And it is in fact reality that screams in our faces to pay attention to the world around us, the people around us, and not merely let the days we have continually appear in our rear view mirrors.

Personally, I struggle with this. As I sometimes find myself focusing on the future, I forget to be an active participant in my own present.

A good friend of mine, wiser than she recognizes, once wrote about herself:

The consciousness of my own mortality often prevents me from performing menial tasks.

The profound simplicity and naked truth of this sentence always impresses me. At first glance this may look as if it were written by someone who acts as voyeur in this life, but quite the opposite. In my opinion, when you come to truly appreciate the beauty of the life we all have, only the thought of your own mortality can slow you down.

But how do we pay more attention?

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

—Ferris Bueller

This is the trick, learning to look around once and a while. I don’t practice this enough, but several years ago a good friend taught me a lesson in life awareness that I truly believe every should practice…

How To Walk Like A Macedonian

In 2005 I was transferred from my position in Toronto to work and live in London, England.  During my stay I was fortunate enough to meet a co-worker who would become a lifelong friend (for this story lets call him Vlad).

While in London my working hours ran from noon to 8pm.  As there were only two of us that had been transplanted from foreign soil we were essentially forced to either hang out together or function as an island.  Luckily we hit it off.

Most evenings after work began the same way.  Vlad and I would exit the office at Cavendish Square, walk to Oxford Circus, and decide which way to go look for dinner. From Oxford Circus we’d wander around central London like two vagabonds discussing everything from politics, to relationships, to our careers (or “jobs” as it were) and back. No topic seemed out of bounds and neither side feared debate. And realistically our sole qualifiers for a venue to eat at (from my memory) was that it was new, or that it was pizza we could carry to the arcade.  Yes, simple times.

Oxford Circus

By the end of the first month, Vlad and I were beginning to function like two old friends that had known one another for years. So one night as I began my always quick paced walk into the night, I heard Vlad behind me say, (this next part will all be paraphrased as it has been 5 years so cut me some lack would ya).

“Mike, where the hell are you rushing to? Every night we leave the office and you nearly start sprinting forward to nowhere. I’m tired of keeping up for no good reason.  I think it’s time I taught you to walk like a Macedonian.”

“That sounds great Vlad, but I don’t know if I can drag my knuckles.” (I didn’t say this at all, but it would have been hilarious it I did.)

Vlad began to discuss with me how, as he would sit in the town square in Macedonia he would watch the old men walk with their friends; Slowly, peacefully, with no where particularly  to go.  Vlad said that they seemed at ease and that as he tried it he noticed a big difference in his own perspective as well… so what the hell, I gave it a shot. Its not like I had anything else to do.

Vlad and I began our almost nightly walk through Leicester Square at a pace that made turtles look at us and say, “Right on my brothas, right on.”

No agenda. No place to be, and no direction was the right direction.

This exercise was much more difficult than I anticipated. To walk with purpose and direction is simple. You move forward swiftly, with your head up and prepared to dodge and move. In London that also means to watch you do not take an umbrella in the retina.

Vlad had me slow down so that each step would almost fall into the other, like a graceful stumble, with no further purpose but to stay erect(insert childish laugh) and edge forward.

To walk like a Macedonian takes skill and the ability to relax, to disconnect, which at most times I do not possess.  But as I began to walk lock and step with Vlad I found some amazing changes begin to take place.  My breathing slowed, my muscles relaxed, and for the first time since I had landed in the UK… I could see.

I mean reeeaally see.

Even when I had gone sightseeing on my own during the weekends I found myself on a mission, a mission to see the city of London.

Ipod- Check

Camera- Check

Wallet- Check

Map-Check

Mission is a go.

Deploy to tube station and commence sightseeing…GO! GO! GO!

Even when I was relaxing I was rushing, but not this time.

As I strolled through Leicester square I WAS in the moment.

I could see the pedestrian approaching, not as an obstacle on my path, but as a person living their life in the same space as mine.

During this walk I remember laughing as if someone had told me a joke, because truthfully, the joke had been my speed walking to nowhere mentality, and the punchline was what I had been missing.

Sometimes we have to force ourselves to look around, because it’s not about what’s in front of us, it’s about what is around us, and who we surround ourselves with, be it, friend, family, or stranger. It was a beautiful experience.

Please allow me to be clear on something, I am not saying I walk like a Macedonian full-time now, hell, I’d never get anywhere, but I make sure that every so often I slow myself down so to fully acknowledge where I am.

Several times I have been walking with a friend who would be speed walking to nowhere and I’d spend ten minutes telling them the story of Vlad and teaching them, no matter how long it takes, how to walk like a Macedonian.

