To be with those I like

 “I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.” ~ Walt Whitman

Middle Season #9

 

Cornellian Cheerry dogwood (yellow), driveway shrub begins to leaf; maple tree blossoms and shells that came off; budding tree by school

Learn from Each Job

 I found this in my pile of office stuff.  I used this when getting my department chair job.  I took the idea from Dave Franzen.  I'm not sure how I got it initially; but I adapted it to different "roles" that I had within the school.  

Today I'm thinking about the idea of "learn from each..." teacher, book, year of working, month, day.  

It connects to Alan Jacobs' idea of "this is the year of..." and my old post about "who are your teachers" and from Jon Kabat-Zinn's "life is your curriculum."  

What did I learn today?

Small Pleasures

 

Wassily Kandinsky, Small Pleasures (1913)

(The composition of Small Pleasures is centered round two hills, each crowned by a citadel. On the right-hand side is a boat with three oars which is riding a storm under a forbidding black cloud. To the bottom left it is possible to make out a couple at a steep angle to the hill, and above them three horsemen arrested in full gallop. A fiery sun flashes out wheels of color.

On the title: Kandinsky writes of the 'joyfulness' of execution. It is legitimate then, to see the work as a celebration of Kandinsky's style during this period, as affirming the spiritual and practical pleasures he manifestly derived from painting; he speaks of 'pouring a lot of small pleasures on to the canvas'. While giving the impression of heavenly chaos, Small Pleasures is obviously not the product of pure spontaneity. The various modes of paint application, and the complexity of pigment selection and mixing are enormous. The way colors are washed and blurred together, and seldom contained by bounding lines is typical of Kandinsky's work at this time.)

The way to have more pleasure in your life can be either to become a hedonist, focusing on incorporating more big pleasures, or to become a microhedonist or to recognize smaller doses of pleasure.  

Micro-dosing on pleasure.

This doesn't mean pretending that the toils of life are pleasurable. This also doesn't mean that even toils, compared to existential blankness of death, is relatively preferable.  (or compared to torture, hardship, etc.) 

Instead, it means that there are a possibly treasures to be found inside the "normal" life.  (Inside the folds of everyday living.)

Things that reinforce this: Tara Brach's idea of "pausing" between things, Thich Nhat Hahn's idea enjoying the bubbly warm water while doing dishes, Kurt Vonnegut's quotation about saying "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."  (His Uncle Alex's story "What he found objectionable about human beings is that they so seldom noticed when they were happy")

The year of ...

‘Honeysuckle’ (1883) by William Morris or his daughter, May

Alan Jacobs... The Year of Focal Practices.  What I'm most interested in is the "declaring" the year of ____.  Rather than days stacked on end in pursuit of the latest, Jacobs identifies and follows up on a yearly "focus" -- repair the world, patient endurance, or (for the current year) practices that bring us together.

This also reminds me of this Thoreau "prayer": I wish to begin this summer well; to do something in it worthy of it and of me… I pray that the life of this spring and summer may lie fair in my memory. May I dare as I have never done! […] I am eager to report the glory of the universe; may I be worthy to do it…. It is reasonable that a man should be something worthier at the end of the year than he was at the beginning

I declared 2021 the Year of Hypomone and 2022 the Year of Repair. I have not ceased to need hypomone — the New Testament word for “patient endurance” — nor are the good things of my world in any less broken. And it seems to me that there’s a close relationship between the two themes, because those who would engage in tikkun olam, the repair of the world, will more than most others require hypomone. But how to get it? How and where to find the resources that enable the patient endurance that in turn enable us to pursue the work of repair? I declare this the Year of Focal Practices. 

What do I mean by that? It’s a concept from Albert Borgmann’s seminal 1984 book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life. As Borgmann’s career moved on he became a clearer and more straightforward writer, but in 1984 … not so much. He was still, then, too Heideggerian to be lucid. So rather than quote I am going to try to summarize, drawing chiefly on chapters 9 and 23.

Focus is a Latin word that means hearth — the fireplace that was both literally and metaphorically the center of the Roman household. Various members of the family were responsible for some element of hearth-maintaining — one would chop or gather the firewood, another bring that wood into the house, another make the fire, another add logs when the fire got low or stir it to enliven it, still another to cook the family’s food over the flame — and each member benefitted from its warmth. The heath was a place for preparing food and for keeping warm; it was therefore also the place where the family gathered, where its unity and wholeness were made manifest. The household gods — the lares and penates — were above all the guardians of the hearth. They preserved and in various ways represented the family’s focus. 

