Posts Tagged ‘behaviour’

Balance, recycling, and the circles in life.

May 10, 2013 Tags: behaviour, family, friends, life's like that, memories, relationships
Category: Just Thinking No Comments

Recycle

May 10, 2013 – Beginnings, middles, and ends.

Sometimes they are orderly, and sometimes they aren’t.

Sometimes we read stories in books.

Sometimes we listen to stories.

Sometimes we live stories.

Sometimes we make stories up.

I used to read stories much more than I do now. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because I have become busier. Maybe it’s because I just don’t make time for leisure as much these days. Or maybe it’s just because I really need to go and get proper glasses.

My Mom loved to read. She sent me books, and when she visited she …

17-52-2013: On Closer Inspection…

April 28, 2013 Tags: behaviour, P52, photography, postaweek, riding
Category: 52 Weeks 2013 3 Comments

April 28, 2013 – Have you ever noticed how we often don’t see the things right in front of us? We are so busy looking at the magnitude of everything around us that we miss the tiny details sometimes. Like the absolutely minute seed pods on a bed of moss on the side of a big maple tree. You can’t miss the tree, but I bet you wouldn’t even think to look for the tiny little seed pod, no more than a couple of mm high, buried amongst the mossy green fur covering the side of the tree. Do you …

Repost: The Best Definition of Success Is the One You Never Use

April 19, 2013 Tags: behaviour, happiness, life's like that
Category: Just Thinking No Comments

Happiness seems so elusive to some people. Have you ever met that person who never seems to be happy about anything they have, they always want more and seem to think more will make them happy? More money, more belongings, more time, more experiences…. They always seem to be looking outward rather than inwards. The following is an article that showed up in my LinkedIn newsfeed a while back and struck a note. Even though things could be a bit more balanced in my life, even though some things could be a bit more stable to be more comfortable, even …

Repost: The Mental Shift That Can Change Everything…

April 4, 2013 Tags: behaviour, critical thinking
Category: Just Thinking No Comments

An interesting post that came up in my LinkedIn account the other day. Funny thing is, this is such a simple approach, it’s the same thing I was taught at UBC, and which I still use in my teaching – PBL: Problem Based Learning. Just ask questions. Make the learner explore the answers and figure out what they need to know, and how they need to acquire what it is they need to get to that point. It’s not rocket science, any idiot can do it, they just need to pause, step back, and ask simple questions of themselves. It’s …

Think Bike, Think Biker

April 1, 2013 Tags: behaviour, motorcycle, riding, video
Category: Just Thinking, Worth Watching No Comments

April 1, 2013 – Yesterday Kirk and I had to do some various chores so the new bike didn’t get as much riding as I wanted. But maybe that’s OK considering the drivers we encountered in our short outing. We only went as far as Horseshoe Bay on the old highway. It’s close and easy for us, but I familiarized myself with both my scooter and my first motorcycle on those curves and on the varying speed zones. So it seemed a good place to start to break in the new motor and scrub in the fresh rubber on the …

Re-Post: So Many Hands to Hold in the Classroom

January 17, 2013 Tags: behaviour, critical thinking
Category: Just Thinking No Comments

A good post from the Chronicle of Higher Education and something I’ve found to be true over the past 18 years of teaching Distance Education courses at a University level. I want them to tell me what they think, not what they think I want them to think. Many of them complain bitterly about the fact.

________

September 17, 2012

So Many Hands to Hold in the Classroom

By Lynda C. Lambert

Over the 17 years I’ve taught writing at the college level, I used to occasionally have a student who was afraid to choose a topic for an essay,

…

Priorities

November 16, 2012 Tags: behaviour, critical thinking, happiness, values
Category: Just Thinking No Comments

Something that I’ve seen floating around on Facebook lately and is worth hanging onto.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He …

Tali Sharot: The optimism bias

May 14, 2012 Tags: balance, behaviour, critical thinking, happiness, video
Category: Just Thinking, Worth Watching No Comments

Are we born to be optimistic, rather than realistic? Tali Sharot shares new research that suggests our brains are wired to look on the bright side — and how that can be both dangerous and beneficial.

…

(127/366) Fluid Grace

May 6, 2012 Tags: 366, balance, behaviour, photography, postaday
Category: Photo a Day - 2012 3 Comments

May 6, 2012 - We had family in town, and with the Vancouver Aquarium just five minutes away, we thought we’d pop down and renew our annual membership. The money goes to a wonderful research and rescue program, and it’s a fabulous way to spend a few hours.

When someone says turtle, you probably think of a slow, awkward, graceless creature.

I think of this beautiful creature, soaring through the fluid of the sea. I’ve had the pleasure of encountering them in the wild when snorkeling, and I was mesmerized by the dance they perform as they drift effortlessly through …

(112/366) Life is a Carnival

April 21, 2012 Tags: 366, balance, behaviour, health, photography, postaday, vancouver
Category: Photo a Day - 2012 11 Comments

April 21, 2012 – On the way home from a play this evening, we saw some unusual lights near Park Royal Mall inn the Village, when we detoured to see what it was, we found a tiny little temporary amusement park set up in the parking lot.

Perception is a funny thing. Sort of like plans, they just don’t always go the way you want just because you think you can think them into going the way you want. I had planned on a dialogue about the most amazing Coldplay concert last night and the totally cool RF controlled LED …

The Worst Advice Ever

April 13, 2012 Tags: balance, behaviour, happiness, video
Category: Just Thinking, Worth Watching No Comments

Another wonderful blog post by Brené Brown, PhD. Brene is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She studies vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame.

___________

“You can rest when you’re done.”

