Tag Archives: Television

Experience, Health, Learning, Money, Personal Development, Reading, Studying, Time Management

Forgetting who we are

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Our identity exists at the core of everything that we do in life. Our sense of self, as hard as it is to discuss in language and science, is fundamental to everything we experience.

How is it possible then, to forget who we are? You might be thinking about the various forms of amnesia present in studies of psychology and sensationalized in our fiction. Anyone with personal experience with the loss of a friend or family member to any form of amnesia or dementia understands how deeply painful it can be.

Here I am talking about the everyday experience of forgetting who we are. I am talking about the sense of losing touch with our innermost desires and dreams. I am talking about how the external demands of the world can drag us further and further from a state in which our wishes and hopes for our lives are being realized by our actions.

Who are we?

If you ask someone who they are, they might tell you their name and what they do for a living. Pressed further, they might tell you about their family situation and hobbies.

Who are we really?

This question has nagged me for years. It was in the writings about humanistic psychology that I found the answer that has satisfied me the most (so far). The self is not a thing to be identified and scrutinized. The self is an evolving experience.

So you and I, or at least our sense of our selves, is a set of continually transforming experiences. We experience our innermost self – and the outside world – simultaneously. For most experiences, these two worlds are inseparable.

How can you forget an evolving experience?

You might ask, “Well, if I accept your claim that my ‘self’ is an experience, how is it possible for me to forget who I am?

You are happening every day. Every time you make a choice or think a thought, you are happening. Every time you feel happiness, pain, or sadness, you are happening. Every one of these experiences resonates with your being to greater or lesser extent.

We all have activities that we prefer over others. Broadly speaking, each of us will have a set of experiences that we identify as pleasurable, and a (mostly distinct) set that are painful. We generally organize our lives around the idea of maximizing our well-being in whatever manner seems right to us.

Our dreams and aspirations are often deeply connected with those things that we like to do or states of being that we would like to enjoy.

We forget who we are by forgetting to experience those things that resonate deeply with us.

Acting towards our dreams

Our choices shape our experiences. With every experience, we are becoming something new. Some experiences are deeply connected with our dreams and aspirations while others are not.  If our actions are aligned towards the achievement of one of our dreams, then our experiences will be filled with some of the pleasure that pursuing our dream gives us. This experience reinforces our choice if it is pleasurable, but can cast doubt on our path if it is painful.

A painful process can cause us to give up on a dream – for good reason! If our best assessment of the situation is that the pleasure we might attain in the future is not worth the pain we feel and foresee, it is a very sane choice to allocate our efforts elsewhere.

This can be particularly painful if we are chasing a prerequisite to a dream. Perhaps we think we need a degree in order to work in a field that we love. Perhaps we feel that we need to save up a lot of money so that we can be safe. Perhaps we don’t want to go hiking before we get in better shape. The list of prerequisites can sometimes seem endless.

Attaining prerequisites can be painful, as many of us know from our own experience. This pain often brings with it feelings about the meaninglessness of our pursuit. It may be that we don’t actually want the degree or the knowledge, we just want the job. Perhaps we don’t actually want money, we just want to feel safe. The pain involved in attaining our prerequisites can be enough to cause us to give up on the dream itself.

Again this can be a completely sane choice to make. What we have to guard against is the feeling of disconnection from our dream that we experience because we are preoccupied with the present moment. The process of attaining a prerequisite might feel very different than the experience of the dream itself. Being a student during your achievement of a degree often feels very different from the experience of working in the field you have chosen.

If we aren’t experiencing a facet of our dream, we are slowly losing connection with it. Dreams can be tenacious, holding on for years or decades without substantial attention. I believe however that it is in our personal best interest to keep our deepest dreams alive and happy with experiences oriented towards them.

If you are getting a degree, remember to save some time for reading about, or volunteering in, your field of preference. Find media that inspires you, and create a stash of it that you can use to bring back the feelings that galvanize your passions. Stay in touch with the dream so that you can remember who you are.

Forgetting

When our experiences are consistently not oriented towards the attainment of our dreams, we begin to forget what that taste of our dream feels like. We begin to forget what it feels like to be in the process of becoming who we want to be.

How does this happen?