Controlled fire is of course the paradigmatic technology: Prometheus’s gift of fire to humans is the definitive extension of our natural abilities, an augmentation of power, a prosthesis. But, Borgmann shows, fire-as-focus is much more than that: it generates a set of focal practices that strengthen the bonds among members of the family. Contrast the hearth at the center of a home to a central heating unit, which instead of binding us to one another invites us to go our separate ways. The central heating unit is not a focus that links us to one another; it is rather a device that facilitates our separation. 

Do all the good that you can

 

The Pleasure Scale

I used ChatGPT for all of this:

 Here are the 14 items of the Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale (SHAPS) questionnaire:

1. Eating your favourite food or meal
2. Listening to your favourite music
3. Watching a good film or TV program
4. Receiving a gift or present
5. Spending time with family or friends
6. Being praised for something you have done well
7. Looking at a beautiful view or scenery
8. Being in the sun or warmth
9. Participating in a favourite hobby or pastime
10. Reading a good book or magazine
11. Seeing a loved one or friend
12. Hearing a joke that you find funny
13. Seeing a baby or young animal
14. Smelling a pleasant aroma or fragrance

Participants are asked to rate the extent to which they would find each situation pleasurable on a 4-point scale ranging from "definitely agree" to "definitely disagree." The scores are then summed to produce a total pleasure score.

there are various pain scales that have been developed to assess the intensity and severity of pain experienced by an individual. Here are a few examples:

1. Visual Analog Scale (VAS): This is a 10-centimeter line where one end represents no pain and the other end represents the worst possible pain. The individual is asked to mark a spot on the line that corresponds to their level of pain.
2. Numerical Rating Scale (NRS): This is a scale where the individual is asked to rate their pain on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 representing no pain and 10 representing the worst possible pain.
3. Verbal Rating Scale (VRS): This is a scale where the individual is asked to rate their pain using words, such as "no pain," "mild pain," "moderate pain," or "severe pain."
4. Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale: This is a scale that uses a series of faces to represent different levels of pain, ranging from "no pain" to "worst possible pain."

here is a range of ten words related to pleasure that could be used in a verbal rating scale from smallest to largest:

None

Mild

Slight

Moderate

Pleasant

Enjoyable

Intense

Delightful

Blissful

Ecstatic

synonyms that are more suitable for describing mild, slight, and moderate levels of pleasure. Here are some alternatives:

Mild pleasure: Subtle, faint, gentle, mild, slight, low-key, mellow

Slight pleasure: Pleasant, agreeable, satisfying, enjoyable, nice, decent

Moderate pleasure: Good, satisfying, pleasurable, positive, enjoyable, satisfactory, decent

These words are more appropriate for describing different levels of pleasure and can be used to create a more nuanced verbal rating scale for pleasure.

1. None: No pleasure experienced
2. Barely perceptible pleasure: Feeling a faint sense of happiness, experiencing a small sense of relief
3. Mild pleasure: Feeling content after a small accomplishment, enjoying a light breeze on a warm day
4. Slight pleasure: Eating a favorite food, hearing a favorite song on the radio
5. Moderate pleasure: Participating in a favorite hobby or activity, spending time with friends or family
6. Pleasant pleasure: Going on a vacation, having a good conversation with a loved one
7. Enjoyable pleasure: Watching a movie or TV show that you enjoy, going out to a nice restaurant
8. Intense pleasure: Achieving a long-term goal or dream, falling in love
9. Delightful pleasure: Being surrounded by nature, experiencing a deep sense of connection with others
10. Ecstatic pleasure: Feeling overwhelming joy or euphoria, experiencing a peak experience such as a spiritual or mystical event

here are some more examples of small pleasures that might fall into the range of #2 to #4 on the verbal rating scale for pleasure:

Feeling the sun on your skin on a cool day

Enjoying a cup of tea or coffee in the morning

Waking up feeling refreshed after a good night's sleep

Having a good hair day or feeling confident in your appearance

Completing a small task that has been on your to-do list for a while

Listening to a favorite podcast or audiobook

Taking a relaxing bath or shower

Enjoying a beautiful view or sunset

Connecting with a loved one, even if it's just for a few minutes

Feeling the wind in your hair while riding a bike or walking outside

These small pleasures can add up to create a sense of happiness and well-being in daily life, and it can be helpful to notice and appreciate them when they occur.

