Lisa Marie Blair

Tag: Inspiration

  • Goals // Week 03

    Goals // Week 03

    This week is going to be another busy one. There is a new class of employees starting and I will need work long hours to get them trained and ready for the kids. That means very little time for personal goals and pursuits. That means the calendar is out the door and I will need to be flexible and focused whenever I have a more than a moment for myself alone.

    This week I will:

    Read half of Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez, or 25 pages per day, on average. I will read as much as possible during my lunch breaks at work but with my rigorous work schedule I may be eating on my feet this week. That’s ok though. There will be time over the weekend to catch up. I’d really like to finish this book within the next two weeks so I can start on my new Penguin Little Black Classics Box Set as soon as possible.

    Update: Yeah, no, not even close. I read a mere 75 pages all week which may not sound like much but it was something. This year I’m trying not to let a week go buy without having made at least some progress, any progress, through one of my books. Considering that goal, I succeeded.

    Journal every day. Time for blogging and writing will most likely be non existent but I cannot go the next 5 days without writing something. Writing is first and foremost for me, always. It keeps me centered and sane, so even when I cannot write for others I must make time to write for me. I need a place to vent and a place to remind myself of what is good and I need that space every day.

    Update: This was my most disappointing failure of the week. In my defense I am still getting used to journaling by hand again and I often forget to do it. Going forward I would like to start carrying my notebooks outside of a bag so that they are always within eyesight and always on my mind.

    Exercise every other day starting today. Since I’ve started to wean off of my medication, my energy levels have plummeted and working out is not as easy as it was even as early as a week ago. Still. I have been doing well and I do not want to lose the momentum or motivation I have built up. Even if I have to cut back on reps and rounds that’s okay. I will do as much as I can and remind myself that everything counts.

    Update: Once again I had just one day this week with enough energy and willpower to get through my goals. This one is easy to forget when it isn’t scheduled and since I knew I would be so occupied by work I never made the schedule. Oh well, lesson learned.

    Make something with my hands. Between work and rest I doubt I will get this far but just in case I am on top of my game and crushing it I wanted to add a goal to create a little art if I get a chance. It’s been weeks since I had a chance to spread out some magazine clippings, to zone out with my X-Acto knives, to make a mess, and to surprise myself. I probably need it more than I know.

    Update: Another failure for the week but I’d like to focus on the progress I made instead and note that I did make time to clean up the creativity room and to make space for my art. I’m also giving myself permission to consider art a weekend pursuit rather than something I have to commit to practicing every single day.

    Breathe. My health depends on me managing my stress levels and that means being mindful of how long and how much work I have been doing and taking breaks before they are needed. But breaks don’t just mean stepping away from the work physically. The kind of breaks I will need are more akin to meditation. A chance for my mind to quiet and for me to focus on the body and breath.

    Update: Sometimes breathing is all you can do. Sometimes breathing is all you can ask or expect from youreself. Sometimes simply breathing has to be enough.

    This week I will not push myself too far. It’s often hard for me to see where my limits are and I often don’t learn their importance until after I have stepped across them but I will tread lightly and do my best to see the signs of burn out and declining health before they force me out and down.

    For a look at how I fared last week check out my updated post for Week 02.

    Photo by adrian on Unsplash

  • Goals // Week 02

    Goals // Week 02

    This week marks the end of winter break and a return to reality and my regular schedule. Since I’m sure it will be a daily struggle just to wake and work on time and to keep a positive and productive outlook I’ve decided to keep my goals small and simple. This week is about reestablishing the basics, practicing day-to-day habits, and slowly returning to real life.

    This week I will:

     Set up a schedule of my days broken down hour by hour and include a list of tasks to be completed with each event. I’ve been slacking on filling in my calendar and when my calendar isn’t filled my time is at the mercy of my moods, my cravings, my impulses, my fatigued and directionless mind.

    Update: Well, I set it up, though I can’t say I followed it very closely, or maybe I did but I did the most unproductive things I could within the definition of the task and the time frame given. So, progress was made but I’m about as far from perfection as I can be. Still, everything counts and for it only being week 2 of the new year, I think I’m doing pretty good.

    Finish reading Ethics by Baruch Spinoza. This is the most difficult little book I have ever read. It is the most interesting book I have ever hated too. Up until now I have only been able to tolerate 10 or 20 pages a day. I have 100 left to go, and I am tired. This week I will be done with it.

    Update: I did it! Don’t be fooled by the low page count. This book was very difficult to get though. Between the language and all the underlining I did and notes I took I couldn’t get through more than 5 or 10 pages most days. Still, in the end I count it among the most rewarding books I have ever read. Stay tuned for a proper review.

    Complete my bodyweight work 3 days this week hit 6000 steps every day. Last week I only missed one day of working out but I wasn’t great about walking. This week I’d like to see some more effort and focus. It’ll be hard with my return to a regular work schedule but if I could manage just 3 days of the week, I will call it a win.

