Tag: anxiety

It’s Only Heavy if You Pick it Up

We’re now a few weeks into the American-wing of the Coronavirus. New York is already feeling the effects of overcrowded hospitals and healthcare workers on the front lines are reporting how dire the situation really is. We seem helpless to stop the overcrowding from reaching every major city. To say our collective hearts and minds are heavy is an enormous understatement.

Over three million people applied for unemployment in the first week of the Coronavirus lockdown—a record that dwarfs any other week in American history—and the stock market fell over 30% in like two days. Many people lost their jobs, their retirement, and a loved one in the span of a week.

Suffice to say, anxiety over the future seems to be at an all-time high. Continue reading “It’s Only Heavy if You Pick it Up”

Being There- How to Enjoy the Now

It’s Monday morning. We didn’t sleep great last night and I’m especially foggy today. As I made my second cup of coffee I stared out the window at the traffic lights whizzing by in the dark. The moon was bright and I could still see stars. This was not the sort of time of day people are supposed to be up.

I felt the coming stress of the day creep in. It’s my day to watch June while Mrs. Burrito Bowl works. Whether I have the energy or not, I’m daddy today. Being there for her is a must. I have to take care of her needs regardless of my mood, energy, or stress levels. Continue reading “Being There- How to Enjoy the Now”

7 Things I Learned From My Month of No Social Media

Sometime in early January I made the hermit-like decision to not use social media for a month.  Several minutes after making this decision I realized nobody would know when I published a new blog post if I didn’t use social media a little, for blog-related reasons.

Through dumb luck and a google search, I figured out how to automatically post links to my articles on Facebook and Twitter through the blog itself.  If you’ve been blogging for more than twenty minutes, you probably also know of this trick.  I am a humble people.  Moving on.

In what i’m pretty sure is a world record, I was able to successfully keep off of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter from January 7th-February 7th and I have learned a great many things. Continue reading “7 Things I Learned From My Month of No Social Media”

Combating Option Overload and Getting Back to Living

I’m often jealous of previous generations.  Not just because they got to eat bread without feeling guilty, but for the lack of options they enjoyed.  Don’t get me wrong, having no options isn’t fun, but having so many options your circuits get overloaded isn’t much fun either.

No matter what we’re doing, we have so many options that we can’t possibly try them all.  How do we know we’re choosing the right entertainment?  Blizzard flavor? Nigerian prince to send our money to? How do we know we’re not missing out?!

The fear of missing out makes having too many options stressful, rather than freeing, because we’re continually worried we’ll choose wrong.  From little decisions like What if I pick the wrong Netflix movie, to huge decisions like What if I pick the wrong Netflix series, we’re overloaded and stressed out with too many options at every turn in our lives. Continue reading “Combating Option Overload and Getting Back to Living”

Using Selective Attention to Increase Life Satisfaction

There are two types of attention we give- Divided Attention and Selective Attention.

Divided attention is where our minds are giving our attention to multiple sources at the same time.  Selective attention is when our attention is focused on one thing.  Generally speaking, having the ability for divided attention is good, but often the way we choose to use that ability is not good.

Sometimes life requires we give divided attention.  Too much divided attention leads us to feel spread out and overwhelmed.

When we give something our selective attention we’re able to go deeper and get into a flow state more easily.

Many things require our selective attention, but we often try to get away with just giving our divided attention.  How many times have you been watching a movie and instead of giving your selective attention you decide to look at your phone?  At no point do you feel like you aren’t paying attention to the dialogue, but before long, you look up and realize you have no idea where the characters are, or what they’re doing. Continue reading “Using Selective Attention to Increase Life Satisfaction”

No Social Media For A Month!! AAAHHHHHHH

I watched this video roughly three minutes ago and really dug it.  It’s about a couple who decided to not use the internet for a month.  In a bid to generally take action when I run across something cool, I decided to take action.  I’m going to take the rest of the month off of social media, and substantially limit my internet use.  I am well aware nobody else cares.  But, read this article and maybe you’ll follow me.

I’ve been kicking the idea around for a while because I hate how addicted I am to my phone.  I am cognizant of how silly we are just staring into our screens even though WE KNOW nothing we scroll through will increase our level of life satisfaction.  Almost none of it makes us any happier, even in the moment.

We’re always looking for that next unicorn post that’s going to make a tangible difference in our lives.  We hardly ever find it, but the allure of social media is so addicting that we’re constantly scrolling for it.  Doing this day after day is making us depressed.  Life is passing us by while we stare into our phones and we know it.   Continue reading “No Social Media For A Month!! AAAHHHHHHH”