thatBB Dictionary Archives - Bunny Bear

Is Multitasking a Myth? (Ignoring Emails Is a Sport)

zeus dalios — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 01:49:42 +0000

They say multitasking is a myth. Yet here’s Charlie: keeping a ball alive, finalizing her vision board, and actively ignoring pointless emails. Prioritization;

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thatBB dictionary

prioritization

(noun)

Deciding what gets your brain, what gets your autopilot, and what gets ignored on purpose. The emails know which one they are.

Is multitasking a myth? Mostly, yes

Your brain doesn’t run two thinking jobs at once. It switches between them, and every switch costs you a little focus. That’s why answering emails in a meeting makes you worse at both. The loophole is anything you’ve done so many times it runs itself: walking, chewing, bouncing a paddle ball. Charlie isn’t multitasking. She’s doing one real job, letting muscle memory keep the ball alive, and giving the emails absolutely nothing. That’s not a myth. That’s a strategy.

What would a stoic do?

For the greatest part of what we say and do being unnecessary, if a man takes this away, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.24 (trans. George Long)

Marcus had a war, a plague and an empire on his desk, and his advice still wasn’t to do more at once. It was to cut what doesn’t matter, so what’s left gets all of you. Most of your inbox doesn’t matter. Act accordingly.

Try this: three moves for a chaotic day

Pick the one job that gets your brain. Everything else is autopilot or the ignore pile. Nothing gets to be both.
Rep the boring stuff until it runs itself. Once a task is muscle memory, it stops stealing focus. That’s the paddle ball.
Ignore on purpose. Some emails deserve a reply today. Some deserve never. Decide once, then stop thinking about them.

Let’s do what’s essential and let the rest bounce; meow meow, kev

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What Does Emotionally Stable Mean? (Physically a Liability)

zeus dalios — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 20:00:04 +0000

Charlie hits the playground. Kev keeps a safe distance. The spring horse does the rest. Emotionally stable. Physically a liability.

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thatBB dictionary

emotionally stable

(adjective)

Steady on the inside while the outside gets flung around. Not the same as feeling nothing.

What emotionally stable actually means

Emotionally stable doesn’t mean nothing moves you. It means you come back. Life bounces everyone: a bad week, a rough email, a plan that falls apart. Stable people still get thrown. The difference is how fast they find their seat again, and whether they let one bounce decide the whole ride.

What would a stoic do?

When thou hast been compelled by circumstances to be disturbed in a manner, quickly return to thyself, and do not continue out of tune longer than the compulsion lasts.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.11 (trans. George Long)

Marcus didn’t say don’t get disturbed. He said get disturbed, then come back quickly, and the coming back gets easier with practice. That’s the spring horse. The bounce is the rhythm to our existence. Get bounced, then bounce yourself back.

Try this: three moves when life bounces you

Expect the bounce. If you plan for a smooth ride, every bump feels like betrayal.
Find your seat fast. One breath, one fact, one next step. The quicker the return, the smaller the bounce.
Hold on to dear life. Tighten those proverbial cores. Stability is a grip you practice, not a mood you wait for.

Get bounced, then bounce yourself back. meow meow, kev

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We Suffer More Often in Imagination Than in Reality (Panic;)

zeus dalios — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 20:22:14 +0000

Kev is mid-fall, and the screaming started way before the ground did. Seneca saw this coming about two thousand years ago.

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thatBB dictionary

panic;

(noun)

Screaming at the ground while you’re still nowhere near it.

Why we suffer before anything happens

Your brain is a great simulator and a terrible narrator. It runs the worst version of tomorrow, plays it in surround sound, and lets you feel all of it tonight. The fall hasn’t happened yet. The landing might be fine. But the suffering is already here, paid in full, in advance.

What would a stoic do?

There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
Seneca, Letters 13.4 (trans. R. M. Gummere)

Seneca wrote this to his friend Lucilius, a billionaire by Roman standards, who still lost sleep over things that hadn’t happened. That’s the comfort: money and status don’t fix it. Noticing where you actually are does. You’re still far from hitting the ground, my friends. Let’s quit screaming at the clouds.

Try this: three moves mid-fall

Check the altitude. What has actually happened so far? Only that. Not the next three chapters.
Split the fall from the story. The fall is the fact. The screaming is the story you add on the way down.
Do the next useful thing. Send the email, make the call. Your woes are just a part of your origin story.

