Vacation as Reset Button plus 30 Days of TED

I think I have bookmarked this amazing article about the importance of setting up a proper space that will compel you to do the work that you are meaning to do.

I can't find this article because I have too many unorganized bookmarks and such stored temporarily for later reading and proper adding into my digital library. Except I never make time to revisit these things later.

I have two weeks staycation coming up and part of me wants to use that time as a great reset button where I take the space and time to make my space and time more conducive to spending time in my space.

But I'm not going to tackle this challenge on then. My resolve is not to make work when I'm supposed to be at rest. I'm not allowed to start any projects during my vacation. It will be a time to break my regular habits so after I my break I can slowly rebuild my days and in time, myself. I will read books. I will play games. I will let my mind wander.

Within the last week, I've stumbled upon two outlines how to establish good habits through 30 day challenges: this TED video by Matt Cutts and this much better post IMHO by Scott Young. I'm trying to start my first 30 day challenge with an easy win. I'm resolving to watch at least 2 TED Talks a day so eventually, I will have seen them all.

Now I've read conflicting information whether announcing your intentions makes one more likely or less likely to fulfill your goals so I'm not sure whether I should document my reviews for each TED Talk I see so as a compromise I'm going to opt out of the mandatory reviews for the moment. I'm going to keep it simple with one habit at a time.

My ultimate goal is to build a life that is more like vacation.

What are the technologies of the heart

I am hesitant in writing this. This is a post that will contain the words : heart, care, and compassion. As Krista Tippett says in her TED Talk, the term "compassion" is typically reserved for the saintly or the sappy. 

I watched Krista's TED talk yesterday along with a couple others. I always meant to watch all the TED Talks and I have tried to make it a habit. But what inevitably happens is that I start watching two or three a day, and then shortly thereafter, I get TooTooBusy and so I stop so I can attend to the work of my life. But then, after weeks of work, I feel empty and that I'm neglecting some part of my being and I so force myself to watch a couple TED Talks. Sometimes they inspire and resonate. Sometimes they make me feel sick with fear.

So, yesterday I saw Krista's talk about compassion and her plea for us to pay attention to "the technologies of compassion." And I started making a list in my head of possible technologies of compassion:

• stories
• the human touch (massage, hugs, hand-holding)
• yoga
• conversation
• play
• hospitality
• gift giving
• singing and music
• art 
• dance
• free time
• travel, pilgrimage
• helping someone 
• being helped

The next TED Talk I saw could not have fit any more closely to Krista's. It is His Holiness the Karmapa's The technology of the heart. I have to admit, I haven't finished watching his talk because his story of being whisked away from his family at age 7 to become a spiritual leader of Tibet struck me and sat with me. On my drive to work this morning, I re-wrote his story in my head as an anti-princess story that went like this...

And yesterday's third TED Talk I saw Eli Pariser's Beware online "filter bubbles". Eli makes a convincing case that as flawed as mass media is and was, at least the editors involved would nominally present "vegetable information" about wars and famines and other bad things that we don't want to see but we know we should whereas new technologies from Google and Facebook don't even pretend to have a moral centre.

And now, just now, the reason why I'm writing this post, I just read a great post by David Weinberger on Ethan Zuckman and the importance of serendipity and being cosmopolitan. And David, I think does a wonderful job of challenging Zuckman's notion that by introducing cosmopolitan elements (using libraries, geocaching, and other novelties) into our media diet that we, privileged North Americans, can come to care for Others Elsewhere.


But David does believe that we can be brought to care. And he uses TED Talks as an example.