An Ounce of Prevention

Posted on November 13, 2018 by admin

You may have heard the saying “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” It simply means that it’s better to consistently maintain something than let it lapse and then try to get it back to where it was before. While normally mentioned in the context of health, it can be applied in other areas as well. I’ve recently realized how I should be focusing more on prevention in my own life.

It’s easy for me to take the good times for granted and lose track of what makes them good, which is maintaining a positive mindset. When I’ve had a positive mindset for a week or longer, everything goes more smoothly and it begins to feel like that’s just the natural order of the world. Eventually, though, I start to slip up: I let little things get to me, think and negatively about someone or something, complain, dwell on things I dislike, etc. If I catch myself in time, I can put a stop to the negativity and return to feeling good. However, if I miss the window of opportunity, I end up sliding into a negative state of mind and stay there until it becomes unbearable. That’s when I go back to using life hacks to keep me in a positive mindset and things start getting easier again. 

While this has been a regular pattern in my life for several years now, it wasn’t until this year that I discovered its cause. Knowing the importance of controlling my mindset is key to breaking this pattern and staying consistently positive. I suppose this is the logical progression; identify the pattern, figure out the cause of it, and then learn how to eliminate the cause. Each step has been more difficult than the one before it, which is probably why this pattern has continued in my life.

Fortunately, I’ve learned a lot of life hacks that help me snap out of a bad mood or avoid getting into one in the first place. I’m going to work more on using what I’ve learned from The Power of Positive Thinking, The Four Agreements, and The Power of Now to smooth out and, I hope, eliminate this pattern. I’d rather spend some time every day taking care of myself and maintaining a positive mindset than keep returning to a negative mindset and spending a lot of time getting out of it. I hope that writing this blog post will serve as a reminder to me to control my thoughts and use that ounce of prevention to keep me in a good place each day. 

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Dancing Under the Stars

Posted on November 12, 2018 by admin

This past Saturday, I drove to Gainesville, Florida for a night of dancing under the stars. The people in the Gainesville swing dance scene put on this magical event once a year and this was my first time going, but I can tell you now it won’t be my last. 

I got to Depot Park just before 7 pm, right about when the lesson was ending and just in time for the main dance. I met up and danced with several of my friends from Jacksonville; more of them arrived later on after getting some food. One of my Jacksonville friends was the DJ that night and he did a great job. Hours of terrific, fun music right in the “sweet spot” for swing dancing: just the right speed for triple steps and all the wonderful things they offer, and fast enough to be fun but not so fast that it wears you out. 

This was my second time swing dancing in Gainesville and my first time dancing there for just one evening. My first time dancing in Gainesville was in March of this year for the Sweet Swingouts weekend workshop. Just as I did back in March, I enjoyed dancing with the people from the local dance scene as well as my friends from the Jacksonville scene. Since the two cities are reasonably close, I can see myself driving out there every so often for more fun dance adventures. 

Even though it was chilly outside, we danced enough that the weather kept us comfortably cool instead of shivering through our swingouts. After the last song, we took a few pictures and hung out for a bit while helping pack up and making sure we left the park in good shape before heading home. The weather, music, dancing, and great company all made for a wonderful night out in the park. I’m glad I went this year and I’m looking forward to going back next year. 

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Mister Rogers: “What Do You Do With the Mad That You Feel?”

Posted on November 11, 2018 by admin

You may know how much I admire Mister Rogers and everything he did to make the world better. His work centered around helping people deal with their feelings, and even though his show was primarily aimed at children, it contained lessons that can be helpful for people of all ages. I used this song last week to avoid acting out in anger. Once I started speaking the words, I began to relax; by the time I finished, I felt much better, and I was glad that I handled it that way instead of doing something I’d later regret. I love this song and I hope you find it as helpful as I have. 

What do you do with the mad that you feel
When you feel so mad you could bite?
When the whole wide world seems oh, so wrong…
And nothing you do seems very right?

What do you do? Do you punch a bag?
Do you pound some clay or some dough?
Do you round up friends for a game of tag?
Or see how fast you go?

It’s great to be able to stop
When you’ve planned a thing that’s wrong,
And be able to do something else instead
And think this song:

I can stop when I want to
Can stop when I wish.
I can stop, stop, stop any time.
And what a good feeling to feel like this
And know that the feeling is really mine.
Know that there’s something deep inside
That helps us become what we can.
For a girl can be someday a woman
And a boy can be someday a man.