Still far from the ground. Keep grinding; things will eventually work out. meow meow, kev

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Premeditatio Malorum: Picture the Fall, Then Pack for It (My Risk Management)

zeus dalios — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 20:00:04 +0000

Kev climbs into the cannon. He has pictured every way this could go wrong. He takes the shot anyway. Nailed it.

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thatBB dictionary

risk management;

(noun)

Picturing every way it could go wrong, then taking the shot anyway. Works better with a parachute.

What premeditatio malorum actually means

Premeditatio malorum is Latin for the premeditation of evils. The stoics did it on purpose: before a trip, a speech or a hard conversation, they pictured what could go wrong. Not to scare themselves out of it, but so nothing would catch them flat-footed. Most people stop halfway. They picture the fall, feel the dread, and call that preparation.

What would a stoic do?

Nothing ought to be unexpected by us. Our minds should be sent forward in advance to meet all problems, and we should consider, not what is wont to happen, but what can happen.
Seneca, Letters 91.4 (trans. R. M. Gummere)

Kev did the first half perfectly. He sent his mind forward and saw the fall in high definition. Then he skipped the half that matters: packing for it. Picturing the fall only helps if it changes what you bring. Otherwise it’s just watching the crash twice.

Try this: picture it, then pack for it

Picture the fall, specifically. Not "it might go badly". Name the exact way: the no, the bug, the empty room.
Pack one thing for it. A backup plan, a saved draft, a friend on call. One real parachute per fall you pictured.
Then take the shot. The point was never to stay in the cannon. Prepared people still launch.

Picture the fall, pack the parachute, and go. meow meow, kev

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How to Not Let Things Bother You (A Day in the BFF Life)

zeus dalios — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 23:51:24 +0000

Same traffic. Same lunch. Same email from the boss. Charlie feels every bit of it, and Kev’s face barely moves. One day, two best friends, two very different faces.

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thatBB dictionary

a day in the BFF life

(noun phrase)

One shared day, two reactions. One friend feels everything, the other lets it pass, and both make it to bedtime.

Why little things bother us so much

Most of a day isn’t big. It’s traffic, a cold lunch, an email with a weird tone. None of it is a disaster, but each one lands like a tiny poke, and by evening you’re tired from things that never really happened to you. They happened near you, and you picked them up anyway.

What would a stoic do?

It is not the things themselves that disturb men, but their judgements about these things.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 5 (trans. W. A. Oldfather)

Kev and Charlie get the exact same day. The traffic doesn’t change and neither does the boss. What changes is the story each of them tells about it. Charlie isn’t wrong to feel things; she sleeps in sunglasses so nobody knows she’s tired. The point is that the face is a choice, and you’re allowed to choose it on purpose.

Try this: three moves for the next small thing

Name the thing, not the story. "The email was short" is the thing. "They’re mad at me" is the story you added.
Ask if it will matter at bedtime. If it won’t, give it one breath and let it pass like Kev.
Feel it on purpose. If it does matter, feel it all like Charlie. Just pick it, instead of letting it pick you.

Same day tomorrow, probably. The face is still yours. meow meow, kev

The post How to Not Let Things Bother You (A Day in the BFF Life) appeared first on Bunny Bear.

How to Stop Taking On Other People’s Problems (#you_problem)

zeus dalios — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 06:05:56 +0000

The siren goes off. A whole swarm of problems races across the screen. Kev pops up, looks around, checks every one of them, and lies back down. Phew… not a me problem.

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thatBB dictionary

#you_problem

(noun)

A problem that is loud, urgent, and not yours. Worth one look. Not worth getting up for.

Why we take on other people’s problems

Problems are loud, and loud feels urgent. A coworker’s crisis, a friend’s drama, a group chat on fire: it all arrives like a siren, and the reflex is to jump up and carry it. But most of what races past was never ours to carry. Taking it on doesn’t solve it. It just makes two tired people instead of one.

What would a stoic do?

Some things are under our control, while others are not under our control.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 1 (trans. W. A. Oldfather)

Epictetus put this line first in his handbook, and everything else follows from it. Notice what Kev does, though: he gets up and looks. That’s the stoic part. You check, honestly, whether it’s yours. If it is, you own it. If it isn’t, you can be kind about it and still lie back down.

Try this: three moves when the siren goes off

Pop up and look. Don’t ignore it and don’t grab it. Take one honest look at what is actually happening.
Ask: is any of this mine? Your choices, your words, your part. That’s yours. Their feelings, their deadline, their mess is theirs.
Help without carrying. Offer an ear or a hand if you want to. Then hand it back, and lie back down.

