Crunchy and refreshing with a mild sweetness. Juicy but not sticky.
Bell peppers are fruits that can be eaten like an apple, whole or slices, and contain vitamin C and other good stuff. It always surprises me how easy they are to eat. They’re an excellent lifestyle fruit for their user friendliness.
It’s suspicious how easy they are to eat. Throw them in a backpack and they’ll be okay. Even if they are crushed, there’s only water residue- no sticky juices like those other fruits.
Maybe you prefer a dip in keeping with the settler’s summer tradition. It would be uncouth to consume a dip alone, unless it’s a light Tzatziki/ cacık dip with crushed coriander. Composed of yogurt, cucumber, lemon juice, garlic, and any herbs- parsley, mint, dill– it’s wow. Munching on my bell peppers and tzaitziki dips, I have been thinking.
Despite my invisible achievements well into my third decade, I’ve navigated uncharted waters and strange crossroads. I suppose if you survive a catastrophe, that could be considered an accomplishment. Survival is not easy, yet little do we celebrate it.
Survival is not easy, yet little do we celebrate it.
TIP 2: Celebrate decisions >accomplishments > achievements
Achievements get trophies 🏆; accomplishments get checkmarks ✅; decisions get silence 🤫. Powerful decisions disappear into daily life like vegetables in vegetable chowder. You forget about them, but they’re doing all the work keeping you alive.
Decisions are harder to celebrate because they’re internal, sometimes messy and painful, and even transformative (quitting a job, leaving a relationship, starting something new).
The word “decision” comes from the latin “caedere” meaning “cutting the links.” It’s a cutting of ourselves from a “wholeness.” In the case of life, its a cutting into the wholeness of our identity and stability. Whether that’s getting out of a comfortable stagnation or an awful place, we have to slice, dice, and dip out of there ASAP. A life altering decision can suck because of the risk factor. But while there might not be reward, we need these decisions for prevention and immunity.
These “good” decisions that cut the deepest should be actively remembered in order to keep up the positive spirits; they are the silent architects of resilience, sometimes outweighing the glitter of achievements.
a beautiful user friendly decision
NUTRITIONAL BENEFITS OF DECISIONS
Vitamin C: One medium-sized red bell pepper provides 169% of the Reference Daily Intake (RDI) for vitamin C, making it one of the richest dietary sources of this essential nutrient.
Vitamin B6: Pyridoxine is the most common type of vitamin B6, a family of nutrients important for forming red blood cells.
Vitamin K1: A form of vitamin K, also known as phylloquinone, K1 is important for blood clotting and bone health.
Folate, also known as vitamin B9, has a variety of functions in the body. Adequate folate intake is very importantTrusted Source during pregnancy.
Vitamin E: A powerful antioxidant, vitamin E is essential for healthy nerves and muscles. The best dietary sources of this fat-soluble vitamin include oils, nuts, seeds, and vegetables.
Vitamin A: Red bell peppers are high inTrusted Source pro-vitamin A (beta carotene), which your body converts into vitamin A.
January — named for Janus, Roman god of beginnings and transitions — is either the coldest or warmest month depending on your hemisphere.
“What are your resolutions?” someone texts me. “Goals or hopes?” “Either.” “I see.”
End of conversation because my phone dies. Only the sound outside my window reaches me.
Phone past one battery cycle/day = wasteful and counterproductive. For battery health, if you recharge before 20%, call it the end of the cycle and turn it off. There’s nothing more direct than “off.”
Startle the birds with your laughter. Collect strange looks with HA HA HA.
Laughing, like crying, releases endorphins. We rarely express either in public — but laughter also goes missing in private. “Lol,” “kekeke,” “that’s funny,” we text, but it’s crickets in the house.
Perfectly good endorphins — wasted. So let it out: belly chortle, heart giggle, guttural laughter, wheezing.
Make something, and make it with love. Or destroy something, and destroy it with relish.
Do yourself a favor and clean up later. I mean, wayyyy later. Let the sweat equity show, look at the mess and materials behind the final product…pencil shavings, paint sploshes, apple cores strewn among the date pits. Striving for the end result is great for follow through, but is it sustainable? There has to be some appreciation, dare I say, enjoyment, in the process, production, labor.
If there is no visible sweat equity in your work, do a thing that does have it (counterbalance). For people who can’t seem to restore their energy, it’s important to balance intellectual/mental labor with physical/emotional labor. Make something, and make it with love. Or destroy something, and destroy it with relish.
An aside: What’s the difference between a task and a project? While tidying up after a task is always good for workflow, don’t confuse a project as a task. Set aside the appropriate space(s) for a project to inhabit. Subsequent “messes” of work-in-progress projects might be unsightly, but necessary. The small amounts of energy spent putting away and taking out projects adds up.
Leave projects out in the pasture to live their lives.
Another point: don’t overlook the small things, but don’t let the small things run the show. While micromanagement is good for detailed analysis of net efficiency, once it is built into the workflow, it is appropriate to break it occasionally. In fact, it is necessary to break it.
Back to replenishing energy: Make a physical thing…with an emphasis on “make”. Get your hands involved. Since we have to eat, a classic one is cooking–either your favorite recipe or a fun new one, but it’s important that it delivers pleasure for you. Maybe cooking or baking isn’t your form of enjoyment, then make a different thing.
