Inspiration

Inspiration

Reset button

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Once again, the weekend has gone by really quickly,, and I´m left with the feeling that I haven´t done half of the things I would have liked. Which probably means I had planned roughly twice as many things as I can realistically fit into a weekend.

Does this happen to you as well? It´s quite normal; us humans are awful at estimating the time it takes us to complete a task or project (more on this topic here).

For me, a common consequence of not being realistic with my time is that I often end up resting and sleeping less, as there are things I don´t want to leave undone, even when the day is coming to an end. And so, without noticing, I get myself into a vicious cycle of lack of sleep that only brings about more problems...

This week I caught myself in that cycle again. And I´m the only one who can get me out of it.

Sometimes we feel that we have no other choice but to fill our days with tasks and keep going until we drop from exhaustion.. Or maybe we´re already exhausted, but we don´t listen to our body. For how much longer? Do we have to wait until life gives us a fright before we start taking care of ourselves?

The good news is that life (or, rather, our body) sends us signals, it shows us when the pace we´re going at is no longer sustainable. The key is learning to listen, so that, once those signals start to appear, we can notice them and take action.

But the thing is, in order to listen to ourselves, first we need to create a little bit of silence. And being continuously surrounded by noise and distractions, as it happens nowadays, doesn´t help with that at all. We need to make a conscious effort to "disconnect" from the outside for a little while, and get the chance to connect with our inner side to take stock of how we´re really feeling.

This reminds me of two things: first, the opening sentence in Desiderata: "Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence"... If this was already true approximately a century ago, there´s no doubt it´s truer now than ever.

And second, this quote I thought I had already shared, but apparently hadn´t:

Almost everything will work again
if you unplug it for a few minutes,
including you.

Anne Lamot

And if instead of a few minutes it´s a few hours, or days, or even weeks, that´s even better.

(Poster seen in an Avoca shop: "offline is the new luxury". This phrase would deserve its own full article; maybe one day I´ll write it.)

Now, what about you? Do you need to press the reset button?

(Almost) untranslatable words: workout

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As you already know, every once in a while, I like to write on this blog about a word or expression I find particularly accurate in English (or Spanish) and which I think loses strength and meaning when translated into Spanish (or English, depending on the case).

Today, we´re adding one more word to our list of untranslatables ; an English word that´s very widely used, and I´d say not only among English-speaking folks: workout. The dictionary translates it as "ejercicio" (exercise) or "entrenamiento" (training), but those two words, in my opinion, are a bit vague and generic, while workout conveys something a lot more tangible: each specific training session, each period of time dedicated to exercising. And that involves a certain amount of work, which is implicit in the word itself, as it derives from the verb -to work.

(Photo of a sign in my office building, encouraging people to take the stairs instead of the elevator: "Burn calories, not electricity. Take the stairs.")

Indeed, exercising takes effort, and not only in the sense of being physically tiring (which, once you show up and get started, is probably not that big of a deal). The hardest part is staying consistent, and keeping up the progress without waiting to feel like doing it, because, let´s be realistic, you´re almost never going to feel like doing it... (By the way, in case you didn´t know, that´s completely normal; elite athletes don´t feel like going out for a run every day either, and they do it anyway. That´s why it´s so important to create routines to make things easier for ourselves and help us achieve our goals).

The good news is that all that work done over the weeks, months, and years finally has its rewards: when we work out regularly, we keep ourselves in better shape, we feel better, and are able do more things. In other words, our quality of life improves.

So, what if we could apply the same reasoning to other types of exercise, not only physical?

This all came up because I heard a phrase the other day that I believe is worth sharing. I´m not sure whether it´s original from the person I heard it from, a coach called Alexias Anderson; it was part of a talk on Adaptive Intelligence (a key topic given the times we´re living in, accelerated and ever changing, so I´m I´ll be posting more about this for sure):

Every unfamiliar experience is a workout.