For whoever is holding three problems that aren’t theirs right now: you’re allowed to put them down. meow meow, kev

The post How to Stop Taking On Other People’s Problems (#you_problem) appeared first on Bunny Bear.

Why Do Embarrassing Memories Keep Coming Back? (Déjà-Eww, Explained)

bunny bear — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 06:13:44 +0000

You’re mid-bite, minding your own business, and your brain serves up something you said in 2019. Kev knows the feeling. We call it déjà-eww, and if you’ve ever wondered why embarrassing memories keep coming back, this one’s for you.

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thatBB word of the week · no. 3

déjà-eww

(noun) · /day·zhah·ew/

An embarrassing old memory that ambushes you mid-bite, mid-shower, mid-life.

Why do embarrassing memories keep coming back?

Embarrassment is a social alarm. Your brain treats "they saw me mess up" as a threat to belonging, and threats get stored with extra weight so you’ll avoid them next time. The memory shows up out of nowhere because the cues are everywhere: a song, a smell, a quiet moment with nothing else to think about. The replay feels urgent, but it’s old news. The people who were there have mostly forgotten; they’re busy replaying their own 2019.

What would a stoic do?

People are disturbed not by things, but by the views they take of them.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 5 (translation adapted)

The moment is over. What’s still happening is your judgment of it. You can’t edit what you said, but you can edit the verdict: that was a clumsy moment, not a life sentence.

Try this: 3 steps for the next ambush

Name it. "Oh, déjà-eww." A label turns a flood into something you can look at.
Check the audience. Does anyone who matters still care? Nobody who matters cares; so why should you?
Take the next bite. Go back to the sandwich, the shower, the task. Don’t argue with the memory; just don’t feed it.

Send this to whoever was there in 2019. meow meow, kev

The post Why Do Embarrassing Memories Keep Coming Back? (Déjà-Eww, Explained) appeared first on Bunny Bear.

Planning as Procrastination: When the Plan Becomes the Excuse (Planxiety)

bunny bear — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 06:13:43 +0000

Ten-step plan. Zero steps taken. If your to-do list has its own to-do list, you might have planxiety, the most productive-looking form of planning as procrastination.

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thatBB dictionary · no. 2

planxiety

(noun) · /plan·zy·uh·tee/

The art of planning so hard you never actually start.

Why does planning feel like progress?

Planning gives you the reward of progress without the risk of doing. Every new step, color code and app feels productive, and none of it can fail, because none of it has touched the real world yet. Starting is where things can go wrong, so your brain keeps finding one more thing to prepare. The plan stops being a map and becomes a hiding spot.

What would a stoic do?

While we are postponing, life speeds by.
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 1

The stoics didn’t hate plans; they hated waiting for perfect conditions. The plan will never be 100%. It doesn’t have to be. Step 1 at 70% beats step 30 on paper.

Try this: 3 steps to get unstuck

Circle one step. The smallest one you could finish in 20 minutes.
Set a 70% bar. Good enough to learn from, not good enough to frame.
Do it before you touch the plan again. Then update the plan with what you actually learned.

Send this to your favorite over-planner. Do it to get it. meow meow, kev

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Finding Joy in Small Things: Why Not Everything Needs a Reason (Boopism)

bunny bear — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 06:13:42 +0000

Kev got booped on the nose. No reason. That’s the reason. We call it boopism, and it might be the easiest way to start finding joy in small things again.

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thatBB dictionary · no. 1

boopism

(noun) · /boo·piz·um/

The stoic art of doing a small, happy thing just because. Not everything needs a reason.

Why is it so hard to enjoy small things?

We justify everything. The nap has to count as recovery, the walk has to hit a step goal, the snack has to be earned. When every small joy needs a reason, it turns into one more task to optimize, and the joy quietly leaks out. Small things are small on purpose. They work best when they don’t have to prove anything.

What would a stoic do?

Very little is needed to make a happy life.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.67

The stoics weren’t joyless; they were picky about where joy comes from. If happiness depends on big wins, it always lives somewhere in the future. If it can come from a warm cup, a good cloud or a boop, it’s available right now.

Try this: 3 small boops for today

Do one nice thing with no reason attached. No tracking, no posting, no lesson.
Say one small good thing out loud. "This coffee is great" counts.
Give one away. Boop someone who’s been overthinking lately.

Not everything has to earn its place; some things are just nice. That’s the whole point. meow meow, kev

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