Living a life of your own standards
So, today is my birthday. I'm 25 now. In one way you could say that I have 40 "productive" years left before retirement. 40 years to work, save money for pension and dream about the things I want to do when I finally get free, and have both the time and the money. I think that's a load of crap.
Me and Fred enjoying beers after a 10km Great Wall hike.
I don't really believe in retirement as an institution. Most people are happy to sit quietly on the ride that has been decided for them. They accept that the only way to live their lives is the norm of the society, which goes something like birth-childhood-studies-work-retirement-death. But who said that this is the way it should go?
If I remember correctly, the modern pension systems were born after industrial revolution to ensure that factory workers can support themselves after they become too old to continue working. This, first of all, means that the pension institution is relatively young, and the birth-childhood-studies-work-retirement-death pattern is not a norm in the history of humanity. However, I don't see people challenging it. I don't see people trying to improve it or rethink what would be a better way to celebrate human existence and to enjoy the limited time we can spend on this planet.
It's almost as if after you've spent your whole life making money for others, that you're allowed to enjoy the fruits of your labor and truly focus on your own interests and passions. How can it be, that the society expects this from you, and if you want to break the pattern and actually pursue your dreams younger, you will be frowned upon, thought as an eccentric or in worst case purely crazy.
As for me, I want to break the pattern. I need to do it. I don't know how, but figuring out ways to escape the 9-to-5 is on the back of my head constantly. It is one of the main motivators for me to go and study entrepreneurship in Helsinki School of Economics this fall. And by escaping the 9-to-5 I don't mean creating a life that would allow me to lie on the beach drinking margaritas until I grow old. That would become boring quickly. No, I mean getting control of my own life and doing the things I enjoy doing. If I could work on something related to e.g. photography and image manipulation - or snowboarding or motorcycles - I don't think I would even want to "retire," because that is something I already enjoy doing for free. The whole concept of retirement loses its value if you can figure out how to live your dream.
When retirement is not seen as freedom waiting at the end of a long narrow tunnel, you can start to think of ways to have the experiences you desire earlier in your life. Tim Ferriss talks about the concept of mini-retirement, which basically means taking an extended time such as few months or a year off-work to do whatever it is you want to do; travel the world, build a house, drive a motorcycle from Europe to Asia etc. Now, wouldn't it also be more enjoyable to have these experiences while you're still physically in good shape, instead of when you are over 65 and even playing checkers can make your heart pound in excitement.
So, what are your plans for life? Have you ever even thought that you don't have to live the life of birth-childhood-studies-work-retirement-death? It is just a pattern that has been very strongly imprinted on you by parents, teachers and society, but in no way can it be proclaimed as the "right" way to live a life.
Remember everything by understanding how memory works
This technique is something I discovered while reading the brilliant book Tricks of the Mind by Derren Brown, who is probably the best illusionist on the planet. The whole memory trick is so juicy that I can't resist passing it forward.
What makes something memorable?
Have you ever considered why we remember certain events from childhood with amazing detail, but are having trouble to recall the faces we met at bus stop in the morning, or the taste of last night's dinner? Apparently, the brain is more apt to remember unusual and vivid images instead of things that are bland and ordinary. This can be further reinforced by having an emotional reaction to the image. I think the easiest way to demonstrate what I really mean by this is to try the linking system as explained by Brown. Below is a list of words. Take a minute and see if you can memorize them in the correct order:
cat
potato
painting
forest
baseball
cow
pencil
spaghetti
book
coffee
television
carpet
piano
canoe
cable
Easy? I think not. And what if you leave the list for 30 minutes. Would you still remember it? I don't think so.
So, how do you then memorize this list in the correct order with much less effort? The answer is using unusual and vivid images, linking them to each other and - if need be - further emphasizing the memory of the image by considering your own reaction and feelings to what you see or experience. To understand what I mean, just read through the below descriptions of images that I created in order to remember the items on the list:
Cat/potato - An orange cat (imagine Garfield) is balancing on a brown potato, trying to get it rolling to move forward. The cat has big round eyes and makes me want to pet her.
Potato/painting - I see a painting on the wall, with frames made out of round potatoes. The potatoes are starting to rot and the smell is making me nauseated.
Painting/forest - I am walking in a Lord of the Rings style elven forest with soothing dim blue illumination and paintings of different sizes hanging from the branches.
Forest/baseball - There is a perfectly round clearing in the middle of a forest where different animals of the forest are playing baseball. The sky is downcast but I still feel an urge to join the game.
Baseball/cow - A baseball player is hitting the ball, and as soon as it's speeding away he jumps on a cow and rides to the first base. I find the whole "bovine baseball" game amusing.
Cow/pencil - I am checking for pencils in a local office supply store, when a cow walks casually to me and asks which one I'd recommend.
Pencil/spaghetti - I am preparing dinner at home - spaghetti bolognese - but find out that I'm out of pasta. It seems perfectly ok to take a box of wooden pencils instead and pour them to the boiling water on the kettle.
