10 steps of progress

Have I succeeded?


1 Luxuries are to be shared:
As VRBones indicated this can be a curse as well as a blessing. I filled up my afternoons with other things and haven been inviting people for dinner much lately. I do still keep tea ~$10, and now that I am living alone that meal may last me half a week.
Currently I have given up coffee for lent although I also haven’t been drinking it much on my lonesome, I’ve had to many average coffees of late and it doesn’t have the allure that it used to. I’ve run out of beer because I kept sharing it.
Over the last year I’m pretty sure I spent more on computer games for other people than I did for myself. Since I have been back from PNG I’ve hardly played with myself at all. The occasional game of LOL with Levi and then there is the Thursday Sojourn.


2 Plan things:
Plan to be unprepared has been working well for me. I’ve also kept a rolling to do list, although many of the things have been on it for a year. One day I’ll post my Christmas photos from SA.
My trip to PNG helped a bit with my plan for cryogenic freezing. Being able to type at a computer was useless, but knowing a few card games and how to make a deck of carts is a good thing. Even if you speak a foreign language you can still have fun with pater recognition.


3 Spent more efficiently:
May need to rework this if I continue to live on my lonesome, although I have been doing a good job of paying off my house ~$1000 a month still works. I’d like to spend $2000 on the fun of Kite surfing, also to maintain my physical fitness. But that is a bit of a hurdle at the moment.


4 Exercise Mentally:
I’m learning typing good, and spelling too. Partially my blog but also email letters to people. I have much more confidence in my written language skill, but I’ve had to sacrifice some polysyllabic words. Also I have been talking to foreigners a bit of late, one day I hope to speak two languages. Maybe if everything on the computer is in one language and then English for everything else?
Still have a few games that I haven’t mastered and LOL always seems to have more champions.


5 Exercise Physically:
Between dancing on Monday and Tuesday nights for an hour each I think I now know:
Moonlight Tango – backwards dance
Midnight Tango – backwards dance
Argentine Tango
Salsa – spaghetti with the hands
Samba – horsy dance, with the Frisbee fling
Catherine Waltz
Alpha Waltz – the backwards one
Jive –cuddle, stop&go, chug, American spin
Cha
Paso Doble – bullfighting conquistador
Quickstep
Foxtrot
Rhumba
Quick Step


Then there is the weekly bike ride to the beach for a swim and coffee. I don’t think riding to work counts as I do that nearly every day. Snorkelling may be another new cheaper thing to do at the beach, although there is not much to see.


6 Exercise Spiritually:
I’ve been somewhat consistent in reading the bible before work and sleep, partway through David at the moment. Also there is a weekly bible study for Lent that has homework, so I do that when I get home from work at my computer.
Query to follow up: Is my Spirit different to my Soul? This may also delve into community development theory and the LAN Psizomaijitsu. Nope, thats mostly my greek logic backgroud, and I'm suffering from preconception bias.



7 Exercise Emotionally:
Maybe this should be socially? Although watching the movie Red Dog defiantly counts as an emotional exercise. Visiting foreign countries are great for empathy and broadening your horizons. Also in November I went back to SA to visit rellies for the second time in 9 years. There is a new girl at church Beth and a new one at work Aurore that I have been getting to know. Haven’t been to Wednesday trivia for since before Christmas.


8 Recovery:
Recently got some wired skin irritation from PNG and cut my hands and feet up whilst snorkelling, both a learning experience. I also ate very little in PNG and got heatstroke.


9 Have Fun:
The fun thing at work has been learning Citect programming and being the first in the world to calibrate an NIR on liquid sugars. Also playing cards with Kristina, Levi and Nicole in PNG was good. Plus incorporating Technomancers Sojourn is not work or a hassle and we are still sticking too it so I think that must be fun too.
Sleeping is more fun when I wake up before my alarm, which means I’ve had enough sleep too.


0 Regret Nothing:
This is sort of turning into a “how can I be a better ben” thing. I can’t learn unless I first make mistakes to lean from and when I see the worth in my failure then it becomes priceless. It seems this is as much a subtle afterthought as having fun is…
This one here needs some word smithing, possibly a biblical reference too.


Progressive advancement:
Need more of all the above.
More sharing of luxuries, this is the ideal of communism. (the sort without corruption)
More Plan so that when I do not know what is going on I still know what to do and why I am.
More efficiency of worldly possessions means that I require less worldly possessions. These things need to be expended to acquire more of everything else.
More fit in the four areas of exercise. To be fit it to be able to do all the things that I want to do, I do not need to be an athlete to be fit.
More recovery so that when inconveniences occur the recovery is quicker and I have more practice at recovering from them. It’s the bumps along the highway of life that make it interesting.
More fun, is there such a thing as too much fun?
More adaption, Improvements can be made everywhere. What next can I do better than I did yesterday.
More more, I’ve forgotten what happened last week, so it needs to be done again and better this time. (reference Rock Lee from Naruto)

The progressive advancement of more fun through these activities is a good measurement of the current success rate of that which is the goal of being Ben and grabbing life with both hands and squeezing it for all it is worthwhile we all go for another trip around the sun.