Confidently Single

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I find that the majority of people take life much too seriously. They are always obsessing over one thing or another be it, their lack of luck, love, money, success, appearance, etc. They become so disillusioned with what they cannot attain, that it impairs with their overall satisfaction in life. I have learned that you can have it all; you just cannot have it all at once. I am fine with that and count whatever it is that I have going for me at the time as a blessing. When you break life down into smaller increments of time, you take advantage of the moment you are in and you give it your full attention.

If you get too wrapped up in the details of unnecessary things, you start to lose sense of the bigger picture. Once you achieve a goal, it may not even give you as much as happiness as you initially thought it would and you find yourself still unhappy. Some of us turn to instant gratification to eliminate this potential but the manner of which we try to obtain this can also be a source of our misery. These temporary solutions may cheer you up but this feeling will most likely be short lived. A simple life is a life lived simply. It is one that is fulfilled within your means and realistic expectations. No one said you can’t dream, in fact day dreaming is essential to relaxing your mental muscles and allowing creativity to flow.

 Don’t beat yourself up about the small stuff. Don’t focus on your flaws. Make time to do the things that make you feel alive, that bring out your confidence and make you smile. Surround yourself with people who do the same. Focus on the quality of your life and not the quantity of material things that distract you from your real purpose. Maybe you already have all that you need and didn’t even know it.

Starts: June 26, 2010 09:30 AM
Cost: Free

Members of the Toronto Bicycling Network lead a casual bike ride starting at the foot of Coxwell and Lakeshore Saturday Mornings at 9:30 am.

Address:
Meet at Coxwell and Lakeshore

www.tbn.ca

email: info@tbn.ca

Toronto Downtown Jazz Society 

June 25, 2010 to July 4, 2010

Late June signals not only the start of summer, but also the arrival of the TD Toronto Jazz Festival as it takes over the city for 10 incredible days. Local clubs, restaurants, venues and even a church or two will be playing host, creating a Festival network that includes over 40 participating stages all over the city. Now, that is a lot of jazz!

http://torontojazz.com/

Starts: May 22, 2010 11:00 AM

Ends: May 24, 2010 05:00 PM

Cost: Free

IT’S FREE!

Eye-popping acrobatics, side-splitting comedy and mind-bending daredevil stunts! World-class acrobats, fire-eaters, stilt walkers, balloon sculptors and so much more!

Address:
Harbourfront Centre
235 Queens Quay West Toronto

Map to this event

www.torontocircusfestival.com

photo courtesy of bigstockphoto

He is your best friend but then there is your boyfriend. Quite a common conundrum many women face today. The opposite is true as well. For men, it is not uncommon to have a woman for a best friend however, quite often, once there is a girlfriend in the picture; men tend to severe ties with close female relationships. Why? Because girlfriend or not, men tend to have a more difficult time being around a woman without picturing them in a more intimate way.
Women, on the other hand, think they have their hormones in check and can keep the relationship platonic. Some however, take advantage of the fact that their male friend might just be into them and while the woman has no inclination to pursue these feelings, she will give off a sense of false hope in order to sustain the friendship. Can men and women really just be friends? I think this only works if the boundaries are established early on. You can’t lead a guy on, then turn a cold shoulder and not expect him to be puzzled or even pissed off at your behaviour. Men may value your personality, your brains or whatever it is that you got going for you but rest assured, he is also valuing your other “assets”.
Boundaries mean knowing when and where to draw the line, especially if you or he is involved with someone else. Flirting is natural but if you find yourself waking up in your best friend’s bed, you are not only fooling yourself but you are being unfair to your friend and your partner back home. If you have found yourself in this situation, you need to assess your relationship with your partner. What causes you to be so emotionally or intimately attached to your friend? Perhaps you are not with the right person but know that your best friend is always there for you. It can feel pretty comforting to have your cake and eat it too. But if you are not completely heartless, and I doubt you are then try to get your emotions in check and put the two relationships in perspective. Determine which relationship means more to you. What are you willing to lose?
It does not always have to be all or nothing but take into consideration that there are other people’s feelings involved. If you cannot stand to decide between the two, make sure you have your priorities right. Depending on how committed your relationship is to your beloved, as their partner, you owe them your outmost attention and support. Friends should not be secondary but if you are ditching your partner frequently to be by your best friend’s side at the drop off a hat, then pay attention to who you are more emotionally invested in. This is always a shady area and can cause a lot of arguments between partners. As long as you know where your heart is at and where your head is at, you can avoid disaster.