I really like the parallel this lady draws here: in the same way exercise is uncomfortable and tiring for your body, but beneficial in the long term, having to figure things out in an unfamiliar environment is uncomfortable and tiring for our brain, but also beneficial in the longt term. It allows the brain to learn to adapt to different situations, become more flexible, and develop a wider repertoire of strategies, responses, and actions depending on the scenario.

And, as it is the case with physical exercise, the key is to do it often, even if it´s in small doses. There´s no need to do anything too radical, the idea is to progressively get exposed to experiencies and activities where our auto-pilot is of no use, so we need to figure things out in order to keep going. It may be something as simple as using a different route to get back home (with no Google Maps!), starting a new hobby or learning a new skill that has very little to do with what we´re naturally good at.

A silly example I can think of is related to the songs we sing in our workplace choir: I´m usually in the soprano group, but lately we´ve been having very low attendance, so for some of the songs, I´ve had to move to the Alto line... It´s astounding how much extra energy it takes me to learn these new versions of the songs; I find it super hard.

But as we said before, the good news is that all this extra energy expense has its rewards, and in my opinion, the reward is twofold. On the one hand, by intentionally putting ourselves in situations that are somewhat uncomfortable, we progressively increase our tolerance to discomfort, and this can give us a lot of freedom, and also open up options in our daily life. And on the other hand, when life inevitably brings us big moments of change with the capacity to shake our world and knock us out of place, we will be a lot better prepared, with resources to better weather the storm and even take advantage of the circumstances.

What do you think of this idea? In which ways do you give your body, and your mind, a workout?

Making life wider

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Happy Easter to all of those celebrating!

(I´m afraid I´m not very original, every year I open with this very same sentence... If you feel like reading my thoughts on Easter from previous years, you will find them here, here and here.)

This week, I´ve had the luxury of being on holidays, enjoying family time and the opportunity to do things at my own pace (or at least, less hurriedly than usual).

(Photo of the interior of Galway Cathedral, which we visited a few days ago. The outside is quite simple, but the inside is really beautiful in my opinion, and it came in very handy on this trip as a temporary shelter from the rain.)

In these accelerated times we live in, having the power to slow down for a few days is indeed a true luxury... A luxury that´s absolutely necessary, I dare say, even though we´re not always able to see it. Creating space to recover our strength, to refocus on what´s truly important, to enjoy the little (and the big) things that life brings to us.

Today, I´m inviting you to do a bit of reflection; let´s see what you think of this quote:

Everyone tries to make life longer,
when what we should really do is make it wider!

Luciano de Crescenzo

What are those things that make your life "wider"? How do you feel when you dedicate time and attention to them? And how much time and attention are they actually getting from you?

Untranslatable expressions: to carve out time

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Today we´re adding another expression to our particular list of untranslatables. This time, the original is in English: to carve out time, and even though we have an expression with equivalent meaning in Spanish, sacar tiempo, which we could translate as "to extract time", I believe the English version paints a more vivid image, and therefore, it´s a. much more powerful metaphor .

Literally speaking, "to carve something out" involves working with a chisel and mallet, removing portions of a solid block of wood or stone, in order to give it a shape. As you can imagine, it´s a task that requires intention, attention and great skill; you need to have a very clear idea of what you intend to do, and have the knowledge on how to do it.

Now, transferring that concept to how we manage our time, we often find ourselves in a situation where our calendar is completely full, reflecting our responsibilities at work, at home, with our family, etc., plus another long list of tasks and commitments that we burden ourselves with (and we still don´t think it´s enough!). Our society nowadays values and rewards being super busy all the time, so we have normalised that way of life, together with the stress that comes along with it. "There are not enough hours in the day" is another go-to expression in English that´s a symptom of this big problem.

That´s why we find it so difficult to establish new habits to help us improve our health and wellbeing; we´re already exhausted, and we feel there´s no time for anything else. And that´s why I think this metaphor of the chisel and mallet is so relevant here: it´s not a question of simply "making time"; it´s about using that time strategically, building something with it, something that´s going to benefit us more than continuing to do everything the same way as before. And that requires intention, attention and a great skill, as well as consistency, to keep up the habit afterwards.

