I have very mixed feelings about social media, and so do many other people I know. I’ve thought about how the different platforms are commonly used and the ways that they could be used, so I’d like to share my thoughts about all of that in this blog post.
Social media allows friends and family members to keep in touch even if they live nowhere near each other and can’t regularly visit in person. People who live near each other can use social media to discuss their shared interests and plan events to do together. It can be a way to relax during stressful times by seeing uplifting or entertaining things, and it can be used to spread hope by sharing examples of things that are going in the right direction. Charities and other good causes can quickly gain more attention and resources with a few viral posts. Business owners can use social media to market themselves in ways they previously never could. And people who are struggling and are uncomfortable asking for help in person can use social media to reach out to close friends or family members. Those are some positive uses for social media that I’ve seen.
Now onto the negative uses of social media. It can be used to create echo chambers and bring about all the problems they contain. Along similar lines, it can be used to show the bad things in the world without mentioning the good things, making the state of things appear to be worse than it actually is. Bullies are fond of using social media to harass people in ways they’d never do in person. Because many platforms make extensive use of text, misunderstandings can easily happen due to the lack of facial expressions, body language, and vocal inflections, all of which communicate how someone feels and where they’re coming from in a conversation. Finally, social media can be a huge temptation to waste time by mindlessly scrolling, repeatedly refreshing pages, and arguing with strangers about things that don’t matter (and even if the argument is over something important, it almost always goes badly for everyone involved).
Does this make social media good or bad? My take is that social media is neutral. I see it as a tool and, like any other tool, it can be used for positive or negative purposes. A hammer can be used to build a house or kill an innocent person. A car can rush someone to the hospital or run them over. And social media can be used to spread goodness or perpetuate toxicity. I use it for the former whenever I can and do my best to stay away from the latter. This often means taking some time away from it so I don’t spend too much time there or start using it negatively. I usually feel better when I’ve stepped away from it and focused on something productive or just taken some time to relax and watch my thoughts. Then when I return to it, I have a much easier time avoiding drama and using it for good. Social media appears to be here to stay, so I’m going to do my best to make good use of it, and I hope everyone reading this does as well.
I realized something after I got back from Lollies and Lemonade 2019. While I was there, it was like we were all in our own world and had temporarily left everything else behind. There was a bit of talk about work and schooling, but for the most part, everyone focused on dancing and discussing the things they do in their free time. I’ve noticed this with other events (whether they involved juggling, dance, sports, etc) but this was the first time I became consciously aware of it and could put it into words.
These kinds of events have dozens (in some cases hundreds or even thousands) of people taking a break from their regular lives and going somewhere to have fun. Once they get there, they tend to forget about everything else and get lost in the moment. Occasionally something from outside might pop in, but overall they’re primarily focused on things at that event. They leave behind their stress, worries, fears, and all other forms of negativity and become immersed in positivity.
When I have these experiences, I feel like I’m seeing these people at their best. They’re not stuck in the routine of get up, go to work, relax a bit at home, crash, and then do it all again the next day. They’ve gotten out of that rut and entered a flow of peace, relaxation, and rejuvenation. It’s like they’ve put everything else on pause and are only thinking about having a great time. Because they’re operating on so many positive emotions, they’re able to truly connect with each other in ways they can’t in normal life. Instead of seeing each other through some filter that would normally bring division based, there’s a tendency to see common interests and feel united with everyone there. It’s like we’re all living in a new type of world, a world that should exist and very well could exist within our lifetimes.
My store manager said I looked happier and more refreshed after Lollies and Lemonade than I did before the trip, and I felt much better even after returning to work. However, when I got back, I saw a lot of tiredness, resentment, frustration, and a general sense of wanting to be anywhere else. I regularly see this in my coworkers, managers, and customers, and it’s hard to avoid taking on those feelings. My days off help a lot with that and the occasional longer break acts like a major reset; I’ve seen similar things in those close to me when they get back from a nice vacation. These escapes from regular life are usually the exception, but why couldn’t they be the norm?
