Commit to the Cycle

Our world is made up of cycles.

We breathe in oxygen, we breathe out carbon dioxide. We pump blood from our hearts to the far reaches of our bodies, and back again. The sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening. The Earth spins on its axis. The Earth travels around the sun.

All these cycles repeat.

Then there are other cycles. Cycles of improvement.

Want to improve your health? Exercising once won’t do. You have to repeat the cycle. Exercise every day.

Want to become a better writer? Write every day.

To improve your French, to improve your cooking, to improve your public speaking skills, to improve anything…

Find the cycle. Repeat it. Commit to it.

by Colin Brosnan

“I have traveled far, and I have observed that poor people usually have more wit and more virtue than rich ones.” He smiled at that. “You are kind. But our people have so much wit and virtue now that they may die. We have never possessed great numbers, and many perished in the winter just past, when much water froze.”

– from Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of ‘The Book of the New Sun’ by Gene Wolfe

by Colin Brosnan

Routine

What’s your routine? Is it good or bad?

Routine hugs us in a comforting embrace. Warm and safe. When it’s a bad routine it only seems safe. It’s not. A bad routine keeps you from achieving, from doing, from being. It allows you to sit watching TV for four hours every night. It allows you to spend time with your phone rather than with those around you. Skip exercise. Skip creating. Skip making.

If you’re anything like me, your routine could be better. A lot better.

Break the routine. Build a new one, but better.

by Colin Brosnan

URLs Are Forever LOL

“URLs are forever”. My arse they are.

Since sometime in 2006 I’ve collected links using one web service or another. First it was Delicious and later when Delicious started mucking with their site I moved everything to Diigo. Now I have a library of over 20,000 links there. Oh, and I also use Pocket. Mmmm… nerdy.

Besides being a record of my past procrastination these links are meant to help me find stuff I’ve read or half read in the past. Stuff I think will be useful to me again in the future. Links to webpages about all sorts of stuff. Science, design, web design, marketing, business, management, leadership, inspiration, writing, productivity, book, movies. Those are just some of the tags I’ve used.

Another tag I’ve used is quotes. Find a quote from someone and save the link for future use. Except that’s not what happened. Recently I went through a bunch of those links and found that in many cases the URL no longer lead to the content I wanted. Instead it brought me to a dead page, “404 not found”, or otherwise. Saving those webpages didn’t do any good. Those quotes, whatever they were, are gone. I can’t use those links as a resource for the quotes I post on this blog on weekends.

The idea that URLs are forever just isn’t true. It is an ideal we wish website creators followed. The real web isn’t always built to the standards we wish it was.

URLs are for a while at best.

by Colin Brosnan

Untwisted Twist

This morning I came across a link, “15 Books to Read if You Love a Shocking Plot Twist”.

I didn’t click. I couldn’t. It’s a self defeating headline. If I read the list then those fifteen books are ruined for me. The twist becomes untwisted. It’s a non-spoiler-spoiler.

It’s the same problem when someone tells you a movie has a great twist. Well, thanks, you’ve ruined it. You didn’t tell me the secret but you told me enough that I’ll be watching or reading in such a way that I’m keeping an eye out for the twist. So I’m not immersed in the story. I’m viewing the story at a remove.

Knowing there’s a twist takes away the surprise and with it half the pleasure of the story.

Just recommend the book or movie to me. Say nothing about a twist. Tell me you think I’ll enjoy it. Do that I probably will. And after I’ve read or watched I’ll thank you for the recommendation. Not curse you.

by Colin Brosnan

Female Heroes

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, the first woman in space. Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Countess Markievicz, a revolutionary in the Irish Easter Rising of 1916. Rosa Parks, an American civil rights activist. Wangari Maathai, Kenyan born environmentalist, pro-democracy activist and women’s rights campaigner. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books. Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani schoolgirl who defied the Taliban to campaign for the right to education. These are just a few of the extraordinary women we count as heroes.

There are female heroes closer to us than perhaps we realise. They are our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our friends, our girlfriends, our wives. Perhaps we are too close to see clearly. Take a step back. Give yourself the space to see. A hero is someone we admire for their outstanding achievements, noble qualities, or courage.

I count my wife, Christina, as one of my heroes. Her achievements are inspiring. She launched Brosnan Photographic almost ten years ago. Last year she published her wedding advice book ‘Ever Yours’. She continues to strive for new achievements, recently launching Lux Curated and starting a YouTube channel. Hardworking, dedicated, creative, kind, and unfailingly helpful to others are just some of her noble qualities. She shows courage often, particularly when she puts herself in situations outside her comfort zone, such as launching Lux Curated.

All that I have mentioned is just one aspect of my wife. They relate to the her work side. I have not even touched on her qualities as a wife and friend. How could I not be inspired by her?

Today, on International Women’s Day, look again at the women in your life. Recognise them for the heroes they are.

by Colin Brosnan

Ideas Are Easy

Ideas are easy. They are. No, really they are.

It seems like a boast but it’s not. Ideas ARE easy. Pick up a pen and paper and write down ten articles you could write. Or ten ways you could improve the world.

Ideas are easy but they have no value. None.

I have a list of ideas for projects. I’ve been adding to the list for years. There’s a lot of good stuff on the list. Not one of those ideas has any value.

What good is any idea on that list to anyone unless it is made real? It is only when an idea is executed that it has value.

The ten articles you could write have no value unless you write them. And even then, how well you executed the act of writing those articles will increase or decrease their value. The more well executed the higher the value. Better executed is more difficult to achieve.

There is a matter of scale between the execution of writing ten articles and improving the world in ten ways. The scale of difficulty in execution increases too.

Ideas are easy. It’s execution that’s hard.

by Colin Brosnan