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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Pascal said, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”  All?  I’d probably argue over the word “all” since it makes a lot of assumptions about humanity’s capacity to create or solve problems.  But it is a value skill: to sit alone with your thoughts and no other distractions.

I am pretty good with this even if I struggle with meditation.  I can sit quietly with my thoughts easier than I can clear my mind of thoughts.

Like I can sit in silence on a bus for hours and stare out the window.  Or in a room; I’m good in a room with complete silence and a good wall to stare at.  No one taught me how to do this; it just naturally occurred.  I remember driving cross-country as a child and staring out the car window for days on end without a need for a Walkman or book.

And the twins are pretty good with this, too — especially the ChickieNob.  I didn’t teach them; they just started doing it.  But as I move through all of these attention-building or bettering exercises this year, I keep wondering if this is something that can be taught.  That should be taught.  Should we teach people how to sit silently without distraction for long periods of time?

Are you good at being alone with your thoughts and no distractions?

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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 don’t have a lot of regrets.  There are things I wish had been possible, like going to Harvard (I didn’t have the grades) or studying abroad junior year (I would have had to let go of two awesome jobs to do so — no way).  But those aren’t regrets because I understand that they were either out of the realm of possibility (I’m just never going to be Queen of a small nation) or the trade-off made it not worth it. (They were really awesome jobs.)

Yet I was still interested in a recent article in the Guardian about regret that I think a lot of other people will be interested in, too, if you missed it the first time around.  This sums up the main idea:

A distinction between what they call the “ideal self”, the person you’d be if you fulfilled all your goals and ambitions, and the “ought self”, the person you’d be if you met your obligations to others, and lived a morally upright life. Overwhelmingly, they found, people regret ideal-self failures – in short, not pursuing your dreams – more than ought-self failures, such as failing to visit a dying relative or cheating on a spouse.

Go read the whole article and then let me know, what are your regrets?

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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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There was a statement made in one of the Second Helpings on the last Roundup that I can’t stop thinking about.  The person said that they always order what they want in a restaurant and never look at the cost.  They go to restaurants within their price range, and once they’re there, they allow themselves whatever they want to eat, even if it’s the most expensive item they’re considering getting.

This isn’t how I order at all.

I only look at menu prices after I’ve narrowed down what I want to eat.  I’m a vegetarian so my meal is rarely expensive in comparison to the other things on the menu, but if one pasta option costs $11 and another costs $16, I’ll go with the $11 one.  Even if I sort of wanted the $16 one more.  Mostly because once I put it in terms of “do I want this enough to warrant the extra $5?” the answer is usually no.

If it was yes, I would get it.  But it rarely is.

Do you look at prices in restaurants that you can generally afford?

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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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This blew my mind: every yes is also a no.  When you say yes to something, you are, invariably, saying no to other things.  Usually those other things are not a sacrifice or missed at all.  But sometimes they are, so you have to consider all the noes (the plural of no!) if you’re a person who says yes a lot.

Saying yes to writing this post means saying no reading a book.  Hanging out with the twins.  Cleaning the house.

That definitely makes me rethink how I approach saying yes.

Think back to your last yes.  What did you say no to?

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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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As the article points out, “Nietzsche detected the handwriting of envy everywhere, observing, ‘Envy and jealousy are the private parts of the human soul’.”  Truth.

The article is about using your envy to discover what YOU truly care about vs. what society has told you to care about.  Because we all feel envy, and if we keep digging into that envy, noting when we feel envy, what we’re envious about on the surface, and then what we’re really envious about deep down inside — for instance, surface envy would be coveting someone else’s house; deeper envy is realizing what you’re coveting is assumed financial stability — then we can learn about ourselves and use that information to make decisions.

In other words, “envy can help us identify our vision of excellence and where need be, perhaps reshape it.”

My envy — like the example above — seems to stem from the idea of financial stability.  Rather than stewing in it, I’ve been trying to read financial planning articles.  The most boring reads of my life, but it’s making me feel like I’m accomplishing something.

What are you really envious of vs surface envy?

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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.