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I was reflecting on the best experiences over the last few years.  One of the greatest experiences was moving 2,700 miles from New Hampshire to Arizona.  I was really trying to figure out why and here is what I have come up with.

When we left New Hampshire we left behind a house built in 1974 that had been added on to several times.  The old house required extra energy to keep it running.  My to-do list got shorter after we sold it.  I left my 51 mile one way commute behind.  We left the bitter cold winters behind.  We took several trucks loads of accumulated stuff to the dump so that we could fit in the moving truck.  In summary, we got rid a bunch of problems and stuff we didn’t really want anymore.

When we arrived in Arizona we moved into a 4 year old home.  We bought a larger house; our living space went from 1800 sq. feet to 3300 sq. feet.  We bought new furniture to fill the new house.   We decided to buy a big screen TV.  We bought a new used car for my 22 mile commute.  Our new home has a swimming pool that our children learned to swim in.    We explored all around the Phoenix area that first year.  Our house felt like it was the way we wanted it and it worked really well for us.  In short I think first six months that we moved to Arizona were very exciting and lots of fun.  It felt like we were living the good life.

We have now been here in Phoenix for six years and it seems that some of the excitement has worn off.   For example:  our swimming pool was underutilized this year.  We have too much stuff!  We spent at least 3-4 days this year cleaning out parts of the house stuffed full of junk that we have accumulated in the last six years.

I would really like to recapture that initial excitement of when we moved to Arizona.  I think it had less to do with buying new stuff and setting up a new house than it did with being able to decide what our lifestyle here in Arizona was going to be like.  Especially when compared and contrasted against the experience that we had when we lived in New Hampshire.

 

In today’s environment it is very difficult to sit and focus on one thing.  There are just so many distractions.

Almost every electronic gadget needs some attention on a regular basis.  For example, my cell phone keeps alerting me about text messages I already read or reminding me of missed calls from a week ago.  Checking my banks site to make sure my paycheck was received or payment for something was process.  Most of the calls we get on our home phone are solicitations despite being the Do Not Call list.   Or even worse during election season robo-dialers call constantly on behalf of various political campaigns.

I get about 50-300 email messages a day.  If I spend one minute on each email it will take at least hour to go through my mail.  I have found the majority of my email borders on spam.

Advertising is present everywhere.  If you tune in to your television or radio there is constant advertising.  I find that the TV has very little worth watching these days.     I used to listen to the radio during my commute.  I found myself waking up dreaming about a jingle a local real estate agent used on the radio.  I realized at that point I need to turn off the commercials.  About 75% of the U.S. mail delivered to our home is advertisements.

The Internet web browser is probably one of the greatest tools ever created.  However it is easy to get lost.    I know people who waste huge amounts of time playing online games.  However, I find my quest for useless information usually gets the better of me.  It is easy for me to blow a few hours a day reading just about anything.  For example, I have found myself on the internet reading about the migratory patterns of sea turtles and unique features of byzantine architecture at 11PM.  I am not sure how I will ever put those two topics to use in my daily life.

With ubiquitous access to the internet, it is easy to get access to vast amounts of knowledge and information.  The problem is developing discipline to only look at information you are interested in.  It is easy to get distracted by all the inputs into your life (Internet, TV, Radio, Phone, etc)  you must put limits on what you will look at.  This is also a very exciting time because in human history there has never been a time where a majority of people in the world have the ability to discover a new idea every day.  The idea may not be new for all people but it is a new idea for the individual.

Here are a few things I am doing to improve my focus on a daily basis:

• When I wake up in the morning I make a pot of tea.
• As my tea water is boiling, I Sit and think about the things I will accomplish today.

• I only check my personal email in the morning, most of it gets trashed
• I try not to multitask
• I write in a journal most nights
• I cleaned my office to remove a lot of the distractions
• I allocated 20 minutes a day to read the blogs I read
• I watch no more than 1-2 hours of TV per week
• Every night I flip the world upside down.   I stand on my head for a few minutes.

 

Home Rules
Count your blessings…
Look after each other…
Bear each other’s burdens…
Forgive and forget…
Comfort one another…
Be kind and tenderhearted.. .
Keep your promises…
  Treat each other
  Like you treat your friends…
Be nice to each other…
Be proud of each other…
Take joy
  in the accomplishments of one another,
But most important,
  love each other deeply
  from the heart.