These answers will not be surprising. Tales of the soul-deadening 9-5 job are rampant. University professors continue to express the sentiment that more and more students are simply doing the minimum they can to get by and finish their degree. Almost everyone knows a person who is so caught up in the concept of money that they cannot enjoy what they have – or would have – if they would loosen their death grip on their life a bit and learn to spread their wings.

Rigid, or unyielding, demands on our time can slowly erode our ability to be ourselves (as we knew ourselves to be). We forget a lot of who we were if we consistently do things that are not congruent with the dreams and passions that we held.

Realizing that you have forgotten

Have you ever had a very intensive section of your life – perhaps final exams, deadlines at work, or a crisis among family or friends – after which you found that you did not know what you wanted to do with your time?

Have you ever worked a very hard day, or week, and returned home to unwind, only to find yourself unable to muster the energy to do anything but watch TV or movies?

Individual occurrences are not indicative of a problem. If you are truly burnt out and want to just zone out, who is to argue with you? In these cases we tend to placate ourselves with those things that take very little energy. This in part explains the enormous appeal of all forms of passive entertainment we have access to in the modern era.

The problem is that habits quickly form to fill the gaps in your time. Many of us work jobs that we aren’t particularly passionate about. We then have to use our limited free time to pursue those things that make us genuinely happy. Instead of watching TV you might really actually want to be writing a play, painting a canvas, studying physics, or doing yoga.

If you want to spend your time in ways that you believe serve your long-term happiness more, then pay attention to those little twinges that you feel deep down. Grab hold of the twinges and genuinely examine them. Do you really want to practice your dance steps? Yes? Well, fire up some music and get to it. Do you really want to read more? Yes? Grab that book that you are two thirds of the way through and make a sprint for the ending.

I have often felt guilty when I feel those twinges, but guilt is not something we need to hold on to. Learn what you can from your past, and let go of the guilt. If you are genuinely trying to pursue the things that you care the most about, I can guarantee that you will be able to minimize the intrinsic guilt you feel about your actions or inactions.

One of the best pieces of advice I have heard regarding guilt of this sort is: think of it as a success. If you are feeling guilty, it means that you have successfully remembered that you wanted to do something differently. Try to use this as an encouraging thought. Next time you will be able to remember earlier, and perhaps feel more strongly that you want to make a different choice.

I have forgotten

What is the problem with forgetting? Can’t we just dig through our memories and remember what we were passionate about before?

To some extent this is true. You will likely be able to remember what you were passionate about in the past. You may even be able to recollect a bit of what it felt like. However, it is most likely that these remembered passions will feel hollow compared to what you feel they should feel like.

Why? Because you have fallen out of practice in experiencing your passions. Our experience tends to be very emotional and transformative, while our recollections of the past tend to be inexact and fleeting. It can be very difficult to recapture a passion that you have ignored for some length of time.

Passion is hard to muster on demand. If you have been slaving away at other aspects of your life for a long time, your previous passions can feel dessicated and empty. Be patient. Give yourself some time to take it easy and explore what you are feeling. If you enjoy yoga or any form of meditation, those can be a great tool for letting your experience of yourself come into sharp focus. If you remember what you liked before, try to tiptoe back into those activities. Patience is key because unreasonably high expectations tend to directly lead to negative self-evaluations that damage one’s self-esteem and cast doubt on what might be a deeply-held passion. So your first golf tee shot flies off into the shrubbery? That’s life, and you know it. Try to hold off negative self-evaluations as you explore, or re-explore, your experience.

Stay in touch or reconnect

I believe that in order to truly live the life we want to, we need to actively follow at least some of our passions. The best case is that in which we can stay in touch with them throughout our lives. In this case we are in no serious danger of forgetting what it feels like to pursue our dreams.

However, life happens. Whether we like it or not, many of us have had the experience of losing touch with those activities that we used to love, and the dreams that we used to chase. If we don’t make efforts to stay in touch with our passions and remain open to new ones, we may end up living a life that we honestly think is pretty empty and unsatisfying.

If you are headed down this path, I implore you: Take some of your time and put it towards rediscovering yourself. You may find oceans of buried passions that can help you fill your life with meaning. You may find that you have grown and changed. The ideas that once inspired you may have faded, and unexpected thoughts may have replaced them. You may have lived half your life since you last really gazed within, so it may not be surprising to find that you have grown into someone new. You will, however, still be the authority on who you were, and who you are. Your choices dictate much of how you will grow from this moment forward.

