I came up with this idea back in early December, but I’m waiting until the new year to implement it.  It was partially because December has been so freakin’ busy and I felt overwhelmed about adding something on my plate, and partially because I wanted something new for the new year.

#15Best

I’m taking 15 minutes every day to do something that I believe will make me a better person.  It will usually be reading 15 minutes in a book that I think will make me a better person (for instance, Mo Gawdat’s Solve for Happy) or working on my happy list (also Gawdat).  But I’m also leaving it open to any activity that will make me feel better, such as learning a new skill (card tricks!) or practicing an existing skill. I’m going to find these 15 minutes by spending less time mindlessly scrolling through social media or playing match-3 games. I mean, yes, I’m still going to spend time on social media and match-3 games, but I can trim 15 minutes from that and not miss a thing.

I guess I want to feel like I moved the needle.  Even if it’s an incremental amount; I want to go to bed knowing that I did something in my day that brought me closer to being the person I want to be. Or that I best used at least 15 minutes of my day. Hence #15Best.

I’m starting my 15 minutes per weekday on January 1st.  There are 261 weekdays in 2019.  10 of them are holidays, and if I give myself a freebie, I get to a nice, round 250 days.  That means that on December 31st I will have spent 3,750 minutes (or 62.5 hours) becoming a better person. To ensure that I remember to do it, I’m going to set a timer on my phone and make a habit of writing how I spent the 15 minutes in my bullet journal.

Want to join me?  15 minutes a day.  250 days of the year (so, yes, you’ll need to track this by writing down how you spent the minutes, but we’re working on a trust system).  Add your name and blog/social media account URL below if you’re committing to the challenge so we can hold each other accountable.  I’ve also started a Google Group for anyone who wants to chat daily about how they’re spending their 15 minutes. Sign up for the #15Best Google Group. Or meet back here on February 1st to let us know how you’ve done.

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.

When I was little, I saved my Halloween candy, eating it for months afterward.  And when I read the Magicians trilogy the first time, I only allowed myself 10 or so pages per day, switching to a different book when my daily allotment was up.  In other words, I hold onto things that I really love and stretch them out for as long as possible because I don’t want to consider the day that I won’t have that thing in front of me anymore.

I was dumbfounded a week or two ago when Netflix cancelled their fourth most popular show — Daredevil.  Why wouldn’t they renew something that was clearly well-loved?  But they seemed to be cancelling all Marvel shows left and right, so it made sense in the moment that even a popular show wouldn’t survive the purge if they were shedding Marvel properties.

But then I read a hypothesis that Netflix puts more (different?) emphasis on binge watching.  So regardless of whether or not a show is widely watched (popular), it looks at how quickly a show is consumed.

But what about people like me?  I specifically save episodes BECAUSE I like a show.  I watch things I enjoy slower because I want to savour them as much as possible.  Sure, there are things we watch quickly, but on the whole, the more I like something, the slower I go.  I haven’t even seen the final episode of the second season of The Crown yet because ChickieNob and I are too sad to let that cast go.

I don’t want the speed in which I consume something to dictate whether or not I get to keep it.  I don’t fit in this quickly moving world.

Do you like to consume shows (books, etc) quickly or spread it out?

I received the oddest SPAM call this week.  Most of the time, SPAM calls shows up marked as SPAM.  Sometimes, the number is not marked as such, but the call comes from a name of someone I don’t know so I don’t answer it.  But this time, the phone rang and it showed the name and number of our local burrito place.

The first thing I thought was, “Oh, Josh must have gone to lunch with a co-worker and left something there.”  So I picked up, and it immediately launched into one of those robot-spoken “you’ve been chosen” credit card spiels.  Well played, SPAM caller, spoofing our burrito place phone number because you know I’ll pick up if tasty salsa is involved.

Things like that make me want to go telephone-free.

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Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Thinking About Christmas” (The Road Less Travelled)

Okay, now my choices this week.

