George Costanza on the episode of Seinfeld titled "The Opposite" decides to do the exact opposite of what he would normally do, with great results. Since he is schmuck who lives with his parents, he doesn't have much to lose, and the insight here is that his decisions in the past have not gotten him any where. I don't actually recommend you patterning your life on a character from a sit-com episode that aired 22 years ago, because your life might be fine as it is.
What you might want to do, though, is to just change one or two of your habitual reactions to life events. Find some ways that you react to typical everyday things that are not helpful to you, that are unskilled, and just react in the opposite way. Here are some examples:
*Thank someone openly for a compliment rather than find a way to deflect it.
*Instead of being defensive, thank someone for saying something that could be taken as an indirect criticism. Say, "Thanks for pointing that out to me. I do have a tendency to do these things in a rush and make too many typos."
*On a busy day when you are stressed, take a few minutes to ask someone in the office staff how their weekend as. (If your normal reaction is just to walk in, keep your head low and say hi in a more hurried way.).
*Think of a few positive things about someone who is generally annoying to you. I had a colleague point out to me that X, another former colleague here, was a fun person to talk with as long as the talk was unrelated to the department itself. That threw X's annoyingness into a different perspective, and I've learned to do it with other people as well.
*If you normally rush a bit at the xerox machine, as I do, because you don't think it's a good use of your time, just devote time to that in a less unhurried way. That will make you feel more relaxed and you will accomplish your task better and in about the same amount of time, since you will eliminate mistakes.
Friday, January 13, 2017
Thursday, January 12, 2017
Life Hack 10: don't multitask
Often, getting up in the morning, I am attempting to make coffee and do all my other things too, like showering, shaving, dressing. It would actually save more time to first get fully dressed and then begin the water boiling for the coffee, since I am interrupting myself while getting dressed, etc... in order to follow the various steps of the coffee making process. I typically drip water over the floors running from the shower to pour the hot water into the French press coffee machine.
So what you want to do, as much as possible, is to avoid trying to save trivial amounts of time by doing two things, badly, at once. You might want to try some of the following.
*Don't listen to music while you work. Devote time later in the day specifically to hear music and do nothing else.
*Check and answer your email at certain designated times of the day, but do not leave it on in the background when you are not checking it.
*When you are eating, just eat (or talk with someone if you are not eating alone.).
*Generally avoid doing two things at once. You can make exceptions, like listening to music in the car or while running or cleaning. Or you can check out of a useless meeting by drawing or writing down lists of things to do later.
So what you want to do, as much as possible, is to avoid trying to save trivial amounts of time by doing two things, badly, at once. You might want to try some of the following.
*Don't listen to music while you work. Devote time later in the day specifically to hear music and do nothing else.
*Check and answer your email at certain designated times of the day, but do not leave it on in the background when you are not checking it.
*When you are eating, just eat (or talk with someone if you are not eating alone.).
*Generally avoid doing two things at once. You can make exceptions, like listening to music in the car or while running or cleaning. Or you can check out of a useless meeting by drawing or writing down lists of things to do later.
Life Hack 9: Skills
What are some skills that you have? They can be either trivial or hugely important. So, for example, juggling. I can juggle three balls ok, but that for me is relatively trivial. Make a list of 5-10 that you already can do fairly well. For me, it might be speaking Spanish, cooking, writing prose, memorizing poems.
Now make a list of three or four skills to improve. These are things you can do somewhat, but could do much better. For me, it would be piano playing, meditation, & drawing.
Now, make a list of some skill that are totally alien to you, but that you might think of developing in another life. Something that has some exotic appeal to you.
What should you do with these three lists? I suggest that you take one skill from category 2 and promote it to 1. So if you can sort of draw, begin to draw well. Remember that the author of one of the top comic strips today can barely draw at all, so drawing at that level is easily achievable.
(The other thing to do would be to congratulate yourself on the skills in category 1.)
Finally, you could take a skill that seems totally alien to you can now promote that to category 2. For me, that would be anything mechanical or handy around the house, or higher level math. For you, it could be dancing, meditation, or some kind of handicraft.
Everything in life is basically a skill, even falling asleep at night. Having more skills, generally speaking, is better than having fewer, and developing and cultivating new ones changes the structure of the brain in significant ways, rarely for the worse. Have you ever heard someone say they wish they didn't play piano, or express a wish not to speak another language as well as they do? People are always telling me they wish their Spanish were better.
Now make a list of three or four skills to improve. These are things you can do somewhat, but could do much better. For me, it would be piano playing, meditation, & drawing.
Now, make a list of some skill that are totally alien to you, but that you might think of developing in another life. Something that has some exotic appeal to you.
What should you do with these three lists? I suggest that you take one skill from category 2 and promote it to 1. So if you can sort of draw, begin to draw well. Remember that the author of one of the top comic strips today can barely draw at all, so drawing at that level is easily achievable.
(The other thing to do would be to congratulate yourself on the skills in category 1.)
