Vulnerability
“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.”
—Brené Brown
Time is elastic
Laura Vanderkam posted some excellent thoughts on making what little time we have more memorable.
Basically, time is elastic. When we decide that we need to do something, we find the time to do it. Other stuff either doesn’t happen, or it takes less time, or it gets punted forward. Much other stuff turns out to be more malleable than we might have imagined. And so, of course, the key to time management is treating the things we want to do with the urgency of the things we need to do. We make time for them first and let everything else take the hit.
See also her TED Talk on gaining control of your free time.
Run your own race
I do not recall how I happened upon the "run your own race" article, but no matter. It is dense with excellent points. Read it in its entirety.
So: cultivate your independence. Run your own race, knowing that the destination is yours to choose. Don’t enslave yourself to people who think there’s only one way to be right. Your job is to do what you like on your own terms. Your job is to keep going, to eke out good day after good day.
The provisional life
Oliver Burkeman wrote an interesting article titled “What if you never sort your life out?” In it, he references the provisional life, which we live until we solve our problems and become the perfect version of ourselves.
For the last time
“How many things in this life will you experience for the last time? And how do you know? Long before you die, you will cease to have certain experiences—many that you currently take for granted now.”
—Sam Harris on The Tim Ferriss Show podcast
Life is fleeting.
Time flies.
We have always known that life is short and are often reminded of this when a beloved family member or friend passes away. In the post-pandemic era, many time management courses, YouTube videos, and books have emerged to play upon our fears of a life less lived.
Broken
“If you are broken, you do not have to stay broken.”
—Selena Gomez
Here I am at the start of another new year. We arbitrarily measure our time, but measure it we do. Our lives are short in the grand scheme of the universe, and perhaps the desire to feel as though our lives are not lived in vain, we use these measurements of time and accomplishments and experiences to fill our book of life so that one day we may look back and say, “There. A life well-lived, full of purpose.”
What is this about?
I received an email update from Herman Martinus, creator of Bear Blog, linking to his latest post on goal-setting. In the post, Herman outlines a simple and introspective system for setting his own goals for the new year while keeping focus on how to achieve them. While reading the post, I was reminded of a goal I had placed on my long-term planning list last year: to build six-pack abdominals by the age of 50.
Why?