Spaghetti/book - There is a book on my living room table with a string of spaghetti as a bookmark. I open the book and eat the spaghetti. Tastes like ink, paper and dust.
Book/coffee - I reach out for a book on the table, but find all pages wet and brown. They make my fingers feel wet too and when I open the book an aroma of coffee hits my nostrils. I feel a little angry that someone has poured a cup of coffee on my book.
Coffee/television - I am drinking a cup of coffee and hear a faint noise from the bottom of the coffee mug as I am taking the last sips. There is a small TV screen on the bottom of the mug with a sitcom on.
Television/carpet - I enter a strange room and feel disoriented; looking down I see flat TV screens on the floor, whereas on the walls there are carpets hanging.
Carpet/piano - I need to move a heavy piano but it seems impossible and I am getting a little frustrated. I am trying to get a carpet under it so I could then move it easier.
Piano/canoe - I have managed to get the Piano downstairs and to the river. Now I am trying to get it to a canoe that seems too small for it. The canoe is also constantly moving in the surf.
Canoe/cable - I am sitting on a canoe but without a paddle. Instead, I am pulling on a cable that hangs in the air between opposing shores. I am about midway through but pulling is hurting my hands and they are starting to turn red from blood.
Try seeing the images clearly in your mind with vivid colors and notice your own reaction to what you are seeing. You can use the images I created or create your own. Go through the list of words just once or twice using this method and see if you can remember them (you can test this by taking a blank piece of paper and writing down the list from memory). How about trying to remember them few hours or few days later? I find myself remembering lists created with this method still few weeks after first memorizing them.
Are you beginning to see how useful this memory trick can be for storing shopping lists in your mind? There are drawbacks, though. First of all, you have to use some other method to remember the first word on the list, as from that word all the other words can be remembered using the links you created. And what if you forget some link in the middle? Maybe the image you created was not vivid enough or you did not see it in enough detail to create a memory imprint. Now all the words following the missing link are potentially lost as well.
Don't worry. There is an even better memory trick. This was just a warm-up to familiarize you with the basic concepts of creating vivid images and associating them with other objects.
A mental route
This trick is known as the loci system. Instead of linking the things that need to be remembered to each other, you will link them to a specific location along a path that is stored in your memory. This is the actual method I use to remember what to get from grocery without having to write anything down. Basically the loci system means linking vivid images to specific places along a familiar real-life route. The locations are fixed along the route and should not be changed. Different images represent the things that need to be remembered.
Let me further clarify by using my actual shopping list loci as an example. I take these steps pretty much every time I go to the grocery, so they are natural for me to use (even when I actually take another route, such as go to the grocery straight from work, I can still easily recall this one). I underlined the actual words that serve as locations, but provided also the context so you better understand how this route works for me:
Grab keys and wallet from computer table
Grab bag from shelf
Put shoes on in the hall
Go to the elevator
Get out from the front door of the building
Open the metal gate leading to the street
Pass a big yellow mailbox
Go over the bridge towards shopping mall
Pass the kebab restaurant
Go up a small flight of stairs
Go to the entrance of the shopping mall
Take an escalator down to the grocery
As I live alone and like to have fresh food as often as possible, I rarely need to remember more than 10 different items. To see how loci system works, let's attach my shopping list to the above locations in a similar way words were linked to each other earlier:
Computer table - What the hell! Someone has poured milk on my table! It's on the keyboard and dripping to the floor. I feel my socks getting wet.
Shelf - I am about to grab my bag when I accidentally step on a tomato on the floor. Just great... Now I have to clean this up!
Hall - I am putting on my shoes when I realize they're made of ham! It smells a bit and I'm having hard time with the shoelaces since my hands are getting greasy and slippery.
Elevator - Some punk has written "Heinz" on the elevator wall using ketchup.
Front door - There are colored eggs in neat rows marking the way from elevator to the front door.
Metal gate - When I am opening the gate I see a herd of cows running past on the street.
Mailbox - The mailbox is made of cheese and I can see letters inside through the holes in it.
Bridge - Looking down from the bridge I see a whole road covered with bags of frozen vegetables.
Restaurant - The whole front of the restaurant is covered with hundreds of stacked yogurt cans.
and so on...
In my opinion there is no need to be specific with the mental images. It is enough that you understand the proper association from the image that you created. For example, I am not going to buy a herd of cows in the grocery, but instead when I recall the image I immediately associate it with meatloaf.
Unlike with linking words to each other, with this system you are not stuck even if you forget an image along the route. You can always just skip that loci and move to the next one.
This same method can be used to remember tasks, to-do lists and so on. You just need to create a mental image of a familiar route with static locations, associate that specific route with something such as "things to do today", and then attach images to the locations on that path. The really fun part starts when you create multiple routes - or what can also be called a memory palace. For example, each room in your house could be its own path with multiple locations. Just make sure that the locations are distinct and you always go through them in a fixed order. This way they become familiar quickly as you walk along the route in your mind a few times.
