Hasta La Gadget!

There has been a lot of chatter lately about the importance of preserving your mental energy for the most important tasks. This energy conservation movement has led many people to cut back on the small choices they’re making every day, ranging from what they’re going to wear to what they’re going to eat.

After all, why waste precious mental energy trying to decide whether to wear the red shirt or the grey shirt? The solution — wear black shirts every day. It worked for Steve Jobs.

And why use limited brain power trying to decide between the turkey sandwich and the chef salad? By planning your menu weeks in advance, you can devote every ounce of aspiration to the decisions that really matter.

While there’s a lot to be said for conserving your time and energy — just ask Mark Zuckerberg — eliminating spontaneity can have consequences. A mundane routine is boring. If you’re not careful, you can get stuck in a rut.

Being stuck in a rut can kill your creativity, stress you out, and zap your productivity. Doing the same thing over and over again causes your days to blend together. Five years from now not a single day will stand out more than any other.

So how do you create a routine that conserves your mental energy without getting stuck in a rut? Here are three strategies:

1. Examine the bigger picture. The busyness of life can keep you running from one activity to the next. If you never step back to consider whether all those activities are really how you want to spend your time, you could miss out on building the kind of life you want. Devote at least 10 minutes each day to examining the bigger picture in your life.

Are you really living according to your values? Are you engaging in worthwhile activities? Do you feel like your work has meaning and purpose? Set aide time to think about how to create the kind of life you want to live. Creating time to reflect on your life could be the key to reaching your greatest potential.

2. Schedule leisure time. Most people fill their schedules with work, and leisure only happens when there’s time leftover. But it’s impossible to live a rich and full life without doing things that give you joy. Forget about productivity once in a while and give yourself permission to goof off.

Schedule time to have fun each week. Whether you love to go for a hike at sunrise, or you feel the most alive when you’re driving your motorcycle, engaging in leisure will keep you from getting stuck in a rut. Do whatever causes you to lose track of time and you’ll open doors to creativity and innovation.

3. Challenge yourself. While staying inside your comfort zone can reduce your anxiety, it’s also the fastest way to get stuck in a rut. You can’t grow better if you don’t challenge yourself to try something new. That doesn’t mean you need to take giant risks. Tiptoe outside of your comfort zone if you must — but be willing to take steps that will help you grow.

Look for new ways to challenge yourself personally and professionally. Take a class, introduce yourself to new people, face your fears, and invest in personal development. Dare to become just a little bit better today than you were yesterday. Doing so will ensure you’re growing, rather than staying stuck in one place.

Amy Morin is a psychotherapist and the author of 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do, a bestselling book that is being translated into more than 20 languages.

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MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — A day after the Nigerian army celebrated the rescue of 200 girls and 93 women in the forest stronghold of Boko Haram, the army’s spokesman said more women and children believed to have been abducted by the Islamic extremists were rescued as firefights broke out there.

Several lives were lost including that of a soldier and a woman during shootouts in nine separate extremist camps in the Sambisa Forest, according to a statement late Wednesday from Col. Sani Usman. He said eight women sustained gunshot wounds and four soldiers were seriously injured. Some of the females who were freed earlier have been so transformed by their captivity that they opened fire on their rescuers, authorities have said. A veteran counselor said Wednesday they would need intensive psychological treatment.

The army spokesman said several Boko Haram field commanders and foot soldiers were killed and combat tanks and munitions of high caliber used by Boko Haram were recovered while others were destroyed.

“The troops have also rescued additional women and children,” the statement said, without saying how many were rescued. “They have been evacuated to a safety zone for further processing.”

The military was flying in medical and intelligence teams to evaluate the former captives, many of whom were severely traumatized, Usman said earlier.

It remained unclear if any of the schoolgirls kidnapped from the northeastern town of Chibok a year ago were to be among the 200 girls and 93 women whose rescue was announced on Tuesday.

The plight of the schoolgirls, who have become known as “the Chibok girls,” aroused international outrage and a campaign for their release under the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. Their kidnapping brought Boko Haram, whose nickname means “Western education is forbidden” in the local Hausa language, to the world’s attention. Of the Chibok girls, 219 remain missing.

Nigerian military and counter-insurgency spokesmen have said they have information indicating at least some of the Chibok girls still are being held in the Sambisa Forest.A counselor who has treated other women freed from Boko Haram captivity said some had become indoctrinated into believing the group’s Islamic extremist ideology, while others had established strong emotional attachments to militants they had been forced to marry.

Some of the about 90 women and girls freed by the army four months ago in Yobe state, for example, had upset their community on their return by maintaining that the militants were good people who had treated them well, said the counselor, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he has been targeted by the militants in the past.

