Personal Development with Gray Miller
I don’t make much secret of the fact that I don’t enjoy yoga. I enjoy the effects that yoga has on my body (such as being able to walk up the flight of stairs to my apartment) but the act itself is still kind of…ugh. I know there are people who say “give it time” …
Long-term goals are wonderful things, and some of them are shiny enough to be enough, in and of themselves, to inspire a regular practice. Other times the goals are more nebulous, and the temptations of the GravyHose are far more present and close. So rather than pull up the word processor you pull up Facebook, …
Recently I decided to simply give up on my resistance to yoga and surrender into doing it as an active lifestyle choice. It’s simply the most effective and manageable regular exercise I am able to do, regardless of the fact that I don’t enjoy it, nor do I look forward to it – I simply …
“I’ve figured out how I’m going to be a Jedi!” I told my parents. This would have been 1980 or thereabouts, and I was a tender young man just entering double-digits in terms of age. “I’ve created a whole exercise chart!” I don’t remember exactly the words, but I think “Han Solo Pushups” were in …
This morning, in the midst of grumping about a lot of things that really didn’t need grumping about, my phone was brightened by a photo from a reader of this blog. The title of the photo was “Gray-induced Micro-Changes” and it looked like this: Confused? I was. She quickly explained: “First visible parking spot. Even …
Tricking Elephants Last month I mentioned the work of Jonathan Haidt, who helped popularize the “rider and elephant” model of the human psyche. That is, our conscious mind is a “rider” atop the giant behemoth of our desires, instincts, and subconscious conditioning. One of the weaknesses of the metaphor is the idea that the elephant …
The Science of Schmoopy Recently my partner Natasha and I were reflecting on how uncomfortable we are in our present situation. Things are going way too well. We’re at a particular point in our lives together where things are relatively stable. After many years of struggling financially, geographically, and emotionally, we’re in a space where we …
I aim to misbehave… I confess, I’m a sucker for marketing. I’ve taken the plunge into the world of the quantifiable self and purchased a wearable activity tracker. After doing a lot of research, I ended up going with the Misfit Shine. The reasons for my choice, in no particular order: Doesn’t need regular charging …
While reading the blog of the king of lifehacking, Tim Ferriss, I came across a phrase that hadn’t really registered with my conscious mind yet. I’ve been aware of the phenomenon, and of the movement, and even been a part of it here and there. This blog, really, could count as an incarnation of this …