You can also create an imaginary "hub" with multiple doors, each of which leads to some familiar route with its own loci (e.g. childhood home, workplace, a friend's house, favorite park etc.). It is also possible to create completely imaginary loci, such as the insides of an alien spaceship or ancient tomb. However, I do not consider it worth the extra effort, since real life routes and locations are already imprinted in your mind and can be used just as effectively.
Try this out, have fun with it and let me know what you think. It might take a bit of getting used to at first, but soon you'll notice yourself speeding through the routes and creating mental images with ease. With e.g. shopping lists it becomes very easy and quick as you are likely to buy certain items over and over again, so you will find yourself reusing images created earlier and just placing them on the different locations along a route.
Bare feet, happy feet
Couple months ago, I stumbled upon some articles arguing that expensive running shoes are actually not good for you. Now, what interests me in this topic is, that I have been running actively since I was 14 years old. However, some time around my 18th birthday I strained my knees during one run. It started at first with a slow pain on both sides of the kneecaps (I can't remember anymore which leg), and then started to get more intense and spread around. I tried to keep running back home, but the pain became so severe I just couldn't anymore. In retrospect, I would have been much better of if I had just stopped running at the point when the pain started to emerge and walked back home.
For the following week I was barely able to walk. My knee had become so stiff that bending the leg was a chore on itself. As time went by I started to slowly gain back mobility, but ever since I have not been able to do any long distance running. My knees are simply way too unpredictable; sometimes they start hurting after 20 minutes, whereas sometimes I can go for an hour or so without any signs of pain.
The first article made a case in point, that expensive running shoes are actually worse for you and cause more injuries than cheap alternatives with less cushion. With overly cushioned running shoes many of the feet muscles do not develop normally as you gain strength and endurance, and when you increase the distance or intensity of your runs this becomes a problem.
Human beings have naturally evolved to run without shoes, and apparently we have the physiology to become extremely capable long-distance endurance runners. Some anthropologists even argue, that persistence hunting used to be the main way prehistoric humans to hunt. This means basically running the animal to its death. Human beings are very efficient in dispersing heat from our bodies (that's why we sweat so much), unlike animals such as antelopes or kudus, allowing us to keep running long distances even in midday heat. Even though the prey can outrun a human in short bursts, in longer time period it will simply overheat and collapse. Pretty cool, huh?
Literally within couple weeks of reading the first article about the woes of modern running shoes, I stumbled on another one regarding barefoot running. There is a strong argument for the benefits of ditching shoes altogether - at least for some runs and walks - and getting back to the natural way of running. The article also introduced me to a product called Vibram FiveFingers, which in essence is a shoe with thin rubber bottom that follows the natural curves of your feet and has all toes separated in their own "pockets", making it possible to enjoy the barefoot running experience without having to worry about glass or sharp rocks.
Usually these things arrive to Finland a lot later than elsewhere in the civilized world, but I was so excited about the goofy shoes that I told about them to some colleagues at a lunch table discussion at work. To my surprise, one of them had seen the kind of shoes in one of the department stores in Helsinki. Few days later I walked home proud wearing my own pair of Vibrams.
I have now been wearing these shoes for a bit over a month; starting with just walking around the town in order to get my feet and those atrophied muscles used to the different step and feeling. I then slowly proceeded to go for actual runs, and I have to say that the feeling you get when running with these shoes is incredibly liberating! Unfortunately though, the shoes have not yet been able to provide any noticeable aid to my knee problems. I am nowadays doing only short-distance high-intensity interval runs as my knees seem to be able to handle those better than long-distance endurance running.
Already after the first run it was clear that Vibrams have a different effect on your muscles compared to normal running shoes. In my case I could really feel how the calf muscles and toes were working harder. Running itself was good, but unlike with regular shoes, I could really feel on my muscles that I had a run the day before! After the first 2-3 weeks of running with Vibrams I also started noticing, that when I went running with normal shoes, my speed and strength had significantly improved.
No matter how good the Vibram FiveFingers are, my most euphoric running experience happened about a week ago, when after finishing my interval run I decided to jog back home without wearing shoes at all. I carried the Vibrams on my hand and felt the tarmac beneath my feet. Now, of course I had to watch out for shrapnels of glass, but to my surprise I could hardly feel the small stones and sand that were on the road. The feeling of freedom on the other hand was intoxicating, and I did manage to turn a few heads as well when I ran past other joggers ;)
If you're interested in getting the FiveFinger shoes for yourself, be very careful when choosing the size. These shoes have to fit tight! I bought the KSO model which has a strap for tightening, but I am afraid I might have still gotten a pair that is one size too large, and I am now paying for that mistake in the form of occasional small blisters on the insides of my feet.