Category: Mindfulness
- Adopt a mindset of tragic optimism
- Create daily and weekly anchors
- Respond, don’t react
- Stay consistent on what you care about
- Use behavioral activation
- Be rugged and flexible
Maria Popova shares 18 life learnings from 18 years publishing The Marginalian. This piece is full of amazing & profound insight, but this gem from learning #9 (Don’t Be Afraid To Be An Idealist) stands out to me:
Supply creates its own demand. Only by consistently supplying it can we hope to increase the demand for the substantive over the superficial — in our individual lives and in the collective dream called culture.
Thriving as a Practice
Beck Tench is a designer and researcher who studies the way technology impacts our lives at Harvard’s Center for Digital Thriving. Her mission is simple: begin to understand what it means for young people to thrive in this increasingly digital and connected world.
I’ve been a fan of Beck’s work since we initially crossed paths more than a decade ago, when we both focused on building compelling digital experiences for museums. I worked primarily with art museums and she worked primarily with science museums. We both brought a healthy sense of skepticism to the task of infusing cultural experiences with technology, and held a high regard of professional respect for each other’s approach to digital mindfulness. In fact, we collaborated twice (1, 2) and each conversation ranks as a personal highlight during my time in the museum sector.
While we haven’t kept in touch, I’ve been following Beck’s professional journey through her newsletter, Making Thriving Visible. And while everything she writes is interesting to me, I found her most recent update to be extremely profound. In it, Beck uses the analogy of a tiger named Mohini – who was conditioned by zookeepers to exist within an uncaged 12' x 12' space – to explain the way digitally-enabled grind culture was negatively impacting her mindset and happiness.
Through likening her situation to Mohini’s experience, Beck came to the realization that she was not thriving. She made some impactful changes and now considers the definition of thriving in a whole new light:
I am beginning to see thriving, digitally or otherwise, as a practice. It’s not a destination. It isn’t static. We can be thriving and things can change. We can change. If Mohini had ventured out of her 12x12 self-imposed cage… if she had explored the trees and hills and plants and pond, would she have started to notice the exhibit fence? Would she have wondered what was on the other side?
Thriving as a practice. I can get behind that, and I think to some extent I’m subconsciously working on it. The mindful changes I’ve made in my digital and professional footprint are evidence, but after reading Beck’s piece I am going formalize my thriving practice by creating a reflection and future visioning routine.
If you’re interested in digital mindfulness, I highly recommend Beck’s newsletter. You can subscribe via Substack, or via RSS (like I do) to avoid any surveillance capitalism that may be associated with the delivery platform.
Finished reading: Filterworld by Kyle Chayka 📚
This book scratched the right itch for me at precisely the right time. It affirms my choice to walk away from corporate social media and go all-in on the indie or open social web. Chayka’s thesis asserts that proliferation of algorithmic recommendations flattens and homogenizes culture. He weaves a detailed thread from the origins of algorithmic thinking in ancient times, through the early days of Facebook’s News Feed which brought algorithms into every home, through the current algorithmic landscape that feeds from people’s time and attention at every turn. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in mindfulness & digital culture.
For the love, not the likes
A couple months ago, my GPS watch stopped syncing with Strava. For whatever reason at the time, I was unable to restore the connection. I was also not in a position to spend $$$ on a new GPS watch, so since this disconnect was introduced my activities have no longer been pushing out to the popular social network for endurance athletes. As an active daily user who dished out boku kudos, I was initially quite bummed. And because I wasn’t posting to Strava, I stopped opening the app and reviewing what my friends were doing.
In the days since, I’ve noticed my mindset has been much healthier with respect to my exercise activities. So much of my time spent in Strava was me comparing my stats, paces and distances to others'. This resulted (subconsciously) in feeling pressure to always push harder, faster and further. I was losing the joy associated with getting outside and moving my body through the natural world.
In recent weeks, it’s been refreshing to get out for runs, rides and climbs simply for my own personal enjoyment, rather than feeding the ego associated with throwing down something epic for the kudos. It’s funny how this small technical hiccup has allowed me to recenter on my love for movement outside instead of the dopamine that came from the likes after the fact.
I really like Brad Stulberg’s six pillars to stay grounded in a crazy world: