Author Archives: David Truss

Bitter Sweet

I’ve been listening to Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve for about a month now, every time I do my chin-ups.

Sometimes I get a song in my head and I just want to hear it again and again when I’m doing a specific task. When I do plank workouts, it’s Eminem’s Lose Yourself. And when I write, it’s a lyric-less song called ‘Nerve Centre’ on the Calm meditation app. I’m listening to this now, too late on Thursday night, because I can’t sleep.

Tomorrow is bitter sweet. For the past 2 years I’ve been principal of 3 completely different schools: An online school, a small innovative, uniquely structured, but ‘regular’ school, and an alternate school. These schools have nothing much in common except for being in the same building… and having me as Principal. After tomorrow, I’m no longer in charge of the alternate school.

I’ve been needing a change. The role has been exhausting and 2 years in it hasn’t gotten easier. It has been too much, and I always feel I’m letting at least one school down. So, although I’ll be adding some additional responsibilities, I know after 2 years, I will have more balance. But more importantly, I know I can do more for my schools and feel good about that.

So why is this bitter sweet? Where is the bitter part? I’m leaving a school with students I’ve connected with; I’m leaving a school I wish I did more for. I feel guilt that I feel relieved.

But I felt ready to quit a year ago. I was at my ropes end (figuratively only). What kept me going was my early morning fitness and meditation routine, my audio book consumption, and my healthy time restricted eating routine. Last summer, I added this daily blog. With these routines I created something outside of my work schedule that encouraged self-care. They gave me sustenance when my work scheduled didn’t.

It seems counterintuitive, that adding a bunch of extra routines helped me manage my busy schedule better, but they have strengthened my skills as an educator and a leader. I’m fitter and have more energy. I’m listening to non-fiction books that I constantly connect to my job. I reflect on my learning and life lessons here on my blog. And, I’m sure my daily meditation is helping too, although I still can’t calm my monkey brain down and concentrate on my breathing for longer than a minute, even after trying daily for over a year.

I look forward to dedicating more time to my 2 schools after tomorrow. I know this is a good thing… But Friday… Friday is going to be bitter sweet.

Surface tension

Have you ever seen a water balloon being popped in slow motion? The ballon is punctured and shrinks to its pre-blown up size leaving, for a brief moment, the water in the shape of the balloon.

After the balloon is gone, surface tension holds the shape, keeping the memory of the ballon even if for the briefest moment, only visible in slow motion.

How many places in our life do we let surface tension linger?

A frustrating tone is shared, and instead of a calm response, surface tension lingers and frustration is returned.

Concern. Anger. Greed. Envy. Distraught. These are all things that can hold surface tension. They can keep their shape even when there is nothing left to hold them in place.

It’s easy to see on the outside, when others are holding on to it. It’s hard to see on the inside, when the tension is on our surface.

We can try to keep the tension or we can help it dissipate. A pause and a deep breath can help. But trying to fix things doesn’t always help. You can’t stretch a popped balloon back around the water ballon. You can help to catch the falling water.

Our reactions can keep surface tension, or they can let that tension go.

Shallow understanding… thoughts from MLK Jr.

Monday was Martin Luther King Day in the US. I took the time on Sunday to reread his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail“, and a specific paragraph keeps coming to mind,

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.“

The last two sentences chill me,

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.“

I think about how few extremists there are in the world, despite how much media coverage they get. Beyond the news, most people are not exposed to extremists. We are all exposed to moderates. So, in the day to day living of most people, hate is not something we see, however shallow understanding is.

In many places there is tolerance masquerading as acceptance. This to me is what slows down progress. It’s not the wing-nuts on the extremes spewing dogmatism… Although their stance plays a role in allowing others to justify their tolerance as acceptance, since that tolerance can be justified as moderate. But it’s the complacent, shallow, (lukewarm) moderates that hinder genuine acceptance… because this population is huge. This population is blind or ignorant to their own prejudice; this population performs daily interactions that infringe on the true acceptance of ‘others’, without knowing it.

Prejudice sits within all of us. We discern differences with different weights, but we can not pretend we don’t see differences. We can decide what value we put on those differences. We can not pretend the differences don’t exist, or that we don’t see them.

“Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.“

No longer tool agnostic?

I wrote and believe that we should be ‘tool agnostic‘ in schools,

“We should ensure every student has a good tool available to them, and we should ensure we use these tools when it benefits to have the whole class on the same tool. However we should also give students choice when we can, and be tool agnostic… as long as the tool they use does not hinder their ability to accomplish the tasks they want or need to do.”

