I came across an interesting article today, The mindset that keeps Norwegians cheerful through one of Earth’s coldest, darkest winters. It talks about how Norwegians in Tromso manage to keep from becoming depressed during the long, dark winter days.
timeanddate.com
Click on picture for higher resolution and an interactive graph.
It’s an interesting read, but not our problem here down in the sunny (especially this winter!) Southwest. When I practice a positive mindset is when I encounter technical problems. For a long time I’ve been having trouble with the slowness of this website, especially when I try to write and save drafts of posts. I also suspected that my firewall was the reason MailChimp wasn’t reliable for me. But until last weekend I just worked around the problem knowing it would be a hassle dealing with tech support at the security company.
Finally, I couldn’t ignore it any more — when I was writing a post I kept getting the message
Connection lost. Saving has been disabled until you’re reconnected. We’re backing up this post in your browser, just in case.
Waiting didn’t help, so I had to open up a new post, copy and paste, and keep writing until I got the message again and had to repeat the process. I couldn’t do much until New Year’s was over and the family left, then I put in a support ticket.
The first fellow who responded said he checked some things and didn’t see anything wrong, could I tell him how to reproduce the problem, and he wondered about my internet connection.
I knew it wasn’t my internet connection, and I had an easy way to show it— a couple of years ago I found a site that tests download and upload speeds, and it saves the results so we can share it with tech support if need be. Needless to say, I had saved that and remembered where to find it!
The other thing I had to show was that the problem wasn’t with my hosting service, and I figured out an easy way for tech support to see that for themselves. (I’ll spare you the details but am happy to share them if anyone is interested.) Anyway, once I sent that information the next person who dealt with my case figured out what was wrong and fixed it. So now writing and posting is a lot easier than it has been for months and months, and I know exactly what to do if the problem ever happens again.
I am also getting numerous messages from MailChimp about my new posts, from test campaigns I had set up when their system wasn’t working reliably for me. I like my new notification system better, so I won’t go back to MailChimp, but it was nice to know I had guessed what the problem was.
Stay curious and open to life. No matter what happens keep learning and growing.
That’s one of my mantras and it works well for me. It’s a lot better than feeling frustrated.
and I wonder after reading the first document – that mindset is something we inherit from parents – who might spend a lot of time “upset” at the whole caboodle. As youngsters, we pick up on those things.
and at the very end they mentioned “not bad weather but rather bad clothing…” which is also telling, we just don’t “dress for the circumstance…” we assume that the season is at fault or similar. We think we shouldn’t put on the heating (NZ don’t have furnaces as such) because it’s expensive to run, and then we feel cold/miserable. And that leads to “hating winter” instead of embracing all the things the Norwegians do to adopt a “good clothing” mode for the winter months.
my mindset has certainly been tested these last few days, I mentioned to my friend I had a tension headache from all the noise – which I really didn’t get down at my other place. She replied “but you got used to that noise…and since you’ve come up the hill away from the township, you had more or less silence…”
I do have a different mindset on a lot of matters; which in a way I think annoys people (friends/family) – I see it from time to time, when I undertake things 🙂
My mother was a worrier and I started out that way, but I like not worrying/fussing better. I agree with Thoreau that there is an art to having a positive mindset.
We don’t have to do it perfectly to make a huge difference in our lives.
when I’m cold, I add more clothes. DH turns up the heat. After this month’s light bill, he may get a blanket …
Nothing like a little feedback!
Brilliant.
Congratulations.
Perseverantia omnia vincit
Thank you.
I can confirm that this post loaded much, much faster. I had noticed the slow loading in the past, but just went on with other reading in another tab in my browser while waiting for your posts to open. I’m glad you were able to get it fixed.
Thank you for your patience. It was a real nuisance.
I was pleasantly surprised when I opened this post. It loaded much faster! Congratulations for doing an excellent job of sleuthing!
I’m glad it got so bad that I was forced to deal with it. I love the results too.
When we were young adults we skied, snowshoed, etc. Winter was fun. I no longer own skies, snowshoes, snow pants, Sorrel boots, etc. so winter is not fun. I have no clue as to when that change happened.
I used to walk three miles a day regardless of weather, but no more. I do most of my exercise inside now. Life changes so it’s best to be flexible.