2019 New Year’s Resolution Checkin —May

As I did in 2018, I’m publicly blogging about my new year’s resolutions (2019: Jan; Feb; Mar; Apr). For 2019, I’ve picked a single word theme: balance.

I indicated that balance was meant to encapsulate the following areas:

• Food and weight = balance means tracking and making the better choice for myself regularly ↠ Slipping. 🤕 I’ve abandoned tracking of food and weight has come back a bit, 3 lb gain this year. I also reframed the check in for mindful meals. Food remains a continuing tough area for me. Some of the books I’ve read recently are harkening back to the “Immunity to Change” reading. I think I need to do some more thinking about what hidden commitments/big assumptions I’m meeting/assuming that are keeping me from making better progress here.
• Exercise = balance means making it fit in my day because I feel better when I do ↠ Success! I’ve upgraded to 18 lbs and am continuing to regularly do the NYTimes 9-minute strength workout ~3x/week [Original; Cheat Sheet]
• Friends and family = balance means taking the time for them↠ Success! Managed to get a games day in, this month has a family vacation to Dublin, Ireland. Good work.

I continue to close my exercise rings on the Apple Watch:

April brought some cool work events: we bought an office building for our firm and are starting the interior renovations to move in later this summer. Have also gotten some good reading done:

• “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone” by Lori Gottlieb: A therapist writes about her own experience in therapy and helping her patients. In many ways, the journey of reading this book really needs to be distilled into a 3–5-page tool on how to use therapy. This is different from the checklist from UThrive which is helpful for checking in with yourself, but this book really does the best job I’ve ever seen of explaining what therapy is about. I’ve been struggling with how to write a good summary of the book, more eventually here.
• “Lost Connections” by Johann Hari: A journalist explores the causes (and solutions) to depression. This is a pop-science book in the Malcolm Gladwell style in many ways. Hari clearly is on to something here and has some practical advice. However, he also props up a strawman that is contrary to anything I’ve seen about how people view depression. I do not think anyone really thinks medications alone are the answer or that brain function/chemicals are 100% of why people are depressed. He uses that strawman much in the way I find low-carb/Keto/Atkins people annoying who claim people are getting fat “eating the USDA recommended diet”: no, people are getting fat by massively overeating. Similarly here, Hari’s recognition of the sources and solutions to depression reminds me of a quote now paraphrasized from Jonathan Haidt in the Happiness Hypothesis (my summary part 1, part 2, part 3): therapy, medications, meditation, and journaling (my addition): pick at least two. Hari’s main addition is to perhaps add a fifth and weight it more important: add meaningful connections to your life.

Onward to May!