I will expand on this for a moment.. “Making” is a creative act, which will be different for everyone. Playing music is a creative act for some, playing a sport is a creative engagement for others. (We can argue that one “makes” the shot into the basket or “makes” a play.)
Find a making that requires a few muscle groups. It is easy to fall into an avoidant style dynamic with screens so save video games for another area of life.
Another thought: positive and productive activities that replenish are : self initiated, intentional, and helps you be “present” with yourself and your body. They are responses, not reactions. Many times I have witnessed people reacting to stressors by using the screen to “tune out”. This is not a restorative act and alienates, thereby turning off the ability to be truly present.
So go hang out with your body and make something! 💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫
Family, friends, community — they’ve been there at times, and completely absent at others. Your mom nursing your flu, your dad explaining the same math problem for the fifth time, your brother laughing after you tumbled from the tree, fracturing a foot. There were the friends who waded with you through awkward growing pains and heartbreaks– who you could laugh with years later.
School was to glide us into work, life, and the trimmings of adulthood. When that didn’t quite happen — and the inherited world clashed with our lived reality — who carried you through the confusion?
You.
It was always you. The “support network” was training wheels, sometimes swapped for another set on a fancier vehicle.
Relationships matter — they keep us from becoming an echo chamber. But there’s a point of diminishing returns when social exchanges become wholly transactional or obligatory… it’s time to move on or take a break. We require self-preservation, especially if we were the responsible one, a parentified child, running interference to keep peace.
Unfortunately, the most in need of self-awareness are ones pushing uninformed agendas. So if it’s always been you, then what’s your obligation? To carry yourself when no one else can. Sometimes that means retreating.
A: Permission to retreat; throw a tantrum
The polemics and lightning polarization in today’s world make the sentiment of a tantrum unsavory. The “tantrum” here is inward-facing, not outward-destructive. If you had to keep your composure while people around you do un-people things, you deserve space and time for letting go.
Retreat, decelerate, and when you hit zero, see what’s left: tired, sore, sad, pissed? Do what you need to recoup — even if it means throwing a tantrum with admission for one. Think about it like a complete acceptance of all the debase emotions we are told to keep under a rock.
Contemporary society issues adults a behavioral script expecting stoicism and discouraging engagement with so-called “inferior” emotional states. These would be: bitterness, anger, resentment, melancholy, envy, fear, shame, self-pity, loneliness, despair, frustration, etc. They are socially coded as unproductive, unattractive, and regressive, even though they’re just as biologically hardwired and meaningful as joy, love, or excitement. So suppressing natural affective responses — some of which may present as petulant or deflective — we risk long-term emotional ossification. This has demonstrably backfired.
How many people do you know who never nurture their inner child, live it shamelessly in public?
B. Methods of tantrum/self-indulgence
Toddlers are well documented for their sophisticated tantrums, directed outward for attention. Adults, however, rarely deploy such techniques for personal welfare.Bask in glorified self indulgence because who will do it for you if not yourself?
Personally, I conduct a full-day incommunicado: digital blackout, emptying of emotional receptacles while performing floor-based kinesthetic movements, such as rug angels. Whatever your method, make it 100%. Pay attention to every feeling on the “feelings spectrum” and tantrum responsibly. For example, anger points to boundaries crossed. Envy reveals what we secretly desire. Shame shows us where we’ve confused mistakes with identity. Melancholy and grief remind us of what we’ve loved.
Let them breathe responsibly without weaponizing them at others, and they become signals, stepping stones for a decluttered forward path.
So call it whatever you want. Let you reclaim yourself. It’s always been you, and it still is.
The scenario: you’re waiting for your date who is running late. They text you: “sorry i’m omw!! (on my way)”
Your stomach grumbles, not from nerves but hunger. So you order for two and eat for one, doggy bagging the rest.
That’s what we call “ASS”- short for assertive. Not the “ass” to be confused with the taxonomical horse, although etymologically related. Not the “ass” short for asshole, which probably came from the equine “asinus.” If someone breaks an agreement, feel and follow your gut. Rarely has a stomach led one asstray. It’s your time, which waits for no one, especially you. And for all we know, every supper is our last.
PROS:
CONS:
Eat when you’re hungry Doesn’t waste time (yours) Doesn’t waste time (theirs) Eliminates flakes
None
🔥HOT TIP 2: Beat the curve
You have a big poo coming up, undoubtedly. It doesn’t hurt to start training for top condition on performance day. Begin a few months early. Take it easy, once a week. Then progress to two times, three times, four…until you are comfortable with a daily brown. Before you know it, you’re a natural.
🔥HOT TIP 3: Hot, not!
It’s a fact that skin is the leading cause of feeling hot, so we tackle the problem at its source. Set aside a few days for this one.
Step 1: identify a reluctant neighbor Step 2: detach the neighbor’s tub from its cavity and shimmy it out to the lawn, making sure to crush your toes a few times in the process. Step 3: draw a nice ice bath. Your body will be fully distressed and sweaty from moving the tub, making this next part easy. Soak in the cold solution for 6 to 10 hours until the tingling sensation of hypothermia ceases. Step 4: rejoice! Neural signals no longer send the brain any messages about it being hot, or not!
That’s all the Hot Tips I’ve Got, hope you learned something!
Noon Mul 