Did you Gain or Lose?

 It's a leap day.

February has an extra day this year.

The equilibrium of the days is resetting itself again.

Oh, you didn't know? The reason we have a leap day every year is because it doesn't actually take us 365 days to finish a rotation around the sun, it's suppose to be 365.25 days per rotation around the sun. Hence the once every four years thing, because every four years we can make a whole extra day. 

But if you really wanted to get into it, which most people do not; the Earth's orbit is constantly changing. The gravity within our solar system from larger planets such as Jupiter and Saturn cause our orbital track to alter elongate which not only impacts the time it take to travel around the sun but also the temperature because if we are further from the sun than it is going to be colder and if we are closer to the sun than we are going to be warmer. Other planets are stationary themselves though, they have their own orbits which means they are never pulling us into a singular long direction. Hence why it is overly complicated and nobody really wants to talk about it. Not to mention we could get into the whole conversation about how the sun is still a slowly growing ball of gas and therefore is creating more gravity itself and drawing us in closer until it decides to eat us up whole.....

I digress.

Most people, when they think about it being a leap day, are more interested in free stuff. Whether it is stuff they are getting for free or stuff they are giving for free. People who are salary based rather than hourly for instance may feel as though it should be an extra day off for themselves because they will not be getting paid specifically for their time on this extra day, it temporarily decreases their pay per day. But the same comments could be made for the people who work when daylight savings hits, you get paid for a hour you didn't work or you don't get paid for a hour you did work. Keeping in mind of course that it isn't true for the people who are actually hourly. I definitely prefer hourly.

So did you lose or gain today? Did you can an extra day of pay? Did you gain a birthday to actually celebrate? Did you gain extra food from the coupons? Did you gain an extra day of the kids being at school? Did you gain an extra day of your monthly subscriptions? Did you lose a day of pay? Did you lose a piece of your sanity?

Could You Survive Without Internet?

Digital technology has changed a lot over the past millennia, more than you probably realize. Sure, most people can acknowledge that we get updates to things every year. New phones, new gaming consoles, new PC parts, new TVs, new everything essentially. But do you realize that computers and the internet have only really existed for about six to eight decades? And the smaller more modernized computers as we know them have been around even shorter of a period, your WiFi? Mere seconds in comparison to how long the Earth has existed.

Technology was at one point, something only the government had access to. Although this was likely mostly because of the price, I mean could you afford a $7,000,000 computer setup? That is what it would have taken to build the 1945 version of a computer if it had the same currency value that we have today. It was estimated to take $150,000 to complete the original PC build, but it ended up taking $400,000. And that was for a computer the size of a room! I would love to have that much money to spend on a computer. I'm sure my boyfriend would too! He loves going onto PC building sites and adding new features to his dream builds. He even has setups that would probably put NASA's flight simulators to shame. (He loves his space games and wants to make his own cockpit essentially for when he goes flying his ships.)

Along the same basic principle, internet access and online databases were something created for the government. They needed to be able to access things other scientists were working on from far distances within minutes of one another rather than waiting for the horse and buggy to deliver schematics. In 1983, they eventually opened up the sourcing and made it so that others had access to the internet. WiFi didn't come into the picture until 1997. That makes most of my friends older than WiFi! I don't quite make that bar but I can still say that I am older than Google, which was started up in September of '98. 

The world has come to very much rely on modern technology and the internet. Parents have started giving their kids technology to hold their attention as young as two and three years old! When I was getting out of elementary school, there were kindergarteners that had smartphones and I didn't even have a flip phone yet at that point! My house didn't get internet access until I needed it to complete school work my junior and senior years of high school!

And now, sure, I could survive without the internet. I would probably go back to reading physical books more, spending more time doing things with my hands and crafting or drawing, trying new recipes, etc. But would I want to? Not really. At least not all the time. I enjoy being able to message people through Discord and have video chats with my boyfriend. I enjoy being able to play games with friends online from the comforts of our own homes. Having the ability to listen to music on Spotify? Golden. Looking up answers to random questions I have? Phenomenal. Being able to post and share with my growing community? A dream that many wish they could get the gusto to do. 

