I had a big issue with my computer this week, so IT guru Angie to the rescue and much to my surprise it was not just a quick fix where I have opened or clicked something I should not have, it was a long drawn out process of diagnostic and then resolution triumph.  In the hours we got talking and Angie described how in the early days of computers as things were loading or downloading there was no spinning wheel or progress bar.  And so those early adopters would get impatient as things were happening behind the scenes on their computer and would shut them off or restart the download and especially back then the system would crash.  So the early creators came up with the idea of the buffering real time animations- the arrows, the spinning wheels, the progress bar, so that one could feel assured that something was happening.  So interesting, and I think of all kinds of situations where something could be happening around us and we would, in general, be so much more patient if we could see the progress bar or at least a spinning wheel indicating that some kind of slow change was unfolding.  So many times when we introduce a new idea, or a new way of doing things we do not see immediate results.  We work to make a change in ourselves and time and again we do not instantly lose the 30 pounds and get frustrated.  How different would it be if we could look at a progress bar?  That our knowledge and experience has increased 34% or our heart health is buffering to the positive after a life change or that our bias is lessening 14%  in our recent work with lived experiences.  We are hard wired for feedback; we respond so well when we can see the instant impact.  Where do we look for our progress bars?  Journaling, reflection, conversation, dialogue, plotting our progress somehow when there can be no instant change to see.   I think if we are on this journey called life, we are changing, downloading something new all the time, we just need to know that the wheels are turning and buffering for a better us, in small percentages at a time. 

I had the opportunity to hear parts of a play about Samuel Stout this week in honour of Black History month.  This man was the first black settler in the Port Perry area in the late 1800’s.  When I first heard about the presentation, I had a wonderful imagining that this was a tremendous story of inclusion in the 19^th century so close to my hometown, and for the most part it was.  Samuel was the church organist, band leader and local barber for many years.  He married a Scottish bride and had five children. However, in other ways it was not, he was relegated to only serving white customers in his barber shop, faced many instances of prejudice and did not own property.  Most shocking of all is that history all but forgot him until Theatre on the Ridge did a review of stories about people buried in one cemetery and starts to look at his story from his unmarked grave. The play will be performed in its final state in 2025.  It made me think of all the work we do toward inclusion, roles, diversity, and equity.  How we must force ourselves to look carefully at the gains and the setbacks and keep trying to do better.  Is a person part of a community or are they simply attending.  Am I missed when I am not in attendance or am I just a name on the roster.  I love the theatre, the way it can take a tough history, a great story and weave it into something that leaves us to think a little harder about our role, mindset, and assumptions. We all have assumptions and bias, that can’t be eradicated, but if we keep on acknowledging and listening, we will soon have our minds open to a reflection of whether all customers are allowed in our barber chairs.

I attended a great webinar this week that began by stating that multi-tasking is a myth.  This was jarring news to me as I was in front of the ZOOM screen taking in the training while signing receipts, reading an email, and drinking my tea.  What they said I have heard before and this is that it is an illusion that we are being more productive trying to do many things at once.  That we lose time regaining focus from one task to another, that there is an attention residue left from the email we just read as we turn back to the report we are writing and as such we are not at our best doing any of it.  So, the lesson of the day was to work to espouse the age-old practice of single tasking.  Being intentional about doing just one thing well, just one task that has a full attention and just one focus for our attention to remain solidly on.  This is very difficult and that was noted by the trainers.  We are becoming hard wired to drift, if we wait more than 30 seconds in a line, we pull out our phone for a check.  When I watch TV, I seem to be in a bad habit of googling that actors to see what else they have done on my phone.  It was said that it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds according to studies for your focus to completely return to a task.  If that is true it would mean that almost all the time our brains are transitioning their focus and perhaps, we are never completely on task, completely zoned in, and we are working to make great gains and do good things with only a portion of our brain riding shotgun.  The speaker urged us to be ruthless with our attention, to clump up like tasks and focus, to block times when we don’t let other things distract and to try to just do one thing at a time.  I guess what I especially liked was that at the end of the training it was reinforced that this is hard, there is no magic solution or tool and that we just need to keep on making little adjustments to try to make our days better, more productive and in the end more enjoyable.  What is one small shift you could make today toward single tasking?  A few moments where you were not focused on multiple things, a tiny adjustment that made each day could lead to big results.  Decide what needs a big focus and then zoom in on it for a little while, as you can, in your day, see if there is a difference.

