Singalong! I'm Still Standing by Elton John

This song is a wonderful, uplifting ode to survival with the kookiest music video of all time. Perfect.


I'M STILL STANDING
by Elton John

You could never know what it's like
Your blood like winter freezes just like ice
And there's a cold lonely light that shines from you
You'll wind up like the wreck you hide behind that mask you use

And did you think this fool could never win
Well, look at me, I'm a-coming back again
I got a taste of love in a simple way
And if you need to know while I'm still standing you just fade away

Don't you know I'm still standing better than I ever did
Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid
And I'm still standing after all this time
Picking up the pieces of my life without you on my mind

I'm still standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah
I'm still standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah

Once I never could hope to win
You're starting down the road leaving me again
The threats you made were meant to cut me down
And if our love was just a circus you'd be a clown by now

You know I'm still standing better than I ever did
Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid
I'm still standing after all this time
Picking up the pieces of my life without you on my mind

I'm still standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah
I'm still standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah

Don't you know that I'm still standing better than I ever did
Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid
And I'm still standing after all this time
Picking up the pieces of my life without you on my mind

I'm still standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah
I'm still standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah

I'm still standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah
I'm still standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah

I'm still standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah
I'm still standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah

Modern Dance in the 80s
Giphy


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

Learning! Roundup: Selfie Judgement, Optimistic Ageing, How to Have a Meaningful Life, and More!

New research shows that people who take selfies are judged as being total losers, basically.
Photo by Djamal Akhmad Fahmi.

Selfie Judgement

Do you judge people who take a lot of selfies? According to science, you do! People who take a lot of selfies are judged as being less likeable, secure, successful, and open to experiences than those who have photos someone else took of them. So basically, selfie-takers are judged as total losers? Or at least, more loser-like. I suppose that if someone else takes a photo of you, then at the very least it shows you were somewhere with other people, even if it also means you may have interrupted a stranger's nice evening to have them snap the shot.

Optimistic Ageing

A new study shows that people who are optimistic are more likely to live beyond age 85. They were also more likely to be physically active and have advanced education, two things that might help with optimism, except that event controlling for those factors it was found that optimism made a difference all on its own.

How to Have a Meaningful Life

For a time, researchers thought that positive experiences led people to feel they had a meaningful life, however, now it seems as though meaning in life comes from both positive and negative experiences that come at greater extremes. A key factor may be when these intense emotional experiences trigger deep contemplation.

Tiny Robo-Snakes

This is very cool and makes me think of super-creepy dystopian futures: scientists have created a teensy-tiny little snake designed to wriggle through your veins and into your BRAIN. They say it's to treat things like aneurysms, but also maybe to control the minds of dissidents?

Contagious Attitudes

You'd probably like to think that, when you meet someone, you judge them based on your own opinion, not that of the others who interact with them, right? Well, peer pressure is strong, even when it's implicit. A new study shows that we are more likely to like someone and treat them well if we witness them receiving positive nonverbal signals for others. So basically, if we see evidence that other people like someone, we're probably going to like them, and vice versa. This goes a long way to explaining how bullying can follow some kids forever and implicit biases get perpetuated.

Food Waste

The fridge is, apparently, the place where food goes to die. That's because people wind up throwing out about half of the food they buy! Yikes!


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

Book Club: How to Do Nothing by Jenny Oddell

Discussing Jenny Oddell's book How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

First, a confession: I didn't actually finish reading How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell. I ran into the expiration of my library loan, which of course I only ran into because I wasn't quite taken enough with the book to read it at a fast enough rate.

It's full of research, observations, and insights about our attention economy and what it might mean to resist it without abandoning everything, taking lessons from the hippie commune movement, early 20th century thinkers, artists from across time, and current research. It's interesting but, as can happen with nonfiction books, began to feel like it was simply repeating the same point over and over again.

Still, the point is worth noting: the attention economy is hurting our experience of being alive and human. We can resist this harm without running away and living in the woods by stepping back and finding ways to re-orient our perspective. By doing nothing.

Doing nothing here doesn't mean actual nothing. Odell doesn't advocate that we all cease to be. Here, doing nothing means participating in slower, analogue activities that connect us to people, places, and things and re-orientate our perspective on our surroundings.