Why don’t we arrange our lives so that we can spend most of our time pursuing our interests, passions, and life purpose instead of trying to cram all of that into our spare moments? Lots of people have found ways to free up their time and get out of the grind for long periods of time or even permanently, and some have shown what they did to make that possible. I normally take one or two short trips a year but I’ve never taken months or years at a time to spend however I wanted while making passive income. Even so, I’ve still benefited from each break I’ve taken and I plan to give myself a lot more time freedom so I can focus on the things I find valuable. I don’t want to get stuck in a system that eats up most of my life and leaves me almost no time to pursue my two major lifeplans. I’d like to see how the world would look if enough people did this that it became standard practice. Based on the experiences of those who’ve done it and my perspective shifts after short trips, I think everyone would be much more relaxed, easygoing, and contented if this became the norm. And I plan to do what I can to make that happen.
Leonard D’Lemon, the official mascot of Lollies and Lemonade
I spent most of this past weekend attending Lollies and Lemonade 2019 in Auburn, Alabama. This was a 3-day Balboa workshop with some incredible instruction, amazing music, and wonderful dancing. Here’s an overview of my experience from this event.
For starters, Balboa is a type of swing dance that features a close embrace style connection between partners (similar to a hug) and small, quick steps; these make it good for dancing to fast songs. While many Lindy hop events have opportunities for Balboa (some of them even have entire rooms dedicated to it during the late dances), there are also Balboa-centered events. Lollies and Lemonade is the first of those events that I’ve attended. At the time of this writing, I’ve been doing Balboa for just under a year, and I’m sure that experience made the event much more enjoyable for me.
There were only 3 of us going from Jacksonville, Florida, so we decided to carpool instead of driving separately for 6 hours. We left around 3:45pm Eastern Standard Time on Friday afternoon, switching drivers somewhere in Georgia as we wanted to share the workload. Apart from a few brief stops, we drove straight through until we got to the Clarion Inn & Suites where the dances were held. Since we changed time zones once we got to Alabama, I think we got there around 9pm Central Standard Time, about an hour after the main dance started. As soon as I walked into the ballroom and saw everyone dancing, I knew I’d have a great time. I connected with my host, danced a lot, drank some lemonade, and had a blast that night. Although the late dance lasted until 2am, I left with my housemates around 1am to get some sleep.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get much sleep that night. For some reason, I was wide awake when I went to bed. I hadn’t had much sugar or caffeine 4+ hours before trying to fall asleep, so I don’t know what happened. Maybe it was the excitement of my first Balboa event, being in a new city, and spending the night in an unfamiliar place that kept me up. After we all woke up, we talked about a variety of subjects as we ate breakfast, shook off the sleepiness, and gathered energy for the day’s activities. When the time came, we grabbed our stuff and headed to the first lessons of the weekend.
I chose the “Fresh Squeezed” beginner track, which was in a ballroom at the Auburn University campus. I got to the university with plenty of time to spare after parking and finding the right room. Robert David Jemian and Cari Westbrook were the instructors for the beginner track. They started us off with the basic Balboa pattern, posture, and partner connection before letting us dance together for a bit. The participants’ skill levels varied from complete beginners to near-intermediates, but everyone did well throughout both days of instruction and had a good grasp on most of the material. The instructors did a great job communicating a lot of important concepts that helped us execute the moves; I had a lot of lightbulb moments where things began to click for me in ways they never had before. Except for a long lunch break and a few shorter breaks during the lesson, we spent most of the afternoon working on a lot of Balboa and Bal-Swing moves: ad libs, paddle turns, Lollies, toss outs, outs and ins, and so on. I was glad to be at least somewhat familiar with almost everything they taught that day as I’m sure that prior experience came in handy during the classes.
After the first day of lessons, I spent a few minutes practicing with my unicycle in one of the university parking lots before heading back to the house. We relaxed for a bit and then got ready for the main dance that night, stopping at a Vietnamese restaurant beforehand. As was the case with the other big dance workshops I’ve attended, I felt that my dancing was overall better on Saturday night than it was on Friday night, with much of what I learned from the lessons sinking in as well as improving my basic pattern. I danced with some of the people I had first met on Friday evening, a lot of people from the beginner track, and several I met that night. I was glad to see and reconnect with several people I had met at other big weekend workshops and smaller dance events.