It used to be that coming of age and being successful meant being happily married, with 2.5 kids, a dog and a home with a white picket fence. I wouldn’t say this ideal doesn’t exist today, if anything I would state that it is a gross exaggeration of the aforementioned. This in turn, stems from the need to fit the ideal. It used to be that if a woman was not married by 30, there was something wrong with her and she was already labeled an “old maid”. There is no doubt that women today are waiting longer than ever to settle down. Their biological clocks have not changed but with advances in medicine, there are more options for women to plan pregnancy later on in life. Women seem to be enjoying single life, dating multiple partners, advancing their careers, traveling and investing in themselves. They are allowing themselves more time to figure “things out”. When they are ready to settle down, they have a good idea of what they want in a partnership as well as in life.

On the other hand, there is a mass bombardment of the “big day” and all of the craziness (not to mention expenses!) that come with it. Men still seem to be a few steps behind their brides when it comes to walking down the aisle although more men are becoming more involved in the planning process. It appears that men are still more apt to date several women before finding wife material. However, men are more likely to get more satisfaction out of being in a marriage. This is primarily due to the fact that even though women have moved forward in the corporate world, in the domestic world, women usually have a lot more on their plates than their counterpart. Fortunately, men are actively participating more when it comes to running the household. This leads to a more effective and satisfying marriage for a couple.

Times have certainly changed. Gone are the days when a husband’s income was enough to sustain the entire family and the wife was able to stay home, look after the kids, keep the house immaculate and cook all the meals. There is some backlash to our progressive thinking. Women may have more choices and life satisfaction but house holds are definitely more of mission to run smoothly. Children do not get as much attention as they used to and spend more time entertaining themselves by playing video games and watching too much television. They are eating out more-which indicates the growing amount of children that are obese. They are turning to celebrities as role models. Girls are becoming anorexic, having plastic surgery and developing low self-esteem at a younger age.

It is the price paid for more choice, fluctuations in the economy and changes in family dynamic. Forget the white picket fence image that I painted earlier. Today, families come in every shape, size and form. There may be less pressure to fit one type of ideal as the pressure has shifted elsewhere-to support the family financially. It is always beneficial to follow the path that best fits where you are at in life before jumping in with both feet. Don’t allow yourself to feel pressured to compete with your peers. Better to ask yourself how much you really want something before committing to it.

Everyone needs a change from their workout. If you continue to follow a workout without any change, it can place you in a plateau that can be difficult to break out of. Aside from that, it can hinder your results and make your workouts tedious. Plateaus occur in training due to a phenomenon known as homeostasis. The theory known as the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), details exactly how the body responds to stress. Lifting weights and performing cardio are two examples of activities that create “stress.

The first stage of GAS is Alarm Reaction. The body immediately reacts to a change in stress. This is why so many trainees gain extremely well as beginners because the body has never been subject to training before- muscle growth is induced and strength increases rapidly in response to the adaptations.

The second stage of GAS is the Stage of Resistance. During this stage, the body begins to adapt to the stress being induced externally, i.e. weight lifting. This phase does not occur rapidly, but over an extended period of time. Beginners can see gains for up to a year without the body completely adapting. However, after the beginner phase is over, better care must be taken to continually change workout programs throughout a training year. Nutrition and training combined fight against the body’s constant adaptations.

The third and last stage of GAS is the Stage of Exhaustion in which the body is no longer able to resist the stress. This is how overtraining occurs. However, to prevent overtraining, a rest or recovery week in which volume is reduced should be used. This varies upon prior training experience – for beginners, a rest/recovery week should be used once every 10-12 weeks; for intermediates, once every 6-8 weeks; and for advanced trainees, once every 3-4 weeks.