Could you do it? Even just for a day? If somebody offered you a thousand dollars to give it up for 24 hours? What if the sun flares became so bad they cut off technology for a month? Would you start to go insane? I am confident that we would all start to mellow out eventually and revert to old tendencies but what about those who do not have old tendencies to fall back on? What about the generation that is being raised on nothing but technology and the internet? Do you think they could entertain themselves?

Stirring the Pot

There is a right and a wrong way to go about things in your life. Whether in your workplace, in your home life, in your friend circle, etc. The wrong way is usually the secret way and it is normally going to cause more harm than it is going to help the situation. 

You can not decide that something that is going on is wrong and address it with others whether peers or higher-ups, without stirring the pot. You are going to start a rumor mill. You are going to give them more reasons to cause you trouble. You are going to put yourself at risk for ridicule and failure. 

When you do decide that something needs to be done, you need to ensure that everyone is on the same page. You need to confirm that all parties are notified, even the ones you do not want to know. Because everyone deserves to know, everyone deserves to be represented. Everyone deserves to have a say. That includes the person who you believe is causing harm. Just because they will not hear you out does not mean you should not also let them be heard. 

Be the bigger person. Be the person you wish they were. Give them the same respect you wish they would give you.

An Early Spring ... With More Snow

So for those of you who are not from the Northeast region of the United States, we have this whack-a-doodle thing we do to determine when our spring season is going to start. Now we very much still follow the farmers' almanac and the actual spring solstice and all that good stuff, but we like to have fun with guessing what the weather is going to be like too. 

Pennsylvania specifically has a groundhog that we rip out of his home to determine what the weather is going to be like. No, not 'Gus' the PA lottery groundhog. I am talking about Punxsutawney Phil. For those looking at the word and baffled at how you may pronounce it, punk-saw-ta-knee; that is the easiest way to explain it. I believe it was a native American tribe at one point in time. 

Anyway, every year at the start of February, we pull this poor guy out of his little hidey hole and present him to a crowd of people who are trying to find out if they are going to have to deal with six more weeks of 'brutal' winter cold or if they can start prepping for an early spring. Technically speaking, if Phil sees his shadow and runs back into his dirt house, that is supposed to be a sign that there is more winter to come because he goes back into hibernation. Alternatively, if he does not see his shadow, then there will be an early spring for the season. 

I never understood that logic though. If the sun is out and he sees his shadow wouldn't that imply that the sun is going to be out to warm the world sooner and cause spring to be here sooner? Not to mention it has turned into such a big hoopla lately that there are so many people and cameras with flash on that he almost always sees his shadow anymore... Maybe I am just thinking too far into it. 

Regardless, he did not see his shadow this year, which is suppose to mean an early spring and then we just got like four inches of snow last night! It is mostly melted now though and honestly it was kind of pretty to look at. I guess seasons happen as mother nature sees fit.

Making Work Fun

Sometimes it can be a really hard task to keep work and play separate. But realistically, why should they be separated? Because you can not stay focused and accomplish your tasks? But who likes just droning on and completing thirty mundane tasks back to back? You need to be able to find a good mix of the two.

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" - James Howell

 Finding small games you can do your work too is definitely one way of making your work fun. Maybe you have to clean up a bunch of rubbish and play basketball by throwing the stuff into the trash cans. Or maybe you have to help somebody create duplicate crafts/copies of paperwork. Try making a race out of it. Do you need to type up a synopsis of a short story you read? Why not try to use words with only a minimum number of letters, or try to think of synonyms you wouldn't normally use in your dialect. Studying to learn something new for a big test? Flashcards are always good but why not try to find crosswords or word searches on the topic and ease into the topics rather than reading straight from the textbook.

For some people, being able to make light of daunting tasks can help them to achieve more. It may seem like you are being lazy or slacking off but for you and your own mental sanity, it may be best to break up the tasks every now and then.

Personally, I like to take a hour or so and hyper-fixate on my work (usually while listening to music) and then take a fifteen minute breather and play games on my phone or watch a couple TikTok videos.

Whatever your method may be, you do what you need to in order to stay focused and get the most done out of your work day I suppose.

Water Pressure

 There are many things in our first-world country that we take for granted, things that our third-world country counterparts are literally dying to have. Things like ensuring security and peace of mind, having a stable roof over your head, knowing that you will have fresh water, not worrying about getting sick from spoiled food, having food to begin with, etc. Frankly, some of these things are not even a given in our first-world country and some people continue to struggle to achieve them. 