    Update: I mostly completed this one. I did two days of work out and hit my step goal every single day. It’s already hard enough to muster the motivation to exercise after work but adjustments to my medication are also sapping my energy levels. I may try switching to a morning routine but I have doubts about my ability to wake up at 4:30 AM to work out.

    Update my voter registration information. I completed the first big steps of changing my name since getting married last summer last week but this is a big election year and if I want to take part in the Democratic primary coming up this spring; I need to update my information with the county ASAP. All I have to do is fill out the form and mail it off. Easy-peasy.

    Update: Ugh, I just plain forgot. I have the form. It’s all filled out. I just have to stuff it in an envelope and drop it in the mail. Next week for sure!

    Write in my journal every evening. I have been good so far about posting little snippets of my life here but there are private stresses and anxieties I need to get off my chest and small instances of gratitude I think it good for me to acknowledge and document. Some things though they must be expressed are not for public eyes or the everlasting internet.

    Update: I was able to make time for journalling about every other evening which is much better than not making any time at all. It isn’t easy to get used to writing by hand every day. I was making a lot of mistakes and my handwriting was atrocious. I had trouble recalling my day and would simply run out of things to say before the end of the page. It’s getting easier though and I anticipate a return to daily and long winded writing before the end of the month.

    Create one cut out or blackout poem. I missed spending time with my X-Acto knives and my magazine scraps last week. My desk has been taken over with little writing notes and I will need to clear my analog space to get messy in again.

    Update: There just wasn’t time and since the holidays the “creativity room” has become a storage space and dumping ground for everything that has come into our lives over the holidays. Once I clear a space for myself again and find my tools and get my materials and medium at hand, it’ll be easier to make the most of what little time I can give to my art.

    Design my first new newsletter. I used to send my weekly round up posts out as an email newsletter too along with a bit of writing from me about some universal human experience of fact of existence that was on my mind but since splitting off from Zen and Pi I haven’t sent one because I wasn’t sure where “personal blogging” I ended and that kind of writing began, but I can’t work out the kinks if I never start again, right?

    Update: Time was the issue here again, but also, I simply didn’t know where to begin. I need more time to think about this one so it won’t be a goal again for a while. I have to cutivate a better writing practice here before I can think about branching out.

    This week I will not push myself too hard or too far. I will not make any big decisions or let big emotions or events rule me. I will not put myself at the center of the action or draw unnecessary attention. This week is for quietly observing, quietly planning, for quietly becoming and existing for me and no one else.

    For a look at how I fared last week check out my updated post for Week 01.

    Photo by Alex Iby on Unsplash

  • Goals // Week 01

    Goals // Week 01

    This week is the second week of winter break and I’m only planning to go into work the last two days just to schedule the next week and complete some small tasks. With all those extra hours at home—outside of a few small errands, time I plan to spend with my wife, and the New Year’s celebration and subsequent day of recovery—I’ve decided to set some bigger goals than I’ve been used to these last few weeks.

    This week I will:

     Schedule every hour of my days. It’s simple. I’m using my Google calendar to create events and reminders for blocks of time and how I would like to spend them from the moment I wake up until I go to bed. The goal is not to perfect adherence but to only cultivate a habit of thinking about what I would like to be doing with my time. Every night I will look over the next day and edit, move, or adjust where needed.

    Update: I completed scheduled about half of my time last week. This is far more of my time than I have ever set out in black and white before so even though I marked it incomplete I count the effort alone as a success. GOing forward I will need to start scheduling a time to make the schedule and forming that as a daily habit.

    Finish my cover letter. I’ve gotten my resume finished but I think it would be a nice touch to add a cover letter. I’ve done none of this before so I figure the more practice I can get the better and the additional effort couldn’t hurt my chances. Bonus: Ask 3 people for letters of recommendation.

    Update: I was premature in setting this down as a goal. I will have to wait until the new position I am hoping for is available and then based on the description and the requirements I will craft a letter based specifically on my interest and qualification for the job.

    Change my last name. I got married nearly 5 months ago but the bureaucratic hurdles I have to jump through, the number of institutions I have notify, and my fear of speaking with officials has kept me from adding my wife’s maiden name to my own, but as a Christmas gift to us both and a chance to start the new year as a new us, I’m getting it done.

    Update: I have officially added my wife’s maiden name to my own last name, and she has added mine to her’s. It was quite an ordeal and we are from done but the most important first steps are complete. All I have left is to notify all my financial institutions and to perfect my signature.

    Find my first rejection opportunity to kick off of #Rejection100 on Submittable. I’ve decided to get back into submitting work to publications again. I miss the motivation and direction that comes from a call for submission. I miss working with editors. I miss being part of a community writing toward the same goals. I also need the challenge in order to grow. So, here’s hoping for 100 rejections in 2020!

    Update: To be honest I am rethinking this yearly goal entirely. The more I search for writing opportunities to pitch and then write for the more I realize that writing first and pitching later is the way that I write best. Of course the point is to push myself and to step outside of my comfort zone so I am still looking but the priority going forward will be the kind of writing I do because I have something to say, for me.