Changing sets and reps prevents plateaus when it comes to weight training programs. It is also important to prevent adaptation so that different goals are met. If muscle growth is the desired result, then routines with exercises in the 1-3 rep range are definitely not the best. However, if you are always performing 3 Sets x 8-12 Reps for each muscle group and you have reached a plateau, try doing 10 Sets x 3 Reps. You can also modify your intensity levels, duration of the workout as well as the frequency of the workouts.

Finally, nutrition is a factor that many people forget about when it comes to plateaus. It is critical that your training be based around your diet. Therefore, your caloric surplus or reduction will correspond with higher-volume training and your caloric deficit will correspond with more cardio and lower-volume training.

This is the single most important issue when it comes to making consistent gains and avoiding plateaus. Simply put, there is no way that you will see conditioning results if you eat too little; in the same way that it is impossible to lose fat with a large caloric surplus. Simple in theory yet, many people do not make the correct combinations and cannot see consistent gains.

Every time you reach a plateau it is not necessary or even advisable to perform a completely new routine from scratch. Instead of making complete changes because you are not making progress, adjust certain variables such as those listed above and determine whether that helps you break out of plateau or not.

Photo Courtesy of stylehive

Maybe you like to live life on the edge. Not really thinking about tomorrow. Not looking back on yesterday. Living by your own rules. While this notion is liberating, unfortunately it has its drawbacks, especially if you are finding life to be frustrating. When you choose to live in the fast lane, it can become reckless and before you know it, things start to spiral out of control. Think about the effects of natural disasters-there is a lot to restore and clean up in the aftermath. All too often, I see walking natural disasters and people ask me, “how do I fix this mess?!”

The first and most important thing is to recognize the hazard(s):

• Are you a shopaholic?
• Are you afraid to commit to anything?
• To you live beyond your means?
• Do you overeat/not eat enough?
• Do you have any addictions?
• Do you have casual sex?
• Are you constantly unsatisfied with your job?
• Do you have bad relationships?
• Do you have insomnia?

And the list goes on. Everyone has a predisposed set of vices. They give us character and can be deemed as “bad habits”. It is when these habits consume us that we have lost self control and this is when things can take a wrong turn. Think about the times in your life when you may have lost control of a situation. How did it make you feel? What actions did you take? Are you happy with the outcome? If you ask those questions to several situations and discover the same outcome, you are repeating a pattern.

Humans are creatures of habit. Whether you like to admit to or not, your life revolves around a certain routine. We all have a predictable routine that we follow day in and day out. But life likes to throw us off course and how you respond determines the outcome. Until we realize these habits or responses, we tend to repeat the same patterns over and over. Until you wake up and realize it, not much will change in your life and the choices that you make. As an example, maybe you are finding that you cannot stay in a committed relationship-ask yourself why? It isn’t always the fault of the other person. If you are constantly changing jobs and still remain unhappy- maybe you are not in a profession best suited to your personality and skills. If you are having frequent, casual sex-maybe you are seeking self gratification and emotional reassurance to fill another void in your life.

Another thing is to master “damage control”. Rather than have your crisis snowball into something worse, realize you have more in control over your life than you realize. If you find yourself saying “that is not true”, don’t go around pointing your finger unless it is pointing at yourself.  As the saying goes: “You made your bed, now lie in it.” Whatever situati0n you are in at this very point time, is a result of the choices you have made and the people you chose to have around you. If you are surrounded by negativity and people that have a bad influence, guess what? You will only attract more of that into your life. Before I start sounding like “The Secret”, there is some truth behind the law of attraction and I can attest to that myself.

If the spiritual realm is not for you, the easiest thing to remember is simple: practice self awareness. Be conscientious of what you say and what you do. Pay attention to how people respond to you. Assess your current situation: are you happy? Would you change anything and what would it be? Secondly, be realistic. Start setting some goals and plan out the steps that will help you attain them. Surround yourself by people that are supportive and encourage your personal growth. Finally, don’t dwell upon your past mistakes. If you keep repeating the same mistakes constantly, than you are not learning and not aware of your choices. Life is not meant to be as  difficult as we make it out to be.

“Before you speak, listen.
Before you write, think.
Before you spend, earn.
Before you criticize, wait.
Before you quit, try.”