Our dog, Gus, sleeping in front of the (artificial) fire.
I learned a valuable lesson this Christmas about being intentional with how one goes about building their space. With all the decorations up – the tree, the lights, and arranging the room to nurture a sense of closeness and conversation – my wife and I were creating a feeling of a cozy home. As we packed up the decorations this past weekend to reflect the end of the holiday season, I felt a twinge of sadness. I will both miss the excitement that comes with the holiday break (yay time off work!), but also the feeling of coziness that comes from Christmas decorations. The green from the tree, the red from the decorations, and the warm yellow hue of the lights. More than time off, I am going to miss relaxing in the living room with the main lights off, basking in the glow of the tree and candles we had burning.
Surprising, candles played an important role of this. I first noticed it back in October during our honeymoon. We had a short stop in Germany to visit family, and it was customary for us to enjoy dinner together by candle light. It gave things an intimate, personal feeling, where time stood still as we enjoyed each other’s company.
I learned that there is a word to describe this feeling. I was listening to the Art of Manliness podcast where they discussed the Danish concept of hygge, which can be translated to represent something like the art of getting cozy. It encompasses a number of sensory feelings you get, such as when you come in after being out in the snow, and you warm up in fresh clothes and a hot beverage. Light, smells, decorations, comfort, and warmth all help one feel cozy, which is attributed in part to explain how the Danes endure long, harsh winters.
This is something I want to carry forward throughout the year. Until now, I’ve largely viewed where I live from a utilitarian perspective – it’s a place to store my stuff. However, now that my basic needs are met, I feel a call to build my space into something that brings me happiness for itself and what it represents, instead of for what it can give or do for me. I want to pay closer attention to all the flourishes that make a house into a home, such as decorations and having things in their place. It’s not just orderliness or tidiness, but instead giving us a place that makes us happy regardless of the harshness beyond our door.
Last week, I gave a highlight of the best books I read in 2019. Below, I present what I read in 2019. By comparison to 2016, 2017, and 2018, last year was a paltry year in reading for me.
Title
Author
Date Completed
Pages
1
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
J.K. Rowling
6-Jan
640
2
The Bullet Journal Method
Ryder Carroll
31-Jan
320
3
Daring Greatly
Brene Brown
4-Feb
320
4
Trumpocracy – The Corruption of the American Republic
David Frum
25-Feb
320
5
Drive
Daniel H. Pink
4-Mar
288
6
Twilight
Stephenie Meyer
10-Mar
544
7
The Gift of Failure
Jessica Lahey
12-Mar
304
8
Better – A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance
Atul Gawande
27-Mar
288
9
The Graveyard Book
Neil Gaiman
11-Apr
368
10
Bad Blood
John Carreyrou
9-May
352
11
Atomic Habits
James Clear
23-May
320
12
Built to Last
Jim Collins
25-May
368
13
Digital Minimalism
Cal Newport
30-May
304
14
Right Here Right Now
Stephen J. Harper
14-Jun
240
15
Mastery
Robert Greene
20-Jun
352
16
Complications – A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science
Atul Gawande
25-Jun
288
17
Vagabonding
Rolf Potts
29-Jul
240
18
Becoming Superman
J. Michael Straczynski
4-Aug
480
19
A Game of Thrones
George R.R. Martin
11-Aug
864
20
Ultralearning
Scott H. Young
31-Aug
304
21
Reader Come Home
Maryanne Wolf
11-Sep
272
22
The Threat
Andrew G. McCabe
14-Sep
288
23
Indistractable
Nir Eyal
19-Sep
300
24
Permanent Record
Edward Snowden
22-Sep
352
25
The Path Made Clear
Oprah Winfrey
19-Nov
208
Total:
8924
I have a few thoughts as to why my reading rate dropped off significantly last year and what I can do about it in the year to come.
Life Pressures
Last year had a few significant pressures on my life that might have affected my desire to read. We started basement renovations early in the year, only to discover our basement’s foundation was cracked, requiring us to source quotes and opinions for repairs. This delayed our basement renovation, which didn’t finish until the summer. The protracted project weighed heavily on our minds throughout the year as we questioned whether we were making the right decisions for our home repairs, or whether we would need to make additional fixes later down the line.
