TSA#46 – Keep trying

Oct 1, 2012 by Ben

For 4 years now myself and 2 friends have entered a contest called the Nail and Sail in our towns Harbor Days.  It’s a fun event where they give you some lumber, nails and caulk and you have 2 hours to build a boat on the beach and then race it around the harbor against the other teams.  And for the last 4 years we lost spectacularly.  Three of those four years the boat sank upon us trying to get in it at the start of the race.  But not this year…

This year our team was amazing, our boat was brilliant and we won.   We won first place in our first heat with some to spare and took third overall in the finals, and it was so much fun.

Here is our awesome boat and amazing crew, Joe, Scott and me

Here we are paddling as hard as we can and making some good time as we gracefully glide through the water.

The point of all this, besides to brag that we didn’t sink won, is to say, don’t give up.  Keep trying.

For four years we’ve tried.  Each year we tried a different boat design.  Each year we sweat our asses off trying as hard as we could to build something that would float.

So this weeks Truly Simple Action is to keep trying.  Try harder.  Don’t give up.  Understand your goal and keep trying different things until you get there.  It may take a different combination of plans, people and effort, but keep trying.

Next year we take first place overall!

Ben…

TSA = Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing.

Previous TSA’s:

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TSA#42 – Live Like You’re Camping

Sep 5, 2012 by Ben

I love camping and I realized something on this last trip.

We should live every day like we are camping.

When you are camping, life is simple.   You get up when the sun is up and you go to bed when its dark, or when you run out of firewood.

You have only what you need and nothing more.  If you don’t have something you need, someone will always share theirs.

You’re meals are all prepared together with others helping out where they are needed.  You get to sit together around a picnic table or campfire and enjoy each others company and some amazing home made food.

Everyone you encounter is friendly and says hello when you stroll through camp.  A campfire is always a welcoming place for new friends.

Kids and adults alike can make a new friend with a new neighbor within a matter of minutes and it is perfectly OK to sit around half the day and just be.  Nowhere to rush off to, and no pressing to-do list waiting for you; you are allowed to sit and be still with friends and family.  That is a wonderful thing.

I hope you got to go camping over Labor Day weekend.  If not I hope you have a trip planned soon so you can experience the simple joy of camping.

Your TSA this week is to bring a little bit of that simple life of camping home and live it each day.

Ben…

TSA = Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing.

Previous TSA’s:

 

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TSA#33 – Family Cookout

Jul 2, 2012 by Ben

Summer is actually here and its the perfect time to gather your family and friends and have a cookout.  My family is visiting from rainy Washington and and are enjoying some sun with us for a few days.  We are taking full advantage of their time with us and having some fun days at the beach and some great cookouts as well.

Some friends joined us and here we are having our 2nd cookout of the weekend.  It was so much fun.

Here is some of the awesome food we picked up at the farmers market.  From left to right, lobster tails, cedar plank salmon, and halibut.  It was a good day at the famers market and a tasty cookout.  It was much better than the BBQ chicken I killed the night before.  Not my best BBQ moment.

So your TSA for this week is to plan a cookout.  It is 4th of July this week, so that also gives you an extra excuse reason.  Email some friends, invite your family, or have a neighbor over for dinner.  Just grab something fun to cook and throw it on some paper plates and have a fun evening with some people you enjoy being with.   It’s just that simple.

Ben…

TSA = Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing.

Previous TSA’s:

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Family dinner

Oct 6, 2011 by Ben

I have a master plan.

My plan is to live near my friends.  Or more accurately, have my friends live near me.  I grew up in Washington state and now live in California.  I’ve been slowly moving my friends down one by one over the last several years.  I have now moved 3 families down and am working on the others.  My plan is working very well (the sunshine helps).

One of the best things ever about this plan of mine is that we get together for our big family dinners once a week or so.  Just a night when everyone’s schedule is open that we can go over to one of our places and all sit and eat together.  We cook, we eat, we talk, we play games.  It is wonderful.

