Tag Archives: Life Lessons

Conversation hog

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I had a conversation yesterday and upon reflecting on it I was a bit of a conversation hog. What made me realize this was that I asked a question and upon hearing the initial response, I immediately shared my similar experience. However in doing so, the conversation never got to the person fully answering my question.

I basically jumped in with a related story and took over the conversation. This undermined my initial question and the whole conversation. It’s not like I was rude, but I also wasn’t very polite. Why ask a question if I’m more interested in my own response rather than the person’s I’m asking?

Unfortunately I didn’t recognize this until after the conversation was over, and we had parted ways. Still, this was an excellent reminder that after I ask a question, the need to shut up and listen. I need to engage with the person I’m with in a way that is fully focused on hearing, and less on relating and sharing my own connections, especially when I’m asking for their story. That isn’t to say I can’t make a connection later, but the key word there is ‘later’.

Listen first. Seek to understand. Engage in their story, and when their story has been shared, only then should I consider interjecting my own story, and only if it adds value to the conversation.

Listen first.

Alien perspective

I think jokes like this are funny:

…because they hold a bit of truth.

We aren’t all that intelligent.

We draw imaginary lines on the globe to separate us. We fight wars in the name of angry Gods that are more concerned with our devotion than for peace and love. We care more about greed than about the environment. We spend more on weapons of destruction than we do on feeding the needy. We judge each other on superficial differences. We have unbelievable intellect, capable of incredible technological advancement, yet we let our monkey brains prevail.

Sure we exhibit some intelligence, we are intelligent viruses.

At least that’s what I think an objective alien visiting our planet would think.

Conversation on an alien ship observing earth:

“Give them another 100 years… if they figure out how to not kill each other and the planet, then let’s introduce ourselves.”

Right now I’m not terribly optimistic about what those aliens will find in our future? ‘Civilized’ humans? A desolate planet? Artificial intelligence treating us like we treat ‘unintelligent’ animals? Or more of the same bickering, posturing, warring, and separatist views of humans trying to usurp dominance over each other?

It would be funny if it wasn’t sad.

Resilience building

I mentioned this in my post yesterday about Generation X, “for the most part this is a generation that is tough, tolerant, and resilient. Resilience is something I see a lot of younger generations struggling with.”

Here are a few ways I see a lack of resilience in students today:

• Feedback is viewed too critically. Comments on achievement or performance are taken personally, as if constructive feedback on an outcome is a personal attack on the person. “You could have done a better job with…” is interpreted as, “You are a failure”. There is little or no separation between feedback on a presentation or product and feedback on personal identity, all critical feedback feels like an attack.

In my role as a principal I recently gave some behavioural feedback to a student who later emailed me and said among other things, “I’m not a bad person.” At no time did I ever say or believe this person was bad, just making poor choices. It didn’t matter to the student that I separated the behavior out as the issue, it was still taken as a personal attack.

• Hurt feelings are not handled well. Words are treated like physical attacks. There is limited separation between minor and major harm. This can come across in many ways, but essentially the old ‘sticks and stones‘ nursery rhyme has been turned around and sounds more like, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will always harm me more.”

Now I’m not a proponent of the ideas that words don’t hurt. Social bullying can be far more brutal than a physical fight which ends in 20 seconds, and taunting and continuous verbal attacks can be devastating to deal with… But when a simple moment of teasing between friends is seen as just as hurtful as a verbal assault from a bully with a power differential between the bully and the victim, then there is a problem. When words instantly hurt and the scale of impact is always high, there is a definite issue of lack of resilience.

• Self loathing. Self talk like, “I’m not good enough.” Or, “It’s too hard.” Or simply, “I can’t!” …All get in the way of effort. There seems to be a (legitimate) struggle with the mental aspect of doing hard things. I added ‘(legitimate)’ because I’m not trying to say that the person is just quitting, rather there seems to be a mental roadblock that some students face which gets in the way of successful work.

