A wise man once said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it." I am trying not to miss it. But life is moving fast right now. Accept my sincerest condolences on continual tardiness. I know you don't really care though. Hopefully this is just some popcorn from time to time for ya.
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I was chatting with someone today. Let’s just call them, oh I don’t know, “Taylor Swift”. So get this, she says - she’s all like, “I think it’s BS when people say ‘don’t say there isn’t enough time. You have the same amount of time as everyone else.'"
Say what you want about this gal, that she is smarter than me, better looking, more accomplished, has better credit, more intelligent, never been convicted of a felony, has never purchased a piece of real estate only to learn that it is in a government easement and the property is in fact useless - all accurate (you might recognize that I pulled that last one from an Arrested Development plotline). But her perspective is DEAD WRONG!
Now, there are things that one person has to do that other folks don’t. Some are pure dumb luck, others are a product of poorly established (or missing) boundaries.
But the large majority of things are self-inflicted. AKA poorly established boundaries.
There is a push in the "self-help" world or the world of entrepreneurship to be more guarded with your time. To say no. If you say yes to one thing, you are saying no (at least in part) to other things you have already committed to.
So to keep building and building and building and piling on, you are setting yourself up for failure and to say "there isn't enough time in the day."
Man, so much of what I talk about on this, I am guilty of. I write not because I have figured it all out, but to find commonality in the difficulty of life.
I take on more than I should. Bite off more than I can chew. And hope I don't get caught with my hand in the cookie jar or being seen as delinquent. So far so good. But we do need to be selfish with our time. I am reading Dan Martell's Buy Back Your Time (I am 3 pages in....so..yea) and between that and the Subtle Art..., there is a large focus on our time.
Good advice can touch on so many parts of our lives. But everything gets back to first principle: our time, our passions, our purpose, our priorities. Be sure you are making intentional decisions in service of yours.
Every life without exception is a short one. As it is with a play, so it is with life – what matters is not how long the acting last, but how good it is. It is not important at what point you stop. Stop wherever you will - only make sure that you round it off with a good ending.
— -- Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
Don’t resist the thoughts that’ll pop up. Instead, keep watching them as they roll on through. Observe a thought – then let it go and remind yourself that this thought isn’t you. Make it your favorite pastime, your very own private sitcom, your show about nothing. As soon as you master the art of observing an idea and letting it go, your mind will quickly run out of topics to bring up. I learned to observe the thought that triggered my anger. The same event that once brought me anger now triggers happiness. Reframing the trigger reframes the emotion.
— -- Mo Gawdat, Solve for Happy
The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.
— -- Robert Greene, Mastery
Rads Take
I really like Seneca's take on a life being like a play. An actor can make a strong impression with a short time on the screen. Viola Davis was nominated for an Oscar in the movie Doubt despite only being on screen for 10 minutes. Anne Hathaway won the Oscar for being in Les Miserables for 20 minutes.
We are actors in our own movie. We have no control over the director's (poor) decision to cut our screentime short. All we can do is be the big actor in the small role.
And when it stops short - like Tony Soprano in the finale - we can be proud of the thrill we gave the audience.
Mo talking about watching your life. To focus again on movies, I think of Tobey Maguire at the beginning of the first Spiderman - watching Flash Gordon miss a punch and looking at his fist and arm with a "huh." We are not superheroes, but the more mentally strong we are, the more we can feel like one. See it happen in front of you. Know you have the ability to not let it bother you. Know that you are prepared for the counter punch, and recognize that any obstacle is just something you're about to overcome.
Finally, skills in the future. Super relevant. We need to start getting creative---or else. Uniqueness does come from the combination of skills and interests and capabilities that only we live at the intersection of. Human soft skills will become more and more relevant and valuable. Discipline. Consistency. Resilience.
If you haven't already, start documenting what makes you unique and build a (side) business around it. Systematize it. Use AI, of course.
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