We often embark on a journey in life expecting to do or find something specific, and come back having discovered the unexpected.

I went alone to see Ralph Breaks the Internet recently. I enjoy the digs on Disney princesses just needing a random man to save them, the portrayal of Twitter as a tree where birds chirp the same cat picture at each other, and highlighting the toxicity of Internet comments. I especially love Ralph’s journey of self-discovery that allows him to become a better friend. One of my favorite lines comes near the end as Ralph comes to grips with Vanellope’s decision to stay in Slaughter Race.

I get it. You’ve found your dream game. That’s awesome.

(Quote may be a rough approximation as it is based solely on my memory of the line.)

That jumped out at me because it was definitely not what they were seeking. Sure, there was some heavy foreshadowing, but ostensibly they were looking for the means to restore her ability to perform her original game.

The parallels with my own current situation struck me.

A couple weeks ago, at the suggestion of my boss as well as my HR leader, I decided to take an extended leave from work. In working with my therapist, I decided to go further and get an Airbnb for a few weeks. The goal is to turn this time into a healing retreat, calm the panic attacks, and hopefully help my nervous system start to stabilize. In many ways, it feels like the goal is to help restore my ability to perform my original job—programmer and manager.

As I have been taking a break from life responsibilities, I have found that writing and podcasting, have been incredibly therapeutic for me. It is helpful when I am feeling agitated to channel that energy into something productive. Through doing this, I have discovered that I really love writing. I have only recorded a few podcast episodes, but I have enjoyed that tremendously as well.

I am not necessarily feeling like I have found my dream job and that I want to change careers. But I have felt that I came intending one thing, and have discovered something else. I have long wanted to be a blogger, but have felt that I was not a good enough writer to do it seriously. As I have been writing more, almost out of necessity, I have found that I do not need to wait until I am a good writer. I can just get started. I know that that I will get better over time. And along the way, I hope that I can inspire others who have felt like they have a desire to do something more than what they are currently doing, but have held themselves back.

So my advice, both to my future self, and to anyone who might be reading, is to just move forward. Be willing to accidentally discover your dream game. Do not be so rigid in your plans that there is no room for serendipity. And, for goodness sakes, stop listening to the voices inside your head that claim you are not good enough. Just start.

As I posted this morning, I played a racquetball match against myself on Saturday. This morning, I had a rematch.

Again, I thought I would just share the text chain:

Me: Early lead for right hand. First game 11-7. It was closer than the score made it sound though.

Wife: I believe in you, left hand

Me: Holy smokes. Revenge of the left hand. 11-1. And it was up 9-0!

Wife: [Gif of Dwight yelling “Yes, yes, yes!"]

Me: And he pulls it out! Left hand in the third 11-9 to win the match. Boom!

Me: And now I’m sweating like crazy. Tough loss.

Me: 😅

Wife: Way to METABOLIZE

Me: That’s right babe!!

So, yeah, it was pretty epic.

I share my experience coming up with the intro music for my podcast, and the different iterations I went though.

The tale of an epic battle between the incumbent champion and the untested underdog. Good versus evil. Right versus wrong left.

Actually, the story is not nearly as exciting as I made it out to be. I went to the rec center again on Saturday and played racquetball by myself. Years ago, I played in college enough to get pretty good. But, like I said, that was years ago. I played a bit on Monday, and my right arm was so sore (I am right-handed) that I thought I would try using my left arm a bit on Wednesday. I discovered I was almost just as good with my left as I was with my right. Neither was very impressive.

While there on Saturday, I asked a couple college-aged kids waiting outside the next court if one wanted to join me while they waited for their friends. They replied that they were about to start doubles, but they did have a question about the rules for me. As one asked the question, the other started arguing with him, and after standing there for a couple minutes while they argued, I turned and went back into my court alone.

After warming up a bit, I did some drills and then decided to play something of a game to make me run around more. I thought I would just include my text chain with my wife to give you the raw emotion of the situation.

Me: My right hand just beat my left hand in racquetball 11-7. It was a pretty good game though.

Wife: Hahaha! How does it feel to be the best?

Me: Pretty sweet. Also, it was an epic comeback. Left hand was up 7-0, before right hand came back to win.

Wife: [Gif of Gru shouting, “That’s right!]

10 minutes later

Me: Wow, another close one. Right hand 12-10.

Wife: Is the left-hand going to just lay down and take it?

Me: Good question. It came back and was up 10-8, but choked on the serve and right hand came back to win.

Me: The match is over now. The court was reserved at noon, so with two games to zero, right hand wins.

So, yeah. Pretty intense.

There was a funny thing that happened while I was playing. I was in the end court, so there was no one around me, and I felt quite safe in my solitude. I began calling things out, like I might if I was really playing with someone. It started with simple things, such as, “Side out” or “Long!” on the serve. But after a bit, I got more into it. A few times, following a particularly nice serve, I exclaimed, “Whoa! Buried it!”

I found that I was complimenting the play of the other player. I knew that was the case, because one time I did not speak to the other player. Instead, it was a bit of trash talk: “Ha! Take that!” For the most part though, I was able to separate myself enough that I could give myself encouragement and compliments. That is not my typical self-talk.

