📖 📱 Blood of the Fold

By Terry Goodkind

📖 📱 Stone of Tears

By Terry Goodkind

🎥 Hobbs and Shaw

Alone

📖 📱 Debt of Bones

By Terry Goodkind

📖 📱 The First Confessor

By Terry Goodkind

📖 📱 Wizard’s First Rule

By Terry Goodkind

📖 🎧 Star Wars: Thrawn: Treason

By Timothy Zahn

📖 🛏 Lonesome Dove

By Larry McMurtry

Switching from playing a game to reading on my phone as the default behavior on the toilet has made a world of difference.

A couple weeks ago, I realized that I was spending way too much time playing a game on my phone. At the beginning of June, I had been introduced to the game and started playing in some of my spare time. As the month went on, I found myself looking for more and more opportunities to play. Every trip to the toilet, I pulled out the game, and I even started going to the bathroom when I didn’t really need to. It was getting out of control.

I was discussing the situation with my wife one evening. She admitted that she had gotten to the point of feeling some despair when I headed into the bathroom, knowing I would be gone for a while. For years, I had implemented a rule of no phone on the toilet. It started as a month-long Valentines Day present to my wife and she liked it so much that I kept it going. During my intensive treatment for OCD, I challenged any rules my brain had for me. That resulted in me slowly pulling my phone out more and more on the toilet until it became a habit again.

I decided that night to delete the game from my phone and immediately change my toilet phone habits. My goal is to keep the rule less rigid, but also influence my behavior for the better. So I committed to only using the Kindle app on my phone while on the toilet. And the effects have been striking. I have found that I spent much less time in the bathroom now. I’ve only read nonfiction so far on the toilet, and it’s been much easier to stop without getting sucked in.

In addition to spending much less time in the bathroom, the time that I have spent reading feels more productive. I no longer have a vague sense of unease that I am wasting my time addicted to a game. Basically, my family wins because I am with them more, and I win because I feel better about myself. It is surprising how much the few minutes scattered throughout the days add up to.

Over the course of a couple weeks, I was able to finish the book Digital Minimalism, by Cal Newport, which I had been wanting to read for a while. I am currently reading The Art of Gathering, by Priya Parker.

One of the biggest lessons that I have taken from this is the importance of analyzing my life and reclaiming time that I feel is being frittered away. This is in line with my 2019 goals, which include being intentional. Small amounts of time consistently spent quickly add up to significant investments that can bring joy and fulfillment.

📖 The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

By Mark Manson

📖 📱 What the Dog Saw

By Malcolm Gladwell

📖 The Gifts of Imperfection

By Brené Brown

🎥 Spider-Man: Far From Home

Alone

📖 🎧 The Tipping Point

By Malcolm Gladwell

I needed this today. Maybe someone else does too.

As is often the case, seeing a diverse group of people come together helped me remember what is truly important.

At my company, O.C. Tanner, we celebrate select work anniversaries with a small ceremony involving multiple speakers who highlight achievements or qualities of the employee. Today was the one-year anniversary of a man who is about to become my new product manager, and I was touched.

Beyond the kind words that were said about him, one fact that spoke volumes of him was the crowd that gathered. Not just the number of people, although that was impressive in its own right. What jumped out at me the most was the makeup of the group. There were so many people from different departments who came to celebrate with him. It was one of the first times I have seen that kind of audience at a one-year anniversary.

The specific group that impressed me with their attendance was our client success team. Many people in our product/technology department work with client success as little as possible. As they said themselves during the ceremony, they are often needy and demanding, reflecting the concerns of the clients they represent. We have a tendency to focus on the new and exciting, and have a harder time embracing the value of maintenance and enhancement, and those whose lives focus on maintenance are often perceived as less valuable.

I left the anniversary celebration inspired. I just passed my four-year mark, which does not have a formal ceremony. As I think about my five-year anniversary next year, I want to approach that with intentionality. Obviously, I cannot control who will choose to come or not. But the more people with whom I work and get close, the more diverse the audience can be. I have realized that the people with whom I work are some of the most important and valuable opportunities for learning and growth that I have. I hope that I can remember that over my next year, and throughout my career.