Alternative to Affirmations

 

 From Rob Walker's email newsletter:

ALTERNATIVE TO AFFIRMATIONS

I just learned this concept of pivoting from affirmations to iffirmations. Instead of saying to yourself something like “I am confident and strong” you ask yourself “What if I am confident and strong?” Asking it in the form of a question forces your brain to search for evidence that this might be true. For me, this works because it conjures images and examples of ways I could be confident or strong or have been in the past, which then elicits positive and encouraging emotions. A lot more effective than affirmations.

Futility was the point

 Learned about this from Alan Jacob's blog from an article by Jonathan Tran in ChristianCentury.org

Nothing captures antiracism’s mission drift better than the explosive growth of its billion-dollar diversity industry, which promises to address inequality by diversifying the faces of gatekeeping institutions—the very institutions that facilitate upper-middle-class mobility precisely by leaving inequality in place. These antiracist initiatives, often staffed by well-meaning and high-minded people, bring with them all the conviction but little of the power to actually get anything done, at the end of the day achieving so little that one begins to wonder if futility was the point.

Act from that identity immediately

Dall-E

 From Oliver Burkeman's Newsletter

For a solid decade, I worked in a newspaper environment where I was never more than about three days, and often just a few hours, away from a deadline. I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything – but one of its many benefits was that it taught me there’s something psychologically unhealthy about short deadlines, at least for people like me. That’s because it was far too easy to tell myself that it was after the next deadline that I’d finally take a deep breath, take charge of my career, make proper time for my friendships, generally sort my life out, and stop mentally living a few days in the future.

Some people postpone “real life” to distant points in the future, subconsciously telling themselves it’s when they graduate, or get married, or switch jobs, or retire, that the truly meaningful part of life will begin. (I’ve sometimes been guilty of that, too.) But the short-horizon version of this tendency is in some ways more seductive, and thus more dangerous, because the future moment in question is due to arrive so imminently you can almost reach out and touch it. It’s not “in 30 years, when I retire.” It’s the day after tomorrow, just as soon as I’ve got this article out of the way…

It was my growing disillusionment with this outlook that led me, eventually, to what now feels like a baseline principle for living a calm, meaningfully productive and enjoyable life, which is that in the end, striving toward sanity never works. You have to operate from sanity instead.

I’m using “sanity” here to refer broadly to what it feels like to live the kind of life you want to be living, which for me, anyway, means calm, focused, meaningful, connected to others, and so on, as opposed to anxious, overwhelmed, isolated and distracted: all the usual stuff. 

Operating from sanity, by contrast, means embodying a certain orientation toward life now, first, then doing stuff – rather than doing the stuff in an effort to attain the orientation. The crucial point is that it has to be now, not next year, and not even in a few hours’ time. In his book Anti-Time Management, Richie Norton breaks it into two steps: “1. Decide who you want to be. 2. Act from that identity immediately.” That’s correct, I think, but perhaps risks making it sound as if what’s required is a total personality transformation. So it’s time for some down-to-earth examples:

If you’ve accumulated an unpleasant email backlog (like me, recently!) then striving toward sanity means setting aside five whole days to do nothing but plough through the messages – which won’t work, partly because you won’t be able to maintain the motivation, and also because other messages and tasks will accumulate in the meantime, leaving you as backlogged as before. Operating from sanity means sequestering all those emails in a separate folder – hey presto, your inbox is empty! – then endeavoring to stay current on new incoming emails, so as to prevent another backlog developing. Meanwhile, chip away at the backlog a little each day or, if your situation allows, just delete it entirely.

I asked ChatGPT to summarize Norton's book, then asked for specific tips he provides.  ChatGPT said:

here are some of the time management strategies that Richie Norton talks about in "Anti-Time Management":

1. Prioritize alignment with your values and purpose: Rather than simply focusing on completing tasks or checking items off a to-do list, Norton encourages readers to start by identifying their values and purpose. This allows you to align your daily activities with what's truly important to you and gives you a greater sense of fulfillment and purpose.

