom
Reply
Here’s  a great poem I read this week by Hafiz about taking time and trusting yourself. I’m flying back to the UK tonight, I’ll write more from the other side – Simpletom!
___
Now is the time to know
That all you do is sacred
Now, why not consider
A lasting truce with yourself and God
Now is the time to understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just a child’s training wheels
To be laid aside
When you can finally live
With veracity
And love.
Hafiz is a divine envoy
Whom the Beloved
Has written a holy message upon
My dear, please tell me,
Why do you still
Throw sticks at your heart
And God?
What is it in that sweet voice inside
That incited you to fear?
Now is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action is sacred.
This is the time
For you to deeply compute the impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace
Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is sacred.