A good friend observed that it is easy to deprioritize self-care because of an absence of immediate/short-term consequences.
This is true for many of the most important things in this life.
That, then, is the question we all need to answer in our pursuit of a good life – how do we ensure we prioritize stuff that matters – even when there are no immediately observable consequences?
“Don’t compare yourself to others – especially not their virtual selves.
There is a difference between a front stage and back stage self. Sometimes the people who put forth the most perfect front stage self are those whose back stage self is falling apart. Lots of airbrush.” | Brad Stulberg
It resonated.
I was renting a car recently. The friendly lady at the counter of the Dollar/Thrifty car rental added a fuel pre-payment charge after giving me a brief overview.
I asked her a couple more questions and realized it wasn’t something I wanted. So, I asked for it to be removed.
“Unfortunately, the system doesn’t let me do that.”
The solution was to wait until drop off. At drop off, I had to bring back an acknowledgment/confirmation of a full tank of gas from the representative back to the counter. It was fine in the big scheme of things – just an extra 10 minutes (factoring in time in a queue).
But, the exercise reminded me of a metric that I think would be particularly helpful for product teams to measure – easy of cancellation. This would require everyone on the team to know the answer to the question – how easy is it for a customer to remove a charge/cancel a subscription/close an account?
Small improvements in our systems translate into large improvements to the customer experience.
I heard a songwriter describe his relationship with the voice memos app on his phone. He said he kept recording ideas for songs but rarely went back to use them.
He found that the best of ideas had this way of coming back to him.
I’ve heard writers describe their relationship with the notes app similarly. They keep taking ideas down. But, they end up ignoring most of the ideas.
Why is that?
On the one hand, it speaks to the importance of saying no to good ideas as part of the creative process. So, it is expected most ideas are not used.
But, on the other, this habit of taking our ideas down – in my eyes – is a mark of the respect we afford to our ideas. When our mind gives us something, we say – “I see you, I acknowledge you” – by taking the idea down. That acknowledgment tends to encourage more ideas.
And, some of them end up being good ones.
I have spoken to a few folks whose (US based) employers are planning a Q1 reopening. Some of these employers have signaled a return to the office in Jan. Others are scheduling large group events in the first quarter of 2022.
All of this made perfect sense pre-Omicron.
We’ve been here before as well. In May, we felt a surge of optimism in the US. Vaccines were being broadly deployed. Everyone was expecting to be back in the office in September. Then Delta hit.
If past patterns are anything to go by, I think we’re going to see the same thing happen with Omicron. All Q1 re-opening plans are going to be delayed with the expected Omicron related spike in the middle of January.
While the data is early, signs seem to point to Omicron being more transmissible (or at least better at evading existing immunity). And, there are positive signs that it is less lethal – especially among folks who’ve received a booster (The data is constantly getting updated – so, I’m just going to link to Eric Topol’s excellent Twitter account).
Learning from past patterns, Omicron will likely not be the last mutation. So, some of these reopening plans may be pushed back a few times. The unpredictability isn’t going away anytime soon.
All of this won’t make it any easier for the immunocompromised and the elderly unfortunately. But, thanks to vaccines, boosters, and soon-to-arrive anti-viral pills, we’ll hopefully become better and better equipped to deal with this evolving pandemic.
It just won’t happen overnight. And I think we’re better off setting those expectations for ourselves.
Here’s hoping reality exceeds our (lowered) expectations.
Often, the most powerful tool we have in our toolbox to deal with unpleasant situations is a sense of humor.
Keeping a sense of humor in a tough situation doesn’t solve problems. But, in making us feel better, it helps us clear our head.
That, in turn, helps us deal with our problems better.
A simple way to effect a change in our behavior – add friction to behaviors we are looking to minimize.
And vice versa.
I’ve been heads down on a couple of all consuming projects at home and at work in the past 6 months. I observed 4 trade-offs I made during this time –
(1) Exercise was sporadic. I’m not as fit as I’d like to be.
(2) I chose short-form reading over long-form reading. So, I’ve read fewer books this year than most. I also found myself more sucked in than usual to casual browsing on the phone.
(3) I did a poorer job setting boundaries. There was a lot of work and little downtime.
(4) I was more sleep deprived than usual.
Over the past decade, I’ve cultivated an annual ritual of taking extended time off in the last ~3 weeks of the year – to rest, recharge, and reset. As I begin that process this year, I thought I’d start by taking stock of the trade-offs I’ve made in the past months.
As both projects are in a healthier place, I’m hoping I’ll be able to make fewer trade-offs in the new year. But, healthy habits won’t magically reappear on January 1st. It will take intention, thought, and focus to reset.
And, a big part of the starting that reset process is being honest about what hasn’t worked in the past months.
We don’t have to work too hard to find something broken around us.
There’s always something to worry about, to be annoyed about, or to be frustrated about. Always. If it isn’t in our personal or work lives, all we need to do is turn on the news.
We can choose to focus on that. Or choose to redirect our energy and focus onto fixing what we can (when we can) and onto things that give us joy.
Always our choice.
We hosted a few folks over recently. As it was outdoors, this was dependent on good weather.
And we had good weather.
But, here’s the thing – we didn’t make a big deal of the fact that we had good weather.
If we had bad weather, however, we’d have talked about it a lot more and likely remembered other instances of bad luck.
It reminded me of the fact that we are good at keeping track of our misfortunes.
Here’s to getting as good at keeping track of all our lucky breaks.
A Learning a Day 