When I was younger, one of my favorite Pixar shorts was “Geri’s game.” I could not wait until I became an old man and could go to the park and play chess against myself. I am not quite sure if my experience means that I am an old man, or that I did not have to become an old man in order to play against myself. Either way, it felt good to get some sincere compliments for my playing.

This game made me realize how much self-talk matters. Positive self-talk is a skill, and a crucial one to maintain good mental health. I want to work toward the day when I don’t have to compliment the other player to say nice things to myself.

Update: I had a rematch

Great inspiration on making small changes to set yourself apart: Sunday Firesides: The Slipstream of Comfort - The Art of Manliness

We often despair of finding success, and being noticed in a saturated field, feeling that we have to compete with everyone, and be many orders of magnitude greater. In reality, you just have to be a few degrees different to leave the masses behind.

This jumped out as being directly applicable to me as an iOS developer. It can feel like the App Store is overcrowded; that there is no room to distinguish my apps. But it really doesn’t require insane amounts of investment—just a steady commitment to make great work. Of course, that’s not a business plan, but it is a means of differentiation.

It’s also applicable more generally right now. This week I’ve been blogging more and have started a podcast. These are both skills that I want to develop more. It is easy to allow self-doubt to creep in and discourage me from pushing forward. “I’ll never be exceptional. I’ll never make a difference.”

The truth is—I don’t have to be exceptional, and I don’t have to make it big. I can make a difference to one person, even myself as I clarify my own thinking. In a world over-saturated with content vying for attention, a little authenticity goes a long way.

A trip to the local rec center can bring more real-life inspiration than watching the Olympic Games.

A couple days ago, I recorded a podcast episode about my experience at the rec center called At Your Own Pace. Yesterday, I took another walk around the rec center track, and wanted to share some additional thoughts.

People watching

I noticed more about the people around me this time. Not just the people on the track, but the people played pickleball and basketball down below. The people lifting weights. The people on the stairmasters. The people on the treadmills. As I discussed in my podcast, there is huge variety in the people at the rec center. The track is pretty small, so I saw a number of these people over and over as I walked around.

Treadmill guy

My walk lasted 45 minutes, and early on, I noticed a guy running on a treadmill. I didn’t pay much attention to him at the time, but as I got close to the end of my walk I realized that he was still there. Still running. He was not particularly athletic. He was younger than I, around the same height, and a bit heavier. And he just kept running. I started to pay more attention as I made my rounds. His shirt was completely soaked with sweat—wet shoulders, wet chest, wet back. Just before I ended my walk, I saw him get off. I walked over to him, apologized for interrupting his solitude, and told him that he inspired me more than anyone else there. He was taken aback, and responded, “Me?” I confirmed and wished him a good day.

I shared that story because of how much it affected me. I felt some anxiety as I considered approaching him, but I felt strongly that he deserved to know what an impact he had on me. After talking to him, I felt a surge of positive emotion, and hope that he did as well. It is something I would like to feel more often.

Olympics

Growing up, the Olympics were a huge deal in my family. I remember gathering around the TV and watching all sorts of events together. Whichever events and whichever athletes my dad cheered for became critically important to my young mind. I loved the experience of watching people who had trained so diligently perform otherworldly feats that I could only dream of. I was touched by the camaraderie I saw between people of all nationalities. The Olympics inspired me.

As I have grown up, I see more nuance with the Olympics. They still inspire me. But now I recognize more of what’s involved. As I watch TV specials about the athletes’ childhoods, I realize how much they and their families had to sacrifice in the service of my entertainment. Obviously there is much more at play than the few seconds of entertainment that is provided. But the utter absorption into their sports required by the athletes feels like a higher and higher cost.

Relatable inspiration

As I walked around the rec center track, I realized that I was feeling inspiration similar to what I get watching the Olympics. But there was a huge difference. I was inspired by the people at the rec center, not to dream of accomplishing the impossible, but to make small and meaningful changes. I saw myself in the treadmill guy, with just a little bit of chunk hanging out over his shorts. I saw him doing something to improve his health and his life. I saw middle-aged women on the exercise bike who were never going to be Olympic athletes, but they are going to be healthier today than they were yesterday. I saw old men with canes out on the track getting passed by everyone and continuing to walk around.

I saw greatness in the rec center that day. And I wanted to be better myself.

I share my thoughts from time spent at the rec center, and how those can be applied to life more generally.

Links:

Being the worst

One of the fastest ways to grow is to put ourselves in situations where we are inexperienced or even incompetent.

I took the opportunity the other day to join in an open Pickleball night at the local rec center. This was my second time ever playing in my life, and while I had a great time, I commented to a friend the next day,

You can only be the worst at something for so long, and then you have to leave 😉

This feeling was most pronounced in my final game. I was paired with a fairly experienced player, against two other experienced players. I was clearly the weak link. My shots were inconsistent and my partner was not able to carry us. We ended up losing 2-11.

