Ladies and gentlemen, today´s article is number 250 in BinaryWords 🙂
250 reflections on a variety of topics, linked by the same common thread: personal and professional growth, which, in my opinion, always go hand in hand.
I remember that, during the first few months of writing this blog, back in 2021, I used to get inspiration from the pictures and posters I had around the house to write some of the articles (like, for example here, here and here), as well as dusting off some quotes I had found in greeting cards, fridge magnets and even newspaper clippings or publicity leaflets. I realised that, without really noticing, I had been gathering inspiring materials for years, though I had never thought of sharing them until then.
And given that inspiration can be found literally anywhere, over the years, I´ve been developing the habit of staying always alert, with my radar on, and taking photos of interesting things I bump into when I´m out and about. I´ll admit that I´m a total disaster when it comes to taking pictures of people (and even a bigger disaster, if possible, when it comes to appearing in those pictures myself), but if you look at my gallery, you´ll see that it´s full of apparently random photos with the potential of maybe one day helping me to convey an idea.
Today, browsing that gallery, I found this photo of a poster I found in a shop years ago, comparing life to a photo camera. Interestingly, physical cameras are in fashion again nowadays, with their flash and their buttons, as opposed to taking photos with your phone... This new revival of old devices can be a topic for another day.
Well, here you go, I hope the simile is understandable in Spanish, even though some of the word plays get lost in translation:
Life is like a camera. Focus on what is important. Capture the good times. Develop from the negatives. And if things don´t work out - just take another shot.
The other day, I was talking to my work colleagues oabout the plot of this movie, Groundhog Day, whose title was translated into Spanish "Atrapado en el tiempo", that is, "trapped in time", because that´s precisely what it is about: the protagonist gets stuck on February 2nd, reliving the same day (Groundhog Day) again and again, not knowing how to get out of there.
(Photo of an ordinary bench in an ordinary park.)
And after that conversation, I kept thinking... It´s been a long time since I last heard someone say they feel like they´re living in Groundhog Day, in the sense of being stuck in a rut and wanting to get out of that monotony. Perhaps because life hasn´t felt particularly routine-like in the last while, and not necessarily for reasons we could identify as "good".
Instead, it feels like (or maybe it´s just me who´s feeling it) that everything is a bit out of control, be it because of inclement weather in the last few weeks, or because of the ever-increasing speed of progress of technology (e. g. AI), or because of so many other events happening in certain parts of the world, with situations reaching the point of becoming surreal.
Maybe we´re at a point where we would prefer our world to be a bit more stable and predictable.
But for the moment, we have what we have.
So, what can we do?
I can´t help but remember the beginning of the pandemic, back in March 2020 (almost six years ago!). At that time, everything was uncertain; we were also in a surreal situation, with no precedents, and we had no idea what the future would bring. But we had to keep going, and that´s what we did: we kept going, we muddled through, and step by step, with higher or lower degrees of suffering, we managed to walk that path and arrive at a new normality.
Maybe that´s what we need to do now as well, because it´s what human beings have had to do since the beginning of time: adapt to new situations, solve new problems.
They say that, in this life, the only constant is change, and we know that that´s true: people change over time, and also our environment and circumstances change. But the thing is, sometimes that change is softer and more gradual, and sometimes it´s a lot stronger and faster, so much so that it can overwhelm us. And that´s when the feeling (or rather, the illusion) of having everything under control crumbles down, only to be replaced by stress and uncertainty.
Our brain does not like uncertainty. It finds it really uncomfortable because it doesn´t know what to do with it, and since it can't solve it using its habitual autopilot, instead, it wastes tons of energy worrying and trying to predict the future. That´s the reason why we often prefer to revert to "the devil we know", to the rut and the monotony, rather than venturing towards what´s yet to be discovered, even though it could turn out better than what we have right now.
So, if you´re currently experiencing uncertainty of any kind, please know that you´re not alone; on the contrary. And even though there are external factors that we clearly can´t control, the good news is that we can use tools and strategies to help us feel better, and recover a certain sense of order and control. Here are a few suggestions:
Establishing "good" routines, which add stability, structure and predictability to our days, but keeping certain flexibility as well, so that we can adapt as things change around us.
