Regrets 7: Me

The title is not really accurate, but more accurate would have been a paragraph, so, I am going with it.

When I decided to do the regrets posts, this is one of the first items I considered posting about. It has been the hardest one to get started on too. It is quite different than the others, but also more significant. For what it is worth, this will be best read completely, and dispassionately, I think.

I am glad it has taken me so long to get around to writing this post though, as recent pondering about it, and new information has helped shape and give names to some of my thoughts on this subject.

a decade ago, I was diagnosed with a social anxiety disorder. I managed it - or thought I did - for several years using cognitive behavioral therapy, but for one reason or another, the problem morphed from an emotional one (which I was reasonably managing) to a physical one (initially misdiagnosed as Crohn's disease. My but the human body is a fascinating machine...).

Retrospectively as I have considered this experience, I have come to realize this particular malady has been with me for much longer. Probably from my childhood.

In looking back now, I have come to realize that as I was going through life, I was plagued by an insatiable need to be.... not just accepted by everyone, but admired.. adored... by everyone.

I think Tyler Whitesides gets some credit for this realization on my part. His book series, Janitors - the First book - has a part  where a Girl Named Daisy calls Spencer (The story's protagonist) a Chameleon. She explains it is because he changes his skin in order to be accepted by who he is with. It was not meant as a compliment. And when I read it, I inwardly to issue with it. I had always been proud of the fact that I was something of a Chameleon- that I could get along with almost any group.

That gnawed at me for a few years, and more recently, I began to connect the dots. Yes, I was able to get along with most any group, clique, gang, organization, etc... I was casual friends with most everyone.

But I was also, almost always... lonely.

After I returned from my mission, I desperately wanted to get married and do the fairy tale, happily ever after thing. But I couldn't. I would date every now and again, but somehow I would make a mess of it. If a girl expressed an interest in me, I withdrew. If they weren't interested, I would borderline obsess with trying to get them to like me. I did and said countless stupid things then, and therein lies the regret. Decades later, I still stew over those incidents - the hurtful things I said, and did (or didn't).

I regret the hurt I caused.

 years later, looking back, and understanding my anxiety disorder, It begins to make sense now. You see, it is impossible to be universally adored. Sooner or later, you will make a mistake. Sooner or later you will wear the wrong skin in front of the wrong group. Sooner or later, no matter how hard you try, people will discover that you are imperfect. So, I subconsciously sabotaged any burgeoning relationship in order to protect my facade.


If I could go back in time....

If I could go back in time...

I wouldn't change it.


Yes, I feel regret. I feel gnawing regret for the hurt caused, or imagine I caused (reality is those people likely no longer remember who I am, much less what I did).

Yes, I wish there was a way to take that back, or at least properly apologize. But I still wouldn't change it. You see, those experiences, though they have caused me a great deal of pain... have helped to shape me. To mold my character. Those experiences have help me to be more empathetic, more compassionate, all that skin changing has allowed me to see through other's eyes, to see other perspectives. I have gleaned so much from those experiences.

And ultimately, those many years of shaping, molding experiences brought me to the point I am today, Happily married to an amazing woman, The father of four amazing children who I adore and who are absolutely delightful to see grow up. Those experiences, in spite of the regrets, are simply worth too much to change.

And that is why this particular regret is unique. Yes, there is very real regret, yes, there are some things I wish could have happened differently, but not at the expense of what was gained. Sometimes, you can have a regret that you wouldn't, shouldn't change.

Dancing, Sports, Art, Attitude. The common link

I was shown a great story a few days ago, on the subject of complaining, and why it is bad for you. This is of course an interesting subject to me. I have a fascination with the brain, how it works, and what shapes us. (one of my earleist posts, and favorite games to play is "String Button Mind Magic").

I went on a bit of a hunt for information on Neuroplasticity I found some interesting information, and research, including this tidbit from 2010 (an older one, yes), talking about a technological advancement allowing for more precises analysis of brain activity.

I had a couple of thoughts hit me:

I love watching videos of talented people demonstrating their talents. Many of the videos I linked in my r-positive posts were of this sort. Anything really, gymnastics, dancing, skiing, jump rope, soccer, painting, parkour... It is just amazing to watch talented people. Do you know how they become so talented?


Check out this 11 year old dub-stepper, and hear what she has to say.

You see - tying these thoughts together. That amazing ability comes through dedicated, focused practice. What happens when you repeat an action? or even visualize the action repeatedly?

Every time you think about something or due something, neural connections are created in your brain by electro-chemical signals traveling from neuron to another across synapses. When you continually repeat an action or thought, the synapses for those particular neural pathways are reduced, which makes them the easier path in the future, thus, what once required a focused effort on your behalf becomes second nature. an unconscious reaction.

That is what is going on in the brains of these great talents.

