a) improve communication skills by forcing myself to formalize an opinion. Feedback from anonymous readers may either point out an error I made while translating what I think to a written document or a flaw in the argument itself. Of course, I need to be willing to be wrong, and reminding myself that I am excited about learning is an powerful way to cope with finding errors in my work. Writing online is a low-barrier opportunity to become comfortable with this. ...
I recently went on a weekend trip, where I counted each time that I interacted with a person who was a citizen of the country I was visiting. I did not include any interactions with individuals at the airport prior to landing at the destination, nor once I reached the airport to return. Non-verbal interactions were not considered, e.g., making room for someone on the sidewalk, or gesturing for a car to go first at an intersection. ...
For the first time, in my many years of eating lentils, I found a small stone in my lentils while I was eating the curry. It was slightly smaller than a single lentil. On the bag of the lentils, and in every online recipe describing how to cook lentils, the following warning exists: be sure to rinse your lentils prior to cooking to remove any rocks or debris as modern cleaning equipment cannot. And I do. But I have never actually found a pebble, and so thought this was a cautionary warning that lawyers required. Now, I figured, the process of cleaning the lentils during production likely was efficient and accurate enough now (in the direct contradiction to what the warning tells me). A good self-reflection example of how my prior experience incorrectly outweighs expert knowledge. ...