    Finish a personal writing project for each of my own blogs. I have been slacking and spinning my wheels for months and it’s time I gather up some notes, ideas, and inspiration and try for 500 or 1000 words of real writing here and on Zen and Pi. I don’t want to lose sight of my own passions. I don’t want to grow stagnant writing what is easy.

    Update: I made progress but I will be honest here and say that I did not do my best. I’m getting more comfortable carving out and devoting large blocks of time to this craft and I ideas are flowing easier every day but finishing is still the greatest obstacle. I’m getting there I promise.

    Read 100 pages of Ethics by Benedict de Spinoza. This book isn’t an easy read but I really want to mark it off of my list. The time will be scheduled but at the very least if I could just do 30 minutes of reading before bed every night I think that would be enough. Bonus: Set a new reading goal on Goodreads.

    Update: Despite its small size this book is deceptively hard to finish. It is dense and hard to understand though I do find it full of interesting and thought-provoking ideas. It’s not a book I can read before bed (it puts me to sleep) and it isn’t a book I can easily read at work. I must have the energy and be clear of any chance for distraction. Perhaps this is the kind of book that must be read in tandem with something easier and more exciting?

    Keep eating right, taking my medication, and resting when I need to. I’m getting better but it has been slow and I have a strong tendency to push my body too hard and to grow lax about my meals and medication the moment I start to feel even remotely like myself. This week I have to remember that I am still quite sick and that I will get sicker again if I don’t take care of myself now.

    Update: My meal and medication schedule are become second nature now and I even though I felt better I still stuck to the regime and allowed myself no excuses. I did miss one dose, and I did have a couple of instances where I overate or ate what something I knew would cause discomfort but taking the difficulty and the willpower involved I’m choosing to view my efforts in the most positive light possible.

    This week I will not be too hard on myself if the temptation to skirt the schedule and these goals and instead get out and enjoy my time away from work becomes too strong. It’s still a vacation even if I’m not leaving town. I won’t close myself off entirely to spontaneity or serendipity. Time spend in joy or sunshine is never time wasted or time that should be regretted.

    P.S. For a look at how I fared last week check out my updated post for Week 52.

    Photo by Jon Flobrant on Unsplash

  • The Week’s End // A Thought-Provoking Round-Up

    The Week’s End // A Thought-Provoking Round-Up

    Happy weekend readers! If you’re looking for some interesting things to read, watch, and think about while you kick back and relax, look no further, here are my favorite things from around the web this week:

    1. “Remembering some of the artists, innovators and thinkers we lost in the past year.” — The Lives They Lived 2019 // The New York Times

    2. “But even if I frame death in that way, I’m still afraid of my experiences being discontinued. I enjoy waking up in the morning and learning things and doing things, and I enjoy thinking, and even sometimes interacting with other people. Death marks the end of that, and it’s the end of that for a long time. Other people will continue having experiences while I do not, and that sucks.” — Talking Through A Fear of Death // LessWrong

    3. “The first challenge is casting doubt on the tendency to see personality traits—patterns of behaviour that are stable across time—as parts of our identities that are inevitable and arising from within. While it’s true that people are the products of genes interacting with the environment (the answer to the question ‘Is it nature or nurture?’ is always ‘Yes’)…” — Personality is not only about who but also where you are // Aeon Magazine

    4. “Morality begins as a competitive weapon between societies. Now the really interesting question is can we make the jump to universal morality and start to turn non-sentient things into the enemy” — Can universal morality exist? // The Minimalists

    5. “What I failed to realise is that in the absence of that empathetic connection, scripts, boundaries and prompts become absolutely essential. If someone is vulnerable for health reasons—physical or mental—because of something going on in their lives or for some other reason, we shouldn’t wait for some grand ethical revolution to give them the time and space they need to preserve their own sense of wellbeing.” — Sometimes you need to put your friends on hold, and I now understand that’s OK // The Guardian

    6. “Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that has to do with knowledge how we know things how we come to know things what counts as fact vs opinion. Tribal epistemology was my attempt to capture this phenomenon where a group identity becomes so strong and… once tribalism takes over a group you have what’s called tribal epistemology which is instead of assessing new facts and knowledge based on their correspondence to factual reality or their credibility in the scientific community you accept as true what is good for your tribe.” — Republicans vs. the planet // The Ezra Klein Show

    7. “Because the attention schema streamlines the complex noise of calculations and electrochemical signals of our brains into a caricature of mental activity, we falsely believe that our minds are amorphous and nonphysical. The body schema can delude a woman who has lost an arm into thinking that it’s still there, and Graziano argues that the ‘mind’ is like a phantom limb: ‘One is the ghost in the body and the other is the ghost in the head.’” — Do We Have Minds of Our Own? // The New Yorker

    8. “As these people’s role in creating a physical and digital world built on surveillance, harassment, and child labor has become more clear, we’ve seen a wave of pseudo apologies for the tools and decisions that got us here. For the past few years, the men (and it’s almost entirely men) who built this digital hellscape have been on a veritable atonement tour.” — The Architects of Our Digital Hellscape are Very Sorry // WIRED