Intentionally dedicating time to taking care of ourselves, physically, mentally and emotionally, including time on our calendars for leisure, rest, and connection (which, I´ve been reminded recently, are not luxuries, but actual needs). We can tackle anything better when our batteries are fully charged, and everything becomes a struggle when we´re feeling tired or in low spirits.
Keeping a diary (a physical one) to write (by hand) our thoughts and worries. The mere act of writing helps to bring out whatever we´re holding inside, become aware of it and process it better. Plus, our minds can now rest better, knowing it´s all written down.
What do you think about these three strategies? Which ones do you use when life moves at a faster pace than you would like?
Today is January 19th, the third Monday in January, and some people say it´s the most depressing day of the year. In English, it´s called Blue Monday, which could be translated into Spanish as "el lunes triste" (the sad Monday), or if we want to continue with the colour analogies, "el lunes gris" (the grey Monday, as in Spanish we don´t associate the colour blue with sadness).
It´s true that January can sometimes feel like it goes on forever, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, where it´s still wintertime, the temperatures are low, and the days are short... The holiday season, with its lights, joy and celebrations, is now over, and now it´s time to tighten our belts and exercise self-control after the excesses of December. Fun, huh? In Spain, we´ve always called this time of the year la cuesta de enero, with "cuesta" conveying the idea that it´s a struggle, it´s going uphill; Google just translated it for me as January blues, so basically yes, the same idea.
And then on top of that, most probably our New Year´s Resolutions are already out the window, after our enthusiastic start at the beginning of the year... Willpower didn´t last that long.
In view of all of this, if you´re feeling a little low on energy right now, please know that it´s normal and that you´re not the only one; on the contrary. Here´s an image that I hope will lift you up a little bit, even though it´s technically blue:
(Photo of a decorated flat stone I saw one day during a garden walk, with a drawing of our dear Dori, Nemo´s friend, and her favourite phrase: "just keep swimming".)
This week I got a reminder (thanks, Neil!) of the best thing you can do when you´re low on energy: to go back to basics. So this is my proposal to you for this month of January: to take care of yourself again, and regain your strength, so that you can then focus on whatever you want to achieve.
By the way, if you´re wondering why your New Year´s Resolutions didn´t work this year either, perhaps it´s because you stayed on the superficial portion of your iceberg, and you need to dive closer to the bottom to find out how to make that change you want so badly... If you don´t know what I´m talking about, have a look at this article.
If you´ve been reading this blog for a while, you probably know that I write every article in Spanish first, and then I translate it into English, all of this from scratch, without any help from the almost omnipresent artificial intelligence (you can call me old fashioned if you want; this is one of the ways in which I keep my mind active and I exercise my creativity, two things that I consider extremely important)
The thing is, as you will have seen, that sometimes I find it hard to come up with equally precise or elegant ways to express the same idea in both languages. But today I don´t have that problem; this time, the post´s title is really easy to translate, as it´s an expression commonly used in English as well as in Spanish: good vibrations.
We say that something gives us good vibrations when we get a good impression from it; it makes us feel good, and we resonate with it in a positive way. So, why do we say it like that? Because that´s how it happens, and even if we can´t fully understand how or why from an intellectual point of view, we do experience it in our daily life, and therefore, our language reflects it.
At this point, let me apologise for my inability to provide a detailed scientific explanation on the topic of vibrations, which I would love to be able to do. I can only speak about what I have experienced myself, mostly regarding the form of vibration that´s more easily perceived by humans: sound.
In late December, I was lucky enough to participate in a yoga retreat in Madrid´s city centre, at a yoga studio called Yoga Retiro. And one of the main activities for us during those three days, together with yoga and meditation, turned out to be mantra chanting.
(Photo of the AUM symbol I got at a present in Yoga Retiro. Thanks, Swami Krishnananda and Durga Devi!)
