Words of Wisdom
3 Small Changes & Re-Learning How to Tie a Shoe
Here are 3 small changes I’ve made over the past few months that have made a big difference in my overall happiness.
1. My phone is always on silent.
2. The news is a toxic waste dump.
3. I go on walks.
1. MY PHONE IS ALWAYS ON SILENT
I used to have my phone on the vibration setting so I could feel when a notification came in without bothering the rest of the world.
I’m by no means the busiest nor the most popular person in the world, but I took a day and just tracked all of my notifications (texts, phone calls, emails, YouTube comments, social media messages…) and divided the total number of notifications by the 24 hours in a day.
I was getting a notification, on average, every 75 seconds.
To make this worse, I’m only awake for 16 hours a day, so taking the same number for the day and dividing by 16 hours brought me to a new notification every 50 seconds.
I just couldn’t keep my mind together.
Every 50-75 seconds, my phone would buzz.
This led to my attention getting pulled away from whatever I was doing or whomever I was speaking with.
It also caused this anxiety if I went longer than a minute without looking at my phone.
Our phones – and the apps we have on our phones – are designed to get us to spend as much time as possible on the screens… with notifications being the most effective tool to snatch our attention away from anything non-phone related… right back to our phone.
With my phone always on silent, I have been able to better focus on what I’m doing in the moment and, when I get to a natural stopping point, I can respond to messages and emails.
I have found that friends, family, and clients are totally okay with me not responding within 30 seconds of a message.
Something I fought for a long time.
2. THE NEWS IS A TOXIC WASTE DUMP
I’ve mentioned this a bit in past newsletters, but as part of my “job,” I deal with needing to keep up with the news.
So, while I can’t avoid it entirely, I try to. Also because of my job, I need to pay attention to both sides of the political conversation.
Every news source… and I mean EVERY. SINGLE. ONE… is carefully crafted to get clicks, to get eyeballs, and to make you scared or angry.
Why?
Because, if you are scared and/or angry, you are more likely to share that post/story/article with your friends, which gets even more eyeballs to see the article and get angry to share it further.
News outlets, social media personalities, & social media platforms earn money through advertisers who pay them to get eyeballs on information.
The more eyeballs, the more money.
My revenue stream is no different.
It’s something I’m constantly trying to prevent myself from falling into.
The clickbait titles and thumbnails of explosions and doomsday predictions leave me sad… because… it’s the easiest way to get eyeballs, get clicks, and scare people, which is not what I hope to do or be.
It’s a tough game to play. I usually design 3 thumbnails for every video.
One with red colors, one with blue colors, and one with some experimentation of others.
YouTube allows me to put in 3 thumbnails and it’ll analyze which one does best, making that the main thumbnail.
Red tends to perform better than other colors.
All social platforms know what you engage with – down to the number of milliseconds you stopped scrolling through your feed to pause on an image or video.
If you tend to pause and watch cute puppy videos longer than you do video game highlights, you start to see more puppy dog videos.
If you tend to spend more time watching, reading, or clicking articles that are of a certain philosophical belief, you are continually fed more and more stories the algorithm that knows what will make you scared or angry and keep you stopping your scroll, clicking the post, and coming back.
So… I’ve decided to stop playing the game by turning off the news.
And it’s made me a whole lot happier.
3. I GO ON WALKS
I get to work from home, but even when I didn’t work from home, I’d still try to take at least 20 minutes and just go on a walk during lunch time or during a break.
It’s been hard during the winter and it’s freezing, but with the weather warming a bit, the sun is wonderful.
One important thing here is I usually listen to a book or don’t listen to anything at all, other than the cars, the leaves, the birds… dogs, wind, and whatever else the world has to offer.
It’s not major cardio work. I don’t work up a sweat. I just walk around the neighborhood or walk to a local park and stroll around the path that circles the park.
The more I’ve done this and REALLY tried to pay attention to the world around me, I’ve been reminded of how amazing the world really is.
Tying Shoes Again
I love walking my kids to school in the mornings.
We live about 4 minutes from their elementary school and get to say “hi” to the crossing guard – Steve – every day.
I don’t know exactly how old Steve is, but I think he’s coming up on 85.
This past year he lost his wife and had a heart attack… and through all that… he’s there greeting us every morning, saying hi to my kids by name.
My oldest runs off to her 6th grade friends, my middle goes to the opposite end of the school to his 4th grade line, and my youngest goes to the 1st grade lines.
They all know the tradition where before they run away from me, they give me a hug and I ask them 3 questions:
- Will you be nice?
- Will you be helpful?
- Will you do your best?
“I love you the most.”
Every day. No exceptions.
The 12 year old and 9 year old run off to go see their friends.
My 6 year old likes me hanging around her line until the bell rings, and then I stay as all the kindergarten lines and 1st grade lines filter into the school.
Her line is always the last one in, and she checks to make sure I’m there about 3-4 times as she’s walking in, giving me a little wave each time.
I wait, and watch her (waving) until she gets in the school doors.
Last Thursday, my 1st grader’s shoes looked like they were untied, so I kneeled down to check them out.
They were tied (she was proud that she tied them) but the laces were SUPER long.
I don’t know how to best describe this in writing, but her double-knotted bow was tiny, while the ends of the laces were super long.
Hopefully that gives a decent enough mental image to know that, as she’s walking around, her shoes look untied because the ends are so long and dangling on the ground.
I untied her shoes and showed her how to make the bows and the ends of the laces less floppy so she wouldn’t trip over them.
There was a weird moment as I was tying her shoe where it hit me… I am coming up on the last time I’ll ever tie my kids’ shoes for them… like… ever again.
I’ve been tying their shoes for 12 years.
My 12 year old has it down.
My 9 year old has it down.
My 6 year old knows how but still needs a little direction here and there, but she’s on the precipice of never needing my help there again.
I’m not sure why, but it made me a little sad, and happy that I could notice this little moment in time that I’ve ignored pretty much every other time I’d done it.
And this made me happy and grateful that I had a silly little chance to tie a little kid’s shoes.
We’ve had big, crazy vacations.
We’ve had nice remodels to parts of our home.
I’ve bought nice clothes or shoes…
But, the simple act of tying my little girl’s shoe brought a moment of happiness that was more impactful for me than any of the “stuff” I could buy for myself, or the toys they use once and end up in the bins.
I guess what I’m trying to say is… over this next month (if you aren’t already) take the time to notice the little things that make you happy… or that amaze you – in a positive way – about the world.
Go to a park, sit in the grass, and just notice the micro-universe that is happening right under your hands and feet.
Then, at night, take a look up at the stars and notice the macro-universe that is bigger than my mind can comprehend, and yet… we are here… interacting with each other and exchanging ideas.
Pretty wild.
I hope you have a wonderful month, and I’ll see you in the next newsletter 🙂
Erik
PS – Want to read past newsletter?
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