Dan York

The Awesome Clarity of Prioritizing Health

There is an awesome clarity that comes when you have very clear priorities - and in my case one of those is my health. As I alluded to in my three words for 2023, I’ve had a couple of recent minor incidents that have brought this home to me.

A key one was back in November 2022 when I went for a routine colonoscopy. Having had colon cancer, this was my three year checkup and all was great. No signs of cancer and everything looked good. 

BUT… they had to keep me a bit afterward in the recovery area until they could get an acceptable blood pressure reading. I didn’t think a whole lot of it, but a few days later when I went to our local pharmacy to pick up a prescription for our daughter, I had to wait for a bit and so I sat down in one of those blood pressure test machines that we often have in pharmacies here in the US.

And.. I had elevated blood pressure!

Not high enough to be in the “Get thee to a doctor now!” category, but more in the form of “Dude! You need to make some changes NOW if you want to be around for a while!"

So I have.

I’ve been eating healthier, reducing my sodium intake (such as not eating the pretzels and chips I love to eat), drinking more water, and… a key point… trying to get at least 30 minutes of exercise each day.

Given that I work in a home office and don’t have to go anywhere, it’s tempting on very cold days to just stay inside, but I’ve been forcing myself to leave and go outside.

This health lens has caused me to make some choices:

• If I have a block of time when I can exercise, but I want to write a blog post or record a podcast episode, I ask myself “Is this due TODAY?” and “will it matter if I do it tomorrow?” If the answer is no (as it usually is), then I don’t do it and go exercise.

• If I want to listen to a recording of a work meeting I missed, rather than listen to it while sitting in my office, I open the recording on my iPhone and listen to the meeting recording while walking around my neighborhood. This has the added value that I actually focus on what is being said in the meeting rather than being at my desk only half-listening while I look at Slack, websites, email, etc.

• I have continued my enjoyment of walking at Shelburne Farms, an amazing and beautiful area that I’m lucky to have about 5 minutes away from our house. Living so close, I can time it to fit a good walk in between other things going on in the day. And when it gets lighter (and warmer) I’ll start going in the very early morning again.

• For days when it’s too cold and windy to enjoy an outdoor walk, I have started going to a local ice skating rink. I’ve figured out how I can drive there, skate for 30 minutes, and then get back home all within an hour. 

In general, I’ve used the lens of “will this help me improve my health?"

Owning an Apple Watch has also been helpful. I’d dismissed the “closing the rings” Activity thing as a silly gimmick, but I’ll admit that there is a certain satisfaction in knowing I hit my daily goals. The Health app is also useful, and tracking my heart rates, sleeping, etc, is all useful.

Thankfully I have a job that is project-driven and so I can shift my work hours around and start earlier or work later so that I can do some of these things during the day. (And I do recognize that this is a privilege that many people do not have when their jobs are tied to specific hours or locations.)

My goal is that by the time summer comes around, I’m hoping to get back into the running I used to do. We’ll see. I need to be walking faster before I jump into the running again.

The good news is that this all does seem to be working. Two months later, my blood pressure is back down to near normal levels and in fact is even reading as “normal” sometimes. I’ve lost a little bit of weight (still have a long way to go). I’ve found that “Hint of salt” Wheat Thins taste pretty much the same as the regular ones - and I’ve learned how much additional sodium is in so many different foods! And I’m feeling a bit better in general.

Amazing what happens when you have that clarity of priorities in making daily choices!

P.S. I’m also playing in a curling league every Thursday night an hour north in Bedford, Quebec, which gives me two hours of movement that can be intense at times if you need to do a lot of sweeping. It’s kind of fun to look at the heart rates recorded by the Apple Watch after a game and see how up and down they can be.

My Themes for 2023

As has been my practice for the past 14 years (see list), my first post of 2023 across all my sites is of three words that are my aspirations or “themes” for the year ahead. They are not “resolutions” so much as guiding thoughts or principles.

Health

Health (or a health-related word) has been one of my three words in 11 of these 14 years. 🙁 BUT… the truth is that I’ve reached an UNhealthy point where I MUST prioritize caring for my body. I’ve had a couple of minor health scares. I’ve been too sedentary. And I’ve continually made some poor choices in food consumption (but… all… those… cookies!!). I need to lose a significant amount of weight and I need to get exercising again. I don’t want to be one of those mid-fifties guys who drops dead while mowing the lawn! And.. we have two amazing daughters and I’d like to be around to see where their lives go… and I’d like to grow old together with my wonderful wife. So my health MUST be a priority… really at the expense of all the other things.

Community

The current chaos and drama at Twitter has highlighted how important an online community can be (or in truth a combination of many individual online communities). Many of us are now trying to figure out where the next communities will be. This theme will also be an important part of my work at the Internet Society this year, as I’ll be taking on a new role co-leading a project seeking to help grow “sustainable technical communities” around the world. We’ve seen over the years that where there is the strongest and most resilient Internet access, there are strong communities of technical people. They might be network operator groups (NOGs), or security-focused groups, or other user groups. Helping identify where technical communities are - and where they are not - and helping share best practices among groups will be a substantial part of my work in 2023.

Outside of work, this word and theme plays into other aspects of my local life. I’ve been getting more involved in some activities in my local town. I’m also in the leadership track for our local Rotary Club and in July I’ll become the President of the club. I’m also involved in other global communities such as the IT Disaster Resources Center (ITDRC) and of course the Wikipedia editors community.

"Community” - and building thriving communities - is SO important in all that we do.

Music

This is a theme I haven’t included before, but over the past year of returning to some activities, including singing in a church, I have realized how much I have missed music being more of a role in my life. In 2022 I started to take some guitar classes again, which I’m hoping to continue in January. I’ve also started to do a bit more noodling around on the piano… and may actually think about some lessons somewhere in here. And, at some point in time I’d like to do some singing with a group, something I haven’t done in a couple of decades. We’ll see.

Missing from the list this year is the nearly ubiquitous “Content”. I didn’t create a great amount this year, and I’m hopeful that I will do more in 2023… but I’ve come to terms more with the reality of everything else going on. Creating content will not necessary be a “focus” area, but hopefully may be an outgrowth of some of the other work. But whatever happens, I’m not going to stress about it too much.

That’s what I’m looking forward to this year. How about you?

Hallmark Christmas Movie Bingo Cards - and the Fascinating History of the Hallmark Channel

This past holiday weekend our older daughter brought a new fun activity - “Hallmark Christmas Movie Bingo”. If you are familiar with the “Hallmark Channel” here in the USA, they produce many seasonal romance movies. They vary widely in quality and some are a bit cheesy and cringe-worthy. Many of the movies follow a common formula … something like… high-powered marketing exec in New York City finds out her fiancé is cheating on her, and so goes away to spend Christmas with one of her old friends at her house in some rural location (often Vermont). While there, something happens (car breaks down, big town event is in chaos), and she meets some hunky man who she is initially repelled by… but by the end of the movie they are either kissing, getting married, or she is leaving her job in New York to relocate to this ideal life in the rural town. Or something like that. Usually the main character seems to be female, although I’ve seen a few male. Often they are cynical and think Christmas is just a consumer spending experience.

Anyway, this formulaic production model turns out to be perfect for a bingo card. Here are just some of the squares on one of the free sites that offer these cards:

• Trip to a Christmas tree lot
• Main character is a single parent
• Main character is a workaholic
• Setting is a Christmas-obsessed town
• Characters pretend to be dating/engaged
• Town's major industry/historical landmark/major tradition is in peril
• Character from the big city grows to love small-town life
• Unexpected help from angel/Santa
• Main character is keeping secret that could ruin everything
• They lost their Christmas spirit when a parent or spouse died
• Reliving Christmas traditions past helps renew someone's Christmas spirit
• Love interest comes to her rescue by doing something manly
• Cute dog
• Delayed flights
• ...

You get the idea.

It was a fun addition to watching the movies - and quite honestly kept me watching one very cringe-y and unrealistic movie when I might have just left the room to do something else. Hallmark staff clearly understand this, as they have written about it, and even sell a bingo kit. There are, of course, many free sites offering such cards.

What fascinated me, though, was to learn a bit more about the Hallmark Channel itself. A Wikipedia article traces its history from its origins in the late 1980s and early 1990s with two religious cable channels. These combined to become first the “Faith and Values Channel” in 1993 and then the Odyssey Network in 1996. In 1998, Hallmark Entertainment and The Jim Henson Company (think of the Muppets) became investors and the channel further reduced its religious programming to focus more on “family” shows.