    9. “A 16-month investigation by Searchlight New Mexico has found that when it comes to human trafficking, indigenous women and girls are the least recognized and least protected population in a state that has long struggled to address the issue. An almost total lack of protocols, mandated training, and coordination between law enforcement systems as well as medical institutions has ensnared victims in cycles of exploitation.” — Stolen and Erased // Searchlight New Mexico

    10. “Paris Opera dancers perform in front of the Palais Garnier, protesting against the French government’s plan to overhaul the country’s retirement system, in Paris, on December 24, 2019.” — Photos of the Week // The Atlantic

    Have you read, watched, or written an interesting or inspiring thing this week? Has something on the internet made you feel strongly, think deeply, or see the world in a new light? If so, drop a link in the comments, we’d love to check it out!

    Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

  • Goals // Week 52

    Goals // Week 52

    This week is the last full week of 2019, the week of Christmas and the first of my winter break. I have to work some, but the work will be light and relatively free from stress or frustration. I’ll also have a lot of time I get to claim for myself and I do not want to waste any of it. This week is practice for the new year and a chance to wrap up the last through reflection and resolution.

    This week I will:

    Finish my resume! If nothing else gets done at all over the next two weeks but this, I will count my time well spent and my winter break a success. I have enough on my plate worrying and preparing over interviews; I don’t want to worry about (or fail miserably over) something as simple as updating dates and duties in a document. The fact is, I am just terrified of change and this small task signals big changes to come, but the change is good and I have more than earned it.

    Update: I did it and it looks great. I was afraid that when I was done there would be embarrassingly little to show for all my years with the same company and with very liitle change to my position but it turns out I have done, and still do, so much. I’m proud of all of it and happy to see it laid out in black and white finally.

     Schedule every hour for the next week and then stick to the schedule. This is early practice for my one New Year’s resolution: To be mindful of how I spend my days, and thus, how I spend my life. I’m simply using Google calendar to start and mapping out everything I need to do from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. I’m tired of losing time. I’m tired of looking back on the day and having nothing to show. I want a record, a reminder, a place to be accountable.

    Update: I made it as far as Wednesday and then the whole thing fell apart. I should have just sat down and adjust and edited what I had after that but I felt like a failure and so ended up avoiding the whole thing. This can’t happen again though. Mistakes are okay, but given up in unacceptable.

    Start an early morning workout, nothing too strenuous. I won’t begin until after the holiday, or until I am feeling a little better, so this goal only counts for Thursday and Friday at the least. I have been pledging all year to start a workout regimen and have failed miserably week after week but now that I am scheduling my time and getting used to getting up early even on my days off; I think an easy 20 minute work out before breakfast and a shower is a good place to start.

    Update: I have it all written out, but I only completed one day. I think I need more time in the mornings than I have been giving myself and a space that makes me feel more comfortable. I’ve moved the weights back into the “creativity room”, put up the pull-up bar, and brought up a yoga mat too. Next week I there will be no excuse.

    Make time for my plants and pets. The dog has been cooped up, he snakes are being neglected, and my plants are all looking a little limp and brown around the edges. Only the cat is thriving in this newfound independence my chronic illness has given them but even she wishes her litter box was cleaned a little more often. I haven’t been feeling well but they need me too and I have to stop being so selfish with all of my good hours.

    Update: I wish the weather had been warmer to walk the dog in but she did get lots of cuddle time, a trip to the pet store, new toys, and treats. The cat is sleeping with me again and the snakes all got fresh clean substrate, nice big meals, and new hides to burrow in. All the plants were watered, pruned, and moved to more favorable lighting conditions as needed.

    Post my end-of-year reflections and my beginning of year intentions and goals. I have them drafted but deciding what you want a whole year to look like before it’s even begun is a daunting task. I have no idea what kind of year 2020 will be or what kind of person I will be in it. I also know that whatever I say now will change within 3 months and be completely forgotten by August, anyway. Still, if I want to be more deliberate in my life, I have to try.

    Update: I was simple a week too early. This goal was meant for Week 01, not week 52. Still, I did write the posts, mostly, and plan to share them on the days they are meant to go out. If I do it, I will come back and update this post to reflect that.

    Enjoy my holiday! I’ve never been a big fan of Christmas or New Year’s. I’ve never liked winter and I’ve never taken much time off during the break. This year isn’t really an exception but I would like to make a little more of an effort. I’d like to look for the good, to see the bright lights, to eat good food, to feel warm and cheerful. It was a good year. I am surrounded by love and support, and looking forward to so many good things. I’d like to celebrate that too.

    Update: Christmas was delightful! All my gifts made it to their intended destinations and recipients. I received some pretty neat things in exchange. There was plenty of good food, plenty to drink, plenty of laughter, and I was surrounded by so much warmth and love. I enjoyed every second, and I am relieved beyond words that it’s finally over.

