Tag Archives: reflection

Error correction

“When you tolerate an error, you rob yourself of learning.

When you ruminate on an error, you rob yourself of happiness.

Notice it, improve it, and move on from it.” ~ James Clear

I really like this quote. It is very insightful. We don’t learn unless we make an effort to adapt, or improve after a failure or an error. But perseverating on our errors isn’t healthy.

Notice, improve, and move on. But how many of us can easily do this?

How many of us repeat mistakes? How many of us spend too much time ruminating and don’t move on? How many of us spend more time worrying about our errors and less time celebrating our successes?

Notice, improve, and move on.

There would be far less learning if we spent more time avoiding mistakes. There would be less improvement, and less to move on from. And so while we are learning from our errors, we need to remember to feel good about the learning we’ve done, and the journey we are on.

Family, fun, and fitness

I am in a tiny hotel gym near the Toronto airport, dictating this while on an elliptical. It’s 9:30 PM and we head home to Vancouver tomorrow morning just after 6 AM. It has been a whirlwind week for us. Leaving our home 2:30 in the morning last week Friday to come here for a memorial celebration of the passing of my dad.

We spent a wonderful few days up at BlueMountain, near Collingwood, with my mom, her four kids, and seven of eight grandkids. Unfortunately, the eighth grandkid was hit with Covid and didn’t recover in time to join us. Still, it was so wonderful to have our family together for the first time in over a decade with all 4 kids and that many grandkids m being present. My dad would have loved it.

My wife, kids, and mom spent the last couple nights in downtown Toronto, went shoe shopping for my mom, visited the Aquarium, and saw a musical, ‘In Dreams’. The play features Roy Orbison music and my mom loved it. We all did. I was worried when it started with a side story of a woman losing her husband, but that wasn’t the focus of the show and didn’t ruin the mood despite the recency of my fathers passing.

Today we went back to my mom’s place, hung out and ordered Caribbean style Doubles from a roti shop. I really wish I could find some good West Indian takeout in Coquitlam, and since I can’t, I always make sure I get some when in Toronto.

I probably should be getting to bed right now with a 3:30 AM wake up call, but I hadn’t had any exercise other than walking at my moms pace for three days now, and I’m not sure what I’ll feel like doing tomorrow after a long day of travel. So, I am using speech to text and panting slightly, unsure of how much editing I will need to do when I get off this machine.

I remember hearing that by the time you’re 18 you have spent roughly 95% of the total time you’ll ever spend with your parents. Losing my dad has really made me put this statistic into perspective. I think about my daughters at 21 and 23, and I’m actually grateful that one still lives with us, and I already see how hard it is to plan to get together with the older one who lives an hours drive and an hour and a half ferry ride away from us.

I’m actually thankful for covid in that it was the reason my siblings and mom started a group chat and that has increased my communication with my mom and sisters. Seeing my sisters’ now grown up kids has been wonderful too, and I really question where the time has gone. It occurred to me that my oldest nephew is older than I was when I had my first kid. That seems so hard to grasp. I am now the generation that I think my parents should be. Looking at old photographs, I find pictures of my parents as adults when they were younger than I am now, and yet in my mind I’m still just a kid… Their kid.

Cardio is done, I’ve edited my voice-to-text writing above and it’s time to put on Enya and do my stretches. I’ll keep thinking and reflecting on my time with family, and then I’ll crank the music and get a little bit of strength exercise in. I like doing a variety of exercises at hotels, using machines I don’t get to use in my simple home gym.

Tomorrow, I travel home then start to worry about catching up at work. It’s going to be a bit painful, but I’m glad to have had this time, and it know how much it meant to my mom… and to me!

Internal dialogue

I find it interesting how the voice in our heads can be so loud. Sometimes it’s like we live two different lives, one in the 3-dimensional world and one in the ethereal space between our ears. Both lives playing out simultaneously and each distracting ourselves from the other.

Sometimes they sync and we become a singularly focused person… both lives becoming one in moments of joy, love, anger, or gratitude, as examples. But often those are high and low moments that draw our mutually focused attentions. Most of our lives they seem to be in minor conflict with each other, fighting for our full attention.

I like the moments when my internal dialogue is quiet, and more focused on being present in the physical world, but there are times when this seems impossible. There are times when the internal dialogue is a complete distraction from reality, in a full on battle for attention. When I’m in this space, the internal dialogue usually wins. These are times that I’m more comfortable being alone than in the presence of anyone. Yet, I don’t feel alone… I’ve got an internal voice keeping me company.

This is neither good nor bad, this is determined by context. If I’m thinking of something dark or gloomy, it can be a bad headspace to be in. But if I’m deep in thought and excited about some new learning or ideas, or if I’m creating or writing, then I could be in a fantastic headspace.