"What would 'back to the land' mean if we understood the land to be where we are right now?"

Most "nothing" activities she discusses involve being in nature, taking in art, or being actively present with other humans. She talks a lot about birdwatching and the rose gardens near her home.

I couldn't help but notice that her examples of people who were able to stand apart in a notable way were all wealthy, famous artists or other people of independent means who had the freedom to make their own choices. She does recognize the privilege of, for example, being able to go sit in a rose garden for hours a day because it feels nice, but I didn't get a good counter that could apply to the rest of us who have to work every day.

Still, more time spent thinking critically about the attention economy is always a good thing (says the woman who is trying to find ways to build up a readership for her blog). And more time in nature, art, and friendship will certainly help make our lives better.

"Portraying the problem as one in which we just need to be more mindful in our interaction with apps can be likened to saying we need to be more mindful of our behaviour when interacting with the artificial intelligence algorithms that beat us at chess; equally sophisticated algorithms beat us at the attention game all the time."
- Devangi Vivrekar (quoted in How to Do Nothing)


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

The Lesson My Cat Taught Me About Compassion

This sweet cat Miss Gertie Marie taught me a lesson in compassion

My cat is the sweetest, cuddliest thing I have ever known. Everyone who meets her comments on it. However, recently she has started getting into these zero-provocation "moods" where she gets suddenly angry, swats at me when I walk by, and even bites. Bites! That is not okay.

Not wanting my cat to turn into a huge jerk, I tried different things to try to stop the biting (punishment, pre-emptive hunting games, etc). The result? Zero change in her behaviour and lots of frustration and impatience from me. It made me so MAD when she acted out for no reason!

Then, finally, I googled it. I found out that she wasn't acting out for no reason. Her hyperthyroidism (something she was recently diagnosed with) results in mood swings.

My perspective on the whole thing changed immediately. I was instantly filled with compassion for my girl, as well as remorse for all the anger I had expressed at her when her actions were the result of a medical condition.

I felt like a jerk of a cat owner. Why had I assumed there was nothing behind her actions except a newfound meanness? Why hadn't I given her the benefit of the doubt?

Then reflected for a few more moments and started to feel like a jerk of a human.

When people act out in ways I don't understand, I am not necessarily much more compassionate than I was towards my cat. I don't assume there's a reason, I just get angry and impatient and just want them to change.

The thing is, though, that there is always a reason. I just can't see it.

To help me remember this, I made a list of possible reasons for behaviour that might seem out-of-sorts to me:

-Maybe it's something they learned from childhood.
-Maybe it's a defence mechanism.
-Maybe they are trying to get to the hospital to see their parent.
-Maybe their biggest insecurity was just triggered.
-Maybe their pet just died.
-Maybe they are trying to juggle fifty responsibilities at once and I am standing in the way of one of them.
-Maybe, like my cat, they have a medical condition that alters their behaviour.

So what would happen if I always assumed that there is a reason why someone else is acting in a way I don't understand or don't like?

Probably I would be a lot nicer about it, which would make life better for everyone involved, myself included. Compassion is much more pleasant to experience than bubbling rage, after all.

Okay, so this is going to be my new trick: when someone else does something that makes me feel instantly angry, whether it's a stranger blocking the bike path or a friend showing up super late for plans, I am going to try to imagine a few possible reasons why they might be doing this.

Maybe it will help me be a better person!


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

Inspiration! Roundup: Changing Worlds, Coming of Age, Problems vs. Joy, and More!

A roundup of inspirational things that bring the love right into your life, including quotes, art, and new ideas
This Week's "I want to go to there": Bring on the love, babeeeeee!
Photo by Wyron A


Changing Worlds

"I'm not trying to change the world as much as I'm trying to stop the world from changing me."
-Jane Rule

Coming of Age

This photo series by Francesca Allen documents a teen girl's life. The images have a lot more depth to them than is usually allotted a teen girl.


Problems vs Joys

“Talking about our problems is our greatest addiction. Break the habit. Talk about your joys.”

Came across this at the Swiss Miss blog.

Get Local

Need a direction in life? How about facing your immediate surroundings?

Questionnaire

The poem Questionnaire by Wendell Barry is brilliant and brutally direct about the choices we make every day. The final stanza is the toughest:

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.



