James' World 2

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Kristen’s 12-year relationship with her best friend Heather was put to the test during the pandemic. (Both women’s names have been changed at Kristen’s request to protect their privacy.) Their experiences during the past few years couldn’t have felt more different: Kristen, a single, 35-year-old behavioral researcher in San Francisco, was unbearably lonely during the lockdown. Her best friend, Heather, also 35, married and living in Los Angeles, gave birth to her first child. Kristen expected Heather’s priorities to shift as she adjusted to being a new mom, but Kristen wasn’t prepared for how upsetting it would feel to be shuffled to an outer ring of her best friend’s life precisely when she needed Heather most.

They tried to keep in touch, agreeing to hop on a phone call every other Sunday at 8 am. But Heather was a no-show week after week. “She just would get really busy and overwhelmed and kind of just forget about me,” Kristen says. With every phone date Heather blew off, Kristen’s resentment grew. “It just got so painful that I was like, ‘This is not working,’” she says.

As we juggle the demands of this ongoing pandemic, friendships have shifted in all sorts of unexpected ways. Many people now seem to have less stamina for socializing, says Kat Vellos, author of We Should Get Together, a book about cultivating friendships in adulthood. Vellos believes folks became used to having smaller social circles, and some realized they prefer keeping it that way. As a result, these people might be more choosy about the friendships they do invest time in. That’s mostly a good thing, but it can be painful for the people who are hurt that they are no longer a priority.

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How to learn what you deserve and be a better business owner when you came from nothing.

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Save your brain.

Our body programming is perfect and we should be thankful for it. As our body shows signs when it doesn’t t get what it needs.

We all are aware of habits we do wrong, but still, we do it because of procrastination and don’t work to improve it. Habit formation takes time, read Atomic Habits and learn how you can work on good habits one step at a time.

In our day we do some mindless habits that we need to be aware of and we need to change them because it is affecting our health.

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Photo by Anna Tarazevich via pexel

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You’ve probably seen it: a gorgeous, gorgeous girl posing with a luminous cocktail, or standing outside at golden hour, or draping herself beside some nearby cherry blossom, the dappled light landing on her face just so. Meanwhile, crouched down beside her, head almost scraping the pavement, is a boyfriend wielding her iPhone camera. Snap, snap, snap, he takes photos from different angles, at her instruction. He doesn’t know where the photos will end up, but he doesn’t care. He is offline, she is online. They are the perfect couple. 

While you may have seen some variation of the phrase “Very offline bf/chronically online gf” before, the offline/online couple is gender-neutral. Crucially also, the offline partner didn’t use to be online before “going off social media for mental health reasons”. No, the offline partner is just naturally offline, in the way some people are ginger or polyamorous. They still think TikTok is just for dance trends and look at you blankly when you make a joke using a meme format off Twitter. Then, when you explain the meme format, awkwardly thumbing through examples on your screen, they reply with something like, “Ah”. You speak two different languages. 

However, like tops and bottoms and doms and subs, the offline/online couple has always worked in symbiosis. The online partner can show the offline one viral videos or explain why their boss keeps saying “vibe shift” apropos of nothing. Meanwhile, the offline partner can remind the online one that there’s a world out there, with trees and birds and delicious, un-photographed meals to be enjoyed and then forgotten. They are each other’s bridge between both types of life, with neither judging the other. 

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Image: Kim Cowie

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You’re lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to cars go by. You have no idea how long you have been like this, but it must be a few hours, at least. Go to sleep, you tell yourself. Just close your eyes and: Go. To. Sleep. You shut your eyes tight, force your body to relax, and wait for the blissful slumber to come. But, nothing happens. More minutes pass and… nothing happens. It’s 3 a.m., and you’re still staring at the ceiling.

We have all been in this situation. Try as we might, it is nearly impossible to consciously will yourself to sleep. Sleep comes to those who let their mind wander and focus on anything other than sleep itself. Count sheep, control your breathing, listen to an audiobook, or whatever — so long as it turns your mind from wanting to sleep.

This is a common and familiar example of the “law of reversed effort.”

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In grade school, I was taught that learning came from studious labor, the discipline of memorization, and retention of facts.

I carried this same mindset with me into college and later into my first job as a junior programmer. 

It wasn’t until years later when I became an entrepreneur that I came across a quote by author Josh Waitzkin that completely changed my perspective. “The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity,” he wrote. “Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.”

Since that epiphanous moment, I’ve established several practices to help me improve my ability to learn that I’d like to share with you.

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Step Out

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Some of those missteps were probably due to spectacular miscalculations. Maybe you thought the market for that product was bigger, or that potential romantic partner saner. Others may be caused by clear personal weakness. You know you should quit your safe job to run your startup full time but just can’t face your mom. But how many weren’t due to any decision at all really? You just drifted one mindless potato chip or time-wasting Instagram scroll at a time into a life that doesn’t match your aspirations? 

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