Now yes, genetics does play a part in this, perhaps even genetic memory. And upbringing plays a key role - your highest levels of neuroplasticity are in your younger years, up to age six is the highest level of brain growth, after which growth rates decline slowly until roughly age 30-40. After that, growth drops quite dramatically.

Environment plays a role as well, quality of food, quality of water, air... certain types of music have been shown to have effects on brain structure development.

And there are of course a number of diseases which effect the brain, from bacterial to viral, to chemical, including anxiety and depression, schizophrenia, meningitis...

But, While these things may set certain limits, or give certain advantages, it is still key to note that, particularly in our earlier years, it is our thoughts, action and dedication which bring to fruition those amazing skills.

This  idea isn't new of course. When I was a kid there were lots of book by "New age" psychologist on the subject of "think and grow rich", think yourself happy, think yourself successful... (There was an overabundance, in fact).

In early scriptures, prophets taught this idea as well. Proverbs 23:7 says "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he". There are a number of parables on sowing seed which allude to this idea as well. Mosiah 4:30 also warns of the consequences of not watching your "...thoughts, and your words and your deeds.

And now science is building a strong case to support that idea - not soft science, not studies which may or may not be replicable, but hard, physical science.

So then, I have to ask myself, what am I training to become? A world-class gymnast? runner? complainer? friend? victim? helper? jerk? A few videos to ponder...

Asking Why?

So, I'm laying in bed last night, replaying the accident (oh, I was in a car accident yesterday, did I forget to mention that?) , events leading up to it, etc... over and over and over... Can shut my brain off.

It is so easy to find yourself asking "Why?", "Why me?"

This makes 6 automobile accidents for me (only one of which was my fault), one of which was me on a mountain bike vs a car. Why me?

I was diagnosed with meningitis when I was about a year old, I spent a lot of time being very sick as a little child, I remember missing quite a few days of school to abdominal cramping, nausea, etc...

I got sick and had to drop out of college one year from a degree (did finally get back and graduate a decade later).

I spent five years under a misdiagnosis of Crohn's disease.

Right before this accident, my wife had a premonition that I was going to be in an accident? Why didn't I get something?

I almost never turn left on main roads. I will typically drive a mile out of my way to avoid it. Why didn't I do that this time? Why did I miss seeing their care, or misjudge their speed so badly that this accident occurred?

Why?


There are rarely ever any satisfactory answers to that question, I have concluded. It is hard not to ask it, but it is't very productive. The better questions to ask are "What?" and "How?"

Specifically, "What can I learn from this experience?", and "How, can/will/did I react to this experience?"

It interesting to observe how people react in those abrupt, unexpected situations that life throws at us. I still recall with amusement the behavior of the passengers On a plane from Brussells, Belgium to Cramlington, UK, which was diverted to Loughbrough, Scotland (Longer runway), when the flaps failed, forcing an emergency landing, firetrucks racing alongside. As we came finally to a safe stop, the sweet stewardess with a smile on her face announced "Welcome to Loughbrough!". People freaked out! I'm supposed to be in Newcastle!!! I have a meeting!!! Etc... The poor little stewardess, a bit frazzled by everyone yelling at her, mutters under her breath as she passes my seat "Fine! Not welcome to Loughbrough!", My traveling companion looks at the other passengers in disbelief and says (loud enough for me to hear) "You're alive!".

So, how did I do? At the moment of impact... I said a bad word. Not proud of that. I suppose that is a fairly common response, have been exposed to such language to much in my younger days, and int TV, movies, etc... over the years (String Button Mind Magic.).

Then minutes after that, I was asking the other Driver if she was LDS and did anyone need a priesthood blessing. I think mostly I behaved myself in a manner that the Savior would Condone.

What can I learn? Well, I need to be more diligent in policing the media I consume. I also learned what wonderful people I am surrounded by and acquainted with. So many prayers and well wishes from friends new and past. So many people offered aide at the crash site. The police officer was so very kind and compassionate (especially impressive where he was simply too young to have much life experience to draw from!) .

I think I can also learn to be more patient and understanding when I am passing an accident in the future. Yes, I am, one of those people who often feels inconvenienced by an accident.  While waiting to get through the resulting traffic bottleneck, am often silently berating the victims for not being more careful, thous avoiding the accident which is now inconveniencing me for a few minutes. Now, I have experienced the other side of it. I thought I was being careful. I looked both ways, I thought I had a sufficient opening in traffic. Perhaps I will remember this in the future, and be more compassionate, more understanding, less judgmental.

Regrets 6: I regret 'saving a buck'

In my first apartment I purchased a shop vac - The tiniest, least expensive one they make. I was poor and didn't have very much space. It worked well enough, but I often found myself wishing I would have gone just one size larger, to handle larger areas more effectively.