The reason I mention all this is because I´ve been wanting for some time to resume my old habit of reading, as I´ve kind of abandoned it in recent times. And want to resume it, among other reasons, because I believe it´s both more difficult than ever and more important than ever to keep it alive. I don´t have time right now to list all the benefits of reading (I encourage you to look them up, they´re impressive), but what I can do is share a quote from Dr. Seuss that I saw in a well-known bookstore in Dublin, and that I find very fitting:

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go".

What about you? What would you like to carve out time for? And what´s preventing you from doing it?

Life is like a camera

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Ladies and gentlemen, today´s article is number 250 in BinaryWords 🙂

250 reflections on a variety of topics, linked by the same common thread: personal and professional growth, which, in my opinion, always go hand in hand.

I remember that, during the first few months of writing this blog, back in 2021, I used to get inspiration from the pictures and posters I had around the house to write some of the articles (like, for example here, here and here), as well as dusting off some quotes I had found in greeting cards, fridge magnets and even newspaper clippings or publicity leaflets. I realised that, without really noticing, I had been gathering inspiring materials for years, though I had never thought of sharing them until then.

And given that inspiration can be found literally anywhere, over the years, I´ve been developing the habit of staying always alert, with my radar on, and taking photos of interesting things I bump into when I´m out and about. I´ll admit that I´m a total disaster when it comes to taking pictures of people (and even a bigger disaster, if possible, when it comes to appearing in those pictures myself), but if you look at my gallery, you´ll see that it´s full of apparently random photos with the potential of maybe one day helping me to convey an idea.

Today, browsing that gallery, I found this photo of a poster I found in a shop years ago, comparing life to a photo camera. Interestingly, physical cameras are in fashion again nowadays, with their flash and their buttons, as opposed to taking photos with your phone... This new revival of old devices can be a topic for another day.

Well, here you go, I hope the simile is understandable in Spanish, even though some of the word plays get lost in translation:

Life is like a camera.
Focus on what is important.
Capture the good times.
Develop from the negatives.
And if things don´t work out - just take another shot.

A wish for the year

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2026 is here, Happy New Year!

The girls and I came back last night after spending a few days in Spain, where the holidays continue until after January 6th (the Three Wise Men). Here in Ireland, the holidays are over, and it´s time to return to school (or in my case, to work), so we´re going through re-education.

(Photo taken a few days ago in Madrid, in a park called Retiro, which is Spanish for "retreat". Some day I´ll tell you about my end-of-year "double retreat".)

Looking for an inspirational quote to set up the year for a good start, I bumped into this one from Neil Gaiman, and I feel it´s the perfect fit for me right now; I hope you like it too:

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

What do you think? Do you see yourself practising this? Coincidentally, the theme I´ve chosen for myself this year is the word PRACTICE, so it fits perfectly, especially the part about not worrying that it´s not perfect. Now, I´m aware this is going to be a big challenge for me, but I´m also fully convinced it will be worth it.

What about you? Do you accept the challenge of making mistakes?

"Crisitunity"

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Today, I got this daily quote as a present from Google:

Your big opportunity may be right where you are now..

Napoleon Hill

And it reminded me of a post I wrote on Facebook years ago, back when I used to write on Facebook instead of a blog (big mistake: now I no longer have access to my own posts, except when Facebook decides to show me a random "memory" and I take a screenshot, like in this case).

(Photo of a bunch of multicolour lanterns in San Francisco´s Chinatown)

I don´t know exactly when I wrote it; I reckon it was around 2009. The title I gave it was "Interesting times", a heading that I think is also very appropriate for the times we´re living in now, so here you go:

... But I don´t like being this way, I don´t like living as a pessimist, so I prefer searching through popular wisdom to try and find a different way of looking at things. And a phrase came into my mind, something about the Chinese using the same word for crisis and opportunity... Thanks to Saint Google, I found the graphical representation for those two words:

Simplified Chinese:
危机 (Crisis)
机会 (Opportunity)

Traditional Chinese:
危機 (Crisis)
機會 (Opportunity)

The key here is that the last ideogram in crisis is the first one in opportunity, so they´re not exactly the same, it´s more that one can develop into the other: in each crisis, we can find an opportunity.

