My Proactive Life

There are a number of lists of “The three R’s”:

• Reading, Writing and Arithmetic
• Reduce Reuse Recycle
• Read, Write, Recite.

After a recent discussion at a North Side Coffee Morning (#nscm), I devised a new list of 3 R’s to help focus a little more on things that count (outside the realm of the academic education arena). These 3 R’s can be used in almost all aspects of life, and is something i am trying to instill in my children:

Respect.

esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability*

Respect for yourself and others is an important trait to have. Not much can happen in this world without respect. If you respect the people that matter, it can take you far!

Responsibility.

One of the most important traits you can have is to be responsible: Responsible to yourself, your fellow man and the world you live in. Responsibility is an important part of life because it shows that you care about what you do and the impact you have. Having the fortitude to stand up and admit you stuffed up or hurt someone goes a long way. It’s also one of the cornerstones of trust, an important part of what makes the world go round.

Here’s one of my acts of responsibility I blogged about earlier in Taming the Ugliness.

Resilience.

This is a tough skill to learn. The ability to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back into it is one of the skills that will see you through many encounters in life, both good and bad! It’s quite a difficult skill to teach, however I have been trying with my boys to get them to understand that there will be times where things don’t go your way. It’s how you act when things are not going your way. It used to be called ‘character building’, but today I’ll call it resilience. Empathy with the ‘other’ side of the story or being able to see things from both sides can help.

Can you think of any other R’s that could make useful traits for life?

* All definitions from dictionary.com

Family/Relationships

• Reinvigorate my relationship with my wife
• Enjoy time with my boys
• More family trips away
• Talk to my father more
• Continue nurturing all my relationships with people I have met and yet to meet.
• Continue to reach out to others to help them in their life journey

Fitness-General

• Become fitter than I am today
• Run 500km in 50 weeks (up from 250km in 2009)
• Run once per week for the rest of 2010
• Be able to run 5km in 25 mins/10km in 55mins

Fitness-Cycling

• Clock up over 1000km on the bicycle
• Sydney Springcycle
• MS Gongride

Fitness-Running

• 2 x Half Marathons (21km) (SMH Half Marathon, Sydney Running Festival)
• Sutherland to Surf (11km)
• City to Surf (14km)
• Mud Run (12km)

Leadership

• Soccer Coach for my son’s U6 team
• Volunteer more

Motorcycling

• Riding4aCause – Cross-USA motorcycle ride raising awareness for Male Depression

Social/Economic/Other

• Eliminate our mortgage as quickly as possible
• Reduce our burden on the environment
• Continue to look for simpler/streamlined ways of living
• Look to expand my career into new opportunities, hopefully utilising my Learning & Development capabilities
• Reduce, minimise or eliminate negativity

Many of you may know I am not that into having possessions (aka “stuff“), but do appreciate items that add value to our lives, or items that stimulate creativity in my children. Here’s a list of things to consider when buying gifts this Festive season (or any occasion for that matter!)

Thinking points

• Does the list have a single use only? (if so, it’s unlikely it would be in our house)
• Will the recipient truly use the product/item/service or will it be tried once and not used again?
• Does the item need supervision to ensure the recipient doesn’t get into trouble?
• Is the item useless without other people (think water pistol)
• If something goes missing or breaks, can it be fixed/repaired or is it done with?

What’s on the list?

Here are things on the shopping list for the family that fulfill the following criteria: Allowing creativity, inspiring, family-oriented or can teach practical skills.

• Lego – This has always fit many criteria and is a big thing in our house, so it’s  almost always on top of the list. Lego rarely looks like it does on the box when my boys get into it! They make ‘creations’ out of the pieces and Mr 7½ photographs them for posterity. Any type of lego can be used for these creations!
• Computer games that require thinking – puzzle solving games are big (like Lemmings or Chips Challenge from days past), as are adventure games (Indy Lego for the PS2 fits the bill for family-oriented as the kids love playing with someone).
• Board games – We’ve bought Uno, Magic 7, Guess Who, Trouble and many others over the years and we still get a lot of use out of them.
• A3 Sketch pad and crayons, pencils, textas, rulers etc. The number of artworks we have in this house is quite large, and we’ve even extended into making colourful placemats (with an A4 Laminator and their creative genius!)
• Matchbox/Hot wheels cars – these are used in many ways, from simple vroom vroom races on the floor, to being part of the lego or geotrax cities that get created. They’re also great at some social events to help keep the kids occupied
• Outdoor activities – for past Christmases + Birthdays there have been kites, bikes, balls and scooters.
• Last Christmas, Mr 7½ got as digital camera and has found many, varied uses for it, including making home videos and creative pictures when you shake the camera (also taking photos of Lego creations)

So, what didn’t get a  look in?

