I was at a restaurant recently with a few friends, and I ordered a Diet Coke. It came in a glass with a lemon wedge on top. “I love when my Diet Coke comes with a lemon wedge,” I said. “I think it’s because you get to smell the fresh acidity of the lemon scent as you sip.” “So why do regular cokes never come with lemons?” my friend asked.

+++ title = “04” date = 2019 +++ I was listening to a podcast recently where the hosts were discussing the idea of little experiments one conducts in their daily life. For instance, say that I want to lose weight. I might spend a month doing the keto diet, and then another month eating vegan and another month just staying under a calorie limit, all the while tracking my progress through measurements like waist circumference and body weight.

My Nani (maternal grandmother) passed away last night. I’ve been working on something lately in therapy, which is learning how to be sad. It turns out that for most of my life, I’ve avoided the feeling of sadness. Often I’ll skip over sadness and go directly to anger, or I’ll sidestep it and go to a distraction or drug. For someone like me, who feels so deeply most of the time, it seems odd that I can’t even relate to the feeling of being truly sad.

There’s a saying my therapist gave me: manage self, not other (MSNO). The idea is that you can’t really control the actions and thoughts of others, so it is much more efficient to focus on your own needs and actions. And if all parties do this, the result is much more harmonious relationships. I run into these types of situations a lot. Situations where I have to choose pleasing other people over taking care of myself for instance.

I’m somewhat of a list ninja. I can create specific lists for any corner of my life and I have systems in place to execute on those lists properly. I’m always learning, but I’ve also been learning for over a decade. Someone on a subreddit asked about how to start with todo lists. It made me think back to my start with to do lists. Back in 2006, when I realized I just wasn’t organized enough naturally, I turned to the Getting Things Done book to try and get myself together.