In 2000, the ownership structure changed and in 2001 it was rebranded as the “Hallmark Channel”. The Wikipedia article goes on to detail the evolution of the channel, including the involvement of both Hillary Clinton and Martha Stewart at different times - things I was not aware of - as wall as the development of the seasonal content that many of us may be aware of today. I also was not aware of all the animal programming, although that makes sense in the context of their historic “family friendly” programming.

The article also notes some of the Hallmark Channel’s struggles between its more conservative origins and the more inclusive society we are in today. And noting the evolution of the channel to include LGBTQ characters or stories.

I seldom watch the Hallmark Channel myself, and I don’t know that this weekend’s experience will change that, but it was an enjoyable way to spend some time together - and it was interesting to learn of this larger history.

Ceremonies of Light and Dark

I have always enjoyed our ceremonies of light and dark, here in the cold mid-winter of northern New England.

The winter solstice here is always a time of celebration. For us, it is the shortest “day” in terms of daylight - and the longest night. It is cold here at this time of year.

The solstice gives us hope. From here on out, the days only get longer… and at some point will start to actually get warmer. (We have to go through some much colder periods first, though!)

We celebrate here so often with candles… with fires… with flames… with light to drive away the darkness.

In the Christian tradition, there are the candles of advent, the Christmas trees with their lights, and… today… the many lights that people decorate their houses with. In the Jewish tradition, there is the menorah with its 8 candles that are lit during the days of Hanukkah. In older pagan traditions, there were similar ceremonies of light. Today, in our less religious times, we cover our houses with “holiday lights”. In a school our daughters attended when they were younger, there was a beautiful advent spiral walk with candles.

Many of the ceremonies have different meanings, of course,

Yet each in their own way brings light into a time of darkness.

There is beauty and magic in that.

Dear Duolingo - I am doing fewer lessons since your "learning path" change on November 1

Dear Duo,

I’m not sure your new “learning path” that you rolled out on November 1 is working quite the way you wanted it to. At least for me.

You see.. yesterday I did not do a single French lesson!

Why not? Simple… because now that you have forced users along a single path, I know that when I do the one lesson I have available for me to do, I will then be rewarded with a “15-minute double XP boost” (I will receive double the “experience points” (XP) for each lesson.) And during the day yesterday, I didn’t have a block of time where I knew I could have another 15 minutes to do more lessons. I had random moments of 5 or 10 minutes, but not a larger block of time. And sure, I could have just done a lesson and NOT used the 15-minute double-XP period, but at this point I’m DEEP into the gamification, and so I want to use those time periods to get more points!

The result was.. I didn’t do any French lessons.

Finally, about 9:00pm I realized I hadn’t done any Duolingo, and so I went in to do a practice session to at least continue my streak. But it wasn’t one of the regular lessons.

Somehow, I don’t think this is what you want people to do.

To back up a bit and provide some context, I started using Duolingo a bit over 9 years ago in July 2013. I started paying for Duolingo Plus (now “Super”) 3 or 4 years ago. I’m currently on a 415-day streak, and I’ve bought into the gamification to the point that I’m in the “Diamond League” and work each week to get enough XP to stay in that league.

So I’m all in.

But your November 1 change is seriously affecting the way I’ve used the app. It used to be I would work in several different skills at once. And if I was challenged for time, I could just so lessons in multiple different skills, potentially bringing several skills to be one lesson away from being complete (which would then get the reward of the double XP boost). Then, when I had a block of time, I could start completing those skills to get the double XP boost.

Now, that approach isn’t an option. I have to keep moving along a path. I can’t work in multiple skills at once. (I can switch to another language and do lessons there, but then that is diluting the time I want to spend learning one language.) I understand your view that this is a better way of learning, and maybe I’m just that grumpy guy who is resistant to change, but it is a VERY different way of working than how I’ve been doing it for the past 9 years.

I do wish there was the option to work on different skills and not be so locked into the same path. Maybe I’m missing something with the new redesign, but so far I haven’t figured this out.

Sincerely,
A previously enthusiastic Duolingo user who is less excited now

The Best Return To Work After Vacation Ever

Yesterday was my first day back at work after 10 days away on vacation where I did not check work email or Slack.

