Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – Grateful for Technology

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facebook, Flipboard, Google Maps, Grateful, iPhone, Laptop, Netflix, technology

Today, I want to express my gratitude for my computer, my iPhone, my airpods, and all the wonderful apps and applications I use every day. It’s amazing when you think about all the things you can do today using one or two devices that before required so many devices and space-taking items.

On my phone I have access to a lot of movies: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Curiosity Stream, and Disney+. I have access to a lot of music: Spotify. I have access to a lot of books: Scribd and Amazon Kindle. I have a clock, stopwatch, calculator, weatherman, and a map to go anywhere I want.

I can go to school and learn whatever topic I want: Wikipedia, Coursera, edX, Udemy, and so many more. I can ask my phone a question, and most of the time I get a good answer or an idea where I can look.

Obviously, this list could go on and on. The point I’m making is that for a guy who grew up without these things, today is a good day. I find it so gratifying that I don’t have to spend a lot of money or go a lot of places to do all the things I need to. I can sit in a rocker, 10 feet from the kitchen, restroom, and bed and get all the things I need to get done during the day, short of going to the gym and hitting the weights.

One last thing I didn’t mention before is social media. Yeah, social media has a dark side, but it is so nice to make friends across the globe. I have friends in the UK, Australia, all over the U.S., and it’s just terrific. Even if I only connect with them for a few minutes here and there, they are still friends to me.

Most of you know that my wife is in Arizona and I am in Michigan. We are doing great. She is pursuing her career in Special Ed, while I pursue all I am pursuing, while helping my folks. Is it perfect? No, but it is so much easier than in times past. I can text her and get a response. She can call me on Facetime so I can see her and hear her. It is terrific.

I’m grateful to be alive during this terrific time. We are so blessed to have access to all that we do. Well, I’ll end here. I wish all of you a terrific week!

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Watch What you Let In

Tags

consciousness, facebook, Negativity, News, social media, spirituality, Stress

“Negativity sells.” – Stephen A. Smith

I follow Stephen King on Facebook and he mentioned today that he was leaving Facebook because there was so much false and misleading information on the platform. I agree, but Facebook has one primary purpose for me–to stay connected with friends and family.

When I first started using Facebook, I’d accept friendship requests from anyone. Then I began to learn my lesson rather quickly. Fake profiles, crazy crap showing up on my newsfeed, and people pestering me for money on Facebook messenger. Lesson learned. In early 2017 I went through my entire list of “friends” on Facebook and developed my own simple rule: If I haven’t worked with someone, met them in person, went to school with them, served in the military with them, or met them through a trusted source, like WordPress, friendship is rejected. You know what? My newsfeed is now filled with wholesome, funny, and relevant content that I enjoy.

The false and misleading information doesn’t stop at Facebook. It is all over the news. Another lesson: Stop reading the news. I scan the news, because I like to stay up on world events and know what’s going on, but I do not open up any news articles unless it’s from my hometown newspaper or it covers something I am interested in, like STEM topics, productivity, psychology, writing, or movie/music/book reviews. If I read something outside of my interest areas, it is purely for entertainment. You know what? My stress levels decreased immeasurably. Just because I refuse to get sucked into articles that are designed to piss me off, stress me out, or make me worry about something.

I guess what I’m trying to get across is the importance of maintaining your sanity by paying attention to what you let in to your consciousness. If you enjoy reading articles filled with lies, exaggerations, and are so slanted one way or another to fire you up, go for it. I choose not to. I’d rather fill my mind with the next scientific discovery on the horizon, look at terrific photos of landscapes, animals, or outer space. I’d rather learn something than read about all the infighting that has reduced our political dialogue to two monkeys throwing shit at each other at the zoo.

Read fulfilling literature, poetry, a well-written non-fiction or fiction book. Watch a good movie. Listen to healing music (classical, sound scapes, and instrumentals are my favorite). These are the things I use to build myself up.

The next time you feel yourself getting stressed out, check what you are letting into your life. I think you’ll be surprised at the stress you have that is self-inflicted.

I hope all of you have a great weekend!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Announcement

Tags

About Section, Connect, facebook, Instagram, Join Me, social media, TikTok, twitter

Hey all,

I wanted to tell you that I updated my About section with all of my social media account links. Feel free to reach out if you’d like to connect. I got the idea from another blog I’ve been interacting with and thought it was a great idea. I’ve got some things I’m planning for 2021 that are pretty exciting. I want to start a YouTube channel. I’m also delving into Tik Tok. I’m a huge fan of Gary V and he suggested Tik Tok, so I said, “Why not?” It’s quite entertaining.

Well, that’s all I wanted to say folks. Have a great Sunday!

Until next time…

Dave

 

Overwhelming…

Tags

facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Productivity, reality, social media, time-management, twitter, virtual

via Daily Prompt: Overwhelming

I enjoy these daily prompts, particularly on those days when I either have too many ideas or too few ideas about what I would like to write about. I write every day and will either post here, or work on one of the many book ideas I have. My primary project will deal with technical recruiting and provides me a way to give back to the profession that gave so much to me. The word overwhelming could be applied to so many things today. Social media is overwhelming, particularly if you are a member of more than one of these sites. I enjoy Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Facebook. When these media sites are at their peak during the day, it is amazing how many things are being discussed, posted, and reposted.

Like email, I limit myself to a few visits to these sites each day, this blog included. On days that I am absolutely bored and unmotivated, I’ll gravitate from one board to another, clicking like, retweet, etc. During these days the time flies because we become so mesmerized by the blur of activity, funny videos, pictures of our friends, and so on.

As a way to provide some value to my readers, I’ll get to my point. Social media is “virtual” life. It is not real. Sure it’s fun to have someone give you a like for a posting, just like it is a real treat to get likes on my postings here, but frankly, the people you consider your friends in these mediums barely scratch the surface of what true friendship and family are.

These sites are fun. They are interesting and allow us to connect with people that in the past we would have had no access to. I treat the people in my networks as pen pals. Pen pals were something I learned about in elementary school. Our teacher got us to sign up and we each had a friend from another country that we would write to and so forth. After a few years I lost track of my pen pal, but today I have thousands of them.

I’m in America and have friends in Indonesia, the Phillippines, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, India, and many other places. It is so interesting to see what other people find funny, sad, or even how they celebrate. You can see it all on social media. Now, it may not be an exact representation of what you would consider traditional, but it is so heartwarming to see a friend put up pictures of a newborn, or pictures of a far-away place they’ve visited.

Spend time with your family. Spend real time with your family away from the social media, the mobile phones, and really listen to them. Control the amount of time you spend on these sites. They will suck the life out of you and minimize your ability to do anything creatively, pursue your dreams, or accomplish your goals.

I treat them just like I do email. I review my email 4 times a day. I visit my email mid-morning after my morning ritual, I visit again after lunch, evening after dinner, and during my evening ritual. When I’m going through my email I’ll also check my sites, sometimes only for a few seconds if no one has responded to my postings, I have no new friend invites, and so on.

Social media is here to stay. It is fun, it is interesting, and it is definitely entertaining. It is not a substitute for life or real relationships with your friends, family, and loved ones. Now go hug your wife, your kids, your mother and father. That is where our time needs to be placed.

Until next time…