I still believe this, but I’m noticing that the suite of tools we are providing are locking kids in to a degree. If I am in a Microsoft district and I’m going to collaborate on a presentation, I’m going to find it easier to use PowerPoint since everyone already has collaboration accounts. Likewise with Google and their slide presentation tool.

A Microsoft using teacher doesn’t have to leave OneNote to mark and give feedback to a PowerPoint, but does need to for Google slides. A Google school might also be a Chromebook school, reducing choice of tools even further.

It’s one thing to say we are tool agnostic, and yet another to realize we are pushing students into using common tools for ease of use for both students and teachers.

I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, it provides equity with ever improving tools, but I am recognizing that we are moving students away from being tool agnostic and it’s something to think about.

The Kindness of Strangers

Imagine you are walking with your kid in a foreign country. You’ve just flown in and arrived downtown by public transportation, suitcases in tow, and you are a 5 block walk away from your hotel. Your kid steps of a curb incorrectly, you hear a pop, and a scream, and there is your kid, buckled just off the edge of the curb, ankle in hand, crying. Any movement of the ankle results in a scream of agony.

You move off the road and a few people have gathered to help. They tell you there is a hospital just 3 blocks away, and point in the opposite direction of the hotel. You realize that you need to carry your kid and there is no way you can also carry all of your suitcases.

You look up at one of the strangers around you and say, “Can you please do me a favour? Here is my business card, can you please take my bags to our hotel and ask them to store them until we get there?” The person agrees. They head to the hotel, suitcases in tow, you head the other way to the hospital holding your kid.

What are the chances that your bags will be at the hotel when you return from the hospital?

– – –

I was listening to The Tim Ferriss Podcast with his guest, magician Penn Jillette, and Penn had some interesting insights into the kindness of strangers.

He said he doesn’t believe in evil, and that if you look at the vast majority of people in the world they are good and kind.

If someone seeks you out to ‘help you’, their motives might need more scrutiny… but if you get to randomly choose someone, anyone, to help you, then the odds are unbelievably high that this stranger will be good.

—

Going back to the scenario:

What are the chances that your bags will be at the hotel when you return from the hospital?

I’d guess pretty close to a hundred percent, what about you?

What does your answer tell you about the kind of world you believe we live in? What experiences have you had to prove or disprove the belief in an inherent kindness of strangers?

Dear me, take my advice, it’s free!

I’ve been writing my daily posts for over 6 months now and some of them come off as if I’m writing some sort of advice column… like yesterday’s post on Undermining Self-Sabotage.

I say things like,

It’s the small thing that you can do today that move you to a bigger goal. Small, repeatable things that become habits. These small things undermine self-sabotage. When you surround yourself with small positive, incremental changes, your trajectory changes, and the people around you notice.

But despite addressing the writing to you, admittedly, I’m talking to myself. The book I shared in yesterday’s post, Atomic Habits by James Clear, was very influential to me. I read it at a time when I was making some really positive changes in some areas of my life, but not in others. I still have more work to do.

If I come off as preachy, or like I’m sharing some sagely advice, please know that I’m doing it from a position where I’m trying to take my own advice too. Atomic Habits is one of many great books I listened to last year. If I don’t actively reflect and write about what I’m learning, I won’t really have learned anything. And if I change the pronouns in the quote above to I/me/myself then to me my writing sounds self-centered, and even pretentious.

By the very nature of writing a public journal, I find myself talking to you, the reader, and you get to share my journey. So, when I give it, please feel free to take my advice, or to take my advice with a grain of salt. In reality, I’m talking to myself, and sharing it in the open. Free advice from me, to me, and as it turns out, for you too… if you find it useful.

– – –

Oh, and by the way, if you think some of the things I say are full of crap, please let me know! It’s bound to happen. When I’m trying to pump out a different idea every day, at some point(s) I’ll be deluding myself in some way, but I’m probably too close to the idea to see the error in my thinking. That’s when I would most appreciate a comment or a question to help me learn and grow.

I’ll leave you with one last quote from James Clear,

“I didn’t start out as a writer. I became one through my habits“

Thank you for joining me in the practice of this daily habit.

Undermining Self-Sabotage

It’s amazing how much people undermine themselves:

  • The dieter with tons of food they shouldn’t eat in the house.
  • The person with a deadline watching one, or two, or three more tv show before getting to work.
  • The victim of bullying seeking negative attention that makes them an easier target.
  • The emotionally struggling person finding friends that needs rescuing and more support than they can healthily give.
  • A perfectionist placing such high demands on themselves that they can do nothing well.
  • The stressed who relate everything they do to stress, so stress is always on their minds.

