I Don't Think You Are Wrong That Diagnosing Ppl With Anxiety And Adhd And Depression Is Lucrative, But

Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.

C.S. Lewis (via beinchargeofyourlife)

An RNA vaccine produced by Pfizer & BioNTech was approved for use in the UK today.

Here’s a graphic, made with the Royal Society of Chemistry, explaining how these vaccines work: https://ift.tt/3g0d6Kh https://ift.tt/39xwwFf

This question and its answer from The New York Times work advice column is W I L D.

i really like just knowing things. learning new things is great of course but it truly does hit differently when you see a painting and know which era it's from and why it was painted in that way particular and how the artist was influenced by their time. it's nice just knowing how an author grew up and how that might have influenced their work. it is a good feeling

Tips for working with children?

1. Don't lie to them if you can avoid it. Water down truths at your discretion, but if you try to lie outright, a good number of them are probably going to pick up on your weird energy and figure you're hiding something. This will very likely come off as "adult who doesn't think we're real people", which is how you promote rebellion.

2. Listen to the problems they come to you with. Imagine they were your problems. If Brůnden at work stole all your pens and ignored your requests to leave you be, you'd be pretty pissed if your manager told you to "just use your nice words" or "let him get bored". Decide what you would want an adult to do, and form a reasonable response.

3. Let some of your weird (child appropriate) interests show. Odds are, when they see your passion, they'll take interest. I accidentally wound up teaching an intro to animal biology to a group of first graders in my after school program this way, and it became what they knew me for. Great for bonding, teaching, and bartering for completed chores.

4. Learn about things they're interested in, but don't force it into things. It'll help you understand what you overhear, and pitch in at the right moment.

5. Treats and stickers. They work on adults, and they work on kids. Make them take a little bit of effort to earn, but also pick special occasions where everyone gets one free. Once you get a better idea of their personalities, lives, strengths, and weaknesses, you can tailor this for personal growth.

6. Acknowledge their feelings. Verbally affirm that they are upset, they are frustrated, they are angry or sad, and encourage them to explain why, and work to find acceptable solutions. Staying perfectly calm and happy while they're angry might help to a point, but ignoring their obvious feelings will make them feel that you don't care or understand, which will make things worse. A lot of kids have a hard time figuring out how adults feel, and why, so empathy will need to be clearer.

7. Play with them on their own level. When you play a game they started on their own, follow their rules, and if you can't, explain why. Expect a few of them to try and mess with you. You're not as distant or alien if you can fall for the same things they do, or admit when you've been outsmarted or outclassed. Be aware that some rules may change at random, and don't go all out on winning.

8. Be honest in ways other adults won't be. When telling a personal story, mention offhand that you didn't like someone, or someone was mean for no reason, or another adult was rude or broke rules, they'll see that you think and feel in similar ways as them, and it can reinforce that yeah, sometimes life is unfair, no, growing up doesn't numb your personality, and no, you don't have to feel happy and positive and pleasant all the time. Sometimes things just suck, and you need to handle it maturely. It's acting on bad feelings that's bad, not the bad feelings themselves. And hey, sometimes adults ARE mean or rude or wrong! They're not crazy or dumb when they notice!

9. Literally just be yourself. Curb any cursing or inappropriate subject matter, but otherwise, they'll recognize that you're an individual with your own personality, and either they'll like you or they won't. Either way, they'll decide how to act from there. Kids are mostly just distilled adults with social restrictions, they can adapt to a lot.

it strikes me as somewhat uncomfortable that so many people focus on asian stories only after the events of the past couple of days. people dm me for the first time in months and asian creators get spotlighted (which is lovely), and yet it feels so performative. why? because so many of these ppl dming me and whatnot have never been interested in interacting diverse content or speaking out about the stories of poc—it’s like they’re doing this to solely gain brownie points. in a few months’ time, they won’t be doing all this anymore. they’ll go back to their silence, to not caring about asian creators. that’s what makes it performative. the stories of asian people shouldn’t be heard and spread only when they’ve been murdered and/or when their pain finally makes it onto news headlines.

Whenever I take a long car ride I end up exhausted afterwards, and I'm always like "why am I so tired? I was just sitting around doing nothing all day."

But the answer, it turns out, is I was doing something. Riding in a car jars your body in many directions and requires constant microadjustments of your muscles just to stay in place and hold your normal posture. Because you're inside the car, inside the situation, it's easy not to notice all the extra work you're doing just to maintain the status quo.

There's all sorts of work that we think of as "free" that require spending energy: concentrating, making decisions, managing anxiety, maintaining hypervigilance in an unfriendly environment, dealing with stereotype threat, processing a lot of sensory input, repairing skin cells damaged by sun exposure, trying to stay warm in a cold room.

The next time you think you're tired from "nothing", consider instead that you're probably in situation where you're doing a lot of unnoticed extra work just to stay in place.

I never used to understand what “making connections” looked like but it turns out it’s standing at a party and saying “I’ve been thinking about getting into the film industry” and someone saying “Oh, Sarah works in the film industry” and Sarah yelling from accross the room “Did someone say my name?!?!?!”

(source)