Tag: Covid

My Best Interest

If you want a good newsletter, you should check out Arnold Schwarzenegger’s newsletter. I signed up a few months back and have thoroughly enjoyed each update. I find him such a fascinating and inspiring person, not just from his bodybuilding work, his acting career, or even his time in politics, but above all because he strikes me as a fundamentally decent person.

He made two interrelated observations in the latest issue that stuck out for me. A significant portion of the email dealt with his clarifying and elaborating on his viral “screw your freedoms” moment during an interview talking about why people should get their vaccines. In his expanded comments, he urges his readers to pay attention to the motivations of people trying to give them advice, and discard those opinions which are not in your best interest (including his own). By this, he means fitness influencers and politicians, whose motivations are clicks and ad revenue in the former, as well as outrage, donations, and votes in the latter. When it comes to your health, these people are not giving advice based on your own health and wellbeing.

The second related comment is that if you can’t trust government or social media, who should you trust? To that, he says you should trust your doctor because your doctor took an oath to protect you. Your doctor is paid with only one expectation in return – the promotion of your wellbeing and health.

Talk to your doctor, not people who don’t have your health as their main responsibility. The Instagram and Facebook accounts you follow that give information on vaccines are not concerned about your health. They are concerned with getting more followers and making money.

I have seen way too many stories about people who listened to politicized information about the vaccine instead of their doctors, and then changed their minds when it was too late.

At the end of the day, everyone has to make their own decision about getting vaccinated. But if I can inspire even a few of you or your friends or family to avoid another one of these tragic stories that tore families apart, I want to do it.

He urges us to trust the experts and take wisdom from their experience. When presented with advice, we should ask ourselves what the advice-giver gets in return for our compliance. Do they benefit from our participation? What do we lose by their gain? These are important checks that we should make when deciding what’s in our best interest.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

For the First Time, Since

Last week was a wonderful week of “first time, since” events for me. It was the first time, since the pandemic started, that I played board games with friends in their home. It was the first time, since probably the start of the pandemic, that I ate inside at a restaurant. It was the first time, since the bar closed, I got to see my colleagues and have a drink. And for the first time, since the birth of our son, I got my hair cut.

I’m under no illusions that this is over. The cynical side of me is expecting another lockdown (or at least a retraction of re-opening plans) in the fall. I know we are still a ways to go from where we ought to be if everyone bought into the plan by masking-up and getting double-dosed.

But for a brief moment, I got a chance to flex my extraverted side and give him some fresh air, while looking slight less like a caveman.

It’s the small things I get to relish for the first time, since.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

Parenting and the Return to “Normal”

I’ve been very fortunate to work from home since the start of the pandemic. I have only stepped foot in the office once in the last year, and have otherwise been plugging away at tasks from home. I was also fortunate that this time overlapped with the birth of our son, so I have been home for his first year of life. My wife returns to work in September, and our son will head off to daycare, signaling our first steps towards a return to “normal.” At present, I will likely continue working from home until January, assuming public health doesn’t pull back on restrictions to limit the virus spread.

Two recent podcasts had me reflecting on the kinds of things that changed about life both as a result of the pandemic as well as experiencing parenthood while at home. The first was a musing from The Daily Dad on the slow life of the pandemic, and the second was from Scott Young on how parenting changed his views on productivity.

The pandemic hit a hard stop to the busy lifestyle I had adopted. This isn’t to say I embraced “busyness” as a mark of distinction, but rather I was the kind of person who said yes to a lot of things and wanted to be involved in cool stuff. My calendar was filled with lots of obligations, work and social alike. I juggled three jobs while running a non-profit, a social club, and podcasting and vlogging projects. I enjoyed being busy and helping others.

But as a parent, I carry a different set of responsibilities that conflict with this kind of lifestyle. I was never faced with the choices to prune back my (mostly) optional obligations in order to fulfill my parental duties – the pandemic largely did that for me.

And as we think about returning to “normal,” I will obviously have to think carefully about what sorts of things I add back into my life (the pandemic will end, but being a parent won’t). Some of the effects from the pandemic and being at home to take a greater prominence in co-parenting our child makes me reflect on what kind of home life I wish to cultivate, and ask which elements of the pandemic do I want to carry forward into the new normal. For instance, in thinking about the slow life, things like bedtime routines, long blocks of time with kid(s), weekends set aside for family time, are all things I want to hold sacred.

The pandemic was referred to as The Great Pause. I should get some more of this thinking done before we un-pause and move on with life.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

Return to Normal

Well, I certainly was optimistic in my last post about when I’d return to normal. The move proved to be a bit more onerous, so I missed last week’s post, as well as this week’s deadline. C’est la vie. We press on.

As we start getting our vaccines rolled out to younger folks in my part of the country, we are beginning to have virtual watercooler chats about what the return to normal will be. The gut-reaction is that our higher education institutions will kowtow to pressure to return to face-to-face delivery as soon as possible – whether it’s students looking for the ol’ college experience, administrators looking to address gaps in the bottom line, or employees desperate to escape working from home.