The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

Recommended Read: Community Care Over Self-Care

Community Care is needed over self-care
Photo by Dan Meyers.

I grew up going to church. There is a lot of baggage that comes attached to that, but one of the good things is that church people tend to help each other out.

Sure, you might not think the prayer chain is actually helping anyone, but what about the meal train?  What about the collection of cash to buy a grocery store gift card for someone who is struggling? What about the group descending on someone's house and cleaning every inch of it? What about the free clothing closets?

That's what I thought of when I read Heather Dockray's article "Self-Care Isn't Enough. We Need Community Care to Thrive", and I highly recommend that you check it out, too.

It's a fantastic piece on the importance of deep friendship and community - the kind that goes out of its way to show up for each other and actually do things to help one another out.

One thing she doesn't hit on, however, is that there are two sides to the kind of community she describes: the ability to both give and receive help.

This was a vital part of what I experienced in church. Maybe it's because pride is considered a sin, but people would generally be more worried about meeting someone's need than making sure they didn't get embarrassed that they had a need in the first place. We could be discreet, sure, but we wouldn't prioritize someone's pride over helping them.

Those people would, in turn, accept the help that was offered without making a big show of resistance or pretending they didn't need it.

This is a stark contrast to my experience of trying to give practical help to friends in other parts of my life. The song and dance of trying to provide real assistance without anyone feeling like "charity" has meant that, often, the help just doesn't come.

Is that really better? To struggle alone, only accepting gestures of goodwill from your friends but no actual help?

Of course, it makes sense: in church-land, the teachings explicitly state that we are not meant to be self-sufficient, spiritually or otherwise. In the rest of life, the teaching is flipped so hard that it is offensive to imply someone might need a little help taking care of themselves once in a while.

This philosophy is great when it comes to developing economic engines for a capitalist society. It's not so great for the development of a community. I guess the question now is, what do we want to prioritize?


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

Cute! Roundup: Pupper vs Asparagus, Cat vs Vacuum, and More!

Last week I was on a getaway for my friend's bachelorette party and we were close enough to nature that the front yard was basically a deer highway! So lovely!


OTHER CUTENESS:

Pupper vs. asparagus fence.

Cat doesn't really know what to do about this vacuum cleaner.

The mask makes the man.

Tiny dog, big steps.

Quite the handful.


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

Singalong! Somebody Loves You by Betty Who

Need an end-of-summer feel-good jam? How about singing about how somebody loves you with Betty Who?


SOMEBODY LOVES YOU
by Betty Who

Who’s around when the days feel long
Who’s around when you can’t be strong
Who’s around when you’re losing your mind
Who cares that you get home safe
Who knows you can’t be replaced
Who thinks that you’re one of a kind

Somebody misses you when you’re away
They wanna wake up with you everyday
Somebody wants to hear you say
Ooh somebody loves you
Ooh somebody loves you
Ooh somebody loves you
Ooh somebody loves you
Ooh somebody loves you

I’m around when your head is heavy
I’m around when your hands aren’t steady
I’m around when your day’s gone all wrong
I care that you feel at home
Cause I know that you feel alone
I think you’re going to miss me when I’m gone

Somebody misses you when you’re away
They wanna wake up with you everyday
Somebody wants to hear you say
Ooh somebody loves you
Ooh somebody loves you
Ooh somebody loves you
Ooh somebody loves you
Ooh somebody loves you

Why don’t you come on over
Why don’t you lay me down
Does the pain feel better
When I’m around
If I am good to you
Won’t you be good to me
That’s how easy this should be

Somebody misses you when you’re away (Somebody misses you baby)
They wanna wake up with you everyday (They wanna wake up with you)
Somebody wants to hear you say (Oh they want you to say)
Ooh somebody loves you
Ooh somebody loves you
Ooh somebody loves you
Ooh somebody loves you
Ooh somebody loves you

Sing along with Betty Who's Somebody Loves You
Giphy


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

Learning! Roundup: Doctors Can Be Prejudice Against Weight, Right-Handed Research, Happy Parents, and More!

A roundup of research, including the fact that doctors who only look at the weight of large or fat patients miss medical diagnoses.
Photo by Ronit Shaked.

