안녕하세요! 네 이름은 혜리임니다. 한국어로 글 스는 연습을 하고 십다. 한국어를 배운지 3년이 되었다. 하지만 아직도 너무 어렵는다. 등산하는 것과 차 마시는 것을 제 가장 좋아하는 취미인다. 응원해주세요!
Tag: writingoutloud
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As the title so cleverly says, here are some actions I have found to make my life more…livable. I am a firm believer that an easier life is a more sustainable life. Wait, wait, hold on, I’ll explain.
When we wake up in the morning, we have a certain amount of energy and focus. This amount varies from person to person, during the time of the month, and depending on many factors. Picture your energy and focus like two pokemon health bars at the top of the screen that is your life. Every decision, conversation, action, and thought drains these bars, either a little or a lot depending on your personality.
Running with this line of logic, the more choices we are forced to make, the less focus and energy, let’s shorten that to f&e, we have for the more important choices present in our lives. This is why you probably have a standard coffee order, not only because you like it, but because it takes away the tiny bit of stress that comes with having to choose a new coffee drink every time you go to a cafe.
Another example, famously smart people a lá Steve Jobs and the Zuck were/are notorious for wearing pretty much the same outfit day in and day out. Why? They are conserving their f&e for decisions and conversations regarding taking over the world running huge tech corporations.
Now we’ve exhausted the why we should conserve our f&e, let’s get a bit into the how. This list will be a different, maybe I daresay even unexpected, than other lists of a similar nature. Take as much or as little as you want away from this, and, as always, use your own intuition and a dash of salt.
Mini meal prep
This one has the option to mean the full start-to-finish operation of making complete meals and putting them in separate containers to be stored in the fridge until needed. Or, we can dial it back ten notches if that sounds like too much work.
Here are a few examples of how I mini-meal-prep:
- I like cinnamon and (plant) milk in my coffee. I make a small container of milk with cinnamon to use as a DIY creamer. Boom, two steps combined into one, especially profound when it’s one of the first things I do in the morning.
- I add all my hummus vegetables into one container: baby carrots, sliced bell peppers, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, sugar snap peas. This way I have immediate access to healthy and balanced food when I can’t be arsed to cook somethings. Want to take it up a notch? Grab crackers, tortillas, chips, whatever for a bread component.
- Be a spice magician. Pepper increases the bioavailability of turmeric (makes it more absorbable in your body), so add a couple shakes of pepper into your turmeric container. Salt can give you high blood pressure, but boy is it delicious. Trick yourself into using less by adding other things to your spice mixes. I buy an industrial sized garlic salt container and a small garlic powder, and then mix them together. Less salt in each shake, but I’m not depriving myself of anything. If you want to really go for it, add cayenne pepper (a tiny amount) to any spice mix you want to consume in smaller amounts.
- On that note, add a spice agent to as much of your food as you can. Spicy things are good for you, so buck up and figure out how to like them. Ease in by mixing a mild and medium salsa together. Find the pepper with the lowest Scoville rating and incorporate it. Bump up your Thai takeout order by one point. If you’re American, this is especially pointed at you (if you’re offended, then it’s triply for you).
Create a Strategic Environment
This one is something I intuitively used in my life, but I didn’t have a name for until I work at a large coffee company that will remain unnamed. They called it ‘lean thinking’ or something along those lines. It refers to the concept of stacking activities together to increase your efficiency and productivity. Say if you were working at the espresso machine and needed to go to the back to get a clean blender because your coworkers are inept or blithely oblivious to the concept of hardwork, why not grab a sleeve or cups or a vanilla syrup to bring to the front as well. It also involves the notion of putting the things you need or use most right where you need them, thereby reducing time spent going to get them or dithering about. Great for forming us into stressed out, over worked, robot monkeys when applied at an extreme level, but the takeaways remain valuable.
Examples from my life:
-I have a cordless phone charger in my bathroom. I’m fully aware I can charge my phone at any moment in my life, but it’s extra simple to have my phone charging while I do my skincare or make up. It just works.
-I only listen to my favorite podcasts while doing a physical activity. Now I have an ingrained habit to move when I get the urge to listen. I self-trained a Pavlovian response in myself. I get smarted and more fit at the same time. I can walk, bike, or hike longer without getting bored because my mind is being stimulated.
– Be a clean aesthetic girlie in that condensing and reducing are your life mantras. In the kitchen, I’m always combing spices, grains, nuts, snacks, etc. Crackers can all go in the same container, as can nuts. If there are two jars of the same spice, no there isn’t, it’s one jar now. With uncooked grains, be wary of mixing cook times, but honestly I’ve mixed brown and white rice and the world didn’t explode and they both cooked perfectly evenly.
– Color code your fucking closet. The order is color → sleeve length → pattern. Put short sleeves next to each other, long sleeves behind them. Slutty napkin shirts is the only completely valid section that is separate from the above criteria.
If you are reading this and think to yourself, “damn this be reading like neuro-spicy self help tips,” congratulations, you’ve hit the bullseye. Here’s a trophy.
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Hello my flower petal zombies, it’s been a minute. Safe to say I’ve fallen off the writing wagon in the last few days, weeks, months.
This post signals to some that I am getting back on the proverbial wagon. That would be incorrect. I have abandoned the wagon altogether; this game of Oregon Trail won’t survive to manifest destiny.
My life is hectic, and will continue to be unpredictable for the foreseeable future. As such, I am doing away with schedule and deadlines, especially for something I consider a hobby and creative endeavor.
Soundcheck Sunshine will wait for me like an old friend, every time we meet we pick up right where we left off as if no time has passed.
Improving myself through writing is not some passing fancy of mine, it is a deep desire founded from a core memory. I have complete faith in myself; not that I will write with consistency, but that I will always come back to this place.
I have many aspirations tied to my writing, and a mind that often thinks so far ahead I catch myself living in a future state that will never happen. I struggle with the here and now, always looking at the end goal or big picture when the steps to get there are just as important.
I find myself needing reminders that I don’t have to be good at something to enjoy it, to put it out into the universe, and to live without expectations of grandeur and perfection.
Until next time, my wagonless daisies.
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in·ter·mit·tent
/ˌin(t)ərˈmitnt/
adjective
- occurring at irregular intervals; not continuous or steady. “intermittent rain”
The tides of the ocean; a slow glide up the beach, before retreating into the ocean once more.
The cadence of spring rain; at one moment a gentle shower, the next a torrential downpour.
The flickering of fire; warmth fluttering to and fro in a burning dance.
Acts of nature, unbound by time, holding fast to an unknown schedule, changing on a whim. Commanding the world around them to bend to an understanding of the universe where time is the last priority. Neither late nor early, nature acts as the true wizard of this Earthly realm.
To be intermittent is to act out against the bars built in our gilded cages. To be irregular angers the algorithms, upsets the machines that consume our data. To be unpredictable is to thwart the mechanisms created to guide and contain, to nudge us down a path not of our own choosing.
Intermittence, not a panacea to the drudgery, but an offering as a counterpoint. Be steady, yet not. Continuous, with breaks. Be unfaltering in pursuit of goals and dreams, but know that glass need not be held in the fire forever to be molded into something beautiful.
A resolution to be the spring floods that carved the Grand Canyon, but only when there is water in my soul. When the intermittent rain has gone, and my soul withers in despair, I will comfort in the inevitable. The tides will turn, the rains will nourish the soil again, and I will feel the warmth of the flames.
Intermittence is the difference between not right now and never.