This all you can eat sushi place nearly got the best of me last night in Barcelona. I mean at least at a buffet I have to walk around, take in the sights, you know, plan my attack.

But at the restaurant I ate in last night it wasn’t a planned strike and I was on the defensive. I felt like I was Pearl Harbour and the Japanese were coming at me from all sides. Maki Rolls, California rolls, chicken skewers, spring rolls, red tuna, crab, salmon…oh the salmon. There was literally no end in sight. The more enemy plates we knocked down the more they reloaded the belt and sent it kamikaze style towards our table. I felt bad for those tables around us because we were taking from both sides of the conveyor belt, grabbing like two homeless men at anything that looked different from the last thirteen plates we’d finished. At the end of twenty minutes we had a stack of plates emulating the Great Wall and a lower abdomen primed for 3 liters of Peptol Bismol.

I got up from my seat and literally waddled out of the restaurant like a cowboy after a 14 hour cattle herd. You think the moral of this story would be to pace yourself and eat less. Its not.

The moral of the story is to stay away from the noodles, rice bread, and large chicken ball like substances. They take up necessary room that could be used for at least another 10 minutes of gorging.

Lesson Learned.

People noticed me walking home from the office at +10 degrees with just a dress shirt and tie and told me that I was insane. They all had a good laugh at The Canadian, “this must be like summer for him”. Morons, I’d think to myself.

As I took notice of the climate’s affects on the locals I realized they were right and that being Canadian certainly did have something to do with my tolerance to cold. You don’t survive the January of 2004 working outside at -35 degrees and and not walk away with something. Besides frost bite and emotional scarring.

I was out taking a leisurely walk today, the sun was shining as usual, a nice fresh breeze was making its way through the streets and I was thinking how gorgeous it was for the 14th of January. No sooner did this thought cross my mind that I noticed a couple crossing the street looking like they were getting ready for snow boarding season in the Swiss Alps. Heavy jackets, scarfs, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they had on heated underwear. These people were wearing clothes in +10 weather that I would wear to shovel the driveway with 2 feet of snow.

Overall, I’m very proud to be Canadian, but today was extra sweet.

In actuality this is a semantic argument that for the moment, has no absolute truth, nor will ever be an interesting conversation. Its usually reserved for the kind of people that enjoy discussing who loves their child more and the difference between loving someone and being IN love with someone. All conversations that just turn in circles.

I find this happens more than it should. People rearranging and distorting meaning and reality to fit something more palatable. My all-time favourite of these is when someone told me its “good luck” if it rains on your wedding day. I mean seriously, how is that possible?? If that was true, England would be the luckiest place on the planet to get married.

Maybe these little sayings have their times and places of usefulness but isn’t the reality of life more important? Do we really just want to walk around always hearing “It’ll all be alright” from our friends when things are bleak. I know I don’t. If you’re my friend, give me reality and a different perspective, not a fuckin’ fortune cookie. Sometimes its healthy to look around the say, ‘Wow, things are really shitty right now. And not just normal shitty, I’m talking post chicken wings and indian food shitty.”

Right away, my expectations have been managed, I’m at ground level. I know where I am. When you have people around you just saying what they think you want to hear they lift you to unrealistic levels, which is good short-term, but when tomorrow comes and things are still shitty, you fall hard back to ground level. Sometimes embracing the severity of a situation, gives you a healthy vantage point to move forward from. Gives you a clearer view of the playing field.

Allow me to explain.

Lets say you’ve been fortunate enough to be born into a happy bubble. Great genes, lucky turns at every corner and a supportive perfect family. And I suppose you could insert another semantic battle here; if your life is all gummy drops and lollipops, do you ever truly appreciate it? Or does it take some sort of unfortunate accident, some tumble for you to realize how great things really were? And on the flip side, if someone has been dragged through the mud and emotionally worn down to the nub, I imagine that even the simplest of pleasures would resonate with satisfaction. Ok ok Im busted. I like semantic arguments, and if I ever have children, I will surely love them more.

I’m not exactly sure what my muse was for this post, especially since I haven’t posted in a while, but when these fingers feel like sharing who am I to stop the rush. I suppose it might be some of the simple pleasures I have been taking joy in lately.

Anything from the beauty of a Sunday morning walk on the way to meet a friend (see picture below) or even my ritual after lunch espresso that seems to taste better each day. I think I may have learned that sometimes, its all about the view.

