opinion

Friday Five Things

~ kofriedery ~ Leave a comment

After writing my blog post last week about my favorite Valentine’s Day memories, I had such a feeling of gratitude after dwelling on the things that make me happy. As I was looking through draft posts and topic lists to decide what to write today, I realized that I use this platform a lot to express my opinions about what I think is wrong in the world today and how we can fix it. (Enneagram Type 1 much?) So this morning I decided to fully dedicate Fridays to things that make me smile going forward.

I’ll still do occasional recipe posts and my monthly book reports, but on other Fridays my plan is to do a quick list of 5 things that brought joy to me from the past week. My hope is that this will prompt others into a grateful mindset or give people some fun ideas to check out for themselves.

  1. My house plants! This past week of winter weather has been brutal for a lot of people. I am lucky that Colorado wasn’t as severely impacted as some other parts of the country, but it’s still been frigid and gray here. Seeing my green plants thrive inside my house always makes me smile.
  2. The TV show Superstore. A few weeks ago my sister recommended that Tyler and I check out this show and we’ve been loving it! It’s a very funny show with some quirky characters and offers a witty and satirical look at issues in today’s society. We’ve been watching old episodes on Hulu every night.
  3. Nightly Aquaphor. Winter in Colorado can be mild, but dry dry dry. So to keep my skin from drying to a husk overnight, I’ve been putting a small amount (like, maybe a pea size) of Aquaphor on my face over my usual nightly skin care. There’s usually enough leftover to rub into my hands as well. If you think I’m crazy, look up “skincare slugging” and you’ll see lots of articles talking about the benefit of using either Aquaphor or Vaseline on your face.
  4. The Daily Page Planner. You guys…I’ve been using the digital version of this planner for a few months now and it’s everything I wanted in a daily planner. It’s super simple…monthly pages and daily pages. The daily page format has space for your top 3 things for the day as well as the rest of your to-do list. It also has room for you to either plan or track your meals and track your water intake. There are a couple other notes fields for health/wellness notes as well as general thoughts and ideas. I don’t use every section every day, but it certainly has helped me keep on task! I’ll have to do a longer post in the next few weeks about how I use it on a weekly and daily basis. Sold on Etsy if you want to search for it.
  5. Giving advice. Seriously, being asked for my thoughts on something is one of my favorite things. I’ve always felt like I have a gift of asking the right questions and helping people see things from a different perspective. I’ve had several conversations recently where I feel like I was able to help someone determine the next steps they should take in order to drive toward resolution. And it really brings me so much joy to feel like I’ve helped in some way!

“The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding.”― Albert Camus

~ kofriedery ~ Leave a comment

“Assume good intent.” I’m sure most of you have heard that phrase before and some of you may have even adopted it as a rule in your life. I’m not going to tell you it’s a wrong way to live, but I do want to offer up a bit of critical analysis on how it might end up doing more harm than good in certain situations.

During my years in Corporate America, one constant that I’ve found is that wherever you have groups of diverse individuals, there will be conflict. Most workplaces strive to reduce interpersonal conflict, through codes of conduct, informal agreements, or even group workshops. One of the teams I worked on made an attempt to address their history of conflict by creating a set of team commitments – “assume positive intent” was included on the list. While this was written out explicitly, it had always been an implicit expectation at most companies I worked for.

I could never really put into words why it didn’t sit well with me. Because on the surface level, it seems like the right attitude to have. Approach interactions assuming everyone is on the same team and wants what it best for the group. But the way it was stated always made me feel like it was putting the responsibility on the receiving party to “just get over it” or “let it roll off your back.” Again, generally good skills to have in the workplace. But ultimately I felt like it was still missing the root cause of why people sometimes walked away with hurt feelings in certain situations.

And then I started hearing people use the phrase “impact over intent” and I realized that’s what I’ve always felt was missing in these corporate mantras of “assume good intent.” There are times when we need to hold people accountable for their impact rather than making the recipient accountable for their reaction. The commonly used analogy is Mary stepping on Alex’s foot and apologizing even though she didn’t mean to. She is recognizing that her unintentional actions caused harm.

This is certainly not a new concept. In fact, as I was thinking about writing this post I googled “harmful good intentions” and a ton of content came up. I was particularly struck by this blog post* that discusses the harm that these kinds of workplace agreements can have on diversity and inclusion efforts. The author does a great job of expanding on the “stepping on the foot” analogy, stating that groups with a history of discrimination have been stepped on day after day and policies to assume good intent put them in a position where they have to ignore the repeated harm because people didn’t mean to step on them. And that if they call out the harmful actions of people around them, they are subject to a code of conduct that requires them to assume their peers meant no harm. It gives them little to no recourse for correcting bad behavior.

