Tag Archives: reflection

Blackberry season

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For me blackberry season is bitter sweet. I love the taste, and enjoy picking and eating them, but they are also a reminder that summer is coming to an end. Blackberries, or blackblellies as my oldest daughter first called them, are so unique.

I’ve already shared that,

“Blackberries are a unique fruit. I can eat a handful of raspberries, strawberries, or blueberries, and it doesn’t matter how many I put in my mouth, I enjoy them all the same. That’s not the case for blackberries. Blackberries taste better when you have one at a time. Two blackberries in your mouth are not as enjoyable as just one.”

So, carefully, watching for thorns, I search for ripe berries. I pick them and place them one-at-a-time in my mouth… and I savour every one. Yes, summer is coming to an end, but I have the joy of blackberries to help soften the blow.

Year End Headspace

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I can’t escape it. The end of the school year always fills me with melancholy. I don’t mean melancholy defined as ‘sadness and depression’ but rather ‘pensive reflection or contemplation’. Whether I consider the year good or bad, great or average, it doesn’t matter, I still feel I should have done more. I measure not so much my success but rather I face the loss of opportunity to have accomplished even greater things: Better connections to students and teachers; more engagement with the learning in classrooms; better work/life balance; and even more time out of my office.

It was a good year. It was made especially good because last year was such a challenge with my health among other things that were emotionally draining. And despite it being a really good year this year in comparison to the last, the melancholy fills me. I contemplate what else I could have done. I don’t allow myself the satisfaction of the year being positive, and the year ends not in celebration but in contemplation.

So, I’ll wallow in this feeling for a while. I’ll consider the ‘could have beens’ and the ‘should have beens’, and I’ll sit with the lost opportunities for a bit, as I do my year-end cleanup. Then in the coming weeks I’ll be able to look back with a clearer mind, and more positive perspective on the school year that was. But that appreciation can’t seem to arrive until I’ve gone through this contemplative headspace. It’s a year end process that I seem to require myself to go through, and today is the day it has decided to hit me.

Frame of mind

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Yesterday I didn’t work out. I planned to but things just got in the way, including my lack of motivation. I don’t need motivation today because weekdays I have a habitual routine and I know that I’ll be working out after I publish this. But weekends are often off schedule and motivation is required. I didn’t have it yesterday.

That said, I’ve only taken one other day off in about a month, and two days are not a big deal to miss out of 30. I intellectually know this, missing my workout wasn’t a big deal. Yet because I intended to work out, I didn’t have the right frame of mind about my missed workout. If I woke up feeling awful like I did last week, head pounding, and needed a break, that’s ok. But waking up with full intention to do my daily exercise and then not doing so feels like a failure.

Yesterday I had to help my wife with a task on her computer. It’s something I’ve done many times but the setup on her computer was different and this simple process took 3 times as long as it should have. I was frustrated. I was speaking to the computer as if it was an animate object that could hear me. I swore. I got angry. I wanted to throw the laptop across the room. It was stupid, and worse yet the whole thing still only took about 5-6 minutes to do. I should never have let this minor slow down get to me, but I wasn’t in a resourceful frame of mind.

Yesterday I ended the day with a meditation. I lay down with headphones on in the spare bedroom and woke up 50 minutes later not having heard any of the last 1/2 of the 20 minute session. I didn’t even realize I was that tired, but the meditation was actually just a nap. Instead of accepting this, I was upset that I chose to lie down and allowed myself to fall asleep. I went to my bed but rather than falling directly back to sleep, I was up and disappointed about missing my meditation, and then was missing sleep as a result. That’s far from a meditative frame of mind, and certainly not why I meditate.

Each of these minor things could have felt different if I was in a different frame of mind. Each of these were unnecessary stresses that I allowed to build up in me. They really weren’t reasons to be upset. They weren’t moments that I needed to fret about. They were not things that needed to set a negative mood or to perseverate about.

Sometimes resourcefulness takes too much effort. It’s easy to beat yourself up rather than to frame things in a positive way. Sometimes the frames around your thoughts are rigid. Cold. Unkind. You would give anyone else a break, give them an opportunity to slip up, or not follow through… but yourself, no, you don’t give yourself the opportunity.

Get it right, or be disappointed.

Failure is not an option.

Mistakes are something other people can be forgiven for.

Results are required. Now.

This is not a healthy frame of mind. It does not provide any benefits, and it steals joy. It’s better to be gentle. All it takes is seeing outside the frame. I’ll push hard on my workout today. This morning I already redid the same meditation I slept through yesterday. And I see the futility of being upset at my wife’s computer. The poor framing is easy to see today, the trick is to see it in the moment, and to be kinder to myself when I don’t have the right frame of mind.

Naturally Funny

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I mentioned yesterday that I was introducing one of our Principal retirees at a dinner last night. It was about a 4-minute bit, and it went well. I know my friend appreciated it. It was heartfelt and struck a good cord with him and his family. I knew it would because I know him well enough to get it right.