I have to say that I loved the mantra chanting, and also that I found it a bit hard at the beginning, not being familiar with either the melodies or the lyrics (mostly in Sanskrit). But I gradually became familiar with them and started to feel more comfortable. My mind got flooded with memories from my younger years, when I used to practice another kind of meditative chants: the Franciscan prayers, El Palancar, Taizé. It was the same feeling of peace, contemplation and communion as back then.
A few days later, during the New Year's concert in Vienna, the orchestra conductor reiterated the message that music has the power to unite people. Because good music doesn´t stay only in our ears; instead, it touches us much more profoundly, it goes to the root of what all of us human beings have in common. There are even some who dare to declare that without music, there´s no life...
Because everything comes back to the same. The experts say that everything is vibration, including us. And science is now beginning to discover what the sages have been teaching us for millennia.
There are many paths to spiritual growth (not necessarily religious, though religion is there too), and each person has to find their own, but there are some fundamental elements that tend to appear repeatedly, and music and chants are present in every or almost every tradition. I have to admit that it´s one of the things I find most fulfilling, it´s always been, and that´s why I continue to investigate and learn. Sound baths, classical music and even Gregorian chants. Sound, rhythm and vibration to connect with something larger than each of us, to join the frequency of the Universe.
Today we're adding a new subcategory to one of this blog's recurring themes: the "untranslatables": words, phrases and expressions that I think are very clumsy to translate from Spanish into English or vice versa.
The other day I was looking around in El Corte Inglés (a very well known department store in Spain) and saw this:
Image description: photo of the cover of a weekly planner notebook by Mr. Wonderful, with a drawing of Mafalda (the famous comic strip character by Quino) flying, looking happy, and the following sentence: "¿Y si en vez de planear tanto VOLÁRAMOS un poco más alto?", which can be translated as: "what if, instead of planning/gliding so much, we FLEW a little higher?"
I thought it was a nice word play, although it only works in Spanish, where we use the same verb (planear) for planning and for gliding, instead of two distinct verbs like in English.
Still, I hope the idea is clear in both languages. My interpretation is that we often spend our lives making plans in our heads but then fall short when it comes to "flying", that is, taking action.
And in reality, the problem is not with planning, which is great, as long as it's done in the right amount. The danger, as usual, is going to the extremes, and either planning too much or too little. Like when we get stuck adding more and more details to the plan, continuously preparing and never seeing the moment to get started.
Or when we fall into wishful thinking (another untranslatable), declare our intentions of doing or achieving something, and think that that's enough planning and it's magically going to happen. Many of our New Year's resolutions also fall in this category, and then we get surprised when they don't last long: unless we turn them into a plan that's both motivating and realistic, all our good intentions are useless.
So my proposal for this New Year, which is already around the corner, is to quietly sit down with pen and paper and answer the following questions:
In what area of my life do I want to "fly" more (or fly higher) in 2026?
What specifically do I want to achieve this year?
What steps / routines / systems do I have to set in motion in order to achieve that?
From there, elaborate an initial plan, just enough to get started, and then, most importantly, get started! Get on to it. The rest is just a matter of checking and adjusting as you go, based on the results you get along the way.
It´s definitely happening! Christmas is just around the corner, and I´d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy holiday.
Nollaig Shona is the most extended Gaelic vesion of our "Merry Christmas", at least to my knowledge (I just read you can also say Nollaig Shona Duit, translated as "Merry Christmas to you"). Interestingly, the word Nollaig means Christmas and also December, which gives us an idea of how inseparable the Christian religion is from Ireland´s traditional culture. December is, simply put, the month of Christmas.
Both Spain (the country where I was born) and Ireland (where I live and work) are traditionally Catholic, although their customs around this time of the year are quite different, I suppose due to differences in cultural and geographical influences. In Spain, for example, it´s much more common to see Nativity scenes, like this one I photographed a few years ago:
On the other hand, the best of Ireland (in my opinion) is the festive lights; I believe they have the power to almost magically transform the sadness and darkness of the long December nights into joy and excitement for what is yet to come. And that´s exactly the meaning of this holiday, dating back to long before Christianity: celebrating the winter solstice. Remembering that, even when there are moments where darkness takes over, and there doesn´t seem to be any hope left, eventually the light will triumph again.
