Your Soul Food for Friday July 23, 2021: Wisdom from Our Elders, Communing with Nature, Ableism and the Olympics, Sleep Hygiene and Returning to the Office
This week:
Wisdom of Our Elders:
“7%” Written by a 90 year old…
Communing with Nature:
In Vesper Flights, Naturalist Helen Macdonald’s Imagination Takes Wing
Ableism Strikes Again!:
This deaf-blind Paralympian was told to navigate Tokyo alone. So she quit Team USA.
Sleep Hygiene Remains a Huge Problem for So Many:
Here’s What the Longest-Living People in the World Always Eat (and Drink) Before Bed For Restful Sleep
Returning to the Office Hybrid or Otherwise? Things to consider as you take care of your most important asset, your PEOPLE
Tips from the National Conflict Resource Center for Leaders in Organizations as We Foster our Teams
Your employees aren’t underperforming. They’re dealing with post-pandemic trauma
You’re still dealing with burnout the wrong way. Here are 3 tactics that will actually help
Hybrid Work Could Make You Really, Really Hate Wednesdays
Iceland ran the world’s largest trial of a shorter work week. The results…
+ Care to Support Soul Food Friday?
“7%” Written by a 90 year old…
Written by Regina Brett, 90 years old, of the Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio .
“To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most requested column I’ve ever written.”
My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:
1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short – enjoy it.
4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Stay true to yourself.
7 Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye, but don’t worry, God never blinks.
16.. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful. Clutter weighs you down in many ways.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19.. It’s never too late to be happy. But it’s all up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21 Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ‘In five years, will this matter?’
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33 Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative of dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.
41 Envy is a waste of time. Accept what you already have, not what you need
42. The best is yet to come…
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.”
Its estimated 93% won’t forward this. If you are one of the 7% who will, forward this with the title ‘7%’.
I’m in the 7%. Friends are the family that we choose.
Communing with Nature
And we make fun of having bird brains!
Nature is Magical…
In Vesper Flights, Naturalist Helen Macdonald’s Imagination Takes Wing:
From observing a songbird migration atop the Empire State Building to marveling at the alien-like quality of European swifts, Macdonald says her new collection is like a Wunderkammer — a cabinet of wonders.
On why she describes swifts as the closest things to aliens on Earth–
“Well, they’re a bit like angels, too. I’m all over swifts. They’re just magical. So they’re incredibly aerial birds.
They very rarely land. European swifts, once the youngsters leave the nest, they don’t touch down at all for maybe two or three years. They live in the air as a fish would live in the ocean.
And because they’re so inaccessible to, you know, you can’t really see them up close, I was always astounded by them.
And I have an essay about this phenomenon called ‘A Vesper Flight,’ and it’s something that science has discovered quite recently.
One of the things I try and do in this book, you know, we so often think that science subtracts beauty from the world, but actually I think it just shows us more and more how astonishing everything is.
“So what these swifts do, they’ve discovered, is every morning and every evening the birds will climb up higher and higher into the sky and they’ll reach these impossible heights, thousands and thousands of feet up, and they reach the apex of these flights at nautical twilight.
And it turns out that one of the reasons they might be doing this is to find out exactly where they are. So they use the stars. They use polarization patterns in the sky. They can look out across the horizon and they can see oncoming weather systems and they can feel the wind from those clouds coming toward them. And then they decide what they’re going to do next, where they’re going to go. And they do that communally.
And this image of swifts communally deciding where they are and what they are going to do next is a really important theme for me in the sense that it seems that they’re a kind of fable of community.
Now we are all, you know, with the pandemic, with what’s happening, it’s a year where we haven’t been looking out to see our futures. And I don’t know, the swifts just seem like a really important symbol for me about how we can do that better.”
In ‘Vesper Flights,’ Naturalist Helen Macdonald’s Imagination Takes Wing | Here & Now (wbur.org)
Ableism Strikes Again!
This deaf-blind Paralympian was told to navigate Tokyo alone.
So she quit Team USA.
A gold medalist in Rio, Becca Meyers didn’t want to be left without her personal care assistant again.
Swimmer Becca Meyers is skipping Tokyo Paralympics because of covid rules – The Washington Post
Sleep Hygiene Remains a Huge Problem for So Many:
Here’s What the Longest-Living People in the World Always Eat (and Drink) Before Bed For Restful Sleep
I’m feeling more relaxed already.
What to Eat For Longevity, a Guide to Blue Zone Sleep | Well+Good (wellandgood.com)
Returning to the Office Hybrid or Otherwise? Things to consider as you take care of your most important asset, your PEOPLE
Returning to the Office: Effective Communication Strategies
Tips from the National Conflict Resource Center for Leaders in Organizations as We Foster our Teams
Returning to the Office: Effective Communication Strategies – YouTube
Your employees aren’t underperforming. They’re dealing with post-pandemic trauma
For many employees, the pandemic was worse than any scary movie they could imagine and, by the American Psychological Association’s definition, traumatic. In layman’s terms, trauma is an emotional response to terrible, shocking, and/or life-changing events. Many of the direct effects of the pandemic, such as economic loss, prolonged social isolation or uncertainty, or death of a loved one all add to an employee’s psychological distress and could fall within this category.
Underperforming workers may have pandemic-related trauma. (fastcompany.com)
You’re still dealing with burnout the wrong way. Here are 3 tactics that will actually help
As companies grapple with the lingering effects of the pandemic and try to make a way forward, work from home has emerged as a go-to strategy to minimizing burnout within organizations. While increasing workplace flexibilities is crucial to battling burnout in your organization, there are three vital elements often left out of the discussion. To create a workplace ready to tackle burnout, consider these three steps.
Tips to deal with burnout that actually work (fastcompany.com)
A Stanford Professor’s Warning: Hybrid Work Could Make You Really, Really Hate Wednesdays
79 percent of employees want to work at home at least one day a week. Don’t let them choose which.
A Stanford Professor’s Warning: Hybrid Work Could Make You Really, Really Hate Wednesdays | Inc.com
Iceland ran the world’s largest trial of a shorter work week. The results will (not) shock you.
Why aren’t we doing this already?
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Love,
Neville
“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”
Greek Proverb
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Happy Soul Food Friday! 