I just picked up Carol Dweck’s Mindset and I’m already—just 70 pages in!—grappling with its implications on my life. While I was already familiar with the basic distinction between “fixed mindset” and “growth mindset,” it became apparent that I’d never actually thought about them. I knew the concepts but I didn’t understand them. I see … Continue reading On diverging mindsets
Category: Thinking Hat
On the basement
I swear—there was a time it was organized. When we first moved into our house three years ago, I took one look at our unfinished basement (800 square feet of empty space!) and was confident I could keep it under control. We didn’t have that much stuff to store, right? I was wrong. While I … Continue reading On the basement
On using the road, Part 2
Yesterday, I riffed on a common driving phenomenon: the premature merge. While I described the phenomenon, I didn’t bother trying to explain it. I spent the last day pondering this—why do we insist on the early merge? One reason it surprises me is that the typical reaction to future-task-that-must-be-done (merging lanes, in this case) is … Continue reading On using the road, Part 2
On using the road, Part 1
Traffic once seemed to me a natural phenomenon—like the wind or the rain. Traffic simply was; it existed as a thing apart, a force we had no control over. Now I don’t mean the traffic that comes of accidents or construction—I mean the traffic that emerges out of nothing, out of the vehicles and the … Continue reading On using the road, Part 1
On conversation as improvisation
I’ve lost the original thought, to my shame, but it’s the most helpful conversation concept I’ve encountered in a long time: Conversation as improvisation. It’s not the most intuitive framework for conversation. For me, my fallback structure for conversation is a different concept: Conversation as competition. That concept doesn’t imply that I try to “win” … Continue reading On conversation as improvisation
On an introduction to alcohol
My introduction to alcohol was one of prohibition: Thou shalt not drink. My parents, more than a little Protestant in them, decried the temptation of alcohol in stern terms even as they—wait for it!—imbibed themselves. The nerve! But this is less about their imposed teetotaling attitude—which was really not the worst mindset to have in … Continue reading On an introduction to alcohol
On gratitude as a muscle
A few years ago, I experimented with something in my diary: I expressed gratitude for something every day. And despite everything that I know in the abstract that I have to be thankful for, the exercise turned out to be harder than I thought. Gratitude, as many who sat at Thanksgiving tables today racking their … Continue reading On gratitude as a muscle
On cleaning up the yard
I see immaculate yards around my neighborhood and wonder, honestly, How do they do it? Our own yard is littered with leaves. Two cottonwoods looming over opposite ends, plus the gnarly little leaves of our locust, mean for a relative (for Colorado’s climate) abundance of foliage to clean up every fall. I spent a three-hour … Continue reading On cleaning up the yard
On the white flag rule in conversation
I don’t love admitting to it, but I’m not the greatest conversationalist—not that I’m a total bumbling weirdo or a unstoppable egoist. It’s thankfully not so dire as that: I’m occasionally awkward, a bit self-indulgent with my anecdotes, and ask too few questions. Things could be better! So it was with reservations that I watched … Continue reading On the white flag rule in conversation
On having long(er) hair
For most of my life—over three decades—I never had anything approaching “long hair.” Part of this is parental, obviously. It takes parents more open-minded then mine, apparently, to let their boys grow long hair. So it was only at age 32 that my hair crept below my ears. And I learned some stuff. Bad hair … Continue reading On having long(er) hair
Taylor Coe 