The way I see it, the word crisis is passive: a crisis is something that comes upon you, and that you cannot control. But the word opportunity is a call to action, a call to react to what is happening, to do something about it. 

So, as always, the decision is ours: we can choose to see these "interesting times" as a worldwide crisis in which we´re simply the victims, or we can choose to see them as an opportunity, a wake-up call, the push that we need to rethink our approach to life and start making conscious and responsible decisions, learn from our mistakes and adapt to the new times.

What are your thoughts on this? What examples do you have, from your own life, where a crisis turned into a big opportunity? I have a few, so I´m sure you have them too.

By the way, the made-up word in the title, "crisitunity", was apparently invented by Homer Simpson, in an episode where Lisa told him about the Chinese using the same word for both things... And even though now we know it´s not exactly like that, this is still a really interesting idea, and a good example of how our language often determines our way of thinking.

Unexpected inspiration

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Do you like taking photos? What kind of photos do you usually take?

I´ve noticed that I generally take very few pictures "of people", that is, the kind you would take with your family or a group of friends. To be honest, it´s something I don´t normally pay attention to, so I almost always forget (or, at most, if I´m in a nice place with my daughters, I think of taking a selfie with them, sometimes with better results than others). Luckily, there´s almost always someone at every group or family reunion who remembers to immortalise the moment, and let me take this opportunity to say to them all: thank you!

On the other hand, what I´ve noticed I do a lot is take photos of places or things that call my attention for one reason or another. Sometimes it´s a landscape or a building that strikes me as beautiful, and I try to capture it without people if I can (this is what I call "making postcards"). At other times, I take photos of things that hold sentimental value for me, evoking fond memories.

And some other times, I snap photos of interesting quotes or phrases I find in the most unexpected places, like this one I want to share with you today:

(Sign seen in a Chick-fil-A near San Jose, in California. Chick-fil-A is a US-based fast food chain that we found surprisingly delicious.)

It turns out this quote is from none other than the founder of Chick-fil-A, here it is in text:

How do you know if someone needs encouragement? If they are breathing!

S. Truett Cathy

In other words: we would ALL benefit from some encouragement, because we ALL are going through something, and very often, that something is a lot more serious than what one could possibly perceive from the outside.

Which reminds me of another quote that I can´t believe I haven´t shared here in this blog before, as it´s one of my favourites. The only thing is, I´m not able to confirm the author because it´s not clear, and I don´t want to risk it and have a repeat of that time when I was accused of giving false information... Depending of who you ask, it´s attributed to Seneca, Marcus Aurelius or someone called Ian McLaren. But it doesn´t really matter, what matters is the message:

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

What about you? What photos have you found inspiring lately?

Untranslatable expressions: do your best

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Today I´d like to talk about an English expression that´s not exactly untranslatable, but in my opinion, it loses strength when translated into Spanish, becoming less impactful.

Do your best.

Three syllables. Direct and elegant. Empowering.

Hazlo lo mejor que puedas.

(Literally, do it as well as you can.) Eight syllables. The same idea, but expressed a little more clumsily, in a more roundabout way.

I´m sure you´ll agree with me; it sounds much better in English...

(Part of a mural seen at Dublin airport several years ago.)

In any case, you get the idea, right? For any situation in life, the best thing we can do is do our best, and nobody can ask anything more from us.

This may seem very simple, and in a certain way, it is, but at the same time, it´s quite complicated. Because there´s no objective measurement, only we can know for sure whether we´re doing our best or not. And sometimes, doubts creep up: are we setting the standard too high, and beating ourselves up for not accomplishing everything we should be able to? Or maybe we´re setting it too low, and getting stagnant in a life that´s too complacent or resigned?