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“The Star Thrower”

Posted on November 10, 2018 by admin

This short story was adapted from “The Star Thrower” by Loren Eiseley. I enjoy many short stories, especially inspirational ones, and this is one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. 

Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.

Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”

The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”

The boy seemed crushed, suddenly deflated. But after a few moments, he bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “I made a difference to that one!”

The old man looked at the boy inquisitively and thought about what he had done and said. Inspired, he joined the little boy in throwing starfish back into the sea. Soon others joined, and all the starfish were saved.

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How to Say No

Posted on November 9, 2018 by admin

Do you have trouble saying no? Do you regularly say yes because you feel like you’ll be letting somebody down if you say no and that they won’t like you for it? I know what that feels like because I’ve had to work a lot at figuring out how to gather the courage to say no. I’ll share what’s helped me and hope that it helps you too. 

A huge aspect of this comes down to habit. If you’re used to saying yes, then doing so takes almost no effort and saying no takes a huge amount of effort. This is normal when changing habits, but it does get easier over time. Think about this as if you were starting an exercise plan. You wouldn’t begin by running twenty miles if you can barely run two, or by lifting one hundred pounds when fifty is too much. You’d start off with what you can do and gradually increase the intensity over time. Eventually, you’d find yourself easily doing something that once seemed impossible. So start by saying no to small things first, such as an invitation to the mall. As you gradually gain confidence and courage from these small victories, you can say no to increasingly bigger things without feeling ashamed or upset at yourself. 

You may find it helpful to imagine situations in which you want to say no and practice saying it out loud so you get used to saying it and hearing yourself say it. If you do this, say it with confidence and imagine the other person reacting with something along the lines of “Oh, ok then”; this is most likely how they will react once you’re actually in that situation, and visualizing a simple, positive reaction will help you go through with saying no instead of backing down. 

When you’re talking to someone and they ask you to do something you’d rather avoid, be honest with them. Don’t attach a reason why you can’t do something (you don’t have a ride, you don’t have enough money, etc) if the real reason is that you don’t want to do it. That gives the other person a chance to step in and eliminate that obstacle (such as by offering you a ride if you say you don’t have one), which then puts you in the awkward position of feeling like you have to say yes. If you simply don’t want to do something, thank the person for thinking of you and then tell them that you’re not interested. This saves you the trouble of finding an excuse and eliminates opportunities for them to pressure you into saying yes. 

If someone persists in trying to get you to say yes, remind yourself why you don’t want to do it or can’t do it. Think of how good it will feel to stick to your plans (or simply relax at home if you have no other plans) and how proud of yourself you’ll be for doing so, and use that as motivation to say no. This will give you a good feeling to focus on and help you overcome the urge to appease the other person, giving you the strength to politely, yet firmly, repeat that you’re not interested. And if you want to avoid coming across as harsh (you probably aren’t by the way; most likely it’s just in your head), try using humor to lighten the mood, help you relax, and get you into a better state of mind to say no. 

Influence and Pre-Suasion, both written by psychologist Robert Cialdini, have given me some useful tools for saying no. They examine “weapons of influence”, as Cialdini calls them, and provide techniques for effectively resisting unwanted influence and protecting yourself against manipulation. Something that’s also helped me was getting tired of letting myself down by always saying yes and finally seeking out information on how to say no without coming across as a jerk. In other words, I had to truly want to save some time for myself and value that more than I wanted to appease everyone. Sometimes I still give in and say yes even when I don’t want to, but I’ve gotten much better at saying no and sticking to it. I hope this helps you get better at saying no without feeling guilty. If it does, please pass it on to someone else you think might benefit from it. I won’t take no for an answer. 

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Unity

Posted on November 8, 2018 by admin

I’ve seen a lot of divisive stuff online lately. I’m not going to say what it is but I think you know to what I’m referring. For this blog post, I’m going to focus on things that unite us and explore some things I’ve learned that I think have the potential to put out some of the fires and foster dialogue rather than division.

Everyone I’ve met and gotten to know has expressed a desire to live as they see fit, including (but not limited to) pursuing their passions and supporting good causes. Further, most people want the same for others. I’ve never met anyone who said they want other people to live short, miserable lives full of poverty, sickness, and violence. Nor have I met anyone whose stated motivation is that they want to make the world a worse place and they believe that their ideas will accomplish that. Whenever I’ve talked to anyone about the well-being of other people, they’ve expressed a desire for everyone to have what they need to live long, happy, and full lives. It’s true that there are some people in the world who actively seek to cause harm, but those people are a drop in the bucket compared to the people who want the best for everyone. 

Most of the debates and arguments I’ve seen about making the world better are hardly ever framed that way. I see almost nobody attempting to have civil discussions in which they look for ways to solve problems and help people. Instead, I see a lot of people talking past each other while assuming (and many times outright saying) that the other person is heartless, crazy, selfish, or something else along those lines. Because they often start the exchange by disagreeing on the means to the end, focusing first on their differences rather than their points of agreement, and showing more interested in stating their own perspective than trying to understand someone else’s perspective, they almost always end up thinking that they also disagree on the end itself. Thus, major issues, such as healthcare, are typically framed as good vs evil: some people want everyone to have healthcare and others don’t. The reality is that most people want healthcare to be affordable and they simply disagree on the best way to make that happen. I chose healthcare as an example  since it has been a hot topic for such a long time now, but any other major issue would have illustrated that point just as well. 

The Righteous Mind offers a lot of great information about why people think the way they do and has greatly influenced my thinking with regards to discussions. Once I read the book, it became a lot easier for me to understand and get along with people even when we disagreed strongly about a significant issue. It’s hard to see someone in a bad light when I know they want things to go well and understand why they see their ideas as the best way to make that happen. Additionally, gaining control over my ego instead of letting it control me has helped a lot. Staying present, which I learned a lot about from The Power of Now, helps me listen to what other people have to say without feeling the need to immediately respond, contradict them, or think badly about them for disagreeing with me. Actually listening (a necessary skill for good communication) to someone and trying to understand their perspective also shows me how much we have in common, which is essential for working together and solving problems; The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People talks a lot about these aspects of communication, so it’s another great resource for this area. I think the lessons contained in “The Righteous Mind”, “The Power of Now”, and “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” can help bring a great deal of civility and understanding to important conversations. Like most people, I want to make the world better, and the more who are willing to focus on common ground and come up with workable solutions to modern problems, the better off we’ll all be. 

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Holding Space

Posted on November 7, 2018 by admin

For most of my life, I’ve habitually agreed with other people even if I didn’t actually hold their perspective. I tended to do this especially when they were being negative, probably because I didn’t want to become a target for their negativity. At some point, though, I started working on being true to how I actually feel in any given situation rather than automatically expressing agreement with how the people around me feel. I’ve noticed some interesting things since I started doing this. 

I don’t have to agree with what someone says or even respond, especially if they’re complaining. Agreeing with them when they’re complaining usually just adds to their negativity. Instead, I’ve started staying quiet and keeping my mindset positive while they speak. If I do say something, I’ll reframe the issue in a positive way about or change the subject to something they like. In either situation, I’ve noticed that I feel a lot better since I’m staying positive rather than joining them in being negative and they appear to change to a good mood more quickly, as if they can sense my positive mood and are comforted by it, which I’ve heard others describe as “holding the space”. Sometimes all a person needs is someone to listen while they talk out their feelings and work out whatever’s bugging them. 

While I first noticed the power of holding space for other people, I’ve found that it works just as well to hold space for myself. When I find myself being consumed by negativity, I’ll use as many life hacks as it takes to get into a better state of mind. Sometimes that’s all I need, but on some occasions I feel an urge to explore what got me into that negative state. I used to get upset at myself for deeply feeling anger, sadness, or any other negative emotion for an extended period of time. Now, however, I take time to think about what’s been going on in my life and try to find out what’s dragging me down. Usually this involves relaxing into a state of presence and letting ideas come to me until one of them seems like a plausible explanation for the cause of my feelings. At that point, I have something that I can work on fixing, which is a much better place to be than feeling negative without knowing why. 