You might like to create a list for yourself. What are some concrete activities that you can do this week that will reignite your passion? Post that list right on your TV screen or computer so that next time you sit down for some passive entertainment you are reminded of your other options – options that will be more invigorating and remind you of who you are, and perhaps help you glimpse who you want to be.

Now

Experience yourself as you are. The past is useful for understanding, but experience always exists in the present moment. All of us experience at least mild amnesia. No one’s memory is completely perfect. To some extent, our past is hazy to us all. While the future tends to be even more inscrutable than the past, it is the future over which we have some control.

Knowing ourselves can only take place in the present. So what are you doing right now?

Experience, Learning, Reading, Studying, Technology, Time Management

Reading on the Internet – Good, Bad?

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Reading on the Internet has its ups and downs. In this piece I will first go through some of my favourite aspects before I dig into the things that bother me.

Positive Qualities

Searching Power

It is easy to find information on topics that I know I am interested in. If I know what I am looking for, I can generally find it. The only problem sometimes is one of wording or word choice. For instance, in a recent example with my friends, we were looking for a specific topic using the search terms “loss of forests” rather than “deforestation”. Until we looked for the latter, we were floundering.

Skimmable

Internet material is often very easy to skim so that you can pick out the useful facts and ideas. Many people who write for the Internet realize that their readers are not likely to read every word.

Speed

News on the Internet is astonishingly fast and interconnected. I can learn more from the Internet in the same amount of time than I can from either Radio or Television.

Levels of Depth

You can read the Internet at many levels of depth. For instance, if you are reading the Google News headlines, they will give you a snapshot of some of the major events that are going on in the world.

Want to learn a bit more? Open up the major news items and read them. If your thirst for knowledge goes deeper yet, it is time to start following more links and searching for related terms. You can tailor your information gathering to both your level of interest and the time you have available.

Dialog

On the Internet, you can end up in a direct discussion with the creator(s) of the content that you are consuming. Unlike most other mediums, on the Internet it is often possible to directly engage the author of a piece of information. No other medium has such vast powers for connection and discussion.

Dangers

Confirmation Bias

You tend to find what you are looking for. This can contribute to the confirmation bias, the natural tendency of people to feel that information that agrees with their preconceptions is somehow more trustworthy than the information presenting the opposite side.

The Well-Informed Illusion

The speed of reading and the brevity of writing on the Internet can lead to an illusion of deep understanding. Many people fall prey to the often mistaken conception of themselves as well-read because they keep up-to-date with Google News or a social bookmarking site such as Reddit, Slashdot, or Digg.

While Google News provides an overview of some world issues, the social bookmarking sites generally highlight sensational, inflammatory, and opinionated works of note on the Internet. Neither of these approaches is necessarily well-suited for the acquisition of high-quality information about the world.

This topic is particularly close to my heart, since I am the founder of Vision of Earth, a website attempting to provide high-quality information to the general public about practical ideas for developing the unrealized potential of human societies.

You might also be interested in my broader article about the misleading nature of all media forms.

Experience, Learning, Personal Development, Reading, Studying, Teaching, Technology

Reading Books – The Good AND The Bad

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Despite the growing power and spread of the Internet, there are still some reasons that I often prefer to read books. Unfortunately, I have slowly begun to comprehend the scope of the problems with books as they are today. In this piece I will attempt to show you the good and the bad, as I see them. I hope you will stick with me to the end, because I think this topic is of prime importance to each and every one of us.

The Good

Editing and Fact-Checking

Books generally undergo more intensive editing and fact-checking than the average Internet source. Both books and websites vary in quality a lot, but in general I can expect a book to be more cohesive and clear than an average Internet source. It is also less likely to have blatant typos.

Single Voice

Authors develop a powerful voice in a book in a different way than they do on the Internet. Very few websites have changed my life after I read a lot of their content, but several books have. Sometimes a single perspective is incredibly valuable. Sometimes the finest of insights would be watered down or corrupted by bringing in multiple authors, each with their own voice.

That said, one of the finest-written books I have ever read was written by four authors. The book “Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society” was written by Peter M. Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, Betty Sue Flowers. This book changed the way I look at both the concept of change and my own life.