    This week I won’t let myself get too down. My health is weighing on my mind and weighing down my body but if I put rest first, eat what I know is good for me, keep a positive outlook, and allow myself to feel pride in accomplishing what I can rather than dwelling on what I can’t I know I can keep on putting one foot in front of the other though to the week’s end.

    P.S. For a look at how I fared last week check out my updated post for Week 51.

    Photo by Katie Doherty on Unsplash

  • The Week’s End // A Thought-Provoking Round-Up

    The Week’s End // A Thought-Provoking Round-Up

    Happy Saturday everyone! If you’re looking for some interesting things to read or watch while you kick back and relax, look no further, here are my favorite things from around the web this week:

    1. “A wealth tax is a tax on accumulated fortunes, not on [the income of] people that are going out and working every day. It’s time for us to look at those fortunes and think about the kind of country we want to be. Do we think it’s more important to keep [the people who own] those fortunes from paying two cents on the dollar or to have the money to invest in an entire generation?” — Elizabeth Warren Interview // Rolling Stone

    2. “On the way we talk about ‘the economy,’ as if it were a natural force, he elaborates: ‘People make it sound like it’s some monster living in the woods that you have to make sacrifices to, but the economy is just us. How am I doing? That’s how the economy is really doing.’” — Forgive Us Our Debts // Buzzfeed

    3. “Death is like painting rather than like sculpture, because it’s seen from only one side. Monochrome—like the mausoleum-gray former Berlin Wall, which kids in West Berlin glamorized with graffiti. What I’m trying to do here.” — The Art of Dying // The New Yorker

    4. “Our job was to step out of the closet and become warriors and demand equality. Now that they see us as human beings, I think it really brought a lot of people over to our side.” — How gay marriage won America // Vox

    5. “Every three or four months or so she’d see something that she just couldn’t stand. Something that made her feel utterly disgusted and terrified. Sometimes it was cracks, but other times it was patterns of holes or dots, or scenes from underwater nature programmes showing things like groups of barnacles. She’d shake, pour with sweat and end up lying on the floor in tears.” — Why Do Holes Horrify Me? // The Good Men Project

    6. “After a year of removing terrorism and child abuse from Google’s services, she suffered from anxiety and frequent panic attacks. She had trouble interacting with children without crying. A psychiatrist diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder. She still struggles with it today.” — The Terror Queue // The Verge

    7. “Building a counternarrative, then, necessitates not simply making visible ‘a problem,’ but beginning where most master narratives retreat: the margins. For Hartman and Dunbar, marginalia become the center: so-called minor figures become the key players, witnesses, and protagonists.” — A Black Counternarrative // Public Books

    8. “When illusionists argue that what we experience as qualia are ‘nothing like’ our actual internal mental mechanisms, they are, in a sense, right. But they also seem to forget that everything we perceive about the outside world is a representation and not the thing-in-itself.” — Consciousness is Real // Aeon

    9. “The winter is a season in waiting. Waiting for the sun to melt what’s frozen. To grow what is buried. To reveal life’s own determination for itself. And so we wait, in the tenebrous space. Not because the darkness is a punishment but because darkness is the promise of light.” — It’s Not The Dark’s Fault We’re Afraid // Free People Blog

    10. “In 2009, Folgers released a commercial meant to be a modern reimagining of their classic ad ‘Peter Comes Home For Christmas.’ Little did they know, it would become a classic of its own—for a very different reason.” — “You’re My Present This Year”: An Oral History of the Folgers Incest Ad // GQ

    Have you read, watched, written, or posted an interesting or inspiring thing this week? Has something on the internet made you feel strongly, think deeply, or see the world in a new light? If so, drop a link in the comments, we’d love to check it out!

    Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

  • Goals // Week 51

    Goals // Week 51

    This week is going to be a long one, I already know it, but there’s nothing I can do to speed it up or to make the hours less grueling so there is no point in dwelling or whining over it. Instead, I will focus on the moment rather than wishing for the weekend. I will give each of my tasks my best and when it’s time to rest, I will give that my best too.

    This week I will:

    Read 100 more pages of The Plague by Albert Camus. Having such limited energy level lately means that not only must my best hours be spent on the most physically taxing tasks but that the act of reading has become a rather potent sedative. To be too tired for books is a rather depressing way to live, and I’d rather make cuts elsewhere than go on like this another week.

    Update: I did it but I’m not happy with how it went. I read the most on Monday making it halfway to my goal in the first day of the week, but every day after that I made less and less time for reading. What I’m trying to do is read a little every day. I want reading to be a habit. I want to treat each book like a marathon, not a sprint.

     Stay on top of my meal and medication schedule. I’m still tweaking the regime and trying to find the best way to take all my medications and supplements that facilitates maximum absorption and effectiveness and results in as little nausea as possible. I’m doing well but the slightest distraction can mean skipped doses, missed meals, detrimental cravings, and debilitating fatigue. Bonus: Stay hydrated!