It’s tempting to think things will return to normal, back to the pre-pandemic status quo. We, as creatures of habit, like to slide back into what’s comfortable and expend the least amount of energy that we need to.

But knowing what I know about people, a “return to normal” is going to smack straight into the loss aversion wall – people don’t like to lose benefits once they have them. It switches to an entitlement mentality. I don’t mean this in a negative sense. Entitlements are good! When we talk about entitlements, it carries a negative connotation of something not earned. But to the contrary, I think “unearned” entitlements are the point of society, culture, and government. Rather than everyone being forced to create everything for themselves, we can leverage divisions in labour, experience, technology, and collective action to ensure that benefits get spread around. The metaphorical tide should raise all ships.

So, what does it mean when we are rushing back to return to normal – what do we think we are missing, and what would a return to normal cost us?

A return to normal means hours of commuting per week, instead of going upstairs to work.

A return to normal means rigid schedules and limited campus space, instead of blending the flexibility of synchronous and asynchronous delivery.

A return to normal means bringing back flu seasons at work.

A return to normal brings back all the issues around inclusion and accessibility for those who don’t fit the “normal” not built for them.

Here at home, a return to normal means less time with our infant son. It would also mean less quality time with my wife.

I haven’t packed a lunch in a year. My office dress clothes have been hanging untouched in my closet. I’ve fueled up as many times as maybe months we’ve been working from home.

Not everyone is as fortunate as I am to still be working from home. Many employees at my institution still have to go on campus to work because they’re essential, so their current normal differs from mine. However, we must question whether we want the consequences of having the rest of us join the essential few. I sincerely doubt it is automatically a return to something better.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

A Well-Designed Vaccination Process

I was fortunate to receive my first vaccine dose yesterday. While I initially thought I would have to wait until a later phase, I recently found out that I qualified based on my BMI. It bummed me out to learn that I’m perhaps not as “healthy” as I thought and I had felt a sense of pride being among those who would have to wait until the end. It’s irrational, I know. However, I felt it was my duty to get my vaccine as soon as I was eligible in order to do my part and help with public health measures.

The vaccination process I participated in was very smooth and efficient. A friend asked me how the experience went – here were the notes I sent:

My appointment was scheduled for 4:45pm, and I arrived at 4:40 (a 30min commute from home to the site).  They had a sign outside saying they were now taking the 4:45 appointments.  I went through several layers of people asking me questions, but it was super smooth and efficient:

  • Security Guard at the door ask the standard screeners (I don’t have symptoms, no one in my house has symptoms, I haven’t travelled in the last 14 days), and to check I had an appointment confirmation email/text.
  • Queue person to direct me to the check-in.  They also directed me to sanitize my hands and handed me a mask with tongs, saying I could either replace the one I was wearing or use it to double-up.  I chose to just double-up.
  • Check-in to confirm my appointment.
  • Nurse to take my health card info.
  • Queue person to direct me to which chair to sit in.
  • Doctor who asked screeners and gained consent. (we chatted for a little bit)  My receipt notes I received my shot at 4:43.
  • After the shot, the doctor wrote a time on the top of my information form and directed me through a door to a gymnasium for observation.
  • Queue person to explain the chairs (basically, wait until my time was up, and whatever chair I chose, flip the sign to indicate I sat in it so it could be sanitized when I left).
  • Get up from the chair at 5:04 and go in one direction around the seating area to another nurse (observed by security guard).
  • Final nurse confirmed who I was, ask for family physician to notify them, confirmed my email, then printed and emailed me my receipt.

I texted my wife at 5:11 that I was done and heading back.  Well oiled, well directed, very relaxed. 

I am incredibly grateful for the care and thought the local Public Health Unit put into this process. I never felt lost or unsure about how to proceed, and all the staff were friendly and professional.

So far, almost 20-hours post-shot, I feel great. The soreness in my arm is similar to vaccines I received previously, so time will tell if I feel any of the other side effects (aches, fever, etc.).

We’re all in this together.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

Friday Round-up – July 31, 2020

Here is my round-up list for the week ending on July 31st:

💭Reflection – Writing Daily, But Posting When Ready | Derek Sivers

I started this blog for two reasons – because I wanted a public way of practicing what I was learning at the time, and to force myself to write consistently. I decided posting once per week was a manageable target, and I’ve been relatively successful for the last few years. Recently, I’ve added the Friday Round-up as a way to force myself to write more and to share interesting content I stumble upon. When I added the Friday posts, I questioned whether it was worth putting in the effort – was I adding value to any part of the process? On some level, I feel it’s worth it, if for nothing else than to force myself to be a bit more reflective on what I consume. However, Derek Sivers’s point about forcing one’s self to post rapidly comes with some trade-offs. I imagine Seth Godin (another prolific blog poster) sometimes feels the same way by posting daily – that most of his posts aren’t what he would consider good. The mentalities are a bit different; Godin posts as part of his process, whereby you have to make a lot of crap to find the good stuff. Sivers would rather keep the crap more private to give him time to polish up the gems. I’m not sure which style is better. Both admit to keeping the daily writing practice, which is probably the more important lesson to draw from their examples, but it’s still worth considering.