Another big change for me was a change of my job at work. While I wouldn’t say it affected me as strongly as the basement renos, it disrupted my routine enough to impact my desire to focus on reading when I came home from work. Couple that with another full year as Board Chair for the non-profit I head up, and it left me with less cognitive bandwidth for self-improvement.
Podcasts and Music
If 2016 was my year of purchasing books, 2017 saw me start to utilize Libby to access the library, and 2018 was an all-out race for me to go through as many audiobooks as my brain could absorb, I felt a greater push away from books in 2019. Instead of working my way through 8-15 hours of content for one piece of work, I found the shorter format of podcasts more satisfying on my commutes. I enjoyed the variety in topics, shows, and voices.
However I also found I was drawn back to listening to music instead of information. With the sheer volume of books I’ve consumed in the last three years, it was nice to go long stretches without a goal of getting through books (or trying to learn new things) and instead allow the melodies, riffs, percussion, and lyrics sweep me away.
Book Burnout?
Overall, my rate for the year was a bit varied. I started slow in January and February, then picked back up in March. April only saw one book completed, then I found my footing again through May onward. However, October is when my wife and I traveled abroad for our honeymoon, and I never recovered my reading habit for the rest of the year.
Given that I spent most of the last three years focusing on business, personal development, and productivity books, I didn’t feel a strong desire to read those books in 2019. Even among the books I did read from that area, I found looking back that I don’t remember anything of note from those books. Neither the book’s theses nor the examples they offered have stuck with me as I enter the new year.
I’ve mentioned a few time the concept of the animated bibliography on this blog, and I think I’ve hit peak saturation for the genre. I’ve read the canon, and find that reading new books in the genre is resulting in diminishing returns; that is, I’m not really seeing a lot of new insights being offered that leaves me wanting more.
In my list last week, I commented that the books that I’m drawn to now is starting to shift away from business and productivity and more towards moral lessons found in fiction, biography/memoir, and journalistic explorations of current events. That’s not to say I won’t continue to be tempted to pick up the latest book that promises to fix my life, but it does mean that I’m intending to be more selective in what I choose to prioritize.
Assuming I continue to live a somewhat healthy life that is free from accidents, I figure that I have around 45-50 more years of life left. If I read around 3 books consistently per month, I will get another 1,650 books in my lifetime (4 per month is 2,208 books, and 5 books per month is 2,760 more books before I die). While that sounds like a lot, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the number of books that come out each year and the books that have already been written. There is more to life and learning than being more productive or seeking more meaning in one’s life. I’ve grown to appreciate the value of storytelling this past year, and there are a lot of stories out there to sink into. If I only get access to a few thousand more stories, I should make sure they count.
As the year is winding down, I (like many others) am beginning the process of looking over the year that was and weighing in on how things went. While I ideally would have set goals for myself for 2019, truthfully I am terrible on the follow-through and I ended up setting something more akin to an “intention.” For instance, over the last two years, I had set as a New Year’s resolution to 1.) stop being late for things, 2.) keep exercising, and 3.) start making better eye contact when talking to people.
In reality, I’m still late for everything (but at least I track it), I stopped exercising a while ago (I’m disheartened no one called me out about it on social media), and I still feel my eye contact at work is spotty at best.
Last year though, instead of creating a quarterly goal for myself, I set a grand focus or theme for the year. I had tried setting quarterly themes for myself a few years ago, but I found that I wasn’t making progress during the quarter through poor goal management on my part, so I simplified and decided to work on one thing for the year.
At the start of 2019, I decided I would place greater emphasis on my health. I kept it fairly broad in its application, but I did brainstorm a number of concrete areas I could work on, such as weight loss, lowering my blood pressure, regularly attending the gym, better nutrition.
I think the fact that I kept things open-ended was a main reason why I feel like I didn’t accomplish this focus as well as I had wanted to. Had I set specific goals with realistic action items, I might have made better progress.
