Author Archives: David Truss

Attend and amplify

One of the guided mediations that I listen to is Jay Shetty. This morning the topic was ‘Making Memories’. His message: Be present and attend to the experience, amplify your awareness of what you are feeling in the moment, and you’ll have better access to those memories. They will be richer and more powerful, if you attend and amplify.

One of the downsides to this is that traumatic and trying times also tend to heighten our attention and be amplified. That’s why they get played back in our minds so vividly. Then there is the playback that never happened, the dealing with a crappy situation over and over in your mind, wishing you did something differently. Sometimes that playback feels almost as real, and just as frustrating.

Those are the moments I most attempt to control. I work on seeing them in the distance, and in black & white. I try to make them grainy still photos and forgettable. Too many people that don’t deserve my thoughts and attention can take both because dealing with them is a ‘rich’ experience in my mind. Becoming aware if this is key. Recognizing that they are not worth my time and energy is the trigger to un-amplify. Then I have more time to appreciate all the positive things that I should attend to and amplify.

Luxury, therapy, and a good day

Today I splurged and had a relaxing massage that was purely for enjoyment. It was a deep tissue massage and I needed to ask the masseuse to go a little deeper at the start, but then I just sat back and let her do her work. Normally I spend an entire hour with my therapist’s elbows in my back. Today’s massage included arms, hands, legs, and feet. There was time before hand to sit in a hot tub and do a couple cold pool dips (not something I plan to repeat soon, but glad I tried).

Then the massage room had quiet music playing and between camomile and lavender scent, I chose the lavender. It was so nice to sit back and relax, being pampered without thinking about therapy and having to breathe through intense pressure on my back. It took a mindset shift to just enjoy and lap in luxury.

I read a great quote in James Clear’s weekly email newsletter yesterday:

“The question is not: will today be a good day? 

Every day is a good day. 

The question is: how much good will you get out of today?”

I enjoy my therapeutic massages because I suffer with regular back aches and pains, and I could easily have gone into today expecting a similar experience… and I would have been disappointed. Instead I just appreciated what I had. Admittedly this is a lot easier to do, choosing luxury as a mindset, but it’s a good reminder that how we frame things matter.

Today has a lot of good to be found. Tomorrow will be good despite hours of travel time. Regardless of the day, regardless of the challenges, regardless of the unexpected circumstances, we have opportunities to find good in every day.

User Interface and user experience

It’s a delicate balance: providing a multitude of options and also creating a good user interface that isn’t confusing. Today I went to an online menu and there were several options that only showed up as buttons with tiny icons on the top right of the screen. I would never had known there were other options available if my friend hadn’t mentioned these tiny bubbles were whole other menus.

The concept was good, not overwhelming the page with too many options. The interface was bad, putting tiny icons at the top of the page, which I wouldn’t be looking for as I head to the menu. These icons are not what I came to the page to see, and not having them either float on the screen as I scrolled down or added at the bottom of all the other choices, lacked usability.

This is where design thinking, and focusing on the needs of the end user are so important. Why add features a user either doesn’t see or doesn’t know how to access? Why create unnecessary steps, extra features that are challenging to use, or pop up screens that break the flow of creativity or general use? The answer is almost always that the disconnect is unintentional. Good ideas, bad user interface… bad from the perspective of the end user.

The starting question might be ‘what does the user want’? But the question that most needs to be thought about is ‘what is the user experience?’ The experience is what ultimately matters.

Closet foodie

I don’t go around taking pictures of my food every meal, but I love good food, and I’m a foodie at heart. Today we had a simple lunch at a small restaurant a little off the beaten track. Fish tacos and tostadas shared between my wife and I. They were delicious!

They say ‘When in Rome do as the Romans do’. For me, it’s ‘When in Rome eat as the Romans eat’. Or in our this case, as the Mexicans eat.

I remember on our family trip to Costa Rica the only meal I didn’t eat with my family was when they wanted to go shopping and I didn’t. I walked around for a while on my own and found a restaurant on a back street that had locals going in and out. I entered and found a menu only in Spanish. I ordered a simple meal of chicken, beans, rice and a kind of fried yam or sweat potato. It was my favourite meal of the trip.

I want grandma’s special recipe. I want the cheap street food that locals choose. I want the deep fried chicken my mom spends hours cooking in small batches. I want the family’s secret pepper sauce.

Home made.

One-of-a-kind recipes.

Local staples and favourites.

Food for the gods, not fast food, and not ‘made for tourists’. That’s the kind of foodie I am.

Kindness really matters

I wrote about a kind act yesterday, and today I got this image as a Facebook memory:

I believe that kindness can be contagious, it can become memidemic (my word for a positive epidemic). Kindness resonates, it has a frequency that when put out in the world will be picked up by others nearby. Just like a tuning fork of the same frequency will start to vibrate if another tuning fork, similarly tuned, is vibrating nearby, so too does kindness resonate.

Choose kindness today. Even if the kindness is not returned, know that it will resonate and you will be contributing in making the world a better place.

Kindness of strangers

I have a small magnetic wallet at the back of my phone. It holds 4 cards snugly. After work finished, I took my work Mastercard and one other card out, with intentions of replacing them. But before I did, the two remaining cards fell out. I didn’t notice until the end of a busy day where I had been on a long walk and at a shopping mall as well as work and home.

The missing cards were my Visa and my Driver’s license. I quickly put my card on hold, freezing it from use, and started the hunt. I retraced my steps that day and couldn’t find them. Then I was contacted by a postal worker, who found my cards and returned them to my mailbox. He then found me and my wife on Facebook and messaged us both.

