A business I work nearby has recently ceased to do business, and the marquee now says: “closed for good”. The phrasing got me thinking. I know in this sense it is meant to convey the finality of the closure, but it gave me pause – what if it meant the closing was good?
There is an old proverb that falls on the humorous side: One person asks another “How do you eat an elephant?” and the reply is “One bite at a time”. It’s got many variations, is often referenced, frequently found in memes, and a wise reminder that big things can be accomplished with lots of small steps.
We are wired to favor novelty. There’s a fair bit of professional study on this – we like things that are new and different. To be more accurate, “like” isn’t exactly the right word but it is fact that things that are new and different will draw our attention. We are all still kids with a new toy on Christmas day that leave it discarded by Boxing day.
I love nonfiction. It makes me feel smarter, informed, and if knowledge is power, then powerful too. I love the active feeling of learning, of feeling like I’m a better person for having read the thing. And for a long time, I only felt that way about non-fiction, and maybe biography/memoirs. My own inner critic […]
I know I’m in trouble when I start getting sick, particularly getting sick with weird little things. I am pretty in tune with my body and when I get tired, my nose runs. It’s like somewhere in the early part of my existence my brain noticed that I would lay down and rest when my […]
(To listen to this instead, click here) There are two times of year that feel big and bold to me, January and early September. Both are completely cultural time markers with either the happy new year party horns seeming to ring in my ears and urge me on to wild resolutions, or the back-to-school reminders […]
I just finished reading and guiding “Stop Overthinking” as the Book to Body book of the month for September and one thing really stuck with me. The book itself offers a wide array of tools pulled from many disciplines. The one lingering for me is the Eisenhower Matrix. In the online space there are 5.7 […]
A part of my plot to get rid of 100 things a day has been not only things that are physical but things that sit on my seemingly infinite to-do lists. For me, books are a massive to do list that could just as well be a very long list of all the books or […]
When I started this side quest, I knew I had digital and physical clutter and I suspected I would be happier if I could clear some of it out. Two months in I am still finding myself curious about the ‘extra’ that it turns out is all over my life. What has become clear is that getting rid of 100 things a day is far too often just holding steady on the number of things I have. I delete 100 pictures and somehow, I take 100 more. Donate some things only to turn around to packages by the door.
The power of accomplishment is real. That sense of completion is powerful, it can land as relief, joy, spaciousness and a million other things – yet all offer a rush of feelings. And lately I’ve been wondering if perhaps we’re all a little addicted to it. I love to check an item off my to do list and recently my lists got very overwhelming. It happens to us all, even when we’re deep in things we love doing it is still “doing” all the things in a finite amount of time.