The Bad

As far as fiction books go, I divide them into two distinct categories:

  1. Just for the fun of it fiction. If you enjoy it, read it. There isn’t much of an underlying motive other than the telling of a good story.
  2. Illustrative and evocative fiction, designed to make a point. These books create a set of circumstances through which the belief system of the author is articulated. For example, I recently read the libertarian industrial epic Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. In this book she creates (and destroys) a complicated world to illustrate her beliefs about the world. Despite my problems with this style of writing, I believe that the book is actually a good read. It is definitely the responsibility of the reader to realize that a contrived world is not ‘proof’ of a concept. While fiction can be educational and illustrative, it is not the real world.

Most of my problems are with non-fiction books. Here we go.

One Perspective

One author, or a set of authors, are presenting a single viewpoint on their subject. I claim that this often leads to the subject material of the book being presented through the lens of a single perspective.

This can have disastrous results for our public discourse when the topics are important and multi-faceted. To be fair, some book authors do an excellent job of presenting their considerations of multiple points of view on their topic. This is not to say that all points of view are equal; it is to say that even a single issue can be validly approached from a number of directions, each of which might lead to a different interpretation.

The best non-fiction authors will draw upon data and experience to knit together a clear picture of the way the world seems to be. These authors will consistently refer to externally verifiable data sources of the highest quality.

Publisher’s Control

High quality content might be watered down by the editing undergone in conjunction with the publishing house. The publishers are the gatekeepers of content. While the systematic effects of this may not be as evident today for the most part, it was certainly the case in the past that publishers exercised great control over what they would allow to be published in the books that they printed.

This is perhaps more important in other forms of media, such as television, where most of the market is controlled by a few major players who exercise great control over all of the content that they deliver.

Slow Spread of Knowledge

Books are now a relatively slow way to spread important knowledge. Compared to the Internet, they operate at a snails pace.

Consider the following scenario: You hear about a book you like. You acquire it either at a bookstore, or at a library, or perhaps even an ebook from either an online bookstore or library if you are tech savvy. Getting the book might take minutes to weeks depending on the situation. You then read the book, find it to be excellent, and start to recommend it to your friends. You could give your copy away to one other person, and recommend that other people also buy it or get it from libraries.

The problem is that there are definitely limited quantities of books to be ‘consumed’ and all have time limitations on how they can be acquired. Other than the case of an e-book that can be acquired instantly online, all other forms of books have delays in their spread and acquisition. On the other end of the spectrum, if you read something you like that is publicly available online, you can send the hyperlink to your friends via email and they can access the content instantly.

Out of Date

Unless revised and reprinted, books do not change with the times. While many books can be startlingly relevant for a very long time after publication, I claim that this is the exception rather than the rule.

You may also be interested in another piece of mine that looks more broadly at the misleading nature of all media forms.

Experience, Learning, Personal Development, Reading, Studying, Teaching, Technology

The Misleading Nature Of All Media Forms

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How media misleads us

I love to read and watch TV shows and movies, but I have lately come to believe that everyone should be made aware of how misleading all media forms can be. Here I will talk about some serious issues I have with content in general.

These issues apply equally well to both Internet and physical media.  These criticisms have more to do with the process of deliberate media creation and the intent of the author than with the specific medium used.

These problems apply to our public discourse in all media. Television, talk radio, news media, movies and documentaries are just as likely to employ these techniques as books, magazines, and websites.

No reader or watcher is safe from these effects. Through deliberate efforts (such as broad media consumption, study, and skeptical analysis) people can transcend these inherent flaws in all forms of media. This transcendence requires constant vigilance to guard against the corrupting influences of our increasingly opinionated and flashy media.

‘Facts’

Finding some facts to support your argument does not make your argument correct. A collection of facts is not necessarily a sufficient analysis to show the truth of your claims. Why? Well, for example, there may be more facts that actually support a different claim, you just neglected to include them in your analysis or book.

Incorrect, or deliberately mis-represented facts are often the foundations for arguments made in media. For example, I have recently flipped through a number of books in which I spotted a large number of claims that run counter to the scientific consensus on various issues that I am very familiar with.

I don’t claim that the scientific community has a monopoly on the truth. However, if a person is making a knowledge-based claim that runs counter to the scientific consensus, the burden of proof is on them to explain why their position differs from the scientific one, and where the scientific position went wrong. Some books and TV shows are full of claims such as these.

