Cal Newport, on a podcast recently, talked about his new book on digital minimalism. It’s the idea that we need to start thinking about what we consume online just like we do with food consumption. That our online habits are making us unhealthy. That we should remove all unhealthy inputs for a while and then only add back in the ones that have actual value, as opposed to the strictly habitual ones.
+++ title = “01” date = 2019 +++
Some days, I’m coffee.
I wake up with purpose. My bed is made. I’m at the kitchen table reading the paper an hour before work. The kids have dressed themselves.
I enter the conference call with confidence. I speak my name as a trochee, emphasis on the first syllable. I’m not asking, I’m telling.
I bust through the to do list like I’m cranking a lever.
Years ago, I had a set of supervisors whom I would describe as noodles.
A noodle is a people-manager who is rigid in their ways, but breaks very easily. When you put a noodle in metaphorical hot water, they bend and curl up, letting fear and pain drive their choices. They are destined to live their days in boiling broth swimming around in a pathetic loop of hate-fear.
If you’ve ever had a supervisor that’s a noodle, you’ve likely experienced their wrath for things that would get them in trouble with their boss.
We’re all born with gifts, and we’re all born with anti-gifts. Skills that seem to come naturally to others but are a total mystery to us.
One of those, for me, is Tetris. Being able to fit pieces into gaps, being able to think ahead in a spatial way… are not skills in which I excel.
I’m also bad at having a thick skin. As a highly sensitive person, this never came naturally to me.