Being able to hold space for others and stick to what I think even when it differs from what they think is still sometimes difficult for me, but it’s a lot easier than it used to be. Presence, which I’ve learned a lot about from The Power of Now, has helped a lot. When I’m present, I’m less concerned with appeasing others or getting their approval, so I feel more confident in speaking my mind. Additionally, simply doing this a number of times has shown me that nothing bad happens when I do it; instead of fearing that the situation will end badly, I now know that it’ll turn out fine, which has greatly increased my courage in social situations. I wish I’d started doing all of this sooner, but now that I know how to do it, I can look forward with ease and confidence. I now firmly believe that I’ll be able to succeed in holding space for others and staying true to myself wherever I go, which is quite a good feeling to have. 

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Stephen Covey on Leadership and Management

Posted on November 6, 2018 by admin

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey talks a lot about leadership. The following is an excerpt from the book that examines the difference between leadership and management. Covey considers both important but also stresses the importance of knowing what each one involves and when to use them. 

Habit 2 is based on principles of personal leadership, which means that leadership is the first creation. Leadership is not management. Management is the second creation, which we’ll discuss in the chapter on Habit 3. But leadership has to come first.

Management is a bottom-line focus: How can I best accomplish certain things? Leadership deals with the top line: What are the things I want to accomplish? In the words of both Peter Drucker and  Warren Bennis, “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

You can quickly grasp the important difference between the two if you envision a group of producers cutting their way through the jungle with machetes. They’re the producers, the problem solvers. They’re cutting through the undergrowth, clearing it out.

The managers are behind them, sharpening their machetes, writing policy and procedure manuals, holding muscle development programs, bringing in improved technologies, and setting up working schedules and compensation programs for machete wielders.

The leader is the one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation, and yells, “Wrong jungle!”

But how do the busy, efficient producers and managers often respond? “Shut up! We’re making progress.”

As individuals, groups, and businesses, we’re often so busy cutting through the undergrowth we don’t even realize we’re in the wrong jungle. And the rapidly changing environment in which we live makes effective leadership more critical than it has ever been — in every aspect of independent and interdependent life.

We are more in need of a vision or designation and a compass (a set of principles or directions) and less in need of a road map. We often don’t know what the terrain ahead will be like or what we will need to go through; it much will depend on our judgment at the time. But an inner compass will always give us direction.

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A Different Kind of Saturday

Posted on November 5, 2018 by admin

This past Saturday was one of the busiest for me in a long time. I spent time with a lot of friends doing several events in two different cities. I’ll share the highlights of those events with you in this blog post. 

The first event of the day was checking out the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida. I normally play some kind of sport with a group of active friends on Saturday mornings, but since admission to the museum is free on the first Saturday of each month, we decided to go there instead. We walked around inside the museum for a while, admiring the art and enjoying each other’s company, before heading outside to spend some time in the gardens by the river. This was a much calmer and quieter Saturday morning than I’m used to, and I enjoyed the change of pace. I hadn’t been to the museum in years and it was nice to go back, especially with friends. After we had spent a couple hours there, I hopped in my car and drove about 45 minutes to St. Augustine for the next event.

Before Saturday, I had only ever done one escape room, and since I enjoyed that one, I scheduled one for Saturday afternoon. There are several escape rooms in or around Jacksonville but Escape U is considered to be an especially good one, so we decided to go there. I didn’t have to be there until 2:25 but I left around noon to have lunch with a friend at The Press. We made it there in plenty of time to enjoy the food and have a nice conversation before walking to Escape U, which was, conveniently, two doors down in the same plaza as the restaurant. Everyone showed up before our allotted time, and, once we had signed the waivers and listened to the explanation/rules, we went in to the room and got started. The room we chose was “Save the Fleet”, which involved unlocking two doors to get from outside a lighthouse into the living area and then into the control room, restoring the power, and sounding the foghorn three times to keep incoming ships safe, all while dealing with “ghosts”; two girls gave us clues if we got stuck and their angry father tried to stop us from completing our mission. We had an hour to do this and we did it with almost 18 minutes to spare. Escape U also gave a grade based on how well we did and how many clues we used, and we were excited to find out that we “graduated” with an A- (which was better than I thought we did). We celebrated, took some pictures, did a little swing dancing demonstration for the person who worked there, and then headed back to Jacksonville for more excitement.