After leaving, a few lessons stuck out to me. First, recognizing that I was an inferior player made me extremely humble. I was ready and eager to accept any instruction, hint, or encouragement from other players. While I am a fairly competitive person, it is hard to get too worked up when I know from the beginning that I am likely to lose. So being the worst changed my attitude and approach.

You often hear the virtues of a “beginner’s mind” extolled as a way to stay open to new ideas and to be able to learn from anywhere. Having this mindset allows you to be more pliable and teachable as you recognize how much you stand to learn. When you are not only a beginner, but the only beginner amongst non-beginners, this experience is heightened considerably.

Finally, being the worst removes you from the dangerous grip of imposter syndrome. This often creeps in when you start to fear that others view you as more capable than you feel, and worry that you will be discovered. When you are clearly the worst, that fear is washed away. No one thinks you are better than you are, although the reality is that you are almost certainly better than you think you are.

If you have the psychic resilience, regularly putting yourself in situations where you are the worst is a fantastic way to learn and grow. You will have empathy for those who are worse than you in other aspects of your life. Just make sure that in your quest to gain compassion for others, you preserve a healthy dose of compassion for yourself as well. You are going to need it.

I have come to hate this phrase as a greeting. 😡

As I wrote about recently, I have been struggling lately with mental health challenges. This has made me more aware than ever of how often people ask a deep and probing personal question as a greeting with no thought or consideration behind it. It is an easy question to throw out, and at times an impossible one to answer.

Here are some examples of these deeply intimate and personal questions masquerading as greetings:

• How are you?
• How’s it going?
• How have you been?
• How you doing?

Even if the person you are greeting is not suffering in some way, although nearly everyone is, asking a personal question as a greeting is uncouth. Our socially-acceptable response is a lie, followed by an equally thoughtless question.

How’s it going?

Fine. How are you?

Good.

Good.

If someone ever stops and truly answers the greeting question, you are taken aback. Even more so if the answer is not shallow and positive.

One major problem I have with these greetings is the implied level of intimacy. Who are you to ask me how I’m doing? I don’t care about you enough to give you those details! I don’t want to tell you what my life is like right now. And I sure as heckfire don’t want to have to lie to you and tell you that I’m doing well, or even fine. I am not fine! And it’s none of your business!

In my more calm moments, I have come up with a solution that I find elegant and simple. I merely sidestep the question.

How are you?

Hey, it’s good to see you!

This has many benefits. First off, I don’t have to confront the dilemma of divulging too many personal details or telling an outright lie. Secondly, I am more direct and honest. In nearly all cases, I really am glad to see the person, I just don’t want to have an intimate conversation. Finally, it’s an extremely low-effort sifting process. Those who actually care how I’m doing will appreciate my sincere words, and will return to the question they consciously intended to ask. Those who don’t care won’t even notice. To them, I exchanged one socially-acceptable greeting for another.

Eventually, this question won’t bother me so much. When that day comes, I pray that I will remember how much it did bother me so I can be compassionate to others who are suffering. Until then, I will continue my sidestep enough that it will come with practiced ease.

My first microcast episode is mostly an introduction to me and where I’m at right now. I explore a bit of my mental health journey, and the kinds of things I’m working on right now in order to heal.

Links:

Coming out 💮 (tl;dr Hi, I’m Ben, and I have OCD. 👋)

tl;dr Hi, I’m Ben, and I have OCD. 👋

I am not gay. I am happily married to the woman of my dreams, and we have six wonderful children. My coming out is of an entirely different nature. Hopefully no one who is gay is offended at my co-opting the phrase “coming out”—it felt the most appropriate for the emotional struggle I have found in coming to terms with this huge part of my life and my identity.

There is no one label that defines who I am. But I have realized that having OCD has defined a great deal of my life to this point. It feels like a big step to be able to finally acknowledge that, both to myself and to others. So, today I am announcing that I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, along with generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder.

Having vs. being

When I first starting writing this post, I wrote that I am OCD, but as I kept writing, it felt better to change it to say I have OCD. That minor change in language represents a major change in my mindset, and one that I hope to preserve, or at least to come back to again and again. This issue (or any other!) does not define me, but it is something that I carry and has shaped my experience.

Some background

I grew up a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and that continues to be an integral part of my life. Like in many Christian faiths, we were taught about faith and works. “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26). Unfortunately, our culture, both in my church and in my family, was one of absolutes as well as black and white thinking. Every choice was righteous or evil. Every decision brought me closer to Satan or the Savior. There was no room for gray.

In this world, I thrived. I embraced black and white and one of my favorite scriptures was Revelation 3:16, “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” By no means was I perfect. But I sure tried. And when I failed, I made sure that I knew it loud and clear. In many ways, I was not alone in ensuring this. When I brought a report card home with six A’s, and an A-, I knew the reception would be, “What’s wrong? Why did you get an A-?” That became the voice inside my head.

Unwittingly, I pushed myself harder and harder, and further and further into a dark place. Part of the problem was that not only was my behavior not seen and understood as unhealthy, but it was rewarded and reinforced. Years passed and I met an amazing woman, and somehow she agreed to marry me, and we started a family. I worked hard to be a good husband and father. More accurately put, I berated myself for every shortcoming when I was not a perfect husband or father.

