Joie de vivre

The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win - you pass the test.

- Jocko Willink -

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I'm a disciplined man and have been that way for a long time; it's meant I've found greater productivity, efficiency and ultimately has brought me great results. There's other elements but finding the discipline to action them is the first step and that's what I've generally done in life despite it being a lot of hard work.

For me passion and discipline run parallel as it's passion that drives me to find discipline. A passion for life drives me.

The French call it joie de vivre, which sort of means things like a joyful love of life, exaltation of spirit, exuberant attachment to the enjoyment of life and so on. It's a well-used phrase both within France and abroad. I work hard to capture it and whilst I have darker moments, like most people, I'd say I do a reasonable job mostly.

One of my passions, a moment in which feel that zest for life joie de vivre feeling, is hiking and it's something I do a great deal of.

I don't need much of a prompt to get out for a long hike and no matter if I'm feeling amazing or terrible putting one foot in front of the other on a hike always improves my mood and the way I feel inside; my spirit I guess. But my legendary discipline has been lacking lately. Shameful, I know.

I recently took on a role with a company in an industry that's new to me and I'll admit that it's taken a toll on my emotional and physical energy-levels.

I am not the, do things half-heartedly guy, (that discipline thing again), so have injected a great deal of effort into the role, learning the industry and technical aspects, establishing myself within the company and building relationships in the work place and with clients. It hasn't left a lot of time or energy for joie de vivre I guess and my hiking expeditions have been a casualty.

It's only been a few weeks but I've felt my energy levels drop and I'm not pleased about it. Some of you may also remember I began to administer a new medication by injection to myself about the same time the job began and I believe that's been a factor as well. I've stopped taking it now, only a few days ago, and I'm already feeling somewhat better. But hiking...Well, I've not been for a while but I'm rectifying that this afternoon also.

I'm very lucky to live directly opposite a huge scrubland area, the very area in the image, and it's there where a lot of my weekday hiking occurs. On the weekend I travel further afield to other places but across the road I can hike on over twenty five kilometres of trails and it's simply glorious.

No one pushes me as hard as I do myself; I've always been that way. I expect a lot from myself and lately I've not delivered, which translates to me as a lack of discipline. It's been a struggle to fit everything in around the pressures of work and something had to give; the hikes. I've paid the price though and it's time to to get back on track...It's time to hike.

From this evening I'll be hiking for 90-120 minutes per night, every night. We have daylight saving time at the moment, for the summer, and so it's still light through to around 20:30 or so and I don't mind hiking in the dark anyway. It's happening.

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There's many elements to life and designing or creating one in which one feels joie de vivre isn't always easy...Or is it? For me it's the simple things, like hiking, and so maybe it's as easy as finding a little passion and discipline to do so. Thinking on it now, I kind of feel it just at the thought of taking my hike in a few hours...It's working already.