• Dunka Doos (you soak them in water and they ‘grow’ into larger animals)
• Star Wars Light Saber (nothing you can’t do with a few toilet rolls or some time + imagination with a broomstick and some paint). At $60 or so for a single-use item it’s up there on the list of things that are not likely to make it into the house
• Transformers – they don’t do much except transform, and most of them {wheeled vehicles} don’t roll very well. Once a piece is broken, the toy becomes useless.

These are my thoughts…what are some of yours?

I made up this little poem whilst tucking Mr4 into bed a few days ago. I thought I’d share this with you all!

The time for fun is over,
It’s time to go to bed;
I love you from your little toes,
Up to the top of your head!

Nice & simple, just the way I like it Do you have any little sayings or poems you recite to your children? let me know!

(With thanks to 2 pioneering dads that blog, Writerdad & Bloggerdad who often share their thoughts about fatherhood!)

I’m writing this as a {belated} post to honour Manweek, an initiative to help Australian men talk about how they feel. There are quite a few fantastic posts out there that I know of, I am sure there are more (see end of this blog). I’m not sure whether there’s merit in these 2 stories but feel it’s best to get something out of my brain, it’s been rattling around in there for too long!

My Father & me

I’ve not been particularly close to my father, and know in some ways I was always the odd child. I’m different from him and my brothers but yet I know there are parts of me that came from him. (Before your mind races down a path, there is no ‘twist’ to this story – he is my father, I see him every week, there’s no doubting that!) One thing we’re very different on is that he’s a workaholic. I know many people who throw that term around a little too easily, however in the true sense of the word, my father really only knows work. He gets up at 4am, comes home at 7pm, eats and goes to sleep. That’s almost all there has been in his life. Sure we went on holidays every now and then, but for most of his life all he’s known is work. He doesn’t follow sports, doesn’t go to the pub, doesn’t get drunk, doesn’t threaten anyone nor raise his voice, but for the most part his life, work has defined him.

I don’t want to be like him; I don’t want other fathers (or fathers-to-be, or anyone for that matter) end up like this. I vowed to not become a workaholic and to actively pursue other interests. Perhaps this is why I am diving more and more into many varied topics (people, learning, thinking, the brain, social interactions, relationships, Sudoku/brain exercises, cycling, running, marathons, eating well, families, children….), and quickly coming to the realisation that I am (sometimes) not present in the moment. In it’s own way, not being present or ‘in the moment’ could have the same effect of not enjoying what’s here and now.

I’m vowing to enjoy everything I can about life, and looking for ways to share my thoughts and feelings with a wider audience. I’m also looking for ways to become a better father as well as understand both my father and father-in-law more. Just like I mentioned in my ‘Inner Story‘ post, everyone has an inner story that outsiders generally do not see. I’d like to uncover their stories. Maybe not today, but hopefully before tomorrow.

So in my quest to becoming a better father, what have I done?

• I’m consciously taking time to be with my boys. Working from home allows me some freedom here – I’m not sure I could go back to an ‘office’ job
• I’m staying active (both physically and mentally)
• I’m learning from great people like Scott Drummond, Gavin Heaton, Mark Pollard, Trent Collins & Matt Moore, all of whom shared some of their inner story for Manweek.
• I don’t want to be a workaholic
• In an effort to get closer to my father, I have been researching the Blanda name and pulling together the family tree.

Father-in-Law

I was recently asked if I wanted to take my father-in-law’s (FIL) boat. At first, I didn’t understand the context of this and offering someone the use of their boat in the middle of winter seems a strange request. A little digging (not enough discussion on the matter, just a couple of questions as we were bundling the sleepy kids into the car for the drive home) and my FIL said he didn’t use it much, and if I got my boat licence he’d let me bring it home and take the boys out on it if I wanted. (He’d offered previously and we have been out on it before). If it didn’t interest me, he would sell it. It was a strange conversation in that it didn’t really go anywhere…

When I got home sand discussed it with my wife, she could not understand where this had (suddenly) come from – the request to take the boat or he would sell it was quite odd/out of character. Until we surmised that he believes he could not get his boat licence if he were to take the test (he’s currently not licenced). His mate from the pub told him that they’re clamping down now on boat licences (most likely in the wake of boating tragedies on Sydney Harbour in the past few years). Perhaps he feels it’s not in him to get a licence, therefore the easiest solution is to get rid of the boat?

I intend to find out more behind this request – the boat is something the boys have been looking forward to going out on, and is a great way to enjoy the outdoors when the warmer weather arrives, so there’s hopefully no more talk about selling the boat! I’d like to know a little more about the thoughts behind getting rid of it….stay tuned!

More on this (I’m sure as I have barely scratched the surface about being a father) in future!