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 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.

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

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It’s that time of year when whatever we struggle with comes to a head.  Blame it on the presentation of the unattainable, perfect life.  Blame it on unrealistic movies, commercials, and social media feeds.  Blame it on the fact that we get sucked in even when we know it’s as fake as snow at Disney World.

If you’re feeling completely down about a problem you’ve been chipping away at forever, psychologists have found the secret to getting motivated again: give advice to someone who is struggling with the same problem.  It’s a really brilliant study, pointing out that people who are dealing with the problem are experts on the problem.

The post points out: “If you’re completely clueless about the resources or strategies necessary for progress, asking for help is probably the best first step. But if you (like most of us), know what you need to do, but are having trouble actually doing it, giving someone advice may be the push you need.”

So what advice do you have to give?

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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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While we’re on the topic of other places (at least, we were yesterday), I was cracking up over this Business Insider post of 24 things that are normal in the US but weird to the rest of the world.

There are some that I find weird, too.  Why is our money all one colour?  But a chunk of the other ones didn’t seem (1) unique to the US or (2) something widespread in the US.

We’ve tipped in every country we’ve ever visited.  Not as Americans acting American, but because there was a note on the receipt about leaving a tip.  That’s what bathroom stalls have looked like in many public places around the world.  And enormous portions have been the norm every place I’ve traveled — from hole-in-the-wall restaurants in small towns in the Middle East to restaurants in European capital cities.  On the other hand, while I’ve certainly seen Solo cups used at parties, it’s more plastic cups in general.  People are happy to use blue ones or clear ones or red ones.  I’m not sure where they only use red Solo cups in the US.

But the ice thing.  Yeah, we love our ice.

What do you think of the list?

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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.