Tradeoffs, Social Media Platforms As Physical Spaces, Time, and More
Friday, July 28, 2023
Happy Friday everyone!
Here are 10 things I found interesting from the last week or so.
Just Shower Thoughts on Meaningful Change
To kick off this week’s newsletter, I want to share a post I feel is worth thinking about:
Radical and drastic change is possible. Start small, go slow, and embrace the paradox of improvement. As the author of Atomic Habits, James Clear writes:
"Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. This is one reason why meaningful change does not require radical change. Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. And if a change is meaningful, it is actually big. That's the paradox of making small improvements."
Tradeoffs Between Good and Great
One of my favorite newsletters hits the top of my inbox every Sunday at 6 pm (CT) sharp. I’m talking about SIX at 6 by Billy Oppenheimer, writer and research assistant to author Ryan Holiday. Every Sunday, Oppenheimer shares six nuggets of wisdom encapsulating a single theme for the week. This week’s theme is “tradeoffs between a good thing in the short run and a great thing in the long run.” Here’s my favorite anecdote from the July 23rd issue:
I love this story because it’s an important reminder of the difference between scoring a good deal and building a great name. Greatness awaits those willing to give up the good—now—and take that first step for the next 50 years. Like many others, Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, took inspiration from Akio Morita, noting that an element of his greatness was choosing a mission bigger than Sony. “He didn’t say we’re gonna make Sony known for quality,” Bezos notes, “he said we’re gonna make Japan known for quality.”
Choosing a mission or a vision for meaningful change bigger than oneself is how you, your company, or your team goes from good to great.
Be The Flow And Let The Waves Catch You
Taking this one step further, I’ll share another piece of advice from Bezos I found this week. He said:
“The best advice I can give somebody is do something you think is interesting and let the waves catch you. You know, something that I see people do is they try to chase the current thing. I saw this so much in 1997, 1998, 1999 with respect to the internet. In ‘94 and ‘95 mostly the people who were sort of looking at this space and starting companies were genuinely interested in it. They thought it was really cool. By the time you got to 1999 doctors were stopping like “Screw that doctor thing. I’m gonna start a dot com company!” People were sort of abandoning the things they were genuinely interesting in trying to catch a wave. And whenever you try to catch a wave you’re almost always too late.”
Don’t try to catch a wave. Let the waves catch you. As Jay-Z once freestyled, “Don’t ever go with the flow. Be the flow.” Be the flow, and you’ll never be late.
To Seek Is To Not Seek
Building on these ideas, I wanted to add a great quote here from Stoic philosopher Epictetus. He wrote:
“Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will—then your life will flow well.”
Ironically, like the paradox of improvement, this is the paradox of life’s flow: to attain what you seek means not seeking at all.
Stop Looking For Inspiration, Just Make It
It seems one thing we are constantly seeking is inspiration. The thing is, inspiration is everywhere. Perhaps that’s part of the problem why we don’t take that first step towards working on a project of one’s own. Digital creator Ethan Tran beautifully sums this up in his video: Stop Looking For Inspiration, Just Make It.
Write The Book You Hope To Read
A quick spin on the idea of looking for inspiration that I want to add before moving on comes from an IG post by author Austin Kleon. He wrote:
“If a book does not turn out to be what you wanted it to be — perhaps you should write the book you hoped it would be — and give it a new title. Now it’s yours…”
Social Media Platforms As Physical Spaces
The tradeoff of consistently scrolling and looking for which wave of inspiration to catch is imprisonment. This week I found a video by artist Hallie Tut that helps us imagine how social media platforms can resemble a physical space and where that can leave many to end up. As Tut writes, “Take what you want out of this information. is it meaningful or meaningless? Up to you 👀”
Picking The Right Problem
That’s not to say I don’t waste hours scrolling and seeking because I definitely do. To be honest, at times, I don’t know what I’m even looking for. Inspiration? Permission? It can be hard to tell sometimes when you’re riding that elevator down to infinity. Perhaps we’re not looking for solutions. We’re looking to find a problem worth solving. Zach Pogrob shared a beautiful post on Instagram this week that hits the nail on the head here.
My Symphony
A poem I came across this week that—thanks to some serendipity—pairs well with the ideas above. It’s called My Symphony by William Henry Channing. My dad actually snagged this photo on a recent trip of his!
Time
To end this week’s newsletter, I thought I’d share a poem of my own that I wrote this week. It’s called Time.
Enjoy the weekend and see you next Friday.
-Garrett