That’s not to say I haven’t “lived healthier.” For instance, I have:
experimented with intermittent fasting all throughout the year which did help to keep my overall weight regulated.
finally got a family doctor after having been dropped from my doctor when she closed her practice a decade ago.
went in for my first physical in a long time and had blood work done to check-in on how my body is doing.
been weighing myself and measuring blood pressure more frequently, though still haphazardly.
experimented with app-based meditation; I found the experience interesting and meriting further exploration, but I haven’t carved out the time to dedicate to it.
while on my honeymoon I hiked up Mt. Vesuvio and did a roundtrip on the Path of the God hike (nearly 20km and 200 flights of stairs registered on my Fitbit for the day).
began tracking things like my down/depressed days, headaches, and time with family and friends in addition to my sleep tracker.
visited my optometrist for a check-up.
two regular visits to the dentist.
cut down on the amount of junk food I take in my lunches at work to essentially zero.
While these aren’t quantified victories, there are worthwhile achievements to celebrate. As I look to the new year, one lesson I can draw is that limiting my one thing for the year is a good way to focus my attention, but if I want to make any tangible progress (e.g. weight loss on the scale), I would still need to set proper SMART goals and create an action plan that requires me to carve out time intentionally.
I’ve been thinking about endurance recently, specifically in two areas of my life. First, I’ve been experimenting with intermittent fasting since January of this year and I’ll be sharing some reflections on it soon. By fasting each day, it requires a certain amount of endurance to push through on cognitively and physically demanding tasks while your body deals with the exertion in a fasted state.
Second, as the winter weather hits us, I have to endure colder temperatures while working at the bar. I’ve managed to push myself over the last two years and use a sufficient number of clothing layers to eschew wearing a coat while on the door position. I have the coat on hand, but I like the challenge of working without it and standing outdoors for long stretches of time exposed to the elements.
It might seem silly or pointless to put myself in these positions when I don’t have to – I make enough money so that I never need to worry about food scarcity or not owning enough proper clothing to protect myself. On some level, it’s stupid machismo to willfully deprive myself in this way. Yet, I like the challenge and the sense of satisfaction that I can achieve some level of control or mastery over myself and my situation.
While recently listening to Oprah’s book The Path Made Clear, I came across a really interesting way of framing this tendency I have. The specific section runs from 4:53-5:52 of the clip below, where Oprah is chatting with Alanis Morissette about the yearning to seek out a time in the future where all your present problems are solved and you are finally happy. They discuss that this forward-orientated hope for the future never manifests itself as peace; that money and fame doesn’t bring you happiness or contentment. Instead, you are always chasing that future where you are free from whatever pain you feel in the present.
“One of the big lessons I’ve learned over the last little while has been that if I can be comfortable with pain, which is different than suffering, if I can be comfortable with pain, as just an indication, and it’s potentially a daily thing (in my case it often is) then there won’t be my living in the future all the time; that one day if and when I will be happy.
“And even if I’m not comfortable doing that, I’m very uncomfortable in pain – I hate it – we run from it with all kinds of addictive, fun things (temporarily fun things). But at least knowing it’s a portal, and that on the other side is this great sense of peace that goes beyond this ego development.”
~Alanis Morissette (lightly edited for readability)
This sentiment spoke to me. I have an affinity towards stoicism and the idea that one should re-frame their relationship with the external. To me, I like knowing that I can endure, even when I don’t have to. It becomes practice for those moments when I need to dig in deep to perform, because life isn’t always easy. Through this practice, I can also appreciate my comforts all the more. And, it also doesn’t need to run in opposition of my goal to remove discomfort from my life so long as I remember that I’m not entitled to a life of comfort and ease and instead have to intentionally earn it.
I acknowledge that I’m fortunate not to live with serious pain or suffering. I have a comfortable life and I wouldn’t exchange it for machismo points. I don’t think the point of life is to suffer, but instead my goal is to learn to suffer well when life brings me pain.