I think back to how often workplace relationships could have been mended or even avoided breaking in the first place if acknowledging the impact of words and actions was placed above defending intentions. Would everyone be best friends? No, of course not. But I think a lot of hurt would have been lessened.

All this isn’t to say that we shouldn’t still assume good intent as a starting place. The continuation of the title quote from Camus is “On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn’t the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill.” I really do think for the most part people are not acting or speaking with malice, more often than not it’s carelessness or a misunderstanding of how they affect others . But I think there’s a lot more emphasis that could be placed on impact over intent. I always say that words mean something. And if we start to explicitly change how we talk about interactions I think it would start to change how those interactions happen as well.

*disclaimer: I cannot vouch for anything else on that website, I only read the one blog post and liked it. Upon initial glance it looks like there’s some interesting content to dig into.

“Agreeing to not celebrate Valentine’s Day is the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me.” – Internet Meme (someecards)

~ kofriedery ~ Leave a comment

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and if you’re anything like me, you probably couldn’t care less! Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take any excuse for a decadent meal, but other than that the day doesn’t hold much appeal for me these days. I think it might be some form of celebration overload for me. In addition to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve, we have 10 family birthdays between November and February. Then to tack on to that the CFB National Championship, Super Bowl, Mardi Gras, and Valentine’s Day? Something’s gotta give and it ain’t gonna be football. So V-Day gets pushed to the wayside, no extra energy to purchase cards or flowers or gifts. Occasionally I’ll pick up some chocolate at the store, but more likely I’ll wait and get it on sale after the fact.

I’m not a Valentine’s Scrooge though! I’m not going to harp about it being a made-up holiday or commercializing love or anything. I think it’s great when people want to go all out for Valentine’s Day! I just plain don’t have the energy anymore. But that’s not to say I didn’t used to get more into the spirit! I started thinking back to memorable Valentine’s Days in my past and actually came up with quite a long list! Maybe some of these will make you laugh or trigger a sweet memory of your own. Either way, enjoy some very random memories!

  • In elementary school, decorating “mailboxes” for the other kids to drop their little paper cards into.
  • Picking out boxes of Valentine’s from Hallmark and then agonizing over who in your class should get which card. (Hopefully avoiding a Lisa Simpson/Ralph Wiggum “I Choo-Choo-Choose You” situation!)
  • In seventh grade, when my little wannabe skater boy boyfriend gave me a single rose and a book of Calvin and Hobbes comics. I don’t think I have the book anymore but I wish I did!
  • Getting flowers during the school day and not knowing what to do with them. Carrying them around all day? Stuff them in your locker?
  • High school girls making extravagant displays of affection for their group of friends to reclaim the day from just romantic love.
  • Those fundraisers in school where you could pay to have a carnation delivered to someone in their fourth period class and force them to figure out what to do with flowers for the rest of the school day (see above).
  • The sweetest guy friend in high school roping his mom into decorating the rooms of his close girl friends with chocolates, flowers, and stuffed animals. We were all single and he made us feel so special.
  • Going out with friends in college and dancing our butts off.
  • My crazy wonderful friends in New Orleans forming the Krefeld of Mariah and hosting the first Heartbreakers Mardi Gras Ball. We dressed in theme for Valentine’s Day and had a blast!
  • That same year when the guy I was dating gave me the tiniest box of crappy chocolates that he had picked up at a gas station on his way home from work.
  • When Leslie Knope introduced us all to the vastly superior holiday of Galentine’s Day!
  • The homemade cards my friend Kaela made for me with her favorite romantic movie quotes. (I still have them after many years!)
  • The time Tyler and I decided to see different movies for our date night because he wanted to see the Revenant and I wanted to see The Force Awakens for a second time. That’s true love!

No matter how you plan to celebrate or not celebrate this year, I hope you have a happy Valentine’s Day!

“She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails.” – Elizabeth Edwards

~ kofriedery ~ 3 Comments

The definition of resilience, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is 1: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress; 2: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.

Now, the primary definition is how resilience is used within the context of physics. And the secondary definition is what we commonly mean when we label a person as resilient. But I think the two together can be applied to how we have coped with the past year! I mean, I feel particularly deformed by stress and am hoping I have the capability to recover my size and shape!

Resilience is often used as a determining factor in predicting someone’s success in life. After all, life is nothing if not constant change and if we are able to bounce back quickly, we should be able to continue on our merry way without much difficulty. However, I think people often omit one small word from their personal definition of resilience. “Adjust”

We usually expect someone who is resilient to end up back on the same path as before, regardless of the hardships thrown their way. Resiliency is often paired with perseverance in those circumstances. But what if there is a whole group of people who have managed to adjust their path and instead of recognizing their resiliency in doing so, we label them as quitters?

