Category: Blog

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s tip is to tune into your feelings without judging or trying to change them.

This is an interesting idea. I saw this in an essay from David Perell, with the idea that we want to experience negative feelings (anger, sadness, grief), but let them wash over us and move on. I have been trying to do this.

On the day I saw this tip, I was feeling upset, sad, angry, and more about some of the community issues I’ve seen recently. Some of these were from empathy for others, some were because I needed to deal with things.

However, I also needed to both move forward with my day, and work on how to work with the issues. I’m torn how I feel about the issues, about people, and what I should do. All of those things are valid. I am not trying to change the feelings, but just deal with them.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s tip is to notice what is going well, even when things are difficult.

Overall my life is amazing. The problems I have are just minor annoyances, really, and I try to remember that. I’m not always successful, but my wife helped me remember that recently.

We took a trip to see my daughter recently. This was a long weekend, leaving Thur, returning Monday. A snow storm was scheduled for Monday, so my wife was concerned and wanted us to change and come back Sunday. My daughter has been having a hard time and didn’t come home for Spring Break, so I wanted to see her, support her, and get some time.

All of this was on my mind when we boarded a plane for a 945a departure at 910, and more on my mind when the 12 of us that got on packed up and left at 915. There was some issue with the toilet being broken, so we needed a new plane.

Not the end of the world, and as I fly a lot, usually a couple times a year there’s some issue. In this case, we had to change gates and wait for a plane. It was scheduled to depart now around 1110. The plane didn’t arrive at the gate until about 1045, and after unloading and cleaning, we didn’t load until around 1130. We moved away from the gate, went to de-icing, and things were looking up. Slightly stressed as I had a 2 hour drive on the other end and wasn’t sure we’d get dinner with my girl, but that’s a minor issue.

We got to the runway and then turned around and returned to the gate. Some sort of brake issue. I like brakes on planes, so I took it in stride. A little stressed, but OK. At the gate, they announced this might take some time, so they let people get off. I’d been upgraded (again, my life is easy and amazing), so my wife drank mimosas while I read a bit. I tried to relax, but it was hard.

They announced it was a sensor, so they brought people back on. Then this wasn’t the sensor, so more mechanics, and people off the plane again. We stayed on again, more mimosas for me wife, but stress for me. At this point I was wondering if we’d leave. If we pushed to Friday and left Sunday, that would start to feel silly.

My wife reminded me that we were getting time together, whatever happened. We could find a way to go out another week or have my daughter come home. We didn’t have any big commitments, so I should relax.

I tried, and it was a good reminder that things were going well. I was in a first class seat. I could have a drink (I declined, citing my diet), and I was with my wife on a trip. I didn’t relax much, but I did at least see the good things.

We did manage to finally go, six hours late, and we arrived at the AirBNB at 1130. Too late for dinner, but we had a great weekend with my daughter, and we stayed through Monday. Everything worked out.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s tip is to listen to a piece of music without doing anything else.

I saw a list of acoustic guitar songs recently and on it was Babe I’m Gonna Leave You by Led Zeppelin. I listened to a lot of their music as a youth, and I’d forgotten about this song. So, I pulled it up on Spotify, closed my eyes, and just listened.

Like many of their songs, there is some beautiful, peaceful guitar part that moves into a rock opera. An interesting lick that quickly gets buried inside of a heavy bass and drum part. At times, the loud singing is at odds with the guitar.

An interesting piece.

Another one, which I actually heard while swimming recently, was Starship by Kanye West. I was moving along and found myself distracted by this tune, actually hearing the words. I know I’d heard the song before, but I don’t know I had listened to the words, but enjoyed that one, completely distracted from the effort of the monotonous laps.