Sea squirts inspire play

Posted by random olio

You have to keep playing. Get on your hands and knees, crawl through the dirt, climb, surf, dance, sing. Each day the more we play, the more we grow. I do not mean your waist, I mean your brain muscle. Play is a catalyst to keep adapting and growing, learning and evolving. Last week I finished reading “Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul” by Stuart Brown. It is a very interesting book and makes me realize how much more I need to PLAY in my life. This specific idea about sea squirts resonated with me:

“The sea squirt is an example of a basic principle of nature: Use it or lose it. If a capability is not being used, it becomes an extravagance that is jettisoned or fades away. Either we grow and develop or we waste away. Most animals don’t go to extremes like the sea squirt, but the pattern remains the same. Most animals grow new nerve connections extensively only during the juvenile period. The sea squirt stops moving, and many higher animals stop playing, and the brain stops growing. But not humans. The brain can keep developing long after we leave adolescence and play promotes that growth. We are designed to be lifelong players, built to benefit from play at any age. The human animal is shaped by evolution to be the most flexible of all animals: as we play, we continue to change and adapt into old age. Understanding why many animals stop playing in adulthood, and why humans don’t, helps further understand the role play has in adult life.” Page 48

A little side note about sea squirts. Earlier in the book, Brown explains that sea squirts swim around during adolescence, then attach themselves to ships or other structures, then later eat their own brains. It was his example of something that stops developing and growing. If you think about most kids, they do not stop moving, they do not stop playing. Even if they are glued to video games their brain is thinking, changing, even strategizing their next move.

Adults need to be more agile. We need to move it. We need to play. This week I am really going to try to embrace the idea of play. I am going to get rid of my sea squirt mentality and be adventurous, learn, play, and have fun. Are you with me?

Change the way you look at things

Posted by random olio

It hit me hard and felt like a colonic. Yes, that is what I said. It felt like a colonic. I have had one, I know what I am talking about. All the foggy thinking, gunk, and stirring thoughts and emotions were sucked out of my thought. A dilemma I have been agonizing over for the past few weeks, came clearly to me. I needed to shift my thought. I needed to change how I looked at this situation. It all happened after I came across this quote last week:

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at will change.”

After a little Google sleuthing, I think it is a quote from Wayne Dyer. I am not sure if he means that by looking at a situation differently, we will see it differently. Or, if he means that by looking at a situation differently, the actual situation (or people involved will actually change). Maybe both would/could happen. Either way, it was an eye-opening moment for me. It has made me think about my little dilemma differently. How I approach it, how I think about it, and how I react to it. Hopefully, that means that it will resolve itself in a way that is better than I can even imagine.

Are there things in your life that could benefit from looking at them differently? Things within your marriage/relationship or with your family or friends? Is a work situation that you think is beyond repairable worth looking at differently and a slight shift gives you the answer(s) you need to realign, change course, and take a project to the next level? Just as I was hit hard, take some moments today, not to get an actual colonic, but to have a colonic of your thoughts. Clear out the gunk, change the way you look at things, and just maybe things will change.

Addicted to cereal?

Posted by random olio

I was talking to someone the other day, and they mentioned a friend who was a cereal addict. I know there are definitely worse things to be addicted to, but it made me start to wonder how we get addicted to things. I, myself, have an addiction to salt, often in the form of chips. Give me salt any day over sugar. If you really want to make my day, give me a mixture of both, a little salt, then something sugary, back to salt, and so on.

But, back to the cereal addict. See I know what it is like to be a cereal addict. I live with one. The addict in him shows up often around 11 pm, just before bed. He is a midnight snack cereal user. The only other time the addict might be found is if he is still hungry after dinner. He is good though, mostly his guilty pleasure is for fairly healthy, only slightly sugary cereals. However, offer him a bowl of Cap’n Crunch and he is a goner. Yuck. Cap’n Crunch and Froot Loops leave this film and raw burn on the roof of your mouth.

Now that I am a serial green smoothie drinker, I no longer have cereal for breakfast. I am only known to steal a bite or two from the cereal midnight snacker. All I need is a bite to quench my craving for that sweet milky taste. I have friends who are cereal addicts. I have never asked them why cereal is their guilty pleasure. Now I am curious. A few years ago, we had the opportunity to visit and tour Pixar, and I had to remove my significant other from the “Cereal Bar.” The below video is one that gives a bit more detail about the Pixar Cereal Bar.

It is all about moments…

Posted by random olio

Recently I came across this quote from Nicholas Sparks:

“And I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. That each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to animals. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered. But most of all, I learned that life is about sitting on benches next to ancient creeks with my hand on her knee and sometimes, on good days, for falling in love.”

It made me think about how often we get sucked into life, into work, into our day-to-day to-do lists. There is always so much to do, each hour, each day. Yet, I feel I have to constantly remind myself to slow down, to breathe, to take a moment to smell the fresh, beautiful, summer air. What came to me yesterday is that we all need to be more childlike. A child goes into each day, each playful moment as if it was brand new. What if we did the same thing?

I think we would find that we get less sucked into the things that waste our time. The drama and moments of negativity. We would be more aware of those conversations that do not serve us, we would walk away, or call folks out on their negativity. Kids do it all the time. They walk away. They are drawn to happiness, to individuals that make them feel comfortable. What if you removed yourself from moments that did not inspire you? Moments that brought you down? Would that change your day?

I think it is worth trying.

Proud to be free

Posted by random olio

Independence Day brings a song to my thought and an image of my dad singing along. It brings tears to my eyes, because as much as my father had his crazy differences with the world and sometimes the government, that man was patriotic, and he loved his country.

Every Fourth of July we would get together as a family and usually go to the local reservoir, have a picnic, or BBQ, play games outside and wait for it to get dark to watch the fireworks. I never got into the thrill of fireworks. While I have seen some amazing firework displays in Michigan, Boston, and Hawaii, I never got crazy excited about them. I mean, as a little kid, sparklers scared me. I always felt my hand was going to catch on fire.

I digress. The song that makes me think of my dad. It is not America the Beautiful, or the National Anthem that reminds me of Independence Day, it is Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American.” I can picture the emotion in my dad’s face whenever that song came on the radio, so much so that when I hear it I cannot control the tears that come to my eyes. It makes me proud to know that his emotion was shared with me.

Whether you are watching fireworks on the Charles River Esplanade while listening to the Boston Pops, or are on a boat on a lake in the middle of our country, at the Capitol lawn in Washington, D.C. or camping at one of our national parks on Thursday, or comfortable at home on your patio, I hope you take a moment to enjoy your family, friends, and be grateful to all the men and women who have fought and defended our country and given us incredible freedoms.

Take a moment to think about all the ways you are free.