Category Archives: Habits

I missed a sidcha yesterday: picking up litter in Washington Square Park

on October 16, 2025 in Addiction, Doof, Habits, SIDCHAs

Regular readers know my sidcha to pick up at least three pieces of litter from the northwest corner of Washington Square Park. While most of my sidchas I haven’t missed, that one I’ve missed, maybe one or two times per year. The park could use more people picking up litter. No, the point of picking up litter isn’t just the temporary removal of litter. Picking up litter makes not buying[…] Keep reading →

How environmentalists are like smokers who tell others not to smoke … while smoking

on October 14, 2025 in Addiction, Habits

Below is an idea for the new book that I probably won’t use so figured I’d share it here. I’m sure I’ll use it in conversations with the media. I may develop it more. I like the idea. I should probably specify the behaviors of environmentalists whose counterparts I show in the smokers’, though I hope it’s obvious. For example, vaping represents all the technologies and efficiencies that people want[…] Keep reading →

The easy and hard parts of exercise and another value of sidchas

on September 20, 2025 in Awareness, Fitness, Habits, SIDCHAs, Stories

This morning’s calisthenics involved four sets of burpees. I noticed a funny thought as I started the third set. I had barely done a tenth of a burpee in that third set when I thought, “Only one set left.” That’s an odd thought. Since I had barely started the third set, I had closer to two sets left. Why did I think I had one set left when I actually[…] Keep reading →

“Do the reps, you get the results. Don’t do the reps, you don’t get the results.”

on September 17, 2025 in Education, Fitness, Habits, HandsOnPracticalExperience, Leadership

I’ve been saying these words lately. Do the reps, you get the results. Don’t do the reps, you don’t get the results. I’ve said them to myself, my teammates, and my coaching clients. As regular readers know from my sidchas and standard procedures, I live them. When I search the web for them as a quote, I don’t find them, so maybe I created the quote. They ring true, particularly[…] Keep reading →

Another 70-pound Turkish Get-Up, also more lifting personal bests

on September 1, 2025 in Exercises, Fitness, Habits, HandsOnPracticalExperience, SIDCHAs

You may remember me posting about Two personal bests in a week: Freedom, in which I jumped 8.4 pounds (3.8 kilograms) in my Turkish get-up to 70 pounds, plus lifted more in my presses. I think I commented that part of why I tried it when I did was because it was the end of a month with 31 days. I do a six-day exercise cycle starting on the first[…] Keep reading →

Which way of living embodies more love: Picking up litter or walking past it?

on July 2, 2025 in Habits, HandsOnPracticalExperience, SIDCHAs

We didn’t ask to be born into a culture that produces so much garbage, but we were. Now, nearly any place you live, if you walk in a public place, you pass litter. I don’t go out of my way to pick it up, but when I pass litter and it doesn’t take too much effort, I pick some up. I don’t pick up everything. I give myself constraints to[…] Keep reading →

Love Is Love, Garbage Is Garbage, and Pollution Hurts People: Pride 2025

on June 30, 2025 in Doof, Habits, Visualization

Yesterday was the annual Pride March, which means a wrecked Washington Square Park. I make it an annual habit to take pictures of the state of the park after. As usual, to clarify, I’m selecting the event not to say anything about the march itself, its causes, or its people, but for the garbage. My mission is to change American and global culture and the pictures illustrate our culture. I[…] Keep reading →

Why I love volunteering

on June 25, 2025 in Habits, SIDCHAs

A few people commented on my delivering food yesterday at the hottest part of the day. The temperature hit 101F (38.3C) while I was pulling around 80 pounds of food in a cart, according to my phone’s app . People often also flap their gums about not having time to volunteer. I never hear them say they don’t have time for social media or other screen time, yet Americans average[…] Keep reading →

A quarter million burpees

on May 25, 2025 in Fitness, Freedom, Habits, HandsOnPracticalExperience, SIDCHAs

Regular readers know what a sidcha is and that my second daily habit that both became a sidcha and helped me conceive of the concept began with doing ten burpees a day. I think I started my burpee habit in early 2012. In time, that habit evolved into a twice-daily set of calisthenics. I agree that discipline equals freedom, so more than the sizeable gains of saving money, saving time,[…] Keep reading →

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