There was a competition during the main dance and a lot of incredible couples participated. I’m familiar enough with Balboa at this point to recognize a number of moves and notice when I’m seeing something new to me even if I can’t tell exactly what’s going on. The most fun activity for me that night, though, was the silly competition. This started during the late night dance and consisted of “Leonard Says”: in the style of Simon Says, Leonard D’Lemon, the Lollies and Lemonade mascot, would come up with moves for competitors to do while supporting a lemon between themselves. When there were only 5 couples remaining, they added a second lemon. After that, they took away the lemons and had the follows wear blindfolds; after they got down to 2 couples, the leads wore blindfolds as well, and spotters kept them from running into each other, the audience, or anything else. Shortly after the winners of both competitions were announced, we left to get some much-needed sleep for the final day.
I had correctly predicted that I’d sleep better the second night. All the energy I expended in Saturday’s activities and the lack of sleep from the previous night helped me fall asleep faster and stay asleep for longer, so I felt more refreshed when I got up that morning. As with the previous day, we spent some time talking and waking up over breakfast before heading out for the morning lessons. In the beginner lessons, Robert David and Cari gave us time to recall what we had learned the previous day and then showed us some new stuff: swivels, an exit from swivels, the come around, and some optional variations that follows could try if they wanted. During the lunch break, I ended up going to Chipotle with a few other dancers from the beginner track; we took our food back to the university since we were short on time at that point and talked about the event, our dance scenes, and a few related subjects while we ate. The post-lunch class was much smaller than it had been for the previous lessons, so we had more time to talk about what we’d learned, things we still found challenging, helpful stuff, etc. The instructors ended the final lesson with a recap video as they had done the day before and gave us plenty of time to dance with each other, ask them for help, or just hang out and chat before the farewell dance started. I danced a bit, said goodbye to those who were heading back home, and then went back to the house to finish packing and make sure I had all my stuff. Then I headed to the hotel and went inside for the farewell dance.
Although the dance ran from 4pm-8pm, we left around 6:30 since we wanted to get back to Jacksonville before it got too late. I danced with several familiar faces as well as some people I had only met that day. I felt my dancing was better than Friday but not as good as Saturday. The slight soreness, tiredness from the late nights, and information overload was really getting to me by then, but I still had fun. I thanked my host for the fantastic hospitality and said goodbye to him and several other people I’d hung out with that weekend. Then we all piled into the car and started for home, stopping along the way for some food and gas and listening to a lot of swing and Disney music. Once we got back to Jacksonville, we unpacked our stuff, said our goodbyes, and parted ways.
Lollies and Lemonade 2019 was my third big weekend dance workshop and my first Balboa workshop. Except for one song in which I danced Blues, I danced nothing but Balboa for the entire weekend. Most of the songs were too fast for me to comfortably dance Lindy hop and I figured that immersing myself in Balboa would improve my dancing. Whether or not it did, I still had a lot of fun, benefited a lot from the lessons, and got much more comfortable dancing Balboa socially and asking people to dance. Plus it was amazing to see a room full of people dancing Balboa and having a great time. Thanks to the AU Swing Dance Association for putting on this event, the instructors, all the dancers who came from far and wide, and everyone else for such an amazing and unforgettable weekend. I loved this event and I can’t wait to go back next year.
The moment has arrived, for this is the final post in the series about my rules. I hope you’ve found this series interesting and useful. It’s forced me to think through some of my ideas and rules more fully than I’d previously done. On the subject of thinking, this final post will be focusing on an incredibly important yet rarely discussed subject: Don’t think too much.
This is one of the hardest rules for me to follow as I’ve been thinking nonstop for most of my life. Until a few years ago, I wouldn’t have believed it to be possible to stop thinking or have much control over my thoughts. Ever since I first listened to The Power of Now and started practicing presence, however, I’ve discovered that mindfulness is not only possible but comes with many benefits, including but not limited to the following: less anxiety, greater comfort around other people, easier conversations, more creativity, and a much easier time sleeping.
