TLDR: Be Mindful

Writing about things is good in part because it makes you think about them, and if you think about a thing enough you can get to the core of it.  If I took this more seriously I'd leave things on the drawing board for a day or so before posting, thus sparing you lot quite a bit of excess verbiage. But I know myself, and if I don't hit 'post' when I'm done writing it will never see the light of day.

My last post rambled on, but it got my brain moving and I've realized that being online is like anything else- it pays to be mindful.

A few years ago Tiner got involved in Weight Watchers, but gave it up when the weekly ritual of "being weighed like a hog" triggered flashbacks to unnecessary childhood diets and pointless fat camp humiliation.  It didn't help that I lost 20 effortless pounds, as men will do.  Their system worked by assigning point totals to foods and giving you targets to hit- which is to say, they made you pay attention to what you were eating.  In my case, this led to a drastic reduction in my crap intake and subsequent lost tonnage.

Readers with long memories may recall this post culling the best ten books I read last year.

What's happened there is the opposite of Weight Watchers- paying attention to what I've read has sharpened my intent to read *more*.  I totaled fifty books last year, less than a book a week, a period which in my youth would have found me reliably devouring four or five.  The decline is partly inevitable- parenting & working & adulting takes a lot of time and energy.  But some of it is just pure unconciousness- it's every bit as easy to disengage for an hour or so reading a book as queuing up some mindless teevee show on Netflix or messing around on Facebook, but over the years I'd lost the habit.

I vowed to improve on fifty, and have finished seven so far in this new year.

Everything improves when you're mindful and not acting unconsciously.
Eating, reading, sharing links....pay attention to things, and see where that takes you.