1% of your day

15 minutes = 1% of your day.

What could you do for 15 minutes every single day for the next year that would have an immense impact on your life?

One percent. Can you dedicate one percent to that activity?

How about two percent? Three? Four?

30 minutes = 2% of your day.
45 minutes = 3% of your day.
1 hour = 4% of your day.

You probably spend 24-32% of each day sleeping.

What are you doing with that other 70%?

Ctrl Alt Del

In 1981, David Bradley was a computer programmer helping build some of the first personal computers. It was a slow and tedious process, often producing a glitch every few minutes that required a full reboot of the entire system. A full reboot meant wiping the computer memory and running a full set of memory tests, which took valuable time.

When you're creating something new and it's producing a glitch every few minutes, you're not going to get very far if trying again requires a long intermission. You need to fail fast and fail regularly so that you can learn quickly and continue improving.

David decided that he wasn't going to accept things the way they were. He was the programmer. He could create whatever he wanted. So he created a shortcut, a key combination that would reboot the system in such a way that the memory tests would be skipped: Ctrl + Alt + Del[ete].

Our life has a Ctrl Alt Del shortcut too. It's call choice.

Each moment is an opportunity to press Ctrl Alt Del, to reset our system. We don't need to go through all the trials and tribulations of the past. We can skip all of those and go straight to the current moment.

How do we press Ctrl Alt Del? By making a choice.

A choice to see something different.

A choice to act in a different way.

A choice to think differently.

A choice to make something better.

A choice to define our future.

A choice to be generous.

A choice to serve.

We are the programmer of our life. Instead of letting the existing programming run in a loop, day after day, year after year, until the system shuts down forever, we can choose to create something new, to change.

And whenever you come upon a glitch, just press Ctrl Alt Del, adjust the programming, and then keep going.

Flashpoint

When you die, the rest of the world won't go on merrily without you. It can't. It's too late. You existed and therefore it's going to go on changed in some way because of your presence, because you existed.

Who are you to have an opinion? Who are you to make yourself heard? Who are you to make bold claims or have big aspirations? Who are you decide what's right and what's wrong and what should be done about it? Who are you to decide?

Actually, who are you not to?

You exist, not did exist or will exist, but do exist, here, now, in this active moment of time, in this dynamic slice of spacetime, at this point where the pen makes contact with the paper of history, perched at the precipice of everything.

If not you, who? If not now, when? If not here, where? This is your flashpoint.

Perfect Record

You don't need to have a perfect record. You just need to show up more times than you don't. If you can't remember the last time you didn't show up, that's good enough.

Time erases imperfections when something greater outshines them.

Nobody has a perfect record of walking--we all slip and fall down at some point. Yet nobody thinks about that (unless it's you and you just slipped), because something greater--getting back up--outshines the act of falling down.

You don't need to have a perfect record. You just need to show up more times than you don't. And if you haven't shown up in awhile, that's okay too.

Imperfections in time are erased by consistency in movement towards perfection.

Nobody has a perfect record of brushing their teeth--we all miss a day at some point. Yet nobody thinks about that (unless it's you and your teeth are scuzzy), because something greater--brushing your teeth regularly--outshines the act of missing it.

An imperfect record becomes one that appears perfect when you consistently apply the act of choosing to work towards perfection. When and how are not important. All that matters is choosing to act.

Making 'Good' Choices

A tiny mountain of sand stood in my path, created by a community of ants who probably spent years of their life (days of mine) constructing a tunnel into the Earth. The thought of placing my foot down felt wrong and selfish.

I do a lot of thinking. I take every idle opportunity to think deeply and consider what I should or should not be doing.

When I'm walking around and looking down at the ground with a blank state of mind, I'm thinking about where I want to place my foot next, what spot makes the most sense.

The other day while I was walking to the train station, I approached a puddle in the road and found two doves sipping from the waters' edge. They began scuttling away as soon as I approached, keeping an equal distance from me with each step I took forward.

Doves have always struck me as an odd creature, more relaxed, as if they love not flying, as if they'd rather not be bothered to needlessly expend energy if they can avoid doing so.

It was then that I realized I had a choice: I could walk to the right of the puddle (closer to the doves) and they would surely feel outpaced and take flight, or I could walk to the left and they would remain on the ground, at ease with my distance.

So which way should I go, left or right?

In the end, either choice would take me to exactly the same place on the other side of the puddle, but it was obvious to me that one of those two choices would have would have a drastically different effect on the world around me.

If I felt a sense of entitlement--if I felt that my being born as a human gave me some inalienable right over all other life--then I might not care which direction I stepped; I'd feel entitled to do whatever I wanted.

But the simplistic notion that all life resides somewhere on a food chain, and that anything below your spot on the food chain is somehow worthy of less respect, is ignorant to say the least.

Life is more than a hierarchical order of things.

Carrying the Best Intentions

My friend Niall Doherty--not to pick on him, but because he recently wrote something that helped me learn more about myself--quit being vegan after two years of sticking with it, siting serious doubts around the three arguments that initially led him to the vegan lifestyle.