By the Brooke remembers her daughter on what should have been her eighth birthday.  She muses about what life would be like and then writes, “Eight years is long enough that grief sits familiarly. The week leading up to her birthday wasn’t too bad this year–sometimes the days proceeding are harder than the actual day. This year that wasn’t so much the case.”  It’s a moving post about how everyone in the family processes the day.

My Path to Mommyhood says goodbye to a house with a big, exciting move on the horizon.  Moving means packing, and packing means letting go of things that they won’t bring with them to the new space, including books she collected for a different future.  She writes, “But then there’s the sad ones. The ones that were clearly meant for a child who didn’t come. The ones that have nameplates from my shower with notes from the people who gifted them to us, addressed to our nonexistent baby, declaring love for this amorphous being in the ether who didn’t materialize, imagining storytimes snuggled up in a cozy blanket together that just will never be.”  It’s a bittersweet post about the tangible reminders of change.  It is so hard to let go of things again and again and again.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled has a really big blast from the past: TCOYF (for those of you who spent time on IVFC and remember that acronym.  Wait — is IVFC still around?).  I actually just found my copy a few months ago when we culled out books.  Yes, yes, yes to this: “TCOYF was ‘the Bible’ of the subsequent pregnancy after loss e-mail group I joined that fall, where everyone was either pregnant after a loss, or desperately trying to be.”  I can’t even tell you how many times we went on a trip and I packed my copy because I wanted to be able to consult the book at all times — even when we were doing treatments!  It brings back a lot of memories.

The roundup to the Roundup: Very creative SPAM callers.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between December 7th and December 14th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Until this week, I avoided the book When Breath Becomes Air.  Not because it sounded terrible; just the opposite.  I heard it was amazing — moving and well-written, a Pulitzer finalist and on everyone’s year-end “best of” list.  It’s a surgeon’s first-hand account of being diagnosed with cancer and all that came before and after.

I avoided the story because I could avoid it.  Meaning, I had the choice to not face his difficult story and accept the gift of his words by not picking up the book.  This is something that his loved ones couldn’t do.  It’s something millions upon millions of people don’t get to do: Avoid the story.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the posts I wrote a while back about diversity and reading lists and this privilege fits in that discussion, too.  As a reader, I get to choose what I read, therefore, I can avoid all the stories I don’t want to hear.  That I’m scared to contemplate.

This is different from deciding not to read something because the subject matter doesn’t interest me (example: me + historical romances… except Outlander… I’m strange interested in reading Outlander) or because I don’t know about the book.  This is more akin to turning my head and pretending not to see something.

But what if someone said to me: “I’m not going to read your story because infertility is sad, and I just don’t want to feel sad.  So I’m going to accept that I may go through life knowing nothing about infertility, but I’m fine with that because not being able to build a family is depressing.”

Okay, by not reading When Breath Becomes Air, I’m not saying those hurtful words to his family’s face.  (A writer — or their descendants — has no clue who is reading and who is not reading or why unless told.)  But making the conscious choice to avoid his book just because I believe it will make me sad accomplishes the same thing on my end.  There are so many stories that I’ll never encounter because there are too many people and not enough time.  I accept that.  But not encountering, again, is very different from avoiding.

The book went on sale, and I bought it because the writing was amazing.  While it was sad, I didn’t feel sad reading most of it.  Instead, I found my finger (it’s an e-book) underlining interesting thoughts or phrasing that I wanted to be able to find in the future.  Up until the end, it was much more about living than it was about dying in the same way that infertility can be more about yearning than it is about losing.

I’m glad I abided with his story, not just because it made me understand death better.  As his wife writes in the end on page 151, “Paul’s decision not to avert his eyes from death epitomizes a fortitude we don’t celebrate enough in our death-avoidant culture.”

Are there any books you’ve avoided reading because you’re concerned how you’ll feel as you move through the pages?