Terri's Tuesday Tip of the Week - June 30th

To educate the intelligence is to expand the horizon of its wants and desires. - James Russell Lowell

Your entire universe is in your mind & nowhere else. To expand the universe expand your mind.  - Unknown

A person can grow only as much as his horizon allows. - John Powell

As this series on Terri Savelle Foy’s quote about living life instead of watching someone else do it comes to an end, it is important to discuss how television impacts individuals. 

·       Mental Energy

Often times, people state that watching television allows them to forget about what is going on in the world and let their mind wander.  However, a different perspective is that when watching television, the mind is drawn into that experience and the reader’s control is given up.  Instead of watching television, the author loves to sit on her patio and just let her mind wander.  This exercise helps relax her mind and renew her strength.

·       Loss of Reality and Satisfaction in Life

Hallmark movies have become very popular for many because they are a clean, fell-good experiences.  However, the author has to be cautious if she watches one because they impair her reality.  Finding the love of one’s live does not happen in 90 minutes where individuals meet, fall in love, conflict arises and then the two individuals’ resolve the issue and live happily ever after.  The author is NOT saying to stop watching Hallmark movies.  What the author learned is that if she watches one, she has to continually make herself keep the right perspective on life.   

Furthermore, the author has to remind herself that her path is different from what she sees on television.  She could be distraught based on what she sees in movies and be less satisfied with her life, but instead she reminds herself that she is moving toward her dreams and to be content with where she it at this time. 

ACTION:  What changes have you made to live your life instead of watching someone else live the life you want?

Resource

·       https://www.becomingminimalist.com/ten-reasons-to-watch-less-television/

·       https://www.searchquotes.com/search/Expand_Your_Horizon/

Terri's Tuesday Tip of the Week - June 23rd

Don't be so judgmental, expand your mind and think with an open one. - Unknown

Always expand. Never be the same. Free your mind. - Unknown

This week, Terri’s Tuesday Tip of the Week is continuing to discuss the quote:

Live is meant to be lived, not watched. – Terri Savelle Foy

Watching less television provides the opportunity to learn and expand an individual’s worldview.  The author has learned over the years that through experiencing different things it provides her the opportunity to bring in different perspectives and provide insight when having conversations with people.

Two different examples:

1.       When the author embarked on “40 before 40” and ended up doing 80 things, she learned and saw many different things.  In conversations, she still incorporates ideas or history learned when completing this challenge and is able to provide ideas of what people should see when they travel to different places to learn and have fun.

2.       On Saturday night, the author was hanging out with friends.  She could have stayed home and watched television as it was a hard day for her; however, she mustered up the energy to go.  While talking with friends, the author learned a new concept about the military.  It is not something major, but it opened her eyes to expand her horizons and now she has the assignment to go learn more to be able to discuss with other military friends in the future.     

In How to Lead When You Are Not in Charge, Scroggins says:

My eyes are open to the world around me every day, of course, but when I get away to a new environment, I see things from a different vantage point.  I may be looking at something familiar, but because of where I am, I’m looking at it differently.  The more I see of the world, the better I see my own world.  And the better you see your world, the more informed and equipped you will be to make wise decisions.  Understanding can help you develop patience, graciousness, and greater discernment for all of life.  A wider angle brings a wiser perspective. (p. 115)

To have an open-mind and interesting conversations, it is beneficial to have different experiences that allow the reader to expand their horizons, incorporate new knowledge and pass knowledge on to others.   

ACTION:  What are you going to do this week to expand your perspective? 

Resource

·       https://www.becomingminimalist.com/ten-reasons-to-watch-less-television/

·       https://www.searchquotes.com/search/Expand_Your_Horizon/

·       Scroggins, C. (2017). How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Terri's Tuesday Tip of the Week - June 16th

Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows. - Pope Paul VI

A couple months ago, the author was talking with someone who wanted to make a career change.  The author asked this person, “What do you want to do?”  The person looked at her and said, “I want this to be my eat, pray, love moment like in the movie.”  Smiling and nodding her head, the author then asked, “What does that mean for you?”  The person looked at the author with a blank stare and said, “I don’t know.”  This individual continually brought up different things seen on television, but had no goals or ideas of what they wanted to accomplish.  The author mentioned different places she had traveled, books read, things she wanted to do and the person she was talking with became excited to do similar activities, but took no action.  Truly, this broke the author’s heart.  