Reading through his doubts I quickly realized why I've always found myself drawn to veganism: it's not about the effect my diet has on the environment, or about avoiding any needless killing, or even about taking care of my own health.

For me, those things are just practical and logical bonuses on top of the real reason that I gravitate towards veganism.

It's the same reason why, when given a choice, I avoid stepping on an ant or scaring away the doves: my actions, no matter how trivial they may seem, affect the world around me and, as the one responsible for my actions, I have a duty to ensure that my actions carry the best intentions.

How many people do you know who wouldn't tense up or put their foot over the brake when a squirrel or any other small animal runs in front of their moving vehicle? A small animal poses absolutely no threat to the person inside the vehicle, and yet we risk danger to ourselves by slamming on the brakes or swerving on the road.

When our subconscious is presented with a choice between life and death we instinctively choose the action that preserves life, because non-violence is an integral part of human nature.

While all life has meaning, purpose, and value, a human existence grants me something unique to the animal kingdom: the ability to make conscious choices based on rational and empathetic thinking.

Because I'm human, I can choose left or right based on conscious thought.

Because I'm human, I can look at the world around me and ask myself how my small, seemingly insignificant actions today will affect the bigger picture tomorrow.

I'm able to think about how my actions are going to affect not only me, but how they're going to affect everything around me, and not just for today or tomorrow but for generations to come.

No other species on this planet can make such conscious and globally empathetic decisions. No other species can consciously recognize that its actions may be copied by others and therefore amplified to create change on a greater scale.

Setting a 'good' example that I would want others to follow is important to me, but so is feeling good about the choices that I make. Making choices that I'd want others to follow, it just so happens, usually leads to choices that make me feel good too.

I doubt that anyone saw my instantaneous decision to walk left around the puddle, but it felt good, just like stepping over the mountain of sand and choosing to eat plants instead of animals.

Perhaps I think this way because of an innate understanding that what affects everyone and everything around me eventually ends up affecting me too.

Globally Conscious Personal Choices

Earth is an ecosystem, a community of life, and we're all born with an innate understanding that what affects the community eventually affects us too.

Good choices, then, are those that are not only good for us, but also good for the community.

For most of human history, our community has consisted of a few hundred people, or a few thousand at most. Today we're living in a global community of more than 7 billion people, a community where what we buy, what we eat, and what we choose to do with our time has a measurable affect on all corners of the globe.

It's not enough to just think globally. We must also live globally and that means making globally conscious personal choices, choices that are made while being conscious and informed of how those choices will affect everyone else.

If everyone on the planet copied your personal choices would that be good or bad for the global community?

The best tool for the job

While attempting to find a purpose for my photography, I began looking for patterns in the things that I took photos of. I asked myself, "why did I want to capture this?" After several weeks of doing this, the only all-encompassing thing I found was beauty.

When I see something that I moves me--be it an interesting bug on the ground or the way the sun reflects off the bottom of low-hanging clouds during a sunset--it's always beauty that triggers something within me to take action.

But if it's beauty that turns on the photographer in me, why is there a photographer in me in the first place? Why take a photo of something that I find beautiful? Why not just enjoy it for myself?

I think the answer to that is sharing.

I have an innate desire to share things that move me, be it an interesting idea, a thought, or a beautiful flower. When it comes to thoughts and ideas, writing is my capture tool of choice. When it comes to visual experiences, a camera is usually my capture tool of choice.

But why should I have separate tools for capture? Why not just use writing to capture all experiences and describe in vivid detail what I have witnessed?

I think it's because I'm always seeking to use the best tool for the job.

Sometimes writing is the best tool and sometimes it's a camera. When I hear a dozen birds chirping in a tree and I want to capture that, I don't start writing down in a notebook or hauling out an expensive video camera. I use the mic on my iPhone to make an audio recording and share it via SoundCloud 1.

The best tool to share the thoughts that I'm sharing here right now would not be a camera or an audio recorder, so that's not what I use. (The exception would be an audio recording of this text for readers with a hearing impairment.)

I wonder why I do this, why I'm always seeking to use the best tool for job.

Emerson wasn't able to take out his iPhone and capture things that caught his attention. Some may argue this was good and that modern technology ruining us, that things were better off back then. I disagree. Technology may certainly be changing what once was, but what's wrong with that?

Perhaps the reason I'm always seeking the best tool for the job is that I embrace the fact that technology changes what it means to interact with reality, that what's always been the best tool for the job might not be the best tool today.

We need to experiment, adapt, and evolve like never before. We need to do these things not so that we can keep up, but rather so that we can slow down, so that we can embrace now instead of holding onto the past.

We're living in a time of extreme technological evolution. 'Now' is constantly changing. If we want to remain present we need to be constantly changing. We need to be dynamic.

As you go throughout your day, ask yourself: "Is this the best tool for the job?"