I approached it with the usual perspective of “Ugh! How many messages will I have to wade through!” Quite often it can take a day or a couple of days to get caught up.. and sometimes you can feel like you need a vacation from taking a vacation! 😀

I have a whole regular “return from vacation" routine down. The first thing I do is copy my entire email inbox to a mail folder so that my inbox only has new messages and I can start responding to those items. Then at some point in the day I start scanning through that mail folder to triage messages in importance, making sure I see messages from our CEO, senior management, my manager, our team, etc., etc.  Before I do that, of course, I usually spend time working my way through the zillion Slack channels we have trying to figure out what his most important. Usually the whole process can take hours to days to recover.

So I was prepared that this would be my first Monday of 2022.

To my utter surprise… it was the exact opposite!

You see, our executive team had decided to shut down the entire organization for the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, judging that all of us needed a full break to rest and recuperate given the pandemic and so much chaos happening in so many parts of the world.

And… perhaps more importantly… people DID take the time away!

There were a few email messages from staff, and a few from people outside the organization, but so few that I didn’t even bother with my usual “move everything to a folder” routine.

And Slack was blissfully quiet… at least until I got there yesterday! 🤣

There was no recovery time needed! I was just able to get in, answer a few queries and then get started with 2022 work and planning.

In 30+ years in the corporate world, I’ve never had a “return from vacation” quite like this - but I’ve also never had a company or organization truly shut down.

It was wonderful - and I highly recommend it for other companies!

P.S. We’re hiring! (Although only for a couple of positions right now, but other positions do open up over time.)

"Is It true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?" would be a good filter for posting to social media

When my wife and I were raising our daughters, there came a point when we tried to impress upon them that just because something was true didn’t mean you needed to SAY that right then. Yes, Dad might have dark circles under his eyes and look terrible because he was up all night sick, but does he really need to hear “you look terrible” right at this exact moment in time? That may be true, but did he need to hear it?

At some point we started suggesting running comments though a filter of three questions:

• Is it TRUE?
• Is it NECESSARY?
• Is it KIND?

If the answer was “Yes” to all three, then go ahead and say it. If not, perhaps hold back.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that * I * don’t always hold to that. Sometimes I’ve fired off a snarky message on social media that, while true, was probably neither necessary or kind. 🙁

Which was what got me thinking about these questions again. Right now there is so much vitriol, anger, and even hatred spewed out by people online. It’s been this way for years now… just look at the comments section for almost any YouTube video. And some of us of a certain age can remember back to some of the meanness in some Usenet newsgroups.

But I think it’s gotten worse lately. In part because of some of the extreme polarization that has happened politically in many countries around the world. There’s a winner-take-all, “you’re with us or you are the enemy” kind of mindset that is increasingly prevalent. And two years of a global pandemic have affected us all. We’re fatigued, exhausted, frustrated, angry … we aren’t at our best.

Just last week a young woman enthusiastically announced on Twitter that she was so excited about a new job at a company working with cryptocurrencies. She was excited and delighted to start, and was eager to work with other people.

And then people piled on her saying truly terrible things because they didn’t like the company she was joining or the overall industry into which she was going. Very mean, personal things.

You could watch in her subsequent tweets as what had started as a joyous celebration announcement turned into something extremely negative.

Why did people need to do that?

Sure, some of what might have been said might have been true about the company. And yes, the cryptocurrency “industry” is currently full of scams and fraud.

But was any of that truly necessary to share with this particular person? And was it kind to her?

We so often seem to forget when we fire off quick messages on social media, in particular, that there are human beings just like us on the other end of the exchange who will be receiving our snark and vitriol.

And right now with all the pandemic fatigue, in particular, critical statements we might brush off at another time can instead be taken quite hard.

If we all could use these questions as a filter BEFORE posting, might we wind up making the world a bit kinder?

Something to think about.

The origins of those questions

As an aside, I couldn’t remember where my wife and I had first heard those questions. (Perhaps on social media!) So I did some digging and found that, as the image with this post shows, there are many different versions of the questions in different orders. Some attribute the phrase to Buddha, but this article explains how that is false. The author noted that there are similarities in Buddhist texts, and dug deeper to find a Victorian-era (1872) poem by Mary Ann Pietzker, and references even before that to a “Reverend Mr. Stewart”.  Other articles point out similarities to a Quaker “three sieve” story, and even to some statements from Socrates. We may never know the exact origins, but regardless the questions are good ones.

