Ask and you shall receive
You are more influential than you probably realise. Tips on socialising over the holiday season, with the usual fun, guidance and inspiration too.
6am wake up today to walk the dog and get into the remote TVNZ studio in the city to talk about Christmas and socialising on Breakfast on One at 8.10am.
As well as how to manage tricky conversations where people seem set to push your buttons (and know how to do it very well), we talked about how family dynamics of old can be replayed when we come together over the holidays.
We talked about loneliness too, and how we still love to receive actual personal mail like physical Christmas cards, and how much this means to people, especially if one is feeling fragile at this time. We can forget how much the exchanging of cards meant to people in previous not-so-modern times, and how they miss this and the sense of connection and being part of a real network this brings.
What I didn't have time to talk about that I thought I would share with you here was the importance of making space for yourself when in the holiday season socialising whirl, and asking for that space too.
When you’re with a whole heap of people over an extended period of time, and you know you’re someone who needs space, remember to try to carve out that time for yourself. And you might be surprised about the cascade effect you might set off.
We often underestimate how much influence we have over others.
If you say, “hey, you know how much I love being here, but I also like a little bit of alone time just - you know - we all need a bit of that sometime”, you may be surprised to get a response which might be like, “thank you for opening that possibility up - I might try and do the same too.”
And if you can do this is a playful and compassionate way before you start to feel edgy, it’s going to be better for everyone. It’s in the category of being kind to yourself rather than being assertive - so maybe try to stay with that tone.
Otherwise, we can be a little standoffish and take a lot of time to warm up because we are already on guard and preserving out energy, trying to eke out the time before we lose the plot. But if you’ve already kind of negotiated with yourself and your host time for you to recharge, you might find yourself warming to the situation faster, and engaging with others in a different way too - because you already have an exit strategy.
I’d like your help and feedback in figuring out a problem I have: I am losing free subscribers, gaining no paid subscribers, and I’m spending hours writing, thinking and pulling together content for my Substack each week. It’s starting to get a little dispiriting.
Is there anything more you’d like to see from me? I’d love to hear your suggestions. And please, if there’s one thing you can do if you can’t think of anything to tell me, please share my weekly Noise Reduction post with family, friends and colleagues. That would be very helpful.
Let’s get into this week’s inspiration, guidance and fun stuff.
Embrace your inner Anti-Kondo
Although we can reduce visual noise and declutter through tidying-up, an exaggerated interest in organising our living spaces and routines could signal a lack of control over other, more important aspects of our lives.
(I always knew being overly-tidy was overrated).
“I think there’s this drive to be neat and organized because the world around us feels so messy,” explains cultural critic Kyle Chayka, author of The Longing for Less, an essay on the history and evolution of minimalism, to EL PAÍS. “The last decade or so has been very chaotic,” he continues, alluding to the political turmoil and polarization in the United States and Europe, the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the current economic crisis. “Focusing on our immediate surroundings, and making them as clean and comprehensible as possible, feels like the only possibility for us as individuals. We have to hack our own lives because controlling our external circumstances is impossible.”
Check out the piece in EL PAÍS here.
Trying not to buy yet more stuff?
All Hail is an excellent online / TV series from Al Jazeera - I can highly recommend it. It’s a show dedicated to explaining the social, economic and political forces that hold power in our everyday lives. In this particular episode, they examine consumerism - pretty topical in this holiday season of presents, gift-giving, and then the holiday sales. All this in a cost-of-living crisis too.
But watch out for yo-yo-ing into minimalism - see the Anti-Kondo section above to see what that might symbolise.
What Twitter could learn from the Quakers
This is a fascinating article that focuses on how Quakers come to decisions, and how radically different it is from much of our modern-world, especially if you look at Twitter as an example of that.
It has much to do with silence.
In a typical Quaker meeting, Ambler writes, community members “sit in silence together for an hour or so, standing up to speak only if they are led to do so, and then only to share some insight which they sense will be of value to others.” If they must decide an issue collectively, “they will wait in silence together, again, to discern what has to be done.” There is much that debate can offer but much that it can obscure. “To get a clear sense of what is happening in our lives, we Quakers try to go deeper,” he writes. “We have to let go our active and fretful minds in order to do this. We go quiet and let a deeper, more sensitive awareness arise.” - from Rex Ambler’s “The Quaker Way”
Doing ageing differently
As the population ages, many people in their 60s and beyond are refusing to conform to old age stereotypes. Can our views about ageing change?
A 2021 report by the Australian Human Rights Commission, What’s age got to do with it? A snapshot of ageism across the Australian lifespan, identified the prevailing stereotypes, attitudes and beliefs about age in Australia. The dominant perception of older people, those aged 62 years and above, was “nice, likable, warm and good listeners [but with] declining skills, agency and vitality, [lacking] competence in many areas, such as with technology or professionally.”
“Ouch!” says Sylvianne Quin-Wright on hearing this. At 62, Quin-Wright does not see herself in that description and is quick to counter the perception. “Science is helping us to become fitter, to become healthier, to keep our minds active. You can teach an old dog new tricks to stay vital, to stay worthwhile and be of value.” Asked whether she thinks the age liberation movement has momentum. “Absolutely.”
And check out this story about Ken Campbell, who says he never liked sport, but then one day he kept his wife company on a trail run and discovered the joy of being out in the wild. Ken ran a 100km ultramarathon at 70, despite his arthritis.
That’s it from me for today. I hope you’ve enjoyed the selection of articles, links and insights this week. What did you think of this issue?
Your anonymous feedback helps me improve - thanks!
If you liked this issue (or like the newsletter in general), feel free to buy me a coffee or two — or you can just share it somewhere!
The best way too support me is to become a paid member (if you can afford it). Thanks!
Content creation is hard, and goes unapreciated, that said, finding a tribe who want that is a niche process, and Seth Godin talks about it in most of his books. Build it and they'll come I guess.
I work in community support with people in distress, or adjacent to it at least. I stumbled over you via the birdsite, and your work with All Right, and the messaging around the pandemic. That positive quiet strategy based stuff you shared, the book of calm, and the sleep book, I bought into.
You've been great value, I've shared and re-visited the strategies with my team, and the people they support. The shots of the mornings, and the dogs, and the gentle welcome into your daily life have rounded out my idea of who you are, I've even been a little more intrigued by cricket on the periphery of all that.
I've been a patreon in the past for Mental Health bloggers, and I've subscribed to SubStack initially, but the ongoing cost, the conversion rates (and minimal payment level options) are a barrier.
The value question is always the niggle here Sarb, micro payments might work better, more focus on niche subjects (cheap pyschology) (360 cameras) (cricket) (running) might make that value proposition more likely to bridge the 'is it worth it?' question.
I know from my own time in business, I trialled a pay what it's worth invoice model, and had mixed results. As consumers we're not aware of the issues of you putting food on the plates of your family, so trusting the room to fund you is much harder as a creator. We all imagine some other part of the internet is paying for my consumption of your content.
Part of me suggests getting more niche, not more popular.
Long story short, I have no credible idea of how to solve the subscriber issue, other than to keep building stuff that people value, and await the long tail payoff.
Happy to continue the conversation offline or directly Sarb
Thanks for your persistent input, have a great summer, take care. Aroha mai.