Recently, a lot of things circulating through social media and my podcast feeds have been enraging me. I try to mitigate these things through a number of strategies – limiting my time on social media, intentionally targeting positive messages, not reading comments, not engaging, reminding myself that it is ok to disagree about things, etc. The hardest things for me to let go are cases where my thought-processes seem to wildly diverge from others about the framing of the same set of facts.
Initially, I wanted this blog post to be my master rebuttal. I wanted to lay out my case for why the conclusions others are drawing from this or that event are wrong and why. I wanted to emphasize what the important, salient points are that we should keep in mind.
But I know in my heart that would be an exercise in futility. A blog post is easy to skip; easy to ignore. I won’t change hearts and minds by arguing against a strawman average of the viewpoints expressed in my network of known-people. It would be antagonistic, hostile, and unproductive towards my goals. In all likelihood, it would backfire and entrench or alienate friends.
Instead, I will offer a different approach that I want to continuously remind myself of. When I feel compelled to dig in my heels for an argument, I should remind myself of the following.
First, remember what Aristotle (via Will Durant) tells us about virtue and excellence. It doesn’t matter what others say or share/post online; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Second, turning to fiction, remember why The Doctor helps people.
“Winning; is that what you think it’s about? I’m not trying to win. I’m not doing this because I want to beat someone or ‘cause I hate someone, or because I want to blame someone. It’s not because it’s fun. God knows it’s not because it’s easy. It’s not even because it works because it hardly ever does. I do what I do because it’s right! Because it’s decent. And above all, it’s kind. It’s just that. Just kind.”
Series 10, Episode 12: “The Doctor Falls”
Ultimately, it’s not about what I will say, or argue. Arguing with other people doesn’t make me a decent person; picking fights online doesn’t put me on the high road. If I want to bring about change in people I care about, it’s important to remember to be kind. Always be kind and help people, because it’s the right thing to do.
I recognize that being kind doesn’t give a lot of direction and can seem cowardly when meeting the systems that do real harm to the vulnerable and oppressed. In fact, espousing kindness can easily slip into inaction or forced neutrality. It’s hard to be prescriptive in this case at a granular level.
However, if I start with the core values of kindness and action, that what is important is doing things that are kind to others, then you can use your values as a filter for determining what you will choose to do.
Instead of arguing online, I choose to try and lead by being kind.
A few weeks back, my wife and I were preparing for a then-upcoming vacation. Our voting cards had recently come by mail and I was listing off the voting information (location, date, etc.) when she realized that election day was happening while we were out of the country. This was the first time I would be physically unable to vote on the day, so we started looking into what one does when this happens. I had heard in the past about early voting, though never needed it.
Turns out, the early voting days would start the day after we departed for our trip (of course).
In cases like this, you need to contact your local elections office to request a special voting kit that would allow you to send in your votes early. Thankfully the elections offices are open during the week until 9pm, so we were able to go in person to fill out the paperwork to pick up our kits and vote. It required us to write out our candidate of choice on a blank ballot, then seal those votes in an envelope, which was then sealed in a separate envelope to track that we had voted but not track who received our votes.
I’m glad these kinds of provisions are in place to allow us to exercise our civic duties. While we know our votes would not be missed if we had skipped this election, and even though we had to go out of our way to vote, my wife and I nevertheless feel it’s important that we do our part to show up and participate in the process.
I was on a consultation call a few weeks ago about an ethics application. The project was seeking feedback from participants about access to specific mental health information, and in my feedback to their application, I noted that their demographic question concerning the gender of the participant was probably too narrow. The applicant asked for some advice how to address the comment.
On the one hand, they considered dropping the question as it a.) didn’t obviously connect to their research question, and b.) the literature supporting this branch of mental health was pretty well-studied in terms of incidence rates for the condition along the sex dimension, so they might not learn anything new by asking for the participant’s gender or sex. On the other hand, if they left it in, they had to contend with whether they should use sex or gender as the focus of the question. Since the mental health topic they were researching was a medical condition, it seemed like (biological) sex was the more salient feature, whereas my feedback suggested that if they chose gender, they would need to ensure it was inclusive.
