Excursions

I wrote a long post yesterday which, as I read again now, am glad that I did not publish. I had made so many foolish assumptions, ideas half-baked. Thoughts not really thought through. I don’t want my long posts to be any of that.

Holding back on completed posts for a day or two, even after I have taken time to write it, has helped me.

Did you know you can import data directly from a webpage with MS Excel, as table? I didn’t. Just go to Data -> Get Data From Web -> Enter URL with table and boom! I used to copy the table and paste it in when I needed to. Just like they did in.. uhmm.. stone-age, I guess? 🤯

Over the years, I have had many wrong perceptions and I have realised that the assumption that how I experience something is precisely how everyone all over the world experiences it is the root for many. Now I pause, think, and only then make up my mind.

Twitter’s most committed users often love the service and hate it with equal passion, two feelings that can coexist without much cognitive dissonance. The platform is awful—but its delivery of instantaneous feedback to every passing thought is also addictive. It’s exploitative—but its ability to amplify any message is unavoidably powerful.

Source: Why Would Elon Musk Want to Buy Twitter? →

With many avenues of tracking and improving my well-being already around me, I have decided to make the best use of them. I know I am not good at maintaining a healthy routine for any meaningful duration. Yet, I want to give myself another chance to succeed at forming one by constant nudges and tickles.

A reference to Whole Life Challenge (h/t Halsted Bernard) with its pointed question “What is healthy to you?” front and centre came in handy. The tagline, “don’t try to fit health and wellness into your life. Fit your life into the context of health and wellness” resonated with me. I always had the tools that allow me to track my progress towards a healthy lifestyle; with the recommendations from this challenge, I know what I need to track. I am not undertaking any challenge, but I am going to follow along.

So, I am tracking the seven habits – nutrition, hydrate, exercise, mobilise, sleep, well-being and reflect. With health apps from Samsung and Google, I make note of everything I eat, being cognisant of my diet. I don’t want to cut down on anything yet, but just understand what goes in. Keeping myself hydrated is not a problem I face, I drink enough water regularly.

Though I already do the running and stretching pretty regularly, I am now consciously walking while carrying out the daily chores instead of riding my motor scooter. Though I can’t sleep with a watch on, I now manually enter my hours of sleep. Sure, I miss out on the detailed reports of my sleep pattern, but this is better than nothing. With the bedtime mode scheduled on my smartphone, the screen goes greyscale, reminding me to rid myself of the clingy device. It helps!

Building a habit for well-being has been difficult for me. Meditation, the only well-being activity that I know of, never stuck. I can meditate, but I don’t do this with the right spirit. A constant thought of “am I doing this right” keeps pestering me throughout, and I know I’m not doing it right. Well, who knew there are other well-being practises too – picking up a book, reaching out to a friend or organising a disheveled space. Ah, now that I can do. And do well.

All said, these are early days. I am just a week into tracking these habits and I have already missed out on a couple each day. (I am using a wonderfully simple app, Loop Habit Tracker, to track these). But I am allowing myself the leniency.

This post was sent as an introduction for this week’s issue of my weekly newsletter. I have realized the updates I begin my newsletter with every week get lost once it is out. So I intend to publish these as individual posts also.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its Mastcam-Z camera to shoot video of Phobos, one of Mars’ two moons, eclipsing the Sun.

Source: Perseverance Rover Sees Solar Eclipse on Mars​ →

The name ‘East Timor’ is a tautological toponym, meaning ‘timor’ is Malay for ‘east’ and ‘east’ means, well, ‘east’. So, East Timor actually means East East.

There is so much I didn’t know about from the above fact about East Timor from this week’s issue of whlw. A country with average of just 17.5? Oh boy!

Mumbai Indians (MI) lost another match yesterday — this year’s IPL has been boring. The two statements are independent, mutually exclusive. Or so I like to believe. Since the core of the team was broken, players distributed across the teams, I just can’t connect with the team anymore.

We just had the last IPL some 5 months back, didn’t we? And here we go again already. The lust to milk the most out of the hottest property on Indian television had to come back to bite them in the bums. They are killing the sport for generations, old and young. 🏏

With many avenues of tracking and improving my well-being already around me, I have decided to make the best use of them. I know I am not good at maintaining a healthy routine for any meaningful duration. Yet, I want to give myself another chance to succeed at forming one by constant nudges and tickles.

A reference to Whole Life Challenge with its pointed question “What is healthy to you?” front and centre came in handy. The tagline, “don’t try to fit health and wellness into your life. Fit your life into the context of health and wellness” resonated with me. I always had the tools that allow me to track my progress towards a healthy lifestyle; with the recommendations from this challenge, I know what I need to track. I am not undertaking any challenge, but I am going to follow along.

So, I am tracking the seven habits – nutrition, hydrate, exercise, mobilise, sleep, well-being and reflect. With health apps from Samsung and Google, I make note of everything I eat, being cognisant of my diet. I don’t want to cut down on anything yet, but just understand what goes in. Keeping myself hydrated is not a problem I face, I drink enough water regularly.

Though I already do the running and stretching pretty regularly, I am now consciously walking while carrying out the daily chores instead of riding my motor scooter. Though I can’t sleep with a watch on, I now manually enter my hours of sleep. Sure, I miss out on the detailed reports of my sleep pattern, but this is better than nothing. With the bedtime mode scheduled on my smartphone, the screen goes greyscale, reminding me to rid myself of the clingy device. It helps!

Building a habit for well-being has been difficult for me. Meditation, the only well-being activity that I know of, never stuck. I can meditate, but I don’t do this with the right spirit. The constant thought of “am I doing this right” keeps pestering me throughout, and I know I’m not doing it right. Well, who knew there are other well-being practises too – picking up a book, reaching out to a friend or organising a dishevelled space. Ah, now that I can do. And do well.

All said these are early days. I am just a week into tracking these habits and I have already missed out on a couple each day. (I am using a wonderfully simple app, Loop Habit Tracker, to track these). But I am allowing myself the leniency.

I can never wear my watch while sleeping. I want my sleep to be comfortable – one with a watch hugging my wrist isn’t. However, I am interested in recording my sleep pattern. It was possible with fitness bands, no longer is with a smartwatch.