Tag Archives: perspective

Echoes getting louder

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The idea of being in an echo chamber suggests that you are surrounded by people, media, and information sources that are constantly reinforcing your beliefs… without exposing you to opposing viewpoints unless arguing convincingly against those viewpoints.

I’ve discussed, a number of times, my concerns that we are living more and more in dichotomies, where sides or factions are so diametrically opposed, no one can hold a stance in the middle without being considered to be from the opposing viewpoints. You either live in an echo chamber or you live in an opposing echo chamber. Because the voices in the middle are ‘othered’ and so not part of any stance or view that can be snuck into an echo chamber. The voices of the middle don’t get to echo. And so the echo chamber narrows, keeping exposure to outside views securely away.

The echoes are getting louder and it’s getting easier to listen to them and nothing else… which ultimately leads to us spewing the same echoes we hear. So it’s up to us to seek diverse stances and viewpoints. It’s up to us to actively extend our searches for reliable information. And it’s up to us to question the reliability of our sources. It’s either that or voluntarily be just another voice echoed in a narrow echo chamber that seems to be getting further polarized and biased every day.

Adversity and memory

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Last year we took students camping and it poured rain for most of the night. I recorded the sound of the rain from inside my tent around 2am and it sounded torrential. This year the weather was perfect: Hardly a cloud in the sky, warm, windless, and rainless.

I just came back from the trip. It could not have been better. It was well planned, the weather cooperated, and the students were awesome. The only kid ‘issues’ we had the whole trip, and I use the term ‘issue’ loosely, was speeding the slower kids up on our walks. That’s hardly an issue to deal with. There were zero discipline issues.

Looking back on the two trips, students getting flooded out of their tents, and getting soaked to the bone on our walks last year are things our students think back fondly on. The adversity didn’t ruin the trip, it emboldened the memory, and our students look back fondly at it.

Here’s the interesting thing. If I had to choose, I’d absolutely prefer the amazing weather we had this year over camping in the rain again. But for the students that went both years, I’d bet that in a few years they will remember the stormy night much more than they’ll remember last night.

No one wants to voluntarily go through adversity, but sometimes adversity is what galvanizes a fond memory. And getting wet on a camping trip, while uncomfortable, isn’t trauma inducing. In fact it can be character building. All that said, isn’t it interesting that I’d still pick a night like last night over a repeat of the rain storm we had last year.

Walk the talk

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Question to ponder: Would you hire a fitness coach that wasn’t physically healthy?

I had an interesting conversation today with a buddy. It was about the dance between personal bias and expectations that isn’t an easy conversation. Reflecting now, the main issue was a question of how important it is that someone helping you is ‘walking the talk’.

Question to ponder: Would you hire a swim coach who can’t swim well, but really knows how to coach?

Where is the line that you personally draw when it involves coaching and advice, when it comes from someone that doesn’t necessarily follow the same advice?

Question to ponder: Would you hire a marriage coach who has been divorced twice and was not in a stable relationship?

I think these are messy questions with no clear line to be drawn. Ultimately it comes down to personal biases. I’d sooner accept a swim coach who has a crappy stroke and doesn’t swim well themselves, before I’d hire an obese fitness coach or a marriage coach with a poor relationship history.

Question to ponder: Would you hire someone to help you quit smoking if they smoked? Would your answer change if they had a 90% succeed rate when most other strategies and coaches max out their success rate at under 50%?

In the end we need to recognize our biases and follow our instincts. Whatever line we draw in one area of our lives might not be the same line we draw in others. It’s not a question of if we have biases, we do. It’s a question of where we draw the line, and are we happy with our biases? Because in the end, if I’m putting time, effort, and/or money into a coach, or counsellor, or taking advice from a friend, I’m the one that needs to feel good about it… given the biases I hold.

Question to ponder: How important is it that the coach, counsellor, or confidant giving you advice walks their own talk?

So vast

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This morning I watched a video that explained that to get to the next galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy, it would take 2.5 million years travelling at the speed of light. Imagine that, travelling 300,000km per second for millions of years. And then you’ve only reached the first of trillions of galaxies… Not billions, but trillions of galaxies in our universe.

It’s so hard to make sense of these numbers. I understand what they mean, but I can’t really comprehend the scale. For example, let’s break down the idea of traveling 300,000km in a second. That means travelling 18 million kilometres in a minute, or 1,080 million kilometres in an hour, or 1 billion & 920 million kilometres in one day.

And at that speed it would still take 2.5 million years to get to the next galaxy.

