Blog

Handling Blame

Written by Adam on August 15, 2016. Updated January 8, 2023.
3 min read. Mindfulness, Blog. Leave a Comment

Blame comes in many forms, and they all suck. There’s blame when you did something wrong, or when the result wasn’t what was expected. Blame when you leave someone out, or when you forget something. Blame when you let someone down, or don’t see around a corner to help someone when they were expecting it.

For me, likability is a key aspect of my personality. I put entirely too much weight on being liked by people. This means that when someone doesn’t like me for some reason, it hits me hard.

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Newspaper Mindfulness Exercise

Written by Adam on August 12, 2016. Updated January 8, 2023.
2 min read. Mindfulness, Blog. Leave a Comment

Have you ever had something weighing on your mind and just wanted it to go away? Maybe you were trying to go to sleep, and you couldn’t stop thinking about something that happened at work. Or maybe someone offended you and you just can’t let it go. For me, the opposite often happens — if I offend or let someone down, it’ll stick with me in a hard way. Using this mindfulness exercise is one approach to improving your state of mind.

For some of these, a conversation with another party will be the way to help put the matter to rest, but if that’s not immediately possible, how do you let it go until then? Here’s an exercise you can try to help let go of what’s on your mind.

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Make Fewer Choices with Decision Minimalism

Written by Adam on August 9, 2016. Updated January 8, 2023.
2 min read. Minimalism, Blog. Leave a Comment

Every decision you make costs you energy and willpower. Decisions, like possessions, can be focused and limited to that which gives us the most pleasure.

Think about Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. Both famously reduced their wardrobe to only a few options, giving them more energy to focus on changing the world in their own ways.

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How to Declutter: My Uncluttering Manifesto

Written by Adam on August 6, 2016. Updated January 8, 2023.
2 min read. Minimalism, Blog, Personal. Leave a Comment

In college, and shortly thereafter, I wasn’t the best with money. I spent entirely too much needlessly upgrading my computer to the latest hardware for no real reason. Like many who come into some funds with a first job after college, I wasn’t the most thoughtful about where I spent my money. It didn’t take too long for that to change though. It wasn’t long before I realized I had accumulated more than I wanted and needed to declutter.

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Investment Literacy: Understanding the Basic Concepts

Written by Adam on August 6, 2016. Updated January 8, 2023.
10 min read. Financial Independence, Investing, Blog, Canonical. Leave a Comment

About 10 years ago my mom passed away. It was easily the toughest time in my entire life. I’d just graduated college 2 months before, and suddenly I was managing her estate while working full-time and commuting back to St. Pete to do repairs and sell my childhood home — all while trying (usually unsuccessfully) to collect money from a tenant living on her property. During this time I learned a lot about how to manage money — often by making mistakes.

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Write Your ‘Year in Review’ Post Now

Written by Adam on July 31, 2016. Updated January 8, 2023.
1 min read. Mindfulness, Goals, Blog. Leave a Comment

At the end of last year, I wrote a post about what I’d been up to in the past year. I do this on a monthly basis and a yearly cadence while things are still fresh in my mind. Looking back on the highlights of a year helps to remember what year an event occurred. It’s something I’d recommend to anyone to try.

Rather than writing this post at the end of the year, why not try writing it a few months early? You might have a number of “new years resolutions” from eight months ago that need some reassessment, and now is the time! Go through everything you want to get done before the end of the year and write them down in a post as though you have already done them.

Next, take the next steps to accomplish those tasks. For me, this called out a few things I really wanted to do this year that I haven’t made enough progress on. Cleaning out my garage, getting an iPhone app in the app store and any kind of exercise come to mind. Time to get crackin’ on those!