My Themes for 2022

Following my pattern of the past 13 years (see list), my first post of 2022 across all my sites is of three words that are my aspirations or “themes” for the year ahead. They are not “resolutions” so much as guiding thoughts or principles.

In so many ways 2021 was a good bit of a “dumpster fire” of a year. We started off with such great hope that the pandemic would be under control … and ended with even higher case counts and more deaths that we’d had the previous year. It often does truly feel like the 672nd day of March 2020. So many of us struggled in so many ways. Yet amidst all that chaos, there were positive signs - and I remain grateful that I reached the end of the year with all my family in decent health (at least physically).

Looking on toward 2022...

HOPE

Last year brought me great clarity around what I see as my own my personal mission to help people understand our choice of futures - for the Internet, but also for ourselves and for our society. 

But 2021 also brought clarity that it is so easy to fall into despair. It does seem like we’re stuck in a perpetual Groundhog Day. The state of the pandemic is so frustrating, particularly for those of us who have done everything we can to protect ourselves, our families, and our communities. The breakdown in civility and discourse that we are seeing across the USA and across the world is extremely saddening. The polarization and politicization of even trivial issues is tragic. And our governments and leaders often seem incapable of doing anything helpful - and in fact sometimes seem to be doing the exact opposite of what makes sense - or are so mired in disagreement that nothing happens at all. And… weather events around the world seem to indicate that climate change is happening quicker than many forecast. There are so many tragic events happening to so many people, and even for those not directly affected, there is so much to fear that it can be paralyzing.

It often feels like we are on the edge of living in any of the zillion dystopian, post-apocalyptic movies or TV series that are out there.

It’s easy to despair. 

And yet… we can’t. For if we fall into the depths of despair, what is the point of being here? And who will pull us out?

We must hold on to the possibility of hope. 

We must.

And so what I want to do this year is to do whatever I can to help shine the light on and amplify the good work going on. (And there definitely IS - read "99 Good News Stories You Probably Didn’t Hear About in 2021”)

Not with “rose-colored glasses” or with naive, excessive optimism that just ignores everything else to hope things get better.. but rather with an action of seeking out the hopeful, positive, and optimistic in the midst of the chaos and despair. As I said in a tweet:

The challenge that lies before us is more than choosing hope over fear.
It is choosing hope *amidst* the overwhelming narratives of fear and doom.
It is choosing hope and optimism *despite* those fears.
It is choosing hope as a daily, gritty act of resistance and resilience.

To me, that is the work we all must do.

CONTENT

As I wrote at some length last year, I’ve been struggling through this whole pandemic, but even before that, to consistently create content, be it blog posts, podcast episodes, videos, newsletters or more. I optimistically wrote:

A goal in 2021 is to break through those blockages. I want to get writing again. I want to more consistently create podcast episodes. I’d like to send out more than one email newsletter in an entire year!

That didn’t happen. In fact, I sent out zero issues of that particular email newsletter, although I did send out two issues of a new newsletter. 

I produced a whopping 8 podcast episodes in 2021 (7 for my The Dan York Report podcast, and one for my “FIR On Technology” podcast), although I did submit all 12 monthly reports into the FIR podcast.

And… I only wrote * 11 * posts across all my different blog sites, including my employer’s site, and almost all of those were “administrative” notices such as about upcoming deadlines for various awards or elections. A far cry from the days when would write hundreds of posts each year. 🙁

A sad state of affairs for someone who loves to create content.

Now, I do give myself a bit of a break. I mean… pandemic!  It’s been hard on all of us and quite honestly simply surviving 2021 is a beautiful thing!

On the positive side, I was live-streaming on Twitch most of the year, and in doing so continued to learn an amazing amount more about Wikipedia. And, I set up a TikTok account to actually start playing with that platform.

But my aspiration in 2022 is to get back in the game… to be back telling the stories I want to tell… and to be helping promote the hopeful aspects of the futures we need to choose. And… to do so on my OWN sites! Lately I’ve started to write very long threads on Twitter that then get lost in the noise. I really need to be taking those threads and writing them as posts for their longevity - and to have them on sites I control, rather than being lost in some proprietary platform.

We’ll see!

HEALTH

Finally, I’ve really got to focus on my health. Like many people, I’ve been a bit too sedentary during the pandemic and eaten a bit too much comfort food. My weight is almost the heaviest I’ve ever been and I seriously need to start making some better food choices. And, being in my mid-50s there’s a number of medical checks I need to have. 

