A Learning a Day

It occurred to me that the phrase “moments of joy” feels more natural when we describe our experience than saying “days of joy” or “hours of joy.”

Somehow, the longer the described duration, the more awkward it feels.

I think that awkwardness is a nice representation of our life experience. We do experience moments of pure joy. But, beyond that, the euphoria inevitably dies down to remind us of all the things that aren’t quite right.

If you organized something nice, someone likely complained. If you shipped something good, a critic probably came out of the woodwork. And no leader who is trying to make progress ends the week with universal popularity/happiness.

Life is a mixed bag at every long enough unit of time. Weeks tends to be mixed bags. Months, quarters, and years definitely are.

We just learn to filter out the stuff that isn’t positive and remember what remains.

Often, those are the moments of joy. Enjoy them while they last.

Just don’t expect them to last too long.

When I take a walk down the street, I’m enveloped by rows of tall trees. And every time I look at the tall pines and Redwoods, I’m struck by their magnificence. They soar into the sky and somehow combine strength, stability, and stillness all at once.

Their size also reminds me of the fact that they were here long before me. And that they’ll be here long after.

My worries-of-the-moment feel small when I think of everything they’ve seen and endured.

Tall trees give us so many wonderful gifts – shade, oxygen, and beautify. But the biggest gift they give us might just be perspective.

I was getting on a train recently with luggage and was trying to make my way in amidst a few passengers who were standing right in front of the door as the doors began to close.

As I tried making my way in, a guy near the door said – “Hey, be careful. There’s a pregnant lady here.”

I turned, realized she’d been among the crowd, and conveyed a quick apology. He, however, went on with – “What an asshole” and a couple other choice remarks.

I chose not to respond and we all moved on.

A couple reflections –

(1) That space between stimulus and response is so important to maintain our own sanity. Even in situations where we perceive said stimulus to be unfair, it is often best to let things go. This is especially the case with one-off interactions.

(2) Such reactions are more commonly expressed by the dominant demographic group in the particular area. And more often from men vs. women. Caste systems or their spiritual equivalents tend to be everpresent.

(3) Anger often flows from judgment that flows from assuming bad intentions. Compassion, on the other hand, flows from assuming good intentions.

(4) Forgiveness is not something we do for the other person. It is what we do to help ourselves move on.

(5) And a tactical note – when you are on a train, try not to stand in a way that blocks the door at a stop. Move inside even if you’re getting off at the next stop – you can always make it back to the door when the train moves. It goes a long way.

An idea that is lost when we’re walking around in a cynical state of mind is that the many wonderful things in the world around us were all shaped by optimists who refused to let the world around them get them down.

Outside of the incredible gifts we’ve gotten from nature, it is all invented.

We can be those inventors too. We’ll just have to park our cynicism at the door and get on with it.

“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.” | Leonard Bernstein

I love a good quote and this one was particularly good.

Enough time might not be what we need after all.

H/T: Jonathan DeYoe

One way to improve the quality of our decisions is to pose a simple question any time we find ourselves receiving a recommendation – “What are the trade-offs?”

It doesn’t matter what the recommendation is – but if it involves a significant investment for some great predicted benefit – it is worth explicitly understanding what the trade-offs are.

Because they always exist – nothing is perfect.

And the sooner we understand them, the quicker we’ll be able to gauge if something is great for us.

We’ll also quickly understand the compatibility of a recommender as well. Good recommenders tend to be disciplined about consistently calling out trade-offs.

To build strong children, reinforce their sense of belonging to a family by articulating exactly what is distinctive about your family. They should be able to say with pride, “Our family does X.”

“Instead of asking your child what they learned today, ask them “who they helped today.”

I’ve been working my way through my bookmarks on Kevin Kelly’s book. The fun thing about these bookmarks is that I often land on my page and take a second to figure out which of the 2 or 3 pieces of advice I’d bookmarked it for. So many of these are so good.

I’ve now begun aggregating them in themes – today’s was about family and parenting.

Of course, it is just as much about teams and culture.

One way to predict the amount of joy during any given season of our lives is to divide the number of thank you’s we convey by the number of thank you’s we need conveyed to us.

Power reveals character.

Uncertainty and ambiguity reveal leadership.

I visited the emergency room the other day. We ended up spending little time and went out almost as quickly as we went in.

The emergency room has a way of immediately inspiring appreciation for the many things that are working in my life that I take for granted – starting with my health. Good health can do that to you – it can easily foster a sense of complacency.

Everything in this life, however, is built on good health. The moment that becomes a problem, everything stops. And while any current run of good health may be largely due to a mix of youth, genetics, and good luck (whichever applies), in the long run, the decisions we make today determine the frequency and gravity of our visits to a hospital.

Hence the note to self – don’t take good health for granted – do the work to earn it.

And take inspiration from the stoic practice of negative visualization to regularly appreciate the parts of/people in your life that you would miss if they weren’t present/working as they are today.