Earlier this year I started writing on a frequent basis in an attempt to quiet my mind organize all of the thoughts rolling around upstairs and their meanings.
Not only to find meaning, but to find a practical sense of direction and purpose in life.
This is essentially how I decided to deal with the proverbial mid-life extensional crisis that most, if not all of us will go through at some point.
I added writing and meditation and meaningful conversations with family, friends, and colleagues along with diet, moving my body daily, and above all: rest, to my daily regimen.
Just allowing myself to get the sleep I needed and to wake up each morning without an alarm proved to be one of the best things I could do for my wellbeing.
I seem to remember through my whole life I’ve always struggled how much rest I needed and the quantity changing from day to day.
Not getting enough rest all stems from working too much after already working too much, burning the candle at both ends and not having a “work/life balance” as if there were actually such a thing.
I chose the honor of hard work early on. I shouldn’t look back at that decision with scorn and regret, but I did.
I’m pretty sure I was at Grandma’s house the first time I drank coffee. I might have been five or six years old at the time. There were a few of us sitting around the table in the kitchen. So many good memories were made in that place. The last thing I remember someone saying before taking my first sip was something about my growth being stunted.
Everyone quietly and patiently waited my reaction. I must not have disappointed anyone because I remember the smiling faces which I can only now assume was amusement. I must have no doubt made the bitter-tasting facial expression then followed by the wide-eyed expression of “THAT’S REALLY GOOD!!” when the full bouquet of flavours had presented itself and ran its course. When I was a kid, this was the treat a grandma’s house: coffee or tea and coffee bulla (Pulla or Finnish Cardamom Sweet Bread).
I began drinking coffee regularly in high-school at maybe 14 or 15 years old; I didn’t have a driver’s licence yet. My group of friends tended to congregate at one coffee shop or another: Country Style, Robins Doughnuts, or Tim Hortons. All any of us needed to do was show up at some point after dinner and there would be someone to have a coffee, a smoke, and a conversation with. We’d spend hours there. Multiple coffees, overflowing ash trays, and stimulating conversations that made us not want to sleep.
The piece of wisdom that I want to share with you today is “Do
the best you can with what you have”.
I can’t remember how many times I’ve had to improvise to accommodate
how I do things in order to complete a project.
It’s usually not having the right tool for the job, or maybe
using a material that is sub par.
Whatever situation you’re in that is less than ideal, try to
make do with you what you have available.
Use your experience, creativity, and resourcefulness to work
the problem.
For instance, having to cut a straight line without a table saw
or a round hole without a radius jig.
Maybe the person who you normally use for a particular task
that you’re relying on isn’t available and they’ve sent you ‘the new guy’.
The onus is on you to complete the task so sometimes you have
to jump in to pick up the slack or keep a closer eye on the quality of work and
direct as need be.
Or maybe you forgot that the gym isn’t open on the statutory
holiday and you need to get your workout in. Time to improvise and use physics
to your advantage: stuff can get really heavy with the proper leverage.
Whatever it is that you have to deal with, get creative and
work the problem.
Every time you’re in a situation that requires this type of
thinking and action, the experience you
gain will allow you to be better prepared for next time. Rest assured that it will happen again.
Thanks for reading (or listening) and have a great day!
Have you ever been stressed out or overwhelmed with everything you have going on in your life?
I remember my parents passing down this age-old piece of wisdom a long time ago when I was dealing with some work-related stress.
Just take it one day at a time.
Focus on today’s issues, problems, activities, or whatever else it is you’re going through and leave tomorrow’s thoughts for tomorrow.
There is no sense in worrying about tomorrow, when you have enough to deal with today already.
Solid advice.
But it’s difficult to not think about tomorrow sometimes.
I find that changing the scenery, grabbing a coffee, shutting off the phone, seems to help collect my thoughts and to let go of the worry of the future and the regrets of the past to be more in the present.
Sometimes all we need is a quiet 5 minutes to recenter ourselves.
Some people are often confused which amenities are typically provided at self-service fast food or cafeteria type restaurants, and for good reason. I’ll explain the differences and why it matters that we should clean up after ourselves.
Self-service and full-service restaurants are fundamentally different.
When we go out to eat at a full-service sit-down type of restaurant, we are greeted by a person, and then served by a person who takes our order, brings our food, checks on us throughout the meal, takes away our plates when we are finished eating, and finalizes the transaction.
After we leave our table, the restaurant bussing staff and/or servers go to work cleaning and resetting the table for the next guests.
Personal service stops at the counter.
When we visit a self-serve fast food or cafeteria style restaurant,
we are served at a counter much like we would be at a full-service retail store
and then we sit down afterwards with our food. The onus is on us to get our
condiments, napkins, straw, drink refills, etc.
If all of the tasks typically done by the sever at full-service restaurant are our responsibility at a self-service restaurant. So why is it that we would assume that it’s not our responsibility to clean up after ourselves when we’re done?
People are messy and kinda gross.
