Beetle & Byte

Life Hacks

Making Hard Choices

Recently, I was confronted with a choice between multiple, equally good yet entirely different options. As much as I had prepared myself in the lead up to the decision, I hadn’t considered a scenario as good—or as challenging. Having exhausted all logic and reason (e.g. pro/con lists), I felt stuck and my anxiety began rising sharply.

Fortunately, my partner shared this TED Talk by Ruth Chang who discusses how to make hard choices when confronted with equally good but strikingly different paths. It helped me tremendously and I hope it will also serve you when you need it most.

A Week of Links

Last month, through extreme sacrifice and personal loss, Caitlin Boston paid off more than $200K in student loans all by her “freaking self”. She attributes a large part of her success to asking her male colleagues what they were making.

“Ask your other peers what they make — especially your male ones. It might make you feel uncomfortable but it’s the sole reason I started making an additional 41% a year.”

Caitlin Boston

Hauntingly beautiful video from Alicia Keys ft. Miguel.

I love the Secret Garden and I can’t wait to see the new remake.

I legit cried over these endangered and extinct snails.

In college, I used to use a manual version of this for Polaroid emulsion transfers.

A stark reminder of nine things women couldn’t do in 1971.

Hard to believe this train is real and in operation. First I saw it, I thought it was concept art for the Hunger Games movie trilogy.

So wrong and yet, so right.

Poodle fitness.

You gotta show up.

So much googly-eyed envy for St. Frank founder’s beautiful home.

Mind blown. There’s a real life cuckoo (clock) bird; sound included.

A Week of Links

Missy Elliott slayed with a performance medley of her greatest hits at the VMAs.

This squirrel knows good music.

Two Swiss sisters pay homage to Homer and Lisa‘s trip to New Orleans. I’m impressed with just how many culinary scenes they recreated.

Recently dawned on me that there’s a better way to dole out honey.

Can’t wait to play Mario Kart on my phone.

Currently trying to figure out where to put this DIY living wall in my home.

Leadership is as much about the environment that one shapes as it is about the impact that follows.

A breathtaking reminder why we should all be booking our trips to Iceland.

Moving and funny TED talk by Paula Stone Williams about what she’s learned since transitioning to a woman.

Whimsical paper masterpieces.

Recent addict of Lucas’ Papaw Ointment.

Library Savings

Image of Wichita Public Library receipt showing savings.

The Wichita Public Library has a simple and clever type of positive reinforcement. When you checkout a book from the library, the receipt shows you how much you saved by using the library instead of buying the book. They also show your lifetime savings.

At the beginning of this year, I pledged to not buy anymore books and instead either read the ones I’d accumulated or else checkout others from the library. It was a bit of a bumpy start to change habits and adapt to loan periods and hold times for books, but now I’ve hit my groove. I do everything electronically. I use Libby to connect to my local library‘s catalog and once a book is available, I send it to my Kindle. I’ve read much more this year than in the several years preceding. It’s a super convenient and rewarding system, though a tally of my lifetime savings would be fun too!

via Open Culture | Image by The Wichita Eagle

A Week of Links

Behind-the-scenes of Spike Jonze’s, Welcome Home. It really makes me appreciate how much talent, trial-and-error, and imagination go into a production this good.

I’ve been using Airtable to track all my job search efforts and it’s been a stellar companion and support system.

I’ll never look at surrealist art the same after listening to the podcast, Root of Evil.

Two very active and VERY curious kittens sometimes requires a pricey investment in distraction.

A slightly less pricey investment in distraction.

After the magnitude 4.6 earthquake in Seattle, I was reminded that I really need to get an emergency kit together.

Mind-boggling and useful sock hack.

I have happily added this urban beehive kit to my dream home wish list.

How trees communicate.

An eccentric and charming upstate home with loads of character at every turn.

Defeated vs. inspiring thinking.

Learning to Satisfice

Recognizing that inflection point — the point at which our continuing to rework our work reaches a law of diminishing returns — is one of the hardest skills to learn, but also one of the most necessary.

Dr. Alex Lickerman, Psychology Today

via New York Times

A Little Surplus of Gratitude

Do I have my griefs and losses, my regrets and disappointments? Of course I do. But I’ve found that being grateful, though this is something of a cliché, offers great comfort to me, and could for you too. For cultivating gratitude for the good stuff in our lives, being aware of and even counting our blessings, brightens our view of who we are and where we are in the world—and can make us happier.

I’ve found that a little surplus of gratitude often has downstream effects, helping us become more tolerant, less judgmental, more forgiving of family and friends when they annoy or neglect us, hurt our feelings, or let us down. It’s tempting to add up their failures and flaws and compare them with our far superior selves, but we make a big mistake if we do. For while most of the folks in our life can, on occasion, be pains in the ass, so—let’s face it—can I and so can you. Figuring out that we, like they, are in need of a lot of acceptance and forgiveness can make for a happier old (or any) age.

Judith Viorst

via Girls’ Night In

When People Talk, Listen Completely.

“When people talk, listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out, know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling. Try that for practice.”

Ernest Hemingway

via Swissmiss