• Why you do it

    How’s the weather?

    I’ve come to realize it’s not realistic to think the weather is always good (even in heavy rain or storms). Especially if you’ve planned an outdoor wedding and a monsoonal rain rolls in and doesn’t quit until the moment the wedding’s over. Or maybe it is. Is a wet bride whose hair and makeup gets ruined and a groom whose…

  • Why you do it

    Nothing and Nobody

    There’s a difference between needing others company and wanting it. About 9 times out of 10, we have a choice whether to put a negative spin on things or positive. And no matter how little objective freedom we may have, we always have some level of it. We are always free in some way; therefore, we are always free. Even…

  • Why you do it

    Get over it

    If you’re feeling bad, about 9 times out of 10, those 3 words are the best sympathy anyone can give you. There are genuinely some serious situations that call for grief, sadness or disappointment, but at least in my life, about 9 out of 10 times they don’t. Not long ago, my wife started saying those three words to me…

  • Why you do it

    Want what you have

    In September 2004, I was on a street corner in the Central Business District (CBD) in Melbourne, on the way home and I remember thinking the following (and then writing it down in my journal): I want to want no more. Flash forward 12 years and last year, by listening to podcasts of Tim Ferriss, and reading what Neil Strauss…

  • Why you do it

    Weakness into strength

    When Arnold Schwarznegger came to America, people laughed at him. Here’s this yodelling European yokel who wants to be a Hollywood superstar. People laughed at him – ‘Who the hell’s going to cast this heaving hulk from an Austrian village, who not only barely speaks English, but sounds exactly like a robot when he does?’ Flash forward a few years… Terminator…

  • Why you do it

    THESE ARE the days

    Do you look back on a time in your life and half think, ‘That was sweet…’ and half think, ‘If only I’d appreciated it…‘? Well, chances are you’re in one of those times right now. Living right now in a time you’ll look back on and think, ‘Those were the days…’, The one thing you have total control over are your thoughts…

  • Why you do it

    1 less thing

    Diogenes was the guy who started the philosophical movement of Cynicism in ancient Greece. Emily Watson, in Seneca – A Life says that he lived like a dog – actually literally like a dog (cynicism means “dog-like”). He had no possessions, lived in a barrel and went number 1s and 2s in the street. Well, he did at least own one thing –a food…

  • Constant Consciousness - Why you do it

    It is what it is

    When Elon Musk was a little kid in South Africa, around 10 years old, there was a boy who was freaking out because it was night time. He was freaking out because he was afraid of the dark. Normal, for kids. And then Elon Musk told him, ‘darkness is just the absence of light.’ That’s the difference between how we see…