By Lindsay Bell
Welcome to the 63rd edition of The Three Things, the weekly update of three links, podcasts, videos, or books you can’t miss from Howie Goldfarb (Blue Star Strategic Marketing), Laura Petrolino, and yours truly.
For those of you new to this series, The Three Things arrives in your inbox on Sunday mornings (unless you don’t subscribe, but that can easily be fixed if you hurry over and enter your email address or add to your RSS feed) so you have some extra time to spend perusing the obscure content we’ve curated for you (and one another) before your week begins and deadlines, meetings, and work takes over.
Today we explore climate change and evolution, habits and how they affect us, and, well, getting fat and lazy during winter.
How the Emperor Penguin Adapts to a Fast-Warming Antarctic
Howie on Climate Change. Normally climate deniers tend to be either in denial because they don’t believe in science/evolution, or they have a financial incentive to deny it. Often they are both. Without getting into a discussion on climate change (it is happening), and whether this is bad for us (who knows we just had an ice age 10,000 years ago), it does prove evolution theory.
Those who adapt, survive. Those who can’t, die (Wooly Mammoth, Mastadons, Sabertooth Tigers didn’t make it out of the ice age, but we did). So we will be seeing, before our very eyes, evolution – because the do or die for species is being accelerated. And while this could be bad for humans (who knows, I just bought beach front property in the Yukon) it will in the long run be good for science. Oh and just maybe the penguins will hang on!
Laura on Habit. It’s New Year’s resolution time, which means it’s an excellent time for us to take a look at our habits. The good ones, the bad ones, and the ones that hold us back from becoming who we want to be.
Habits are such an interesting part of the human experience because although they are almost always self-imposed. We often become so blindly controlled by them we forget that we can always make the decision to change.
This article in Brain Pickings (I LOVE Brain Pickings, in case someone missed that fact the other five million times I’ve proclaimed it) is a fascinating look at habits from William James himself, along with advice on the successful formation of new habits.
How Regular Exercise Helps You Balance Work and Family
Lindsay on Getting Fat. OK. I’m not getting fat, per se. But certainly letting one’s self go. I got on the scale yesterday – for the first time in three months. Holy hannah. I have definitely been letting myself go. At least since October. A few things happened. Winter arrived fast and furious – and early – in these here parts. The weather has been outright bizarre: Freezing cold, mega snow, ice storms, and then more cold.
My days of long dog walks behind me, and all the extra exercise that brought, have really affected the old bod. Because, of course, when the exercise ends, the eating habits don’t change. So, I’ve been stuffing my face, while not getting any exercise at all. And yes, I feel like a slug at the moment.
So, piggybacking on Laura’s post above on habits – I’m going to try to get back in the habit of working out – because, as this article points out, it’s not really about losing weight, so much as it’s about reducing stress, and ending up with more energy day-to-day.
No, its not a New Year’s resolution, it’s just me wanting to feel good again.
Now it’s your turn. Is there a book, podcast, article, TV show, blog post, or story we should read?