This year as part of my Yearly Focus I challenged myself to fast in the wilderness for an extended period of time. On December 10-12, 2019 I did so and thus completed the challenge. Here is the writeup. Purpose This challenge fit into this year’s theme of long-suffering both in that I would be suffering a bit as I sat there hungry and that the time away would be a good time to clear my head and think about the goals I was willing to suffer for over the coming years. I challenged myself to walk into the backcountry, find a comfortable spot and sit there for an extended period of time, on the order of 2-3 days, without food, any entertainment, company, etc. Just me, my clothing, a tent, some water and a few ‘break glass’ emergency items. Fasting in the wilderness is a tradition that crosses cultures and
With the start of a new year, I take the time to set my focus for the coming year. I believe that by being selective about where I direct my energy, I can achieve results that are exponentially greater than if I split that energy across many different goals. I detailed my 2019 focus here (read that first if you want more context). Here is how I’m progressing. 2019 Theme: Long-Suffering I have recognized two things about long-suffering this quarter. One thing is that it is much easier to grit through the difficulty if there is a known finish line. Or at least a check in milestone where I know I’ll have a place to rest. Our minds (mine at least) don’t deal with the notion of infinite very well, so the idea of pushing forever is mentally untenable, but the idea of pushing until a specific milestone seems possible. I’ve
This year I picked Nelson Mandela as my exemplar. Today would be Mandela’s 101st birthday (he passed away in 2013) and is internationally recognized as Nelson Mandela day, so I decided it would be an appropriate day to publish my exemplar review. Each year I follow a review template to help me get the most out of the process of having an exemplar. Below is my entry for Nelson Mandela. What did Nelson Mandela achieve? Nelson Mandela was a Nobel Peace Prize winner, the first black president of South Africa and a leader in the movement to transition that country to a true democracy where all people had a vote, regardless of race. He was a lawyer, a revolutionary, the leader of a terrorist organization and a political prisoner for nearly 30 years. His life was just about singularly devoted to ensuring people of all races had equal freedoms in South
With the start of a new year, I take the time to set my focus for the coming year. I believe that by being selective about where I direct my energy, I can achieve results that are exponentially greater than if I split that energy across many different goals. I detailed my 2019 focus here (read that first if you want more context). Here is how I’m progressing. 2019 Theme: Long-Suffering It occurs to me that the nature of suffering is deeply related to how much one cares about the task. One hundred miles walked for a purpose can feel shorter than a single aimless mile. 2019 Challenge: Fasting in the Wilderness I’ve done some reading on wilderness fasting and vision quests. The concept seems shared by many seemingly divergent walks of life but it generally includes some common elements; alone, undistracted, hungry and unprotected. I’ve secured backcountry permits for two
With the start of a new year, I take the time to set my focus for the coming year. I believe that by being selective about where I direct my energy, I can achieve results that are exponentially greater than if I split that energy across many different goals. I detailed my 2019 focus here (read that first if you want more context). Here is how I’m progressing. 2019 Theme: Long-Suffering 2019 Challenge: Fasting in the Wilderness No progress yet except a few potential backcountry permits acquired. 2019 Habit: Minimizing Digital Entertainment This habit has started out strong. I stayed under the threshold for 11 of the 13 weeks and my average so far is 2.27 hours of digital entertainment per week. I actually decided to adjust my 2 hours a week goal to be different for each quarter. Q1 was set at 3 hours per week, Q2 at 2 hour,
Each year I focus my attention on a few named goals as a way to be more intentional about the pursuits I direct my energy towards. The way in which I do this has evolved over time and these release notes serve to document the current state of the process and changes I’ve made recently. Review Of v1.5 For v1.5 I made only a few minor tweaks. The yearly focus remained centered around the idea of focusing on single topic, which the challenge, habit & exemplar would all relate to. The full details of v1.5 are located here but the main three adjustments were: Introduced the concept of a Sabbath Cycle Vision item Specified difficulty progression by quarter for the habit Added details to the description about each item in the release notes I set my newest Sabbath Cycle Vision but don’t yet have feedback on it. The main item I have
With the start of a new year, I take the time to set my focus for the coming year. I believe that by being selective about where I direct my energy, I can achieve results that are exponentially greater than if I split that energy across many different goals. More details about the process are in this blog post and you can review the results from past years (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 & 2018). 2019 Theme: Long-Suffering My theme for 2019 is long-suffering. This is the first full year of my newest sabbath cycle, of which overarching vision is that of preparing for my calling. That means my next six years will involve undertaking a lot of hard work, that might not always be directly rewarding or obviously contributing to the long term work I want to accomplish. With that in mind it seemed appropriate to start off by focusing my attention on
2018-2023 Sabbath Cycle Vision: Preparing For My Calling This is not only a new year, but it is also the first full year of my next sabbath year cycle. As such, before I define the focus for this year, I also need to define the guiding vision that will serve me for the next approximately six years. Technically my sabbath year started and ended mid-year, so I’ve actually had this guiding vision in place for six months already, since July 2018. As I reflected on the exemplars I’ve learned about the past three year, and the period of their lives in which they accomplished the great things they are known for, they each had their biggest impact later in life. Franklin negotiated the treaty with France his 70s. Muir founded the Sierra Club in his 60s. Liddell only lived to be 43, but those final years are the reason he
At the beginning of 2018 I wrote about my focus for the year. I’ve posted a few updates throughout the year (quarter year, half year & three quarters) and now is the time to do a final review. 2018 Theme: First Principles Lifestyle Self Grade: 7/10 In terms of relevance with theme, this year provided plenty of opportunity. I ended up making two major job decisions and we made one where-to-live decision. Each of those provided an opportunity to evaluate our options based on first principles, what we wanted to achieve. I think we did a good job drilling back into the heart of the matter and figuring out what we wanted and why we did. The difficulty is even knowing those things, the decisions aren’t easy as everything is a trade off. 2018 Challenge: Profile 12 Families (w/ Kids) Living Intentionally Different Self Grade: 1/10 I failed to make any significant
Earlier this year I wrote about a secret goal I had for the year (which I guess makes it a secret only between everyone with internet access). I was going to track my creative vs consumption time and try to move my ratio from 1:2.5 to closer to 1:1. For 2018 the results are Books read: 5 Books listened to: 1 Significant blog posts written: 9 Total Productive: 15 Movies watched: 52 Video Games Played: .25 Graphic Novels Read: 1 TV Show Seasons Watched: 6 Consumptive Total: 59.25 Ratio – 1:3.95 I nearly doubled things in the wrong direction, which is a bummer, but I guess this is why this is a secret goal and not an official one. I think the best way to get things closer to 1:1 that also seems really healthy is to drop my movie count by a good 20 or so and to use that