I read books, and I very often choose secondhand books for my fiction choices and then pass them on to others when I am done.  So, we are talking about hundreds of previously owned books passing through my life.  This past weekend I was reading a book and I got to the last page, and it ended mid-sentence and careful inspection revealed that the last few pages had been ripped out.  I have questions, why did they get ripped out?  Why then was it donated to a secondhand store?  How in the world am I going to know how this book ends? It is hard to imagine what happened, but just like in other things sometimes we must accept that we will never know how it ends, there are things left unsaid, people suddenly leave, something ends, and we must go on and figure out how to live with the unknowing. We have to think about what in this situation can we control, how we are going to react and behave and really we are not in charge of much else.  My only choice here to accept that until I find another copy, I am simply left to wonder. Do what you can with what you can, until you can do better.

I have long struggled with the Anais Nin quote “We see the world not as it is, but as we are”, it is all about perception and all those filters that we have applied throughout our life, learning and experiences that affect how we are interpreting and categorizing what we see.  I mean, really, shouldn’t things just be, black and white, one way or another, a fact?  How can there always be room for interpretation and difference?  I recently had a disagreement with a friend, and they sent 10 pages of a book to prove their position.  The fascinating part of that exchange is that I dutifully read the ten pages and absolutely found that they backed my position and idea.  Now this is a learned friend, so I knew that they would be equally convicted that it proved their position to be correct, so I said nothing and moved on.  However, the whole exchange offered me another opportunity to think about this quote and idea, that once we have decided on a position, we can often find back up in whatever we look at.  In this way, the greatest of care should be taken in developing the firm opinion.  We find what we are looking for.  So, I guess we have two options or maybe two equal tasks, we need to stay open about our opinions when we can so that we can take in new information and keep on learning.  Secondly, we need to understand that there is often no single interpretation, with the exception of maybe math, that something that seems absolutely conclusive to me could be interpreted in a completely different way by another.  I think its important to be convicted about things, but the awareness that others see the same things very differently is just as important for this sojourn that we are all on together.  Sometimes there is great strength in being vulnerable enough to try really hard to see things through a different lens, an alternative frame or at least to acknowledge that a difference could exist.  How rich our lives can be when we see things as we are, and as we all are. 

It is the new year 2024 and we are just a few days in. It is also January the dark month with no holiday anticipation where mental health becomes top of mind. How do we shore ourselves up to get through to the spring? I have read a number of articles that would urge us all to be gentle, to rest and to reflect the natural rhythm of the winter, longer sleeps at night and more time for reflection. That is perfect were it not for the hockey practices, shifts, school projects, care for others and a million other jobs that tend to pile up. But maybe the gentle part is something we could pull off. Maybe we could slow down just a little, play the board game, read the book, rewatch that favourite movie. The days are getting longer little by little, maybe that’s the approach we just take to everything- little by little we will make some positive change, little by little be more present, little by little find something to enjoy for a few minutes and little by little get through the darkest month of the year. The old saying goes that all journeys begin with just one step. So, let’s all take just one step in the direction of a better January and a rested and rejuvenated us ready for the Spring that will arrive.

It is almost New Year’s Eve and already the commercials are setting us up to be a better self in the new year. Organization and exercise seem to be the important messages for what constitutes a new person in a new year.  Let’s not fall for that hustle this year, sure I think the passing away of the old year is a great time for reflection, but why does a new me involve some kind of wall Pilates, fitness app, spinach smoothy makeover.  How about we take the time to reflect on who we became in 2023, what kindness did we find for ourselves, what change did we make for someone else?  Did we laugh every day?  Did someone find a hard time easier because we shared a sandwich?  And now for the new year, how can we rise a little more, call a friend that seems down, connect with a relative you have not seen in years, volunteer to do something new and helpful, learn, grow, look at something from a completely new angle.  I am all in for the new year, new me, I just think that the new me part is so multi-dimensional and builds on the person we were last year.  I love the idea that what we do right here today, the small habit changes are the ones that have the biggest impact long into the future.  Do something today, try a new thing and next year at this time, we can again reflect on the impact in big and small ways of the journey we are all on together from one year to the next.  Goodbye 2023 with your lessons, triumphs, happy moments, and challenges, laughs and heartaches, Welcome- a shiny new year with no mistakes in it, yet.