2. Use energy management instead of time management: Norton suggests that managing your energy levels is more important than managing your time. This means taking regular breaks, getting enough sleep and exercise, and doing activities that energize you. By managing your energy, you can be more productive and efficient during the time that you do have.

3. Focus on outcomes, not output: Instead of measuring your productivity based on how many tasks you've completed, Norton suggests focusing on the outcomes you want to achieve. This means setting goals that align with your values and purpose, and working towards achieving those goals, even if it means taking longer to complete individual tasks.

4. Practice mindfulness and gratitude: To avoid getting caught up in the stress and overwhelm of daily life, Norton suggests practicing mindfulness and gratitude. This can involve taking a few minutes each day to meditate, reflect on what you're grateful for, or simply take a break and breathe deeply.

5. Embrace flexibility and spontaneity: Norton encourages readers to be open to unexpected opportunities and to allow for flexibility in their schedules. This means being willing to change your plans if something more important or exciting comes up, and not being too rigid in your daily routine.

 Chat said that the third part of his book gives practical tips... so I followed up:

here are some examples of the practical tips and exercises that Richie Norton provides in the third part of "Anti-Time Management":

1. Create a "Values Statement": This exercise involves creating a statement that outlines your core values and beliefs. This can help you make decisions and prioritize your time based on what's truly important to you.

2. Identify your "Why": This exercise involves digging deep to understand your purpose and motivation. By identifying your "why," you can better align your actions with your values and goals.

3. Use a "Reverse To-Do List": This is a technique where instead of listing out all the tasks you need to do, you list out the outcomes you want to achieve. This helps you focus on the bigger picture and can make it easier to prioritize your time.

4. Practice "Time Blocking": This technique involves blocking off specific chunks of time for different activities. For example, you might block off two hours in the morning for focused work, followed by a 30-minute break, then another block of time for meetings or calls. This can help you stay focused and avoid multitasking.

5. Set "Boundaries": This exercise involves setting clear boundaries around your time and energy. For example, you might decide not to check email after a certain time in the evening, or you might delegate certain tasks to others to free up your own time.

6. Create a "Gratitude Practice": This exercise involves taking a few minutes each day to reflect on what you're grateful for. This can help you stay positive and motivated, even during challenging times.

Geraniums

 

I took the picture of this family room wintering geranium at the top this morning, used the new function in the app to take out the background; it reminded me of this Odilon Redon "painting".

Seeing as a means of spiritual practice

 

Van Gogh, Dead Leaf and Pod, 1890 

Zen of Seeing by Frederick Franck, summarized by ChatGPT

The Zen of Seeing is a book written by Frederick Franck that explores the art of "seeing" as a means of spiritual practice. The book is divided into three sections: "The Discipline of Drawing," "The Discipline of Seeing," and "The Discipline of Being."

In the first section, Franck emphasizes the importance of drawing as a means of developing the ability to see. He suggests that drawing is not just about reproducing what we see, but also about developing a deeper awareness of the world around us.

In the second section, Franck explores the practice of "seeing," which he defines as a way of looking at the world with fresh eyes, free from preconceptions and judgments. He suggests that by cultivating this kind of attention, we can learn to see the beauty and wonder in even the most ordinary things.

In the third section, Franck discusses the practice of "being," which involves cultivating a sense of presence and mindfulness in all aspects of our lives. He suggests that by learning to be fully present in the moment, we can experience a sense of peace and harmony that transcends the stresses and distractions of daily life.

Throughout the book, Franck uses his own experiences as an artist and Zen practitioner to illustrate the principles he discusses. He also includes numerous examples of his own drawings and sketches to illustrate the practice of "seeing" and the role of art in spiritual practice.

The Ten Thousand Things

 

In Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, by Betty Edwards, I came across this quote in the margin.

It is in order to really see, to see ever deeper, ever more intensely, hence to be fully aware and alive, that I draw what the Chinese call "The Ten Thousand Things" around me.  Drawing is the discipline by which I constantly rediscover the world.

I have learned that what I have not drawn, I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle.

                                                                                                    -Frederick Franck, The Zen of Seeing 

I was curious about The Ten Thousand Things, found contradictory information on the web, and resorted to ChatGPT:

In Daoism, "The Ten Thousand Things" is often used as a term to describe the diversity of the natural world. It refers to all the things that exist in the universe, including living beings, objects, and phenomena. The concept is used to emphasize the interconnectedness and interdependence of all things, and to suggest that everything in the universe is part of a larger whole.