This is all going through my head right now because this week has been a bit challenging, as I had already foreseen, and I´ve found it hard (even harder than usual) to strike a balance between catching up at work and at home and resting to regain a good rythm, trying to also carve out a little time to have fun and enjoy. What should I give priority to? Sometimes this is not an easy decision; it requires paying attention to what´s happening outside as well as inside of us, so we can know what our needs are, and what the world needs from us, at any given moment.

There´s a lot more to say on this topic; in fact, "always do your best" is one of the Four Agreements from a book with the same name written by Don Miguel Ruiz, I´ll explain this in more detail in a future article. For the moment, here are a couple of selected quotes that I hope will add a little perspective to this whole topic:

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.

Maya Angelou

On the days you have only 40%, and you give 40%. You gave 100%

Jim Kwik

What do you think? What does doing your best mean to you? In what specific ways are you doing, or not doing, your best?

Make it count

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The girls and I are just back from a week-long holiday with the framily (if you´re not familiar with the concept of framily, it´s explained here), taking advantage of the October bank holiday here in Ireland, and the way schools stretch it into a whole week of mid-term break.

So, this time, our reunion took place... In California!

Photo of San Francisco´s Golden Gate bridge, taken from an end of the bridge itself

(Photo of San Francisco´s Golden Gate Bridge, taken from the end of the bridge itself.)

We´ve had a fantastic week (thanks a million, Juanjo, Gema, Laia and Joan for welcoming our whole gang into your house).

I have to admit that, when it comes to travelling, I´m not adventurous at all; my default option is to always end up going to the same places... That´s why I´ve been making more of an effort lately, looking for reasons (or excuses, depending on how you look at it) to introduce variations in my holiday plans without straying too far away from known territory.

The two variations that I´ve seen working well for me are either taking the girls to places I´m really excited about (like when we went to Nerja this past spring, having been there as a child, or like when we visited Paris, because, well, who doesn´t want to visit Paris), or visiting family or friends who live in really cool places (like when we went to London a couple of years ago, also with the framily, or to Stuttgart this past summer with my cousins).

This year, we´re incredibly fortunate in that we´ve been able to fit in a third trip in the autumn, with bonus points for fitting both criteria: we have very good friends who live in California, and I was very keen to get to know that area, especially the city of San Francisco.

And let me tell you, it´s been an exceptional week: as well as spending a whole day exploring San Francisco (what a spectacular tram journey we had, up and down those hills), we visited several interesting places in and around San José (each of them in its own way, as Audrey Hepburn would say), and best of all, got to spend time together like in the good old times, catch up with each other, see the "kids" enjoy, celebrate Halloween differently for once, and laugh and laugh and laugh during the whole process.

Photo of a street of San Francisco´s Chinatown, with a group of people walking on the sidewalk at the left of the image (we can only see their backs)

(The best part of it all, as always, is the company. Here we are, walking around Chinatown.)

I´m delighted to have made this trip, to have prioritised (time, energy and budget-wise) this Californian adventure. The shock of coming back to reality this week may be a little tricky, given the jet lag, the weather and the daylight changes, but it´s still a hundred per cent worth it.

In these times we´re living in, with its Instagram posers and its constant FOMO (one day, we´ll have to talk about the paradox of election; I just saw I haven´t written anything on that yet), sometimes it´s very hard to decide how to spend our resources in ways that fulfil us and enrich our lives, instead of leaving us feeling empty and dissatisfied.

And there´s no "one size fits all" answer that we can all use: we each have to find our own answer, and feel free to modify it as time passes and both we and our circumstances change.

What do you personally find most fulfilling? Are you giving that thing the priority and attention it deserves? Or are you simply just doing things out of habit, because it´s comfortable or because everyone else is doing them?

We only make this trip once, and we really should make it count.

Nancy Reagan

Each of us gets to decide what makes our trip count, our life count. Each of us, as Audrey Hepburn would say, in our own way, according to our own priorities. Making each moment count is in our hands.

Thank you, "chavalit@s", both junior and senior, those who could make it in person and those who accompanied us in spirit. Thanks for making this week count.