If this sounds nice to you, I encourage you to start your own family dinners.  I recently ran across a link on Reddit, (a site I waste entirely too much time on).  It was a great post about how a friend who had a job hosted dinners with his friends who were not as fortunate.  The post received tons of comments but his was one of my favorites:

carpeggio
Man, this struck a chord with me.
I don’t have a particularly needy past or anything of the sort.
Most people would say hey, “He’s cooking for his friends! It’s Easy!”
I thought that at first too, but it’s more then that.
In the picture they are all feeding on a quality homemade meal,that was made with love and care.
Something about that picture brought a tear to my eye. I think that you are accomplishing so many positive things with one act, and I am truly inspired by it.

There were also a lot of comments from users wising they had friends which made me a little sad and entirely grateful for the amazing friends I have.

So this is a call to action for you.

Gather your friends and have dinner with them.  Its so simple, yet one of the best things you could do.

Make a commitment to doing this today.

1. Call/text/email your friends right now.
2. Plan a night to get together and eat.
3. And make this chicken pot pie.  Your friends will think you are a genius.

“The better part of one’s life consists of his friendships.”
- Abraham Lincoln

Ben…

Now back to my master plan.  I still have more friends to move.

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With a little help from my friends

Aug 6, 2011 by Ben

We went camping last weekend with our friends up to Pismo Beach.  We love camping there,  playing on the beach and eating the worlds best clam chowder in a bread bowl at Splash’s Cafe.

This year the main campground was full so we decided to camp at Oceano Dunes which is just a few miles south of Pismo and you actually get to camp on the beach.  Right on the sand.  Its the only park in California where you can actually drive on the beach.  So since we just got a jeep, we packed it up and drove through some wonderful Friday LA traffic (note to self, don’t ever do that again) and went camping.

We of course got there very late and it was dark and we’d never been there before and had no idea what we were doing.  But it was awesome.

Now having our bad ass jeep (really just a regular jeep) we thought we would of course be able to drive over anything that came before us.  I think it took me all of about 3 minutes to get myself stuck in the sand.  I eventually got myself out and got myself stuck many more times.

Quite a few people got stuck in the sand.  We camped up on a sand dune and near an access trail where we were able to see EVERYONE that tried to drive up this hill get stuck.  It was quite entertaining.

One particular truck was pulling a large trailer as many out there did.  It was stuck getting up the hill so another large truck showed up to help pull him up.  Then they both got stuck.  So a third truck came to help the second truck who was helping the first truck.  Then they go stuck.  Then a fourth truck came to help the third truck who was helping the second truck, who was pulling the first truck with the trailer.

This was just so much fun to watch.

Then they decided to unload the trailer and pulled out all the 4-wheelers and ATVS etc.  We were hoping they would hook all of those up in a sleigh-like fashion to help pull all the trucks out, but they did not.

Slowly but surely all of the trucks made it up the hill except for the trailer.  They finally decided to just unhook that and leave it at the bottom of the hill.

But it was fun seeing people get stuck and it was nice to see all of the people helping others get unstuck.  There was a HUGE tow truck that would drive around and just park near the action and watch the stuck vehicles and then watch them get pulled out ready to help (and get paid) whenever they needed it.  But I never saw the tow truck in use.

Everyone helped everyone else get unstuck.  Two of us in the group had Jeeps and one had a Lexus which did have 4 wheel drive.  The Lexus struggled at first, but  we were able, with some pushing and cajoling, to get it up the hill as well.

Everyone helped.  And that’s the point.

Helping your friend when they are stuck is what we should be doing.  One of my best friends just moved down to California and we helped him unpack his moving truck.  He’s a math teacher so you know that truck was packed with no square inch left unfilled.  A few friends came over and we unloaded the entire truck in a couple hours and it was great.

Go help a friend today.  Or if you need some help, call a friend up.  That’s what they are there for.

Ben…

I’d also like to help.  What are you struggling with that you could use some help with right now.  Leave a comment or shoot me and email and let me know.

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