Dump out the box →

Published March 20, 2023  ·  All posts on Mar 20  ·  ,

In the end, what matters is your lifestyle. The specifics of your work are important only in how they impact your daily experience. As I summarized, when choosing a career path: “Fix the lifestyle you want. Then work backwards from there.” This idea, which I dubbed lifestyle-centric career planning, subverted popular advice from that period which tended to emphasize the importance of passion and dream jobs. In this widely-accepted schema, the full responsibility for your ongoing satisfaction was offloaded to the minutia of your professional endeavors.

~ Cal Newport from, The Most Important Piece of Career Advice You Probably Never Heard

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Somewhere we each have a box full of specific things. I have a plastic storage tub full of electronic accessories—a spare hard drive, a spare ethernet switch, various cables, an extra mouse, the HDMI cable, and the power adapter for the rest of the world. As a kid, I had a huge styrofoam cooler (it’s a long story) full of Lego bricks and parts. I’m not talking about the proverbial “junk drawer.” I’m talking about a proverbial “box” into which we place specific things. My electronics accessories, my printing supplies, my rock climbing gear, and even all the bookcases considered as one “box.” It’s pretty obvious—I hope?—that since we’re continuously adding things to the boxes, we need to periodically “dump out” the box and cull. The cables that don’t fit anything we currently own… The books we didn’t like or enjoy… Every time I dump out some “box” and toss (or sell or donate etc.) some of the items, my life improves.

This morning I was thinking: When is the last time I dumped out my box of people? …my box of responsibilities? …my box of things I think I should do? …my box of dreams?

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March 19, 2023 — #24 →

Published March 19, 2023  ·  All posts on Mar 19  ·  

Reading time: About 5 minutes, 1100 words
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This issue is https://7forsunday.com/24

I probably need to work on this →

Published March 19, 2023  ·  All posts on Mar 19  ·  

My life is always better when I treat myself as if I were someone I care about.

~ Hugh Hollowell from, «https://www.soverybeautiful.org/how-we-treat-ourselves/»

I’m really good at digging in and schlepping through the hard work. I’m really good at figuring out how to make three strange pieces fit together so these four people can make some progress on those five incompatible goals. Lift heavy things. Break a sweat. Get shit done. Go above and beyond. Get this letter to Garcia. Abuse English.

Know what I suck at? Treating myself as if I were someone I care about. Can I say, “no, thank you,” to some opportunity because I’m already overwhelmed? Can I take a nap in my hammock, without first spending significant time weighing the merits of giving in to passing out from exhaustion, versus just. work. a little. more. Can I choose to go do that fun thing with my friends, when my weekly plan says I should get some peak heart-rate workout time today? I’m often heard preaching about self-care, taking time to look back and think, “if this isn’t nice…” but, can I actually do those things?

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True bravery →

Published March 18, 2023  ·  All posts on Mar 18  ·  ,

The bravery founded on hope of recompense, fear of punishment, experience of success, on rage, or on ignorance of danger, is but common bravery, and does not deserve the name. True bravery proposes a just end; measures the dangers, and meets the result with calmness and unyielding decision.

~ Francois de la Noue

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We almost certainly can’t help →

Published March 17, 2023  ·  All posts on Mar 17  ·  ,

It’s not like, “oh, well this thing came up and I was easily able to bring it up with the first person I came across. Luckily, after revealing this deeply troubling issue of mine this person understood me correctly, didn’t interject themselves into the situation, cared about it as deeply as me, didn’t run away, didn’t deflect with “just be positive”, knew exactly the right things to say to me and left me with actionable advice. I will never have to face this issue again”. But I think that’s exactly how some people think it goes.

~ “Casey” from, Help

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There’s much in that article worth reading slowly. The phrase, “cared about it as deeply as me,” is probably the most important phrase in the entire piece. When one has a serious problem (presuming you have a problem of which you are aware,) there is literally no one that cares as much as one does. That’s how it has to be since each of us is the main character only in our own narrative. That problem is always right there in the foreground, unescapable. For everyone else (…the therapist who sees me once a week for an hour? …the physician who did one operation?) To everyone else, the problem is simply another thing in the narrative they observe outside of themselves. The lesson I take from this is that quite often there is absolutely nothing we can do to help. But every once in a great while, there is something small we can do to help. Do that.

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Go forward →

Published March 16, 2023  ·  All posts on Mar 16  ·  ,

I’m not trying to sound like Mr. Smiley Positive Guy. That guy ignores the hard truth. That guy thinks a positive attitude will solve problems. It won’t. But neither will dwelling on the problem. No. Accept reality, but focus on the solution. Take that issue, take that setback, take that problem, and turn it into something good. Go forward. And, if you’re part of a team, that attitude will spread throughout.

~ Jocko Willink

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Heroism →

Published March 15, 2023  ·  All posts on Mar 15  ·  , ,

Heroism is more fun but less reliable than good planning.

~ Seth Godin from, Simple techniques for complex projects

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It’s a good point.

And it took me a long time to realize that heroism isn’t even fun. Long ago I used to rush in, sometimes literally, and save the day. I’ve played the theme song from Mission: Impossible while rushing to fix computers in the middle of the night. One time, although I wasn’t rushing but was en route to fix things, I was nearly killed in a car crash, in the middle of the night, on a highway that was deserted, until I was hit from behind, at extreme speed, by two people who were racing side-by-side. I think I just channeled Proust. I digress. Where was I?

It took me a long time to realize that heroism isn’t even fun. Years later, I was reading M. B. Stanier‘s The Coaching Habit (which I recommend, but I more highly recommend his, The Advice Trap) where I found his mention of the “Karpman Drama Triangle”. I’m not even sure if that’s a real thing; It should be a real thing and I’m not going to spoil it by actually looking. Karpman, apparently, identifies the “Rescuer” as one of the three types of people in his dramatic triangle. (When I first read that I thought, “Oh my gawd, I used to always be that person. I’m so glad I’ve totally outgrown that,” while chuckling nervously.) The Rescuer’s core belief is, “Don’t fight, don’t worry, let me jump in and take it on and fix it.” Crap. I’m pretty sure I still have this problem.

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Failure →

Published March 14, 2023  ·  All posts on Mar 14  ·  ,

Failure is not necessarily durable. Remember that the things that they fire you for when you are young are the same things that they give lifetime achievement awards for when you’re old.

~ Francis Ford Coppola

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Curating your sources →

Published March 13, 2023  ·  All posts on Mar 13  ·  , ,

Some people are highly motivated. They will curate their information sources and follow whoever provides the most value. That will likely include some independent writers (maybe “good” ones or maybe “bad” ones).

But most people aren’t all that motivated. They just want to get information quickly and go live their lives. So they get their information in three ways:

~ “Dynomight” from, A model for journalistic copypasta

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Whenever “the Internet” comes up (including discussion of anything that runs via the Internet, without the Internet itself getting a specific mention) I trot out this handy aphorism: The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing us that anything related to the Internet was easy to understand. In this article, the anon-/epon-ymous “Dynomight” goes deep into why the mainstream (read: online media platforms that gets all the traffic) winds up being this solidly middling quality of content. To get there, there’s a deep dive involving tourists finding restaurants and a you-must-not-miss mention of Gell-Mann amnesia.

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March 12, 2023 — #23 →

Published March 12, 2023  ·  All posts on Mar 12  ·  

Reading time: About 4 minutes, 800 words
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This issue is https://7forsunday.com/23