Watching Shrinking (Season 1). Started it quite a few months back but haven’t picked it back up until now. 📺

I was using dictation on my phone and “wind gusts” showed up in my message as “Nguyen Gus” which I now think should be the name I assign to my alter ego. Although, given that Nguyen is most typically a surname, perhaps “Gus Nguyen” is more appropriate.

At the close of business today, I’ll be taking time off until after the new year. I was feeling pretty good about that fact and looking forward to some much-needed downtime. But I just learned that when I come back to work after the holidays, I’ll have about a week and a half to prepare a presentation that I will deliver to our chief growth and innovation officer and other senior leaders. All of a sudden I’m starting to doubt whether I’ll actually be able to relax and be fully unplugged from work over the next two weeks.

We just got hit with an unexpected $500 vet bill for our dog. When it comes to prioritizing the health of our dog versus Christmas shopping, it was an easy decision to make. Despite his anxiety while waiting in the exam room, I still managed to capture a little smile.

A white dog standing and smiling while on a leash

I have seven hours of scheduled meetings tomorrow and I’m realizing that fact alone is making me dread (probably too strong a word) my work day. It’s not too different from my schedule most days but I’m just really feeling ready (and in need of) the time off I have planned for next week. I’m weary.

I’m watching Big Night 🍿

Currently reading: What Can a Body Do? by Sara Hendren 📚

I wasn’t sure what to expect but I really enjoyed watching The Two Popes tonight. Sir Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce were great in it. 🍿

I stopped by the Winter Stoke Block Party tonight. Everyone is stoked and ready for ski season so why not close off some streets, have some food trucks, beer gardens, vendor booths, and live music stages set up to properly celebrate together?

Our cultural attachment to our phones, she says, is paradoxically both destroying our ability to be bored, and preventing us from ever being truly entertained.

“We’re trying to swipe and scroll the boredom away, but in doing that, we’re actually making ourselves more prone to boredom, because every time we get our phone out we’re not allowing our mind to wander and to solve our own boredom problems,” Mann says, adding that people can become addicted to the constant dopamine hit of new and novel content that phones provide. “Our tolerance for boredom just changes completely, and we need more and more to stop being bored.”

A quote from Sandi Mann, a senior psychology lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire in the U.K. as well as the author of The Upside of Downtime: Why Boredom Is Good.

Although a relatively older article, I’m always looking for insights from credible sources that effectively back up what my kids have been hearing from me for years.