I’ve mentioned Overlap several times in this blog over the last five years, and I’ve always meant to do a more in-depth post about it, and it’s finally time to do that. The occasion of this post is that I attended my fifth Overlap retreat over Memorial Day weekend, and not only did I attend, […]
Category: journal
2016 Year in Review
After I pushed my limits physically and mentally last year, this year was a much quieter year – let’s call it the Year of Recovery. The big event for me personally in 2016 was that I had a traumatic bike crash on May 3rd. I was on a morning ride with some faster guys, and […]
Turning the page
I haven’t posted since the US election, as it didn’t feel right to engage with the abstract self-design questions I’ve been pondering without acknowledging the change in the world that I live in. Trump’s election was a shock to me. I saw the possibility (even 538’s models had him at a 1-in-3 chance on election […]
Camp Calm and meditation
I’ve been curious about meditation for years, but could never find a way to get started. It seemed both too easy (“I just sit there?”) and too intimidating (“empty my mind? become one with the universe?”). Earlier this year, my therapist recommended meditation to help address a challenge I was facing. I tried the Headspace […]
Being generous
Following up on my post on practicing gratitude, another practice I’ve been working on is being generous, both to others and to myself. Like with gratitude, part of the reason I want to work on this practice is to change how I see the world. When we are confronted with somebody who is arguing with […]
Practicing gratitude
Continuing along the line of this self-improvement post and inspired by reading Brene Brown’s books, I’ve been thinking a lot about the practice of gratitude recently. Brown points out that gratitude is not an attitude, but a behavior that we have to practice on a regular basis. Gratitude is the act of taking the time […]
Reflecting on the Talia Jane brouhaha
I’m summarizing my comments from various social media threads on Talia Jane’s letter to the Yelp CEO and the responses like this one, and reposting them here for later findability. I have complicated feelings about this letter, given that I have been that ranting employee – not doing it publicly (even back when my blog […]
2015 Year in Review
After 2013 was the Year of Yes and 2014 was the Year of More, the theme of 2015 was Pushing the Limits. 2015 was about a combination of great physical exertion but also deep introspection, and I’m in a pretty happy spot as I enter 2016. Sports: Let’s start with the most obvious focus of […]
Open Letter to MIT President Reif
Yesterday, I received an email from MIT crowing about MIT’s global entrepreneurial impact. The email from MIT President Reif included this paragraph: “Our community’s passion for doing, making, designing and building is alive and growing. As we do our part by continuing to foster our students’ natural creativity and energy, it is inspiring to see […]
Pros and cons of thinking systemically
One of the challenges I have in trying to figure out how to effect change (as discussed in my last post) is that I can’t figure out where to start. And part of the reason for that is that I tend to have a systemic top-level way of thinking about situations. So I see these […]
