Author Archives: David Truss

Everything is an 11

I don’t know what has changed but it seems that whatever the concern is that people have, on a scale of 1-10 that concern becomes an 11. Anything bigger than a 6 out of 10 just skips on by 7-10… if it’s more than a 6 it’s an 11.

No nuance, no compromise, no quarter.

Miscommunication? No they lied to me!

Apology? Not enough, I want retribution!

Compromise? No, full concession!

‘Why aren’t you following up on this right now, can’t you see that this is the most important thing in the world? This… This is an 11/10.’

I’m not saying it isn’t important, but I am saying that escalating concerns like this doesn’t often get the result people want. Animosity doesn’t enhance cooperation. Anger doesn’t promote resolution.

I’m reminded of the saying, “When you have one eye fixed on the destination, you only have one eye with which to find the way.”

Further to this, I think that when things escalate to 11, the chance of reaching that destination that was the original goal moves farther away. Reactionary, angry, point-for-point volleying of minutiae doesn’t allow for solutions to be found.

I have two friends that I’ve known for decades. One of them is always having to deal with incompetence around her. It’s unbelievable how much the people around her screw up. And if you ask her how her day is going, the idiot that screwed up is what she’ll tell you about.

I have another friend who always has things go her way. She’ll have an issue with something not going well and the first thing she’ll say is, “I’m sorry, I’m really trying my best not to be a Karen, but this doesn’t seem right.” She’ll specifically say things like, “I don’t need you to fix this for me, I just thought you should know.” And she gets thank you’s in the form of gift cards, free food, upgrades, etc.

For the first friend, everything is an 11, and she has to deal with 11’s all the time. For the second friend nothing is over a 7, and by the time things are done, they are actually a 2, or not even an issue anymore.

Maybe, just maybe, short of losing life or limb, nothing is an 11… And if you believe that, maybe, just maybe, you will find that life is a little easier, and happier, when you don’t ramp things up so much.

What’s the end goal? How can you get there in a way that makes you and the other person feel good about the outcome? I doubt you can do that while you are at an 11.

Undoing the pandemic

It takes a long time to build a culture of a school community, and a relatively short time to undermine it. The pandemic has been a major dismantler of school culture.

Next year our Grade 12’s will only have had from September to March of their Grade 9 year in a normal pre-pandemic school. The new Grade 9’s will have experienced their last pre-pandemic school experience at the start of middle school in Grade 6.

So, next September instead of our Grade 9’s being invited into a new school culture that has been well established, they are entering a school culture that only the Grade 12’s have a vague memory of. They are entering a school culture designed by maintaining ever changing Covid-19 safety precautions.

Next school year will be a critical rebuilding year. This has a lot of promise if it’s done with thoughtful intentions. If next year starts with a ‘business as usual’ expectation, the post pandemic culture will feel more like the pandemic shaped the school. If the year starts with a sense of community building and fostering the culture you hope to see, the afterglow of the pandemic can fade rather quickly.

Cultures don’t rebuild themselves.

So what about your school do you miss? How do you get it back?

What about your school has changed positively? How do you keep these things?

What can you do to start rebuilding in June rather than waiting until September?

If these things aren’t talked about intentionally, if they are not shared by staff and students, the effects of the pandemic on your school culture might linger for a long time. Either intentionally build the culture, or accept what is built out of the ashes of a 2.5 year disruption to what your school culture used to be like. Because whatever your school culture was back in January of 2020 is highly unlikely to be rebuilt by itself in September of 2022.

Do it for yourself

A simple challenge:

Do something nice for someone today. I’m going to buy my secretaries a coffee. What are you going to do? It doesn’t have to be anything that costs money.

Leave a note in a love one’s lunch for them to find. (I think I’ll do this too.)

Spend a little extra time with your pet. (I say this with my cat purring on my lap.)

Tell someone you appreciate them in some way.

Call a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while.

Here’s the thing, it’s a nice gesture that will make someone else feel good… but it will make you feel good too. Do it for the other person, but know that you are doing it for yourself too (and that’s ok, enjoy the good feelings you get).

The opposite of depression

I shared a quote by Derek Sivers yesterday. It came from his podcast, which was actually him being interviewed on another podcast, Cathy Heller – Don’t keep your day Job.

In the podcast with Derek, Cathy says this:

“I feel like the greatest human need is people want to feel seen. But really when it comes down to it, what I’ve also noticed is that the opposite of depression isn’t happiness, it’s purpose. And so somehow when we help other people feel seen, and we give that to other people, that’s like the greatest feeling and then you do feel seen.”

A lightbulb went off in my head when I heard, “The opposite of depression isn’t happiness, it’s purpose.”

Happiness is fleeting. It doesn’t sustain itself, not like depression can. Happiness isn’t a formidable foe to depression. But purpose is. Purpose can be maintained, and sustained. Purpose doesn’t dissipate when something goes wrong, like happiness does. Purpose forces you to look forward, to look ahead, to see promise beyond the moment.

The opposite of depression is purpose.

