I’m really trying to have a heads-down attitude on what I can’t control and keep my chin up on the projects that I can influence.
Summer is somehow the hardest time for this for me. As I look over the last five years, the end of July has pretty much looked bad just every single season. I get ill more often, and I believe I may experience seasonal affective disorder from the extended daylight.
I try to remember that it won’t always be hot, and I won’t always be stuck indoors in bed as bad air quality and high UV indexes give way to snow and shorter days.
There is also more competition for attention in the summer. This has negative consequences for information ecosystems because we have this idea that people take time off in the summer.
In order to grab eyeballs in the off season, you have to do bigger things to command a distracted audience. That tends to make for more chaotic and unsettling news. It’s nerve wracking for us all.
And some people do, in fact, take time off, which means you have to work around the reality of that divided attention. Families only have so much time with their children outside of school.
So I shall keep my chin up even if I am doing my best to keep my head down. Hopefully that doesn’t do any damage to my neck.