Week 2023#10: traps
Easy traps to fall into: ruminating on the same thoughts, filling up your time with busywork to feel good about yourself
Sunday was amazing! There are six more people now who understand how to work with Estonian. This picture is taken from the most satisfying moment of Sunday’s workshop: when both groups were intensely focused on cracking the code, and solving the puzzle. After 13 minutes, everybody did: every word was fully researched and the results were put together to form a sentence.
What I’ve learned
Gather more input to resolve confusion caused by emotions
Last week was a rollercoaster of emotions: I managed to hurt my special someone’s feelings without intention and spent most of the week feeling confused about the relationship as a whole.
Confused, because this relationship is different from all my previous ones in one crucial way: it didn’t start with the all-consuming, fiery passion that makes you want to move in together after 3 days.
This really messed with my head and made me question everything.
That confusion set in on Monday and I had to wait until Friday to resolve it in a face-to-face conversation.
Tough week!
The weekend changed everything, because of two things:
we talked about this openly (including our fears and doubts),
and we spent more time together, in new situations.
It led to an understanding that we are of different types when it comes to relationships: I am used to overwhelming emotions at the beginning, which slowly transform into something sustainable. She is the opposite: emotions need time to build up and become more intense.
Becoming aware of this difference, I stopped feeling confused and we’re giving things the time and space they need to build up.
When you have one day without meetings, you realize how much time you spend on “hygiene” activities
The other big insight of this week came from work: on Wednesday I had no meetings whatsoever, complete freedom to focus on the things that matter the most.
And then I realized that figuring out what matters the most is actually pretty difficult.
Taking care of “hygiene” (things that need to be done but which you only notice when they aren’t done) actually takes a lot of my time.
And it also provides me with a feeling of comfort: hey, I am doing something!
Working as a manager again, the hardest thing for me is to figure out whether I am actually doing a good job because the feedback loop is so long compared to working as a developer: it takes days and weeks now instead of a couple of seconds for the computer to tell you that you messed up.
I don’t have solution to this yet, but as the saying goes: the first step to solve a problem is to become aware of it.
Expectations vs Reality
Another week where expectations are future-oriented:
My application to join Eesti 200 will be accepted: almost! Processing new membership applications obviously isn’t the highest priority after such positive election results. I did my part though and now it’s just a matter of time for the decision-makers to review my application.
Käti will be actively contributing to the Decode Estonian website: yes! She’s saving me a ton of time by preparing vocabulary posts so that I just need to fill in the details.
The next “Decode Estonian” workshop will be sold out: yes! Not only that, but it was also a resounding success!
My hopes for Week 11:
The next “Decode Estonian” workshop is planned and a study group is up and running
I’m becoming a local host for Mindvalley
There’s a list of basics (like a bed) to order from IKEA for the house in Sweden
What happened
Highlights of last week:
the local Mindvalley chapter organized an amazing event on Saturday: a lot of people sharing their life experiences and lessons: from beekeeping, over circular economy, up to using fear as a compass for decision making.
in an effort to get my gym habit back up and running, I’ve started Mindvalley’s 10X fitness program, because I know and trust the trainer and it promises short (~15 minutes per workout) and effective (your performance measurements improve over three months) exercise regimen. The first week was intense, especially the two tests to establish your performance baseline.
on Sunday we watched The Unknown Soldier (2017) together with Roberto, because getting Estonian citizenship means I can get drafted into the Estonian army and I was curious about how I would feel about this. After watching this movie: not good.