Back Sliding? Day 14: An Atlanta Traffic Experiment

I was hoping to be posting more regularly on this but life has gotten in the way, as it often does.


Two weeks from the start of my little experiment I unfortunately have to report that I've felt that I've slid back a bit. What do I mean?


Well specifically last weekend when one of the greatest women on the planet (my mother) visited me in Atlanta I noticed myself getting quite agitated at times. Even after I caught myself in these moments and encouraged myself to keep my cool I seemed to still become irritated later on that day, once during the same 15 minute drive.


I also remember making a decided effort to not tell my mom I was blogging about this topic. Not that it's a secret or that she hasn't read my posts (hi mom!) but I think that I didn't want to be held accountable that weekend.


It was interesting.

Part of it makes me think about what some say, that we sometimes treat the people we love the most ,the most harshly because we know that they will always love us. Mothers seem to fall into this camp most since who can love us the way our mothers do? Others love us equally, sometimes more, but never that same way.


This is hugely unfair and something else to add to the laundry list of things to work on. But considering this and focusing back on my experiment in patience, I wonder if I simply wanted a break. From what? From having to hold my agitation in. From trying to improve myself. From being the best version of myself. It was as if with my mother's arrival in Georgia all that I wanted to do was revert back to being her child and being able to "lash out" since I knew that no matter what she'd love me.


It was an interestingly timed trip to say the least. Since just like it's unfair to treat our moms or others harsher because we know they will always love us, it's unfair for me to "decide" to regress on my patience experiment or anything else just because my mommy is in town and will love me and accept me.


While I wish I was more self-aware of this during the weekend I am happy that I can reflect on it now, since again, being aware of many things is step one. And with this reflection I can get back being patience and tolerant and keeping calm even when I encounter un-ideal or annoying things.

Improvement in Awareness: Day 7 of An ATL Traffic Experiment

It's been one full week since I decided that I would actively try to be a calmer, more patient driver. No small feat in a city with one of the biggest traffic problems like Atlanta. (Miss this post? Read it here)


I thought this to be an appropriate time to check-in on this little endeavor of mine.


So what have I learned or noticed over the past week? Actually a couple of things:


1. Time moves equally slowly and fast. Okay, that might not actually make sense but what I mean is that racing impatiently to get to and from work really hasn't been getting me to my desk or to me couch or the gym or happy hour that much faster. How do I know? Well I've been leaving my apartment and office at the same time just simply being more at ease driving over the past week and my commute time has not gone up or down drastically. What has changed? My mood upon getting out of my car (this might be placebo, I'll admit) and my self-awareness.


2. Other people are crazy. We all probably think this to some extent and fall into this category ourselves to some extent but consciously trying to reduce my own aggressiveness has really made me more aware of the aggressiveness of others.


Here's an example: yesterday at a spot where a back-up of 5-25 minutes is perfectly normal at 5pm this one car (white Lexus, in case that matters to anyone) flew past about 60 cars (nope, not exaggerating) on the right shoulder then cut through three lanes. First of all this is really dangerous, for this person and for everyone else on the road. But additionally and more to the point of this experiment: why? Considering my experience over the past week I wonder if that move really got this driver to his or her end destination all that much quicker....


3. Awareness builds awareness. I've noticed that my awareness of my patience -- or lack thereof -- in other areas of my life. One area that surprised me, but upon further consideration it makes perfect sense, is riding elevators. I work on the 9th floor of a 10 floor building and little irritates me more than when someone hits the call button on the lobby floor *just* before the doors close only to hit the button for the 1st floor. (Obviously expectant mothers or people just carrying a tremendous amount of just are excused)


This past week I've actively been trying to not be bothered by it, to not roll my eyes, or not look upon these people with distain. And you know what? My ride up to the 9th floor is the same duration of time, when I walk into my office I'm sure the energy I'm exuding is more open and positive, and the other people who work in my office surely must notice the change in my disposition. Okay, maybe not the latter but even if the one person in my building to notice the brighter mood I'm in is myself, that's a win in my book.




So what's the big takeaway here? Well even bigger than the realization that little bursts of aggressive driving seem to have little to no positive impact on my arrival time, the fact that simply being aware of myself has positive implications.


What's an area of your life that might benefit from a little extra attention and focus? Maybe it's being friendly to your coworkers, non-judgmental of other ideas. Whatever it is, try being more self-aware of your desire to improve in this space. What you observe might just surprise you!

there is always something more we can learn

I am quite possibly one of the world’s worst spellers. I mean I am terrible. I simply am not able to visualize how letters work together to create sounds and therefore how words are constructed. To this day I can only correctly type the word “restaurant” on a keyboard based on a memorized nuance in my keystroke pace and pattern; if I’m handwriting the word I need to physically stop and think about the rule about the “u” and the “a” placement that I created for a spelling test in the third grade featuring this word. I am in no way exaggerating. 

Since I haven’t taken a spelling test in years coupled with my trusty friend, spell-check, there are some words that I simply never got down: efficiency, entrepreneur, disclosure. Just to name a few. 

Why am I telling you about my terrible spelling ability? To prove the point that we are never too old to stop learning. Yes, I know this is not a very original thought. But I also want to point out a slightly different, perhaps slightly more unique thought, that we are never too old to come up with ingenious, little ways to teach ourselves. 

Last night while doing a bit of work late at night (sigh) I found myself trying and failing at spelling out the word “entrepreneur” four times. I got so fed up with myself that I employed my go-to strategy of finding it written somewhere else (nine times out of ten this “somewhere else” is Google so as you can imagine I have a very interesting search history) then copied and pasted the correct spelling. 

When I copied and pasted the word last night it was in an oversized large font different from what I was using. Rather than simply changing the font style I decided I would type out the correct spelling of the word, very slowly to be sure I was transcribing it correctly. 

It was like a lightbulb went off in my head. If I would simply force myself to re-type the word each time, even if I have to search its proper spelling on Google, the efficiencies and entrepreneurs of the world would eventually stop stumping me. I had found a new little trick to teach myself how to learn their spellings.

Again this is not rocket science, I know. Practice and study pays off. But being out of an academic situation for a number of years now it felt like a novel idea. 

I’ve decided that this would be a new rule I employ in an effort to improve my spelling. It was then that I thought this might make an interesting post since this idea is actually pretty transferrable. Just by stopping and making ourselves repeat and think through something more than we need to we can glean some knowledge, even just small knowledge, which all adds up.