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 didn’t hear about hygge until hygge was everywhere, so I am especially excited that I heard about ikigai before it jumped the shark.  What is ikigai, you ask?

It’s the newest addition to our trend of borrowing ideas from other cultures without paying an iota of attention to other elements of the culture that support and nurture the idea.  Fun!

Your ikigai is your “reason to jump out of bed each morning.”  Or “the intersection of what you are good at and what you love doing.”  You find your ikigai by doing four things: (1) making a list of everything you love doing, (2) making a list of everything you are good at doing, (3) making a list of profitable skills — things you know how to do that you can get paid to do, and (4) making a list of what the world needs.  Where do all of those lists overlap?

At first I thought my ikigai was going to be writing, but I think it’s actually somewhere between disseminating ideas and pollinating thoughts.

What is your ikigai?  And are you in the correct profession for your ikigai?

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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’ve purchased — but haven’t read yet — Dan Harris’s 10% Happier.  The idea appeals to me because 10% sounds totally do-able.  100% happier… that’s like Disney-level happy.  But 10%, that’s more like a-really-good-salad happy.  That’s finding-an-easy-parking-space happy.

Which is why I clicked on Elisha Goldstein’s article about putting 10% more kindness into the world.  100% more kindness… that’s the first step towards burnout or sainthood.  But 10% kinder, that’s more like smiling-at-someone-when-they’re-snarling-at-you kind.  That’s offering-to-take-something-off-someone’s-plate kind.  I like the idea of being 10% kinder to myself as well.

As Goldstein states: “Remember, the immediate outcome isn’t the point; it’s more about giving your brain practice in kindness.”

Tell me one kind thing you did this week.

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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 still read aloud to the kids.  At this point, it’s usually something I want to talk about as we read it.

But even though I love reading books aloud, I hate having books read to me.  I am not a fan of audio books, even on long car rides.  I probably would not have fared well in the time before the printing press, before consuming stories became a silent exercise.

Isn’t it strange to think that if I had been born only 100+ years ago, the norm would have been spoken stories?  This piece in Quartz on the history of reading places silent reading as the norm only around the late 1800s.  Would my brain be different if the only option I knew were stories read aloud?

Do you like people reading aloud to you or audio books, or do you prefer to always read silently?

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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 have been a lot of posts written in the past week or so about deleting your Facebook account; the pros and cons of doing so after the emergence of the Cambridge Analytica disaster.

My favourite was one in Quartz that referred to Facebook as “the emotional LinkedIn.”  What LinkedIn is to career networking and the unemotional side of connections, Facebook is to keeping every era of our life close.  Even if you cull your list, shedding people as you age, it is still a place to emotionally network.  It is where I go to connect with all the IF bloggers who have left infertility blogging.

The other headers resonated, too: Online Memory Lane or Your Digital Identity.  It is those things as well.

I check Facebook once or twice a day, scrolling for a few minutes each time.  Maybe if I used it more or used it differently, I would have other feelings towards the site.  But as is, the amount and way I personally use it leaves mostly warm-to-neutral feelings despite the frustration that every time I log in, I feel like I’m being used as much (or really, more, since my information isn’t being used by Facebook but instead passed along to others) as I’m using.

Where are you right now with Facebook?

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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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We divide our trips into expansion trips (expand your mind or expand out into the world) and contraction trips (contract into a cozy cocoon of relaxation).  So going to London is an expansion trip, and we generally come back from those trips happily different but exhausted.  Going to the beach is a contraction trip, and we generally come back from those trips the same but rested.

The twins and I have a block of time coming up where Josh is out-of-town and we don’t have any other commitments.  “Let’s go to the beach,” I said.  THEN I found out about this museum about an hour from the beach that details the old communities that existed on the barrier islands.  “Let’s also go to the museum!”  I mean, it’s just one more hour of driving.  For something super cool.

But the Wolvog pointed out that going to the museum defeats the purpose of going to the beach.  That we wouldn’t get true expansion because we’re talking about doing something new for about four hours of our usual beach trip but we also wouldn’t get true contraction because we wouldn’t be hanging out on the beach, relaxing and reading.

Point taken.

Do you prefer expansion-type trips or contraction-like trips?

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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.