Doctors Weight Prejudice

If you have a large body you're probably already aware of how the medical industry sees only your size and none of your other health problems when you go in to see them. So consider this more of an encouragement than new information: if your doctor only suggests weight loss when you come in with a problem, try to find another doctor. This advice applies to everyone, but of course the larger you are, the more you probably experience doctors ignoring your entire health as a whole and focusing only on your size.

Right-Handed Research

Sometimes, the need to keep variables under control in research has a dark side by leaving whole segments of the population out. For example, it's now been shown that neuroimaging studies usually only use right-handed people. This means we don't know that much about the brains of left-handed and ambidextrous people.

Happy Parents

Most research goes against the common wisdom that having kids makes you happy, showing that people without kids are typically happier with their lives than those who don't have them. However, that's because research always looked at those with kids still at home and (effectively) ruining their lives! Once the kids move out, it turns out, the parents become happier than the non-parents. It's a long game.

Social Teens

All the worry about teenagers on social media may be on the wrong track: a new study shows that teen boys aren't really impacted at all and that social media only poses a problem for teen girls when it interferes with their sleep or physical activities. As long as they aren't being cyberbullied or staying up all night to chat, it's no big deal.

Taking Breaks

We all know the value of taking a break during a mentally challenging task. Walking away for a little bit means you come back and tackle it with fresh eyes. It can make all the difference in the world! Unless you take your break by looking at your phone, it turns out. These breaks don't actually let the brain fully rest and result in more mental depletion.


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

This Week in Church: Being in the Middle of Our Lives

Welcome to the series wherein I share my take-aways from church. The things that, I think, are beneficial to all of us to know or think about, whether or not we believe in any church-related things.

I think that church can teach things that are beneficial to everyone, whether or not we believe in church-related things.

This week in church we talked about the movie Eighth Grade.

Because we're hip like that. But just so you know, that's where all the rest of this stuff comes from.

This week in church we talked about our deepest desires.

You know those moments when you become fully aware of some deep desire living in your heart? And you just have to sit with that feeling of wanting and emptiness?

No solutions here, just a recognition that we all have deep longings nestled in the bottoms of our hearts. Probably for things like acceptance and love.

Do you think we ever have enough love?

This week we talked about being in the middle of who we are.

Nelson Boschman, the speaker of the sermon, asked, "Who gets to tell me who I am?"

The kneejerk reaction is that nobody gets to tell me who I am. That I get to decide who I am just like you get to decide who you are.

But then there's the moment in Eighth Grade when her father tells her, "If only you could see you as I see you", and watching it, we all know he is right. And he can only see it because he's not her.

Then we remember that we are so in the middle of our lives that maybe we can't really see ourselves accurately, either.

"We are inextricably middled in our own story." - David Jeffrey

We aren't seeing the big picture or the context. We don't know what comes next. We just sit with this jumble of desires and hope and maybe we need someone else to tell us who we are sometimes.


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

Inspiration! Roundup: Doing Ridiculous Things With Ferocity, Making Things That Disappear, and More!

A roundup of inspirational things, from waterfalls to kicking little plastic flamingos and other temporary acts of wonder
This week's "I want to go to there": My friend calls it 'waterfall church', and I want to go!
Photo by Collins Lesulie.

Doing Ridiculous Things With Ferocity

I don't know where this gif came from (please let me know if you have the source!) but it brought so much joy to my heart! Who has a weird thing they just want to do but it doesn't even make sense??? LET'S GO DO IT!!!


Make Things That Disappear

Speaking of just going and doing things, I read this article from Scientific American about how it is beneficial for people who struggle with perfectionism to make things that they know will disappear. Sandcastles, snowmen, carved pumpkins, playdough creations, forts, lego, even baking and cooking that will ultimately be consumed.

I love it. I love the idea of making a thing just for the fun of it, and not worrying about the result too much because the result will disappear. (Heck, this is one of the things I love about live performance, although it's a little more loaded than making a bear out of playdough.)

Sonia Alins

Got some love to share for Sonia Alins' artwork. She seems to do a variety of styles, from this collage-style to some more dreamy underwater work.


Love

"Our entire lives are relationships. Love accordingly."
-Danielle LaPorte

Keep the Flame Alive

Photographer Sujata Setia photographs elderly couples in engagement-style shoots and I am HERE FOR IT! Thank you, Setia for the reminder that romance and passion isn't just for the young.


