I used to think of pasta and rice as staples—that is, the basic food of a meal to put everything else around. Over the years I’ve decreased the pasta, rice, and other staples in favor of vegetables. Now that I see restaurants’ goals less to healthily nourish you and more to entertain your mouth and eyes, I see so-called staples as ways to increase their profit at the expense of[…] Keep reading →

Throwing things away so they’ll end up in landfills pollutes. No two ways about it. Not using something in the first place doesn’t pollute. Recycling feels like it’s roughly in the middle. If you only have two comparisons and no objective scale, how else can you compare something in the middle but roughly in the middle. Since I wanted to feel better about myself, I probably thought of recycling as[…] Keep reading →

I eat a lot of mixed nuts and peanut butter. As far as I know, they’re all healthy to someone without allergies. I eat a lot of them. I found a site that shows pictures of two hundred calories of various foods. I like and eat a lot of broccoli. Here’s two hundred calories of broccoli: Looks like an amount that would go a long way to filling me up.[…] Keep reading →

Two quotes misunderstand and undervalue people, I contend: “You should get in touch with your masculine side.” “You should get in touch with your feminine side.” People say the first to women mainly, sometimes men, to imply they should learn to act more like mainstream views of men, like learning to fix things around the house, not sweating small things, and enjoying things like pizza and beer. People say the[…] Keep reading →

“Just do what I say.” “Do it now.” “John, do X. Sally, do Y. I’ll do Z. Then we’ll met and put everything together.” Wouldn’t leadership be easy if we could tell everyone what to do and they’d do it? It never seems to work like that, though, does it? Most people understand that problems come up. They don’t always realize that command-and-control leadership often discourages people from working with[…] Keep reading →

“You don’t understand me!” “I wish I’d never been born!” Who hasn’t yelled something like that at their parents? I’m sure I did. I argued with my parents like all kids. I’ve grown since then and don’t argue like that any more. I still disagree, I just try more to seek understanding, not to confront so adversarially. I was just in a line and overheard two workers argue. They weren’t[…] Keep reading →

In yesterday’s session on starting habits, when I described how easy it was finally to floss my teeth daily after I started my burpees. An attendee asked me to clarify. After the session ended, others asked me to clarify more and the following diagrams emerged. Starting burpees This chart schematically shows my burpee habit performance. Flossing before burpees This chart schematically shows my flossing habit before I started doing burpees.[…] Keep reading →

Two-and-a-half weeks ago I decided to avoid buying any food with packaging for a week. I’m on eighteen days and counting. I didn’t try to come up with a perfect rule because trying for perfection kept making me delay trying. I settled on the rule that I wouldn’t buy food that had any packaging or get food at a restaurant. I’d figure out on the fly what to do in[…] Keep reading →

Do you remember how your favorite relationships started? Business, personal, or whatever, you felt mutual attraction to work together, play together, or whatever. Something about the other person made you want to interact with them. Do you remember how your relationships ended? Sometimes you or they change and you lose interest. No problem. Often you want to keep the relationship yet it ends unhappily. Many people blame differences you couldn’t[…] Keep reading →