Meg Evans

For this week’s Nurturing Thursday entry, I decided to change things up by posting a word-art image that makes fun of motivational sayings, rather than quoting one. It’s a satirical twist on the popular advice to find one’s passion and follow it wherever it leads.

Although I’ve often had an intuitive sense that I needed to find or do something more, I never felt that I had, or was searching for, one grand lifelong passion. Instead, my experience is that I’ve had distinct interests at various times, most of which reached a logical stopping point before I moved on. What’s more important, perhaps, is to find where we need to be in the moment.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

Before I started my workday on Wednesday morning, I noticed that my house was in need of vacuuming, and I also had some general thoughts rattling around in the back of my mind about how automation and artificial intelligence might impact jobs.

So, when I got this word-art image in an email soon afterward, I saw it as a timely reminder not to take job tasks and titles too seriously!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

I mentioned in a January post that I had applied for an open position with my current employer. Although I went through three rounds of interviews, ultimately one of the other finalist candidates was chosen. That led me to think about improving my coding skills; my current position is not a tech job, and why not have more options with the world changing so quickly?

So, I signed up for a tech mentoring program and mentioned it to my manager. Not long afterward, she assigned me to a technical writing project because she thought that would be a good fit, based to some extent on my participation in the mentoring program. I don’t have experience in technical writing, but it looks structured enough to be learned quickly, and I expect it will be an interesting adventure.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

The weather has been warm and sunny all week, just right for getting out on the river to row with my husband after work. Today I had a low intensity cross-training option on my workout plan. I took the opportunity to putter around in the yard (which, according to my Fitbit, put my heart rate into the proper easy training zone) and just enjoy being out in the sunshine. It’s time to bring the flip-flops up from the basement closet where they gathered dust all winter. Yay!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

My daughter came home for a long weekend with her two dogs, and the house feels happy and full of life. The dogs looked all around to make sure that every human in the “pack” was here. When they arrived, I happened to be in the shower after a workout, and one of them sat down outside my closed door and waited for me to come out. It’s nice to be so notable!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

Although I’ve been struggling with my resolution this year of not feeling burdened by self-imposed tasks, I can’t complain. My life has become more interesting in recent years, and my fitness has improved. Also, in general, it’s much better to pursue challenges and go on adventures than to give up on trying.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

Although the past few years certainly have been disruptive, I would say that navigating the unexpected changes hasn’t been all bad. Being forced to examine assumptions long taken for granted has led to more insight into what works well and what, instead, just causes unnecessary stress. Without the exhaustion of being in a rush to do things that weren’t really necessary, there is more available mental energy to understand and connect with others, rather than getting upset about trivial stuff.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

It’s already Friday evening, but that is okay. The time change probably has something to do with my being more easily distracted than usual. I totally forgot I hadn’t posted my usual Thursday entry last night. Nothing to worry about, though; if I don’t get everything done precisely on schedule, the world is not going to come to an end. Anyway, it would do us all a lot of good to put items like “dive into random fun stuff” on our to-do lists. In that regard, here’s a cute word-art image that suits my mood today:

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

Winter isn’t quite over yet, but I am looking forward to getting out on the river soon, instead of sitting at home doing long exercises on the rowing machine. They’re good for me, of course, and the cold March rain and howling winds will soon be gone, so there’s no reason to let the weather get to me.

Modern sculling boats wouldn’t actually sink if they got full of water in a rainstorm, of course. They’re very buoyant, made of carbon fiber, and they just go slower if they get water in them. Last year my husband and I were rowing in a place that had a lot of powerboats, and one got too close and left our little boat so full of water that it was almost too weighed down to move. We had to pour out a water bottle and use it for bailing. That worked, though it was more adventure than we wanted!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

After training all winter on the rowing machine, my husband and I won the gold medal in the lightweight mixed double at the Sarasota Sprints masters regatta on Sunday. We’ve been rowing almost 10 years now; it was May 2013 when we took a Learn-to-Row class together.

We took up the sport because we wanted something that we could do together after several years of traveling to our daughter’s soccer games when she was in college. It took a lot of effort to build up our skills and fitness enough so that we could do well at the regattas, but it was worthwhile—not just for the competition, but more generally, to keep the world feeling fresh and exciting. We both believe it’s important to keep learning new things all through life.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”