What I’ve read:
"How to do what you love" essay by Paul Graham
Paul Graham has been called "the hacker philosopher." He is a computer scientist, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist, but he is also a writer and essayist. Those who are into the world of startups may know him as the cofounder of Y Combinator.
This is a short read, so I won’t waste your time by providing context. I will just give you my word that it’s worth reading.
Here are some of my favorite points Graham makes in it:
"The most dangerous liars can be the kids' own parents. If you take a boring job to give your family a high standard of living, as so many people do, you risk infecting your kids with the idea that work is boring. Maybe it would be better for kids in this one case if parents were not so unselfish. A parent who set an example of loving their work might help their kids more than an expensive house."
But the fact is, almost anyone would rather, at any given moment, float about in the Carribbean, or have sex, or eat some delicious food, than work on hard problems. The rule about doing what you love assumes a certain length of time. It doesn't mean, do what will make you happiest this second, but what will make you happiest over some longer period, like a week or a month.
“Prestige is just fossilized inspiration. If you do anything well enough, you'll make it prestigious. Plenty of things we now consider prestigious were anything but at first. Jazz comes to mind—though almost any established art form would do. So just do what you like, and let prestige take care of itself.”
Read the full essay here.
What I listened to:
Jocko Willink podcast with Andrew Huberman
I’ve actually listened to a little over first 1 hour of this podcast, and I don’t plan on listening to the rest, and I don’t plan on listening to the rest.
The reason behind it is this: I’m guessing 99% of the people reading this know about Andre Huberman. You are either a regular listener of his podcast or have consumed at least one piece of his content, where he shares science-based advice on improving your health, as well as your mental and physical performance.
However, in the first hour of this podcast, you have the chance to get to know the man behind the science. And Andrew Huberman is an impressive individual with an extremely interesting life story. He is clearly someone who hasn’t been educated only through books (or in a laboratory), but also through actually living this life, making mistakes, and learning from them.
You can watch or listen to this episode here.
What I’ve been thinking about:
Things that matter
Last week, after 3 years of daily writing and posting, I reached 100K followers on instagram. Or, as I like to point out, not followers but fellow strugglers, strivers, and explorers of human existence.
One thing that I kept reminding myself of in the days leading up to the big number and the days after is something that I’ve realized relatively early in this journey: numbers don’t matter.
And I strongly believe that the same is true for most areas of life. That the things that truly matter cannot be expressed in numbers.
Let me give you an example.
At the moment of writing this, 104K people are following my instagram page. And 4.3 million people have read at least one piece of my writing in the last 90 days.
I am truly grateful to anyone who has spent even one minute of their time on my work, but I don’t really know how many of those people actually read the entire post or how many stop to think about it later. I don’t know how many of them were able to relate and not only understand what I was trying to say, but also feel it.
On the other hand, I recently received a message from a person saying that they just got divorced. They said that they felt lost and depressed because it seemed like the life they were building for so long fell apart. But they somehow stumbled across my page. They said that my writing on self-creation and my emphasis on it being a never-ending project reminded them of the fact that it is never too late to reinvent oneself and one's life. It made them hopeful about the future.
There is no analytics tool on any digital platform that can measure the importance of individual cases like this one. And when I receive a single message like this, do I really need to check the followers, reach, and impressions? Wouldn't it be ungrateful towards the real connections being built?
Maybe you feel like this is something that can only be relevant for someone looking to create and publish things online.
But I encourage you to look at any aspect of your life where success is usually measured in numbers. Try, and I am sure that you will be able to find at least one thing that matters more than those numbers.
Thank you for reading.
Stay strong, love life, and never feel sorry for yourself.
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