My internal dialogue is like a second world, a second life that lives inside my head, and can be on a continuum from fully engaged in the physical world to almost fully ignorant of my surroundings. Both extreme cases can be wonderful, but it seems I live most of my life balancing the two worlds as best as I can.

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.

Web Logging

I went to my LinkedIn profile last night. I hadn’t really looked at it for a while. It could use a bit of an update, but I’m in no rush. Still, while I was there I saw ‘Open Thinker’ under my experience, which is where I describe my blogging. I was surprised to see this:

I’ve been blogging for over 17 and a half years. I also passed 4 years of blogging daily in July. I’m coming up on 1,500 daily posts.

I had no idea 17 years ago that this would be something I would stick with for so long. I could not have fathomed that I’d be writing every single day on a web log, back when I hit the ‘Publish’ button for the first time.

Instead of feeling tired, and wanting to bring this to a close, I find myself wanting to write more. That doesn’t mean it has gotten a lot easier, I still find writing a challenge. I still can’t predict when I will feel the muse and when I will struggle to get past the blank page. I still get pangs before hitting the Publish button, though the feeling is somewhat muted. I still get pissed off when I find a typo or grammatical error after hitting the Publish button.

And I will continue to write. Maybe not for 17 more years, but I don’t see a reason to stop in the foreseeable future. I am keeping a journal. It just so happens that anyone with an internet connection can read what I’ve written…. including you!

Staying in the discomfort

A couple days ago at our start of the year administrators meeting, we had a presentation by Jo Chrona. She was presenting on learning in Indigenous and anti-racist education, and she said something that still sits with me. She talked about how the learning isn’t easy but the real challenge is sitting, and staying, in the discomfort.

This isn’t an easy thing to do. We spend our days as problem solvers. We see the challenges and the issues we face and we tackle them. But systemic problems are not something with a quick fix, and if we have a ‘fix and move on’ mentality, we aren’t really dealing with the underlying issues. If we move away from uncomfortable issues they don’t really get meaningfully addressed. If we don’t sit in the discomfort, we don’t learn or help our community learn.

But it’s not human nature to stay in an uncomfortable place. This needs to be intentional. Being vulnerable and having the hard conversations, rather than trying to immediately make things better, is when we can really reflect, listen, learn, and heal. And of these four things, listening is the most important. If we are fixing, we aren’t listening.

One of the powerful things about staying and sitting in the discomfort is that we only really learn things well when there is a struggle. And so when we allow ourselves time to struggle, to understand the struggle of others, we create the space for deep learning to happen. We create the opportunity for meaningful learning and meaningful change to happen.

Interview time

Yesterday I interviewed 3 people for a teaching position. I took extensive notes. All 3 interviews were good, and I could see value in hiring any of them. I ranked the candidates 1-3 then I sent my notes to a colleague. I didn’t share any personal information with the colleague, just my notes. He ranked them in the reverse order that I did.

Very interesting.

I looked over my notes again, thought more about how the answers fit with the position and I can totally see what my colleague saw. Now I’m really stuck. I have no idea which way I’m going to go? I have one more interview today, then I’m going to call my colleague and hear his thoughts.

I don’t think bias plays into it. Both the candidate he and I liked are the same gender, and he had no idea based on the answers shared. But this really has me questioning my skills at hiring. Again, it’s hard because all 3 candidates are good. I think my bias, if I have one, might be experience, and both of these candidates have a lot more experience than the one we didn’t choose, what my colleague made me realize when reading over my notes was how much more relevant his choice’s experience was compared to my choice’s.

My lesson learned from this is that if I’m going to take notes, I need to take the time to read them. When I’m asking questions and trying to capture their responses, I’m not committed to analysis of the answer. Also, when I’m interviewing, the order I interview in matters because I have less to compare to with my first versus my last interview and that may create bias.

I need to do the final interview today, then I need to take the time to go over my notes one more time with an objective eye… and I’ll also call my colleague and confer with him. It’s hard to make a decision like this yourself when you don’t have a gut instinct or glaringly obvious choice to make. Sometimes it’s good to ask for help and get a different perspective.

Moments of silence

There was a time when moments of silence were golden. When being alone with my thoughts was quiet and contemplative. When no sound meant calm and inspired serenity.

Now I fill those moments. I listen to books, podcasts, and music. I avoid the silence because that’s when my tinnitus gets loud… and even if I wanted that silence, I wouldn’t get it. My tinnitus is a constant tone, for others it’s like crickets. For anyone who has it, it’s the end of silence.

But there is another kind of silence. It’s the quiet of the mind. It’s like an ocean without waves. This is even more elusive. It is the moments when our minds are not reliving the past or creating unlikely futures. It is when our minds are not thinking about our schedule, worrying about our responsibilities, or planning our next moment, meeting, or meal.

