Make Your Password a Mantra for the Year Ahead
I'm attempting to address two problems here: firstly that passwords are ruining our lives and secondly that the internet is currently ruining the world.
We need passwords for everything. Once you've managed to include enough characters, special characters and alternative verification methods, for enough sites the result is that you just get locked out of everything and every sign-in ends up putting you through the password recovery process. To the point where you can get a good job as an IT support officer if you only have the patience to sit next to someone and offer them words of encouragement, support and cups of tea, while they jump through the hoops to reset a password to pay a road toll or whatever. They need this encouragement because only a tab away, is a stream of content that been engineered, by the best programmers and psychologists in the world, to squeeze every last drop out of your adrenal gland, by showing you everything you love and hate seeing, inviting you to share, defend and purchase your way to temporary peace.
If you have discovered the magic of password managers, you only have this issue for one password (it's still an issue).
There is a great episode of The Emerald: https://www.themythicbody.com/podcast/guardians-and-protectors/ which makes the case that we need to speak a mantra to ourselves before we step near the perilous ground of the internet, to give us strength from that which will distract and upset us. It's a very good and much needed ritual in my opinion. I'm not, however, someone who remembers to speak mantras or has them (or passwords) on post-its around my house. But here is the breakthrough: make a password a mantra. Make yourself type it out a million times. Focus your attention. Secure your laptop.
Pass phrases maximize security and memorability (according to https://bitwarden.com/passphrase-generator/) and you will see that they are natural vehicles for personal meaning and motivation:
Can easily become:
Or:
Can become:
Don't be limited though! Feel into your most ambitious intentions for the year and distill them into a haiku that you're only going to be able to ignore the first 10,000 times... until there is nothing left to do except the things you really believe in.
It's O.K that it takes you an extra 10 seconds to type out your passphrase if it means you're claiming other seconds back for yourself.
