Finnish Love Vacation

It makes me jealous that while our Canadian parliament is barely functioning, the Finnish parliament is debating some very important issues that could change the entire makeup of their country. For instance, this last Thursday they debated a proposal by MP Tommy Tabermann (SDP) to grant all employees a paid 7-day "love vacation" once a year. The purpose of the "love vacation" would be that during the seven days, couples could devote themselves to each other at ”both at an erotic and emotional level” and "find their way back to the path of love in order to find the wellspring of love again”.

Beautiful.

Canadian government, listen up! The Finns are again showing us up when it comes to relational progressiveness. The only way to save our dignity is to immediately institute a 2 week love vacation as soon as possible. Also, each couple will get $1000 to help them with expenses. Stephen Harper, are you listening to the will of the people?

May Light increase!

Book Review: On Island Time - Kayaking the Caribbean

Book Review: On Island Time - Kayaking the Caribbean (Scott B. Williams)

Scott B. Williams is not the best author, nor does he have the greatest story. What he does have is an authentic kayaking voyage to share and that is what this book is about. On Island Time chronicles his somewhat foolhardy attempt to paddle by kayak from Florida south through the West Caribbean islands. Early on Williams writes "a mere vacation would not be enough . . . I wanted to savor the experience, to absorb the places I longed to visit at the average speed of three miles an hour. Why not paddle for a year . . . two years?" Williams saves up for and plans his great journey. Along the way he almost drowns, is attacked by sharks, meets highly unusual people, and discovers tropical paradise like he has never dreamed of.

What I really liked about this book is the author's focus on the places he goes to and his honest way of chronicling his own thoughts and feelings about his trip. He never hides the fact that he makes some foolish choices and often doesn't really know what he is doing. If you are like me, you will salivate over the descriptions of some of the beautiful places he visit and be filled with more then a little jealousy. Williams ability to drop everything for his trip, to focus so completely on the present of his journey - this is remarkable ability. Best of all his authenticity convinces you that you too could embark on such a trip. He makes it sound possible . . . for anyone. What I really wished for in this book though was maps. It was difficult to really understand where he was a lot of the time and maps would have helped alot. Some sort of map is pretty standard in this genre but sadly they weren't there.

Kayaking the Caribbean is a great book for any paddler who dreams of paddling through solitary islands in paradise. For those who aren't paddlers, it's an OK read but you may find yourself finding it difficult to engage. I rate this book 3.1 ninja stars out of 5.

Choosing To Give People Their Free Will

I've posted about control before, but I'm thinking about it alot more now that I'm reading the book "Choice Theory" by William Glasser and using it with my clients. Glasser talks about how we try to control those who are close to us. Ironically, we do this to those who we need and care about the most. Glasser believes that we should live by the Golden Rule; do unto others as we would have them to unto us. They way to live this way is to not try to control other people's behavior, instead we offer them freedom to choose their own destiny. When we try to control them, that's when relationship problems come arise. NO ONE likes to be controlled.

What does controlling people look like? Lot of things. The nagging wife. The critical mother. The threatening father. The manipulative brother. All of these behaviors are chosen ways of trying to get others to do what we want them to do. What's missing in all of these behaviors is free will. Instead of offering people the freedom to choose not to do what we want them to do, we try to take it away. Parents do this all the time with their kids. Spouses become experts at it.

Every time we choose to control or manipulate someone, we are choosing a few things:
1. To not respect the other person's free will to choose their own behavior.
2. To damage what could be a healthy, free relationship.
3. To create bad feelings in the other person towards us.

Glasser says that for some reason we try to control those closest to us, yet we aren't totally shmucks at this. There are two main relationships where people actually do try not to control the other person. The first area is close friendship. Most of us do not try to control our friends very much because we realize that friendship doesn't work by trying to get our friends to do what we want. We expect our friends not to manipulate us and we try not to manipulate them. The second group of people who are low in control is grandparents. Grandparents in general seldom try to control their grandkids. Why? Because they don't want to risk the relationship. They offer freedom and aren't ticked off when the kids occasionally make poor choices.

What if we would treat our wives, husbands, children like we treat our good friends? What if instead of punishing children (for not choosing what we want them to do) we simply would give our kids the freedom to choose to obey (or disobey)? What if instead of punishment we calmly gave consequences for misbehavior? Glasser believes that when we put aside a control philosophy and replace it with philosophy of choice and freedom, our relationships will improve. When we pair this with taking responsibility for our actions and letting other people worry about theirs - we become psychologically more healthy.

Once I realize that I can't control people, that I can only control myself, then I can offer freedom to others. It doesn't mean that I have to be a pushover. But it does mean that I will honor the human right of others to choose or not choose what I think is best. This is how I want to be treated. Perhaps we need to start offering this freedom to others. How would that transform your marriage, your parenting, your relationship with co-workers? There's only one way to find out . . .