I’ve thanked him in a message, but haven’t had communication back yet to find out where they were found.**

There are always reports about scammers, theft, and violence that make the news. It’s just nice to know there are good, kind, thoughtful people out in the world.

____

** Update, he found them in a mailbox near the trail I walked. So it was two good people: the first who put them in the mailbox, and the mail carrier who delivered them to my house!

Waves crashing

I did a quick search to see if I’d shared this story before. I found The ocean calls me and Ocean waves, but not the following, so I’ll contribute further to my stories of the ocean’s grasp on me.

—–

My first decade was spent living a five minute walk from the beach. From that distance, the ocean was a constant sound in the distance. I can only describe the sound with oxymoronic phrases: a dull roar or a gentle rumble. There was no distinct sound of individual waves, only the ever-present whispering thunder. In fact, I often wouldn’t even hear it unless I listened for it, since it was so constant it was as if it wasn’t there.

I remember a couple times when we rented a beach house just steps away from the ocean. I used to love lying in bed and hearing the individual waves crash against the shore. This was a treat. Each crash anew, almost but not quite the same as the last. I enjoyed the sound the waves make as they recede off the beach, followed by the crash of the next wave.

I would fight sleep to listen longer. That’s the memory that sticks with me, being lulled to sleep by the soothing sounds while simultaneously desiring to stay awake… to hear more waves crashing, and receding off of the beach.

To this day I long for the sound of waves crashing. I use this sound as the backdrop to my guided meditation. I am drawn to the beach while others prefer to be poolside. The ocean calls me, and I am happier when close to the vast horizon behind a rumbling shoreline.

All you can eat

We are at a resort and food is included as part of our package. Last night’s dinner was in a market-style restaurant with individual food court like restaurants. I started with a Thia chicken crepe, then had a couple small rolls of sushi, then a small spinach & shrimp salad. That was enough for me. I’ve never been big on dessert, and if I was the meal would have been too much.

It would be so easy to overeat in a place like this. It can be enjoyably gluttonous. The idea is to think in moderation when surrounded by abundance. Not an easy task. Convince yourself to enjoy and stop when full, rather than feel restricted. It’s not fun being in the land of plenty and forcing restraint… so the trick is to make delicious choices, just less of them.

A buffet breakfast can be a delicious omelette, bacon, and some fresh fruit. What about sausages? Pancakes? Dessert? Those are the wrong questions. How was the omelette? Delicious! Sometimes less is more. More healthy, more friendly to your heart and your waste line. Moderation is easier with the right mindset… I’m not restricting myself, I’m eating wonderful meals that aren’t so big that I’m going to feel awful later, either physically or emotionally.

It’s not about all I can eat, it’s about making delicious choices. They don’t all have to be healthy choices, as long as I’m not stuffing my face and my belly… and I’m not intentionally undermining myself with bad choices. Moderation doesn’t need to be a dirty word, it’s a smart word, a word that allows choices and freedom, free from gluttony.

Now, it’s time for breakfast!

Crossing the street for you

Going back 25 years ago, I was in teacher’s college and did almost every project with two friends I met in the program, Andrew and JP. I was literally sandwiched between them sitting at 5’9 when both of the are well over 6’… and JP was the presentation opener, with a wicked sense of humour, while Andrew was the closer with intelligent and relevant ties to the curriculum and reading, all of which he had always done. So, once again I was stuck (comfortably) in the middle.

One day we were having lunch and planning an upcoming presentation when JP said, out of the blue, “Dave, I’d cross the street for you.”

“What?”

“Some people you see walking on the opposite side of the street, and you wave at them as they go by. And some people you take the time to cross the street and greet them. I’d cross the street for you.”

That’s a fond memory about friendship that I thought of this morning. There are probably a lot of quotes like the following but I’m on an airplane without wifi so I’ll take liberty to word a common idea and try to put my own twist on it:

It’s easy to be a good friend when times are easy, it’s a true friendship when times are hard and yet helping your friend out is not hard.

That’s the measure. It’s not about it being hard for you… if the friend is going through hard times you aren’t holding up a measuring stick to see how hard it is to help. There is a willingness to go to hard places without quantifying the effort… the friend is worth it.

You aren’t just crossing the street for them, you are going back the other way just to be with them.

The shiny object

“Highly focused people do not leave their options open. They select their priorities and are comfortable ignoring the rest. If you commit to nothing, you’ll be distracted by everything.” ~ James Clear

I call it squirrel brain with a hat tip to the dog in the animated movie ‘Up!’. He has a collar that allows him to talk, but that doesn’t matter once he sees a squirrel… the distraction is too great.

It’s that scattered sense of paying attention to the closest shiny object, the new distraction, the most recent email, the interruption, the grumble of your tummy. Sometimes it’s a needed break, but most times it’s a distraction. It’s inefficient and ultimately ineffective.

“If you commit to nothing, you’ll be distracted by everything.”

Sometime you need to put blinders on, and intentionally block or reduce the distractions. You need to resist the urge to get the newest distraction done before moving on. The shinier new thing that popped up can wait. The notification can stay unread, and the ‘to do’ list should be just that one thing that needs to be focused on, and nothing else until this one priority is completed.

Focus is not easy to maintain, but productivity soars when focus is given and distractions are left behind. Although sometimes the trick is realizing what really is the distraction. When I used to spend 15 minutes looking for an image to go with my blog post, that was 15 minutes that I wasn’t writing or meditating, or working out. Was the image essential enough to take that much time? Probably not. But at least I did it after writing… unlike today when I broke my writing stride to find the image above of the dog from Up!

I’m definitely a work in progress with my attention and distractions. The trick is to recognize priorities and reduce distractions that detract from those priorities. And like with most advice, this is much easier said than done.