I understand what the numbers mean, I just struggle to fathom the scale in a way my brain can grasp beyond saying, ‘That’s really far,’ and ‘The universe is really, really big.’ No matter how much I cognitively try to grasp how ‘really big’ our universe is, I know that in reality it’s magnitudes bigger than I can comprehend. This is truly mind boggling.

Count your blessings

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Every day someone gets in an accident that they had no control over. Someone else gets a diagnosis they aren’t expecting. Someone else thinks they have job security, and then suddenly they don’t. This, and worse, happens every day.

Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate what you’ve got when nothing changes. You are just going through days ranging from appreciating, to accepting, to dealing with, to tolerating daily events, completely oblivious to how much harder things could be. Unaware of the challenges others just like you face. Ignorant of how fortunate you are to simply not have faced a more unlucky path.

You don’t need good news to count your blessings, you just need to recognize that the lack of bad news is actually something to be thankful for. And when less positive news does come, when things seem unfair, when hard times surface, there is strength in knowing that you’ve had blessed moments in your life.

The challenge is that it’s hard to appreciate how lucky, how blessed you’ve been, when times are tough… So pause and take a moment to build up your resilience by appreciating everything that’s good right now.

Hold on to the good weather

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I had a summer ritual of sitting for 10 minutes in the morning sun over the summer. Shirt off, eyes closed, listening to a meditation. Today I went in the hot tub after my morning walk and then the sun came out from behind the clouds.

I paused and took full advantage. The sun won’t be up and warm enough in the morning much longer as we head into fall, so I’ve got to take every opportunity I’ve got. I’m going to eke out these sunny morning moments before the fall rains come.

I’m also going to keep finding joy in the little things, like holding on to the good weather while we’ve got it.

Uncivility

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The statements that I wholeheartedly disagreed with almost everything Charlie Kirk stood for, AND that I am deeply saddened and appalled that he was gunned down, murdered, are not contradictory. In fact, put together, these two statements make another statement: They say that violence is not an answer to disagreement in a civil society.

Violence is uncivil.

When societies accept violence as a natural consequence to disagreements, they lose site of what it means to be a free society. They permit further violence as a solution to disagreement. They invite and incite tyranny, control, and loss of freedoms. They go down a path to being less civil, and more dangerous. And they lead to a society more greatly restricted in both rights and freedoms as citizens.

I’ve said before, “We need a society that allows disagreement. We need to be civil about how we protest. Because there is no civil society where violence and damaging property works one-way… only the way upset people think it should. Societies that tolerate inappropriate protest are inviting responses that are less and less civil. And nobody wins.”

Nobody wins, civility is lost, and rationalizations or justifications of any kind promote the worst kind of tolerance… tolerance to violence.

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Related:

• Appropriate Protest

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Embracing the cycle

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There have been many years where during the summer my fitness has been on cruise control. I do just enough so that I do not fall too far behind in gains. This summer was different. I pushed hard, stayed very healthy, and even moved in the right direction.

Now I’m back at work, and I’m just going through the motions, doing the bare minimum to check the box that I did a workout. That’s just where I am right now. Normally this would bug the crap out of me, but I’m actually accepting this as part of the cycle. It’s really hard to be pushing for improvements all the time. It’s hard to stay motivated.

Sometimes just showing up is a win. Putting the time in, without giving 100% is still putting the time in. Some days that’s all I’ve got. And the reality is, that’s a lot more than not showing up at all. That’s a lot more than many people do.

It might be a few more days, it might be a week or two, but I’ll get back into a cycle where I push myself. Until then I’ll still get on the treadmill, I’ll still stretch, I’ll still move weights around… and more importantly, I won’t beat myself up for not doing enough.

Goodish

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I was texting to a friend and asked how things were going. His response, ‘Goodish’. This word hit a chord with me. I get it. It’s a sentiment more than descriptor. It’s less than ‘but’, as in ‘I’m good but…’, and yet more than saying satisfactory.

Health is good, a few aches, yet doing well. Family is well too. Work is just fine. Me? Oh, I’m ‘Goodish’.

Time perspective

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The older you get, the faster time flies. I don’t think it’s anything magical, it’s simply perspective. To a 10 year old, 5 years is half of a life. To a 60 year old, 5 years is 1/12th of a life. To a kid waiting for dessert, 5 minutes feels like forever. An adult is practiced at waiting and doesn’t mind a break before dessert.

Yet, even though I know it’s just perspective, I can’t help but be amazed at how quickly time flies by. It’s like I’m on a merry-go-round that is speeding up by tiny increments… completely unnoticeable at any given moment, but clearly obvious when seen over longer periods of time.

It’s a reminder to appreciate the current moment even more, because the next moment goes by more quickly. Appreciate the now, it’s gone soon enough, and it’s being replaced by ever shorter moments later.