Here are two quotes from James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits:

You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.

And;

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

The things we do, and the plans and systems we put in place, and the habits we develop here and now are what determine the outcomes we are heading towards. Part of self-sabotage is looking forward and not believing we can achieve our goals, so why make the effort? The targets are too big, or too far away.

It’s the small thing that you can do today that move you to a bigger goal. Small, repeatable things that become habits. These small things undermine self-sabotage. When you surround yourself with small positive, incremental changes, your trajectory changes, and the people around you notice. Maybe it’s possible that you can help change the trajectory of others around you as well? Undermine self-sabotage by making small positive changes can be contagious.

Appreciating Art

The saying ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ is one that holds true when it comes to my appreciation of art. I have very particular tastes and it drives my wife crazy.

Whenever we redo a room and look at decorating the walls, my wife focuses on colour. She’ll find a nice painting or photograph and either take a picture of it to send to me, or she buys it she keeps the receipt, knowing full well that I might see it and hate it. This isn’t the most annoying attribute I have, but it certainly ranks high up in the annoying scale. It’s not that my wife is bringing home artwork that is ugly, it’s that I will look at it and instantly see something I don’t like.

I think part of it comes from years of taking photographs. When I look through the lens of a camera, I want there to be balance. Balance of lighting and exposure, balance of composition, balance of colour. That doesn’t mean symmetry and it doesn’t mean colour coordination. In fact, I like when a picture is able to break the rules of photography. For instance, it is best to follow the rule of 3rds in photos, placing key items in the image on the quadrant lines of a photo cut into 9 rectangles, 1/3 lines both horizontally and vertically. But there still has to be balance they way I described above, especially when that rule is broken.

My lack of appreciation for a work of art can be intellectual, where I think the image lacks balance in a specific way, and my lack of appreciation can also be visceral. I can look at a painting and the entire aesthetic bugs me… or in the same way an image can speak to me, and I love it.

That said, I don’t consider myself an art critic and I don’t go around telling friends that their choice of art work is ugly. But at home, I don’t want to look at a painting or photograph that I can’t appreciate and admire.

As I said, I know part of this pickiness comes from taking photos, but I wonder if the aesthetic I appreciate is something that others would agree with or if my art appreciation is strictly in the eye of this beholder?

—

PS. It has taken my wife over 20 years to stop me from buying my own clothes and now I get compliments all the time… that never happened with things I purchased for myself. My pickiness doesn’t make me necessarily think I have good taste. 🙂

Junk food

I’ve been craving sugar recently. I keep finding myself drawn to sweet foods and candy. It starts off as a nibble, and once I’ve made the initial break in discipline, then it becomes easy to keep going.

It’s ok to treat yourself, but this seems different. It seems lazy, it seems as though I am not making a choice. The snacks are choosing me.

So now I’m going to have to change that, but I need to frame it properly in my mind. Cutting out all junk food seems like a punishment, a self-imposed restriction that I must endure. But I’m not sure how else to think about it?

Maybe I just need to buy myself some healthy comfort foods. Maybe I should start drinking berry shakes again in the morning, to get some natural sugars in me. This is an example of something delicious and still quite healthy.

I’m not opposed to having a bit of junk food every now and then, but I like having control over the decision. I also like that decision to be about me making good choices, rather than about me avoiding bad ones.

Going the extra inch

I think this idea came from Terry O’Reilly’s book, ‘This I know’, but I listened to it a couple years ago and am not 100% sure? The idea is to go the extra inch, rather than the extra mile.

The easiest place to see this in customer service. The cashier who takes a little extra care in bagging your items. The waiter who tops up your water glass before you need to ask. The hot dog vendor who asks if you’d like your bun toasted. The hotel front desk clerk who asks if you’d like a city map with local restaurants, or who remembers your name the next time you see them.

So many people talk about going the extra mile, but really it’s just an extra inch that can make the difference, (or for that matter the extra centimetre). It doesn’t often take much work or effort to make someone’s day, to provide better than average service, or to simply be accommodating to someone you love and care about.

A kind gesture, a simple change in tone, a thoughtful question, a smile. It’s not about going terribly far out of your own way, it’s simply going the extra inch.

What I find interesting is that it’s often easier to do this with strangers rather than those you are around daily. We seem to take advantage of our relationships and not make the extra inch of effort with people we spend time with every day. Instead, we are quicker to snap a response, or to be snide, or just impatient. We feel like the extra inch is actually an extra mile.

It’s not. In this way, life is a game of inches, and it’s much more fun when we are able to see this and just go that extra inch for those that can do the same for us more frequently, because we are around them more often.