My journey

Last April, I had the good fortune to attend the Peers Conference in Austin, Texas. On the first day, we participated in breakouts that were like group therapy sessions. I shared some of my thoughts and feelings about work, and the dissatisfaction I was feeling, and the facilitator suggested that my concerns had nothing to do with work. He suggested that I find a counselor, particularly one who shared my faith and understood that part of my life. I was taken aback—counseling was not something I had ever considered before.

Over the summer, I began to see a chiropractor for the first time. I then experienced my first panic attack, and was referred to a fantastic therapist by my chiropractor. After the first visit, I told my wife, “It’s like speaking with a skilled friend.” My therapist saw through me and could identify so many of my smokescreens and crutches. As we ended the first session, she said (I’m paraphrasing a bit because I don’t remember her exact words), “You do not have perfectionistic tendencies as you suggested. You are a violent perfectionist and it is damaging you and your relationships.”

Part of the challenge for me was in accepting that my OCD is different than what I expected. I don’t have to turn the lights off twenty times. I don’t have to wash my hands endlessly (unless, of course, I get something on them!). One of my favorite TV shows is Monk. I identified with so much of what he feels and says. But at the same time, I found my own situation to be so different than his that I felt sure that this is not what I have.

As an aside, my wife and I were in the middle of rewatching all eight seasons of Monk when I experienced my first panic attack and started seeking help, and we decided that I had better take a break until I feel less suggestible. 😂

As I met with a psychiatrist and started medication, I experienced the onset of panic disorder. We experimented with medication, and I am on my fourth try and finally starting to feel some relief. As my therapist has helped me see, part of the challenge with OCD is that it works…until it doesn’t. I have developed compulsions and coping mechanisms that are so ingrained that I don’t even recognize them as such yet. But the journey has begun.

My current state

I would like to think that I hit rock bottom a couple weeks ago. After a day with three panic attacks, and some unsafe thoughts, I admitted myself to a crisis center for a night to make sure that I was stable and safe. Since that point, I have continued to improve. I am surrounded by loving and caring people who have given me unconditional support.

Some days, all that support makes it worse. I told a support group this week that each new relationship feels like another chance to let someone down. But I have come to accept that.

The truth is that I will let people down. I am not enough. The beauty is that I don’t have to be. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is so much more important and impactful than the culture in which I grew up. I don’t have to be enough because I have a Savior who is enough. That teaching got lost for me somewhere along the way, and I still struggle to hold on to it. But I have hope.

Looking forward

Some of my fantastic support comes from people at work. My boss and HR leader suggested that I consider taking some time off to heal, which I have done. So I am on extended leave from work. I have stepped back from my volunteer church assignment. I am getting more counseling and starting to take steps toward healing.

I am a long way from better. But I finally realize and accept that. It took me a while to get to this point, but I am now fine telling anyone about my situation. It is no longer a badge of shame. And it is certainly not a failure.

I am Ben, and I have OCD.

And that’s ok.

P.S. I have tagged this post with an emoji: 💮. I plan to post occasionally about my state or my progress and will use this emoji to identify mental-health related posts. This should make it easy to find the ones that you might want to read (or skip!).

I really liked this note on Emojipedia, which is why I chose it:

The Apple artwork contains Japanese text on the inside that translates to mean “Well Done” or “You did very well”.

It might not be the perfect emoji for this purpose, but that is beautiful in its own way. I need to embrace a little imperfection in my life.

The phrase “I’m sorry” has so many potential meanings and applications that it is nearly incomprehensible.

My wife and I have worked on removing it from our conversation with each other in favor of more explicit phrases. There are two main substitutes we use instead:

• “I send you compassion”
• “I apologize”

One of the main reasons that drove us to make this change came from the compassionate style of “sorry” usage. Often, exchanges went something like this:

I’m sorry that happened.

It’s ok. It wasn’t your fault.

I wasn’t actually taking the blame for it.

Oh. Right.

Usually that second speaker was me. 😆

After this had happened enough times, I asked if we could try to make a change so I could more easily understand with clarity.

I have found that a side effect of using this increased precision of language is a greater feeling of intentionality. It can be all too easy when seeing someone suffering to blithely toss an “I’m sorry” their way. Consciously stopping to say the words has helped me feel more actual compassion. I also feel a heightened sense of accountability when I wronged someone and then realize it and deliberately apologize.

If this has resonated with you, I invite you to join me in a practice of greater compassion and accountability through increased precision of language. I hope you find as beneficial as I have.

A multitude of plagues beset us today, and one of the most pernicious is busyness. Somehow, we have allowed this to become a martyr’s badge of glory. We revel in how little time we have to ourselves as if this validates our importance, our inclusion into the elite. The few. The proud. The busy.