Humans are more bacteria by number of cells than we are
actually human. Just about everything we come in contact with will trade bacteria
and other germs with us. Just the act of
breathing is sufficient.
The trays that are provided to us to carry our food to the table do a pretty decent job of containing all of the little bits of food and saucy mess that we create while eating, but sometimes the slop ends up on the table, chairs, and floor.
For this reason, soap and water is always used to keep the
dining room as sanitary as can be. When I did this for Taco Bell way back in
the day, we used a disinfectant cleaner.
The person who is tasked with cleaning the dining room is
expected to clean up the left-over messes of the patrons if need be, but this
just adds to their cleaning function; it’s not actually their job to clean up
after you. Their job is to sanitize the
dining room to limit the spread of bacteria.
Sometimes there is a person to return the tray to.
We as humans love symmetry. This also extends to how we do
things, including starting and finishing actions and events and even how we
travel and perform all of the other little tasks we do.
Because our meal is presented to us at a counter by a person, if there is no person to return the tray back to, this can lead to a grey area as to what to do with the packaging when we’re finished.
This the underlying impulse for symmetry, the need to end
our actions similar to how we started, much like how we take the same route in
and out of a building, including using the same door if there more than one
door.
Even if we know that there is a garbage can and a spot to put the tray, this can be overridden by whatever else we’re thinking about and become deprioritized, but if we know that there is a person associated with a location and an action of what we’re supposed to do, this is programmed into us on a subconscious level.
This particular issue was solved quite eloquently at my
local mall by introducing a “tray station” to return the trays and garbage back
to where a person is clearly visible doing their job of sorting the organic,
recycling and refuse and cleaning the trays.
The first time a friend and I went there to try out a new restaurant,
we didn’t know what to do with our garbage and trays when we didn’t see any garbage
cans until someone pointed it out to us. Thanks stranger!
Conclusions
Ever since the self-service food industry was created this
has always been an issue. Most of us are mindful enough to clean up after ourselves,
some of us mean well by wanting to create the need for ‘a job’ for a full-time dining
room attendant, but their action usually just ends up creating more work for
the person that’s already tasked to cleaning. Some of us need a gentle reminder
to be sanitary in general, and some of us are lost in our own little worlds and
forget about basics.
Cleaning up after ourselves is ultimately to show respect
for the business we frequent and for the other patrons that come after us. It’s the decent thing to do.
I hope you enjoyed reading!
Let me know what you think about this in the comments!
The definition of borrowing is to take something from someone else, usually with their permission, to use for your own purpose with the intention of returning it.
I initially wrote this article as a part of another piece I am currently writing and thought that this subject needed to be it’s own article. There is some powerful stuff that I’ve learned in the past when it comes to borrowing things from people and the two main things are trust and expectations.
It’s an unwritten rule for using pretty much anything that we borrow, especially when at no cost to us, that we return whatever it is we borrowed in the same condition and to where we found it or where it’s supposed to go so the that the next person who wants to use it can find it.
Return the magazine to the pile, return
the tool to the right drawer of the tool box.
Ask any tradesperson to borrow a tool out of their toolbox and then let me know what their response was. It’s usually either a hard no, a question to the whereabouts of your own tools, or a reluctant yes and a warning of the repercussion of what happens if you don’t return said tool in the same condition and to place you found it.
Their tools are costly and are necessary to the practice of their craft, and respect for that is required. Knowing this, guarding their tools with such fervor makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?
In a setting where you have many people who need to use a limited number of tools, being organized is of great importance. If you’ve taken any technical classes in a traditional school setting like I have, you know already that this idea is pounded into our heads.
This means all tools must be returned before the next class arrives and if necessary, the entire class will scour the shop until the tool is found. When the tool is found, the person who didn’t put the tool back usually owns up to it and learns their lesson in an unforgivingly public manner. I’ve been there.
I vividly remember my shop teacher stressing the importance of returning the item you borrowed in the exact same condition, or better, to the exact location from which it came.
His example was an old lawnmower than
he borrowed from friend that was on vacation.
He picked it up from his friend’s garage, tuned it up because the mower
hadn’t been run yet that year, repaired and painted a rust spot on the deck,
used it to cut his lawn, cleaned it, and then returned it to the exact same
spot in his friends garage.
His friend upon returning home from vacation didn’t recognize his own mower because it was cleaned up and painted, and even thought my teacher had purchased a new mower for him!
This story is over the top, I know, but it really got his point across: if you borrow something and return it in the same or better condition than expected, then you’ll almost always earn the trust of that person so that you might be might be able to borrow something again when you really need it.
Not abusing that trust is another topic all together.
I’d love to hear what you think about this subject in the comments!
Have a good day!
-Karsy
P.S. If you like reading what I’m writing, please share this article or even mention it conversation with your friends, family or anyone else who you think might enjoy reading my work. If you want to subscribe to my work and have it delivered right to your email inbox FOR FREE, you can do that here. Thanks again for reading!
