10/01/22 - Bend don't break

Today's snippet comes from A Word a Day : 365 Words to Augment Your Vocabulary by Joseph Piercey

Hi you,

Thanks for reading my newsletter.

Today's musing is around stopping the rot and getting out of the habit of making bad decisions. Nobody's perfect of course. However, in COVID times, where our social interaction has stagnated, along with it our accountability to ourselves and each other seems to have fizzled out too. We're being easier on ourselves as there's no-one to query our actions.

The other day I read a joke espousing how it was no surprise Renaissance paintings were mainly buxom women, lying around topless on sofas; having lived through the latest plague, the joke read, the same could be seen in many houses today.

COVID related lethargy and apathy has unquestionably created an environment which is tailored for making bad decisions. Many people are overly cautious, others are wilfully risk-taking and even more still, I would argue, don't understand the context of the situation well enough to make informed choices.

In my experience one of the best ways to staunch the stream of bad choices being made (trust me, I've done this plenty!) is to tweak things rather than trying to make huge, unrealistic changes. Writing off every Sunday with a hangover? Book tickets for the cinema for the next few weeks. Scoffing the kids' sweets and crisps as a midnight snack? Pop an empty pint glass in the cupboard and have a glass of water instead. Arriving late for meetings or social events? Always stick them in your diary 30 mins earlier than the actual meeting time. And so on and so forth.

You don't have to berate yourself or put yourself down, sometimes you just have to bend a little.

Have a great day.

Steve

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10 Nidus

NOUN Nidus is an interesting example of a word where two related meanings have combined to produce a third figurative meaning, in this case one with darker, negative connotations. Nidus is the Latin word for a nest or place of breeding, and nidification is still used today as the scientific term to describe the process of nest building by animals to protect their offspring. In biology and medicine, however, nidus is a term for the locations and conditions where bacteria gather and reproduce. It is therefore from a combination of these scientific meanings where the figurative use of nidus has developed; namely the space where disagreeable ideas, behaviour and actions fester and breed.

The nidus of civil unrest was to be found in the ghettos and shanty towns whose inhabitants were ruled over by the drug cartels and suffered at the hands of state corruption.

Today's snippet comes from A Word a Day : 365 Words to Augment Your Vocabulary by Joseph Piercey