*Addendum*

After drafting the above, I kept reading some bookmarked posts from Sivers’s page and found this one written in 2013 after a friend of his died. It’s a heartbreaking reflection on how one spends their time, which included this:

For me, writing is about the most worthy thing I can do with my time. I love how the distributed word is eternal — that every day I get emails from strangers thanking me for things I wrote years ago that helped them today. I love how those things will continue to help people long after I’m gone.

I’m not saying my writing is helping anyone, but the thought that my words will live beyond me touched something within.

📽Video – The Biggest Bluff: Poker as Life | Book Review from ThePoptimist

I’ve known the author of this YouTube channel for a few years, and I follow him on ye ol’ Instagrams (I love his scotch and cigar posts). But I didn’t know until last month that he also reviews books as part of the BookTube community. I wanted to share this link to show him some love, and because it reminds me of one of my roomies in undergrad who introduced me to the world (and language) of poker. While I’m a terrible player, I have fond memories of watching my roomie play online, if for nothing else than the humor of him yelling at the screen.

Oh, and I like Maria Konnikova’s writing, so I think I’ll check out her book. Another good book by a poker player about thinking better – Annie Duke’s Thinking in Bets.

🎧Listen – “Your mask questions answered” | The Dose podcast by CBC

With all the anti-mask beliefs floating around, I wanted to do my part to share good information about the benefits of masks and to help dispel some of the dis/misinformation out there.

Wear your masks and stay awesome,

Ryan

Friday Round-Up – June 19, 2020

After a poor performance last week left me with no Friday post, and even though today’s post is much later than I intended, here I am to make good on my promise to do better.

Here is my round-up list for the week ending on June 19th:

📖Article – Jon Stewart Is Back to Weigh In | The New York Times

Sorry if you hit a paywall on this article (I managed to read it fine from Pocket). I’ve lamented elsewhere that I genuinely miss Jon Stewart, not just from his tenure on the Daily Show, but also from other initiatives he’s thrown his weight behind (remember his masterclass in oration?). While this interview is part of Stewart’s media blitz for his upcoming movie release, it is also chocked-full of wonderful insights and observations about the world we find ourselves in. He’s ever poignant in his wit, but also speaks from a cautious place. The interview is so good, I quickly reached the limit of my free highlights in Pocket.

💭 Reflection Mega-Thread – How We Process Information

I want to turn this into a more formal blog post in the near future, but for now I’d like to lay out a few strands that have come together over the last two weeks about how we process, curate, and digest information.

🎧 Listen – You Must Avoid This Weakness | The Daily Stoic Podcast

First, a short listen from the Daily Stoic reflecting on how our minds are not reliable when it comes to processing truth. Instead, we are bound up in our own biases that we seek to confirm. If we want to be functioning, contributing members of society, we must actively exercise our critical faculties, including seeking out when we are wrong. Or as the closing lines state: “It’s the snowflakes who fly into a rage when someone challenges their views. It’s the snowflakes who can never admit they’re wrong or address deserved criticism or feedback.”

🎧 Listen – 479: Post-truth Expertise | CBC Spark Podcast

Next, a thought-provoking podcast episode from the CBC that tackles expertise in a seeming post-truth world. There is a lot of good information floating around in the ether, waiting for us to latch on to its wisdom. And yet, despite good information there for us to seize, we see many people in our peer groups turn away and distrust the experts. Shunning the norms of knowledge communities, they instead embrace their own norms of knowledge and assertion.

📣 Twitter – Carl T. Bergstrom (@CT_Bergstrom)

Speaking of experts, one of the voices I’ve turned to on Twitter to help me filter the signal from the noise is Mr. Bergstrom. He has provided both some levity :

As well as valuable information to help stop me from embracing each news article that flies out with clickbait titles:

I have a blog post percolating in my mind about curating news feeds, but I’ll leave that breadcrumb here for now.

🏳‍🌈🎧 Listen – I Don’t Want To Get Over You (Season 3 Mission 9) | Zombies, Run!🏳‍🌈

Finally, I want to give a huge shout-out to the writers and folks behind Zombies, Run! for this episode I listened to last week. The episode really stuck out for me. A large portion of the dialogue involves two lesbian characters discussing a mutual love interest (the love interest is the current partner of one of the characters, and a former lover of the other character in the conversation). The conversation between the characters touches on topics like “gold stars” and the fears that bisexual partners may have, even in committed relationships. I’ve heard my own queer friends discuss these topics, and while it felt noteworthy that the development team included “voices” from a wide range of folks, it was awesome to hear conversations that weren’t centered on the heterosexual experience that’s often given as the default in media. It gives the game a sense of realness and depth, despite it being about living in a post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland. It’s also important, as we reflect on this Pride month, to think about the kinds of voices we engage with that represents life, and whether we are seeking out sources that look to bring more diversity to the table. I’m happy to be supporting the app and the team.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan