I have recently read a post from zen habits about “being still”. It described today’s society as one that is in constant motion; one where we spend each moment doing something or another. A busy lifestyle is seen as one that is productive and engaging; on the contrary when we are being idle or still we are percieved as being lazy or inefficient. As a consequence we try to jam pack as much as we can in a day; when we get a spare moment we’ll check our emails, our phones or read up on news. We feel the need to constantly bombard ourselves with information so that we seem to make the most out of 24 hour day.

However while we might be achieving more, there is a price to pay. In the exact words of Leo (founder of zen habits) “This comes at a cost: we lose that time for contemplation, for observing and listening. We lose peace.” Life is all about balance, and we can’t neglect the part of us that requires this peace. With that I decided to be still for a moment and reflect.

I sat and pondered on my current situation. I looked back 4 years ago, a fresh honours graduate going through a tough relationship. I suffered from depression, low self esteem, and a general lack of direction. It was tough back then, especially when I lacked the support I needed. It is a very long story (which I plan to graduately write about), but I am glad to have met many people along the way that made things better. Life is very different these days. I’m in more control of my life and much happier. I still have the down times but they don’t last. I have chosen to be happy.

Thinking back and reflecting makes me appreciate the things I have today. I enjoy my work, I am in good health and have a better half. Sometimes it is nice to be still; it makes you appreciate the things you have in life.

I enjoy reading blogs to see what others’ think and reflect on their ideas. Since I like to write I always like to compare my blog to the ones I read. Most of the times I just feel that my entries are never as good as the ones I read. When I write about technology and then read another blog on technology, I always have this inferior feeling and feel like removing my blog. This is why I don’t really like to publicise what I write, which wasn’t my motive to starting this blog in the first place.

I know a lot of people like to compare, and it is just a part of us. Parents almost always compare their kids to other kids, especially my mother. Its good to have a benchmark but sometimes comparing too much leaves us worst off. I can’t really help it though and I always set my bar up too high. I compare myself to professionals who specialise themselves in an area but logic doesn’t come into play whenever I compare.

Stephen Covey describes comparing as one of six metastasizing cancers; the other five are criticizing, complaining, competing, contending, and cynicism. I have had 3 of the 6 cancers throughout my childhood; competing, contending and comparing in almost everything I do. I’m much more lax these days but I still find things to compare. Its hard not to compare, but I guess the next time I find myself making a comparison I’ll try to think in a logical manner. And if I really want to contend and compete, I’ll try to see the value of such actions. Besides sometimes it’s ok to be inferior to someone who is superior.

I recently found the zen habits blog page and have pretty much fallen in love with it. I have found all the articles to be extremely useful and agree with the philosophy that is conveyed in each article. The site advocates the idea of simplicity, elegance and understanding to better yourself in aspects of work, family and everyday living. I can see why the site has become so popular.

After reading a handful of articles, I found that the articles I enjoyed the most were written by Leo, who is also the owner and founder of the site. Curious to find out more I looked at the about page, which described the site and the journey that Leo has started and continuing. Firstly Leo is a modest man, and he likes to remind people that what he has done isn’t extraordinary and each of us can achieve what he has. I found that the life he was living and has achieved is really what I have always wanted. But with me I am still lacking that motivation to get the ball rolling.

With Leo, it all started with trying to quit smoking. He had tried previously to quit but had always failed. This is probably akin to my attempts at trying to achieve something. However this time around Leo’s wife, who also smokes, was pregnant and had also quit smoking for the sake of the foetus. Leo had also promised his daughter that he would quit. Knowing that if he didn’t quit smoking, his wife would also resume smoking. So this time, for the sake of the health of his wife Leo had managed to quit smoking. And this was the start of an incredible journey.

From his experience of quitting smoking, Leo recorded the steps that he took to gain his achievement. He used this recipe for success in other aspects of his life, and this has enabled Leo to achieve various feats. What I found interesting is that his journey is basically the one in which I am trying to take. Leo has become healthier, physically and mentally stronger, and more financially stable through pretty much better living. If you have kept up with my blog, I have continually tried to get more sleep, exercise and eat healthier. I, like Leo, also enjoy writing and helping people. But what I have failed to do is keep myself motivated and making things habitual. I am glad that I have found this site, and it will be my aim to be like Leo.

So a small project I’ve been working on involves keeping a list of useful items, i.e. todo lists, grocery lists, etc. I got the idea reading a life hacking post about staying organised by keeping lists. The only difference is that I have chosen to keep tab of my lists in a MySQL database (instead of the funky moleskin notepad) and I will use a simple web interface to view and update my lists.

Since my web hosting company provides MySQL and Perl, along with the DBI module creating this virtual todo list is pretty easy. It’s just a matter of creating the 9 tables in a database and writing some CGI scripts that will allow a user (me) to insert entries into the database. A word of note is that you should always use taint mode for Perl CGI scripts and untaint any data from web forms before running the SQL query. I’ve also limited access to the CGI scripts that manipulate the databases for obvious reasons. However I will allow everybody to view my lists, by creating a new MySQL user and granting the user viewing privileges (select privilege).

The nine lists are (if you haven’t already read the life hacking post):

1. A wish list: if people don’t know what to buy you for special days
2. A gift list: awesome gifts to buy people
3. Minute list: stuff to do if I have a spare minute
4. BHAGs: Big hairy audacious goals, enough said
5. Bucket list: stuff to do before you die
6. Grocery list: a grocery list
7. Recommended list: stuff people have recommended to me, i.e. books, movies, etc.
8. Rememeber list: stuff to remember
9. Ideas list: for when you have that really awesome idea

I also plan to import my bookmarks into a database and use this simple web interface to update my favourite sites. Hopefully this will help me keep a mental tab on things.

So for the uninitiated, here’s my very simple example explaining some concepts of cloud computing. Few years ago I was trying to import my bookmarks from one web browser to another. After some fiddling around I found the folder that held my bookmarks and to my surprise and delight, it was a HTML file. That then gave me the idea of getting some free web space and simply hosting this HTML file online. Since I only knew of one company that had free web hosting, geocities, I signed up for a geocities account and uploaded this HTML file which I creatively called bookmarks.html. Now instead of having to import my bookmarks from one computer to another, or not having access to my bookmarks if I wasn’t using my own computer, I can access my bookmarks from any computer that has Internet access. I can now also add new bookmarks from any computer (that has Internet access) I want if I found an interesting site while surfing on another computer.

What does this have to do with cloud computing? Basically the cloud is a metaphor for the Internet. Cloud computing basically means having computing services provided on the Internet. Using my example you can see the benefits of the cloud (in my case the cloud computing service was provided for free), i.e. I had access to a list of my favourite sites from any computer with an internet connection, I have one centralised bookmarks file and I can now share my favourite sites with everyone with an internet connection. Since more and more people are getting connected to the Internet and we are getting faster Internet connections, this really seems like the future of computing. Businesses will no longer need to buy computing equipment, hire administrators or even web designers; they just need to pay for cloud computing services. Individuals will also prefer the cloud, as it can mean many things such as they don’t have to worry about backing up their data or can have access to their files from anywhere.

Google at the moment is really positioning itself as THE service provider for cloud computing. They provide services (mostly free) for you to store your conversations, your documents, your internet history, your journal, your photos and countless other things. I don’t like the idea of having everything owned by one company which is pretty much the only disadvantage I see in cloud computing, since it will only make Google stronger. But oh well, we’ve been living under Microsoft for so many years now, time for a change I guess.

I grew up on an island outside the coast of Papua New Guinea, called Bougainville. There were no shopping malls, cinemas, fancy restaurants or much of anything to be short. A day would pass where I would just visit my friend’s place and we would use our imaginations to create these wacky scenarios to enact in. Or a day would be spent visiting the beach or just going playing in the backyard with my dog. In the case of television, we had just the one television channel, called EMTV, em meaning “That’s tv”. However, I never once felt bored with the apparent lack of entertainment.

These days I am bombarded by television channels, shopping malls, cinemas and movies to watch, computer games, and the internet. There’s just too much to do. Ironically I feel more bored and unsatisfied. I have an abundance of computer and video games to play, an abundance of books to read, movies to watch and channels to surf. Yet when I get a spare moment from work, I don’t know what to do. I play a game for a couple of minutes and would rather be doing something else. Perhaps the plethora of activities have left me with a short attention span, which reminds me of an article I read detailing how social networking sites will spawn a generation with an even shorter attention span. The short updates (i.e. Facebook status or twitter), is slowly taking over but that’s another story. However it seems counter-intuitive that we feel more bored with the increase in activities to do.

I would rather be devoid of this new era of entertainment. I would rather just live in the land of far far away and enjoy one thing at a time. It’s hard to keep track of so much information. People may view a country lifestyle as boring and uninteresting, but there’s a certain appeal to it. I would rather sit under a tree enjoying a book, than sitting in front of my computer surfing the information super highway. I would rather just concentrate on one thing at a time to fully digest on the one thing. Simplicity is a beautiful thing.