Symptoms

Three ramifications of this infatuation have forced their way into my consciousness lately:

1. Sacrificing the important on the altar of the urgent
2. Indulging in an addiction to meetings
3. Denying ourselves and others space for self-care

Sacrificial altars

When busyness infects us, we stop planning and stop thinking. We start reacting, and are constantly overwhelmed. This leads us to prioritizing based on pain, which will always lead us to pay more attention to immediate demands. Unconsciously, every time we do this, we are plucking our important work up and dumping it unceremoniously as a sacrifice to the urgent. The gods of busyness are never appeased, and we end up living our life fighting the fires we have lit on these insatiable altars.

Addiction indulgence

Meetings are the ultimate expression of busyness. Nothing says busy like a calendar full of meetings. We feel more and more important as we dash to and fro without pausing to think or prepare or work—we just congregate with other addicts and talk about working instead. Most meetings could have been a simple asynchronous digital conversation, but instead we crowd our calendar with evidence of our importance. Like so many other addictions, we reason to ourselves that all of these meetings are necessary—this is real work. We are having crucial discussions. And the cycle perpetuates.

Self-care denial

Tragically, one of the first casualties of this plague is the opportunity for self-care. Even contemplating considering time out for renewal feels heretical. We fill our time with “shoulds” and “have-tos” in order to maximize efficiency and continuously realign our paradigms with the highest priorities, and other empty nonsense phrases. Just as with our projects, we unconsciously budget for rework and recovery due to an urgent lack of time to slow down and take a careful approach now. Absent self-care, we become the doppelgänger of our battered calendar—an exhausted husk reminiscent of potential greatness.

Remedy

The rather obvious cure for the plague of busyness is to slow down. We must acclimatize ourselves to inefficiency, and embrace occasional boredom. There must be white space in our lives and in our minds. We must consciously step out of the urgent to consider the important.

One practical approach to facilitate this is to simply schedule time to think. Feign conformance by using the favorite weapon of the busy elite—the calendar—to thwart their designs. When regularly practiced, this thinking time will result in drastic changes to the way in which you spend your days.

There is little chance of exterminating a plague that so many are eager to experience. You cannot remain completely unsoiled as you trudge through the ubiquitous infestation of the workplace and world. But you can escape the clutches of comprehensive infection. Practice constant vigilance while granting yourself permission to take life at a slower pace. Success, while never certain, is imminently attainable.

I loved this article this morning: Sunday Firesides: Dependence to Independence - The Art of Manliness

Unfortunately, many people don’t outgrow this phase of infantile dependence. They still primarily try to get what they want by manipulating others, by having a “tantrum,” by metaphorically quivering their lip or pooping in their pants and then waiting for someone to notice. They wait for a solution to their problems to arrive from the outside.

Maturing means growing in your capability to meet your own needs, as you become progressively more skilled, competent, and emotionally intelligent. And it means becoming less needy in general. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants and to serve them oneself?”

I hope to improve this in my own life, and also to equip my children with these skills as they grow up.

Note: I started this post last week, and then ignored the news for a few days. I thought that I would need to table this post as being no longer relevant. Sadly, I found out today that it is even more relevant than before.

I heard in the news on the radio that the government shutdown has become the longest ever. It seems that everyone involved is happy to have it drag on as long as they are able to blame someone else for it. This behavior makes me sick and a bit worried about the future.

It hit me that this kind of incompetence has become almost ubiquitous. We see people in positions of authority who appear to be comfortable with sitting back and looking for others to blame for their failures instead of working to create solutions.

One of the problems is that we have come to equate experience, or time in position, with competence. We often promote the wrong people—someone who does well as an individual contributor gets promoted and immediately starts on the management track. These people then stay in management and begin to be considered as competent just because they have management experience.

It seems to me that a major cause, if not the root cause, of this failure is that we skew evaluations in favor of measures that are easy to quantify. Competence is hard to measure, but years of experience is easy, so we settle for that. In order to fix the issue of living with incompetence, we need to get better at evaluating intangible behaviors.

As cathartic as venting can be, I want to make sure that this is not just a gripe post for me. My biggest takeaway from my thinking about this is to focus on improving my evaluation skills. As a father, and as a manager, I want to find ways to mentor and help others grow in meaningful ways. I want to make sure that I never contribute to this culture of living with incompetence, but instead work to be part of the solution.

As a father of six, I feel qualified in saying that however many kids you have, that number is hard. Take one away, and life is so much easier.

We were at a friend’s house recently for games, and the topic of kids came up. They said they wanted to learn from us how to handle their four children. Their youngest is a year and a half now, and life feels overwhelming at times. They thought we would have some answers since we have been through the phase of having four children.

This is a situation we have encountered many times over the years. People seem to assume that because we have so many children and are still alive, we must be experts on how to parent perfectly. They seem incredulous when we sympathize with them, as if we are patronizing them with their paltry number of children. The truth is that we have found reality to be exactly what we tell them. No matter how many children you have, that number is hard to the point of being overwhelming. If even one child is removed from the situation, whether at a friend’s house, or staying with relatives, everything feels much easier to manage. Put another way, n number of children is hard; n-1 is easy.

Because we have so many children, this results in us saying things to each other like, “What do people do with only four children? This is so easy!” We try to be careful to only say this between ourselves, so that we don’t offend people who are barely getting by with their four children. In reality, we are not more any more accomplished than they—we are just conditioned to a harsher reality.

