Voice of the DBA

Tag: life

  • Daily Coping 17 Jun 2021

    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 give a complement today to someone outside your family.

    I don’t complement people enough. I should do it more, and this is a good reminder for me to stop and think about what things can I say to people more often. I am getting better with my wife, so that’s something.

    When I saw this, I was on holiday, and I decided to start there. I was with two other couples, and I made it a point to comment when someone had a nice output, or they’d tanned more, or something else. The idea was to focus on enjoying someone else’s positives, which helped me feel more positive.

  • Daily Coping 16 Jun 2021

    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 look for something to be thankful for where you least expect it.

    Finding joy, pleasure, growth, learning, and gratefulness in life is important. Looking for it is something that matters for me. I’ve often been a “stop and smell the roses” person, even when I’m busy, to enjoy parts of life. I particularly like this when traveling.

    For me, I got to go on holiday recently. I was lucky and blessed in life. I appreciate that I was able to do this, and I was vaccinated for safety. I hadn’t expected to be in this spot until July or August.

    While I was there, I sat on a beach. It was small (Key West), lots of shells, crowded (relatively) and hot. A little breeze, but not much, and no real amenities for drinks, etc.

    All in all not a great beach experience, but I put that aside. I was grateful that I was able to be on holiday, with my wife and friends, and visit a new place I’d never been to.

    It would have been easy to be annoyed or upset. Easy to complain. A little more challenging to appreciate the experience.

  • Daily Coping 15 Jun 2021

    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 take a light-hearted approach to today. See the funny side.

    One of the annoying things that’s happened lately for me is with an author. This individual submitted a few articles, and I gave them feedback for the articles. I got my feedback removed and the original article submitted. I repeated this, thinking they had edited some items (some time passed), and also changed a title. The author repeated.

    I deleted the articles. The author resubmitted them. This repeated a few times, including me deleting the user account. This continues to this day, albeit with more effort by the author (new accounts), since we’ve added tooling. The author does not respond to emails.

    This was annoying and a time sink for me. After a few weeks, I vented on Twitter one day, mostly curious to see if I was acting poorly. The comments I got let me know this wasn’t the case, but this also helped me appreciate this in a more humorous manner. I could laugh at some of the issues and see this as some sort of game.

    It’s the best I can do, but at least I can see a funny side here. I have no idea what the author’s goal is and don’t care at this point. I’m chuckling at my desk most days.

  • Daily Coping 14 Jun 2021

    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 eat good food that makes you happy.

    Diet is important, and what makes you happy isn’t always what’s good for your body. Certainly moderation matters, but I’m also not someone that wants to deny myself food constantly and miss out on life.

    For me, pizza is one of those things that I really enjoy. I don’t get it often, or make it, but I did the other day. After a good workout, I swung by a local place for a couple slices to unwind and enjoy a little life.