    Update: It’s been so hard with work, with holiday festivities, time spent out shopping and with my withering appetite but I’m doing my best. I have the schedule down and the pills separated so that they are spread throughout the day. I take them with me wherever I go and I give myself permission to stop and eat when I can and where I can to make sure I stay on top of my health.

    Schedule time to create a new “Bradbury prompts” list every day and write 1000 words. There is no goal beyond that. The words do not have to be good. They do not have to be interesting or even make sense. They do not even have to be published or shared. The goal is to practice the art of WORK RELAX DON’T THINK and all I need for that is a pen to write and paper to spill my thoughts onto.

    Update: This is my greatest disappointment this week. Making the list last week really worked. It got me thinking, feeling, and writing in a way that I haven’t been able to in a long time. But writing, real writing, the kind that forces me to delve deep, feel my feelings, and then to expose myself to others is terrifying. I famously avoid anything that is hard or scary, so, I just didn’t make the tie and put the whole thing out of my head.

    Finish my Christmas shopping and ship packages to out-of-town loved ones. It’s going to be hard but every day after work I am going to have to go back out into the world, fight the cold and the crowds, and get my gifting done. I have a few packages to ship but have little hope they will arrive on time. I just have to do my best.

    Update: I’m done! I hated every second of it but I’m happy now knowing all the cute and fun things I bought are on their way to my loved ones across the country. I had hoped to send them a week earlier than I did to avoid the up charge to guarantee arrival by Christmas but I’m content knowing I wasn’t so late it was impossible all together.

    Start a gratitude journal. Since I have been posting here (almost) daily I’ve severely neglected my physical journal. When I was journalling by hand regularly I used to end each day with a list of 5 good things that happened or that I felt, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. These things are often too personal for the internet which is why I haven’t continued the practice but I miss it. Time to get back to making gratitude a daily practice.

    Update: I wanted to but to be honest, I wasn’t having a very good week and since the journal is a new one and I couldn’t bring myself to start out a new journal in such a negative time. Things have since improved. I have a better outlook and a lot more hope and excitement for the year to come. I am ready to start fresh for the new year.

    This week I won’t let people who don’t have my best interests at heart get to me. I won’t let their bitterness push me to act out of character and I will remember that every opportunity I have I earned through hard work and passion. When I feel my frustration rising, I’ll isolate and immerse myself in my work and look toward a bright future I know is on the way.

    P.S. For a look at how I fared last week check out my updated post for Week 50.

    Photo by Nicolas Moscarda on Unsplash

  • The Week’s End // A Thought-Provoking Round-Up

    The Week’s End // A Thought-Provoking Round-Up

    Happy Saturday everyone! If you’re looking for some interesting things to read or watch while you kick back and relax, look no further, here are my favorite things from around the web this week:

    1. “Thunberg is 16 but looks 12. She usually wears her light brown hair pulled into two braids, parted in the middle. She has Asperger’s syndrome, which means she doesn’t operate on the same emotional register as many of the people she meets. She dislikes crowds; ignores small talk; and speaks in direct, uncomplicated sentences. She cannot be flattered or distracted. She is not impressed by other people’s celebrity, nor does she seem to have interest in her own growing fame. But these very qualities have helped make her a global sensation. Where others smile to cut the tension, Thunberg is withering. Where others speak the language of hope, Thunberg repeats the unassailable science: Oceans will rise. Cities will flood. Millions of people will suffer.” — TIME 2019 Person of the Year | Greta Thunberg

    2. “Our long, sometimes tumultuous relationship with octopuses…has settled into something nearing reverence. We once called them ugly monsters. Now we plaster their likeness on our restaurants and tattoo it onto our arms. We once bludgeoned them with oars and brawled with them for sport. Now we’ve elevated octopuses to what in this secular era passes for gods: extraterrestrials.” — The Octopus from Outer Space // Seattle Met

    3. “Half of employees don’t take paid time off due to high workloads or worries about job security, and 49% don’t take their allotted vacation days, yet nearly three-quarters agree that paid time off makes them feel more productive and healthier at work, and a quarter of employees would be willing to take a pay cut to get more of it. In other words: desire to do it more, guilt for doing it, guilt for not doing it, repeat. Hmm.” — Americans have a psychologically twisted relationship with paid time off // Fast Company

    4. “Demonstrators hold placards during a protest against Chile’s government, in Santiago, Chile, on December 10, 2019. ” — Photos of the Week // The Atlantic

    5. “Individuals commonly have to decide what they absolutely swear they will do and what they promise with equal sincerity they will never do. Whatever activity it covers, that covenant beckons to hypocrisy. And then cheating.” — Why Do People Cheat? (Because They Often Win) // Literary Hub

    6. “We have words to describe the flu, or depression, or the common cold. We know the contours and symptoms of these illnesses. But when it comes to climate grief, the experience can be hard to define, and thus harder to understand and demonstrate. If climate sickness exists in the overlap of the physical and the emotional, we need words for those feelings, a dictionary of sorts that allows us to see patterns in the experiences of individual people. Fortunately, that’s exactly what a group of motley philosophers, artists, and doctors are currently working to devise. ” — Under the Weather // Believer Magazine