The human body, including our mind, has an amazing ability to adapt. We see this when we are working outside on a snowy day and find ourselves sweating despite freezing temperatures. Whatever we routinely do becomes our new normal.

We have to be so careful of comparing our situation to someone else’s. We have a societal obsession with comparison that almost always results in a sense of defeat and despair. We never live up to what we see in someone else, especially when we compare our unedited life with their highlight reel.

The most important lesson I have learned from these n-1 moments is that what is hard for me is always different from what is hard for someone else. I need to exercise compassion, both for other people as well as for myself.

I posted recently an experience that I had with my son:

At church today, my six-year-old handed me a piece of his toy and asked me to fix it. After trying for just a bit, I handed it back to him. He looked at it and asked, “Daddy, did you do your best?” Then he looked up at me intently and asked again, “Did you do your best?”

At the time, I laughed a bit at his intensity, but his two questions have continued to play in my mind. The second question communicates a level of challenge. It forces me to self evaluate and decide whether I really did give my best effort. It pushes me to keep going if I have the nagging suspicion that I could do more.

This question, by itself, is something of a double-edged sword. We all need motivation to keep going when our enthusiasm is flagging. In today’s world however, there never seems to be a lack of this kind of motivation. Everywhere we turn, there is something telling us to give 110% or to dig deep and push through. The problem comes when this starts to resonate with the voice of self-doubt and self-criticism that all of us have inside. If instead of hearing, “You should give your best effort,” we hear, “You are failing to give your best,” we are going to end up in a cycle of self-loathing and despair.

That is why his first question was so important. On the surface, it may seem that they were the same question. They were the same words after all. But the first question conveyed so much trust and hope. It wasn’t just, “Make sure you do your best!” It was also, “I’m sure that you did all you could. It’s ok to not complete the job all the way if you gave it all you had.” The part that was so meaningful to me as I reflected on the situation was that the trust was so automatic. His incredulity kicked in after a brief second, and he wanted to see if I just gave up or if I really did all I could. But his initial reaction felt like one of trust and acceptance.

As I’ve thought about this experience, I’ve wondered what life would be like if we all encountered these questions regularly. What if the first reaction to anything we did was acceptance and trust that we gave it our all, and a quiet assurance that our best is acceptable? That implied confidence makes it so much easier to face up to the second question with a straight back and square shoulders. We can look ourselves in the mirror, or look our questioner in the face, and be honest. If we have given less than our best effort, we are willing to re-engage and do more.

My hope is that I can provide more of those experiences to those around me, particularly those who are closest to me. My children need to feel an immediate acceptance and trust from me. They should know that they are enough. Just as they are. No changes needed. They should also know that I expect them to keep striving; to push themselves to do their absolute best. But all along the way, they are loved and accepted. And so am I.

Watching our new puppy sleep has helped me remember that sometimes people don’t need or want the help we feel compelled to offer.

Our puppy seems to alternate between two modes—unbridled energy or complete lethargy. My daughter has been doing a great job of taking him out regularly and making sure that he gets the exercise that he needs, as well as ample opportunity to do his business outside. I have often come upstairs and found him asleep on the hardwood floor.

At first, this would bother me somewhat. I would feel some amount of guilt that I was making the dog sleep on something so uncomfortable when I had better options available. However, we got him a bed and put it right in the spot where he usually rests. A wider version of the same picture shows how close he is to the bed, even as he is sleeping on the floor.

I realized that I can’t force him to be more comfortable, and don’t need to take that on. If I have provided the environment, I need to step back and allow him to make his own decision. Not only does he not need the help I want to give, he doesn’t even want it. He has made his choice and I need to respect that.

As a parent or a manager, it is so easy to fall into this same trap. We see someone doing something that seems suboptimal or tedious, and feel like we need to step in and fix the situation. Most of the time, what the person has chosen is either the way that they like to do it, or just a natural step in their required learning progression. We need to care about people enough to give them space to make their own decisions, and then allow them to learn and grow from the natural consequences of those decisions.

This ties into one of my 2019 goals—be curious. Instead of having expectations about how a situation should go, I want to be curious about how it actually is going. Often, there are lessons I need to learn which will come through observing and learning. Here’s to hoping I can let puppies sleep on hardwood floors more regularly.

I have traditionally been big on setting goals, and have enjoyed thinking of plans for the new year. This year, I want to try something totally different.

The past

In the past, I have often set goals in each of the different areas of responsibility in my life. I have preferred to set goals that had a clear achievement moment, and have favored goals that were easier to put in my task manager. This provided a nice sense of accomplishment when I completed a goal and checked off the list, and I felt like they motivated me to be and do better.

2018 has been a year of significant personal discovery for me. One major thing that I have learned is that I am exceedingly hard on myself, and tend to view the world in black and white. Combined with my natural goal-setting, this has had the unforeseen consequence of setting myself up for repeated and measurable failure. It is very easy to get down on myself when I can review my goals and clearly see which ones I have not yet completed. And sadly, I have realized that this is much more common and instinctual for me than celebrating my successes.