In Buddhism, "The Ten Thousand Things" is sometimes used to describe the multitude of phenomena that make up the world of samsara, which is the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. The concept is used to emphasize the impermanence and insubstantiality of all things in the world, and to suggest that attachment to these things is ultimately futile.

In both traditions, "The Ten Thousand Things" is used to suggest that the world is a vast and complex place, and that understanding the nature of reality requires an awareness of the interconnectedness of all things.

10,000 Things Return To One

 Empty yourself of everything.

Let the mind rest at peace.

The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.

They grow and flourish and then return to the source.

Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.

The way of nature is unchanging.

Knowing constancy is insight.

Not knowing constancy leads to disaster.

Knowing constancy, the mind is open.

With an open mind, you will be openhearted.

Being openhearted, you will act royally.

Being royal, you will attain the divine.

Being divine, you will be at one with the Tao.

Being at one with the Tao is eternal.

And though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away.

                                                      - Lao Tzu

Middle Season #8

 

Commitment to regularity

Hilary Hahn in an article about her #100DaysofPractice practice videos.

Hahn edited the video down to a bit more than a minute of unflashy content then posted it, with all the brisk efficiency of a social media intern, to Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. There were no retakes, no notes to her publicist. Season 6, Day 61, of #100daysofpractice was in the can.

***

Hahn came up with the idea in 2017, when she first noticed #The100DayProject, an initiative that asked creative, primarily visual artists to make something, day after day. She chose an activity that she thought she should have been undertaking with a similar commitment to regularity, but was not.

***

On one level, Hahn’s posts since are a diary of a virtuoso’s life. There’s Hahn at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, at Wigmore Hall in London, at David Geffen Hall in New York, where she recently became the first artist to play a solo recital in the refurbished main theater. There’s Hahn on a private jet, in a hotel, and in another, and another. There’s Hahn in her Cambridge, Mass., home, with her Grammys on a side table or her guinea pigs behind her. There’s Hahn the working mother, playing with one of her two children as her impromptu accompanist, or stealing a quiet moment after midnight, exhausted.

***

Part of Hahn’s message, she said, is that being deliberate about practice, whatever else might be going on in life, allows marginal gains to compound..... “I like to say that if your practicing isn’t a practice, you’re not practicing,” Tepfer said. “It truly is a practice, it’s a daily activity, and the power of practicing comes with that kind of continuity.” 

***

“I realized that we need to have a lot more self-compassion as musicians,” she added. “You can’t become someone you’re not in practice, and you can’t make the music become something that it’s not ready to be. It’s just difficult, though, to reconcile that with expectations, sometimes.”

Hahn’s most powerful videos are not those in which she tosses off some Bach with all her familiar assurance, but those in which she does least with her instrument. “Practice” turns out to mean all kinds of things, from listening back to past concerts to doing near-silent left-hand studies while the laundry whirs along. But it can also mean mindfully taking a day off, or acknowledging feeling burned out, and responding appropriately.

Rethinking What a Lawn Looks Like

 

I love this image!  Jeff VanderMeer (author) tweeted this image and this text:

Thinking about landscaping? Rethink what a "lawn" looks like. With deforestation rampant, even a small area can help.

One commentor recommends book: Kelly Brenner's Nature Obscura: A City's Hidden Natural World.  Brenner also wrote The Naturalist at Home: Projects for Discovering the Hidden World Around Us. 

Radical Incrementalism of Fun

 

Dall-E birch forest photomosaic 2

Brendan Leonard from Outside mag:

In his book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman briefly references the concept of radical incrementalism. Burkeman writes about psychology professor Robert Boice, who studied writing habits of other academic professionals. Boice found that PhD students who wrote a little bit per day—even as little as 10 minutes—were more productive and less anxious than those who tried to write in big chunks (which they often procrastinated on until they had a deadline coming up).

Radical incrementalism has been mostly embraced in academia, policymaking, and even self-improvement. But I think it’s also an interesting way to look at having more fun: Instead of wishing I had the money and time to take a month or several to do some sort of very notable human-powered adventure to the top of a mountain or across a country, how about doing some less-notable stuff near where I live every week, or every month? 

