Stop & Smell the Roses: How to Be More Present
Mine for meaning.
Take in this recent episode of Life Kit with Jenny Odell (author of one of our favorites How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy), and you just may feel seen. Odell points out that most of us don’t notice a lot of our everyday environment until we show someone else around. Play tour guide for friends, and you just may make several discoveries of your own—and come to appreciate your hometown all the more. It just goes to show, you need not travel to a far-off land to rekindle a sense of wonder and find life’s meaning. If you, like us, have been spending large portions of your days on autopilot, we invite you to join us in taking a look around.
Snaps with significance.
When it comes to photos, we’re of two minds. We love how the act of taking a photo can help us appreciate something in the moment, but we also recognize how it temporarily removes us from the present. Once on a trip to Paris, a friend inspired us to take one picture an hour. In those days, we had an actual camera and a limited number of shots. Reviewing what we’d captured later was pure delight. So we were ‘gram-level excited to see that the idea is baked into the newest social network, BeReal. You don’t need to go to Paris, but we do suggest you try taking a picture at a prescribed time interval and see what you notice. (We think you’ll say cheese.)
Connect your confab.
Whether you have a hand in planning one of the eight kajillion weddings happening this year (real number: 2.5 million), resuming work retreats or conferences IRL, or hosting a family reunion, our gathering guru Priya Parker has a bit of inspo for you. Parker describes a wedding where guests arrive at the cocktail hour to find pictures of themselves with their name. On the back of the picture is their table number, but also a personal welcome note from the couple recalling a shared memory, a suggestion of another guest they should connect with and why they thought a meet-cute was in order. When they remove the photo, their connection’s photo and name is underneath for easier locating. Elaborate? Yes, but we can also see multiple variations that would add meaning to any gathering.
Gab about your games.
A scroll through our morning texts will find one exchange with friends over Wordle and Quordle scores and another over our Spelling Bee progress. So of course we weren’t surprised to read this article that asserts, “Thanks to their ease of use, word games can facilitate conversations across demographics and generations. They can even create a lighthearted space for discourse about inclusivity, multiculturalism, and the evolution of language. It’s hard to converse in a straightforward way sometimes — but in their own small way, these games can make talking to each other easier.” Word.