This is the single worst piece of advice that I’ve ever received. I’m not even sure where or when I heard it or if it’s the result of marinating in the “Get ‘er done!” culture that we live in today.

Either way, I’m pretty sure “resting when we’re done” is lethal.

Why? Because we are NEVER done. There is always more to do, …

(88/366) Thank You!

March 28, 2012 Tags: 366, balance, behaviour, photography, postaday
Category: Photo a Day - 2012 17 Comments

March 28, 2012 – I was thinking about this as I came into my office this morning. Do we say “Thank you” enough, and to the right people? Do we reserve our thanks for the obvious recipients and disregard the less than obvious ones? And do we just throw a “Thank you” out there as a social obligation, or do we really stop and think about it, and mean it?

I rode my scooter in to work today and parked in my secret spot, under the smiling face of the parking lot attendant who lets me park there, and who …

79/366 You screwed up, ergo it must be my fault!

March 19, 2012 Tags: balance, behaviour, critical thinking, happiness, postaday, relationships
Category: Just Thinking, Photo a Day - 2012 7 Comments

March 19, 2012 – Why is it that when people screw up they are more than likely to attempt to shift the blame? But the blame game never really works. People who blame others for their mistakes lose status, learn less, and perform worse relative to mistake makers who take responsibility.

Do any of these sound familiar?

I missed the deadline, but it’s because you weren’t clear. (So it’s my fault that you forgot to look at the calendar or couldn’t keep two dates straight? Why don’t you just say that you were busy and forgot, that’s probably more likely.)

…

On Being Wrong

March 13, 2012 Tags: balance, behaviour, happiness
Category: Just Thinking 1 Comment

Who likes to be wrong? Most people don’t, of course. But if you are never wrong, well….how boring and dull. It’s how you deal with being wrong that’s important. Do you hide it? Or do you face it and use the experience to grow? Do you find a way to make yourself right by cherry picking information to suit your point of view, and ignore the opposition? Or do you weight everything equally and gracefully accept responsibility for being incorrect.

This was an interesting talk to watch and think about as I crawl into bed. Worth viewing if for nothing …

Want to be happy? Stop trying to be perfect.

March 1, 2012 Tags: balance, behaviour, happiness, postaday, relationships
Category: Just Thinking 3 Comments

I was in Staples on the weekend and, as I was looking for a laser printer toner cartridge, I stopped in front of an entire display of new items from Martha Stewart, a new line of office supplies for the discerning woman. I think Martha Stewart has done a better job than anyone else at marketing misery. What I mean is this: She has managed to convince masses of women that in order to achieve some strange degree of happiness, everything has to be just perfect, and perfect to Martha is usually over the top. And because she’s so over …

A ‘Happy’ Secret

February 18, 2012 Tags: balance, behaviour, critical thinking, happiness, humour, postaday, video
Category: Just Thinking, Worth Watching No Comments

I LOVE this video!!! I try to visit TED for some inspiration and mind expansion every so often, and today I stumbled on this talk. It was funny to have come across it now, since I had been doing some journaling on something akin to the subject and hadn’t had the time to post it. After reading this I went back and found that train of thought in its unfinished format and finally finished it below.

How do you handle the past? If it is to your liking, most people reminisce, talk about it. But if it didn’t go the …

Empathy

February 2, 2012 Tags: balance, behaviour, postaday, relationships, video
Category: Just Thinking, Worth Watching No Comments

I stumbled across this video early yesterday and thought it was wonderful. The message that we could be that much more balanced if we made the effort to see other people’s perspectives and stop trying to frame them within a context of our own expectations, stop cherry picking the bits we like and ignoring the bits we don’t. This world is not black and white, it is so many shades of grey, and if we could step away from our own preconceived notions and have the openness to experience new perspectives we might understand each other, and therefore ourselves, just …

Convergence & Divergence

January 23, 2012 Tags: balance, behaviour, life's like that, postaday, relationships
Category: Just Thinking Comments Off

The odds of running into each other in a sea of people seemed minimal, but it happened. You seemed oblivious to the situation. Did you really fail to recognize that this happened months ago? Or were you just embarrassed because of where, when, and in front of who we accidentally crossed paths? Did you feel betrayed? I didn’t want to hurt you, I just had to get away from you, because you have become a negative factor in my life.

It doesn’t matter how we got here. Sometimes lives converge unexpectedly, and then, just as surprisingly, they diverge. And usually …

Day 320 – Nested Measures

November 16, 2011 Tags: 365, behaviour, relationships
Category: Photo a Day - 2011 5 Comments

Nothing special, just a set of measuring spoons. But I was thinking about all the things we measure.

This week has been interesting. It started out with a professional writing course Monday, a project management class yesterday, and I was a participant in a professional leadership class today. It was quite interesting, fascinating actually. I learned a lot about myself and what I value in others. Turns out that my style is relationship based, and that I value trustworthiness as an important quality in myself and in other people, above all else.

The five personality traits that define a leader …

Slowing Down and Catching Up

October 22, 2011 Tags: balance, behaviour, happiness, relationships
Category: Just Thinking 1 Comment

Sometimes it’s nice to have a break, even if it’s unplanned. Normally it’s go-go-go on weekends, but today was a lazy day, mostly because Kirk’s back is causing him painful grief. So it became an opportunity to catch up on a backlog of photos going back as far as the trip to Mexico in June. But even without a backlog of photos, sometime’s it’s a good thing to just stop for a moment and think about where you are going and why. We rush along and do the things we think we need to do to reach some goal that …

Random views from a Canadian living & loving on the West Coast. Riding, boating, or just sitting still, always with a camera nearby. The lens focuses much more than just light.

The Philosophical Fish