Science is the process of systematic data acquisition and analysis. It is our best tool for establishing what is known in our world. I feel that this movement towards the cherry-picking of facts is undermining our public discourse and thus the very structure of our society.

Pushing an Agenda

Many books (and other media) are written to push an agenda, not as an attempt to communicate the truth. Many authors are not writing with the goal of informing you of the truth of a matter.

Some (perhaps most) authors write to convince you to believe what they believe. Some other authors deliberately mislead their readers in order to push a predetermined agenda. Many of these misleading authors are employed in large media companies that have big projects with a specific ideological position.

The source of a belief is incredibly important. Did this belief come about because of careful observation of the real world, or was it decided upon before any careful analysis of the world was done. The first case is belief that grows out of data and experience. The second is what I would call ideological belief – that which is distinctly not rooted in the real world, but decided upon for other reasons. In the world of business this same distinction is sometimes referred to as evidence-based decision making versus decision-based evidence making.

This is how I draw the distinction between someone who is pushing a predetermined agenda, and someone who is genuinely looking to inform you of the truth of a matter. The really insidious thing is that a person may not be aware of the fact that they are pushing an agenda that is not congruent with the truth.

The nature of belief systems is such that they tend to be self-confirming. In order to not fall into this trap, authors must make a special effort to be open to the idea that there may be more correct beliefs about the world than the ones that they currently hold. Subjecting all ideas (and especially your own beliefs) to skeptical scrutiny is the only sure path to being able to accurately talk about the real world.

Reading/Watching More is Not Enough

I believe that a person must read/watch a wide variety of subjects, authors, and viewpoints in order to gain for themselves the knowledge that is needed in order to distinguish the fact from the fiction.

Many books/shows are only masquerading as non-fiction. It is up to you as the reader/watcher to apply your own knowledge and critical thinking to the media that you experience. Fail to do so, and you are likely to be increasingly misled with regards to the subjects that you care the most about.

I believe that acquiring the mental state of open-minded skepticism is as important as the media you choose to experience.

Learning, Reading, Studying, Technology, Time Management

Tips for Reading More

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I like to read. This post is about how I have integrated more reading into my life.

These tips vary in their applicability depending on your lifestyle and preferences. This piece is written from my experience alone. It is intended to highlight ideas that may help you integrate more reading into your life.

In this post I detail how to read more by:

  1. Reading during other compatible activities.
  2. Replacing TV with reading.
  3. Make reading material more accessible in your home.
  4. Using audiobooks for reading while walking, running, folding laundry, etc.
  5. Skimming books and articles to see if they are worth reading.
  6. Read what you love. Read what you want to.
  7. Utilizing technology such as ebook readers and smart phones.

Take reading to where you have to wait

I can bring a book to many places that I go during my day. I find that I often have a few minutes of ‘doing nothing’ at several points during my day. Some of these times I can fill with reading.

I have found that reading can be done simultaneously with many other activities. What I focus on here is waiting, or ‘down time’ of different types.

You might think that you don’t spend that much time waiting during your day, but I guarantee you that it can add up to quite a bit even for a busy person. Even a few minutes here and there means a few pages here and there. A few pages per day can mean an extra book or three per year.

Do you find yourself spending time:

  1. in lineups
  2. on the bus
  3. on the train
  4. on a plane
  5. riding in a car
  6. waiting in lobbies
  7. waiting for friends (or your food) at restaurants or cafes
  8. on the toilet
  9. in the bath
  10. at the laundromat

What do you do during these times? Perhaps you are idly staring off into space, or scanning the headlines of tabloids. If you are very performance oriented, you might find yourself stuck thinking circular thoughts about the time you are ‘losing’. Finding something productive to do during these times, such as reading, can help with both passing the time and stimulating new ideas and thoughts.

I am not espousing that you begin to read instead of socializing. I am merely saying that you may have some alone time that you might want to spend reading.

Put a book in every room

Some people swear by this technique. Having an interesting book at hand can be very helpful for integrating more reading into your life.

Replace TV with Books

This concept has been floating around for decades. North Americans watch an average of four hours of TV per day. If you would like to read more, but you find that much of your time is consumed by TV, a change may be in order.

Find the book or books that you want to read the most, and use them as an incentive to drag you away from the TV some of the time. Put them somewhere visible such as on top of the TV or coffee table.