It´s also a good time of the year to meet with friends and family, if the circumstances allow, and celebrate being together. Or it may be the perfect occasion to rest for a few days, do something different or recharge batteries to prepare for a strong start of the year.
In any case, regardless of the way you choose to celebrate (or not), let me wish you happy holidays!
November is gone, and here comes December, the last month of the year.
There´s only a month left in 2025! We´re in the home stretch of this year; we´ll be saying hello to 2026 in no time.
(Photo of the December page in the calendar currently hanging on my kitchen door. Having a calendar on the kitchen door is one of those habits I inherited from my family, and it may seem a little old-fashioned, now that we have Google Calendar and other modern contraptions, but I still love having a physical calendar at home, along with a giant whiteboard we can all write on, and clocks in almost every room.)
Today I thought I'd have a look at what I wrote on this blog at the beginning of the year. And I bumped into something I set out to do back in January, which, to be honest, I had forgotten about... Or not really, as it´s a topic that´s always on my mind, and one at which, in my opinion, I´m getting better at. But I had forgotten that back then I decided to make this my theme for the year, my common thread, my focus of attention: 2025 was going to be the year of...Decluttering.
And then what happened? Well, now that I think of it, two main things:
First, I didn´t set specific goals to work on; I settled for a goal that was too generic and "up in the air", without "bringing it down to Earth" in the shape of specific and measurable tasks (this, by the way, is what happens to our New Year´s resolutions, more often than not).
And second, I didn´t follow up throughout the year; I had a very good start, but then, along the way, there were other problems to solve, other tasks to attend to and other goals to achieve, pushing aside what I considered to be so important only a year ago. Does this ring a bell?
As the saying goes, life got in the way , like it often happens. But it´s precisely because we know that this is what happens, because we know life keeps changing and our priorities change too, that it´s so important for us to have a method that can help us to adjust our course and continue to cruise without losing our way.
The good news is that it´s always a good time to take (or resume) control of our ship, evaluate the situation, and act accordingly. In this case, there are still thirty days left for me to focus on freeing up space, be it physically, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually. So, turning the phrase around:
There´s still a month left in 2025! How are you going to make the most of it?
This week we started to really notice the weather changing, temperatures dropping and the hours of light diminishing. And now with the clocks changing, it's the beginning of the half of the year I find the hardest here in Ireland: the one with the shortest days, the darkest season.
(Halloween drawing provided by Eva, thanks!)
As I mentioned in previous posts, many traditional celebrations at this time of the year, like Halloween, Diwali and the Day of the Dead, are a reflection of this fear of the darkness that surrounds us, with its ghosts and spirits, and also of our hope that light finally triumphs.
At the end of the day, the darkness that we see outside is nothing but a reflection of the darkness inside of us: our shadows, the things we don't like about ourselves. And also inside of us, we fight for our most luminous side, our most virtuous side, to finally win the battle.
Thinking about this, I realize that, in the same way I don't like horror movies, or movies showing violence, and therefore choose not to watch them, my reaction to unpleasant things in general is to try not to see or hear them, unless I absolutely can't avoid it. I don't want to feel the discomfort of having to acknowledge that things are not how they "should be" in my opinion, that people don't behave as "they should" (including me, of course), so my strategy is to block my ears (almost literally!) so that I don't have to hear.
But deep down, I know that's not the solution. Because the reality is that we all we have our shadows, the same way we all have our light. All of us human beings are complicated and contradictory in nature.
And yes, there are aspects of ourselves that we don't feel proud of, and sometimes the intentions behind the things that we do are rather selfish (potentially causing bad consequences). But this doesn't mean we're "bad"; it means we're human beings, like everyone else.
Sometimes it's tempting for us to play deaf and ignore our shadiest parts, or to repress and punish them, hoping to make them disappear. But that's not the way it works. The solution is not to "kill our ego", but to acknowledge, accept and understand it. Which is hard, of course, because it involves looking inside and face the discomfort of feeling bad, broken or flawed. But it's also very liberating; it relieves us from a lot of the suffering, and allows us to finally move forward without fooling ourselves
Because at the end of the day, we need the shadows to be able to distinguish the light. We need to experience the consequences of our "shadier" actions in order to learn to make better decisions.