Nearly a decade later I bought the next size up, and experienced the same emotion. A little over a decade ago, I found myself buying a new shop vac, the next size up. Same thing. When I bought it, I really waffled over the size I purchased versus going at least one size larger (which would have put me in the larger nozzle size and the attachment that is long enough to use while standing upright).

Not a month later a neighbor had a pipe burst in their basement. That larger shop vac would have been SO much better for helping with clean-up.

Around that same time, I purchased an air compressor- the smallest one I could find (again, to save money). It was for keeping car and bike tires properly filled. It served (and still serves) that purpose well. But since then I have found myself wishing I would have gone bigger, in order to run a nail gun, staple gun, and paint sprayer, as well as one with sufficient power to use to blow out dirty vacuum filters, air conditioner compressors, etc...

Fortunately a neighbor had an extra one of sufficient size and I was the lucky beneficiary. It has been so nice!

I also bought a cheap reciprocating saw somewhere back then, and I cheap mitre saw. The mitre saw has been very sturdy, and I am very happy with it, however it is small, and I have found myself wishing on many occasions that I had one capable of cutting boards larger than 2x6.

The reciprocating saw, I really didn't expect to use much - I really purchased it for one project. I have since discovered a number of other projects, but having only used it maybe a dozen times, it is already threatening to break. It is extremely difficult to seat and remove blades.

There are two lessons learned:

1. Pay a little extra for better quality on tools, even if you don't think you are going to use it all that much. You will likely save yourself money in the long run.

2. Strongly consider buying tools that are more/bigger than you currently need. You again may save yourself money in the long run, and you may find future projects for yourself, or freinds/neighbors which will benefit.


PS. Note - I am not saying go into debt, I am saying wait a little longer and save up for better (refer to my first "regrets" post).

The one diet that will save your life

I caught a documentary a few night ago. It chronicled a groups' scientific exploration of a specific diet. It reviewed the results of those scientific studies, and presented a number of analogies regarding the diet improving quality of life for those who followed it - there were even testimonials from individuals who had been cured of diabetes and other diseases by faithfully following this diet.

That alone was pretty compelling stuff. They continued form there to document their efforts to implement legislation to correct certain misconceptions in current government nutritional guidelines. They discussed how legislators were quite enthusiastic after hearing their findings, and in some instances trying out the diet personally and seeing the difference it made for them. Then various agricultural lobbyists became involved, and things suddenly cooled. The implication of course was that money changed hands, or that political pressure was brought to bear by the lobbyists, whose industries wold be hurt by this dietary information. While that may cause the tin-foil hat alarm to ring, the history of the tobacco lobby suggests this conspiracy is not nearly so implausible.

In the same vein, they discussed modern medicine's failure to educate individuals, pointing out that healthcare workers aren't properly educated around correct diet principles, and that the economy associated with modern pharmaceuticals gives no incentive to apply principle which would lessen their need.

They also spent some time analyzing several currently popular diets which they deemed "dangerous fads". Again, they provided plenty of evidence to back their claims, in the form of studies, anecdote and basic logical analysis and interpretation of current medical and biological data.

I imagine some of you are annoyed with me right now, for being so vague about this amazing diet. I didn't want to prejudice you right at the outset, because the really interesting thing to me wasn't the diet itself, nor was it precisely the information they provided.

The diet presented in this case was the whole-foods, plant-based diet (essentially vegetarian). And the 'fad diets' they targeted for debunking were several meat-based diets, including the Atkinson diet and the Paleo diet. I point that out specifically because as I was watching the program, I found myself recalling a a body of documentation I had read quite a few year ago promoting the Paleo diet, and what struck me as interesting is that this program and those documents were nearly identical in content. Both presented the scientific journey of a group to find the ideal diet for humans, both referenced scientific studies and analogies demonstrating the effectiveness of the diet in improving health and preventing or even curing some modern ailments (Plant based focused on heart, Paleo focused on gut, both claimed wins with diabetes).

Both cited lobby interference and pharmaceutical economy as reasons the "truth" was not more widely know and accepted. Both made sound, rational cases against the alternative diet based on scientific evidence and  analysis and interpretation of current medical and biological data.

Of course, I have also seen rebuttal's by each side claiming the other side's science is junk science;  flawed at best, or dishonest at worst.

But it lead to me to couple of thoughts.

Perhaps most success stories on these diets are really success stories for the placebo effect; people are convinced that it will work, and therefore dedicate themselves to it. Consequently they also are making other changes (exercise, etc...) which - combined with their belief - is what really made the difference.

So, if you can't trust "science" (or at least not the people presenting it), you can't trust the governments, you can't trust the testimonials, who can you trust?

It is interesting to note that while both claim the other is unhealthy, and both have significant points of conflict, they do have some commonalities (eliminate processed foods, processed oils, alcohol, coffee...), so, given that they all agree on those, perhaps those are the real culprits that need to be eliminated.