Since I’ve been working on controlling my thoughts for a while now, I’ve come to see thinking as a useful and necessary thing in some situations but not all of them. Like any quality tool, there are times to use it and there are also times to put it to the side. If I’m always stuck in my thoughts, sooner or later they’ll become negative and start dragging me down. However, even if I’m thinking in a positive way, it still becomes draining after a while if I do it incessantly. Being able to shut off the noise of excessive thinking is incredibly freeing and the more I do it, the better my day goes.
Refraining from thinking too much is one of the most powerful life hacks I’ve found thus far. It’s been difficult to change a lifetime of overthinking and I still think much more than I should. I have gotten much better, though, at noticing when I’ve become lost in thought and snapping myself out of it when I need some mental peace. Since I’ve become aware of mindfulness, I’ve seen it coming up in a lot of places, including books, podcasts, YouTube videos, and even people I know who’ve found this independently of me. I’ve learned a lot of life hacks from each of those resources and included the ones that have worked for me in many of my blog posts. I’ve made a lot of progress with presence and avoiding overthinking since I started and can only see things getting better as I continue to learn more and share what I find.
We’ve reached the penultimate entry in the series exploring my rules. This post fits in nicely with the previous post about taking chances. Today’s post is about what I do before that: Dream big.
I’ve always dreamt and thought big, but that’s gone to another level since I read The Magic of Thinking Big last year. That book, along with several others I’ve read, talks about how most of the limits to what we can do are self-imposed. Once we’ve decided something is impossible, we can only see ways that trying it would end in failure. However, if we then truly consider that it’s possible to do that particular thing, our minds begin to work on finding ways to do it. Sometimes it takes a lot of consistentpractice or work before that thing manifests, but nobody will put in the necessary work if they don’t truly think it will succeed.
There are many situations that I don’t know how to navigate at the outset. This could be when I have a lot of tasks to do at work, when I’m learning something new, or when I’m planning a trip to a place I’ve never been. What helps me in each of those situations is taking a moment to remind myself that I can accomplish whatever I’m trying to do and then simply getting started where I can. At work, that can look like starting with the easiest task or the most urgent one. With planning a trip, that often means starting by thinking about the end and working backwards in my mind, planning for each activity I have in mind and being prepared for possible problems that might arise along the way. Once I’ve been going for a bit, I get into a good flow and, before I know it, I’ve finished what looked like a difficult or even impossible task.
If I try something small and fail, I’ll have almost nothing to show for it. On the other hand, if I fail while trying something big, I’ll have learned a lot of useful things in the process and may even succeed at accomplishing something else instead, such as a smaller version of what I had in mind or a certain part of it. I’d much rather dream of doing something big and find out through experience that it won’t work than think it won’t work and never try it. Some of the best experiences in my life have come from dreaming big and believing things will work out against all odds and expectations from others. I normally don’t rub it in someone’s face when they’ve been wrong about my ability to do something and I don’t expect them to own up to it either. I’m more interested in doing things I find valuable than I am in showing people up, proving them wrong, or getting back at them. This approach has also inspired some people I know to dream big and pursue their dreams, which is exciting and encouraging to watch. That’s why I love writing about my ideas and experiences and sharing them with others. In closing, if you haven’t read The Magic of Thinking Big, I highly recommend you do. It’s helped me move to the next level and I’m sure it will do the same for you. Dream big, my friends.
Time to explore another one of my rules. This post is going to be a bit different than the others because, unlike many of my other rules, this is one that I’ve been practicing for as long as I can remember, and it’s made a huge difference in my life. That rule is a simple one with major implications: Take chances.
Although many people (including myself) tend to think of taking chances as shooting for the moon, it doesn’t always have to be that way. It could be something small like complimenting a stranger on their shirt, smile, pet, etc. I do this almost every time I go out. Usually the other person smiles and thanks me, but sometimes they say nothing or seem confused. I usually don’t have any inkling as to how they’ll react, but if I feel the urge to be nice, I’ll do it anyway and see what happens. I’m sure this is good practice for some of the big chances that I plan to take in my life, and, if nothing else, it makes me feel good in the present and usually makes the other person feel good as well.