In one of the holiday traditions at this time of year, there is a story of a couple looking for lodging and they are repeatedly told that there is no room. No room at the inn for any extra guests because, after all, there was a lot going on in the city where they were,  a census before there was mail in long forms and everyone had to be present to be counted. The streets, it is said, were filled with people and there was a busyness everywhere and a couple looking for a room kept getting turned away. 

No matter what your traditions and culture in the holiday season I feel like we can all relate to that atmosphere of overcrowded streets, overfilled lodgings, and errands. Our day planners are fuller with holiday get-togethers, our rooms are often filled with guests and our to do lists have no vacancy.  The strange part about this season is that many a greeting card compels us to find some peace, to celebrate family, to enjoy the season,  or to relax into joy.  Let me add that to the to do list, oh wait, no room. 

This is a time of extra busy schedules, extra calories, in some cases extra sadness and in many cases extra joyful moments. It is up to each of us to decide about the room, decide about the space available for extra, decide what to let in, what to be available for, what to prioritize. Is there room for a few moments of peace and reflection on this past year? Are there spare linens and a couch for some extra times spent with a friend to catch up? Is there a rickety old shed out back for a bit of self-care and rest in and around the streets full of errands? We are the innkeepers who decide what gets room. Fill your rooms with what makes this season great for you, add an extra cot for some peace and rest, and celebrate and be counted in this holiday season.

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I am a list maker, I have a book of lists for work, a book of lists for home and, when things are of extreme importance, my lists can cross pollinate.  There are columns, sometimes highlighted sections, and stickers.  I have always kept lists and I would be lost without them.  When I am overwhelmed by a bunch of priorities my first step is to make a fresh list that helps me think through how to eat the elephant one bite at time and put things in a perspective of priority order; this strategy helps me make a start. 

Yesterday, I was crafting the day’s list and I realized that my credit card is about to expire and I have not received the replacement. So, the already overfilled day got a task added, to call the company and figure this out. And I will admit I had a little grump about it, why did this get lost, why do I have so much today, why is there this one more thing to add to a busy day? So contrary to all my efforts to begin a day in gratitude and positivity, I grumped. 

My home, like others, is decorated for the holidays and as such the place where the mail usually goes is a Christmas wonderland of lights and décor; thus, my family has been chucking the mail on my desk. As part of my morning routine, I went to my desk at home to grab things I would need at work, and I noticed the rather large pile of mail. The new credit card was in an envelope in the stack. All that wasted grumpiness, all that needless worry! A pause was needed to actually check in on the facts, a moment of investigation would have changed the morning back to gratitude, tomorrow I will put that on my list as a priority.  

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We have definitely entered the busy season.  No matter what holiday you celebrate there is an extra added event or two to your already packed schedule.  I recently mentioned that my hands ache a little if I play piano too many days in a row.  My pragmatic friend offered that there is an easy fix, stop playing piano several days in a row.  Seems simple and is doable most of the year, but this, my learned colleague is the busy season, gigs and practices about holiday cheer through singing and I am the accompanist.  In playing piano I am always clear with people singing that I will follow them, so if they want to linger on a note or slow the pace down, I will adjust, they are setting the pace, its their performance and I am just in the background plonking out the melody on the piano.  Makes me think about how we can show up in the world and in our work.  There are times where we set direction for ourselves and go boldly forth in what in that moment leads us to our best possible life.  I would wager, if we pay attention to our bold moves and growth spurts, somewhere in the background there is an accompanist, someone who is just following our lead, keeping time for us, holding space for our dreams and helping us to adjust our timing.  There is an age-old reminder about living a life knowing that at any moment you could be inspiring another, I guess what I am thinking about is paying attention to your backup band in your successes.  While you may be inspiring who is behind you just supporting you, plonking out the tune of your next move?  You decide the tempo, linger in bars (musical ones) as long as you need and those accompanist will follow, will catch up, will slow down and meet you where you are.  Sometimes we are the soloist, sometimes in the choir, and from time to time we are all in the background ensuring that another can hear the melody of their dreams a little better so that they can make the bold moves.