Category — Microblog Mondays

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I’ve already told you my resolutions.  It’s really simple and open, so I know I can stick to it: spend 15 minutes every week day doing something that will make me a better human or worker.  That comes out to 3,750 minutes per year, or about 62.5 hours.  It can be anything I want: reading a book, practicing a skill, decompressing.

Starting tomorrow, I’m going to do it (most of the time) first thing in the morning, before I begin work, so I can start the day feeling productive.  I’m adding a two-page monthly spread to my bullet journal so I can track what I do (for instance, read pages 34 – 53 in X book) and look back at it at the end of the year.  Simple.  Do-able.  And I’m finding the time to do this by trimming down on mindless scrolling that always leaves me feeling empty.  Win-win.

What is your resolution?  Or feel free to join mine.  There are a few of us on a listserv so we can share ideas.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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The Internet is a wonderful space because it allows me every year to vicariously experience Christmas.  So feed my heart: how do you do Christmas?  What did you do last night?  What will you do later today?  Have you opened your gifts?  What did you get?  Who are you with?  What is the best thing about this Christmas, or, if it hasn’t been a great day, what is the worst thing about this Christmas?  This doesn’t just need to be a place to gush; you can also use it as a space to vent.

Christmas 2018 — spill it.  Let me know how you’re spending the day if you celebrate it.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I love silence.  I work at home, without any extraneous sounds beyond a phone call here and there.  I drive without music, flipping on the radio only when other people enter the car.  If Josh is out for the night and the kids have gone to bed, I’ll enjoy a little more silence rather than opting for turning on the television.  I talk to friends and family and love getting together with people, but I don’t seek out sound.

And, yet, I come from a very talk-heavy culture, and I have a constant impulse to strike up conversations with people around me because I believe they expect the people around them to strike up conversations.  Does that make sense?

The BBC recently did a piece on why people in Finland don’t do small-talk, and it said: “silence functions as an extension of comfortable conversation.”  Yes!  If I am comfortable, I am quiet.

Do you make small talk, chatting with people in lines or behind the counter?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Here’s a little “what would you do” situation: Josh and I were having dinner with two friends last week in a quiet restaurant.  There were only two tables filled in the restaurant — our table and the one behind us.  I was sitting with my back to the other table, which contained two women.

One woman lost control (I have no clue what happened because my back was to them) of her wine glass, tossing the contents five feet in the air to land squarely on my coat, sweater, hair, and the floor.  Josh and I tried to clean up my coat (which got the worst of the red wine) while our friends went to get the waiter to help with the clean-up.  The women said nothing.

The one who threw the wine scrolled through her phone, but they literally didn’t interact with us.  They watched us trying to get the wine out of my coat, but didn’t apologize or offer to help or… do anything.  Again, we were the only two tables in the restaurant, and we were at the table next to them.  There is zero chance that they didn’t notice everything happening.

I didn’t confront them because it was really bizarre.  I guess I figured that it wasn’t worth it if their instinct wasn’t to apologize or help.  But afterwards, I wondered why I didn’t.  Would you have said something?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I can’t find the blog post right now, but I once wrote that I wanted my eulogy to be, “she was nice.”  I thought that if I could live a life where people walked away saying, “she was nice,” it would have been a life well-lived.  I’m not aiming for brilliant or world-changing or important.  Just nice.

Which is why I was taken aback by Psychology Today’s piece about the dangers of being nice.  Dangers?  How can there be dangers to niceness?  There are dangers to being a pushover or a martyr.  But niceness, in and of itself, doesn’t have dangers, or as Psychology Today puts it: “There are often psychological dangers lurking below that friendly surface, a downside that can take its toll.”

Gulp.

At the end of the long list of problems and advice, the writer asks: “So, are you ready to give up some of your niceness?”  But the answer is no.  I still strive to have people say, “she was nice.”  We can use more nice in the world.

Do you aim to be nice?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.