unsolicited advice on health, happiness and how to not be a dummy with finances
There are few bloggers who I consistently read. One of them is David Cain of Raptitude. He doesn’t post on a particular schedule that I’ve noticed but all of his posts are impactful if don’t rush through them. His writing will often sit in my inbox unopened for several days, weeks even. I’ve learned if I read one of his posts before I’m ready it won’t stick. But if I wait until I’m ready I always come away with something to think about.
Continue reading “Make One Thing Stick”
I’m in a continual battle to be in the present moment. In reflecting on what is and is not working I’ve noticed a pretty stark pattern: Multitasking nearly always takes me out of the present moment and makes my experience less enjoyable. Continue reading “Multitasking is Sometimes Necessary But Usually It’s Just Awful”
My grandpa operates on a different level. He’s content in any situation and I’ve never seen him stressed out. Without ever specifically practicing mindfulness he’s a master. There are many life lessons I’ve learned from my time living with my grandpa that I hope to share. Today’s lesson is on boredom.
He’s conquered boredom. Not conquered in that he has successfully kept himself busy enough to avoid boredom. I mean he’s conquered boredom itself. It’s not uncommon for me to come upstairs and see him just sitting in his rocking chair. Maybe he’s drinking coffee, or eating a Taquito. Usually, he’s just sitting.
He’s like a relic. A throwback to an era before we became distracted by the modern world and the allure that all the gadgets provide. I’ll ask if he wants me to turn on the TV.
“Nope. I’m alright.”
“Are you bored?” I ask.
“No, I’m just sitting.”
He doesn’t have a smartphone and doesn’t use social media. He doesn’t need to be doing anything in order to fill a void or keep negative thoughts from entering his mind. He’s content to just sit and be.
We live in a society where we’re always trying to do more, see more, live more, connect more. The net effect is we end up feeling frazzled and disconnected.
Watching my grandpa is a daily reminder to slow down and relax.
I think we’d all be happier if we spent a little time becoming friends with boredom. Instead of something to fear, boredom is a chance to unwind. It’s a chance to practice being content with ourselves, no outside stimulus needed.
If you can be content doing nothing, you can be content doing anything.
Ask yourself how you’re feeling right now in order to get a baseline.
Set the timer on your phone for five minutes. Next, set your phone down and just sit. Don’t watch TV, don’t look at your computer, don’t reach for your phone. Take five minutes and become friends with boredom.
I’m guessing most readers will feel they simply don’t have time for this experiment. There’s too much to do to purposefully welcome boredom. So they’ll rush off to their next task, the next article, the next nugget of wisdom.
We’d rather skim five articles than fully internalize one article. Maybe all you need to learn today is how to sit and do nothing. Maybe that feeling of not having time is exactly why this is an important experiment.
After the five minutes have finished ask yourself how you’re feeling. Did the five minutes of boredom help or hurt your overall well-being?
I’ve been doing this for the last several days. It’s become one of my favorite routines. No expectations, nothing that I should be doing instead. My task is to sit quietly and just be.
Ready? Go.
Manually Overriding Your Emotional Toggle
Check in With Yourself Before You Check in With the World
Start Your New Year’s Resolutions Today
What if you could step back from your emotions and do a manual override? You’d essentially be able to choose to have a better attitude, to experience life through a calmer lens. How would that enhance your life?
I try my best to be mindful. Despite my desires to have more presence and patience I’m often ashamed at how easily I find myself thrown into a negative spiral.
The issue isn’t experiencing momentary feelings of negativity, the issue is remaining there.
Recently I’ve started a new visualization when I notice I’m upset. I imagine stepping back from myself and manually flipping my emotion toggle from negative to positive.
It looks like this…
Cute, huh?
This quick visualization does a couple of things for me. First, it reminds me that I have some control over the way I’m feeling. Our emotions happen on autopilot. But, much like a self-driving car, we can override the computer and take control. I can choose to be happy even if some outside stimulus is threatening to ransack my pleasant emotional state.
The second thing this visualization does for me is it gives me permission to let go and reset. When I try to convince myself to not let something bother me there’s always a voice somewhere in my head saying “But you were WRONGED!” and it’s almost like I’m letting myself down if I don’t remain angry.
When I continue down the path of being upset it negatively colors whatever period of time that feeling is there. If I have a bad interaction with someone on Twitter I can find myself being irritated at completely unrelated things. It’s not until that feeling dissipates that I can go back and analyze what went wrong.
Stepping back from myself and manually flipping the toggle back to positive has been a surprisingly effective shortcut.
When you start to feel yourself experiencing negative emotions try this exercise. Imagine stepping outside of yourself and manually flipping your emotional toggle from negative to positive.
This isn’t meant to convince you to be fake or not acknowledge that bad things are happening. Rather it’s the acknowledgment that bad and good things are continually happening all around us. Where we choose to keep our focus largely determines how we’ll experience the day. Give yourself permission to let go and reset your emotional toggle whenever the need arises.
Start Your New Year’s Resolutions Today
How to Recharge Your Life Battery Through Stoicism
The Good Day/Bad Day Teeter-Totter
We’re in the homestretch of 2020. Hallelujah. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what I want to change next year and what practices I want to keep going. People poo-poo the idea of New Year’s resolutions because “people just give up on them anyway.” I think this is faulty thinking. New Year’s resolutions are a great kick in the pants many of us need to get going.
I love the idea of New Year’s resolutions because it gets people out of their rut, even if only temporarily. The new year brings hope for a better tomorrow, hope that we can be better versions of ourselves. I just have one little twist to the standard New Year’s resolution…start today.
Most people don’t make it past the first month with their resolutions. We have just around a month to go before the new year. Why not have an unofficial pre-season to get yourself in resolution shape? Give yourself the month of December to practice your upcoming New Year’s resolution(s).
This gives you the opportunity to tweak it or discard it and pick a different one before 2021 even starts. And, if you like it, it gives you momentum coming into the new year. You’re not just starting to practice Spanish for the first time in January, you’ve already been doing it for a month. You have a month of writing more under your belt or exercising.
Instead of waiting until January 1st to realize meditating for two hours every day isn’t sustainable, give yourself this month to figure out what is sustainable. Maybe meditating every day just isn’t going to happen but meditating three times per week actually could work. Three times per week is better than zero times per week.
December is a free month where you get to try and fail and tweak and succeed guilt-free.
Spend the month of December figuring out what you want to improve about yourself and then start practicing. If you fall off the wagon, don’t give up. Figure out why you fell off, change that, and try again.
Be specific. Don’t just say you want to meditate more. Make a specific plan for how long/often you want to meditate.
Start small. If you want to practice your writing every day don’t give yourself the obligation of writing an entire novel before you count your day as a success. Get in the habit of doing the resolution and worry about the intensity/duration after your habit is solidly in place.
Have daily/weekly actionable steps. Don’t just say, I want to write a novel this year. Have a plan for how much you want to write each day/week so that by sticking to your small attainable goals you’ll reach your larger goal.
Keep going when you fail. If you start the new year off strong but eventually fall off the wagon don’t be afraid to just start again. There is no 100% attendance award for going the entire year faithfully carrying out your resolution. The reward is self-improvement. Even if you stop practicing your resolution for several months it’s okay to simply start again.
Check in With Yourself Before You Check in With the World
Staying Mentally and Physically Fit During Social Isolation
The Daily Struggle for Happiness