Everyone needs perspective.

So do me a favour. Every now and again when you’re doing something you enjoy; reading your Saturday morning paper, eating your favourite meal, or maybe even chatting with a good friend over drinks, take a break…

…A few seconds (no longer) to flash to a time in your life that just sucked, where you thought to yourself how could things have ended up HERE. Now come back. Take a breath, look around, and I’m sure a smile will paint itself across your face. Because its impossible to know where you are, exactly where you are, unless you understand how you got there.

The week before I moved to Barcelona a friend of mine recommended a book she thought I’d find very interesting. Thomas L. Friedman’s The World Is Flat, and aside from my superficial judgement regarding the author feeling the need to add his middle initial to the cover, I found the concept interesting indeed.

The book is essentially the detailing of how through technology, and certain economic drivers, industrial globalization is not only changing the way we work; but how we live, how we interact, and how we evolve as a planet.

Download the free E-book here. See, reading this blog DOES have its perks.

I purchased The World is Flat in early September, and finally managed to dive into it as of this morning… while in a Starbucks. I’ve unfortunately had little time to do any pleasure reading, mainly because I tend to work late calling all around the globe drumming up new business for this new job. So basically, I’ve postponed reading a book on globalization because I’m too tired from living it contents. The irony is deafening.

The concept of the flattening of our world comes from the author’s perspective of the global levelling of economic playing fields, particularly throughout India and China. According to Friedman, Indian call centers like 24/7 are receiving upwards of 700 resumes a day (with only 6 percent of applicants being hired), and that’s from a 2004 study. Some associates are working for $200- $500/month for companies like Microsoft, Delta Airlines, and America Online to name a small few. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of more companies filling the buildings and bank accounts of Indians riding on the waves of the global outsourcing trend.

With Indian business schools churning out “89,000 MBA grads a year”, their talent pool is more than impressive. Not to mention that since it appears the Indian’s haven’t yet adopted the Western Gen-X’s motto of “What’s in it for me?” These MBA grads are willing to work just as hard for a fraction of what our North American yuppies are holding out for.

I’m consciously aware that the concept of globalization may resonate more within me due to my current circumstances. Let me detail a typical day to illustrate my point. I awake in a 3 bedroom apartment with a Mexican man who speaks 4 languages and a British ex-pat who was born in Venezuela and currently is in Cleveland opening new offices for his company, which is based in Slovakia.

Then I go to work…

My daily tasks are done via a computer and VoIP phone network based in Bratislava, while my clients are anywhere from California to Germany to Mumbai. For a short while last month, across from me sat the Sales Director from our Dubai office. He discussed new strategies with us regarding the Middle East and still continued to run his home office from his laptop and 3 phone lines. The talent in our office speaks enough languages combined to successfully run a small portion of the United Nations. Each interaction can turn into a lesson in international relations at any moment.

My evenings are either spent struggling desperately in Spanish class, at home downloading American TV shows or chatting online with friends and family around the world on Skype (an online program which allows users to chat across the globe through the internet for free). Globalization has me wrapped around its little finger.

The world is surely changing, and this can be unsettling unless you’re willing to learn to accept and adapt. We’re all afraid of change -myself certainly included-because it’s different, it’s unknown. It’s the boogieman, the black flog of the future, where you never know what minor aspect could hiccup a blue sky life into chaos. Yet on the flipside, it’s important to seek out new opportunities to where you may fit into this new world. We only live one life, so I think it’s important to experience the changes within the lifetime we have.

In past generations only a small amount of people had the opportunity to participate in their own revolutions. Others were completely disenfranchised from the process and left to feel the effects of the few visionaries with the power and ability to affect change.

I’m not suggesting you need to go out and start your own Brokerage house in Bangalore, or start a phone sex from China, but the fact is that we’re in the midst of one of the most innovative times in the history of our planet. And personally, I think that’s pretty cool. Its always better to try and ride the wave of change opposed to looking up too late and have it bowl you over. In my first read of The World is Flat I’m reminded of something that was said to me by a friend of mine’s 91 year old aunt while I was in Sicily a few years ago.

“Tutto il mondo e soltanto una piccola citta” The whole world is just a small city”

If an old lady living in a city that even McDonald’s wouldn’t touch can figure this out, I think the rest of us also have a pretty good chance.