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Tuesday, 7 April 2015
Wednesday, 1 April 2015
Lost Art of Self-Preservation
After over two decades of life, you'd think I'd have the hang of taking care of myself by now.
Unfortunately, that's not the case. It's not just me, though. Oh, no. It's an epidemic, infecting my peers left and right. Everywhere, I see people staying up into the wee hours of the morning, making Top Ramen and Mac'n'Cheese the main staples of their diets, watching sports instead of actually playing them, and letting their minds waste away with pointless time wasters, like TwitFaceTube. Many people I know, myself included, have not learned the art of taking care of themselves.
I believe our generation has lost the art of many valuable skills with the advent of new paradigms and technologies, and that this is one of the most important. I believe this common trend will affect the quality of our future lives, and by extent, of our children. Finding balance and maintaining personal health now teaches skills that affect our health and the rest of our lives. The habits we form now will stick with us for the next few decades, and will be harder to break the longer we continue in them. Eventually, these will be the habits our children learn from, that will in turn stick with them.
For example: I learned to stress-clean from my mom. My parents have always been neat and tidy, a trait I've grown to be grateful for over the years. However, that means that when I get stressed, I morph into a whirlwind of Lysol wipes and dishwater detergent. That's a habit that's not going to change, so I wager my kids will pick it up eventually, too. A family heirloom for the personality, of sorts.
Another habit I picked up from both my parents was the ability to work hard. Anyone that knows me can tell you I have a solid work ethic. Staying until close at the library isn't uncommon. My natural inclination is to be lazy, but my parents wrung that habit out of me at an early age.** Thank heavens for that.
Unfortunately, that's not the case. It's not just me, though. Oh, no. It's an epidemic, infecting my peers left and right. Everywhere, I see people staying up into the wee hours of the morning, making Top Ramen and Mac'n'Cheese the main staples of their diets, watching sports instead of actually playing them, and letting their minds waste away with pointless time wasters, like TwitFaceTube. Many people I know, myself included, have not learned the art of taking care of themselves.
I believe our generation has lost the art of many valuable skills with the advent of new paradigms and technologies, and that this is one of the most important. I believe this common trend will affect the quality of our future lives, and by extent, of our children. Finding balance and maintaining personal health now teaches skills that affect our health and the rest of our lives. The habits we form now will stick with us for the next few decades, and will be harder to break the longer we continue in them. Eventually, these will be the habits our children learn from, that will in turn stick with them.
Other lost arts: sewing is incredibly valuable. Also, the art of manliness. If you haven't checked out their blog, DO IT.
For example: I learned to stress-clean from my mom. My parents have always been neat and tidy, a trait I've grown to be grateful for over the years. However, that means that when I get stressed, I morph into a whirlwind of Lysol wipes and dishwater detergent. That's a habit that's not going to change, so I wager my kids will pick it up eventually, too. A family heirloom for the personality, of sorts.
Another habit I picked up from both my parents was the ability to work hard. Anyone that knows me can tell you I have a solid work ethic. Staying until close at the library isn't uncommon. My natural inclination is to be lazy, but my parents wrung that habit out of me at an early age.** Thank heavens for that.
**Funny story: At one point, my neighbors actually called child services because the new neighbors (my parents) were putting their kids to work setting up the landscaping in the backyard. After a few years, the neighbors finally gave up and let it go.
So, what's the point? Why am I writing about this now? Honestly, I would not want my future children to have the habits I currently do. In fact, I'd be horrified. (Sorry Mom. It's not your fault.) I know what I'm supposed to be doing, and I've done it before, but I haven't been consistent. I've heard from a lot of different places how important the little, basic things are, and I believe they're all right. I know I need to do better. So, as of the beginning of last week, I'm recommitting to the small, good habits that enrich my life. I'm working towards forming and solidifying the good in my life now. Not only for my sake, but for all the people I will influence in my life.
Remote Meeting
I was at work when I quickly clocked out to do faux work. Well, technically, it was still legitimate work. School work is work, but it's not work work. Anyways. Enough on work.
For my communications class, my group was required to meet using some remote service to discuss our group project. There are actually a lot of great media we could have used to do this, and I partially regret we didn't look into other methods more, but we just used Google+ since we all already had an account.
Overall, the meeting went well. It could have gone better if we'd all done more work before the meeting that we could have reviewed, but we did nail down some valuable goals for our team. We set deadlines easier than we would have been able to via text or email. We reviewed one of Alexia's documents in real-time, giving quick feedback that we were able to give prompt clarification on if needed.
I've used the screen share option on Google before when talking with my family, and it was as usual in business settings as it was in personal matters. My only complaint was that because the document was on my team member's computer, I couldn't just click and fix errors I saw. I had to describe to her where exactly I was looking. Another form of media (e.g. GoogleDocs) would have easily fixed this issue. Next time.
Another drawback was that our group kept on losing connection to one of our team members. We'd keep going, then have to catch him back up when he popped onto the Google Hangout again. I could see how that could be extremely frustrating in projects that are more intense. I would probably look at either switching platforms to minimize the problem, or just require all group members to find the best possible internet connection available.
That, or just meet in person. Honestly, so much more gets done that way. Obviously in circumstances where physical meetings are not possible, I'd be grateful the option of remote meetings. But if I have a choice, physical meetings are the way to go.
My brother-in-law showed me this clip over the past summer. The only reason it's funny is because it is entirely, 100%, not-exaggerated-even-a-little-bit accurate. In fact, I showed my group the video after our business was completed (using the screen share option, I might add). After wards, when we were saying goodbye, the same thing that happened to the main guy in the video happened to me. I feel you, man. The struggle is real.
For my communications class, my group was required to meet using some remote service to discuss our group project. There are actually a lot of great media we could have used to do this, and I partially regret we didn't look into other methods more, but we just used Google+ since we all already had an account.
Overall, the meeting went well. It could have gone better if we'd all done more work before the meeting that we could have reviewed, but we did nail down some valuable goals for our team. We set deadlines easier than we would have been able to via text or email. We reviewed one of Alexia's documents in real-time, giving quick feedback that we were able to give prompt clarification on if needed.
I've used the screen share option on Google before when talking with my family, and it was as usual in business settings as it was in personal matters. My only complaint was that because the document was on my team member's computer, I couldn't just click and fix errors I saw. I had to describe to her where exactly I was looking. Another form of media (e.g. GoogleDocs) would have easily fixed this issue. Next time.
Another drawback was that our group kept on losing connection to one of our team members. We'd keep going, then have to catch him back up when he popped onto the Google Hangout again. I could see how that could be extremely frustrating in projects that are more intense. I would probably look at either switching platforms to minimize the problem, or just require all group members to find the best possible internet connection available.
That, or just meet in person. Honestly, so much more gets done that way. Obviously in circumstances where physical meetings are not possible, I'd be grateful the option of remote meetings. But if I have a choice, physical meetings are the way to go.
My brother-in-law showed me this clip over the past summer. The only reason it's funny is because it is entirely, 100%, not-exaggerated-even-a-little-bit accurate. In fact, I showed my group the video after our business was completed (using the screen share option, I might add). After wards, when we were saying goodbye, the same thing that happened to the main guy in the video happened to me. I feel you, man. The struggle is real.
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