I need to focus on this!

Looking forward...

Overall I’m quite looking forward to 2022. I’m hopeful that maybe we can finally get the pandemic to a more reasonable state. I look forward to hopefully getting together with friends in our local area, and making new friends, too. I look forward to seeing family more frequently. I look forward to getting back to attending user group meetings and other professional events, and going to concerts and church services and so much more. I miss singing!

Hopefully we can get there… although admittedly 2022 isn’t starting off so great with the rising numbers.

I am also very excited about a new project I’m leading at the Internet Society about understanding Internet access via low earth orbit (LEO) satellites. It’s a hot topic with a lot of marketing hype right now - and we’ll be working to bring some clarity to that whole area. It should be both educational and fun!  

Let us hope this all continues to go well!

What about you? What are your aspirations for 2022?

My Themes for 2021

As I have for the past 12 years (see list), my first post of 2021 across all my sites is of three(-ish) words that are my aspirations or “themes” for the year ahead. As my 18yo daughter has reminded me, the beginning of a new calendar year is a completely arbitrary marker 🙂, but it does provide a moment to pause and reflect. Particularly THIS year with the pandemic, we’ve had a great amount of reflection time!

Note: while last year’s post was super short, this one is much longer...

CLARITY (MISSION)

Some of my colleagues at the Internet Society are undoubtedly tired of hearing me say that we must “Do Fewer Things Better”. That’s been my mantra for the past several years, particularly after I took on our website redesign four years ago at the beginning of 2017. As I looked at all the many amazing things we were doing, it was clear to me that we were doing far more than we really could with our small staff. It was hard to capture in our website what we did as an organization, because we were doing so many things! As our new-ish (2018) CEO is fond of saying “We aren’t the Everything Society!” We’ve worked hard over these years to be more focused and have more clarity of purpose.

In 2020, some internal organization changes and internal opportunities caused me to think deeply about exactly what it is I want to be doing - not only within the Internet Society, but also in my larger life. In the immortal words of the poet Mary Oliver:

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

I spent a great amount of time just… thinking. Reflecting. Writing. Mind-mapping. I re-read a book I’ve enjoyed - “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less”, which may actually be from where I started using “Do Fewer Things Better” (although he uses a slight variation “fewer, but better” following on from the German “weniger aber besser”).

Perhaps most importantly, I went back and read my blog post about WHY I joined the Internet Society back in September 2011. A critical section stood out:

---

We have before us a choice of futures.

One choice leads to a future where innovative companies can emerge, thrive, disrupt and succeed.

Another choice leads to a future where what little "innovation" there is exists only at the will of the gatekeepers to the network after appropriate requirements and/or payments are met. Other choices lead to outcomes somewhere in between those polarities.

How will we choose?

---

I realized that something in my work that I had been missing from 2017-2019, with so much of my work focused on the organization’s websites, was being a stronger voice about this choice of futures we have. In 2020, I got a chance to speak and write more on this topic as I lead our Open Standards Everywhere project… and it left me wanting to do more.

The pandemic showed us how critical the Internet is. It is the lifeline that is connecting us in all we do. It is how we communicate, collaborate, create, connect…. It is how we work, how we go to school, how we buy things.

And yet… this “lifeline” of ours is not well understood by everyone using it. And in particular by so many of the people creating policies or making decisions around the Internet.

The “Internet” needs more voices explaining HOW it works… and WHY it works the way does… and why it is worth defending. (We see it right now with the “Section 230” debates happening where it’s clear that some people don’t understand what the actual topic is!)

This happens to be something I can do particularly well. And so out of all that thought and reflection emerged the clarity of a personal “mission”, not just for my work, but also for my larger life in general:

To help people understand our choice of futures in our ever-more connected society, and to be a voice for the open Internet.

There’s an amazing clarity that happens when you have that clear of a direction. It provides a lens through which to evaluate choices and opportunities. It provided guidance in those work changes and opportunities I mentioned above.

It also provided a lens through which to evaluate opportunities outside of work. As an example, over the past several months I’ve had people from two separate nonprofits that I greatly admire approach me about joining their Board of Directors. A few years ago I would have probably just said “yes” to both, because they are great organizations and I enjoy serving on boards and helping organizations move forward.