I am still inclined to stick to my theory that since different people have different biologies, it is more likely that different people derive better health from different diets. Perhaps some day in the not-so-distant future, there will be a genetic test which will allow you to correctly identify which foods are most beneficial, and which are most risky for your specific biology.

In the Old Testament, God gave some specific dietary guidelines to the children of Israel, In our day, Latter Day Saints believe that God provided an updated version of these guidelines (for some portions the idea that it is updated make sense. Pork for instance was a no-no for the Jews, but not restricted by the Latter Day Saint "Word of Wisdom". Pork is a much less risky option nowadays, given better food prep. technology. Of course the Word of Wisdom was written in 1833. Technology has come a long way since then - refrigeration, freezers, better food preservation technologies, we are are even starting to print food. It would be interesting to see what an current update from God would look like.

Re-Thinking apple - oh yeah, one more thing...

A follow-up to my last post...

The recent news regarding apple is another thing for me to seriously consider (i.e. the government is trying to get them to break into a dead terrorists encrypted phone and they are refusing).

Once upon a time I had this dream, of a single card you could carry in your pocket, which could serve as your cash, your debit cards, all your credit cards, your insurance card, your drivers license, your passport. one card that would do it all, no more bulky wallets nor more hunting through piles of membership/rewards cards...

The smart phone is hovering near the edges of that dream. You can handle credit card pay through your phone now, some membership programs now send their special offers/rewards coupons directly to mobile phones....

Our phones are holding an increasing amount of extremely sensitive data: Financial data, health data. Friends' data...

A device with that much of my information NEEDS to be impregnable.

And the simple fact is - if the government has a back door, so does everybody else. So, I am watching this case to see whether technology will take a step forward, or backward. I am encouraged that Apple has said no, they won't decrypt it. I would feel much better if they said no, they CAN'T decrypt it.

But that being said, how this all shakes out could have a significant influence on my views on apple, in spite of my dislike for the 'cult of apple' and for the personal restrictions...

Re-thinking Apple.

So,just over a year after making this post about Why I don't own anything apple sells, I found myself the unwilling owner of an iPhone, forced upon me by my company. Then a few months later, company policy changed, and Android phones, and some Microsoft phones were added to the list of allowed devices. I was of course stuck with the iPhone for two years, and I was eagerly awaiting the day when I could switch the thing out and be done with it.

That time is fast approaching, and now I find myself second guessing.

From a technical perspective, my views haven't changed much, I still find them fairly equal. For me, apple is frustratingly restrictive. I am constantly annoyed by the seemingly simple things I can't just easily do on the apple device because, I am apparently not doing it the way apple thinks everyone should do it.

My chief example of this is alarm clocks. I don't think I am asking for that much. I want the ability to assign a playlist as my wake-up   alarm and I want the clock to randomly select a song from that list (nothing ruins a favorite song more quickly than using that one song as your wake-up alarm every day. I want it to start softly and slowly fade in, so as to gently wake me, rather than jar me awake.

It was easy to get this working on Android. Not so on apple. first it was not easy to find an app that had this feature set. And then none of them actually work reliably. If you forget to leave the app running on the fore ground before you go to bed the alarm won't work at all. And I can't let the alarm clock override the Do not disturb function. If I set the alarm, I do in fact want it to 'disturb' me.

I still don't like Apple's business practices. I still find them to be innovation killers. And I still disapprove of their practices in China.

However. I have been gaining some new political education on the subject of  "conflict minerals". You see much of the fundamental minerals used in the creation of electronic devices comes from conflict areas in Africa. In a number of cases, mines have been taken over by guerrilla forces, who then implement genuine slave labor from the locals to extract these minerals for profit to warlords. Apple's behavior in China is downright civilized in comparison to this.

I haven't been able to find any numbers more recent than 2012. But for 2102 company progress at eliminating conflict minerals, Android companies aren't making much of a showing. Motorola is the one exception. Microsoft is Neck and Neck with apple, and Nokia is right in close. So Apple or Microsoft gain a strong lead for me, in spite of my general preference for the Android ecosystem.

So which of those two? I like Cortana better than Siri, she's much more personable. And in my experience she seems to work more reliably. But, then I also like Speakto it Assistant, and that one is cross-platform.

I like the Microsoft ecosystem, I like the convenience factor of my phone and laptop all speaking the same language. That is likely to lead to better integration and cooperation. I really like the efforts Microsoft if making int he area of family safety. I like the controls they offer to monitor and manage children's devices.

On the other hand, Microsoft is still struggling in the phone space. The current round of Lumias aren't performing well, and rumors are they are going to drop that line. There are rumors that they might pick up with a new phone based on the Microsoft surface platform, but for now, that it vaporware.

What to do, what to do?