📖 🚽 Digital Minimalism

By Cal Newport

I loved this article from the Art of Manliness: Sunday Firesides: I Have Kids.

Then one day, for reasons unknown, I suddenly saw the open printer drawer not as an impertinent annoyance, but as the inescapable evidence of a simple fact: I have kids.   

I have kids, and kids inevitably come with some vexations. Yet they’re exactly what I want in my life, and a source of inexpressible joy. Because I have this privilege . . . I also have to accept its aggravations.

This is such an easy thing to forget and so important to remember. Our lives are not meant to be blissful, they are meant to be meaningful.

🧘🏻‍♂️ This is a great reminder. Take time to be where you are.

I thoroughly enjoyed the latest episode of Revisionist History from Malcolm Gladwell to celebrate Independence Day. He expanded the story of our nation’s independence, particularly the Boston Tea Party. Many of the Sons of Liberty were part of a smuggling organization providing tea to early colonialists that didn’t go through England, with the accompanying taxes.

I have to admit that framing them as drug lords defending their turf strikes me as a bit sensationalist. On the one hand, you have people trying to get their own legitimate products at a cheaper price by buying direct. On the other, people who are knowingly dealing in death and destruction. It’s hard for me to compare the two. I think the consequences of the drug in question matter a great deal to the morality of the issue. The fact that the early American patriots also protected their own business interests does not lessen their moral stand in my mind.

That being said, I love the additional perspective his research provided. I laughed out loud a number of times in listening to this episode. I am sharing a clip of one of my favorite segments to give you a taste. I highly recommend you listen to the whole episode. Here is an Overcast link: Tempest in a Teacup.

I finally published a Now page over the weekend. It feels nice to have something public declaring my current focus, as well as somewhere to record the books I’m currently reading. I have found that I start too many books without finishing because I forget I’m reading them.

How exciting! Congrats to the U.S. women! ⚽️ 🇺🇸

🎥 Dumbo

With three of the kids and cousins

As much as I learn the skill of self-compassion, it is so far outside of my natural response that I still feel like an awkward novice.

I had a rough morning. In many ways, it wasn’t all that bad, but it rocked me a bit. I got up and rushed away from the family on my holiday for a therapy appointment, trying to be on time. When I arrived, I found that I had received a text from my therapist ten minutes before leaving asking if we could reschedule. She commented, “I know you hate unexpected changes, can this be an exposure to reschedule? 😂😬”

I actually had very little problem adjusting the plan and rescheduling with her. But I was so damn mad at myself for not looking at my phone before I left. Since I am rescheduling for tomorrow, I felt guilty that I will be taking a couple hours away from the kids and my wife in addition to the hour today in travel time.

I called my wife and told her what had happened. She comforted me and tried to challenge some of my thinking. “If you had texted your therapist an hour before your session saying you were ill and needed to reschedule and she didn’t see it and drove in anyway, would that be her fault? Or would it still be your fault, or no one’s fault?” I thought for a minute and replied it was somewhere in between my fault and no one’s fault. She chuckled and reminded me that a little self-compassion might help here.

In my treatment follow-up session a couple days ago, my other therapist reminded me of the steps of self-compassion:

1. Be kind to myself
2. Remember my common humanity
3. Be mindful of what I am feeling

As I thought about those steps, I felt a wave of comfort wash over me. I could tell myself, “It’s ok to be upset. It’s not wrong to be mad right now. This is hard for me, and doesn’t need to not be hard.” I felt able to acknowledge my part in this without beating myself up. We will just move forward and do the best we can with the next couple of days. Almost right on cue, my wife sent me more compassion in another text.

Love you. Sorry it’s hard. There is no right way to do things in this situation. So there’s no failure.

I wanted to record this experience so I can come back to it. I will certainly have a similar situation come up again. I hope that the more I practice, the more easily and naturally the instinct for self-compassion will come. We could all use a little more of that.

🎥 Aladdin

With 5 older kids