What do you do with hundreds of bookmarked links on your computer that have been bookmarked for over a year? Leave them there? That's what I've done... after repeatedly telling myself I will delete some of them because -- let's face it -- most of these just stay there without serving any purpose other than reminding me they're there just in case I'll need them/want to read them again in the future. Well, a while ago I've decided that I'll delete like mad. A lot of the materials make for good reading and do contain substantial points worth remembering or pondering -- even living by.
So, why would I keep such materials to myself? I'm randomly picking several that I'd like to share with you, starting them with an excerpt from each link:
I hadn’t fallen out of love with my husband, not remotely, but the intense self-sacrifice that was being asked of me during our first walk through a valley was enough to make a part of me yearn for my days of singlehood. Having naively expected the honeymoon to last forever, I was caught off-guard by the challenge of caring for someone I wasn’t currently feeling dizzyingly, head-over-heels, madly in love with. What had always come easy—nurturing my man and marriage—was, for the first time, hugely difficult without the consolation of romantic sentiment. In the blink of an eye, a bucket of ice cold water had crashed over my naïve, fanciful visions of what marriage was all about.
Read Refined by Fire
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When I was a kid, I wanted to be an international playboy. I wasn’t sure what that was, but I liked the sound of it. I imagined yachts would somehow be involved and top models. And planes: lots of planes flying hither and thither over impossibly blue skies. The day would start in New York and end in Martinique, perhaps with a stop-off for lunch in Miami, if I could be bothered. I didn’t really get to live that life (thank God), but I see it up close now and then and it makes me giggle.
Read The Virtues of Fine in the Age of Awesome
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Conversations, as they tend to play out in person, are messy—full of pauses and interruptions and topic changes and assorted awkwardness. But the messiness is what allows for true exchange. It gives participants the time—and, just as important, the permission—to think and react and glean insights. “You can’t always tell, in a conversation, when the interesting bit is going to come,” Turkle says. “It’s like dancing: slow, slow, quick-quick, slow. You know? It seems boring, but all of a sudden there’s something, and whoa.”
Occasional dullness, in other words, is to be not only expected, but celebrated. Some of the best parts of conversation are, as Turkle puts it, “the boring bits.” In software terms, they’re features rather than bugs.
Read Saving the Lost Art of Conversation
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When Mike “Gabe” Krahulik, the artist behind the popular webcomic Penny Arcade, heard that an unprofessional PR rep for a game controller had been insulting and taunting one of his readers, he gleefully posted the damning emails to his website, along with the man’s Twitter name, for the express purpose of unleashing the Internet kraken.
“I have a real problem with bullies,” Krahulik wrote, after the marketer was deluged with hate mail. “I spent my childhood moving from school to school and I got made fun of every place I landed. I feel like he is a bully and maybe that’s why I have no sympathy here. Someday every bully meets an even bigger bully, and maybe that’s me in this case.”
But even if you think your bullying is serving a greater good, the fact remains that you’re still just a bully.
Read Why You Should Think Twice Before Shaming Anyone on Social Media
* Illustration from Creative Educator
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