I try to remind myself to always be willing to chuck out what Iâve written, but not refer to my writing as garbage.
Deleting something removes it from view, but it doesnât erase the work I did or what I learned from it.
Tag: Mindfulness
I woke up feeling congested. When I sat down to meditate, my nostril whistled like a kettle begging for attention.
I sat with it for a minute, thinking about Pema Chödrönâs words on removing discomfort:
“Scrambling for security has never brought anything but momentary joy. Itâs like changing the position of our legs in meditation. Our legs hurt from sitting cross-legged, so we move them. And then we feel, âPhew! What a relief!â But two and a half minutes later, we want to move them again. We keep moving around seeking pleasure, seeking comfort, and the satisfaction that we get is very short-lived.”
â Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart
I tried to focus on the air getting through instead of the force required; the air in my lungs and not the blockage in my nostril.
Then I asked the question: âHow is blowing my nose not the dharma?â How is removing this impediment any different than labeling a thought as âthinkingâ and letting it pass?
I got up, blew my nose, and sat back on the cushion.
Iâm not sure if it was the correct response, but I made the decision and moved on.
And isnât a point of mindful attention to not dwell on things, but to try and see them as they are?
Sometimes a booger is an invitation to practice patience, and sometimes itâs snot.
I want to be useful, not a user
I still like Twitter. I don’t like subtweets and trending topics.
It’s not hard to add context to a tweet. But, particularly with trending topics, you wind up searching out why people are bothering to talk about The Thing or The Person in the first place. All the tweets complaining about not knowing why x is trending become part of the noise to sort through.
It makes me think about the difference between being heard and being seen.
To be seen talking about something is to want others to know you’re aware of something that’s going on.
Being heard is about wanting people to care about the substance of what you have to add to the conversation.
If you only care about being seen talking about something, you’re only speaking to the audience that already understands the context.
If you value being heard, you also value being understood. That means including context, links, or other helpful cues to fill people in.
Some ways I like to add context.
- Link to a primary source: Itâs direct and simple. And links don’t count against how many characters you have left.
- Use something like Linky: This is an iOS app that lets you highlight relevant text from a link and attach it as a screenshot.
- Action over reaction: To take a page from Mister Rogers, be a helper. When it makes sense, show people something they can do about the issue. Push for the solution to trend instead of just the problem.
- Share somewhere else: Do you want to briefly scream into the void, or do you want more room? Is it a blog post? A text to someone who wants to know? A letter to an elected official?
Right speech and respecting time
I try to think about the consequences of jumping on the bandwagon and adding my voice to the already noisy chorus.
If I tweet something vague and snarky about something, I’ve not only wasted time, but other peopleâs.
I took time to share something with limited value on its own that may direct others to use their time to search for what I was referring to in the first place.
Time and attention are precious resources.
If I want to use Twitter to spend time connecting with others , I need to respect the time and attention of others.
If I respect peopleâs support, I should also respect their time.
And if I respect my time, I need to make choices about what I must have an opinion about, and what isnât worth my attention.
Kicking With Intention
I saved one great image from The Bullet Journal Method that illustrates using tools intentionally:
It suggests without space between a stimulus and an action, weâre going to react with snap judgement based on instincts like fear or anxiety.
Inserting a pause allows the chance to come up with a more constructive action.
Responding rather than reacting. Choosing to kick rather than twitching your leg when the doctorâs hammer strikes.
I wrestle with the easy reactions allowed by social media; the buttons where one click signals youâve seen something or want others to see it.
Or the mental math about a Quote Tweet where you decide if you have anything constructive to add, whether your framing is necessary, or if the thing that youâre sharing deserves more eyeballs (because sometimes youâre reacting negatively to something).
These features ask you âHow should I react?â instead of âWhat should I do?â or âWhat do I have to say?â
Social media content gets called a feed, as if it were just another blog or a rapidly updating news site, but the tools provided to interact with it treat it like an inbox.
Reply. Reply All (with tagging). Forward (share). Flag.
The design and prompts are there to make it feel like itâs your responsibility to wade through it all.
But thereâs too much, because itâs not actually intended just for you.
Thatâs a thing about social media thatâs hard to deal with right now while many of us crave social contact: Itâs not all about you.
Your feed isnât just for you. Itâs a bunch of people screaming into the void, and youâve chosen to stand nearby.
Thatâs why your email inbox lets you clear things out and social media doesnât. Email is (supposedly) intended for you. You canât delete or sort other peopleâs social media posts because theyâre not your job.
Itâs never too late for resolutions, and right now seems like a good time to reevaluate how (and if) to use social media.
I donât intend to chuck it all, but I do want to make sure I remember what is and isnât my job, and what tools are best for the work I must do.
Hopefully I can spend more time kicking at things that need to be kicked instead of twitching into space.
Teaching My Daughter About YouTube
In todayâs hectic world, it is important to distinguish between distractions that are incidental and unintended and those which are designed to be distractions and are intentional.
â Execupundit.com: Distractions
Our daughterâs elementary school assigned Chromebooks to all their students for use while classes are virtual. Because the school acts as the laptop’s administrator, and because YouTube clips are often part of her assignments, weâre not able to add on as many filters or blockers as my wife and I would like.
YouTube is designed to be an infinite rabbit hole that keeps you watching the next videos it serves you. For a six-year-old with developing impulse control, giving her access to that site is like setting her in a room full of cookie jars.
And anyone whose response is, âMake sure to be with her and monitor what she does every time she needs to use the computer,â needs to remember that:
- Weâre in a global pandemic where parents are also working from home.
- If you have more than one child, youâre already in a daily whack-a-mole style freefall.
- Itâs neither possible nor helpful to their developing independence to always be hovering over your childâs shoulder.
So Iâve started doing what I do: Trying to teach her about how sites like YouTube work.
I explain to her that while her teachers and her parents want to make sure that she can see things that are helpful to her, the people who built YouTube arenât thinking about her as the person they want to help.
They want her to watch as many videos as they can. They want her to spend as much time on YouTube as they can. Because thatâs how they can show her ads, and showing her ads is how they make money.
It can get a little abstract at that point for a six-year-old, but thatâs why I try to stress the difference between her teachers and the site itself. Her teachers want to help her be able to do other things. YouTube wants her to sit and watch more YouTube.
Itâs not the kind of message that clicks the first time, or the third time, but weâre consistent. We remind her. And little by little, sheâs paying attention to the idea. Sheâs asking if she can watch YouTube less. While sheâs on break, sheâs finding other ways to occupy her time.
Maybe it connected with her sense of how to be kind. Her teachers and parents want to help her through the resources and content we share with her, but YouTube isnât doing what they do out of kindness.
Or maybe our cord-cutting has helped her develop a distaste for ads. When we were stuck watching the ad-supported Disney Now app to keep up with new episodes of The Owl House, we saw the same ads over and over (and over and over and over). It irritated her more than it did the adults in the room.
Whatever the thing is thatâs clicking with her, itâs a good time for the adults in her life to take stock of the same things.
Apps and websites are tools designed for a purpose.
Some of these tools are designed to help the end user solve a problem or perform a task thatâs important to them. And some tools are designed as a snare for attention; providing a solution to a problem that didnât exist, or they address a problem in a way that only feels like a solution.
An illusion of a solution only perpetuates the problem, like a person stranded on the ocean desperately gulping down salt water.
We need to regularly ask ourselves the question: Is this designed to help me, or to feel like itâs helping me?