I was listening to a podcast recently about when it is a good idea to quit. I will try not to be too biased here because I’m actually a really big proponent of quitting…in the right circumstances. I’ll get to that in a minute. Back to the podcast, they were discussing the fallacy of sunk costs. So often we feel the need to stick with something simply because we’ve already invested so much time, energy, money, etc… But continuing down that path and investing more time, energy or money isn’t going to get us a bigger return on investment. Sometimes we do more harm by sticking with it than by quitting.

It isn’t an easy decision of when to quit something, but I think asking yourself if you are suffering by continuing, if it is still serving a long term goal you believe in, and also exploring if there are alternatives you haven’t thought of yet. The example they used in the podcast was a young woman who was playing viola but wasn’t enjoying it. Her mom was actually encouraging her to quit, but she kept sticking with it. Eventually it came out that she was continuing to play in her school orchestra, community youth orchestra, and taking private lessons on top of that because she thought it would help her get into a good college. She realized that there were so many alternative things she could do with her time, that she might actually enjoy, that would help her college applications. So she quit and never looked back.

I also really like a quote from Glennon Doyle who talks about quitting every day. “A journalist once asked me, “With the onslaught of bad news and endless needs – how do you not quit?” I said: “Oh, I do quit! Quitting is my favorite. Every day I quit. Every single day.” I wake up and I care the most amount. And then- at some point – I put it all away and melt into my people and my couch and food and nothingness. And I care not at all. I forget it all. Then I go to sleep and wake up and begin again. Begin and quit every day! Only way to survive. Embrace quitting as a spiritual practice.” She gives it all she can every day and then quits when she needs to. And is able to start it all over again the next day after she has proper rest.

All that to say, I think we need to revise how we think about resiliency. It isn’t about continuing down the same path no matter what obstacles arise. It is about learning how to recover or adapt when these things occur. Recovery could look like Glennon’s – quitting and restarting over and over. Adapting could look like quitting something that isn’t serving your goals and finding alternative pathways.

I think this has been a great year to practice resiliency, just remember that it could look different from what you’ve previously been taught. And don’t be afraid to quit.

“Accountability breeds responsibility” – Stephen R. Covey

~ kofriedery ~ Leave a comment

I’m writing this on the first day of February and I spent my journaling time this morning reflecting on January and how I did with the goals I set for myself. I do think accountability is a big part of working toward your goals, whether it’s a public announcement on a blog or just letting one close friend know what you are working towards. And since I let you all know what my January goals were I’m going to give an update here.

Be Present – my goal for January was to journal every day. I think I missed 2 or 3 days during the month, but overall I was pretty consistent for the month. I used some journal prompts to do some deeper reflection on 2020 and some dreaming about 2021. I plan to continue the daily practice of journaling for February. I am also going to be more intentional about time-blocking my days and weeks so I can be more present and focused in my tasks.

Focus on the Essential – I am very proud of myself for doing no unnecessary spending this month on material things! We did splurge on takeout a couple times, but I stuck to my goal of no new skincare products, hair care products, clothing or home decor items! It actually wasn’t too difficult until I realized that my birthday month always comes with a few “free gift with purchase” rewards at some of my favorite stores. But I then I reminded myself that even though it’s free…it isn’t something I need and therefore it was okay to let it go! I’ll continue this into February, only purchasing replacements for empties and instead making sure to use what I already have. I know I have a couple necessary clothing purchases to make, but I’m going to do my research and be really intentional about what I buy, focusing on quality that will last a long time and also looking into the sustainability practices of the companies I buy from.

Stay Connected – Well I wasn’t successful in this goal completely. I wanted to have two video calls with friends and my second one ended up getting rescheduled to later this week. I did however get to FaceTime with my family a couple times and drove up to the mountains to spend my birthday with my parents instead of being alone, even though it would have been easier to just stay home. Overall I think I made a good effort of staying connected to people instead of isolating myself! For February I want to continue doing one or two video calls, but also making an effort to reach out to a friend via text at the beginning of each week.

Activate Inner SJW – In January I made an effort to engage more on social media and share items that resonated with me. While I did share more than I had before, it didn’t feel like enough. I also signed up for Anti-Racism Daily, which is a daily email newsletter focusing on a different topic every day. I’ve really appreciated the information shared there and have also signed up for their 28 Days of Black History virtual exhibition emails for this month that will share a different work celebrating Black history in the U.S. I also plan to engage with Rachel Cargle’s daily #DiscoverOurGlory learning series where she will be providing daily prompts for people to research and learn about.

