I cannot reliably control my circumstances. I cannot at all control other people. But I can control my (current) self. Herein lies happiness.
A truism, perhaps. But one worth repeating, especially to someone like myself who scores, mostly to his chagrin, as an 8 on the Enneagram.
Proverbs so often puts the locus of wisdom on what we say.
Kitchen towels are much more effective at soaking up water if, instead of constantly moving them around, you let them rest. My attention is a kitchen towel.
I don’t feel at work the stress I feel at home, where stress accompanies not only the drive to get things done, but even the desire for recreation!
Why the difference? I’m not certain. But my surmises are several:
Might I import those circumstances into my non-DiamondBack life? Yes. And in :
From that last point, maybe the shorthand of it all is to feel that I get to do all the things: Whether I’ve actively decided to do something or that something is decided for me, it is all gratuity. Even adversity stimulates thought and the growth of wisdom and resilience. That’s how I feel at work. (How fortunate is that?) May I bring that feeling to bear in the rest of my life.
I tend to hold in tension my intentions with your own ✏️ 🎤 🎵
Crosby, Stills, and gnashing of teeth
Wanna keep the young away
It’s not that I don’t wanna fight no more,
It’s just that I had a bad day. ✏️ 🎤 🎵
Listening to Peter Gabriels’s “Big Time” with the volume cranked up is an excellent way to extract and maintain one’s hold on the verve created by a winning streak but satirically strip out the attendant bigheadedness.
Familiarity breeds laxity.
By this I mean that in my relationships with my wife and kids, I am not consistently stanced to apply the same effort toward socially sensitive demeanor and diction that I do in my relationships with friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. My habitus outside the family is more disciplined and sympathetic than that within. There’s a certain alertness and natural effort to fit with other people that seems to arise only outside the comfortable confines of home.
I’d like to reimport that stance back into my home life. Sure, home is for relaxation. But I sense in myself a slackness of love. Carla, Sullivan, and Éa deserve better.
Goodbye, Facebook. “To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together”? Ha. I should have shut down my account five years ago.
Today was the first day I had “If reading a book, read the book” on my to-do list. It appears at 5 PM instead of at the beginning of the day so I’m not prompted to read a book over lunch, which is always a matter of divided attention and never long enough to give the book the time it needs to actually enter my mind and be fully enjoyed. I’ll read articles over lunch when I’m eating alone, sure. But sometimes I even question that, wondering whether the time might be better spent fully enjoying my food or allowing my mind to wander.
Anyway, I just dedicated all my attention to reading a mere half a chapter of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper. My reading pleasure in doing so, was, like triple that when I was reading the same book while also eating. This is the way.
Have the folks at Google been trying to sell you a storage subscription because your Google account storage is running full? Is your Gmail the primary taker upper of space? Worry no more! They have provided an alternative solution free of charge: Open a second Google account and then follow the Get only old messages instructions here to effectively turn the second account into an archival repository.
Then delete your wayback emails, now safely archived elsewhere, from the original account by:
The import process will take several days. Once it’s complete, you’ll want to disconnect the new account from the old one so the new one doesn’t become a second account whose storage space you have to worry about.
I can’t sleep at night.
Why?
It’s the problem of the heels.
I can’t win this fight.
Why?
It wasn’t part of the deal.
All I want is to feel the same
We could be walking on the ocean
But something’s always wrong ✏️ 🎤 🎵
I’ve gotta get a hold on my face ✏️ 🎤 🎵
I do wonder whether my having become a lighter sleeper has something to do with me working in our basement and thus having less exposure to natural light.
My ideal workstation is in something like a climate-controlled, outdoor telephone booth:
Geez, Steve
We’re gonna need you to leave
We’re just trying get some work done
Please, Steve
Don’t act so bereaved
Can’t you see we’re working under the gun? ✏️ 🎤 🎵
percentage of adult household members holding a full-time job ∝ (frequency of dinner guests hosted by that household)-1
Uncommitted time I anticipate with pleasure, but planned time I often anticipate with a low level of discontent, even if it’s time I planned for pleasure. Why is that?
[edit, 8/13/24]: I think it’s planned social time that evokes the mild discontent—and I think it’s because I still hold an idolatrous candle for solo productive time. After all these years, GTD is still my god. Sigh.
Switching costs and triskaidekaphobia be damned: We ought to ditch the Gregorian calendar and replace it with a this (Scotian?) alternative:
Accountants would be happy about this. Computer code would be simpler. And no one would have to remember “Thirty Days Hath September” any more.
Productivity slash peace of mind hack #372: Use a custom stylesheet to hide all but the first item in any list on the web version of the to-do list app I use. Now the endless to-do list, so important to this man’s reliable participation in modern life but sometimes so very peace-ruffling by its sheer volume, presents itself to me just one task at a time.
Dr. Seuss should’ve entitled it Oh, the Mistakes You’ll Make!
Today I am taking Focus up a notch: For 100% of day—morning, afternoon, evening, and night—I am allowing zero Messages and WhatsApp notifications to come through from anyone other than my immediate family, people with whom I have appointments in the next two days and, during the workday, my workmates. I am coupling this with a morning clearing and an evening clearing, rendering how I handle my instant messages more like how I handle my email. This experiment will last either forever or until I observe it’s unloving.
So folks will still get text replies from me twice a day. If that’s not fast enough and they need my attention more urgently, let them place a good, old-fashioned phone call. It’ll be like time travel back to 1993 (minus the coiled cords and dial tones)!
Note to self: When you find yourself reflecting unhappily about your job being helping make truck bed covers when you wish automobiles had never been invented, remember that these words of Paul were addressed to slaves: “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23). Whatever you do. And besides, DiamondBack is easily the best manufacturing company (and one of the best companies period) to work for in central Pennsylvania. Everything about working there pretty much couldn’t better.
An elaborated 1 John 2:15-16 with some eye toward Ecclesiastes 11:9: Have desires of the flesh, but do not love those desires. Have desires of the eyes, but do not love those desires. Possess things, but do not love the pride of possession or estate.
Have desires of the flesh. Have desires of the eyes. Possess things. But do so lightly. Instead of loving them, love YHWH your god, and love your neighbor as yourself. 🧘♂️
Note to self: Discretize everything. It will maximize concentration, keep you from hurrying, and keep you from losing sight of God. 🧘♂️