Finally, you could take a skill that seems totally alien to you can now promote that to category 2. For me, that would be anything mechanical or handy around the house, or higher level math. For you, it could be dancing, meditation, or some kind of handicraft.
Everything in life is basically a skill, even falling asleep at night. Having more skills, generally speaking, is better than having fewer, and developing and cultivating new ones changes the structure of the brain in significant ways, rarely for the worse. Have you ever heard someone say they wish they didn't play piano, or express a wish not to speak another language as well as they do? People are always telling me they wish their Spanish were better.
Verse is nothing special
I’d like
to tell you what to do today / but I’m not good at giving out instructions / so let’s pretend that you already know / exactly what to do in case of fire… / or other kinds of grave emergencies…
We can converse in verse quite easily, so it must be that verse is nothing special, but just a way of ruling out, not in, the combinations that we use each day to make our meaning clear to everyone.
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Beef Stew
I took a pound and a half of chuck steak, trimmed the fat and dredged it in flour and a small amount of salt. I browned it in a cast-iron dutch oven and then deglazed the bottom of the pan with half a bottle of red wine and a can of beef broth. I added the other ingredients: four carrots, three potatoes, three large chopped onions, a dash of worstershire sauce, two bay leaves, a dash of cayenne, and a T of tomato paste. I put this in a 300 degree oven for three hours. Then I transferred most of the broth to a sauce pan that had flour dissolved in water in it, and made a thick gravy out of it. The trick, I think, was using a lot of onions and wine. The dish was very flavorful without being over salted.
#10
And the wordless melodies under my fingers, where do they come from,
Why do they satisfy an itch in my brain?
Why won't words come along with them?
Why do they satisfy an itch in my brain?
Why won't words come along with them?
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Life Hack 8: Judgment vs. perception
Yes, there are good and bad things, but most of your mental energy should go to perceiving what is the case rather than making the evaluative judgments about what is the case.
Consider the difference between: "This sentence is bad" and "This sentence doesn't quite mean what I want it to mean." Or: "I am a bad cook" vs. "This egg needs to cook for 30 seconds more for it to be perfect for my taste." Even when your ultimate goal is to evaluate something, the negative and positive emotions get in the way more than helping. You don't really have to worry about being too unemotional, because everyone will still keep feeling emotions. It's hard not to.
Try taking some of your habitual judgments and re-casting them as perceptions.
Don't try to "think positively." This is a trap. In the first place, there are negative things, and so thinking positively about them cannot happen. You can't just turn your thoughts around by an act of will. Instead, try to take some things out of the area of judgment altogether. Those will be things you have decided you don't have to care about.
Of course, some people will say that some people are naturally oriented more toward judgment than perception. That might be the case, but even so I think everyone uses both perceptions and judgments to some extent. The point is to make more skillful use of both.
***
Buddhism has the idea of skillful thought. I don't understand this in its actual Buddhist context, but with that disclaimer I think you can make your thoughts more skillful simply by perceiving whether a particular thought that pops into your head is a helpful one. Once again, it is not a matter of being positive or negative. A thought that is negative in some sense might be helpful.
For example, today I was trying to figure out what keys songs were in by listening to them with my keyboard on my lap and trying to play along. I learned that I lacked this skill, but it was not a particularly negative thought, but a skillful one in this context. By the same token, a positive thought might not be helpful either. You can appreciate its pleasantness but then let it go. For example, you might say: "Oh, I've mastered that skill so I can move on to work on something else."
Consider the difference between: "This sentence is bad" and "This sentence doesn't quite mean what I want it to mean." Or: "I am a bad cook" vs. "This egg needs to cook for 30 seconds more for it to be perfect for my taste." Even when your ultimate goal is to evaluate something, the negative and positive emotions get in the way more than helping. You don't really have to worry about being too unemotional, because everyone will still keep feeling emotions. It's hard not to.
Try taking some of your habitual judgments and re-casting them as perceptions.
Don't try to "think positively." This is a trap. In the first place, there are negative things, and so thinking positively about them cannot happen. You can't just turn your thoughts around by an act of will. Instead, try to take some things out of the area of judgment altogether. Those will be things you have decided you don't have to care about.
Of course, some people will say that some people are naturally oriented more toward judgment than perception. That might be the case, but even so I think everyone uses both perceptions and judgments to some extent. The point is to make more skillful use of both.
***
Buddhism has the idea of skillful thought. I don't understand this in its actual Buddhist context, but with that disclaimer I think you can make your thoughts more skillful simply by perceiving whether a particular thought that pops into your head is a helpful one. Once again, it is not a matter of being positive or negative. A thought that is negative in some sense might be helpful.
For example, today I was trying to figure out what keys songs were in by listening to them with my keyboard on my lap and trying to play along. I learned that I lacked this skill, but it was not a particularly negative thought, but a skillful one in this context. By the same token, a positive thought might not be helpful either. You can appreciate its pleasantness but then let it go. For example, you might say: "Oh, I've mastered that skill so I can move on to work on something else."
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