“The trauma suffered by the (abducted) women and girls is truly horrific,” said Amnesty International’s Africa director for research and advocacy, Netsanet Belay. “Some have been repeatedly raped, sold into sexual slavery or indoctrinated and even forced to fight for Boko Haram.”

Amnesty International said earlier this month that at least 2,000 women and girls have been taken by Boko Haram since the start of 2014.

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The journey that a made-up word takes from invention to induction into a dictionary — be it Oxford Online or Merriam Webster’s even more selective print edition — is arduous.

For the latter, decades worth of frequent use is needed, except in the rare instances that a language trend spreads quickly, but doesn’t die out. This is why selfie has made its way into the long-lasting print editions, but twerk, a blip on our linguistic radar, hasn’t passed the more ephemeral online book.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows — a blog that evangelizes new words by constructing faux entries and accompanying videos — has collected a few contenders. In its first video, creator John Koenig narrates, “There’s no word in the English language for the desire to disappear, or the eerie tension of a looming thunderstorm […] or the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.”

It’s true that each language has its shortcomings. In English, for example, there’s no single word that describes the light that flits between tree leaves when you pass them by; the Japanese equivalent is komorebi. Nor is there a word for an act we partake in often — continuing to eat once we’re already full. In Georgia, the word for that is shemomedjamo.

In an attempt to bridge the gap between language and the way we connect with one another — especially emotionally — Koenig proposes that we add the following words, plus many more, to our lexicon:

liberosis
n. the desire to care less about things — to loosen your grip on your life, to stop glancing behind you every few steps, afraid that someone will snatch it from you before you reach the end zone — rather to hold your life loosely and playfully, like a volleyball, keeping it in the air, with only quick fleeting interventions, bouncing freely in the hands of trusted friends, always in play.

nighthawk
n. a recurring thought that only seems to strike you late at night — an overdue task, a nagging guilt, a looming and shapeless future — that circles high overhead during the day, that pecks at the back of your mind while you try to sleep, that you can successfully ignore for weeks, only to feel its presence hovering outside the window, waiting for you to finish your coffee, passing the time by quietly building a nest.

midsummer
n. a feast celebrated on the day of your 26th birthday, which marks the point at which your youth finally expires as a valid excuse — when you must begin harvesting your crops, even if they’ve barely taken root — and the point at which the days will begin to feel shorter as they pass, until even the pollen in the air reminds you of the coming snow.

For more should-be words, take a look at The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

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When we think of carpets, images of bland loop pole rugs float to mind, tickling the toes but leaving the eyes and imagination rather unstimulated. We Make Carpets does not make those kinds of carpets. Instead of working in broadloom, wool or triexta, We Make Carpets works in more unorthodox materials, like crayons, or bricks, or straws, or even pasta. Yup, they may not feel so good under the feet — in fact, don’t touch them at all — but, boy, are they easy on the eyes.

Amsterdam-based trio Bob, Marcia and Stijn made their first carpet in 2009, while collaborating on an “Instant Nature” exhibition for Dutch Design Week. They collected pine cones and needles, which resulted in what they dubbed “Forest Carpet.” From there, We Make Carpets was born. “There never was a preconceived plan, like ‘from now on the three of us will make carpets,’” the artists explain on their website. “It just happened. At the same time we had the feeling it might lead somewhere.”

The craft-savvy trio has been in the business of unconventional floor coverings ever since. From far away, their dizzying tapestries resemble the geometric designs you’d encounter on a classic Turkish carpet. However, a closer look reveals the recycled and oft overlooked materials that make up the unlikely art objects. “The three of us always had an interest in the everyday things surrounding us,” We Make Carpets told The Huffington Post. “They are produced in such huge quantities that nobody seems to notice them anymore. By making something new out of them, and using them in huge quantities, we try to renew their aesthetic value, and at the same time say something about the time it takes to build them and the fragility of the installations lying loose on the ground.”

The artists have worked with media including skewers, confetti, party hats, sponges and umbrellas. “The materials have to be available in big quantities, so they have to be mass produced, that is one of the only criteria,” the artists said. “Of course we also look at the shape and the color of the materials. In the end, everything has to come together: the material, the size of the work and the space we build it in.”

Some carpets are as large as twenty by thirty meters, but the artists say the smaller carpets are the most physically taxing. “It puts your whole body under strain,” Marcia explained.

The site-specific artworks are made on the spot, allowing the shapes and colors of the mundane materials to guide the symmetrical geometric patterns that soon emerge. Although the final products resemble rugs, the raw materials are often arranged on the ground, untethered, such that a single graze of the hand could disturb the entire fragile display.

“What will happen with the installations if it is touched? What will happen after the exhibition is over? It’s nice that every everyday things can raise these kinds of questions.”

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