The present

So for 2019, I instead want to focus on general principles that I want to incorporate more fully in my life. A key aspect of my plan is to intentionally embrace vague and fuzzy goals. I hope this will have a couple effects. One is to help me get more comfortable with ambiguity and living in the grey. Not everything can or needs to be clearly defined and articulated, and I need to sensitize myself to this reality. Another effect I hope for is to remove the possibility of marking these complete, or of identifying them as unfulfilled. With each goal, there will be a spectrum, and I hope to nudge myself in the direction of identifying what I have done, and looking at where I can still go.

Essentially, I am trying to let go of expectations and approach myself with curiosity.

The goals

1. Be intentional

It is far too easy to allow life to happen to me, and I want to instead be more deliberate in my choices. Eventually, I want this to include deciding what I want to do on my phone before opening it, and then doing just that, and turning it off again. This could look like weekly and daily planning, although it might not. This might include task lists, but it also might not. This could look like deciding I am spend an evening playing Breath of the Wild, or it might not. This will hopefully mean sometimes setting everything of mine aside and just being present with my wife or with my kids.

2. Be present

When I feel overwhelmed, the natural reaction is to withdraw from the moment and numb, typically with something on my phone. This goal doesn’t mean that I will never be on my phone, but in keeping with my first goal, I want to decide that is want I am going to do, and then do it completely. I don’t expect to be perfect at this, especially at first, but I hope to explore ways in which to practice being present. One major area of focus is to be present with my own thoughts and feelings and not run away from them. I need to get to know myself better.

3. Be curious

So much of dissatisfaction is due to a mismatch in expectations and reality. Often, I cannot control reality, but I can start to adjust my expectations. My hope is to develop the skill of letting go of expectations entirely, and just observing what happens. When built upon the first two goals, my hope is that this will allow me to be in any moment and situation and just be. Be authentic. Be genuine. Be me. And by doing this, I will come to know more and more of who I truly am—not who I have projected that I should be.

The future

I have such an amazing support structure in my life. My wife is kind and understanding and supportive, and I couldn’t ask for more in a partner. We will continue to improve our relationship and communication and tackle all of life’s challenges together. My children love me intensely; almost too much at times, bordering on hero worship. I need to remember that they love me as I am right now, and stop worrying about letting them down. We are blessed to live close to loving extended family, and I have a great job. Our church community is a great support and opportunity for selfless service. I am allowing myself to get the help that I need.

All in all, the future is bright. I look forward to a more relaxed and enjoyable year. Stress will come, but as I am intentional, present, and curious, I will respond as best I can.

Training a young puppy and parenting children require the same base set of skills. Getting better at one means that you are immediately better at the other.

We first got a dog after child number three was born. Our oldest was about five, and it seemed like a good time to try this thing out. We went to our local humane society, and fell in love with Popcorn, a poodle-mini mix.

He seemed good with kids because he didn’t bite them as they pulled at him, and we thought we had a winner. We tried to learn a bit about having a dog, but never did any formal training. Owning a dog was a lifelong dream of mine, and I was thrilled. However, we quickly found out that he was a yippy dog, and we had a hard time taking him out around other people or dogs. We realized that what he really wanted was to live with someone who would sit in a comfy armchair and cuddle him for most of the day. So in the end, we ended up selling him to a grandma.

Fast forward eight years and three more children, and we started thinking of getting a dog again. Our oldest is a serious animal lover, and we thought that having something for which she could be responsible would be good for her as well as the fulfillment of a Christmas wish. My wife has a friend who had a litter of puppies and we decided to buy one. He is a mix between an Australian Shepherd and a Border Collie.

While it is a little overwhelming to become puppy owners, we wanted to take it seriously and learn all we could about training. From a few friends who are big into dogs, we were recommended to watch training videos from Zak George and I have really enjoyed them. The more I watched, the more I realized that this is the same philosophy that we have tried to follow in parenting our six children. The basic premise is to reward positive behavior and redirect undesired behavior. As Zak stresses in his videos, the biggest mistake that new puppy parents make is to lose patience and become frustrated. This has definitely been true with our children as well.

I found myself wishing that I would have invested more time into training our first dog in order to learn and master these skills. I started to regret all the moments I have lost patience with my children and thought that if I had worked harder, I wouldn’t have had those moments. This is a vicious thought cycle that leads only to self-loathing and self-recrimination. I realized that I have been trying to develop and practice exactly those skills as I have worked to become a better dad. It hit me that part of the reason I am prepared to dive into puppy training is precisely because I have been working on the skills needed. So there is nothing to regret.

The final piece that is hard for me is how much easier it is to be patient and forgiving with a puppy than a child. I have thought a lot about this, because it has been hurtful to my children at times when I lose patience with them and then treat the puppy with kindness and forgiveness. I think that it all comes down to expectations. I expect that the puppy is going to have behaviors that I dislike, and I am prepared to deal with them. As much as I say to myself that I expect my children to also have undesired behaviors, I still find myself disappointed when they do not immediately follow instructions or when they act out. It has been helpful for me, particularly with the thirteen-year-old, to remind myself in the moment, “She is a puppy too.”