I had a couple other goals for the month that I also want to report on:

  • Walk 1 mile every day: I got outside and walked every day! A handful of days I didn’t do a full mile, but still proud of my discipline here. A couple of those short days were due to weather or local roadwork in my neighborhood, so anticipating a cold and snowy February my updated goal will be at least 30 minutes of activity every day, either inside or outside.
  • Write 500 words every week day: I did really well on this one until last week. As I said above – my plan for February is to adjust my time-blocking strategy to hopefully promote more focus and productivity. So…writing for long periods of time on a few days rather than short sessions every day. Overall I’d like to add 5,000 words to my novel manuscript by the end of the month, as well as explore some other ideas for my writing.
  • Read 5 books every month: done and done for January. And I have my February list already picked out! I read 25 books in 2020 and I think I’ll easily hit 60+ this year.

“This is like being awake during your own surgery.” – Jimmy Kimmel, via Twitter

~ kofriedery ~ 1 Comment

I’ll be honest, I woke up this morning, looked at the news, and cried. This election has been exhausted and I think we were all hoping for a swift and definitive result, even though we’ve been told repeatedly that a long drawn out counting process was the more likely scenario. Like being awake during your own surgery, falling asleep, and then waking up to learn that the surgery is still in progress. So be warned…I wrote this post this morning – it is not following my normal process of writing, re-reading, editing, publishing. So things might be a little raw.

There’s one thing has been bothering me the past few days and I’m assuming it will continue for the foreseeable future. People on social media have been posting well-meaning platitudes about “no matter who wins the election, we just need to be kind to each other and that will fix all our problems!” And the messaging just hasn’t been sitting well with me.

Now, I’ve got no problem with kindness. In fact, I agree that being kind to other people can be life changing for them and for you. However, kindness alone isn’t going to fix systemic racism. It isn’t going to ensure quality health care for our vulnerable populations. Kindness isn’t going to ensure that the LGBTQ+ community has equal rights. So yes, let’s be kind but let’s make sure that definition of kindness includes protest and challenge and voting in each other’s best interests.

I also think that toxic positivity needs to be addressed here. I have a lot more thoughts about this topic that I can explore at a future date, but the idea is that not all positivity is truly positive. It can become toxic when it asks people to ignore their pain in favor of a “just get over it” mentality. And there’s definitely an undercurrent of toxic positivity running through my social media feed for the past several weeks of this election. In addition to the idea that simple kindness can cure all ills, the message is delivered in a way that says you shouldn’t be hurt or frustrated or angry…just be kind to people! It leaves little space for people’s true, authentic and valid feelings.

As we continue through the next few days, I would encourage you to check your privilege when making statements about how people should act or feel as a result of this election. Be kind? Yes, of course, if you have the capacity. But some people may be running on fear, stress, and pain. Give people space to feel their feelings and don’t make them feel less than if they feel differently than you.

“There’s no such thing as a vote that doesn’t matter. It all matters.” – Barack Obama

~ kofriedery ~ Leave a comment

The 2020 election is right around the corner and we cannot stay silent this year. You cannot let this opportunity to make your voice heard pass you by. It is SO important to exercise your right to vote. As President Obama said, every vote matters. This is true where you feel it or not.

Recently, I had a virtual happy hour with some ladies. And we were asked by the organizer to avoid discussing politics. I 100% understand her reason for asking and respected the request during that time. I joked that I’d have to look up other topics for conversation, but the truth is we have so much going on in our lives that it was pretty easy to avoid any controversial topics. And I really did want to hear about new jobs, new babies, new marriages, etc… I didn’t want to spend the time talking about Trump’s handling of COVID, or how Biden isn’t quite as progressive as I’d like, or my opinions on Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing so far. I wanted to just catch up with my girlfriends.

However, it did get me thinking about how much of my daily thoughts and conversations would be considered political. And the truth is, I’m okay with that! I’m okay being political. Especially right now.

This year feels so much more urgent than other elections. With a pandemic ravaging communities, our country’s history of systemic racism being put in the spotlight (and then being denied by the highest office), and the continued struggle for healthcare, women’s rights, the economy on the line, this is a BIG year to make some important decisions. And these are not decisions that any of us should be taking lightly.

The fact of the matter is that I strongly believe we cannot allow another four years of a Trump presidency. I believe there are groups of people who will be at high risk if he is voted in for another term. We’ve already seen instances of domestic terrorist groups latching on to his words as mantras, permission to do unthinkable harm to other Americans. I worry for young girls who will grow up without access to healthcare that will allow them to make safe and informed decisions about their bodies and their futures. I worry about the safety and well-being of immigrants who comes to our country hoping for a better life. I worry about the homeless who are treated as less than, about those struggling with addiction who will have increasingly limited options to get help.

I hope my impassioned words don’t come across as disingenuous because I truly believe there is so much at stake this year. We all have an obligation to look at the whole picture and make a decision that will move our country in the right direction. And not for some abstract idea of what makes America great. Because what makes America great is it’s people. If we continue to ignore that there are people in danger and hurting…we will never be great.