Do you use problems as excuses or growth pills?

When I read the book Het Puttertje ( original title: The Goldfinch) by Donna Tartt, I was impressed. Impressed by how well Donna describes the despair of little Theo waiting for his mum to come home after a terrorist attack. Impressed by how she describes his relationship with Boris and his love for Pippa. Impressed by how much Donna Tartt knows about art and fraud.

As an author I was impressed. As a reader I was not moved.

Why not?

Because I didn't connect with the persons in the book. I followed them with curiosity but not with my heart.

The main characters kept finding excuses to why their lives were bad, rather than making life as great as possible.

As Tony Robbins says in "I am not your guru":

"Your biggest problem is that you think you shouldn't have one."

We all have problems. Some use the problems to grow. Others use them as excuses. like the story of the two brothers:

Ben is a teetotaler, Joe is an alcoholic. They both say it is because their father is an alcoholic.

You can find people who use what happens to them as an excuse. You can also find people who use what happens to them as a drive to make their lives great.

If circumstances don't decide what we do with our lives, then what does?

Victor Franckl describes it very well:

“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”

Use the inevitable hardships to grow. 

Find your purpose. 

Then I guarantee you will be bigger than any problem coming your way.

The beauty of Art 17 The answers

Even among people who are deeply involved in art, the creator of the sculpture in the Beauty of Art 17 is fairly unknown.

Museum of Moden Art (MOMA) Curator Sarah Suzuki describes it as follows:

If you ask 100 art-world types "Who is Kingelez?" 95 would say "I have never heard of him", and 5 would say "He is my favorite artist."

Bodys Isek Kingelez was (he died 2015) an artist who used everyday material like paper, toothpicks and plastic bottles, to create his cityscapes.

The piece of art you saw in the Beauty of Art XX was U.N.

Kingelez was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 1948. He became a teacher before he became an artist.

An interesting anecdote about his early steps as an artist, was when he presented a paper sculpture to museum officials. When seeing the technical mastery of the creation, they didn't believe this unknown man had created it. They even accused him of stealing it! When he created another one before their eyes, they finally believed him and hired him as a restorer.

He called himself a designer, an architect, a sculptor, an engineer and an artist.

His art is colourful and filled with joy. Many say that this art makes them happy.

You say it is colourful and weird.

To see even more of his art and to see Kingelez himself, you can have a look at the information from MOMA here.

The Beauty of Art 17

When I saw a picture of the United Nation's headquarters as a child, I was very disappointed. I had expected a colourful, beautiful building, Maybe a building with lots of peace doves painted all over it. And all I saw was - a building.

Recently I was looking through a magazine, and I was happy to see that I am not the only one who thinks the United Nations should have an extraordinary building, a building that shows that those working there work for peace and friendship.

• Who is the artist who has created this sculpture?
• What is the name of the sculpture?
• And - most importantly - how does it make you feel?

Please let me know what you think.
The answers will come in the next blog post.

Stop eating old bread - pay yourself first. In time.

"I come home with fresh, wonderful bread. Just when I am about to slice it up, my girlfriend says -'No, we still have bread . Eat that first.' So you know what I end up doing? I buy fresh bread  and I eat old bread."

When I heard the Dutch stand-up comedian say this, it struck a chord. We buy fresh bread but eat old bread. Why? Because we should. We mustn't waste the old bread. Like we mustn't do things that are fun until we have done what we should. Right?

Work hard and then rest. Duties first, vacation later.

And what if we do this all the time?

We end up only doing the things we think we should, never getting to do what we really want. We buy and dream of fresh bread, but we only eat old bread.

It is time for a new approach. Let's learn from the finance world and Pay ourselves first.

From Investopedia:

"Pay yourself first" is a phrase popular in personal finance and retirement-planning literature that means automatically routing your specified savings contribution from each paycheck at the time it is received."

From now on; Pay yourself first with your time. 

For each new week, reserve time for just you. For something you enjoy. Something that gives you energy, something you really want to do. Make sure you eat at least one slice of fresh bread.

Over time, this will give you more energy. With more energy you can use the time you have more efficiently. And then you can have even more time for you.

Enjoy the fresh bread.

How to become the Master of your time

My father in law is trying to turn on the lamp above the stove. When he finally sees the switch, he sees it's broken. We haven't turned on the lamp for weeks.
He turns to my husband and exclaims:

Maar, dat kun je zo doen - het is en klusje van niks!

You can fix that easily - it is a mini task!

My husband and I look at each other.  We are sitting at the kitchen table with our three kids running around the house, playing. We both work full time and live in a house that is more than 100 years old. A house that needs some tender love and care. My husband turns to his father as he wearily says:

Dat weet ik. Het problem is dat er zijn honderden klusjes van niks. 

I know, the problem is that there are hundreds of mini tasks. 

I am sure you have them too. The small tasks that need to be done. Fix that broken lamp, sew that button that fell off, glue the toy your kid just broke, exchange the battery in the watch, put that framed photo on the wall...

Hundreds of mini tasks that take no time at all to do. Or at least, that's what we think. Until we start fixing the lamp and notice that we need tools to take off the lamp shade. And since we have not used these tools for some time we need to go and find them. And then we notice that we do not have a spare bulb of that type at home. And when we go shopping we forget to buy one. And then we forget it again. The third time we remember to buy a bulb and it turns out to be the wrong kind.
Suddenly the mini task is no longer mini.

