Health

Recently I turned 40 and my attention has moved very much towards longevity and sustainability.

This trend towards how I look after my health has been developing slowly since 2019 and when the pandemic hit, it shifted my perspective on how I train and take care of myself.

Prior to this, I have always been pushing hard to better my performance. To run faster, cycle quicker and overall, be stronger.

But, for the most part, this always came at a cost. Injury and time.

Every time I trained for a marathon I picked up an injury, apart from my first-ever marathon, I always went into each event carrying some sort of injury.

And time. In order to be successful by my own personal standards I had to sacrifice a huge amount of time dedicated to achieving these goals.

While as a young single man, time wasn't a problem but as I meet my girlfriend and wanted didn't things in life, time became a lot more precious.

So, instead of feeling like I needed to always be pushing to be better physically, I am now more conscious of my recovery and limiting my fatigue.

In doing so, this has helped me train 5/6 days a week, spend more time and productive time with my girlfriend and also reduce the likelihood of injury that might stop me from being consistent with this training schedule.

While I am still reaching for some goals and looking to progress, I now take the view of being able to continue to be consistent at this for the next 40 years rather than for a few short months and then needing some time off.

Limiting the crash and burn effect that we all can succumb to.

Wealth

"So much consumer spending, particularly in developed countries, is socially driven: subtly influenced by people you admire, and done because you subtly want people to admire you. But while we can see how much money other people spend on cars, homes, clothes, and vacations, we don’t get to see their goals, worries, and aspirations. "

It wasn't that long ago that I owed £12k in debt. A position I had never expected to be in and one that accumulated very quickly.

The passage from The Physiology of Money clearly described the many reasons, among others why I found myself in such an amount of debt.

Doing my best to keep up with what the world around me said I needed to be happy, rather than listening to what I needed to be happy.

While you can gain some pleasure from material things and luxury items or experiences. The lesson for me was "a what cost".

Since then, getting a deeper understanding of what makes me happy and what I desire my wealth to be is a key lesson I feel we should all take note of.

Source - The Physiology of Money" by Morgan Housel.

Mindset

Last week I touch on how watching Ozark wasn't great mentally for me and my girlfriend.

Having decided to move away from the series for now we came across a beautiful series called "The Detectorists".

Set in Danebury in north Essex. The plot revolves around the lives, loves, and metal-detecting ambitions of Andy and Lance, members of the Danebury Metal Detecting Club. The main filming location for the series and Christmas special is Framlingham, a small market town in Suffolk.

A first glance you might see this as boring but once you dive in with little expectations then we found they were exceeded!

It was such a refreshing change to everything else that is being promoted on TV at the moment. Which, tell me if I am wrong, is very negative and angry.

Personally, we have found that this doesn't put us in a good frame of mind and with the world being as challenging as it is, having something more light-hearted and positive was a breath of fresh air.

Plus, each scene is set in the beautiful English countryside, showcasing how much beauty we have around us and how much of it we have yet to discover for ourselves personally.

We were truly sad when we finished all three seasons plus the Christmas special. But, we are hoping to grab a lasting memory of our own when we visit the area for a short break later in the year.

So, if you haven't seen it, then I highly recommend it for some evening watching so that we leave you feeling all cosy and warm inside.

Source: The Detectorists

Lyric/ Quote I'm pondering

"We unearth the scattered memories, mind the stories, fill in the personality. Detectorists? We are time travellers"

Source: The Detectorists

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40 and Reflecting: My Journey to Self-Discovery and the Key Lessons Learned