Longboard Dancing

This video of people dancing on skateboards in Paris is captivating! Did you know this was a thing? I didn't know this was a thing.


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

That Moment When You Realize You Are Pretty Great

Photo by Thought Catalog.

I had a couple of cool realizations over the past week.

First, I decided to try out a different online dating site (not the cool realization) and had to write a new description of myself for the platform. As I was writing about myself, I realized that, hey, I am pretty cool! If I were someone else, I would totally want to hang with me!

Obviously, this realization was based on a pretty biased text - I keep it positive in these things - but the world of online dating can pretty easily suck out your soul and replace it with self-doubt, so it's kind of amazing to have a moment in the midst of all that where I could simply appreciate the person who I am.

Second, I was writing a gratitude list the other night, at the end of it I had an urge to simply write, "I like my life."

This one feels even more significant: the first two months of 2019 shook up my whole life, and I feel like I only recently finished recalibrating to the changes. If I wanted to, I could pretty easily stay down on a life that took a major turn from where I thought it was headed, so what a lovely gift to have a moment of pure, unexpected appreciation for it instead.

Have you ever had a moment like this? A small flash of clarity where you see yourself or your life with unfettered appreciation? Whether or not you live under the heavy veils of depression, anxiety, and self-loathing, I think we all get bogged down with stress, comparison, aspirations, to-do lists, and day-to-day living and forget how awesome we really are.

The first time this happened for me I was 25 and generally hated myself. I was so taken by the brief feeling of self-love that it launched me into a quest to learn how to like myself on a regular basis (the results are documented in my book, Feeling Better: A Field Guide to Liking Yourself).

It also happens occasionally in that magical space right after I've finished working on something and before I can start criticizing it or when I've had one of those particularly perfect days with loving community.

These moments of pure appreciation are rare, but when they happen, one thing I have learned is to enjoy them while they last and remember them when they have passed.


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

Cute! Roundup: It's Unintentionally Dog Week! (with a cat and lizard thrown in)

This week's cuteness links are almost exclusively dogs, but there is one little surprise in there! And of course, the poster child of cuteness, my cat Gertie.

A roundup of cute things for Monday morning


OTHER CUTENESS:

The cutest little customer service rep.

Smiles for miles.

This is a flight-mate I wouldn't mind!

Managing curbs with little bitty legs.

Just a big ol' goof.


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

Singalong! Rise Up by Andra Day

I just came across this song and oooooh boy do I love it. Andra Day's voice is something golden, and don't we all need a song that will inspire us to stick life once in a while?


RISE UP
by Andra Day

You're broken down and tired
Of living life on a merry go round
And you can't find the fighter
But I see it in you so we gonna walk it out
And move mountains
We gonna walk it out
And move mountains

And I'll rise up
I'll rise like the day
I'll rise up
I'll rise unafraid
I'll rise up
And I'll do it a thousand times again
And I'll rise up
High like the waves
I'll rise up
In spite of the ache
I'll rise up
And I'll do it a thousands times again
For you
For you
For you
For you

When the silence isn't quiet
And it feels like it's getting hard to breathe
And I know you feel like dying
But I promise we'll take the world to its feet
And move mountains

We'll take it to its feet
And move mountains
And I'll rise up
I'll rise like the day
I'll rise up
I'll rise unafraid
I'll rise up
And I'll do it a thousand times again
For you
For you
For you
For you

All we need, all we need is hope
And for that we have each other
And for that we have each other
We will rise
We will rise
We'll rise, oh oh
We'll rise

I'll rise up
Rise like the day
I'll rise up
In spite of the ache
I will rise a thousands times again
And we'll rise up
Rise like the waves
We'll rise up
In spite of the ache
We'll rise up
And we'll do it a thousands times again
For you oh oh oh oh oh
For you oh oh oh oh oh
For you oh oh oh oh oh
For you

Andra Day singing Rise Up
Giphy


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

Learning! Roundup: Act Your (Pretend, Much Younger) Age, Gun Convenience, Gender-Neutral Pronouns Work, and More!

A roundup of research and science from the past week, including the fact that it's good for your health to act younger than you really are!
Photo by Joyce Adams.

