Some people learn about the limits of their control over events by meditating. Even when you stop trying to do anything, your body tries to do things and things change around you and you have the impulse to control things. Repeated exposure to this impulse eventually caused me to start laughing at how silly I was to assume that I was in control.

Maybe something like that could help you. Peace.

I’m annoyed when things don’t work. I’m even more annoyed when something can’t be made to work.

I find the first kind of annoyance much more ephemeral.

Now I know where to go when I feel like I’m ready for native-level input in Swedish!

Omnibus.

I don’t consider it an identity, but it is a stable state for me: I do not believe in the existence of gods until further notice. This is what I mean when I say “I am an atheist”. It’s a shorthand way to express this stable state about me.

Moreover, opposing organized religion is not the primary reason that I don’t believe in the existence of gods.

Reminding people to demand evidence for claims.

I just wish people spent more time trying to understand what others mean instead of more time on why they think others are wrong.

As I have aged, this lament has come to characterize about 84% of my worldview.

Comments are so much “That’s the joke.”

I feel you, OP. When you can’t hear it, you can’t hear it.

Yes.

Also a machine on fire tends to run a bit more slowly. 🔥😉

Very specifically for me, two parts of Getting Things Done:

• get things out of your head
• always set reminders

I have felt so much lighter for over 15 years because I can safely forget all these things I used to struggle to remember so that they wouldn’t sneak up on me.

Getting things out of my head was easier to build as a habit at the dawn of having a computer in my pocket all day. Even back then, I simply chose to be an asshole for a few months, stopping everything to write things down or to do them on the spot if they truly took only 2 minutes. Especially taking photos of receipts and labeling them when traveling for business.

Setting reminders was similar, but rockier, since calendar apps sometimes have defects. I gradually learned which alarms to trust and learned to use those more often. Even so, Samsung Clock has at least once surprised me by setting my alarm volume to 0, causing me to miss one alarm in the last 10 years.

In both cases, I did nothing special except decide to build the habit and spend the effort to ingrain the habit through repetition over the span of a few months.

What does the cat drink?

Yes. Of course. I fail to see where I suggested not softening the rejection. 🤷‍♂️

I write “You can’t make them take your no for an answer, they have to choose to do that. It’s not a matter of politeness and it’s not your responsibility.” and people draw conclusions based on facts not in evidence. That. Is. My. Point. Whatever you try to do, they’ll find a way to find you rude, so don’t take responsibility for that.

Moreover, let’s also remember that a less-polite “no” is still a “no”, and people need to learn to respect those, too. A sharper “no” is very often the result of 100 attempts to be polite and still be considered rude.

You failed just now, so why would someone take your opinion about this seriously? (If this bothers you, then try reading it again in a cheerier tone. Oh! That didn’t help? Strange.)

I don’t think extra politeness is going to help you much here. If you don’t do what they ask you to do and they don’t understand why, they’ll probably assume you’re being rude, no matter which words or tone you choose.

You don’t need to explain yourself. Others need to learn to respect your choices about yourself. Yes, it’s tiring. It’s their fault, but partly your problem.

Your responsibility ends with “Thank you, but no.” Unfortunately, some people will feel hurt by this, no matter how cheerily you say it, because they simply don’t expect it. They will tell themselves that you are not being genuine by trying to both remain friendly and deny their request. You can’t change this; only they can choose to interpret your response differently. And most people never try this. Instead they merely expect you to be agreeable and do what they want you to do.

If you want to establish your boundaries, then you need to practise letting them feel hurt and not feeling responsible for it. This is one reason I meditate.

Peace.

2010

A group of people who are tired of your unjust bullshit, who are not going to let you shrug it off or get away with it, and who are not going to stop confronting you with it.

Yes. I find it helpful.

Space Invaders.

Mais c’est pas juste!

• Todoist for projects and tasks
• Standard Notes or Obsidian for notes or temporary lists

I prefer to have one authoritative database of tasks (Todoist) and then I use whatever plain text or Markdown tools are available to me in the moment for short term lists. I have settled on Standard Notes for longer term/reference notes, but I could just as easily use anything with plain text files.