Tag: life

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 your attention on the good things you take for granted.

My life is amazing, and I’ve said it before, I appreciate it more and more. I have nothing really to complain about. My body hurts at times. Things don’t always go my way, but in the grand scheme of life, my issues are tiny.

There are things I sometimes take for granted, so I’m listing a few today.

My hands – this was a tip recently, but an injury to my wrist reminded me of how much I use them and appreciate them. I am being a bit more careful lately in protecting them.

My body – I’ve gotten used to going to yoga multiple times a week and weight lifting, among other things. In the last year, I’ve had a few instances where I struggled to do those things. I realize that I sometimes take my health and body for granted, and I should be grateful for what I can do.

My job – I’ve seen more than a few people struggle with bad jobs, bad bosses, and financial insecurity because of their employment. I have an amazing company, boss, and I try to remember that.

My wife – I appreciate her, I love her, and I value her company and counsel. At the same time, I can take our relationship for granted and not think about how lucky I am and how well our marriage has been for over 20 years. I am trying to stop and remind myself often that I am lucky. I know many people that don’t have that or haven’t found it yet.

There’s more, but that’s a good list for today.

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 choose to smile today at something you encounter.

I tend to smile (and wave) at people. And horses. I’ll wave to the horses, which my wife thinks is silly.

I smile at things I see, though, and often it’s something a kid does. Kids are amazing humans, and they view the world in fascinating ways.

For me, I was smiling recently at SQL Bits, where I saw people hugging and shaking hands. It’s something I’ve missed at events, the closeness of friends. Most people asked others if it was OK, and for the most part it was.

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 appreciate your hands and all the things they enable you to do.

My hands are critical. I learned to appreciate them quite a bit recently while trying to present at SQL Bits. I had injured my wrist and was wearing a brace to limit activity. When I went on stage and tried to use a mouse, I struggled because of the brace. I realized just how impactful an injury to my hands can be.

I use my hands to type for work, play guitar, coach kids, cook, and more. When I’ve been injured, I find my life impacted substantially.

I am grateful that my hands work well and have served me well across many years.

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.