This is, of course, the thesis of my friend Alastair Humphreys’ 2014 book Microadventures—and also the theme of a project he did years ago in which he tried to eat at a London restaurant from a country starting with each letter of the alphabet (Afghanistan, Bolivia, Cambodia, et cetera). So I’m not exactly saying something brand-new here. But let’s be honest with ourselves: I’m not going to climb Mt. Everest next year, and the odds are pretty good that you’re not planning to either. So we might as well dream up some other fun stuff to do

Bernadette Mayer's famous writing prompts

 

birch photomosaic - Dall-e

Bernadette Mayer, and specifically her “famous” set of writing prompts, for students. 

I’ll mention just one of Mayer’s other ideas that I think might be fun for educators: “Create a collaborative journal,” for example — one with “two [people] writing about the same subject each day.” Sounds promising!

(One last time, here’s Mason’s post, and Mayer’s full list.)

May I be worthy to do it

                                          Dall-E birch forest photo montage 3

 Henry David Thoreau. March 15, 1852

I wish to begin this summer well; to do something in it worthy of it and of me… I pray that the life of this spring and summer may lie fair in my memory. May I dare as I have never done! […] I am eager to report the glory of the universe; may I be worthy to do it…. It is reasonable that a man should be something worthier at the end of the year than he was at the beginning

1000 True Fans

Kevin Kelly's "1000 True Fans" essay. 

Related:

From Seth Godin's blog about "creating value as an entrepreneur"... I find that several of these ideas have analogs in education, especially permission and smallest viable audience.

Customer traction is the big one. Every day, are there more people who would miss you if you were gone? More customers who don’t want to switch to save a few dollars? More organizations that are building their future around what you do?

Permission is the privilege of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to the people who want to get them. It’s not a legal construct, it’s an emotional one. Who wants to hear from you?

Distribution is a practical way to measure brand. How much shelf space do you have? Mental shelf space and physical as well.

The network effect is built into your product or service. Does it work better if I tell my friends and use it with them? Is this actually happening or are you simply hoping for it?

And the smallest viable audience is the building block of all of this. Have you figured out precisely who it’s for? And do they agree?

After a while it opens you up

 

Peng Kang-long’s “Jade Inlaid Vermilion Sky” (2022), a triptych in which white peonies float across a glowing pink sky.Credit...via INKstudio

In this AWP speech, Toi Derracotte (at about 1 hour and 8 minutes) gives Sonia Sanchez's model of daily haiku writing:

Every morning she gets up and writes a haiku and sets her intention for the day.  So I started doing that... and I really think I wouldn't have been writing these things I read tonight because after awhile you know it opens you up.

I asked ChatGPT what it means to write a daily intention and to provide some examples...

Setting an intention every day means making a conscious decision to focus your thoughts, emotions, and actions on a particular goal or desired outcome for the day. It involves taking a few moments to reflect on what you want to achieve, how you want to feel, and how you want to interact with others.

When you set an intention, you create a mental roadmap for the day ahead. By doing so, you are more likely to stay focused and motivated, and less likely to get distracted by external circumstances or negative emotions.

Setting an intention can take many forms. It could be as simple as setting a goal for the day, such as completing a particular task, or it could be more abstract, such as committing to being more patient or compassionate with others. The key is to choose an intention that resonates with you and that you feel is achievable.

By setting an intention every day, you can cultivate a greater sense of mindfulness and purpose in your life. It can help you to stay present and focused on what matters most, and ultimately lead to greater happiness, fulfillment, and success.

here are some examples of intentions you could set for yourself every day:

1. I intend to focus on my breath and stay present in the moment.
2. I intend to be kind and patient with myself and others today.
3. I intend to complete all of my tasks with focus and efficiency.
4. I intend to prioritize my health and well-being by eating healthy and exercising.
5. I intend to approach challenges with a positive and solution-oriented mindset.
6. I intend to express gratitude for the blessings in my life.
7. I intend to show empathy and understanding towards others, even when it's difficult.
8. I intend to learn something new today and expand my knowledge.
9. I intend to take time to relax and recharge my energy.
10. I intend to speak and act with authenticity and integrity in all my interactions.

These are just a few examples, but there are countless intentions you could set depending on your personal goals and values. The key is to choose an intention that feels meaningful and achievable for you, and to take a few moments each day to reflect on it and commit to it.