Tag: stress

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”

How to Take a Mental Vacation- Because Damnit You’ve Earned One

Most of us would answer ‘yes’ to the question of whether or not we need a vacation. But, it’s hard to take a break from life’s responsibilities, so vacations are few and far between. How can we get the benefit of a vacation without ever leaving our neighborhood?

Do me a favor- Don’t rush through this article like you have somewhere else to be. Read it slowly and deliberately. Read it at conversation speed. For the next 5 minutes, you’re on vacation.

Continue reading “How to Take a Mental Vacation- Because Damnit You’ve Earned One”

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”

Pay off Your Credit Card, Kid

If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time you’ve probably noticed that you can just read the title of most of my blog posts and get the basic lesson.  This particle article is no exception.  It will eventually get around to me pleading with you to pay off your credit card, whether you’re a kid or not.

It’s fairly common for bloggers to summarize their posts with “Key takeaways” at the end of the article.  Maybe that’s because they figure people will be forced to read their entire article if they want to learn that sweet, sweet takeaway advice.  They know people can just scroll to the bottom right?  Either way, I’ve done you guys a solid and just put my main point in the title of the article. Continue reading “Pay off Your Credit Card, Kid”