Actions, not words – Derek Sivers

I’m a fan of Derek Sivers. He’s someone who seems to have really figured out how to live life meaningfully and I think he lives a joyful life. Other people I follow live good lives, but I’m not sure they are truly happy. I think Derek is a rare kind of person that finds joy wherever he looks. He does what he wants to do, when he wants to do it, and is brutally honest with himself about what he really wants to do. I don’t think he spends a lot of time thinking, I really want to do ‘this’. He just decides to do it.

I’ve written specifically about him a couple times:

And I’ve mentioned him a few more times.

I listened to him on a podcast and this really hit a chord with me (related to his idea about goals, shared above):

“I have a concept that says that your actions reveal your values better than your words. So no matter what you say you want to do, your actions show what your values really are.”

How often do we have goals or plans that we never get to?

‘I’m going to start this project after…’

And no matter what we say next, something else comes up to delay us.

Or, ‘I really want to do this but…’

And after the ‘but’ comes an excuse about not having time, money, resources.

Do you really want to do it, or is it just wishful thinking?

I wanted to do a daily blog for years. I started this ‘Daily-Ink’ in 2010, but I didn’t really decide to do it until 2019. For 9 years it was wishful thinking. Then I decided: it’s not that I want to be a writer, I am a writer… and the way to be a writer is to write every day. So, it’s not even 6am yet, and I’m done my daily write.

Actions, not words… Or in my case the action of consistently writing words. 😃

The cost of it all

The cost of war is measured in many ways. Of course the cost of human life is the most obvious. Then there is the sheer cost of paying for the tools of war, and the damage those tools make on buildings and infrastructure.

But in todays globally connected economy, the cost of the war in the Ukraine is being felt around the world. Gas prices, food prices, and a deflated stock market are stripping away the profits of the rich, and the spending ability of the middle class and poor.

All this over borders… imaginary lines in the sand. We aren’t the only animal species that fight over territory, but we are by far the most violent. And, we’ve done this since the dawn of civilization. How many ‘civil’izations have been lost, conquered, displaced, enslaved, disenfranchised, annihilated?

Will there be a time in the future where we truly learn how to coexist? Where we spend more on sustaining relationships than on weapons of war? Where the cost of war is just too high to be a way to resolve conflict?

How high a price must we pay before war is finally seen as too high a price?

Appreciating true friends

I’ve had a couple really enriching conversations with two really good friends recently. They have made me contemplate the value of a true friend.

You can share who you are in full confidence. You can listen and connect in ways that are far beyond the banter of story for story or ‘that reminds me of’ conversations which are more on the surface.

You walk away feeling you know them, and yourself, better.

You know time in between visits won’t reduce the connection, but you also don’t want too long to go by before you connect again.

There is nothing quite like time spent with a true friend.

Sneaky text scams

You no longer just have to worry about email scams, now there are text scams coming your way. Yesterday I got this message:

I didn’t pay full attention to the address and went to the link. It looked totally real, with Canada post logos and the English was perfect. It said to get the parcel delivery rescheduled that I’d have to pay $1. That’s when I looked at the link address more closely and started to doubt the website.

What they want is your credit card number including the 3-digit code at the back. I’m sure they get it from many people.

I’ve also noticed a lot of text messages that seem like they are wrong numbers:

I used to try to be nice and respond to let them know they made a mistake:

But now I just block the number. I think they send these random messages to see if they get a response, then engage you in a scam.

It’s disappointing that we have to live in a world where we have to be so cautious of being duped by people. The moment I see a contest online or in my social media stream I think either scam or they are collecting data on me. I see a text from someone I don’t know and I think it was sent in bad faith. I’ve been weary of similar messages on email for a very long time. I have a contact form online that I’m going to take down because the only messages I’ve received in the last year are either trying to sell me SEO services or other inappropriate services.

Now the online scams are moving to text messages. I wish there was a way to fight this, but for now the only thing I can do is block them. I hope this acts as a warning to help others.

What’s your favourite movie?

This question was asked last night and I couldn’t think of an answer. There are movies that I’ll watch again and again like The Shawshank Redemption, The Princess Bride, Caddyshack, The Matrix, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, and The Breakfast Club. My wife watches Love Actually every Christmas, and I’ll watch it with her. We watch Elf as a family every Christmas too. But are any of these my favourite? I don’t know?

I think if you ask me this question tomorrow, a different movie might come to mind. Maybe The Usual Suspect, The Dirty Dozen, Kelly’s Heroes, or a cult classic like The Cube, Bladerunner, or a comedy like Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

I think the challenge of me being asked this question is that there are not a lot of movies that I’ll ever watch twice. So there are countless great movies that I watched and loved and never went back to. Every one of the movies I’ve mentioned above have broken that rule… I’ve seen them many times and so they simply come to mind easier.

Are you someone that has an all-time favourite, or a top 3? Or do you bounce around like me?

Inequity analogy

Imagine you are a praying mantis. You are male and you mate with a female. You know there is a chance that she will decapitate you during mating:

You take a chance of dying every time you mate.

What an unjust world that one sex has so much control over another; that your life completely falls in the decision-making of the other sex. This might be ok for the praying mantis, but it would be completely unacceptable for humans.

Or would it?

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMLnebuFv/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMLneTA2a/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMLne3y9p/

How does something like this happen in 2022 in a nation that is supposed to be a model for the free world? Free for who?

And they irony in using this analogy is that people were praying for this to happen.