Paraphernalia

Wikipedia définition: “Paraphernalia most commonly refers to a group of apparatus, equipment, or furnishing used for a particular activity.”

When I was a kid, I had a bike.

Whenever I wanted, I leapt on my bike and went for a ride.

It was that simple.

Now it seems you can’t go for a ride unless you’ve got the right shoes and togs, preferably smeared with advertising so you look like you’re on a pro team.

And don’t forget the gel-padded gloves, the water bottle, the pump, the tinted protective glasses and the indispensable crash helmet.

Bicycle clips on your ordinary trousers are passé.

You need a special low friction, ultra high-speed, no wind-resistant pair of tights.

Whatever happened to simple?

Whatever happened to inexpensive?

Let’s take another example: fitness.

All the advertising suggests that you need an expensive gym membership to stay fit or at least have a few costly machines at home.

Not so.

Even if you have no exercise ideas of your own, the internet abounds in excellent exercise suggestions that require nothing more than willpower and a functional body to perform without any equipment whatsoever (see list at end of post).

So why are we constantly cluttering up our lives with all this unnecessary equipment and expense?

Perhaps we’re trying to convince ourselves that if we don’t have the equipment we can’t do the activity.

Perhaps we’re afraid that if there is no one to look at us, then we won’t exercise.

Ultimately, though, it’s between you and you.

The rest is just distraction.

All that equipment, all that clutter – it’s a hindrance rather than a help.

Keep it simple.

Do what you can.

Go slowly – you’ll quickly become disgusted if you overdo it.

Here are a few YouTube exercise channels that I particularly like:

Bowflex Workouts
Although this company makes fitness equipment, the workouts without any equipment at all are very interesting. The link I’ve given will take you to a series of standing abdo exercises that I’ve tried out myself, but the are plenty more videos like that. It’s a little macho with the man giving the orders and the girls doing all the work, but my goodness those girls are beautiful!

Tapp Brothers
These guys are into parkour but their exercise suggestions without equipment are really interesting and useful for anybody.

Flipping 50
Targeted at people over fifty, the lady presenter may be a little less flamboyant but her suggestions are good.

K’s Perfect Fitness
The girl has the obligatory stunning looks of a standard get fit channel, but she actually has some good exercise tips without equipment as well as with. The poor sound is a minor irritation (microphone on camera so no presence).

Very important – don’t get depressed if you don’t look like the presenters in these videos!

Hope that helps.

Have a great week.

Love

Richard

mesunglasses

Scandinavian Logic

We’ve just come back from a trip to Stockholm, Sweden.

While there, we coined a new term: Scandinavian logic.

It describes situations where a certain amount of information is given but not enough to be really useful.

Example: The parking at the hotel.

The lady at reception indicated that it was in a red building across the road, that the name of the hotel was marked and then she gave us a code to enter the car park.

We drive across the road.

It is dark, so all colours are relative.

There’s a brick building that seems to be a car park but no mention of the hotel.

We drive around for a bit and eventually come back to the building.

We enter the code in the command box which is accessible from the car.

Nothing happens.

I get out of the car and approach a man working on a lorry nearby. He informs us that there is another command box.

In fact, we discover that there are three in all. For two of them, including the hotel one, you have to get out of the car to punch the code in.

The name of the hotel was taped onto the command box, but not visible anywhere else outside.

A number of similar things happened to us during our stay, hence our coming up with the term.

The problem seems to be an incapacity to put one’s self in another person’s shoes.

People seem increasingly unable to think about anyone else but themselves.

And it’s not because everyone spends a huge portion of their day hunched over a mobile phone that communication is improving.

The opposite is true.

Communication is getting poorer and poorer with every new means of communication that we invent.

It’s important to reverse this trend.

Do not make assumptions.

The situation is not necessarily clear to the other person.

What you are saying is not necessarily clear to the other person either, even if it seems clear to you.

Try to imagine the situation from the other person’s point of view.

And try to use simple and succinct language.

In the example above, a few simple words of explanation could have avoided twenty wasted minutes of searching.

What can you do to improve your communication this week?

Have a great week!

Love

Richard

mesunglasses