971st Friday Blog Roundup

Back in December, I joined a brilliant community — the brain-child of two BlogHer co-founders — called Optionality. I’ve been calling Optionality “WeWork for Introverts” because it has all of the benefits of being around people without needing to be around people. I keep the Slack community on all day, and people post interesting things or job openings or questions, and other people chime in — a network of smart, accomplished co-workers.

There’s a Substack and podcast and dozens of other nooks and crannies. Some people spend a lot of time participating. Other people drop in and out of conversations.

Like the concept of optionality itself, the community is up to you to choose how you want to engage in it.

Elisa and Jory officially opened it to new members after the soft launch, and they told me that I’m allowed to write about it. So the cat is out of the bag. I feel lucky to be a part of it.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second, helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “A Childless Holiday Can Be Anything You Want It To Be” (Childless by Marriage)
• “My Wish for 2024” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Andmom is asked about silver linings of the pandemic, and she writes: “We spend a lot more time together than we ever would have otherwise, and it turns out we actually like each other as people. Go figure.” Sometimes you need to embrace and acknowledge the small good things.

The Barreness has a stream-of-conscious post about life in the new year. I especially love this update: “I submitted work a day before the deadline and walked away knowing that I had tried everything in my power and wheelhouse to create something new, unique and that I loved.” That’s a good feeling. And to answer the question: “Even if I am beaten down over and over again, I still greet the next day with hope for something better. Does this qualify as insanity?” Not insanity, but a beautiful life filled with hope.

Lastly, A Half Baked Life writes about her massage experience, and it has me wanting to find a local person trained in CST, too. Especially to experience something like this: “In that moment, it took my breath away and touched a place somewhere deep within me to be present to this connection: one woman acknowledging everything that another woman was holding, holding these things for her just for a little while, offering healing to hands that feel full of burden.” I love the imagery of what we convey through our hands and touch.

The roundup to the Roundup: Optionality is awesome. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between January 5 – 26) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week. Read the original open thread post here.