    7. “Lately, I think I’m experiencing democracy grief. For anyone who was, like me, born after the civil rights movement finally made democracy in America real, liberal democracy has always been part of the climate, as easy to take for granted as clean air or the changing of the seasons. When I contemplate the sort of illiberal oligarchy that would await my children should Donald Trump win another term, the scale of the loss feels so vast that I can barely process it.” — Democracy Grief is Real // The New York Times

    8. “I think it’s complicated. There seems to have developed in the last 20 years these public conceptions of sex work and trafficking as being dichotomous…and there were arguments there between the various groups about whether trading sex was something that could be done consensually or whether it was always coerced.” — Sex Work // Call Your Girlfriend

    9. “For the most part, my questioners have already presupposed a fairly limited set of acceptable answers to the question of what’s worth doing—answers that generally bottom out in the material wellbeing of oneself and others. But those answers, innocuous as they might seem to the speaker, are philosophical answers to a philosophical question.” — Is there anything especially expert about being a philosopher? // Aeon

    10. “Everybody is familiar with the feeling that things are not as they should be. That you are not successful enough, your relationships not satisfying enough. That you don’t have the things you crave. In this video we want to talk about one of the strongest predictors of how happy people are, how easily they make friends and how good they are at dealing with hardship. An antidote against dissatisfaction so to speak: Gratitude.” — An Antidote to Dissatisfaction // Kurzgesagt—In a Nutshell

    Have you read, watched, written, or posted an interesting or inspiring thing this week? Has something on the internet made you feel strongly, think deeply, or see the world in a new light? If so, drop a link in the comments, we’d love to check it out!

    Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

  • “Doesn’t the dismissal of emotion stem from emotion? Is there a neutral non-emotive state?”

    — Erica Avey // Question

  • Death of the Periphery

    https://open.spotify.com/episode/2WixKSNEujRQvWtqJTr2ya?si=3jbhl677QjyTF6c1yvBrIg

    “I’ve often felt like the deeper discipline of poetry is overhearing yourself say things you didn’t want to know about the world, something that actually emancipates you from this smaller self out into this larger dispensation that you actually didn’t think you deserved. So one of the things we’re most afraid of in silence is this death of the periphery, the outside concerns, the place where you’ve been building your personality and where you think you’ve been building who you are, starts to atomize and fall apart. It’s one of the basic reasons we find it difficult even just to turn the radio off or the television or not look at our gadget — is that giving over to something that’s going to actually seem as if it’s undermining you to begin with and lead to your demise. The intuition, unfortunately, is correct. You are heading toward your demise, but it’s leading towards this richer, deeper place that doesn’t get corroborated very much in our everyday outer world.”

    — David Whyte

  • Goals // Week 50

    Goals // Week 50

    This week I have a lot to get done, again, but not as much as last week. The new class of employees is just about done and by midweek I should start seeing more time for myself and I just hope to have the energy, the mental resources, and the emotional stability to focus on what is important when that time comes along.

    This week I will:

    Read 100 pages of The Plague by Albert Camus. Last week I didn’t get any reading done at all and while I already know I will fall far short of my reading goals for the year, I had hoped to end with at least two more books under my belt. So, this week I have to get back to it. I don’t think 20 pages a day is too much to ask of myself.

    Update: I made it just over half way which was better than nothing so I won’t be too hard on myself. I just have so little energy right now that reading has become a chore. I’m actually really missing it and hoping that paring a cup of black or green tea with my reading time going forward will help perk me up and get me through the pages.

     Stay on top of my meal and medication schedule. Between medications and supplements I’m up to at least 17 pills a day. Some of them have to be taken with food, some 30 minutes before I eat, and some make me so nauseous that they have to be spaced out as much as possible front the others. That means I can’t miss a meal, or eat too late, or forget a pill or I end up feeling cruddy or slipping back down hill. My health has to be the top priority now.

    Update: I only missed one evening dose of my medication and between 17 pills and having to break my meals up into four a day rather than three I think that’s pretty good. I made some small tweaks to the schedule and wrote it down to keep with me so I won’t forget what to take when. Just 7 more weeks to go like this.

    Begin my own list of what I have started calling “Bradbury prompts“. These are simple words or phrases pulled from the mind without too much forethought to kick start blog posts and essays. The list is the first step in the Ray Bradbury WORK RELAX DON’T THINK system. I’m looking for patterns, for concept groups, for my motivation and possibly a project.

    Update: I did “start” but I failed to keep going. I did enjoy the exercise very much and saw immediately how it could save me time and help me start writing when I don’t know where to begin. Going forward I really want to make this something I schedule and do every day and follow the list up with 1000+ words toward an essay or blog post based on what pops out of my head and into the list.