But this clarity of purpose, combined with “do fewer things better”, provided a lens through which I could evaluate the choices. With everything else going on right now, could I really give the time to help the organizations succeed?  And secondly, would joining that board help move this personal mission forward?

For one organization, the answer was a clear yes. For the other, it wasn’t.

In 2021, I want to continue to focus on being more clear on my priorities in life, more intentional, more focused. As part of that, too, I want to evaluate the things I am doing and decide whether I truly want to continue (and have the capacity to do so), or if it is time to end some of those activities.

CONTENT (WRITING)

As noted above, if I truly want to be “a voice for the open Internet” and “to help people understand our choice of futures”… well… I kind of have to DO THAT, eh?

When I looked back over these 12 years of writing these “3 words” posts, 10 of the posts have included a word about doing “more” with creating content!

And yet… here I am again.

I have stories I want to tell. I have things I want to say. I have information that I think would help other people.

And yet… I struggle to get those stories and words out.

The “tyranny of the blank page” wins. The articles aren’t written. The podcast episodes aren’t recorded. The videos aren’t made.

As part of that clarity of purposed mentioned above, I’ve been looking at what is it that stops me from getting those stories out. In some cases it has been the fear of getting started. In some cases it has just been… well… life in a pandemic. In other cases, it’s been… getting distracted by everything else on the Internet.

A goal in 2021 is to break through those blockages. I want to get writing again. I want to more consistently create podcast episodes. I’d like to send out more than one email newsletter in an entire year!

Or not! Another goal this year is also to re-evaluate… if I’m not realistically going to send out email newsletters, then just shut it down! If I’m not going to publish posts on one of my sites… archive it!  It’s time to do fewer content things better!

CONNECTIONS

Finally, the pandemic of 2020 has certainly shown the strength of - and need for - connections with other people. In some ways, the pandemic has been amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever had a stronger connection with my wife and daughters than I have this year! My wife and I have been able to carve out some “date time” on morning walks that has brought us even closer together. The sadness of our 18yo not being able to attend her first year of university on campus has provided an amazing opportunity to learn so much more about the incredible young adult she has become. (For her sake, we’re hoping she can move on campus in the fall of 2021!) It was strange for our 11yo to start a new school entirely online and from home, but we’ve also embraced our ability to see more of her than we would in a typical school day.

But for all the strengthening of my immediate connections, I dearly miss seeing my parents and extended family. Video calls are great, but not the same. I miss seeing old friends … and making new friends. The pandemic has definitely highlighted to me that I while I’ve made some connections here in Vermont since we moved here in 2018, I do need to strengthen the ones I have and also expand a bit more.

As a strong extrovert, I enjoy the interactions with many people… and that’s so hard to do in this pandemic world. I’m hoping the combination of vaccines and behavior will help us put this virus behind us.

Two Other Themes

 While those are my main themes, there are certainly two other themes that are constant in my life:

• HEALTH - I’m still working on this. (I say as I eat another chocolate chip cookie!) My wife and I both share a goal of eating better, exercising more, and just generally trying to be more healthy.
• SERVICE - I’ve always tried to have part of my life involving service in helping others. Whether it has been working as part of local organizations, helping with community breakfasts, or doing other active roles, it’s always been part of what I’ve done. But it’s crazy hard in the midst of this pandemic to figure out how to help others while still being safe yourself. Sure, we donate to local organizations as we can. We help our local food shelf with supplies. But I want to do more to help in this time when so many people need help!

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So these are all thoughts as we leave the craziness of 2020 and enter into 2021… we’ll see how the year shapes up - and how well I do!

How about you? What are things you want to accomplish or do differently in 2021?

Reflections on Earth Day 1990 - And How It Fundamentally Changed My Life

As we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day today, April 22, 2020, my mind jumped back 30 years to "Earth Day 1990" in the state of New Hampshire. I made some choices that year and seized some opportunities that introduced me to the worlds of communications, community organizing, and public relations. I approached 1990 thinking I was going to be finishing up a Masters in Education degree and heading back to Connecticut to teach in a public high school. But life took very different turns and presented new opportunities. The choices I made then set me on the path that led to where I am 30 years later.

I reflected on all this in a podcast episode:

Happy Earth Day to you all!

P.S. See also this post I wrote today: On this 50th Earth Day, We Are Using The Internet To Change The World