Now should I ever catch myself running through life, looking ahead without knowing where my feet are, I am thankful for the gift of the Macedonian Walk, and the gift Vlad gave me that will surely last a lifetime.

Life may not be as long as we would prefer, but if we are able to breathe in the moments we cherish in all their glory, just maybe we can make the memories last a lifetime.

Aaaand that pretty much sums up the creative writing process.

Especially if you are very critical about your writing, no matter the form, it makes the process so much more painful at times. As most of you have noticed I have not been blogging with the frequency that I once did and there are a few reasons for that.  The least of which is that my priorities recently are focused more on my budding and sputtering online business. The life of an entrepreneur is nothing if not challenging, both to make the business a success and also in self-management.

Once you work for yourself you start with two major problems…

#1 Your only employee is lazy.

#2 Your boss is an asshole.

But aside from that, my writing has suffered because for the last year or so I have found the creative process very daunting.

Basically, I am out of practice.

Its like my jump shop. I could be sinking 3-balls for all of August, but take me off the court for a year and I could start building schools in Haiti with all the bricks I clank off the backboard.

The more we practice, the more defined the neural pathways in our brain become regarding whatever task we happen to be challenging ourselves with.  It doesn’t matter if its something simple like finding our way to the bathroom in a new office, or sitting down to write your first screenplay.

I used to write so often that making the transition between thought and blog post were nearly seemless, yet now it seems I am dragging myself through the mud with lead boots, chained to an anchor.

Now I have to find ways to force myself to write.

Its no shock that I have a lot of opinions, everyone should. Our entire lives should be a perpetual dance of assessing and reassessing our perspective of the world around us in comparison with the perspective of others.

And in deconstructing certain topics on Perfectly Turbulent I find my opinions evolving, and begrudgingly having to accept that sometimes time honoured opinions must be left in the dust.

If you have any topics you’d like me to deconstruct, or questions you’d care to hear me sound off on, please let me know.

Let’s dance…

With that in mind, I only decided to write about this most anecdote because frankly I find it hilarious.

A friend of a friend is a 24 year old female, lets call her Ruby, whose goal it is to become a police officer. Semi-normal enough goal.

This girl has recently applied to be a cop but was turned away from the academy after failing the fitness test. She just wasn’t strong enough.

Now, I understand we all think in different ways, and use various methods to achieve our individual goals.  I figured I would ask a few friends of mine, if put in the same situation, how they would proceed if they were this girl?

You should answer this question as well before proceeding with this post.

I received the following possible answers from my cavalcade of friends:

A) Hire a personal trainer

B) Buy P90x and start training

C) Girls shouldn’t be cops

D) Get to the point already this story is boring me

E) Take Steroids

If you were to have said E) Take Steroids to achieve this goal then you and Ruby would be BFFs because this is what she has proceeded to do.

Hilarious.

And the saga continues as Ruby has embraced her new life as a juice pig by also deciding to date her steroid dealer (what a catch!), and has somehow managed to find a steroid using police officer to coach and train her for her next fitness test.  Seriously.

Notwithstanding, Ruby also met said police officer coach when he was nice enough to let her off of a DUI charge he pulled her over for.  No, don’t worry, you did in fact read that correctly.  This pillar of society pulled over a drunk driver and quickly thought to himself, “We need her help protecting the rest of society”.

Each and every day I find more and more reasons backing up my operating view about the world: that everyone is messed up in one way or another.

And don’t kid yourself, you’re on that list, as am I.   There is no such thing as normal.

In fact, I’d like to go so far as to say for those people out there that appear to be normal, they are usually the most radically twisted.

The important part is to keep it to a minimum and try really hard not to venture too far into the void. Because once you cross that line, well, I guess taking steroids seems to the rest of us, like trying a new cereal.

If you have any crazy stories you’d like to share, please let me know and I would be happy to have you guest post on this blog or just leave the story within the comments area.

And if you happen to get pulled over by a female police officer within the next few years that looks like she could carry your car back to the station, that’s probably Ruby.

I had an hour to accomplish my goal, return some Christmas presents, and leave with enough time to make it to my next appointment, such is life.

I parked in a random spot, and upon entering the mall I see Subway realized I was hungry.  After finishing my sub I start making my way towards the store.

On my way to the store I bump into an old friend of mine and we begin chatting about the holidays, our lives, and she asks me to join her in Guess to give my opinion on a couple outfits she wants to buy. I look at my watch and realize, why not, who am I to deprive this girl of my opinion on her fashion choices.

 After a fashion show worthy of Next Top Model, we part ways I manage to get back on track, my deadline is looming.

 As I get to the store my phone rings and I instinctually answer, it’s a friend of mine that needs some input on a project he is working on. I look at my watch and decide to give him 5 minutes.