This is very hard to deal with as a teacher. It comes across as the student being lazy, or distracted, or even defiant. But it’s not so much that the students doesn’t want to, they just really don’t know how to frame the work in a way that makes it a priority. I think this is a resilience issue too. When hard things are avoided rather than faced over and over again, the work of doing something hard becomes too difficult to face, and what gets defined as hard becomes less and less difficult over time.

I can’t put my finger on the causes for the lack of resilience I’m seeing today? It can be a trifecta of parenting, technology distraction, and media influences, or maybe just cultural norms? But we need to start thinking about resilience building as a teachable outcome.

Failure is not getting a bad result, failure is accepting a bad result without learning the hard lessons about what didn’t work. Failure is not seeking out the support to do better next time. Failure is a lack of reflection and feedback about how to improve. Failure is a lack of resilience, and resilience is something that isn’t strengthened without hearing hard things, and feeling hurt, or discouraged, or disappointed, and both working though and overcoming the difficulty.

Resilience is built, it is earned, it isn’t bestowed. It’s tough to toughen up. If it was easy it wouldn’t actually build resilience.

Simple little things

A happy thought,
A quiet walk,
A restful pause,
A candid talk.

A social night,
A laugh out loud,
A mutual friend,
A gap in the crowd.

A good book,
A favourite meal,
A restful nap,
A bargain deal.

Simple little things
that come our way.
Simple little things
that make our day.

We can appreciate
what we’ve got.
We can be happy
with our lot.

As long as we
are aware,
that we really
needn’t care…

About things we lack,
and things we dread.
And avoid negative thoughts
in our heads.

As long as we
are aware,
that we really
should care…

About the people we love,
and people in need.
About doing what’s right,
and doing good deeds.

Simple little things
that help us cope.
Simple little things
that bring us hope.

Appreciate the little things
that come our way.
And remember to cherish
each and every day.

The best gifts we have
are love and time.
A life well lived
is truly sublime.

Life need not be filled
with accolades and aclaim,
It need not be a life of
excessive wealth and fame.

What makes us rich are
the simple little things,
that bring us joy
and make our hearts sing.

Simple little things.

Left unsaid

I was having a conversation with my daughter yesterday and I mentioned a podcast I was listening to with Dr. Daniel Amen. The point I shared with her was how Dr. Amen talks about killing ANTs… Automatic Negative Thoughts. My daughter liked that idea and added something she has been working on, which is, “Don’t let a positive thought go unsaid.”

I really like this idea and think I’m going to work on the same.

How often do we complain about bad customer service, but we just appreciate good customer service, yet leave those thoughts unsaid?

How often do we get frustrated with a loved one or a coworker who doesn’t do what we expect them to do, but don’t really value them when they do a little extra?

How often do we focus on ANTs, but leave our positive thoughts unsaid?

Do it well

How long will it take… to do it well?

What resources do you need… to do it well?

Who can help you… to do it well?

What can you put off… so that you do it well?

Some jobs just need to get done, others should only be done if they are done well. The work is rewarded with a job well done. So give it the time, put in the resources, get the support you need, and put forward an honest, concerted effort… to do it well.

Staying consistent

There have been a lot of reasons why my fitness routine has been challenging this year. It seem that I haven’t had a full month where there has been anything routine about my daily routine. I was just back in Toronto for my dad’s memorial and in 8 days I slept in 5 different places. I also ended the trip with a cold and spent the weekend recovering. I’m still not 100%, but I’m not coughing and I’ll wear a mask and get back to work this morning.

That said, I slept in a bit and I’m writing this as I pedal on my stationary bike at about 80% of my normal speed. The way I feel, I don’t think I’d go any faster if I wasn’t tapping these words into my phone. Just 3 days ago I was using speech-to-text to do my writing on an elliptical… This is not a normal thing to try and simultaneously hit two of my daily goals at once, but I’m making it work at a time when doing otherwise would make things harder for me.

It would be easy to skip something. It would take no effort on a day like this to give myself a pass. But I already did that Saturday and Sunday when I felt like crap. I haven’t skipped 3 days of exercise in over 3 years, and I’m not going to start now. So I’m muscling through, sweating far more than usual, while my output is lower than usual. But here is the point I didn’t know this post would be about that I realize now: It’s the days you just show up and totally don’t want to that matter the most.