In the end, the key for me is an increase in compassion. I need to practice compassion for the puppy who is learning and adapting to a new life and trying to understand the training we do with him. I need to practice compassion for the children who are trying to figure themselves out and how to live and learn in this crazy world. And I need to practice compassion for myself. I am trying my best, just like the puppy.

I don’t know anything about this site, but appreciated the perspective on self-care and having to make hard choices to get your life in order. This Is What ‘Self-Care’ REALLY Means, Because It’s Not All Salt Baths And Chocolate Cake - Thought Catalog

If you find yourself having to regularly indulge in consumer self-care, it’s because you are disconnected from actual self-care, which has very little to do with “treating yourself” and a whole lot do with parenting yourself and making choices for your long-term wellness.

Lessons in motivation from a six-year-old

I had an interesting experience with my son last night that reminded me of an important lesson.

The context

In our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we have no paid ministry but accept voluntary assignments to serve. As part of that, we all take turns cleaning our church building on a regular basis. Last night was our family’s turn.

The story

I took our oldest four kids to help me clean, while my wife put the younger two to bed. My six-year-old wanted to come help me vacuum the chapel room, but quickly announced how bored he was. I assigned him the job of moving the cord so that I didn’t trip on it and it didn’t get stuck. He continued to complain about the lameness of his task. Surprisingly, my sage advice about how service is not always what we want to do was not particularly helpful in changing his attitude. He announced, “I wanna vacuum!” I tried tell him that he needed to be taller to work the vacuum properly, but with no effect.

Finally, I decided to take a different tack. I realized that we were halfway done, and it had been about ten minutes. “Last time I had this job,” I told him, “I vacuumed by myself and it took a full hour. This time, because of your help, we are going way faster. We make a great team!” It was like a switch had been flipped. He jumped up and ran forward to grab the cord and make sure I had some slack.

We continued through the rest of the room like that, with him jumping at each opportunity to smooth the way. As we neared completion, he asked again, “Dad, could I try to vacuum?” I realized that he mattered more than a perfect vacuuming job.

The lesson

As we drove home, I thought about what I had seen. There was a moment when the task transformed for my son, and it was a moment that I recognized happening in my own life. As soon as he understood how his contribution made a meaningful difference, his boredom changed to excitement. His perspective changed so that instead of being given a menial task with no consequence, he was helping to dramatically increase our capacity to serve.

So often, whether at work or in other areas of life, we can feel that we are plodding along, marking time. We see a role that seems to be more exciting or more prominent, and also cry out, “I wanna vacuum!” As a leader at work, part of my most important job is to help my team see how their contribution makes a meaningful difference. As an individual contributor, we all have the responsibility to seek out that meaning, or sometimes even to create it. Rarely are we truly stuck doing something that doesn’t matter at all. But often we lament that this is the case, instead of searching for meaning and purpose ourselves.

My hope is that I, and we all, can remember this vacuuming lesson from a six-year-old. Our perspective makes all the difference.

As I return back to work after a nice vacation with family, I have to face questions about motivation and whether I am doing what I really love.

I submitted two personal apps over the break, and was reminded how much I love building and creating and delivering. At work, I am now a manager, and have the opportunity to help drive our mobile strategy, but it also means that I get to code and ship much less. I am finding this to be a drain on my soul. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I need to quit or change jobs or anything that drastic. But I need to make sure that I am managing my time effectively so that I can continue to do what I love, even in the context of what I need to do. There are (almost) always opportunities for carving out space to do what feeds your soul amidst the daily pressures of commitments you have made. I am not sure where I see myself a few years from now, but I know that I need to be intentional about it. Here’s to a productive December!

As I wrote about last month, I was able to speak at Cocoaheads on some work we have been doing with Xcode UI Testing. I am speaking again tonight at a different Cocoaheads group, which is exciting for me.

I had created a sample project for my presentation last month, but lost the project when my computer died and had to get the logic board replaced. I have recreated the sample project, and am happy to share it here:

UI Testing Example

And just in case you would like to download the slides for reference, here is a link to the PDF:

UI TDD Presentation (5 MB)

And you can view a recording of the presentation here:

Last week I had the opportunity to present at our local Cocoaheads meetup. At work, I have been focused on testing more as of late, and have been working to get our UI tests in much better shape.

I adapted an approach that our Test Engineering department has been taking with automated tests for our web apps. Essentially, we create a page object to represent each screen in the app, and include all of the elements, actions, and verifications needed for that screen. Then the actual UI tests just reference the page objects using the exposed API of actions and verifications. As an example, this has changed a call from this:

XCUIApplication().tables.children(matching: .cell).element(boundBy: 0).staticTexts["2018-07-03 20:45:14 +0000"].tap()

to this:

.tapOnCell(at: 0).

I have really enjoyed the productivity boost this has given us, along with the safety and security of good test coverage and wanted to share this approach with the community. Included below is a PDF of my presentation.

UI TDD Presentation (5 MB)

Update: The talk was recorded and can be viewed here: