In my book, every year should be reflective. We need to reflect on our forming and on our producing and on ourselves. The unexamined life is not worth living AND the unlived life is not worth examining. I asked my class last week to prepare a short speech that discussed an identity-defining moment in their lives. This class are very much into both formative and productive years. They come from all kinds of careers and programs and are becoming entrepreneurs. After explaining the assignment, I asked if there were questions. One older, thoughtful guy said - "It's not exactly a question -- but it seems you are asking us to not only prepare a speech, but also to reflect on our lives. We never do that." Uh huh. The speeches were AMAZING. Several of them left us in tears. One girl managed to give her speech talking through tears. Reflect well and reflect better dammit. It's NOT navel-gazing to be reflective. It's a process of asking yourself a few questions, for example: Is the road I'm on related to my desired destination? Is the relationship I'm in helping me be more happy or more sad? Do I have "agency" in my own life?
I've been on this website for a total of ~27 minutes now and every post and the comments to follow are making me realise just how often I leave my brain in auto-pilot. It's very unsettling.
Thank-you! Well, I'm in the medical field so if I ever post something it will likely be medicine-related. I actually found Hubski in amongst a list of "50 websites to waste your time on" (clearly having a slow Sunday) and I believe it is going to be just that, minus the "waste".
Welcome! What do you do in medicine? We have some PhD's, MD's and nurses kicking around the site. My wife is an MD so I'm constantly around those in the medical profession. I look forward to seeing your posts. Followed! If you have any questions about the site, feel free to ask me.
Absolutely off topic but I am a stalker apparently and just looked at your profile and saw a link to the Primer page. Good stuff that I had not seen before. Has hubski ever has DMCA takedown request or any other "official" contact about personal or IP information? I am a licensed professional and am very reluctant to post anything related to my work due to paranoia about professional liability.
We have not had any such requests. We will always be transparent if any such things occur.
Exactly. Interesting that you'd put it that way. Your comment about what to do when one is dumped is about first - reflecting - and then using the information you get from the reflection for action rather than wallowing in reflection. It's worth posting again right here: We've discussed reflection before and its relative value.
I'm still really uncomfortable with your definitions of "reflection" and "mediation." To me, you're drawing boxes around experiences and defining ways in which they can and cannot be enjoyed and creating arbitrary guidelines for which they may or may not be allowed to provoke thought. I also really dislike the fact that not only are "experience" and "reflection" called out as discrete things, there's a percentage assigned to them and a value judgement assigned to that percentage.
kb - When I have world enough and time I will either rewrite or delete the original post. I've created a BINARY in that post and I want to reject the binary (right OftenBen). May reflection lead to action and transformation. And vice versa. Maybe the two can unite: REFLACTION -- as in "This is a time of serious reflaction!" kb, I'm experience a brave new world of self-reinvention. I sent the very busy thenewgreen a version of my state of the lil address that I prepared for hubski. May or may not post. I appreciate you. Hmmm maybe tonight is a possible IRC. Of course you are in a baby-feeding bed-putting time zone.
Perhaps it's a difference of what "reflection" means to us - there's an implied "what can be learned from this?" in reflection to me. Reflection is the act of investigating something internally in order to achieve a better understanding. Understanding is the single most important thing for changing one's regard for the world without investing capital or effort. So when I see "reflection" I see a guided internal effort towards improving something - something internal, something external, an understanding, an appreciation, an approach, an effort. I'm officially done with the show for another year which means my evenings are my own again, which means I'm spending as much time as I can with the fambly. I may be able to make an appearance, but it will necessarily be brief. Good luck on yoru self-reinventing adventures. I appreciate you, too.
I agree -- words, words. You mean reflaction - as in the two are bound somehow (as they should be). I had never associated action so closely with reflection -- but I think I will now -- and since I force my students to #reflectbetterdammit I will tell them your definition above exactly as stated. Copying it now.
You would have really liked Ralph, lil. I worded this post wrong. I shouldn't have asked, "is Ralph right?" Because, Ralph never told me that this was how life IS. Rather, he was reflecting, in a very "macro" way on his life. What I should have asked is, what would you name the stage of life you are in, right now? -That would have provided some interesting answers I think. I wish I would have had you as a teacher when I was in college. It's NOT navel-gazing to be reflective.
-Damn straight. I've been meditating lately and after a session recently I came to the conclusion that I have to treat my family/marriage the way I do the projects I work on. Why? Because that's how I work best and having a happy family/marriage is a lot of work. So, I started a project I'm calling husband/daddy 2.0. -1.0 was already pretty good, if you ask me :)I asked my class last week to prepare a short speech that discussed an identity-defining moment in their lives.
-This is essentially the topic of the podcast I am supposed to be working on :) I'd have loved to have heard the speeches.