You may be surprised about how engrossing a good book can be, especially if it has been a long time since you read for pleasure.

TV is designed to grab and keep your attention so that you stay there, plastered to the screen between commercials (the primary revenue of TV stations). Books, on the other hand, rely on the quality of your attention and the fact that you care about what the author is saying. It is thus clear that books and TV shows become popular for very different reasons.

Audiobooks

My Sandisk Sansa Clip 4gb. Sturdy, reliable, and easy-to-use

I have recently become a fan of audiobooks. Audiobooks still come on tapes or CDs but these mediums are rapidly being replaced by the mp3 and other computer audio formats.

My key point is that audiobooks have some flexibility that normal books do not. I routinely listen to audiobooks:

  1. When walking / jogging.
  2. When biking, though in traffic this can be a bit of a problem. Be sure that you don’t have the audiobook playing overly loudly, or it may seriously hamper your hearing (a very useful sense for an urban cyclist).
  3. When standing in lines or when shopping.
  4. When doing mechanical tasks around the house such as washing dishes or sorting laundry.

In the last two years I estimate that I have used these techniques to read about 25 audiobooks. These have included such hefty titles as Atlas Shrugged and Guns, Germs, and Steel.

My Audiobook setup: Sansa Clip and Sony Headphones. The headphone design is great for walking, jogging, and biking.

I have found this medium to be very useful, and I believe that it may be more socially acceptable for some people because of the growing popularity of headphones in public spaces. If you have a long commute on transit, but do not want to carry around a book, give audiobooks a try, you may be surprised by the results.

If you want to make even better use of your time, you may find it helpful to increase the speed of your audiobooks. I routinely listen to my audiobooks at 1.5 times normal speed. Some of my friends listen at much higher speeds. You can often modify the speed of playback on mp3 players or in computer software.

If you wish to read non-book texts as audio, there are some text-to-speech converters available that may be able to help you transform the text into a mp3 or similar audio format.

Skimming (and Stopping)

Be discerning about what you give your attention to. Not all books will be enthralling for you. If you find yourself getting bored or not learning anything new, don’t be afraid to skim (or just stop). For fiction books this might be a really bad sign, but for non-fiction is may just mean that the ‘meat’ of the book is elsewhere.

I have been known to skim entire books in under 5 minutes while standing in a used book store. Sometimes a skim-through informs me that I want to buy the book and read it. Sometimes it tells me that I should read the final concluding chapter that knits together all the topics of the entire books. Sometimes it tells me that I should put the book down and look at other things.

Skimming is more difficult with topics that are new to you, or especially complex. I find that if I have read a lot on a topic, skimming can be a powerful tool for discerning the quality of a possible read.

If you are reading for fun, don’t waste your time on things you don’t enjoy. This may sound straightforward, but I find a lot of people start reading things ‘for fun’ that they don’t even enjoy. If you really want to read for fun, go spend an hour in a bookstore skimming through some books to find an author who has a voice and a topic that you appreciate.

Don’t place heavy restrictions on yourself. What would I classify as a restriction? Here are some habits and beliefs that I would consider restrictive with regards to reading.

Restrictive reading beliefs

  1. I must read only one book at a time. (I must finish my current book before starting a new one, regardless of how uninspiring my current book is.)
  2. I must finish all books I start.
  3. I can only read just before bed. (Or I can only read in bed.)
  4. I can’t read for fun because I have too many textbooks to read (or work books, paperwork, memos, stock reports, post-its, etc).
  5. Reading damages your eyes. (From some reading around on the Internet, this seems to be untrue. If you want to, you can read about more eye health myths.)

Ebook Readers, Smart Phones, etc

These new electronic devices allow increased mobility of information. It is possible to carry many ebooks on a single device, which itself may be smaller than a book. These devices are developing rapidly, and already offer what I would call an impressive reading experience. They are trendy and slick, and may be just the thing for getting more reading into your life.

These devices are often multi-use, meaning that they may be useful for much more than just reading.

The downsides of these devices that I am concerned about are the fact that they often have relatively short battery life (a few hours), and they may have difficulty with wet or very cold weather. Choose a device that fits the usage patterns (and weather) that you expect.

I hope that some of these ideas prove useful for you. If you have further ideas you would like to share, I invite you to comment!