If I don’t pursue something, I’m almost surely not going to get it. Sure, sometimes another person will give me what I want, but only if they already know I’m interested in it. And there are many things that I can’t get from anyone else. For example, I got a unicycle for Christmas last year, but the person who gave it to me can’t give me the skill I need to ride it. I have to take the time to develop that skill myself. As I’ve gone on in life, increasingly more of the things I want have been things that involve a great deal of work on my part; I’ve become more interested in skills and experiences than mere possessions.
Part of taking chances is knowing that I may not get what I want. Even when that happens, though, I usually end up getting something close to it, and sometimes I do get exactly what I want. In other cases, I end up getting something better than what I initially wanted and I’d have missed out on that if things had originally gone my way. Either way, I’ve had so many amazing experiences from simply saying “yes” even when I was scared or didn’t know what I was getting into. My experiences have taught me a lot of valuable lessons, and, although I didn’t enjoy some of them or even hated them at the time, I’m still grateful for the lessons I learned. I don’t always get what I want but at least I have the satisfaction of knowing I did my best to get it. If I always play it safe, I’ll never get to where I want to be in life and I’ll feel like I’ve wasted my time. The way I see it, it’s better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all.
Today, I’m going to talk about another one of my rules. This is one of my personal favorites and one that I think could completely change the world: Look for ways to help.
No matter where I go, I can always do something to make someone a bit better off than they were before. I could spend years writing out all the different possible ways of helping people. Some of them include being a shoulder to cry on, giving somebody a jump start, volunteering for a good organization, donating money to someone in need, giving blood, or simply holding the door for the next person. I’ve been in plenty of situations that didn’t require going out of my way to help someone and several that did; in either case, I always felt better when I did my part.
Some situations require massive efforts, but there are plenty times that a small amount of action makes all the difference. I don’t have to wait until my humanitarian plan is ready to go in order to help people, and it’s better if I continue helping out where I can now. Staying in the habit of looking for ways to help while I’m of modest means will allow me to help out even more when I have the resources to fulfill my life purpose. If I’m not used to helping other people now, I won’t suddenly start doing it when I make it big; money just brings out and expands elements that are already present within a person, so it’s crucial to have my habits (especially regarding helping people) in order before I acquire a lot of money.
I never know what even a small gesture might mean to another person (unless they tell me later on) but I know how much I’ve appreciated the gestures that others have extended to me, so I’m always on the lookout for ways to pay it forward. I regularly see other people doing the same, which is encouraging. Sometimes they’ll willingly help out even if nobody else does, and other times they’ll step in only if someone else is already helping. I understand that everyone has commitments and is pressed for time, but it’s nice to see people stopping to help out when they can. I think that will only become more common over time and I’m always glad to see it and participate in it.
Time for the next entry in the series about my rules. This post will focus on one of my most important rules, both for interacting with other people and dealing with myself: Be honest.
I believe honesty is morally right and that intentionally deceiving other people is wrong. That’s the primary reason I do my best to always be honest and, even if I had no other reason to value the truth, I would still support it on grounds of principle. However, I also believe honesty is useful in everyday life. Honesty facilitates trust, which is essential in all relationships, whether they be familial, friendship, romantic, business, or anything else. Lying breaks that trust, sometimes irreparably, and drives people away. Telling the truth garners respect and strengthens trust, especially when it’s difficult or inconvenient to do so.
Further, there’s more to honesty than simply avoiding directly lying. Intentionally concealing important information when asked about a particular situation or phrasing things in such a way as to mislead someone are both examples of dishonesty. It can be embarrassing to admit that I don’t know something, but being straightforward about it generally earns respect from others and prevents a number of problems that would likely arise if I lied. That’s why I’d rather clumsily tell the truth than smoothly tell a lie.
In addition to being honest with other people, I also do my best to be honest with myself. This includes following my rules to the best of my ability, avoiding hypocrisy by keeping my actions consistent with my thoughts and words, and doing things that I have told myself I will do. Also, and perhaps most importantly, I strive to be honest with myself about how I’m feeling. If I want to work through negative thoughts or emotions, I have to acknowledge that I have them before I can do anything about them. Occasionally I’ll get a negative vibe about a certain person or situation; ignoring that feeling has gotten me into trouble in the past, so now I pay attention whenever I feel that way. Even when it turns out to be nothing serious, being honest about how I’m feeling is still important.