It is when there is nothing to do, but there is no boredom.

It is when nothing is pressing, and there is no need to rush.

It’s also when you don’t seek a distraction. But now the distraction is always there. It looks like Facebook or TikTok, Instagram or Twitter, YouTube or Audible, text or email, WhatsApp or Snapchat.

We have let technology steal away our moments of silence. We are robbed of those golden moments. The dopamine rush of the next notification is too great to resist, and too daunting to allow silence a chance. Silence is no longer a desired state, it is a state of absence to avoid, not a desired state of stillness.

Moments of silence were already elusive, now they are all but nonexistent. I even wonder if for someone younger, who spent their teen years with a smartphone, if silence was ever known, is ever desirable? Or is this just a nostalgic ideal?

It’s quiet now, but my tinnitus sings it’s ever present song, and I put on some background music. The silence is gone.

City on the Edge of Forever

I’ve been on a few hikes, but “City on the Edge of Forever” has to be one of my favourite hike trail names.

The views were spectacular and I connected with a friend whom I’ve mostly known online, in meetings, and at conferences. Yet every time we connect I feel like I’m with a lifelong friend. The one difference… each time we connect I learn something new about him.

We all have past experiences that are stories from another era in our lives. It’s easy to dismiss them as ancient, to share them as if they were ‘in a past life’. But these stories are the stories that made us. They are the stories that created the person we are today.

Sometimes people can get stuck on who they ‘used to be’ and I don’t think that’s healthy. But it’s also not healthy to reflect on those past experiences like they belong to someone else.

I’m no longer an athlete. Even when I was one, I was a hard working grunt, not a talented athlete… but I was still an athlete. I take care of myself now, but I’m no athlete, and honestly unlikely to be one ever again. But the skills I learned, the work ethic, the sportsmanship, the dedication to something I loved doing… those things I take with me to the edge of forever.

The scenery today was great, but learning more about my friend was even better.

Updating ‘The long game’

I wrote this in December, while on vacation in Barcelona, about my fitness journey,

Four years. Not 3 or 6 months, not even 1 year, four. I started my fitness journey with a calendar on January 1, 2019. This was my reflection after a year. The path has been a tiny bit bumpy, but overall extremely consistent and without any significant injury as a result of my fitness regimen.

So often people (including me in the past) go on fitness binges and/or eating diets. It’s a race to see results. And while results can come from these brief attempts to improve, unrealistic fitness plans and unsustainable diets eventually lead to a point where they can’t be sustained.

I’m not trying to run ultra marathons or have a bodybuilder physique. I’m actually going to let myself let loose and eat a bit more gluttonous while on vacation. But I’m also going to find time to exercise, I’m going to return home and be more thoughtful about my diet after my vacation. I’m going to keep playing the long game and not worry about minor fluctuations in my schedule. Because while there will be fluctuations, I’m going to keep a schedule of writing, meditation, and exercise. I’m not looking for quick gains, I’m just working on staying on a healthy path, knowing positive results are still to come… in time. Perseverance and the long game are the path I’m on.

I’ve had some physical challenges this year, and still have a long path of recovery, but on reflection I really haven’t been playing the long game I spoke about in December. This year I decided I didn’t need my tracking calendar any longer.

I tracked 4 goals with this calendar for 4 years, 2019-2022, and saw small improvements every year. This year I stopped. I believed the patterns were built. I thought I would maintain my commitments without needing a tracker.

I was wrong.

So I will start again this weekend. I’ll pick up a calendar and track the last 6 months of the year. My 4 positive habits this year will be 3 oldies:

1. Workouts: 20 min. cardio, stretching, and strength training for at least one muscle group.

2. Meditation: 10 min. minimum, and a second sticker if I exceed 20 minutes.

3. Daily writing here on Daily-Ink.

And I’m going to add something new this year.

4. At least 20 min. of writing that isn’t for my blog.

For this last goal, I’m going to shoot for 26 days, or one day a week for the rest of the year… An admittedly low bar, but still 26 more times that I will have written beyond blogging without this goal! I know that while I watch almost no TV and no sports, I still waste time watching a screen (my phone), and I think like the other goals, tracking will inspire me to build and maintain the habit. I want to write more, I haven’t been writing… let’s see if I can develop the habit.

I realize that in playing the long game, gains are slow. I don’t see quick results and I’m not rewarded explicitly for good behaviour and good habits. I need my calendar to keep me honest. I need it to motivate me when I just don’t feel like working out, and to prevent me from skipping days and building bad habits.

I know the calendar motivates me. I know it shows me when I need to metaphorically ‘pull up my socks’ and avoid ‘no dot’, and ‘one dot days‘. And so starting today my calendar shall be resurrected. It’s time to resume effectively playing the long game.