Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke

Former spokesperson. Concerned Canadian.

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

@Nicolascole77 https://t.co/OJNEE9cTUu

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

After 30 days of writing in Ship 30 for 30, I can:

1. Write a 750-word article in an hour.
2. Chop it into multiple posts to round out the week.
3. Publish quickly, without fear.

How? The principle of constraints.

Drop the million possible, clever ways you could write. Learn constraints. Go write.

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

After 30 days of writing in Ship 30 for 30, I can:

1. Write a 750-word article in an hour.
2. Chop it into multiple posts to round out the week.
3. Publish quickly, without fear.

How? The principle of constraints.

Drop the million possible, clever ways you could write. Learn constraints. Go write.

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

@Nicolascole77 https://t.co/TXU2psh2Sq

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

https://t.co/GgoiuVR4ZS

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

https://t.co/GgoiuVR4ZS

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

@Nicolascole77 https://t.co/yHGxETVJUl

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

I'm on Day 27 of a 30-day writing challenge, and the most surprising thing I learned?

That writing consistently requires the exact same formula as getting fit does:

1. Start with what's super-easy and build from there.

2. Focus on the process instead of lofty goals.

3. Schedule a routine that works even when you're having a bad day.

The hardest thing? Trusting the process even when it's been laid out for you. You have no idea how much you can improve until just you go through.

Ship 30 for 30🚢

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

I'm on Day 27 of a 30-day writing challenge, and the most surprising thing I learned?

That writing consistently requires the exact same formula as getting fit does:

1. Start with what's super-easy and build from there.

2. Focus on the process instead of lofty goals.

3. Schedule a routine that works even when you're having a bad day.

The hardest thing? Trusting the process even when it's been laid out for you. You have no idea how much you can improve until just you go through.

Ship 30 for 30🚢

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

In the last year, every time the subject of AI has come up, our high schooler would burst out, there is no future!

Why try for good marks? Why go to college? Why bother? As a parent, this is NOT the spiral you want for your child. That kind of thinking holds no future.

So we remember what people like C.S. Lewis said in 1941 when no one knew who would win WWII:

Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with “normal life.” Life has never been normal.
- The Weight of Glory

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

@Nicolascole77 https://t.co/aK6yfdnNKi

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

https://t.co/rGh8knC82i

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

https://t.co/rGh8knC82i

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

Canadians use a wacky combination of Metric and Imperial in everyday life.

If you are Canadian:
1. Your height is in feet and inches and your weight is in pounds
2. Your speedometer in kilometres
3. Your recipes use cups and spoons
4. Your oven heat is in Fahrenheit
5. But your outdoor thermometer is in Celsius

Crazy, right? For an even crazier look, google how to measure things like a Canadian flow chart sometime.

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

@Nicolascole77 Day 25:
https://t.co/sL58FPY8vM

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

https://t.co/kI8BPU93LY

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

https://t.co/kI8BPU93LY

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

This winter, consider reading Canadian author Louise Penny's novel, Bury Your Dead.

A love letter to Quebec City during the Winter Carnival that would make any Canadian proud of living well, even through the bitter cold. You cannot fail to fall in love with the cobblestone streets, ancient fortified walls filled with history and hidden cafes, where life still goes on - a murder is committed and solved - no matter how low the temperature drops.

[Billboard Chris 🌎 @BillboardChris]

This is so dumb.

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

There’s a song from the 90s by Joan Osborne called “What if God was One of Us” where she wistfully goes on to sing, ‘just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on a bus, trying to make his way home.’
And as a longtime Christian, it frustrated me so much because HE WAS.
Then it saddened me… the church has obviously not done enough to make that clear. Isaiah 53:3 ✝️

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

I used to try to get every project done perfectly well, in perfect time.

The only thing that happens is everything moves faster. Another project appears around the corner. The standard inches higher. Until you’re the only one left running for your life on the treadmill.

Perfectionism steals your energy, your joy, and your progress.

Do the best you can, but don't be afraid to call it good enough.

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

@Nicolascole77 X posts scheduled

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

@Nicolascole77 https://t.co/wY3IOLXDVg

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

Thank you for articulating this. I would add to the list all of the subtle marketing dynamics that appear to 'infect' privatized care as well.

For example, every time I take my pet to a veterinarian (privatized care in Canada), I think, this is would privatized health care would feel like :

- A diagnosis wrapped in a sales pitch
- An upsell that may or may not be actually needed
- A lower or higher "price" down the street?

There is a point when long wait times need to be improved, which is why we need to protect our public health care. But I'll take a longer wait time any day over consults that are tailored to how good my insurance coverage is.

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

Thank you for articulating this. I would add to the list all of the subtle marketing dynamics that appear to 'infect' privatized care as well.

For example, every time I take my pet to a veterinarian (privatized care in Canada), I think, this is would privatized health care would feel like :

- A diagnosis wrapped in a sales pitch
- An upsell that may or may not be actually needed
- A lower or higher "price" down the street?

There is a point when long wait times need to be improved, which is why we need to protect our public health care. But I'll take a longer wait time any day over consults that are tailored to how good my insurance coverage is.

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

@Nicolascole77 https://t.co/FU0bXY1tfd

[Gwen Vanderdeen Paschke @gwenvanderdeen]

Louise Penny wasn't born in Quebec, but her novels set there are beautiful depictions of it.

Bury Your Dead is especially a love letter to Old Quebec. Its cobblestone streets, bone-chilling winters, its mythology around Samuel de Champlain... this founder, whose body has never been found, whose true portrait does not exist!

So inspiring to this Albertan, and so glad I had a chance to visit this summer and see these haunts for the first time!