Our first way of managing the hundred mini tasks, was by creating a "klusjes van niks list". In the beginning this helped us. Instead of remembering all these small things we wanted to fix, we had them on the list. Whenever we fixed one or two of them we would tick them off and be happy about it.

But after a while we saw that even if we ticked things off, new entries came into the list all the time. It was growing rather than shrinking.

So we decided to make another change. We introduced "klusjes van niks dagen". Days when we fix all these small little things. During these fixing days, we take care of all small things at once. Putting up 3 framed photos on the wall in one go, goes a lot faster than doing them one by one. The same goes for repairing clothes or lamps and most other things. And now that we have a system in place, we never feel the pressure of having a lot of things "we should fix". We know that we will fix whatever needs fixing, within a month.

So - did I just give you the secret to mastering your time? Doing things in batches and plan time do do them?

Sorry, it takes more than that to be a Master of your time.

Some things are great to do in batches.
Some are not.

Some things are great to do daily, others are better to do weekly.
Some things are well suited to be done monthly, others quarterly.

And a whole lot of things should simply be done NOW.

So how do you know which is the best way for what task?

By trying it out.

Experimenting, failing, learning and doing it again. Until you find your way. 

That's how you become a Master of your time.

It's almost never now or never

Elvis was my first idol. He was from my parents' generation rather than my own, but the music got a hold of me from the start. And his looks!

You have most likely heard him sing: 

It's now or never,

Come hold me tight

Kiss me my darling,

Be mine tonight

Romantic, isn't it?

Now or never can also be dramatic. Just listen to sports commentators.

 It's now or never, if she doesn't score now the team will be out of the tournament!

If he misses this penalty he will regret it for the rest of his life, it is now or never! 

And of course.

Marketing.

In marketing the pressure to act immediately is used all the time:

This is your last chance, the offer ends today!

It works. We react. We get stressed and take actions and decisions without spending much time thinking about alternatives or consequences.

Hans Rosling describes this well in his book Factfulness. 

"I Nacala 1981 ägnade jag flera dagar åt att noggrant undersöka sjukdomen, men mindre än en minut att fundera över konsekvenserna av att spärra av vägen. [...] I brådskan att "göra någonting" gjorde jag något förfärligt."

My translation:

"In Nacala 1981 I spent several days carefully examining the disease, but less than a minute to think about the consequences of closing the road. [...] In the rush to "do something" I did something terrible."

Do you do things, because you are in a hurry and believe "doing anything" is better than thinking a while before taking action? 

If you do, you are not alone. Do you recognize any of these scenarios?

The project is late, we should order overtime for everyone starting now!

Our costs keep going up. We must outsource X and Y to low cost countries! 

Such actions are just "paper actions". They look good on paper but more often than not they cause more damage than the problem they are meant to solve.

In the book Factfulness, Hans Rosling calls this rushed behaviour Akutinstinkten, the emergency instinct. This instinct was very important many generations back. The ones who stopped to think when the sabertoothed tiger came running, did not become our ancestors. They became tiger food. Our ancestors reacted fast and got out of the way. So yes, once upon a time our ability to react quickly, saved our lives. Nowadays the same behaviour gets us in trouble.

The problems we face today are often less urgent but more complex. They are better handled by thinking before acting. 

This does not mean we should over-analyze. Often it is enough to stop and think just a short while before we take action. Making sure we have understood what problem we are solving, before we choose the solution.

Resist the urge to act before you think.

There is enough time to think before acting. As you take time to think, you will notice that you end up with more time since your actions will be more efficient. 

Or, as Wallace D Wattles  put it in the book The science of getting rich:

Go as fast as you can, but never hurry.

Turn off the auto pilot and start living

"I'm sorry, I'm just so tired."

In Anna Gavalda's lovely book: Ensemble c'est tout (In English Hunting and Gathering, in Swedish Tillsammans är man mindre ensam), "I'm tired" is one of Frank Lestafier's most common lines. He is angry and snaps at people, using "I am tired" as an excuse for his behaviour.

Why is he so tired and angry?

He blames work. Working long days / nights as a chef is demanding, especially since Franck always buys more than he can afford (motorcycles, I can relate to that) so he works extra to pay the loans.

As readers we soon find out the reason for his tiredness sits much deeper. It has to do with his relationships - or the lack of them - with people dear to him.

Camilla Fauque also works hard. For her, the mindless work as a femme de menage (a cleaning lady) gives her an excuse not to think, not to live.

The love story is fantastic, as are the stories about friendship in the book. And as always with really good books there are things we can learn.

Franck needs to deal with his relationships before he can turn off the auto pilot and get out of the trap of work - spending money without it giving him joy - anger - work again.

Camille needs to get back to her passion - drawing - before she can turn off her auto pilot and start loving and living again.

Are you in auto pilot mode, scared to turn it off since it may change your life too drastically? Do it anyway. The alternative; turning into a robotic version of yourself, is worse.

Take care of your relationships, your passions and turn off the auto pilot. The world is waiting for you to come back into it and enjoy all it has to offer.