Act Your (Pretend, Much Younger) Age

It turns out that after the age of 25, you are increasingly likely to think of yourself as younger than you actually are, and that's a good thing! Feeling like you're younger than you are is correlated with living longer. (Of course, remember that's correlation, not causation! It could be that healthier people think of themselves as younger. But still, it's fun to feel younger than you are, right?)

Gun Convenience

Violence in the home is already known to be more likely to turn deadly if there is a gun present, but now it's also shown that having guns easily and legally available nearby has the same effect. So basically, if it's easy to get a gun in your hands while you're still mad at your partner, you are more likely to kill them.

Gender-Neutral Pronouns... Work???

Four years ago, the Swedes decided to introduce a new gender-neutral pronoun, instead of just using "they" as a singular pronoun. Guess what??? It actually helped reduce sexist tendencies, like equating "people" with "men" or more traditional gender roles. Of course, there's no evidence that this was caused by the new pronoun and couldn't happen if the use of the singular "they" takes off as well. It just shows that having a gender-neutral way to refer to people actually matters.

Consequences of Lying

When you tell a lie to someone else, even a smaller, white lie, your brain becomes worse at identifying their thoughts and feelings. This can get in the way of your empathy and lead to further dishonest or dehumanizing activity. Yikes!

High-Res Brains

The highest-resolution scan of a brain has been completed, and made available for you to look at! It took them 100 hours to make it and researchers can look at objects as small as 0.1mm if they so desire. Brains!

Transgender Women's Fertility

For a while, there have been concerns about what might happen to a transgendered person's fertility after going on hormone suppression therapy. There's still a lot to learn, but a new case study has emerged showing that, at the very least, a trans woman could be on hormone replacement drugs for six months, discontinue use, and still produce sperm. It's a start!


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

Recommended Read: Take That Dang Glass of Water

Always say yes when someone offers you a glass of water, because it's important to practice saying yes
Pboto by Henry Be.

You know when you walk into an interview or meeting and they ask if you would like a glass of water? And you say no because you don't want to be high maintenance, even if a glass of water would be nice to have?

Yeah. Me too.

I have pondered in the past whether it is better to always say yes to the glass of water, literal or figurative, for several reasons: it validates the person offering and gives them something to do to welcome you, it gives your body vital hydration, your hands something to hold onto, and the conversation an excuse to pause while you sip. (These are benefits of a literal glass of water. The figurative glass of water will have different benefits depending on what it literally is, like maybe a magazine for you to flip through while you wait.)

Then I read this Man Repeller piece by Gyan Yankovich where she suggests always saying yes to the glass of water for just those reasons and the added reason of practicing saying yes. She argues that saying yes to small offers may help us assert our bigger needs when the time comes.

Go read it! Then let's make a pact. Let's always say yes to something we want or need that is offered to us.

This could be rephrased as: let's always let people help us when they want to help us.


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

Inspiration! Roundup: You Are Where You Are, Lace Around the World, Re-Imagining Horse Racing, and More!

A roundup of inspirational things, including lace art, snail models, horse racing, and other beautiful things.
This Week's "I want to go to there": Do you think this hut has magical powers?
Photo by Bayu Anggoro.

Where You Are

"For years before and after I wrote my first novel, I interviewed other women about their ambitions...Each path was different—not better, or happier, or more frustrating, just different. There was no point in looking at anyone else's map and wishing I were there.

I was where I was, and I could be somewhere else tomorrow."

- Elizabeth Renzetti, "Ambition: Three Life Lessons"

I really need this reminder right now. Every single life has its own path, and I will continue to follow/make mine based on where I am, not where I wish I was or where someone else is.

Lace Around the World

Polish artist NeSpoon started off painting traditional lace patterns from Poland on buildings. Now she's travelling all over the world, studying local lace patterns, and painting those on buildings. It's beautiful!


The New Horse Racing

If the brutal reality of horse racing has got you down, maybe try this innovation on the practice. It's guaranteed to be a fun time!

Snails in Love

Artist Aleia creates hilarious miniature scenes using snails as her models. This one's called Hot Date, 1991.


Goodness and Courage

A friend of mine posted this text image on Facebook recently, sharing the idea that courage isn't the absence of fear, but acting in spite of fear. A commenter then suggests that goodness isn't the absence of bad thoughts or ideas, but choosing to do the right thing regardless.

It's good to remember that our choices are more important than the random thoughts bouncing around in our heads.


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!