Tag: coping

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 say hello to a neighbor and get to know them better.

Tough to say hello to neighbors where I am. The nearest one is over 1/4 mile away, and they have long driveways.

I do, however, sometimes see me neighbors walking along the road. I slowed down and stopped to chat with one recently. I wasn’t pressed for time, so I took a few minutes to say hi, ask how life was going, and caught up with someone I hadn’t talked to in over a year.

It was a good use of my time.

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 try out something new to get out of your comfort zone.

I like my comfort zone. I’m very slow to try new things in much of my life. I like new places, and I’ll try new foods, but I often retreat into something that’s comfortable for me. I tried to change this when I put together this tip.

In this case, my change was to do nothing. Or little. Usually, I try to get things done and push through the hours. I go from work to a second job coaching to the gym to fixing things on the weekend. If there are extra chores, I’ll tackle them.

I typically do this even when I’m a bit run down. In fact, during the second week of the year, I was starting to feel like I’d caught cold. I took some meds, tried to sleep a bit more, but kept to my routine and working through the week. I felt OK, but constantly a bit run down. I didn’t do my best work, nor did I really get as much done as I’d like. I even did an hour bike ride (indoors), but I was slow and not sure I got as much benefit out of that work as I would have during 20 minutes.

Finally the next Monday I decided to stop fighting and working at 2/3 speed. I took a meeting in bed and then called it a day, sleeping for most of the time.

The next day I felt almost normal, and decided to take things slow for another day. Working, but not as much as usual and allowing myself the chance to keep healing.

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 plan something fun and invite others.

It might not seem that way, but I am not that social most of the time. So planning things and bringing along others is usually reserved f0r family.

My wife and I did this over the holidays, and I’m sharing here because I think it’s a good idea for others to think about.

Just after Thanksgiving, a friend noted that they couldn’t get their adult son to come home for the holidays from Texas, so they ended up renting an AirBnB in Miami, buying a ticket for the adult, and bringing their current family down to Miami for the holiday weekend. An expensive weekend, but one that brought them together.

My wife and I decided to do that with our family. Two of our three adult kids have partners, and we don’t see them as often as we’d like. We looked around and decided we could afford to rent a house in Las Vegas and fly the kids and their partners in for a week after Christmas.

We had a great time, sharing time together, playing games, seeing a few shows, some hiking, but mostly just getting time with our extended family in a way that’s been difficult.

I don’t know that we’d do it every year, but it was fun to invite others and do it this year.

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 focus on what’s good on a tough day.

Most of my days are pretty good, but there are some difficult days. As I tell my kids, every job is a job some days, no matter how much you love it.

Last week I had a hard day. I wasn’t feeling well, fighting a cold (or maybe breakthrough COVID, but I don’t think so). I needed to get a few things done, I wanted to work out, and I needed rest.

I decided to focus on the fact that I felt well enough to do something, and cut back where I could. I postponed some work, did a very light yoga workout in my bedroom, and took care of the one critical thing that needed to be done.

By the end of the day, I felt better. I shortened the day and went to bed early, but I did enough to appreciate that it turned out to be a good one.