What it wasn’t was funny. I have a good enough sense of humour with family and friends but I’m not naturally funny. The introduction before mine was absolutely hilarious. It wasn’t only funny, it was completely respectful and relevant to the person he was introducing. It was absolutely delightful to listen to.

I love how some people are naturally funny. It’s a gift. If I tried to pull off half of the things that were said in this humorous introduction, they really would not have worked in the same way. But also, if that’s what my friend wanted, he wouldn’t have asked me.

I don’t know if it’s a natural gift or if people genuinely work at it, but I love listening to someone who can get a whole crowd laughing. What I do know is that’s not me. I’ll throw a one liner in here are there but I fully recognize that I’m not naturally funny, and I stay in my lane and don’t try to be. Just like watching a natural entertainer is enjoyable, watching someone try to be when they are not is painful. I’ll leave the jokes to those who know how to deliver them… and get the laughs.

Reflections of the past

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I noticed it just as I was hitting ‘send’. My daughter had sent a Snapchat from a cottage she was leaving, a quick note to her family to say that she enjoyed her little getaway. I sent a response photo, a quick selfie as a replay with a comment like, ‘Hope you had fun’ written over the image. I didn’t pose. I didn’t concern myself with how I looked. It was only a quick picture going to my family, and so I just clicked the photo, wrote the text, and sent the image off to the group chat… knowing that it would disappear just after my family saw it. That’s the thing about Snapchat, unless one of my family saved the image in the chat, it would be gone after they look at it.

Except, for a split second before I hit the send button I saw something I didn’t expect. I saw a reflection of my grandfather in the image of myself. This was unusual, because I don’t really look like him. Sure, I often see reflections of my dad in my own reflection, we have similar traits and they seem to converge as I age, but I don’t have a lot of similar features to my grandfather, my mother’s dad.

I’d only seen this once before, years ago, and again on Snapchat. I used the aging filter and for the first time ever I saw a resemblance to my grandfather when I added about 25 years to my current age. But this time there was no filter, no gimmick, just a quick, unposed image of myself and a peek of my grandfather looking back at me.

It has been almost a quarter of a century since my grandfather passed away. Just over 38 years since the other one passed. That amazes me, because some of the memories of them still feel close. A friend recently shared this about aging, “The days seem longer, and the years seem shorter.” This resonates with me. A day seems to last about a day long, it doesn’t fly by, but the years have. My reflection in the mirror is somehow older than it should be. The man looking back has seen more years than I expect him to see.

It was just a quick glimpse of my own reflection, but one that has me reflecting on how quickly time passes. One that has me appreciating those who have been part of my life, and are gone, as well as those who are here with me now. The years are short, but they are lengthened by the memories we form, the moments that are not just ordinary. If we don’t make efforts to connect with others and create special moments, then those moments are nothing more than Snapchat memories… gone moments after we look at them.

Trade your expectation with appreciation

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I was listening to The Tim Ferriss Show today and heard this great quote from Tony Robbins: “You want to change your life fast then trade your expectation for appreciation and you have a whole new life.”

(Listen to the full gratitude & appreciation quote by Tony Robbins here.)

It’s easy to forget sometimes how blessed we are. It can be all consuming as we seek and want more, while forgetting how much we have already.

Possible future you robs happiness from the present you.

Don’t let future you steal your happiness today.

Bask in appreciation of what you have: Family, friends, health, work, hobbies, food, health, wealth… you might not be exactly where you want future you to be, but if you take stock right now, you probably have a lot to appreciate and be happy about.

Rationalize or Analyze?

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I was at a meeting yesterday morning where some critical feedback was shared by a group of students. I think the feedback was very useful, and there was a lot to gain from the information. I don’t know how it was received by others?

When you get feedback and it isn’t what you are looking for, what’s your first instinct?

Is it to rationalize why the feedback was not ideal? Was it a bad question? A misunderstanding? …An excuse of one kind or another?

Or do you analyze, reflect, and think critically about what the feedback really means?

Rationalization is really easy, but renders the information useless. Analysis can lead to uncomfortable realizations, but may lead to meaningful learning and, more importantly, changes in behaviours or systems.

I think rationalization is an emotional response, it’s a defence mechanism. It’s a way to comfort your ego… but it’s not a way to learn and grow. Honest analysis is not about finger-waving and blame, nor about making excuses. Rather it’s about informing practice and getting better. And in the end, getting better feedback in the future.

Rhyme (and) reason

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Sometimes something happens without rhyme or reason, with no logical reason for it to happen. Other times it is abundantly clear… to some people but not to others. So while an observer can see and make connections between events or experiences, the person in the situation believes there is no rhyme or reason, no connections at all. I witnessed this first hand in a conversation recently.

I was talking to someone who was very upset with the behaviors of another person. Why couldn’t this other person understand how to help themselves? Why did this other person not do what needed to be done? There was much frustration because this other person wouldn’t respond well to feedback. Then the person I was talking to shared a personal struggle, and it was abundantly clear to me that the rhyme and reason for their struggle was identical for them as it was for this other person. The situation was completely different, but the points of struggle were the same.