The only times I think dishonesty may be justified are cases in which telling the truth will result in someone being tormented and lying gives them a chance to escape. For example, I consider those who hid persecuted people in their homes during WWII and then lied about it to SS officers to be heroes for saving lives even though they did it dishonestly. Outside of those situations, however, I see honesty as the only way to go. You may disagree with me about that or see it as contradictory to what I said above, and that’s perfectly fine, especially since it is contradictory. I’m just being honest about my thinking regarding telling the truth in life-or-death situations, and I hope I’m never in one of those situations. For all other areas of life, I think honesty is always the best policy. I hope that this has been useful in some way even if it’s simply interesting food for thought. I’d appreciate any feedback you have about this and I will see you in the next post.
For this third post about exploring my rules, I’m going to talk about the one that has been critical to my success, both with following these rules and with everything else in my life. Rule number three is simple and yields massive results: Improve every day.
I get better at whatever I regularly practice, even if it’s something I’d rather avoid (such as negative thinking, for example). For most of my life, I’ve practiced all sorts of things that have caused me trouble and given me a lot of bad habits. I’ve spent the last few years really working to change that and it’s been a slow, difficult process. However, I have seen progress since I started regularly practicing following my rules and focusing on positive things, so I know I’m on the right track. This progress has increased as I’ve gradually settled into routines and systems that have me working on self-improvement every day.
I don’t have to make monumental leaps in progress. As long as I stick with my system of doing the best I can on any given day at every activity on my list, I’ll see steady improvement and feel satisfied with my efforts. Sometimes I do see noticeable progress from one day to the next, other times it takes much longer, and in some cases I seem to take a few steps back before taking several giant steps forward. But as long as I stick with something long enough, I’ll eventually get good at it and I always see progress along the way.
Improving every day doesn’t require a huge amount of time. Even on my busiest days, I still have time for improving myself and getting better at my hobbies. Just spending a few minutes on those tasks is better than doing nothing because I don’t have as much time as I’d like. I’ve found meditating, praying, and reading to be powerful tools for self-improvement, and I make sure to do them every day; when I don’t have time for much else, those still leave me better off than I’d be without them. Taking time to improve every day has brought me much closer to the place I want to be in life as well as the person I want to be, and I’ll only get closer to both of them as I continue.
This is the second post in which I explore my rules in greater detail. The focus of this post will be one of the habits from Stephen Covey’s classic book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
It’s so easy for me to make a case for one of my positions before I hear the other person’s side. Even when they go first, I have to make sure I’m actually listening to them instead of daydreaming or thinking about what I’m going to say. This brings up a related issue that Covey also talks about, which is listening with the intent to reply rather than the intent to understand. I often have to pause and remind myself of this, especially in conversations centered around sensitive subjects. When I do succeed in listening to what others have to say and making sure I understand it, I learn much more than when I try to force my ideas onto someone else.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve jumped to conclusions about the way someone else thinks and have subsequently spoken wrongly about them or their position. This caused me a lot of embarrassment and eventually made me more hesitant to make assumptions about other people. When I’m engaged in a conversation, especially about something controversial, I try to make sure I know where the other person is coming from before responding. That helps me avoid attacking a straw man and often makes me see the other person in a better light when I realize how much we have in common. Additionally, I’ve found that people are more willing to hear my take on something once I’ve heard theirs. This doesn’t mean trying to rush them through their opinions so we can get to mine as quickly as possible; it means taking the time to let them explain their thought process and making sure I can accurately say it back to them in my own words. While this is useful for persuasive purposes, most of the time I do it simply because I want to know how they think or because I want the conversation to go smoothly, or both.
Each of the habits in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People are rock solid and this one is no exception. Everyone wants to be heard and understood, so giving them time and space for both of those things is one of the greatest possible demonstrations of respect for them. So many conflicts based on misunderstandings could be avoided if more people took a page from the Book of James and listened before speaking. I’ve gotten a lot better at this over time and I’m still getting better as I continue to work on it. Since practicing this for a relatively short stretch of time has already significantly improved my life, I can’t wait to see how it looks after I’ve been doing it for many years.
