Author: janeslessonslearned

Two Lessons from Tree

Today we feature two lessons taught to me by two teachers, both about Tree pose.  Which one speaks to you?

Celeste, one of my wonderful teachers at Mandala Studio of Yoga, taught me this: “If you lose your balance but you keep your breath, you haven’t lost anything at all.”      Wow!

Michelle figured out that if you practice Tree pose enough, you may find that you have enough balance to change your clothes in a gross beach changing room while balancing on one clean flip flop, never having to step directly on the icky floor.

More Secure

Carolyn taught me that you can make your connection to facebook more secure* by going to My Account  > Account Security and then:

Control your browsing and login security

Secure Browsing (https)
 Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) whenever possible

* more secure than what?  And how much more, with this squishy designation of “whenever possible”?  I don’t know, but it can’t hurt!

Own Up / Move On

I just learned a valuable lesson from a distant colleague: In the face of unrelenting criticism for a specific deed (or lack thereof), just confess and get on with things.

We were on our way to spending approximately forever, with 50+ people on the call, on the reasons why something wasn’t done.  Then E (let’s call her E) said “Hey – that’s on my list and I haven’t done it yet.  My bad. I’ll get to it as soon as I can” and the discussion was OVER.  The reasons really didn’t matter.  And on to other things.

Go E!

Toad You So

I learned that it’s a really good idea to check your kayak for toads before leaving shore.  Then I learned that it’s best not to freak out if a toad jumps on your feet while kayaking, because hey, how can a little thing like that hurt anyone?  Then I learned that if you jump too high in a kayak, you can flip and spill into the lake.  Then I learned that it’s really quite hard to swim in a life jacket, although it looks like it would be easy.  Then I learned, from Sally, that toads can’t live in water (hey is this even true?) so they have to be brought to shore or in this case the nearest island.

Bottom line: Check the kayak for hitchhikers first and save yourself a lot of trouble!

Listen Up & Lighten Up

Lessons come from everywhere.  This journey is about hearing them and learning from them.

When I get advice to not take my customer’s requirements to heart so much, that’s valuable.  It’s great to care, it’s great to want to do the right thing, but there is always reality to balance against at the same time.

I have always listened to and honored my customer.  I have always been an advocate for my customers, sometimes referred to as “users”  (Debbie has pointed out that only I.T. people and drug dealers call their customers “users”)  But perhaps it’s also valuable to to lighten up.

This advice was particularly valuable as it came from the customer herself!

Filming Thataway

Insider tip!  Sally taught me that when you see a yellow road sign with an arrow and cryptic letters both right-side-up AND upside-down, it means they are pointing to where a movie is being filmed!

She saw this one one when The Zookeeper was being filmed in Boston:

Note that they can flip this baby to point in any direction.

Sally noticed a new one on Sunday, it said “IHYD” and she was sure it was pointing to another shooting location.

Yup. She found out this this is for “I Hate You, Dad”, starring Adam Sandler, Susan Sarandon, James Caan.

Sally says “Also, look for all the people in the cast, because they’re already being spotted around Boston!”

 

Lessons within Lessons

You would think I would know this by now, but sadly not yet.  I learned that even if my car gets 39 miles to the gallon, I still need to put those gallons in, and to do it way before I head into the Big City to meet a bus on a busy weekend evening.

After an adrenaline-filled workday, I was calmly on time to drive into Boston when the gas light came on.

Here’s another lesson: Never try to use the GPS (which wanted to tell me that newsstands in downtown Boston sold fuel – like what?  lighter fluid?) and Yelp on the iPhone while driving alone!  As I watched the “range”/miles remaining indicator head for single digits, I took a wrong turn onto the Mass Pike and had to drive in the wrong direction before doing that Boston-U-turn exit to come back and find the gas in Charlestown.  All with a deadline.  And traffic.

Very very stressful.

My very wise sister pointed out that the bigger lesson was to learn to skip the adrenaline even while doing the rest of the adventure.  And if I’m going to that, I might as well skip the daytime dose as well.