Ninja Sympathy Pain

A weird thing happened to me the other day. I was watching this movie on a DVD set called "Master Ninja! 9 Movies on 3 DVD's - Over 12 Hours" that my friend Jay got me. In the middle of the first movie "Breathing Fire" (which ironically has no ninjas of any kind in it) one of the main characters got kicked in his right knee, savagely. I remember wincing as I felt empathy. The movie ended and we went to bed.

The next day when I woke up, I could hardly walk. My right knee was hurting badly (and still isn't back to normal). I was sitting around trying to figure out what had happened to it but I couldn't think of where I possibly could have injured it. Suddenly, it hit me! My knee hurt because I, as a ninja, was feeling sympathy pain for the "ninja" who got his knee kicked in the movie! Ninja sympathy pain! Now I just need to watch a movie where a ninja gets his knee healed and I should be back to normal. . .

May Light increase!

Spontaneous Food Court Musical

(Warning: If you don't like showtunes, you won't like this video. Just move along.)



Although I'm not musical by any means, I liked this video because of the awkwardness that some members of the "audience" obviously felt. Especially when the security guard asks what's happening! Such creativity to come up with this stuff.

Air Miles Rant, Financial Stress, and Learning

I’m bitter with Airmiles. For 10 years I have been saving up airmiles to use toward our 10th Anniversary trip. We checked and it looked like we would be able to cover a trip to Belize no problem, based on the number of airmiles we had accumulated. Cool! Actually there is a problem and that is that Airmiles pays just for the ticket, not taxes or fees. How much could that be we thought and went ahead and bought our travel voucher trip for Belize off of eBay. Yesterday we found out how much those taxes and fees would be to go; $910.

Yes, you heard me right. For our supposedly “free” tickets. I don’t get really mad (seriously, ask my wife) very often, but when Jobina told me how much it would cost I became enraged. When they say that you can earn “free travel” that is a brazen lie. Actually what they will do is pass on any fees and taxes onto you and then you end up paying almost more for your flight then if you would have just kept your eyes open for a good deal. So yeah, travelling is costing WAY more then I thought it would. On top of our money (already spent) for our travel voucher for a week at Cottontree Lodge ($1700), we are paying:

$910 in taxes and fees on our free tickets.
$400 for shots/medication
$200 for passports (including pics)
$220 for flights within Belize

Add to this two extra nights lodging/meals, travel insurance, and miscellaneous and you can see that our initial budget of $2000 is being doubled to close to $4000. This kind of money problems is causing me intense financial stress. Usually I don’t get stressed about money stuff, but I’m feeling it right now. And even though I say I’m angry at Airmiles, really, I’m angry at myself. I should have figured out how much the taxes and fees would be for airline tickets before even considering buying our vacation. I should have done my due diligence and found out about how much shots, passports, etc. would cost. But I didn't.

The only part of this that gives me any peace is that I can chalk this up as a learning lesson. Experience is such an effective teacher! And of course I'll be going on the trip of lifetime with my beautiful wife. And maybe the fact that I will have to utilize some good creativity to find ways to pay off this trip. Anyway, learn from us people and do your homework!

May Light increase!

(P.S. This is the second time writing out this post as the first time my browser suddenly hung up for no reason after it was done. Oh, the anger (and then depression) I felt as I retyped it!)

Theological Pain

(I found this great cartoon on Chez Gavin the other day and couldn't resist posting it)

Today I spent most of my day laboring over a 5 page theology paper on the Holy Spirit. Theology is the study of God and I find it amazing how often I struggle with understanding and applying theological subjects. In class, I like the discussions, but doing a theology paper is always a painful experience. I wonder why. Is it me? Is it the subject? Is it the professor?

It's probably me.

Studying God is a necessary evil. Really though, I just want to enjoy Him. Is that so much to ask? I wish I could get my heart more into it, but I can't. Theology is most of the time just boring (to me). There I said it. I wonder how many other people feel the way I do?

May Light increase!

Our "Mortal Coil" is Pretty Strange

I really liked this article entitled "100 Weird Facts About the Human Body" and have been meaning to post it for some time. A few I found quite interesting:

45. The three things pregnant women dream most of during their first trimester are frogs, worms and potted plants. Pregnancy hormones can cause mood swings, cravings and many other unexpected changes. Oddly enough, hormones can often affect the types of dreams women have and their vividness. The most common are these three types, but many women also dream of water, giving birth or even have violent or sexually charged dreams.

62. By the age of 60, most people will have lost about half their taste buds. Perhaps you shouldn’t trust your grandma’s cooking as much as you do. Older individuals tend to lose their ability to taste, and many find that they need much more intense flavoring in order to be able to fully appreciate a dish.

73. We are about 1 cm taller in the morning than in the evening. The cartilage between our bones gets compressed by standing, sitting and other daily activities as the day goes on, making us just a little shorter at the end of the day than at the beginning.

God has truly made the human body in an amazing way. Even my unkempt and extremely out of shape body. This kind of article makes me a bit more thankful for it. Also, parts of this article kind of gross me out.

May Light increase!