Pain is not something we invite. Pain is not something we wish to experience.

There are levels to pain. Mild discomfort to excruciating.

Yet pain is not an enemy, it is merely a warning. We must learn to see it as a warning and deal with it in kind.

The fear of embarrassment at the thought of public speaking is a legitimate pain. But it is just a warning, one that allows us, ahead of time, to improve ourselves, to become better at speaking publicly.

Pain is just a way of letting us know we are stretching ourselves. Without it we run the risk of running head long into danger.

Right now I have 39 open tabs in Chrome, my browser of choice. Most have been open for weeks waiting for me to get time to read them. And, of course, I have no idea what’s in most of those tabs.

I hope you don’t browse like me.

It drains your focus. It divides it.

I can’t help but see it as a useful lesson for work or life. The more tabs you have open the less gets done. The more tabs you have open the less likely you are to know what to work on.

Do yourself a favour. Close off the majority of those tabs or save them to a service (Pocket, Diigo, etc) so you can go through them at another time.

Time to close 39 tabs.

Seth Godin wrote:

When you discover that the job is in the way of the work, consider changing your job enough that you can go back to creating value.

Anything less is hiding.

But it’s not the only way to hide.

Procrastinating is hiding.

Social media is hiding.

Not communicating is hiding.

However you’re hiding, stop. There’s no one counting to one hundred. There’s no one coming to find you. You’re not hiding from anyone but yourself.

Stop hiding.

You need a workshop. You need a place to experiment, a place to play.

It doesn’t need to be a separate building. It doesn’t even need to be a separate room. It can be right where you are now. Just clear some space. Put away your usual tools.

The biggest change need only be in your head. You need a workshop mindset. Break things apart, see how they work. Put them back together but different. Start from scratch. Design anew.

You need a workshop.

Rest.

Rest but not for too long.

Rest but begin again tomorrow.

Rest and be refreshed.

Rest.

We now live in the era of streaming tv shows. Shows we often binge watch, several episodes at a time. In this era, are opening credits or opening sequences even required?

No matter how good they are simply something we have to watch or rewatch at the start of every episode. The longer they are the more of our time they waste.

There are still good ones, Game of Thrones comes to mind. Others, such as the opening sequence for Jessica Jones, don’t change from episode to episode and do little but annoy when watching several episodes back to back. Breaking Bad‘s eight second sequence is the best solution I’ve seen so far.

Netflix allows us to skip the end credits but forces us to watch the opening sequence. Shouldn’t we at least have the choice?

The world is not broken. It only appears to be.

We only see those who commit the crime. We only hear those who shout the loudest. Love does not need to shout. Hate always does.

Hate seems to get amplified.

It is only the few. It is not the many.

The few who hate are getting fewer. But they are also getting louder.

The world is not broken. It is only the few.

The likelihood is that you read books, watch movies and tv, and listen to music. At the very least you do one of those things. The people who provide us with those things are famous and rich from their creations. To a greater or lesser degree depending on how successful what they create becomes.

And that’s all fine.

But here is my question – what should we do when one of these celebrities does something wrong? Wrong is a broad term. It covers actions that are illegal but also other kinds of wrongs.

Chris Brown beat Rihanna. He still has a music career.

The US has been trying to extradite filmmaker Roman Polanski in relation to a sexual abuse case from the late 1970s. Polanski has continued to make movies and audiences have continued to see them.

Woody Allen has been accused of sexual assault by his daughter, Dylan. He still makes a movie a year and actors continue to clamor to work with him.

There are many, many more examples.

As consumers of content what is our responsibility? Should we actively avoid the books, movies, music created by wrong doers? What about when it is an allegation? If we should avoid the content, how long should we do so for?

I don’t have the answer. Do you?

Floating in the dark of life
Surrounded by slits of light
One grew bright and drew me into orbit

The distance we view something from determines how we see it.

It’s not a matter of viewing from too close or too far away. There is no optimal distance. But distance determines what is seen. View a forest from five kilometeres away and see it as a forest. View a forest from five meters away and see some trees.

Get the overview or get the detail. Everything reveals itself at the right distance.

You just need to find that distance.