Consistency isn’t about your regular routine. Your regular routine is a habit, it’s hard to make but once you’ve made it the effort is actually quite low. Consistency is getting you butt in gear and active, doing what needs to be done, when you really don’t want to. When you really aren’t up to it or in the mood or think you have time for it. Or when your routine gets disrupted and you have to go out of your way to follow through. Like being on an elliptical at a hotel at 9:30pm when my alarm is set for 3am, or sweating buckets on my stationary bike at the tail end of a cold, and simultaneously writing these words. This is harder than my normal workout. This is the grunt work. This is what it takes to be consistent.

We aren’t demonstrating consistency when everything is going smoothly, we have to demonstrate it when there is a disruption and and we still follow through.

The hard work of being consistent comes from actively doing what needs to be done when there is nothing consistent happening around you.

I’m going to make that into a poster and put it on my home gym wall.

Greater choice

In a conversation with a friend today we were talking about healing and therapy. We came to the conclusion that if therapy prescribes a specific outcome then it’s probably unhealthy and unsustainable. But if it empowers you with more choice, and if it provides you with new and better choices, and better still, if it creates the conditions that make it easier for you to choose better choices… well then that’s good therapy.

Empowered choice is where healing really begins.

The blame game

It’s easier to point a finger outward than it is to point it inward.

It’s more comfortable to see the faults in others than to accept the faults of our own.

It’s less work to hold others accountable than to accept responsibility.

Accusations are not as scary as being vulnerable.

It’s simpler to rationalize than it is to be critically introspective.

Accepting responsibility rather than blaming is hard work. Owning your own shit is hard work. Making things right when things have gone wrong is hard work… especially since sometimes right just means better, and no matter what you do, you can’t get back to the way things used to be.

But when you play the blame game nothing gets better. In fact, things usually get worse. Most punishment and discipline is about blame. Being restorative means sharing the responsibility to make things better.

Accepting ownership of your own actions and consequences, that’s when personal growth happens. That’s when we get unstuck. That’s when we begin to create an empowered reality rather than a sense of victimization.

How do we make things better? That’s not always an easy question to ask, and it’s usually very hard to answer. But the answer is never blame.

Through what lens?

There is a saying that, ‘if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’. We all see the world differently in different circumstances, but the same circumstances don’t always elicit the same reactions. Someone with a metaphorical hammer might see the world as nails… but another person might see the world as filled with fragile material and think the hammer is a tool of destruction. Another person with only a hammer, who sees the world as fragile, might be upset that they only have a hammer and feel helpless and limited.

In a world of hammers, while one person might see nails to be hammered in, another might see value in using the other end of the hammer to pull nails out… to remove them. Same hammer used to different ends (literally and metaphorically).

Moving from hammers to glasses. People really see the world through different coloured lenses. I think this is a good thing, but we shouldn’t be set on just one colour. We shouldn’t fixate on seeing the world in monochrome, but rather change our lenses frequently. A bad situation can be changed simply by changing our lens on the situation.

A traffic jam gives us more time to listen to an audio book. A miscommunication can lead to laughs. A mistake in an order can be a point of frustration or a moment to be gracefully corrected, or even an opportunity to try something new. What lens we choose determines our lived experience.

What saddens me is when people get stuck seeing the world through narrow, gloomy lenses. People victimize themselves, they see harm where no harm was intended. They feel the world is out to get them. They see the world through a lens of malice, hurt, and negative intent. They don’t see themselves as having a hammer, they see themselves as being nails. This isn’t a healthy way to live.

Still others get stuck seeing their past through just one lens. Trauma will do that to people. Recovery from an addiction becomes a lifelong battle, not something concurred, or replaced with new meaning. A moment in the past can define someone’s lenses in the future… limiting their future perspective.

How do we give ourselves more choice? How do we find more tools than just a hammer, and how do we see the world as not just nails? How do we change our lenses? Isn’t it interesting that we wear glasses to fix our focus, but not what we focus on… pick a good lens.