Let’s Go Retro!

A lot of us tend to find life unnecessarily trying from time to time, and this is due in no small part to the repetition of it all. It is a regular complaint from people in various jobs or other situations that they find each day runs into the next, with no variety to break it all up. It feels like Groundhog Day to many of us, as we wish we could just break the cycle a little bit and do something different. Of course, just as many of us have a bad feeling about changing too radically – what if we don’t like the change, it’s too difficult to change back or it’s so costly to make the initial change that we leave ourselves out of pocket for what turns out to be no real reason?

Well, there is another way to change things, a way that doesn’t leave you high and dry from a financial point of view and which you can feel confident about enjoying. It is called “turning back the clock” by more than a few, and various other names by various people what it amounts to is doing the things you always used to enjoy, without entertaining the boring and inaccurate state of mind that says it is uncool to do such things. Think about it – you always used to enjoy something, before life got in the way and stopped you. Now that things have settled and you need something to give your days a bit of a shake-up, what better way of doing that than rediscovering something you’ve always loved?

It doesn’t much matter what it is. If the thing you always used to love doing was a physical exertion like a sport or dancing, you may find that you have got out of condition for it in the meantime. Whether this is enough to persuade you to give up on it is up to you, but you could find that the journey of getting back to where you used to be is as much fun as the feeling of actually being at that point. Maybe it is something like old-school video games. A lot of people say that video games are for kids, but most of those people have either never played one, or last played one when they themselves were kids – and things change a lot in the world of video games, sometimes very quickly.

The key point here is that there are many things which we give up before we really want to – sometimes because we genuinely have to and sometimes because we feel we must. Re-evaluating at some point along the way means that we can look at bringing these things back into our everyday lives, or as a weekly treat. It is a way of changing things up without having to make a jump into the unknown, and allowing ourselves to enjoy a pursuit that we already know how to do. As a side benefit, doing things you used to enjoy can make you feel younger, and we could all do with that from time to time.

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Reading for enjoyment

Many of us, in everyday life, spend a hefty proportion of our time reading. The reasons for this reading will vary from person to person. Mostly, though, it will either be for the purposes of keeping up with the news, or for work purposes. This is a perfectly good reason for reading, of course. There is, however, some sense of injustice in the fact that merely living is taking the element of fun out of something that we used to do almost entirely for pleasure. Reading a book just because we want to do so, as a simple pleasure, is something that disappointingly few of us are doing. There are numerous reasons for this, and they say a lot about how the meaner side of human nature has taken hold among many of us.

There is a sense among a sadly growing number of people that reading is simply something for the college kids and the wannabe intellectuals. Who reads for pleasure these days, people will seriously ask, when we have DVDs, cinemas and the TV for our entertainment? There is even an element of distrust shown towards those of us who like to read. It is a massive shame, but it seems that there is a tendency to dumb things down and to actually wear ignorance as a badge of honour. Just to clarify things, there is nothing shameful about cracking a book every once in a while and reading for fun. Don’t be concerned about people looking at you in a slightly dimmer way just because you enjoy the written word. It is something that gives life a bit of flavour. A good book can take you outside the confines of the everyday and turn free time into dream time.

Now, this is not an order to go out and read the classics. If you don’t like Shakespeare you don’t have to read him. If Dickens doesn’t do anything for you, don’t buy his books. It really isn’t about who you read, or even what you read. It’s about why. And the fact is that sometimes reading for pleasure can make a real difference. It relaxes you physically while at the same time exercising your mind. Even a fairly simple and pedestrian novel that won’t win any awards will keep your brain functioning at a higher level, exercise that it needs in order to keep operating at the level you are used to.

So, if you have a favourite childhood book that always used to make you laugh or smile, why not pick that up once more? If a friend is reading something that they deem excellent, ask if you can borrow it when they’ve finished with it. Reading just for the sake of pleasure is something that makes us richer as a people, and something that should survive the prospect of being sneered at. It really is good fun, and we should see it as such. Find a new favourite author and read as many books as you can find, and before too long you’ll be reading a couple of books a week!

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Why You Are So Tired?

Meet Award Winning Author A. Dawn At The Toronto Reference Library

Most of us will, at least once a day if not more often, feel a little bit short of energy and experience a desire to stop whatever we are doing and go chill out for a spell. Excessive tiredness is a surprisingly common complaint, and it affects people in all manner of jobs from the highly physical to the mainly sedentary. How often will you hear someone say “I really don’t know why I am so tired – I’ve not even done much today!”?

The reason that people find themselves wondering just that is that they have, as often as not, got too little sleep. In today’s society, the work-life balance tends to be weighted firmly in favour of work – and that leaves many of us fighting to get through the week. “That Friday Feeling” may be about partying for some people, but for many of us it is more about feeling blessed relief that we can crawl under the duvet for a spell.

For many of us, work commitments mean getting out of bed at any time from 5am onwards. To get the eight hours of sleep that the average human being needs, this would necessitate going to bed at some time prior to 9pm. If you have got back from the office at any point after five or six o’clock, that leaves you with a very short window in which to get something to eat, chat with family or friends, and get ready for bed. Although that sounds monstrous, it doesn’t always happen that way, as we often rebel against our body clock and stay up a few more hours to watch TV or whatever else we like to do.

The problem with doing that is that we are simply saving up a “sleep debt” for ourselves, which our body will be looking to cash in at some point. For those of us who have weekends off, this means that as often as not we will spend the mornings of Saturday and Sunday catching up on missed sleep. So much for any plans we had to get things done around the home.

The solution to the sleep debt problem is not immediately evident. Many of us just accept that we will have to deal with the effects of sleep deprivation during the week, get ourselves back on a relatively even keel at the weekend, and then begin the process anew on Monday. If we could all find jobs that allowed us eight hours of work, eight hours of free time (minus travel and preparation times) and eight hours of sleep, we’d probably all be a lot happier. As this is not an achievable situation, we have to look at the options we do have.

It is vital, however, that we all realize that burning the candle at both ends is not a sustainable way of doing things, long term. If you can find a way to increase your window of opportunity for sleeping, then it is a good idea to do so. You will feel a great deal more recharged as a result.

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The Spring 2009 Toronto Small Press Book Fair will be taking place at the Toronto Reference Library. I will be participating in this event. For more details, visit this link -

MEET YOUR AUTHOR A DAWN AT THE TORONTO REFERENCE LIBRARY

Hope to see you all.