Regardless, you catch just a minor glimpse of what these people struggle through even just going from living at home with your parents, even in a lower-middle-class scenario, and beginning your own journey of renting an apartment and saving your money. Some start to learn for the first time, just how expensive it is to exist and they start to get a little downtrodden because they can not afford the extra luxuries they were able to get when they did not have to foot part of the bill for their parents. Others start to realize that cooking and keeping food fresh can be problematic for them. How about keeping your car running? I bet your dad probably did most of that work for you huh? And you absent-mindedly just drove it around, not realizing you needed to fill the window wash fluid or get your oil changed. My own downfall has mostly been how much I miss having water pressure in my shower. Now I am relatively used to LOW water pressure, it goes into effect with most apartment-type scenarios including college dorms. However, I have had next to no water pressure in my new apartment since moving in. After about three minutes the water from the shower head starts coming out as just a trickle instead of, well, a shower. So instead I resort to filling the tub and taking a bath that way. Which gets the job done for the most part but I am sure we can all agree that showers are better for the environment because they generally use less water, as well as, who really likes sitting in a pool of their own filth? Not me, that's for sure.

And yes, I know it is very much a first-world problem; that is why I addressed the larger world issues at the start. However, for me, this is my world, and this is my issue. So thank you for listening.

Rambo out!

Nepo Baby

When I first heard the term "Nepo Baby", I thought it was a term for some type of illness or birth defect that an infant was born with. Which I guess is not completely incorrect? It is something that they are born into, hence the use of the term baby. What it is not, however, is something that the parents are ashamed of such as a cleft pallet.

Nepo is short for nepotism, a word which means to have higher chances of receiving a job over another individual because of having a relative of higher power/influence within an industry or society. 

Nepotism has always existed and will likely continue to exist for a number of centuries in human history. There is no utopian society where there isn't always going to be somebody who considers their son or daughter for a position over an individual who may have better-suited credentials. We even see this in Hallmark movies. There is usually a daughter or son who is given a job at a business shortly after high school, sometimes without any prior educational background, and then within a short duration of time, where they have learned next to nothing about the business practices, is promoted to an executive position of some form. There is usually then a deliberation about how another individual who has been with the business for a significantly longer period of time and has taken the time to get the correct credentials through further education, should have received the position. Then we tend to see a falling out and the more qualified individual quits or faces some other turmoil such as a death in the family and there's a long, drawn-out realization within the son/daughter that they should not have been given the position and it was not what they wanted to do with their life to begin with so they give up the position to the better-qualified employee.

This is not just seen in fictional worlds though. It is commonly seen among childhood actors. Their parents pull strings and get them into careers early on in life because they themselves are in the field and there may be other actors who are better suited for roles or have a wider range of talents. It can also be seen in politics around the globe. Even in small positions such as sales and when somebody is hired in as a manager instead of a sales associate. 

Nepotism is just about everywhere and it is not going anywhere any time soon. All you can do is acknowledge it and if you are the product of nepotism, try to do better.

Pain

I grew up with my dad quoting the motto, "Pain is weakness leaving the body". He made it seem as though pain was a necessity to life and that you could not become a stronger individual without feeling pain. This is not true. Pain is not weakness leaving the body. Pain is a sign that there is something wrong, that something within your bodily system is damaged and hurting. While you may be able to grow from some pains, primarily mental; you can not grow from experiencing all pain. In fact, many pains could be you literally dying. Pain should be a sign for you to seek help. 

But everyone defines pain differently. Everyone has a different pain tolerance. Everyone experiences pain differently. Just as everyone experiences all of life differently. What to me is the same sensation as stubbing my toe, may to you, be the sensation of having your foot crushed by a 100-pound anvil. 

When you begin to feel pain, you need to do whatever you feel is best to resolve that pain. Seek help as you feel necessary. Seek guidance where you feel it is required. Only you can determine these things. And honestly how you determine these things are how you actually grow as a person.

You grow by making decisions for yourself. By making connections with others. By learning about the world around you. By taking chances and failing. Experiencing pain is likely to be a part of this but it is not how you grow.

Pain is weakness leaving the body, but only when you are smart enough to learn from your pain.