Recently, the author heard the below quote while watching a motivational speaker and it has been lodged in her thoughts for a couple months:

Live is meant to be lived, not watched. – Terri Savelle Foy

During the stay-at-home order, the author has had to be very careful what she watched on television because it can be an abyss of hours lost in a day for her.  She constantly reminded herself not to watch the same movies over and over again.

As we continually make progress of returning to social interactions with others, take time to live life and not watch other people live their lives.

ACTION: How are you going to live your life this week and not watch someone else live theirs?

Resource

·       https://www.becomingminimalist.com/ten-reasons-to-watch-less-television/

·       https://www.facebook.com/terrisavellefoy/videos/250006259489558 - Minute 9

Terri's Tuesday Tip of the Week - June 9th

Being connected to everything has disconnected us from ourselves and the preciousness of this present moment. - L.M. Browning, Vagabonds and Sundries

We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own to-do list. - Michelle Obama

As the author has mentioned, she has been working too much during the lock down.  Living alone, she has continued to wake up at her normal time, administer her morning routine and then start working when she normally would be leaving for the office.  Often, she would work late into the evening because she had to complete a task or was bored because she did not have the option to go hang out with friends.  Through this time, the author did not have the opportunity to disconnect, have fun, laugh and change perspectives.  The breaking point came this past week when she had to work 13 hours due to other people not planning well and her emotional state was not good.  She ended up sleeping 9 hours the following night, which was a rare commodity for her that has not happened in a very long time.    

During this time of the stay-at-home order, the author read an article titled “Work/Life Separation Is Impossible. Here’s How to Deal with It”.  There were many good points in the article, but the one that really stuck out to her was based on what she was experiencing.  It is vital that we disconnect from work.  In this unique environment, we have to have the opportunity to disconnect just like if we were leaving the office after a long day.  To accomplish our dreams and goals and for our loved ones, we have to renew our emotional and physical well-being.  Ultimately, it is hard to sometimes separate ourselves from the office when we leave because of a problem or an important project that is being worked on.  However, disconnecting is good for our emotional and physical well-being. 

As the country is reopening and people are starting to commute back to the office or still teleworking, it is important that we find ways to disconnect so that we are fully there for family and our work.  There will be overlap sometimes because of different issues, but we should strive to be present in each part of our lives.

We have overstretched our personal boundaries and forgotten that true happiness comes from living an authentic life fueled with a sense of purpose and balance. - Dr. Kathleen Hall, stress expert

For the author to disconnect from teleworking while living in an 850 square foot apartment, it meant she simply turned off her work laptop and put it in a cabinet where she was not able to see it.  That simple action helped her emotional well-being by not seeing it each day.

ACTION: Contemplate and write down how you plan to disconnect from work to create a more fulfilling, enjoyable and meaningful life.

Resource

·       https://www.joinforge.com/work-life-balance-quotes-2018/

·       https://99u.adobe.com/articles/31721/worklife-separation-is-impossible-heres-how-to-deal-with-it?utm_sq=g0oyds7ll9&fbclid=IwAR0U2mdjt5Hb7j1aw9Cwb7e94iW3dozCW8e8a96SoBNgOnTItc7BkHYdOx4

Terri's Tuesday Tip of the Week - June 2nd

 Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient. - Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare. - Angela Duckworth

Quick update, the author did not go to Virginia Beach over Memorial Day weekend as she had planned for various reasons.  It was not an easy decision, but she knows it was the right decision.  After talking to a friend that she plans to visit while down there, she started looking for another weekend to travel down to have a relaxing weekend away.  As she wrote about, the author immediately took action to help keep herself motivated since she was not able to walk in the sand as she had dreamed of doing.

When the author made the decision not to travel over Memorial Day weekend, she decided to be resilient like a palm tree.  Palm trees go through horrible hurricanes and are bent over to the point that their branches are touching the ground during the worst of the storm.  Once the storm is over, the palm tree bounces back to its upright position.  Science believes the pressure of the storm makes the palm tree stronger when they are hunched over.

Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you've lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that's good. - Elizabeth Edwards

We have been living through trying times and we all go through them regularly.  It is our decision of how we will handle the trial.  Will we be depressed and unmotivated or will we bounce back like a palm tree?

ACTION: What actions are you going to take to become resilient like a palm tree?

Resource

·       https://www.joelosteen.com/Pages/MessageViewer.aspx?date=2014-11-13

·       https://www.livescience.com/60393-why-palm-trees-are-so-flexible.html

·       https://www.dallasnews.com/arts-entertainment/2019/08/26/want-to-grow-palm-trees-these-choices-actually-tolerate-cold-and-shade/

·       https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_tree