The First Harvest

 The garden on the balcony is bountiful this year, too.

Cared for with dedication by my husband, the garden gave today its first crop.

Do You Know How To Properly Reply To A Question?!

More often than not, I’ve been noticing that we are losing basic skills regarding the interaction with humans. For example, we can no longer properly reply to a question.

I dare you to make a small analysis around you. Take a look at your friends, families, colleagues, managers or simply people on TV, how often do they reply to what was actually asked in the question?

To my mind, you’ll be surprised with the result. Fewer and fewer people seem to understand and cultivate the need for clarity, but also the respect towards the time of the interlocutor.

I know, of course, that not answering directly to a question is a strategy, especially applied in politics, but also in other domains where one is not allowed to give certain information and one must embellish keywords with platitudes.

It seems to me that we have assimilated instead all the things that we laughed about in an old video about a person not being able to ask a question, and we no longer can simply reply to a question. We just beat around the bush until or if somebody stops us.

My suggestions?

Firstly, to listen. To not fill in the blanks ourselves with the things we believe the interlocutor wants to ask us, and to stop and concentrate on their words.

Secondly, to realise that by answering directly to someone we actually show them respect, and we also value their time and ours.

Thirdly, if we do not know the answer to a question, we should admit as much. It’s hard, I know, to admit that one doesnot know. But nothing conveys the message that one is a responsible person than this, showing respect to the interlocutor and also not given them untrue information. 

Nobody deserves to be disinformed just to make it easier on ourselves to not admit not knowing or because we mistakenly fear that admitting one does not know something is a weakness.

Let's Reduce Notifications!

Like any working person, I have always had on my computer various applications and programs. Some are useful and support one in the delivery of projects. Others, are just mere occupants of the computer’s memory, but they have to be kept.

I do not know if you have noticed, but the modern human being is assisted more and more. All things surrounding are smart, but not the human being. As a simple example, I only know by heart my telephone number. We exercise our memory less and less, ignoring the damage that this may lead to. It’s enough to experience once your telephone running out of battery and you will know what I mean.

To work is stressful. It does not matter how many breaks one takes, if one works from home or from the office, if one travels for work or not, if one practices mindfulness or not, those that work will experience stress (sometimes, a lot of stress).

I had worked for a lot of time trying to make my way through notifications of various applications, until one day when I realized how much damaged they caused (especially to my focus). I was under a lot of stress when the Outlook notification that I had received an email popped up to the bottom right part of the screen. Moreover, I could see the name of the sender and a part of the message. Since, in this case, the sender was directly responsible for my stress, my blood pressure went through the roof. After a couple of hours, when I came to my senses, I realized I had to do something about this. The sender could not be stopped, but I could manage the situation in a different manner. So I killed this Outlook notification, and I only keept the notification that shows the yellow envelope on the Outlook icon notifying that a new email was received. Ever since, whenever I change jobs, I am sure to take care of this during my first days.

The same thing happens with Teams, too. The icon of the application not only changes color and shows the number of messages that one receives, but it also makes a sound. When one is part of a small team that does not send too many messages, this is manageable. But when one has, aside from the teams’ chat, other individual chats and channels, one must do something. I, for example, have cancelled all sound notifications from this app and kept only the visual one.

A lot of people do not understand or even try to realize the damage that notifications can bring to somebody’s focus. Fortunately, I do not own a smartphone and I am not also bothered by notifications coming from it, but I can truly understand why some people exposed to so many notifications from different devices start to experience burn out.

I strongly recommend you kill as many notifications as possible. Paraphrasing here the comedian Aziz Ansari, you will get your mind back and will be able to see through the fog.

I, the Spiritual One

Some people can’t possibly refrain from using quotes.

When one does not have anything to say, one starts with a quote. It does not matter to whom it belongs to or if it fits the context. What is indeed important is that people have thus the chance to understand that one is a fine intelectual, pondering on serious matters of the world.

The other day, I had such a great laugh because of an add to a shoe company. The text started with a Buddha quote, trying to connect it to certain pair of shoes.

Aside from its improperness, one could not but see that associating the shoes with Buddhism is weird, considering the simplicity it promotes, but also the fact that Buddhist monks usually are barefoot.

Ave, spirituality!