Keep Two Thoughts

Personal essays


Lines - Essay from Newsletter 146

My second word for 2023

Letting go

Friday night the display on my thermostat said “Battery Low”. It actually said “Battery Lo” but I knew what it meant.

So I swapped out the batteries, the display came back on and I adjusted the temperature, and went to bed.

I woke up early Saturday morning and it was cold in the house.

I checked the thermostat and the display was off. Completely off.

I made coffee and did some laundry and as soon as Walgreens was open I drove over there and bought new batteries.

Start with the small easy thing. Replace the batteries with batteries you know are good.

Nothing.

So I drove to the hardware store and bought a cheap non-programmable thermostat for twenty dollars.

Why pay more than one hundred dollars when all I do is turn it up and down.

I disconnected the old one and followed the directions to install the new one and nothing.

Nothing happened.

I called a furnace guy and he came over and for more than the programmable one would have cost me, he opened up the cheap thermostat and removed a piece of paper that you had to remove or it wouldn’t work.

I felt stupid. So stupid. I looked at the instructions again and couldn’t find that step. I certainly didn’t see any diagram pointing to the paper or any packaging that said “make sure you remove this”.

I write explanations for a living. I know about including information about important steps. I know about drawing people’s attention to these things - these instructions did none of that.

Completely my fault. I felt stupid. While he was there I had him do a few other things - after all I’d paid for his time. He was nice about it - but he didn’t say the things he could have said to make me feel less stupid.

So I beat myself up about it. I told a few friends how stupid I’d been.

And then I dropped it.

I’ve noticed how much I dwell on stupid things I do and spend almost no time thinking about good things I’ve done. Maybe in 2024 I’ll work on that second thing, but I decided a month or so back to watch out for where I dwell too long on stupid things and let them go.

Drawing Lines

There are times I feel like Arlo Guthrie. I tell you that whole long story only to set up the story I came here to tell you.

“Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?”

Let me just say, if you know you know.

Anyway, I was listening to an interview that Kara Swisher did with Twitter’s former head of Trust and Safety, Yoel Roth.

Roth talked about sitting down before Twitter was sold and thinking through what was important to him and what were the lines that couldn’t be crossed.

He said that it’s important to draw those lines ahead of time. When you’re in the moment it’s easy to allow the other person to cross lines that you thought were important.

Again if it’s not wrong to make an old person’s reference, it’s like the old Warner Brother’s Cartoons, “I dare you to cross this line” (draws line in sand, other character crosses it), “oh yeah, I dare you to cross this line” and so on til the other character crosses the line and looks down to notice they’ve walked over a cliff.

In the US we saw it this past week with the fifteen votes for speaker although the game was “I’ll vote for you if you cross this line”. It got played so many times, but the speaker hasn’t looked down yet and cartoon physics say that he can’t plummet, even if he’s standing with nothing under him but air, until he looks down. Look it up. It’s the law.

So one of my lines is that I will allow myself a short amount of time to feel stupid about something and then I’ll let it go.

Without that being decided ahead of time, I’d still be stopping people and telling them how stupid I’d been.

“But Daniel,” you say, “you’re telling us.”

I am. But to illustrate the point.

Conflicting Lines

What happens when your lines and my lines are in conflict?

I imagine that in real life we each walk away thinking the other one is wrong, or stupid, or .

I was thinking of this recently with remote workers.

Some workers have decided that they have been working happily and productively from home and don’t see a need to go back to working in an office.

Some employers have decided that, whether or not the pandemic is over, we know how to navigate working in an office, it’s time for the employees to come back.

Some workers think the employers are wrong, or stupid, or . Don't they see how productive we are? Why should I spend two hours a day commuting. That's like a two hour tax on my time. I can get my work done from home and see my kids, ...

Some employers think the workers are wrong, or stupid, or . This is a collaborative workplace. There are the intangibles - the water cooler moments.

I’m biased. I’ve heard way too many stories of people coming back to the workplace only to sit in Zoom meetings with people in other offices - something they could have done from home.

So I would have drawn a line while I was working from home. I’ll come in so many days a month but I will mostly work from home. Many workers have done that and it’s made it easier for them to leave when the policy changes.

Some employers had a line too. When this is over, we’re coming back to work. An employee who doesn’t come back doesn’t work here anymore.

I don’t think either is wrong, or stupid, or . They've each drawn their own lines given what's important to them.

But things change. Having lines gives me a context to operate from but it’s not absolute.

That line I drew was based on what I knew at the time I drew it. The situation may have changed. I may have changed. My situation may have changed. But that line gives me a starting point.

Cookies

While I wasn’t looking, my weight crept back up. Much of the gains - by which I mean - losses have been erased.

It started in September when I started traveling. I decided that I was going to eat whatever I wanted when traveling. And I did so. In Liverpool, Aberystwyth, London, Logrono, Bilbao, and Portugal I ate and drank with friends and had a wonderful visit.

In November I did the same in Amsterdam and Paris.

That wasn’t the problem.

The problem was once I crossed that line while traveling the line was erased.

I need to reestablish the lines.

Nothing drastic. If I want the cookie I will eat the cookie. My line is that I shouldn’t eat the cookie I don’t want.

Anyway, my second word for 2023 is lines. I’m going to try to draw some and try to stay on the right side of them.

Maybe lines will be a proxy for letting things go - which is kind of the opposite of lines.

I may be over thinking this.

That’s another line I’m trying not to cross.

Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 146. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe


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