Posts Tagged challenge
Buddhist Thoughts: Learning from difficult people
Just before Christmas, think of the following. It states my most practised and my most admired principle of Buddhism:
Eventually we will find (mostly in retrospect, of course) that we can be very grateful to those people who have made life most difficult for us.
- Ayya Khema, “When the Iron Eagle Flies”
I love that! I have been using this approach for many years. Whether it is a boss or whether it is a challenge at work, or at home. All those challenges you come across in life need to be solved in order for us to move on. If we master the challenge we get to the next one. If we die before we master the challenge, we will be confronted with a challenge that resolves a similar issue in our next life.
Hence, whenever you think you can escape life (suicide) or a situation (change jobs, avoid certain individuals), rest assured you come across the same situation again until it is resolved. The suffering, the ongoing samsara, will be part of this and future lives. The suffering will ease by solving one challenge, but the next one is around the corner.
Until we resolved them all. Until we become enlightened.
Buddha bless, have a great Christmas.
Volker
November Challenge
Hi,
Not that you think I am slacking…but there won’t be a November challenge either. Why not?
Simple: I have the man flu, and a new position which will see me travelling more.
Hence I will make a few changes to my schedule and life in November. I hope to be able to start exercising again before the end of the year. I need to lose weight and get fit again.
So I keep you posted, but no special challenge this month.
Cheers,
Volker
August Challenge (2)
As you know I am t-total for the month of August.
Today is hump day, half way through the challenge. I have tried to find some answers online to support my assumptions and experience, but all I find is advice on how to give up drinking all together, and for recovering alcoholics. I am definitely not fitting into that category!
After I gave up chain smoking from 60 cigarettes a day to none from one day to another, I gained a lot of weight by substituting cigarettes with chocolates and sweets. But I can do it, I have a very strong mind and great will power. The trick is to work around your habits and routines, changing them one by one. Steppingstones as a coach would call it.
It is the same with alcohol, if you come home from work fancying a glass of wine, just have a different drink. Or treat yourself to a lovely fruit juice. I think that after two weeks I have mastered it easily, not thinking about the drink I used to have coming home, or the glass of wine when having a pizza.
A big change I have noticed is my sleep. I am more tired. Whilst part of me thinks that it is a detox that makes me more tired, I also believe I sleep a lot deeper. I don’t have sleeping problems anyway, but with alcohol I can easily wake up, feed Rohan at night, go back to sleep, get up easily in the morning. Without alcohol I could sleep all day, don’t want to get out of bed, and often wake up for the night feed not being able to open my eyes properly. The sleep I am getting is much deeper than I experienced it for a long time, if not ever. I am curious to see if this changes over the next two weeks.
I guess the detox has taken place now, and my liver is on its way to recovery. I like the thought that my organs enjoy the absenteeism, recover and feel like I should never drink again.
So with that note, I will enjoy another 2 weeks before indulging myself with a lovely bottle of Shiraz 
Have a good one,
Volker
August Challenge
Ok guys.
Here we go with my 30 day challenges. I will start with a classic one:
No alcoholic beverages for the next 30 days. Means, for the month of August I am going to drink no alcohol, no beer, no wine, no whisky. Nada.
Wish me luck. Working in media, having a few BBQs coming up, and the lovely summer month of August, this might be a classic challenge, but not the easiest.
New Challenge – no wine for a month
Ok, this might seem odd at first, but I have decided to not drink any wine for a month. Although the sign says ‘no meat’, this is untrue in my case 
This is not because I think I drink too much, as I won’t stop drinking. However, I find that I spoiled myself with good wines lately and don’t find as much pleasure drinking the cheaper wines. Now, you could argue I am doing this to save money.
Again, this is not the real reason. I believe the real reason is that I want to see how my taste buds change over a period of a month and whether the cheap wine is still very much a “no go” or if I am happy to touch that wine again. Also, will I still be in favour of the lovely high priced wines?
We shall see. My weekly wine column has been written until early October, so don’t worry, they have all been tasted already.
Cheers 
Volker Ballueder
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