20 minutes later I am in returning my items and realize I have left my receipt in the car and must retrieve it.  After returning from my trip back to my car on the other side of the mall, I return my items and stand there watching the clerk impatiently, while tapping my foot like a 6 year old who hasn’t peed since recess.

 All in all, I was 15 minutes late for my appointment.  This is just one example of how distraction leads all of us to incomplete objectives or sloppy results.

This entire situation could have easily been avoided if I would have done the following to remove the possibility of distraction and interruption.

•  Take 2 minutes to call the store to access their location in the mall and park my car outside the nearest entrance
• Leave my phone in the car
• Eaten after my goal was completed. Nobody ever died because they went an extra 15min without food.

 In today’s society we are all victims to distraction and it is the one giant factor keeping most of us from truly unlocking a side of our minds just brimming with human potential.

 Regardless if the cause is email, text messaging, phone calls, empty relationships, family members, negative thinking or even a bladder that has you in the bathroom every 20min (by the way, you might want to get that last one checked out), all of these are DISTRACTIONS and INTERRUPTIONS.

 We never seem to realize that these small interruptions are keeping us from being the productive, positive, healthy, people we want to be.

 Consistent notable productivity is IMPOSSIBLE with distraction and interruption.

 So today I have chosen to change this and started the 90-Day Wake Up Productive program by Eben Pagan (who runs a $20 million online business as well as business coaching).

 In the introduction video, Eben lays out the 11 Principles of Productivity:

Here are the principles I found most important and my opinion and explanation of them:

 #2 Time Management Is Not About Time At All, But About Managing Ourselves

  We all want to believe that we are different from everyone else, that we are special, and that we function independently from everyone else.   This is both arrogant and misguided. The vast majority of humans function in exactly the same. We are creatures of deep rooted habits.

 We like to think that we CHOOSE to be how we are, when in reality, if you take an overview snap shot of your life, you will find you are likely the same person you were at age 16.  Of course, the externalities of your life have changed, but YOU are pretty much the same.  

 We do not choose success or failure like we choose combo number 3 at Taco Bell. Instead, we must manage ourselves to ensure a level of productivity we are not currently accustomed to.

 #4 Habit IS Destiny

 This adds to principle #2. Once we accept our commonalities as humans, we can begin to deconstruct who we are, so to begin developing structured systems to slowly remove the habits we have built throughout our lives.  

 Once these old counterproductive habits have been removed we can slowly begin to create new, life affirming habits that keep us more positive, more productive, and more forward moving.

 “First you shape your habits and then they shape you”

 #7 Your Future Can Be An Extension Of Your Past Or Something New That You Create

 You can see the principles that resonated with me have a pattern.  I believe it’s important to always

reassess the person you are, make immediate changes where you see deficiencies and dangerous habits.

 If you find your entire existence is merely a reflective of the friends you keep (which is often the case) and you are not happy with your life, your answer is simple, it’s time to sever those relationships and forge new ones.

 Remember, I said the answer is simple, but I never said it was easy.

 #11 If You Want To Wake Up Productive, You Must Take Your Thinking To The Next Level

 “You can never solve a problem on the level in which it was created” – Albert Einstein

 If we are to become the people we wish we could be, we cannot accept our current knowledge, wisdom and habits sufficient.  We must FORCE ourselves to evolve.

 All of these principles have already challenged me to give presence and value to all of the distractions I know have been robbing me of productivity, yet I have done nothing to avoid.

 Here is the short list:

•  My Blackberry- phone calls, emails, text messages, instant messaging, blah blah, ahhhhh!!
•  TV shows- this one is going to be difficult. I have to cut out 80% of the shows I currently watch and set up structured times or a set number of hours for leisure television. I mean seriously, I watch waaay too much House. It’s a flat out problem.
•  Facebook- Within the last month I have almost completely have Facebook under control and am quite pleased with myself.
•  Negative thinking – I have quarantined off most of this side of my brain for the majority of last year, but now I think it’s time to put it to sleep entirely.
•  Negative Relationships- These are friendships or acquaintances that require more time and energy than they give back in positive emotions. We all have these, and I address it more in a post you can find —– HERE

 To write this post, I had to turn OFF my Blackberry and my wireless connection on my laptop, lock myself in my room in total silence and vow not to check email until this first draft was completed.

 I must admit that my mind is going a bit crazy, raging against my desire to single-task focus, but I already feel a little bit more productive. 

 We all have to remember that we are our own worse enemies and that we cannot simply CHOOSE to be different people, we have to FORCE that change.

 If anyone has any questions about productivity that I may be able to help with, please feel free to get in touch.

 Here is to a productive 2010!!

 Happy New Year!!