Porchfest, an annual music festival that features bands playing in the historic district of downtown Jacksonville, started at 1:00 on Saturday afternoon and ran until 9:00 that night. A few people swung by there before going to the escape room but I didn’t get there until around 4:45. Once I got there and found my friends, we spent most of the remaining day hanging out, dancing, listening to the music, and having fun. I had missed most of the bands that day but got to see two great ones before Porchfest ended. This gave me a chance to practice dancing to blues music, which I only started doing on Thursday night. I’m far from being good at it but I did all right and it was nice to be able to dance to a different kind of music than I normally do. When there was just over an hour left of the festival, I walked over to my car, got some gas, and headed home.

My day was packed, but those were only a few of the many events going on that day. I don’t know why that Saturday was so busy; maybe everyone saw that it was free months ago and decided to book all their events for it. Either way, I’m glad I had such a full day. Normally I take it easy on Saturdays (once I’m finished with the morning sports event, that is), but it was nice to have a day full of great things to do with my friends. I had fun everywhere I went and enjoyed a very different, and very good, kind of Saturday.

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Small Victories

Posted on November 4, 2018 by admin

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved playing with LEGO sets. Most of the LEGO sets I’ve had have been pretty simple, but a few of them have been more complex. This caused me no despair, however, as I followed the instructions and completed the project one brick at a time, each brick representing one small victory on the road to a larger victory. I realized at some point that winning small victories that add up over time into large victories is how I’ve gone about nearly everything in my life. 

When I’m trying to change a habit, I find it helpful to gradually rid myself of it using small victories rather than trying to cut it out immediately. For example, I’ve mentioned before how I stopped taking my phone into the bathroom while I shower, but I didn’t talk about how I did it. At first, I extended the amount of time between getting out of the shower and checking my phone. Once that became easy, I started leaving it in another room and checked it shortly after getting dressed. Over time, I got to the point that I could wait as long as I wanted before checking my phone without feeling like I was missing out. Knowing myself, I believe this was a much better system than trying to quit cold turkey. 

Another example is the way I wrote papers in school. When I didn’t procrastinate and write them all the night before they were due (which I did more often than I should have), I would space them out and work on them a bit each day. Typically I would have a paper planned out either in my head or in outline form, write the opening and closing paragraphs first, and then write one or two paragraphs a day for the body until I finished it. That saved me the stress of trying to get it all done in one go and gave me plenty of time to check and polish my work as I went along. 

For my last example, I’m going to talk about planning group events, which is something I’ve done several times this year. The first one I planned was a total flop; nobody went to it, not even me. But it familiarized me with planning events and getting people interested in them, both of which are vital for having successful group events. My first successful event consisted of inviting friends to the local park for World Juggling Day 2018. A good number of people showed up and everyone either had fun juggling or enjoyed watching others juggle. I’ve since done one juggling event each month and, with the exception of one that got rained out, they’ve all been successful. After that, I planned a day at the beach in a state park. That event involved everyone paying an entrance fee, driving a lot, and overall a lot of opportunities for problems, but it went quite smoothly. In September, I organized a watch party for the movie Airplane! with a smaller group of friends. I had to buy the movie, get permission from some friends to host the party at their house, reschedule the event due to an unforeseen incident, and do my best to invite people who I thought would enjoy the movie instead of finding it off-putting; this one was also a success. And lastly, I just did an escape room this weekend with eight other friends. For this event, I had to pick the location, decide on a room, book it and pay for it up front, avoid inviting too many people (the place we went has limits how many people can be in one room at a time), and figure out a way for everybody to arrive on time so we didn’t miss our slot. This was the most complicated event I’ve planned so far and it went off without a hitch. I think my experience planning small, simple events and steadily progressing to larger, more complex events was invaluable in making this one work so well. 

Small victories give me a sense of accomplishment, strengthen my discipline, and make it easier to win increasingly larger victories. Additionally, breaking big tasks down into smaller, more manageable ones helps me avoid getting overwhelmed and gives me progress that I can track, which acts as motivation to continue. Thinking about my experience with this has proven to me the truth of what the Bible says in Luke about being “faithful in a very little”. I now have confidence that I can accomplish what I want in life as long as I know what I’m getting into, have a plan, and spend enough time winning the small victories that come with just about everything worth doing. 

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