Spring Dragons

It is treatment day, so I am at the hospital with a drip in my hand, which is making it difficult to type, as the tubing is taped into a bad position for the keyboard. Just in this sentence I have probably used the delete key 15 times... this post is going to take a while, but as you can see, "Spring is here" - well, according to the wallpaper.

With all that is on my work plate at the moment, I should probably be knocking out some tasks for that, but I don't know anyone else who works from a hospital bed, so I think I will take the couple hours this time for myself - the rest of the day can start after lunch. I have a few difficult meetings in the afternoon and with the symptoms of the treatment starting to kick in, I am not sure how I will perform.

Should I chuck a sickie?

For those who might not know, that is how Australians say "fake an illness for a day off", though technically, I wouldn't be faking - though the last time I actually took time off for illness was when I had the stroke last year. However in general, with the ability to work from home, I tend to work regardless.

Perhaps I should just play some Splinterlands instead and kill my current position even further. I played a few rounds last night to see if I could do the quest and after a couple good games, got hammered a bit. I don't mind too much at this point though, as I while I have dropped back from Diamond 1 into D2, I should be able to climb into Champions again and make a push for Champion 2. I got close last season, but took a hammering in the last two days.

Speaking of Splinterlands, it is good to see some of the pictures coming out with the "Imagine Dragons" deal and hopefully there will be some positive press and perhaps growing interest in the game. It would be amazing if there was a little bit of press from fans that got the Splinterlands name into the media more and created some hype. Too much to ask?

After a discussion and commission from galenkp yesterday, Smallsteps set about drawing her own Dragon Card and I think it came out pretty awesome. Look at this beast!

It was a bit of an art-themed event over the weekend and she spent hours painting with kids water colors and was absolutely loving it. I think I am going to look around for a kids easel so she doesn't have to sit on the floor all of the time and I think she will enjoy being able to have a little "atelier" corner in her room. It is likely that she will have some talent in this area as she goes forward in her life based on her genetics, so it probably isn't just me wanting her to be creative.

Our genes play a large role in how we are, so denying them is probably a losing battle - the good and the bad. Often we are taught to focus on our strengths, but I think that one of the easiest ways to improve ourselves, is to acknowledge and counter our weaknesses. Even paying attention and building processes to identify when they are in play, can go a long way to limiting the negative impacts that they have on our lives. It is like "anger management" in a way, where catching it before the outburst is vital to take a step back and reevaluate whether that is the path we choose to take. When our weaknesses are unbridled,

I have just been cut to typing on a laptop with one hand...

The drip in my hand isn't liking the movement in my wrist and keeps stopping and beeping.

As I was saying.

When our weaknesses are unbridled, we don't have the chance to recognize and counter them in the moment, meaning that even if we are doing well on our strength sides, the benefits are going to be limited. Of course, no one only wants to focus on the negatives, but it is good to consider how much gain can be made in doing so.

In general with high-level skill, the effort to improve is also high. But improving low-level skills is easier, and as such, shoring up weakness might actually not be as difficult as it seems. This depends on many variables, but investigating them needn't take much effort and the gains can be seen quite fast.

I am not great at typing with two hands. This hasn't improved the situation.

I think I might have to create a "bucket list" of my weaknesses to tick off by attempting to improve them even a little. I wonder if over the next decade I was able to improve each of them 30% or reduce their negative impact by 30%, what would be the net benefit? I would assume that like skill improvement, they will compound against each other to outsize the effort in. It is like a wanted investment outcome - more return than input.

This is taking a long time to write and my treatment is drawing to a close - so I think I will leave this one here for now and spend the rest of the time thinking about what I will put onto my list of weaknesses. I am pretty sure it is going to be quite extensive, but not exhaustive - there are just far too many. We change a lot during our life but one of the things that never changes, is our chance to improve ourselves in some way.

We can all face our dragons.