While discussing the implications on the phone, I tried to tease out what the purpose of the study was. Their study was collecting qualitative information about how people access information. In the context of the demographic information, they weren’t seeking to know how a person’s sex/gender relates to the condition itself. But, I wonder aloud, it seemed the purpose of the study was to understand how people seek information, which could arguably be influenced by one’s culture, behaviour, socialization, and experience of how the world treats them. In that way, you would want to focus less on a person’s physiology and instead you might discover interesting differences in how a person seeks information based on their life-experiences.
The applicant noted that they started the phone call intending to drop the question from the survey, and through my line of questions and probes, was convinced to keep the question and modify it to be more inclusive.
I am not telling this story as a normative push on how we should conduct inquiry (though by reading through the lines, you should get a sense of how I feel about the topic). Instead, I share this story as an example of why posing good questions is important to remove ambiguity and clarify thought. One of the goals of our ethics board when we review applications is to make implied premises explicit so that we can be sure of what we take as a given when we set out to study a research question. We often default to accepted practice and proceed with common tools, but sometimes we don’t think carefully through the implications of what using those tools means. By leveraging my outsider status, I have an opportunity to get the applicants to explain concepts and lines of reason without assuming I share the same understanding of the material that they do. This helps to spot those areas where the project is weakened by unsupported claims and assumptions.
Look to the incentives and see if they align with your own.
What’s in their interest might not be in mine.
This might change over time. Sources that don’t sell might eventually sell. There is a future where I might try to sell you something or join my mailing list.
Beware the one who sells you solutions for problems they don’t have.
Beware the sponsored content coming from authorities you like.
Beware the salesman who makes universal the particular. The one who puts everyone into a clearly defined box. The one who makes money on your problems. The one who charges to join their community.
I’m not saying these are all inherently bad things; merely that they merit many second thoughts.
Secret shortcuts don’t exist. If they were valuable, they wouldn’t be secret and they wouldn’t be a shortcut – they would be the norm.
Everyone has to make a living. Everyone has something to sell. But not everyone has your best interest in mind.
A recent article talking about knowing when to quit/retire from teaching had me reflecting on my own experiences with quitting. Truthfully, I can’t recall many instances where I quit something. Often, I will drag out experiences long after they have been useful, and instead of quitting as an active decision, I’m more likely to let things fall away through neglect. Perhaps there isn’t a strong difference between the two since my history is littered with things that I eventually stopped doing. I suppose in my mind, the difference comes down to whether I made a decision to stop – whether I took ownership over the act.
The strongest instance where I actively made a decision was when I stopped hosting at the local karaoke bar. I was three or four years into my tenure as a host, and for the most part I enjoyed the experience. I had a regular crew of friends who would come in and make the night interesting. However, towards the end, I grew to resent patrons coming in who weren’t my friends. I worked the slowest night, so if things were quiet, we’d shut down early. But if patrons filtered in and kept purchasing stuff, we’d stay open. Catering to the average customer felt like a chore, rather than chumming with friends with our own song preferences and inside jokes.
I started to dislike going into work, and even to this day I don’t sing much like I did while I was a host. I’ll grab the mic from time to time, but I don’t go out to enjoy karaoke anymore. I still work security at the bar, but I stopped hosting all together.
I made the decision to stop hosting because a small part of me knew it was time to move on. I learned what I could from the experience, cherished the memories it gave me, but I recognized that I no longer wanted to spend time doing it. I think that’s the critical part in the art of quitting. It’s not about actually quitting or the how. Instead, it’s about recognizing when the time has come and why.
Sometimes we have to slog it out in things we hate. We don’t quit those things because we assign value to the activity (or someone else has assigned value and we are dragged along for the ride). But quitting is more than stopping a thing you don’t like. It’s about recognizing when the thing is no longer of value to you; that it won’t take you where you need it to go. It is the recognition that your time is better suited elsewhere. The art of quitting ultimately comes down to taking an active role in how you choose to spend your time.
A Paramedic's Notebook 