This morning I went for a bike ride before taking my daily shower. I rode through Nyon and then turned up towards Duiller and from Duiller I headed for Genolier. When I was in Nyon though I cycled down towards the lake before cycling up one of the steep hills before heading to Duiller and onto Genolier. along the way I considered whether I would go all the way to Arzier and changed my mind, because it would have required a long descent on carbon wheels that I am not yet used to.
Today I’m going to write about happiness, and specifically about routine happiness. During the pandemic I noticed that people with children all looked happy. There is a simple reason for that. Children don’t understand what a pandemic is, so to give them a feeling of normality you distract yourself from the pandemic with children. The result is that all the parents I saw were in their own little happy world. I noticed that parents were laughing, happy, going to parties and more, ignoring the pandemic, despite having the most to lose.
I know that driving to the house where I charge the electric vehicle will take about 20 percent. I also know that driving to the shops will take less than one percent per drive. This means that if I had an electric car, and I had a plug at home, rather than a climb up the Jura, I would need to charge every week or two, rather than almost every time I drive the car.
This morning I decided to go for a benchmark run for a new Garmin training plan. After I ran the required 5 minutes and four minutes of walking I continued with my walk. I had a route that I wanted to walk but because I saw people, and dogs on the paths that I was thinking of walking down I took a bigger loop once, then again, and then a third time.
Today is an unusual day. Originally I had planed to walk over one thousand meters up the Jura, before realising that I had too little sleep, so I decided to sleep a little more, do laundry, write a blog post and then eat lunch.
Lazy After lunch I didn’t feel like going for a walk, still. That’s highly unusual for me. I don’t know whether it’s because I am tired from a mediocre night of sleep or whether it’s because of the heat that hasn’t left yet.
It’s good to vary between walking, cycling and running. I even threw in skateboarding but I am not confident at that sport yet. The beauty of walking, cycling and running is that these are sports that you can do straight from home, without getting into a car, and without having to put up with other drivers. The one drawback is that dangerous drivers endanger you on every outing, but that’s another topic.
Last night I was thinking about the act of shaving and what a pleasure it is, For a long time I saw it as a daily chore, which is why I switched to an electric razor for years. Eventually the blades dulled so I looked for alternatives before deciding to try safety razor shaving, and I find it to be extremely pleasant. Learning Process
Shaving requires a methodical approach. It requires wetting the face, lathering the soap, shaving one way, lathering again, shaving the second direction, lathering again, shaving the final direction.
According to the Kindle app on my phone my longest Kindle Reading Streak was 126 days. I say “was”, because I lost it two days ago and now I am back to a one day reading streak. I hate that apps like Kindle count reading streaks as “days of reading in a row” because sometimes simply opening the app, and reading one page was enough to count it as a streak.
I am going for a run and a walk three times a week at the moment. The run is set by the Garmin Coach and the walk is set by the route I have chosen to use on that specific day. By running the first part of my daily walk I increase my fitness, according to Strava, Sports Tracker and one or two other apps.
At the same time by running, rather than walking these routes I am saving time.
Blogging one hundred and fifty-two days in a row is an interesting challenge. It encourages you to think of something daily, for months in a row. It also forces you to have the discipline to sit and attempt to write for one or two hours a day, whether inspiration is there or not. Often it isn’t. Add to this that most blog posts get zero views and you have a reason to stop and give up.