Isn’t that fascinating how we can see and be frustrated with the challenges we see others struggle with, and yet be blind to how we struggle in similar way? Simultaneously asking ‘Why can’t this other person see what needs to be done’, while being oblivious to the fact that we struggle in the same way in other areas of our own lives. Maybe I’m being unfair in saying they are oblivious? Maybe the frustration they see in themselves is precisely why there is frustration in the other person.

‘I hate seeing this other person struggle, because in this other person I see the thing I least like about myself.’

I saw the rhyme and reason. But that doesn’t mean I handled it well. On the contrary, and upon reflection, I could have navigated the conversation much better. I realize this only after the fact. The person I was talking to knew the other person wouldn’t respond well to feedback because they knew they wouldn’t. When I saw the connection, the parallel relationship, I should have realized the it was the wrong time for me to offer feedback. It wouldn’t be well received… it wasn’t well received. The pattern was there for me to see, but I missed it.

We don’t always see the rhyme and reason for why we do what we do. But maybe it’s easier to see this in other people… maybe we project our own insecurities and frustrations on others because we struggle ourselves. The very reason it bugs us in others is because it bugs us in us. But even knowing this, it hurts to hear it.

Confidence and Arrogance

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I bet you think you can tell the difference between confidence and arrogance. But you are wrong. You are biased. If you take offence to that, don’t worry, you aren’t the only one, I’m biased too.

Disagree? Think you can tell the difference?

Sure you can when it’s obvious. But it’s not always obvious.

We have gender biases about what confidence looks like. Age biases. Cultural biases. Friend group biases.

We even have beauty biases… tell me you don’t judge a pretty or handsome person who finds themselves attractive confident, while someone you deem less attractive sharing the same view of themselves being attractive as more arrogant than confident. Why can’t they be confident too? Or, oddly enough, this could be inversely true with the attractive person’s confidence seeming more like arrogance. Or it could be deemed confident for an 8 year old and arrogant for an 18 or 28 year old.

Yes, there is a big difference between confidence and arrogance, but be careful to judge too quickly… or too arrogantly. Confidence can be a superpower, but it’s also fragile. We shouldn’t be too quick to judge others who are confident, or to attack confidence as if it is arrogance.

We tell people it is important to be humble all the time, but we admire confidence more than we admire humility. Are they just showing humility or are they shy? Or are they not confident when they should be? Is it arrogance if they know they are good at what they do and show confidence rather than humility?

It’s all judgement calls. And as I mentioned before, when it’s obvious, it’s obvious, but I think we are more judgemental than we think we are. When judging confidence versus arrogance, we shouldn’t be too confident about our judgement… unless we want to show our own arrogance.

Leave a little undone

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Student leaders at my school planned a movie night and I ended up leaving school a little after 9pm last night. After I got home I decided to have a hot tub. With headphones on I slowly submerged myself, got comfortable, and put on some focus music on my meditation app. Why focus music? I was planning to do a meditation, but I was too tired and decided to reflect on the week rather than meditating, or listening to a podcast or to my book. I thought about a couple exchanges I had this week. One was feedback from a student. I love being in a school where students can give me candid feedback. In fact, we discussed radical candour and I have to say that the feedback he gave was very insightful. The other reflection is one I won’t share, because it would be too easy for the people involved to know that I was talking about them, and it’s not appropriate for me to share. 

That second reflection came shortly after I restarted my hot tub (after the 20 minute auto shut off). I thought I was going to sit for another round, but minutes later I felt too hot and that I was done. Yet, there I was pushing myself to stay in a bit longer. That’s when I realized that I was battling myself for no good reason. I was done, but I had just restarted the hot tub, and in my head it was my ‘duty’ to stay in it longer. This of course is a ridiculous thing to think, but I thought it. Then I reflected on how often we do this to ourselves.

We push to finish… almost everything.

  • Crappy movie? Watch it all anyway. Why? Maybe it will get better? Or ‘I’ve invested this much time, may as well see it through to the end’.
  • Eating a meal? I’m stuffed but there are still 4 more bites… May as well finish my plate. Or, ‘I don’t really want fries, but it was part of the meal deal, so may as well eat them’. 
  • An online survey. A game of solitaire when you know you aren’t going to win. A boring book. A career. A course you thought would be interested, but turns out to be boring and unfulfilling. 

There are a lot of quotes and adages about sticking with something, showing grit and fortitude, and not being a quitter… but there is a difference between quitting or giving up, and being smart about recognizing when something is no longer benefiting you. This is especially true for things where the only person expecting you to finish is you. Why force yourself to finish a book that you know you’ll end up being disappointed reading? Why stuff yourself with those last 4 bites? Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to leave a little bit undone.

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As an aside, the Northern Lights were out last night like I’ve never seen them before. (See my Facebook post.)