How about you? What's your relationship with your own lights and shadows? And how much darkness are you willing to see and transform in your life?
Today, October 19th 2025 (festivity of Saint Peter of Alcántara, patron saint of Extremadura, my homeland), marks exactly twenty years since I relocated to Ireland, happy anniversary!
By way of celebration, I went for a lovely walk around Harmonstown, the area where Fredi and I lived for the first three months of our Irish adventure, before moving to Dublin´s city centre (thanks, Rafa and Hernán, for welcoming us into your house back then; staying with you made the adaptation period easier and much more fun).
(Picture of the DART station in Harmonstown. The DART is the short-distance train system in Dublin city and surrounding areas, and back then, it was our primary means of transportation, together with the bus, which, if I recall correctly, was route 42B.)
Now it´s when I would typically say, "OMG, time flies", "it seems like yesterday", "if someone had told me I would end up staying for twenty years", etc., etc., etc. And yes, they´re all clichés, but they´re also true in this case. On the one hand, I get the feeling that it all happened in a heartbeat (as Carlos Gardel used to sing, "twenty years is nothing").
On the other hand, I look back and realise how much progress I´ve made, how much I´ve matured and changed. And to be honest, I feel proud. Proud of what I´ve achieved so far in different aspects of my life, and most of all, proud of the three little ladies who didn´t exist back then and are now the three people I love most in this world.
Sometimes it´s good to spend a bit of time looking back, as we said in this post on the trunk of memories, to be able to appreciate the path that brought us here, and continue to walk with renewed energy.
So I am thankful, and I raise my glass for these twenty years in Ireland, plus all the years still to come! Sláinte.
This week, I´m bringing you a proverb from Hawaii, no less (thanks, Ryan!): Ma ka hana ka ʻike, which could be translated as "in doing, one learns", or in other words: true knowledge is acquired through practice.
This is a picture of a draft I made a couple of years ago using line drawing techniques, something I learnt from a work colleague (thanks, Valerie!) and that I really enjoyed, despite being terrible at it.
Now, why was I terrible at it? Well, because drawing is not something I would have practiced much (or at all, to be honest). At some point towards the end of my childhood, I remember looking at one of my drawings and coming to the conclusion that, given that I wasn´t any good at it, it was better to give it up.
And now, looking back, I realize I did the same with many other activities: try it once, be mediocre or bad at it, and immediately consider it a lost cause. Sports, arts and crafts, and even cooking for a good few years, all fell into this category. Anything creative and/or spontaneous requiring skills I didn´t have.
What never crossed my mind back then was that I didn´t have those skills yet, but I could cultivate them. Back at that time, there was no mention of, or at least I never heard about growth mindset .
The good news is that nowadays we do know skills can be cultivated and improved. But what´s the best way to do that?
The clue could be in a learning model that´s one of the most widely used by companies: the 70/20/10 rule, which originated in a study from the nineties, and postulates that, in a workplace environment, 90% of the learning is not of a formal nature, but informal:
70% of learning is experiential: it comes from on-the-job experiences, performing tasks, facing new situations, making decisions, and above all, living new and challenging experiences.
20% is social learning: it happens through discussions, information sharing with colleagues, collaboration in pairs or groups, work with a coach or mentor, etc.
Only 10% is formal learning, including training courses, masterclassess, books, articles, videos...
As you can see, this rule agrees with the Hawaiian proverb: the best way to cultivate skills is to practice them. Ideally, we would start to practice after having learned a bit about that particular skill, and we would be part of a group that can support us in that learning.
So this article is dedicated to all of those who, like me, are or once were an "eternal pupil", so that we finally stop: once you have the knowledge foundations and find a community that can support you in your growth, it´s time to take the plunge and start practising NOW. Not "when you are ready", because that´s never going to happen if you don´t get started.
So, what about you? What are you going to practise this week?
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