    Get the Christmas shopping finished for our out-of-town people. December is slipping away quickly and before you know it, the last day for gifts to arrive before Christmas will be long passed. I’m sending to small children and I cannot have them disappointed in on Christmas day when there is nothing from Auntie Lisa under the tree.

    Update: I did “start” but I failed to keep going. I did enjoy the exercise very much and saw immediately how it could save me time and help me start writing when I don’t know where to begin. Going forward I really want to make this something I schedule and do every day and follow the list up with 1000+ words toward an essay or blog post based on what pops out of my head and into the list.

    Finish my resume! There is a new opportunity coming up very quickly that I know I would be perfect for and I want to be ready but I am procrastinating, badly. I have started but I haven’t finished and half finished means nothing at all. This opportunity was made for me and I have only to be brave enough to reach out and seize it.

    Update: I don’t even want to talk about it. I failed miserably to finish it and rather than let myself down again I have taken it off of my list for next week and pledged to revisit the document at home during my winter break. I’ve already added it as an even in my calendar and turned on multiple notifications with note proclaiming “No excuses!”

    This week I—hopefully—will slowly be returning to my old self. The temptation will be to overdo it. I’ll want to eat foods I know I can’t eat, to do things that I know I can’t do, and to push myself too far too soon. The danger now is losing progress. This week I have to listen to my body over the needs of anyone else.

    P.S. For a look at how I fared last week check out my updated post for Week 49.

    Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

  • The Week’s End // A Thought-Provoking Round-Up

    The Week’s End // A Thought-Provoking Round-Up

    Happy Saturday everyone! If you’re looking for some interesting things to read or watch while you kick back and relax, look no further, here are my favorite things from around the web this week:

    1. “I’m just a guy who’s had 21 years worth of anxiety fixes tried on him by doctors and cognitive behavioral therapists. I’d like to share with you which ones have worked for me over the next 30 days.” — 30 Practical Tactics to Decrease Your Anxiety (Intro) // CJ Chilvers

    2. “Our energies are overwhelmingly directed toward material, scientific, and technical subjects and away from psychological and emotional ones. Much anxiety surrounds the question of how good the next generation will be at math; very little around their abilities at marriage or kindness. We devote inordinate hours to learning about tectonic plates and cloud formations, and relatively few fathoming shame and rage.” — Alain de Botton on Existential Maturity and What Emotional Intelligence Really Means // Brain Pickings

    3. “Neurosymphony explores three distinct perspectives on the brain, using videos of the scans made freely available by the NICC. The video pairs the imagery with an excerpt from the album Chapel by the US electronic musician and music-cognition researcher Grace Leslie, in which she converts her brainwaves into music.” — Neurosymphony // Aeon

    4. “Training is based on deep-dive EI activities, such as mindfulness and meditation, as well as empathy and compassion exercises to strengthen their relationship with guests. Employees are entrusted to make on-the-spot decisions to improve a client’s experience.” — New research suggests this is the best way to teach emotional intelligence // Fast Company

    5. “There is an overflowing pipeline of “feel-good” stories traveling from local to national news, showcasing inspirational tales about adversity and how community members support each other in times of need. However, these pieces, seemingly easy to report out because of their surface-level levity, often eclipse overarching, unexplored narratives about labor, health care, education, and more, indicated by the lack of public or private support detailed in these stories themselves.” — Beware of the feel-good news story // Vox

    6. In absolutely sickening news: “A bill to ban abortion introduced in the Ohio state legislature requires doctors to ‘reimplant an ectopic pregnancy’ into a woman’s uterus–a procedure that does not exist in medical science–or face charges of ‘abortion murder’.” — The Guardian

    7. “A general view shows a statue among abandoned items and debris in an entry area for the canteen inside Hong Kong Polytechnic University on November 20, 2019.” — Photos of the Week // The Atlantic

    8. “Maybe you’ve heard Biden talk about his boyhood stutter. A non-stutterer might not notice when he appears to get caught on words as an adult, because he usually maneuvers out of those moments quickly and expertly. But on other occasions, like that night in Detroit, Biden’s lingering stutter is hard to miss.” — What Joe Biden Can’t Bring Himself to Say // The Atlantic

    Bonus: More notes on stuttering // Austin Kleon

    9. “You might think that in everyday life, the things you see and hear influence what you feel, but it’s mostly the other way around: What you feel alters your sight and hearing.” — The Wisdom Your Body Knows // The New York Times

    10. A re-aired episode of The Ezra Klein Show I missed from last year with Lilliana Mason. From the synopsis “…Mason offers one of the best primers I’ve read on how little it takes to activate a sense of group identity in human beings, and how far-reaching the cognitive and social implications are once that group identity takes hold.”

    Bonus: Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity by Lilliana Mason

    Have you read, watched, written, or posted an interesting or inspiring thing this week? Has something on the internet made you feel strongly, think deeply, or see the world in a new light? If so, drop a link in the comments, we’d love to check it out!

    Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

  • W O R D S // Manuela Zammit

  • https://www.instagram.com/p/B2SV2Jrhg6L/

    Different perspective // Samuel Jaramillo